August 14, 2005

• This looks excellent Cheers, beeswacky
• )))
• What rodgerd fed you.
• Those are sabers, not bananas.
• Heh, fencing with bananas, now that's a sport I could get into. I fenced a long time ago in high school, and I remember reading some very old fencing manuals like some of these. Neat-o.
• Oh yeah, and: "You're using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?" "I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain." "Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro." "Naturally." "But I find Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro, don't you?" "Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa ... which I have."
• La Destreza.
• Interesting link, as always, homunculus. Was rather surprised by the relative lack of texts from southern Europe.
• "You fight like a dairy farmer!"
• WOOHOO!!!!!! )))) for bees! What an outstanding resource.
• I just woke up and at first glance thought it said "Historical Felching Manuals".
• Ho, varlet! where has our first edition Historical Belching Manual got to now?
• What's amazing is the similarity between some of the presented techniques and those of Japanese sword arts. I guess there are only so many ways to use ones body. Chyren, I find it interesting that you wake up with felching on the mind
• Beautiful pictures thanks beeswacky. I'm quite content however that my progression through life these days does not require me to have intimate and detailed knowledge of fencing, felching or belching.
• Oh, I assure you, Zanshin, that I am perrrrrverted. Ask my wife Bob.
• It's clever, but is it art? -- Kipling, "The Riddle of the Devil's Workshop" Is swordsmanship an art? Is horsemanship? Is cooking? Is sweeping? Is meditating? Is bee-keeping? Is killing a bull in a ring? Is banking? Is being a political leader? Curious: Should we no longer distinguish between the results of such activities as painting, dancing, writing poetry and the results of other human activities? Is this still or no longer a useful distinction?
• May mistitled the poem quoted above -- going on memory and too comfortable here to go rummage the bookshelves downstairs /bad bees
• The mere activity is not an art, but the practice of the activity in a unique & skillful manner, or in a particular location, is. IMHO. However, there are some activities which cannot be arts, such as breathing, but then again, in reference to the second clause, perhaps it also can be, as part of a practice such as hatha yoga, for example.
• So many wonderful skills to learn in the world. *sigh*
• Inigo: I admit it -- you are better than I am. Man In Black: Then why are you smiling? Inigo: Because I know something you don't know. Man In Black: And what is that? Inigo: I am not left-handed.
• Interesting question(s), bees. I would say that anything that requires learning a particular skillset is an art, and I think if all such activities were approached that way, people might take more joy in them. I think making furniture or laying bricks is as much an art as diplomacy or writing plays, or driving, or singing, or parenthood. That said-- there's artisanship at the practical level (learning and mastery of the skills required for the task), and then there's the employment of those skills to bring things from the imagined or ideal plane into the daily life of people, which is a major part of how I define art. I'll have to think about this more thoroughly. Hmmm.
• ART: dictionary.com.. 1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. 2. A. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. B. The study of these activities. C. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group. 3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value. 4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature. 5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts. 6. A. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building. B. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer. 7. A. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art. B. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: “Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice” (Joyce Carol Oates). 8. A. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks. B. Artful contrivance; cunning. 9. Printing. Illustrative material.
• It's a pretty wide definition and as we all know it's subjective. The question for me is when does something cross the line from being a hobby or pasttime or work undertaking into becoming an art?
• Dunno about art. Obsession though - yes. To think one of the skills that I have is that I can rewire a fencing foil in 15 minutes
• From various artists: General Observations Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus. --David Hockney Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. --Pablo Picasso Art does not reproduce what we see. Rather, it makes us see.--Paul Klee Art is meant to disturb. Science reassures. -- Georges Braque Nature is a haunted house -- but Art -- a House that tries to be haunted.--Emily Dickinson The title of artist means one who perceives more than his fellows, and who records more than he has seen. -- Edward Gordon Craig Art is the only thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. -- Elizabeth Bowen On Specific Forms It is not important that you should know what a dance means. It is only important that you should be stirred. --Martha Graham Art is impotent. The utmost an artist can hope to do for his contemporay readers is, as Dr. Johnson said, to enable them a little better to enjoy life or a little better to endure it. --W.H. Auden If art is perfect, then the world is superfluous. --Jorge Luis Borges The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them? -- Bob Dylan
• You forgot Immanuel Kant, who is currently haunting me with his definition: The beautiful is the object of disinterested delight.
• Defensive Exercises from 1840.
• Don't miss this classic Monkey flashback. This 'four beasts' analysis of swordsmanship (from EJMAS, cited within) reminds me of the Five Animals of Chinese kungfu.
• I went through the whole site and couldn't find a single thing to help me repair the pickets on my back yard fence. Meh.