Saturday, September 10, 2011
Tomorrow
Let's hope the 9/11 tenth anniversary goes well tomorrow. And we don't have a crisis Sunday in the European banking system.
Green mists and Wang Wei
I was in a sinophile mood today and picked up a book owned by my other half,Chinese Poetry, 2nd ed., Revised: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres
by Wai-Lim Yip. He argues many translations of Chinese poetry distort the sparseness and flexibility of the original, imposing verbal structures that are not there.
Instead, the great ancient poetry of the T'ang Dynasty and before is better seen as intense interconnected visual scenes.
He translates Mount Chung-Nan by Wang Wei, who died in the year 761 :
The white clouds and green mists are like separate cinematic/ visual scenes.
He provides a character by-character translation, and demonstrates that what is left unsaid, with time and tense unspecified, gives the poetry its cinematic, evocative character.
It is all about juxtaposition and montage, putting intense scenes and feelings together in sequence.
Indeed, much of the idea of montage, and the sparse poetry of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and others can be traced back directly to these T'ang gems.
It feels like something which has a natural application to photography as well.
by Wai-Lim Yip. He argues many translations of Chinese poetry distort the sparseness and flexibility of the original, imposing verbal structures that are not there.Instead, the great ancient poetry of the T'ang Dynasty and before is better seen as intense interconnected visual scenes.
He translates Mount Chung-Nan by Wang Wei, who died in the year 761 :
Chung-Nan ranges near the imperial capital
Mountain upon mountain to the sea's brim.
White clouds - looking back - close up.
Green mists - entering - nothing.
Terrestrial divisions change at the middle peak.
Shade and light differ with every valley.
To stay over in some stranger's house -
Across the water, ask a woodcutter.
The white clouds and green mists are like separate cinematic/ visual scenes.
He provides a character by-character translation, and demonstrates that what is left unsaid, with time and tense unspecified, gives the poetry its cinematic, evocative character.
It is all about juxtaposition and montage, putting intense scenes and feelings together in sequence.
This is montage: the juxtaposition of two visual events to create a third which is different from both.
Indeed, much of the idea of montage, and the sparse poetry of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and others can be traced back directly to these T'ang gems.
It feels like something which has a natural application to photography as well.
Friday, September 9, 2011
The lanterns of West Lake
I finished Jonathan Spence's book Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man
. I love books which are evocative of different places and ages and different ways of seeing the world, and this is one of them.
I am also fascinated by China and Chinese history. It is about a historian and biographer named Zhang Dai, who lived throuh the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in the 1640s.
There are some remarkable scenes - for example, Zhang Dai recalls pleasure boating on the famous West Lake near Hangzhou when he was a teenager. The lake (still considered one of the highlights of China) was surrounded by villas and ornnamenal parks and trees and pavilions. At night there were lanterns everywhere on the boats, on land, reflected in the water. People banqueted and drank on the water. It is a glimpse of a very refined, elegant, aesthetically conscious society ( or at least one layer of it).
Fifty years later he returns, after the fighting that marked the fall of the dynasty. The pavillions are burnt down. The trees are gone.
. I love books which are evocative of different places and ages and different ways of seeing the world, and this is one of them.I am also fascinated by China and Chinese history. It is about a historian and biographer named Zhang Dai, who lived throuh the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in the 1640s.
There are some remarkable scenes - for example, Zhang Dai recalls pleasure boating on the famous West Lake near Hangzhou when he was a teenager. The lake (still considered one of the highlights of China) was surrounded by villas and ornnamenal parks and trees and pavilions. At night there were lanterns everywhere on the boats, on land, reflected in the water. People banqueted and drank on the water. It is a glimpse of a very refined, elegant, aesthetically conscious society ( or at least one layer of it).
Fifty years later he returns, after the fighting that marked the fall of the dynasty. The pavillions are burnt down. The trees are gone.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Terror Threat in New York tonight
The media are full of "credible, specific but nonconfitmed" warnings about the risk of car bombs in New York or Washington tonight.
Not the kind of thing one wants to hear. It is a long time since the authorities seemed this worried.
Not the kind of thing one wants to hear. It is a long time since the authorities seemed this worried.
More about intangibles
I'm talking about measurement of economic activity, starting here.
Leonard Nakamura of the Philadelphia Fed followed up his 2001 paper on intangibles with this 2009 one.
There needs to be a paradigm shift to reflect the increasing importance of new products. He concludes:
The changing economy needs substantially changed economic accounting, even before we think of counting happiness or environmental sustainability in national well-being.
Leonard Nakamura of the Philadelphia Fed followed up his 2001 paper on intangibles with this 2009 one.
These data show U.S. industries, consumption expenditures, and investment expenditures, all changing very substantially away from mass production and toward new product development, with only some of the new products being ones that can be mass produced. Properly analyzing this economy requires new measures and new theory.
There needs to be a paradigm shift to reflect the increasing importance of new products. He concludes:
How should economists and noneconomists think about the possibility of a
paradigm shift in economics? British economist and Nobel laureate John Hicks
(1983) argues that economic science must adapt to the nature of the economy. The growing importance of creative endeavors appears to be what’s new in the economy.
If so, this represents a significant change in the nature of the U.S. economy, one that is difficult to align with the paradigm of perfect competition. This new economy is highly competitive, but creative destruction is the center of the competition. This implies, in line with Hicks’s views, that for understanding economics now, Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” paradigm may be superior to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” Economic theory and economic measurement will need to develop together if economists are to understand the economic sources of economic growth.
The national income accounts framework was initially constructed on the basis of more than a half-century of industry and plant-level studies and a detailed analysis of consumer welfare that incorporated insights from Pigou to Hicks. To develop new economic measures that are able to quantify the economic sources of aggregate economic growth we will need a similar foundation of industry and plant-level studies.
The changing economy needs substantially changed economic accounting, even before we think of counting happiness or environmental sustainability in national well-being.
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