Black Oak Bookstore and Okineos Press
In North Berkeley on Shattuck and Vine there used to be a popular bookstore selling books used and new called Black Oak, which for New Years and/or for other store events would print broadsides for their customers. It was a wonderful bookstore, always full with families on weekends.
On Sundays we would go up to North Berkeley, have a Chinese breakfast, browse the ACCI Gallery, and then wander over to the bookstore to browse, and, after go around the corner for a Pete’s coffee. Black Oak had a rare books section though I never browsed there, but I did get a book of five novels written by Dashiell Hammett for $10.00 which I have read many times. Sometimes when I feel intensely about something important and I cannot focus, it helps to wander a book store seeing all the other people’s stories.
The Broadsides were printed on quality paper, this one has a deckled bottom edge. The typography is excellent.
After the plague on bookstores, they moved over to San Pablo Ave south of University.
These broadsides were printed at Okineos Press and are Fine Works of Printing.
I Ching
The I Ching, 易經, is a very old book which has been in continual use for over 3000 years. Fu Xi observed the patterns of nature and established the eight trigrams (八卦; bāguà), which comprise the 64 hexagrams which later were ordered by King Wen of Zhou. Later the Duke of Zhou added line comments and judgements and then, according to legend Confucius made more comments, which in a sense legitimized the I Ching , or as it was known then as the Zhou yi —Changes of Zhou— and now known as one of the Five Great books of Chinese philosophy. The name was changed to I Ching during the later Han dynasty.
A hexagram may have moving or stationery lines, moving lines indicate change between a Yin and Yang line which may be better understood by consulting the hexagram which it is becoming. Previous posts presented the hexagram Hsiao Kuo showing the possible changes when one line, two lines three lines and four lines are moving.
Here are the final options of the situation of five and six moving lines for the hexagram Hsiao Kuo. With five moving lines there are six possibilities and with six moving lines there is only one possibility. When a person consults the I Ching the opposite and complimentary forces of Yin and Yang are expressed through the eight trigrams further expressed through 64 hexagrams each which has tens of further options. Each consult of I Ching having 1-6 possible moving lines there are many possible separate and unique outcomes which in turn are experienced by many different and seperate people.
Feel the visual changes in the balance between Yin and Yang:
Just the lines without the words to feel the interaction between Yin and Yang. How does the relationship between Yin and Yang— broken or solid line —feel. Look at Hsiao Kuo and then immediately look at the right changing hexagram.
Here has been one—the same—hexagram changing into different hexagrams.
Imagine different hexagrams changing into the same hexagram, which is possible by changing each line that needs to be changed, on an ad hoc basis so to speak or if you use coins on the luck of the throw.
It feels different in black and white. I started I Ching with rounded black lines, going to rounded colored lines, then to rectangular colored lines and to rectangular black lines. Maybe next see how varying the width of white space between the broken lines effects the feel of the hexagram.
The Aztec Motel
The Aztec Motel was located on Central Ave NE in Albuquerque, aka Route 66 , going west, a couple of miles before you reached downtown Albuquerque. It was the first motel built along Route 66 and demolished in 2011. By the time I discovered it, probably in the late 1980s, it was mostly occupied by local people living there.
Alameda Creek
Its starting to get cold “here in Fremont” which means in the 40s at night and 50s in the early morning, I moved to California from New England and that kind of statement makes me laugh.
During the Covad I have done my four miles almost everyday.
DoI look at the same things everyday and see them differently?
Perhaps they change everyday.
Both are true, this person will not be at the some place tomorrow but tomorrow the place will be there.
And it will look a little different than the day before. In these daily differences can you sense the interplay of Yin and Yan between Heaven, Earth and People? I wonder how many pairs of underwear and socks I will buy before I die. Otherwise, I am set for good five years. My suit is 38 years old, maybe I have worn it 10 times. I do not know any people in my family beyond three generations back, what difference does any of it make.
Somerville MA, at the bus stop at the corner of Highland Ave and Belmont Sreet, 1971.
Tai Chi in Boston Common about 1971
In 2008 my mother living in another state about 250 miles away had a stroke. She was in ICU, then a regular room undergoing therapy and then she was to move somewhere else. I had a small point&shoot to document. Here she is during therapy stay, eating lunch and, I thought then, trying to figure out what the hell happened to her. Here we were in the hospital cafeteria. noise all around while our table was a deafening silence like being in a glass bubble in the middle of a crowd.
I don’t think she ever stopped trying to figure out what happened to her, and I think she never understood in the way that she understood things or had her version of “closure.”
One day after lunch when she was sitting on her bed, she asked “What happened to me ?” I told her she had a stroke . Usually when the word stroke comes into the conversation she denies it but this time she asked more and I told her some of her story and tshe asked “Did I have any children?”
I said …“Three.”
She replied “ I loved them all.”
That conversation is not just in my memory, I have a video of it.
Krishna
These were a few questions I found on a discussion board:
How can we accept Lord Krishna as God, despite his actions of flirting with the Gopis (village maidens)?
How do you justify Krishna having sexual contacts with Gopis and Radha outside marriage?
Why did Sri Krishna ask the maiden girls (gopis) to come out of the lake naked and collect their clothes from him?
In 1960s people used to watch other people dancing and chanting hare krishna. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Same gesture, San Francisco store, 45 years later.
During the past year I have mentioned the subject of the Kerner Commission to many people, I am 75 years old, it was made in 1968 and I did not find anyone knew of it. I started thinking how much of the past we remember? Does it even make a difference? We often think what happens in the past affects the present, but because we do not know what happened then we do not know how it affected our now.
On the other hand we are sure there is a causal relationship so we make one up.
Last night I watched an NHK documentary about a Japanese man who had lost is parents in WII. His father was killed in battle but he did not know what happened to his mother and the story wass his search.. They lived on Okinawa and they we’re preparing for the US attack. His mother at 17 years was impressed into military service as battle field nurse and at time was required to do non-medical things that otherwise a solder would be doing such as transporting ammunition. He finds a formal government written record—She was “killed in battle.”
There was also some written diary information, the officer that forced her into military service told her that if she died she would get the honor of being enshrined at Yasukuni.
Here is a formally dressed mother taking her daughter to a visit at Yasukuni Jinja.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna at University of Michigan, 1969
Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear or disappear,
are not tainted or pure,
do not increase or decrease.
Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes
and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.
from Heart Sutra
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