19 74% 20% 0mph SSW bar29.93 rises windchill19 Winter
Waning Gibbous Winter Moon
Another workout in the past. Another pre-trip prep formats my workouts for outside aerobics and a few in the gym activities.
Started rewatching the Emperor and the Assassin, the first of two relatively recent films that feature Qin Shi Huang-Di, the first emperor of China. He unified the warring states and created Qin-A, or China. There were dynasties before him, but they had kings, not emperors. During the Warring States Period, which immediately preceded Qin Shi Huang-Di’s feat of unification, several different philosophical systems arose in an attempt to find a way toward peace. This was the era of Kong, the creator of Confucian thought, the legendary Lao-Tze, to whom the Tao Te Ching is attributed and the founders of the Legalist school of governance. Many more systems arose, but these three had lasting impact.
In the Frederick Scheel photography exhibit I went to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s image of Piet Mondrian’s glasses. Sure enough, they look like the ones I wear now, not surprising, perhaps, since mine are of German manufacture. Michelle Yates suggested I look at it. I also spent some time in the Islamic gallery. The Koran pages and the miniatures that illustrated Persian books reminded me that the illustrated manuscripts of the Middle Ages also marry word and image. They represent yet another instance in which literary analysis can abet art history.
