Itching For The I Ching

Dermophobes Look Away Now

Actually the person doing the itching was Philip Kendred Dick, whom we have made much of lately thanks to "A Scanner Darkly", "Now Wait For Last Year" and "The Man In The High Castle".  I am now referring to the latter work, which I have just finished reading, and yes there is a bit where a Teuton Sicherheitsdienst agent gets his jaw blown apart when shot with a replica Colt .44 black powder revolver. That was about the only bit I recalled from reading it many many years ago.  Typical me; all the philosophy and cerebral aspects went down the brain pan and all I remembered was the gore.  Art!

     What I really noticed on this re-reading was how often the characters use the I Ching; both Frank Frink and his ex-wife Juliana are slaves to the sort-of-sortilege, and Mister Tagomi, extremely influential Japanese head of their Trade Mission, never fails to use it.

     So - what is the 'I Ching'?  PKD doesn't explain the basis of it, merely allows us to see various characters using it, where they throw either yarrow stalks or brass coins, and then consult a book on the results.  Art!

     The way it works is that the yarrow stalks or brass coins are thrown into the air, in order to generate a number inclusive of between 6 and 9, repeated six times if you only have three coins.  This number, one of 64 possible variants, is used to apply to a hexagram, which is a series of six lines, either broken or unbroken, as you see in the picture above.  

     These hexagrams are further detailed with a declaration and a statement about the lines, which are open to interpretation.  You doubt me?  Allow Conrad to elucidate and also bump up the word count.

     The lines are counted from the bottom upwards, hence this hexagram being 111111.

"Qian :乾

Heaven in its motion, gives the idea of strength. The superior man, in accordance with this, nerves himself to ceaseless activity.

1. The dragon lies hid in the deep; it is not the time for active doing; this appears from the strong and undivided line being in the lowest place.
2. The dragon appears in the field; the diffusion of virtuous influence has been wide.
3. Active and vigilant all the day; this refers to the treading of the proper path over and over again.
4. He seems to be leaping up, but is still in the deep; if he advances, there will be no error.
5. The dragon is on the wing in the sky; the great man rouses himself to work.
6. The dragon exceeds the proper limits; there will be occasion for repentance; a state of fullness, that is, should not be indulged in long.
7. The same undivided line is used in all the places of this hexagram, but the attribute of heaven should not always take the foremost place."

     As you can see from the text, this is extremely vague and allusional stuff, which a user could interpret in countless ways.  Is it good, bad or middling?  Only you can decide!

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT!

     "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" is a novel within the novel, which portrays an alternate reality where the Allies won the Second Unpleasantness, and which is revealed at the very end to have been written solely by reference to the I Ching.

O Delicious Schadenfreude

Conrad, because he has peculiar tastes, has been paying attention to the Youtube channels that are busy analysing "Indy 5", and notes that the majority of them are gloasting with glee about the unfavourable box office returns.  It's - it's - it's almost as if they want it to fail.  How can this be?  

     Conrad, to be honest with you, has absolutely no interest in going to see this film.  I really don't care if it's successful or not, it simply does not appeal.  However, the Frothing Nitric Ire that surrounds it is, of course - obviously! - of interest.  Art!

     

     Conrad, because he has no inner censor, has to say that every time he sees Phoebe Waller-Bridge he is minded of Steve Martin and that catchy rhyme "Pointy Birds".

     ANYWAY one Youtube channel going by the handle of 'Vigilant Renegade' had an interesting variant on the usual "Har har your film sucks big time and it's not making any money" motif.  Quoting that dreaded personage, the Anonymous Source, he had it about that "Indy 5" in reality cost $329 million rather than the far more modest <blushes> $295 million usually quoted.

     Hmmmm.  He has a point; he also points out that the $295 million number was posted at the end of 2022, before all re-shoots that took place in 2023.  He also claims that the promotional budget was <blushes again> only $100 million, when a film with this kind of budget and kudos would expect at least $250 million.  A bit of reaching here, but he speculates that, if Disney executives were aware of this film being a gold-plated pile of 'road apples', then they might well jib at throwing good money after bad.  Art!

     Conrad has seen an awful lot of Youtube reviewers on the overarching list pages, and only one out of them had anything good to say about this film.  It's - it's - it's almost as if they hate this film.

     Time to lay in a dustbin of popcorn, methinks!

"City In The Sky"

Things are cooking-off in the Middle East as of the late twenty-first century, and when we say 'cook' we mean 'usage of strategic-level nuclear weapons'.  Not sauteeing a pan of onions.

     Minutes later, another detonation was reported on the Damavand volcano, an extinct feature north-east of Tehran and nowhere near Natanz.  Most onlookers were puzzled; Dovid and Kuoroush guessed, and correctly.

     ‘That’s where the generals scuttled off to before they pressed the button,’ said Dovid.

     ‘An underground bunker,’ guessed the Iranian.

     NUCLEAR DETONATION DETECTED flashed up again fifteen minutes later.

     ‘Damavand again,’ murmured Davy.  Dovid and Kouroush exchanged glances.  Both men felt the unpleasant recollection of nuclear war-fighting memoranda coming back from their respective pasts.

     ‘Cross-targetting.  They want to be sure the bunker is hit,’ explained Dovid. 

     Screen Seventeen came up with the message again after another fifteen minute pause.  

     Then again.  

     And again. 

     Once every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half, in fact, seven nuclear detonations.

     On another screen, a nervous Arabic speaker addressing the camera in a news studio showed blurred film of a nuclear explosion at ground zero, followed by shots of tanks and jets and soldiers, then a dignitary reading from a script.  Kouroush spotted the newsfeed and translated.

     ‘That news is from Jordan – the government has declared war on Iran.’

     Another feed from Azeri state television showed the terrifying column of debris and smoke spiralling upwards from the shattered crater of the Damavand volcano across the border in Iran, a spectacle that truly made the extinct volcano look as if it were erupting again.  Hysterical broadcasts from Tel Aviv showed a giant column of smoke and fire that had been the ancient port at Jaffa.

     No budget for the imagination, gentle reader.  Art!

Damavand in winter plumage

Hail Orcadia!

In case you are unaware, inhabitants of the Orkney Islands are known as Orcadians.   Yes yes yes, the next question you have is "What or where are the Orkneys?"  Art!

     The islanders are feeling a bit peeved at the moment, not having been part of the benefices from North Sea Oil, and are thinking radically in terms of what they become.  A British Dependency? similar to Guernsey.  Or - part of Norway?  Art!

Orcadian landscape

     I know, I know - when will it fall over? 

     ANYWAY don't laugh, the Orkneys were part of Norway until the late fifteenth century, about the same time the English possessions in France became French.

Finally -

Better call it a day, I've got a giant pot of Sunday's Stew to put into containers.  Onions, mushrooms, (slimy) braising steak - which I washed clean, honest - banana blossoms, asparagus, jalapenos, parsley, caraway seeds, Marmite-flavoured peanut butter, sauerkraut, a noodle cake and a dash of Old Speckled Hen.  

     Actually it's not bad.