小滿 xiǎomǎn / 小満 shōman / 소만 soman
槐月十二 / twelfth day of the sophora month

In the morning, jin jun mei.

In the evening, fenghuang dancong, tong tian xiang.

It has been an unhurried day.

小滿 xiǎomǎn / 小満 shōman / 소만 soman
槐月十二 / twelfth day of the sophora month

I finished the Scarry book yesterday over two sessions at Monmouth Coffee with a lunch break, with Chiara and Mary-Jane, sandwiched in between.

On a previous occasion at Monmouth, someone sat next to me was curious about my reading and asked:
- if I was a nurse;
- is it a medical book;
- is it funny?
No, no and no but it's fun.

It was fun because there were many occasions while reading it when I was surprised and this carried through to the end. When I started, I had no idea where it will lead me to. When I finished, I realised that, without reading it, I could never imagine where it will lead me to. It's the first book that made me feel this way.

TITLE
The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World

CONTENTS
Introduction
Part One: Unmaking
Chapter 1 The Structure of Torture: The Conversion of Real Pain into the Fiction of Power
Chapter 2 The Structure of War: The Juxtaposition of Injured Bodies and Unanchored Issues
Part Two: Making
Chapter 3 Pain and Imagining
Chapter 4 The Structure of Belief and Its Modulation into Material Making: Body and Voice in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and the Writings of Marx
Chapter 5 The Interior Structure of the Artifact

BACK COVER
The Body in Pain is a profoundly original meditation on the vulnerability of the human body and the literary, political, philosopical, medical, and religious vocabularies used to describe it. Elaine Scarry bases her analysis on a wide array of sources, including literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, and the writings of such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, and Kissinger. The author begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility, noting not only the difficulty of describing pain, but its ability to destroy a sufferer's language. She then analyzes the political consequences of deliberately inflicted pain, particularly in cases of war and torture, showing how regimes "unmake" an individual's world in their exercise of power. From the actions that "unmake" the world Scarry turns to a discussion of actions that "make" the world - the acts of creativity that produce language and cultural artifacts.

This is, in no way, a suggestion of failure of its title, contents and back cover summary. Scarry made something so rich in its breadth and generous in its spirit it denies encapsulation so I can only say broadly, in its essence, The Body in Pain is a book on what it is, what it means, and what it takes to be living in consciousness of our fragility in a world unaware of our sentience.

I am looking over my notes and will like to leave you with this passage that illustrates my reactions and segues into my next reading, also by Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just.

"A lightbulb transforms the human being from a creature who would spend approximately a third of each day groping in the dark, to one who sees simply by wanting to see: its impossibly fragile, milky-white globe curved protectively around an even more fragile, upright-then folding filament of wire is the materialization of neither retina, nor pupil, no day-seeing, nor night-seeing; it is the materialization of a counterfactual perception about the dependence of human sight on the rhythm of the earth's rotation; no wonder it is in its form so beautiful."

(The book was recommended by Lucinda. Thank you very much. xx)

立夏 lìxià / 立夏 rikka / 입하 ipha
槐月十一 / eleventh day of the sophora month

Clouds outside my window. Clouds pretty much for the week the phone prophesies.

I went back to lie in bed for a bit; I got up when I thought I will get through today in a bright tangerine red jumper.

I put the jumper on. I thought I'll like to try a tea from last week's deliveries of spring greens.

This is dongting biluochun, harvested from the east mountain on lake tai in early March. It makes me go, "aa-h", in surprise and wonder when I drink it.

I made the tea by dropping the leaves into the water one after another as they sink to the bottom of the cup. I stopped when it looked like the leaves were not sinking as quickly and a couple were floating on the surface.

I think I stopped too soon; it could probably take more.

This method coaxes one's eyes and fingers to admire each tea leaf. I think only beautiful leaves can make good tea.

立夏 lìxià / 立夏 rikka / 입하 ipha
槐月初十 / tenth day of the sophora month

Hellebores, with all leaves picked except for a pair of conjoined twins and two sets I missed, with the leaves and branches from another.

立夏 lìxià / 立夏 rikka / 입하 ipha
槐月初十 / tenth day of the sophora month

This week's herbs is an aesthetically pleasing mix but yields a decoction that makes me go, "aaayykkkhhh" after I down it.