Better living through Su Shi: First quote

Even the shouts of a butcher selling meat and the sound of a courtesan singing may bring about enlightenment. If the mind is pure and clean, even tiles and pebbles on the wall preach the supreme dharma. (Ba Wangshi huayan jing jie.)

Author of the Day

James Douglas Rumford; b. 1948; has also written under Lin Chien-min, Kauhua Kealaauakea, Anthony Smallfield, and Djimé. (Library of Congress authority record #82031508)

His titles include:

• Calabash Cat and his amazing journey ("A Calabash Cat, living in Africa, sets off to see where the world ends.")
• Ikinyarwanda (Textbook for foreign speakers of the Bantu language of Rwanda, in Kinyarwanda and French)
• Traveling man : the journey of Ibn Battuta, 1325-1354
• Ka-hala-o-puna : ka u'i o Mānoa (Hawai'ian legends about Mānoa, on Oahu.
• An essay on paper (Translation of the Chu shu of Ming Dynasty author Wang Zongmu, printed on paper made by Rumford himself.)

I'm just the teeniest bit envious.

More from HoFD

At last! The text of the centrepiece song from House of Flying Daggers:

北方有佳人
遺世而獨立
一顧傾人城
再顧傾人國
寧不知傾城與傾國
佳人難再得(李延年)

Turns out that it's from Han Dynasty poet Li Yannian. I've never heard of it before, but it's so famous that 傾國傾城 (lit. "cause the downfall of a country, cause the downfall of a city") has become a stock reference to a face which launced a thousand ships. It's good to have the characters; I was baffled by the term translated as "beauty", 佳人. It's a homophone (jia1ren2) for 家人 (lit. "house person"), "member of the family".

The beauty in question was Li's younger sister, who--like the beauty in the film--was a skilled dancer and a favourite of Emperor Wu. Unfortunately, Li ended up to some degree living up to his lyrics; he was convicted of covorting with the ladies of the palace and his entire family would put to death.

I'm still trying to come up with the rest of the names and aliases. Unfortunately, the official site is worse than useless (although, like the film, very intricately beautiful) and no other pages I can find list more than four cast members total. At least I've discovered that the two officers were unimaginatively given then surnames of the actors who played them (half a surname in the case of Kaneshiro, since Chinese has very few traditional two-character surnames and 金城 is not one of them).