31 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
31 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
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title: "'They have certificates, but no flower!'"
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layout: post
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---
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The exclamation in the title of this post came from a street-busker I have met,
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a number of years ago. He was commenting on the quality of music-playing
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that came from young musicians nowadays.
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"What is 'flower'?" I asked him.
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"Flower? Flower is this!" he replied, before launching into a song, on his
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guitar, which I couldn't help but dance to.
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So what is flower? I couldn't help but to want to have a more theoretical,
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or even academic, perspective on the terminology of this street-busker.
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Finally, years later, with glory to my god - and thanks to Him, of course - I found a mention
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in a book called "Nine gates: Entering the mind of poetry" by Jane Hirshfield.
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Hirshfield mentioned the concept of *hana* in a form of
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Japanese theatre called Nō. Supposedly, *hana* - which, interestingly enough,
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means 'flower' in the Japanese language - is the quality by which an actor
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can move the audience, despite being hidden behind a mask and standing motionless
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on stage. Supposedly (according to the claims of Hirshfield, who in turn
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was quoting a practitioner or observer of Nō), *hana* can be accessed
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sometimes in youth, but in maturity, *hana*... - oh, I forget what Hirshfield
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wrote.
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Perhaps this might be interesting enough for me to investigate further.
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