2012 & 2024 - Year of the Dragons

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— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) December 14, 2023

2012 was an extraordinary year, but not in the way that I expected. A lot of transformational events occured and they were 'apocalyptic' which comes from Apokálypsis, an Ancient Greek work for 'the lifting of the veil (unveiling) or 'all that is hidden will be revealed' as Led Zep's Robert Plant sang in the song Kashmir. That's another of British Empire's territorial conflicts like Palestine, left to fend for itself with terrorist migrants genociding the locals in 1947 while bombing a British hotel and hanging British troops and leaving them dangling and booby trapped.

February 10 2024 will be the next Chinese New Year of the Dragon, now 12 years later. This version of Kashmir by Led Zep, with the Cairo Orchestra is by far the best I've come across. West Papua is another Kashmir but more Rio Tinto (GovCorp) than Sykes-Picot.

Bruce Lee - Enter The Dragon

It gave me a little kick that the essence of the movie is this opening scene snapped above and the deleted scene embedded below that is now available on the DVD but wasn't included in the original 1973 (important year that one) movie. The enemy is all illusion and that's so true and relevant it's nice that the video fell on the right moment as I flipped through it, and that the relevant clip came to light straight after.

Bruce Lee was so much more than an martial artist and for my money acts better than anyone else in the movie though there are some Thespian shockers in this film. The download was excellent quality and I really loved the Hong Kong scenes. I miss Hong Kong a lot but it's never taken good care of me for one reason and another.

Update: I just watched this new Bruce Lee documentary upload on Youtube. It's not bad at all. 

Enter The 2012 Year of The Dragon With Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was only 31 when he made this interview. His most famous film, Enter The Dragon is pertinent as we enter the 2012 year of the dragon and the shift from West To East gathers pace in a way that only the historically literate can fully grasp. I urge the Synchromystics among you to scrutinise this movie as we enter the 2012 year of the dragon.

If you've never listened to Bruce Lee speak this is worth even a minute of your time. He was young, good looking, super fit, articulate, polite and wise beyond his years. As a movie star on the edge of global influence and circulating among the Archons of Hollywood, the discerning thinker will place his premature end two years later under questionable circumstances as joining the list of suspicious deaths including John Lennon, Bob Marley, Bill Hicks and others of great talent and shining example.

His inquest in Hong Kong took nine days for the coroner to decide an aspirin killed him. A preposterous idea that scraped the barrel of credulity but at least showed some resistance  inside the system from somebody who stood their ground. Compare Bruce Lee's elevated conciousness to the knuckle dragging oratory of Chuck Norris over here and I refer you back to my original point of my post that the shift is on.

Here's a lovely story I uncovered about Bruce:

Lee was already challenging traditional notions by 1965.  He was a practitioner of Wing Chung kung fu under Master Yip Man in Hong Kong and had been teaching the art since 1959 after expatriating to the United States.  Lee was calling his style Jun Fan Gung Fu, but it was essentially his approach to Wing Chun.  After opening his school in Oakland, his teaching of non-Chinese began to cause controversy among other Chinese martial artists in the San Francisco Bay area.  Lee defended his spreading of Wing Chun and a duel was arranged between Lee and a fighter fielded to defend the art’s tradition of Chinese exclusivity.

The fight was to be no holds barred.  If Lee won, he could continue to teach Jun Fan Gung Fu to anyone he desired.  If he lost, he’d close his school and quit teaching to non-Chinese.

The duel wasn’t televised on pay per view and no documentation exists but a few first-hand accounts, including Lee’s own, his wife Linda’s, and his opponent Wong Jack Man’s (which, notably, differs dramatically from Bruce and Linda’s).

Shannon Lee told Fighters.com the version told by her parents.  The fight lasted three minutes and, after absorbing strikes from Lee during the first minute, Man began to literally run from Lee.  But, Lee desired a conclusive victory and chased Man, beating him into verbal submission.

But, Lee felt the fight should’ve ended quicker. He was disappointed with his physical conditioning and the limitations of his traditional Wing Chun martial art.  This was a key turning point in the history of mixed martial arts, a philosophical evolution from traditional to modern, the way fighters think and train today.

After the fight, Lee had an image created of a burial mound with a tombstone to symbolize his death as a traditional martial artist and his rebirth as the first modern mixed martial artist, though of course the term “mixed martial artist” would’ve been unknown to Lee.

Simple Semiotics

Earlier today I took a stroll northwards to the oldest shopping street in Bejing called Wan Fu Jing to think a bit more about retail communications and was confronted by some street advertising by Adidas. They pretty much 'own' the whole high street, which is either OK or just urban spam depending on your perspective. But let's park the media aperture question for a second because a lot of pants gets talked about semiotics in planning and so for a good pub bluff on the subject just ask yourself the question. Why are we unlikely to see this style of ad or the one below, appear during the London 2012 Olympics?

Of course there are still over four years to go and that whole shared endeavour thing might be in vogue by then. Lets see. Shortly afterwards, I nipped into a shopping mall for some noodles and I saw some more retail advertising and signage for a Chinese food chain that might just raise a smile. I am partial to a self referential joke now and again.

C'mon. In China? That's fucking brilliant isn't it? ;)

For the wise master's words (Bruce Lee was both articulate and a gentleman too) see my post on an interview with Mr Lee I posted over here.

Wock & Woll

Karen Cheung

The lost tapes. Interviews of Bruce Lee are just hitting the net. This is possibly the only reason to justify having a couple of hundred RSS feeds plus.