May 20, 2004
#100 :: Bicycle chain
This all began as a way of codifying one of my most organic impulses. To hold a thing that is small, has some weight and purpose in the world is to own it, whether it takes up space in my drawer or just in my mind. I have acquired these 100 (so far) objects as a way of fulfilling that need quickly - in the mercurial snatch-it-now breath of the moment I first picked them up - and tried to make sense of them as sort of a test. I don't know if I have succeeded. I did it to see if I could do it, to see if it would amount to anything. It's become popular, thanks to Mark at BoingBoing. It has invigorated my drive to write and shoot again, though I'm not sure if it has any deeper meaning. At the very least, I have completed the traditional Japanese artist's exercise of creating 100 demons in tribute to the Buddhist challenge of defeating 100 demons in a lifetime. If you have followed HLO at all, you have my humblest thanks, and if you want to introduce a friend to it, this entry is as good a place as any to start. In gratitude, I can only offer you this chunk of chain, which I've fiddled with for years at my desk. It is considered a deadly weapon, yet the strength, weight, intricacy and integrity of its 6-piece links and the unholy pressure used to force them together as one are taken for granted. You can twirl it like a watchman's keychain, whip it through the air like a bullroarer, or crush ice in a dishcloth with it when your highball gets low. Put it around your neck and go punk. Dip it in paint and make prints. Hook it up to any number of drive systems and it will work flawlessly, without maintenance, for thousands of hours without a failure. There are few archetypally perfect machines left to invent in the world. This was one of them.
wow. I think maybe I'm going to try.
Posted by: la at May 21, 2004 04:19 PMHi:
The following statement intrigued me, but I was unable to find any more info on it. Do you have any links?
"At the very least, I have completed the traditional Japanese artist's exercise of creating 100 demons in tribute to the Buddhist challenge of defeating 100 demons in a lifetime."
Am enjoying this site immensely.
Posted by: Pete at May 24, 2004 07:40 AMHey, pete. Thanks for the kind words. I wish I could help you with it - there are a couple of oblique references to 100 demons in reviews of Lynda Barry's book of comeeks, and a reference to a 17th-century Japanese painting titled something like "night of 100 demons" and then a ton of links to a Connecticut punk band. But after digging around on the Web for quite a while I concluded that either a) 100 demons is little-known or b) it is apocryphal. If nothing else, it's an inspiring idea and a fun exercise.
Posted by: mack reed at May 24, 2004 03:57 PMWell, I was interested in this 100 demons business, here's what I've found.
Starting with Lynda Barry's "One Hundred Demons", (once I managed to locate my copy...)
She read about a "painting exercise called One Hundred Demons" at the library, cites "a hand-scroll painted by a Zen monk named Hakuin Ekaku" as her example, and references "The Art of Zen" by Stephen Addiss.
Addiss writes (p 115):
"One of Hakuin's most unusual paintings is his version of the ancient theme of One Hundred Demons. One of the oldest beliefs in Japan is that when night falls, ogres, demons, and goblins parade in the streets until the light of dawn causes them to return to the netherworld. A number of hand-scrolls on this theme have been painted since at least the Muromachi period."
The passage references an end note which reads:
"For the oldest extant version of this theme, see Komatsu Shigemi, ed., Nihon emaki taisei 25 (Tokyo, 1979). For other examples, see Midori Deguchi, "One Hundred Demons and One Hundred Supernatural Tales" in Japanese Ghosts and Demons, op. cit., pp. 15-23, and Miyeko Murase, Tales of Japan (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 134-137. A thorough discussion of this theme can be found in Melinda Takeuchi, "Utagaway Kuniyoshi's Minamoto Raiko and the Earth Spider: Demons and protest in late Tokugawa Japan," Ars Orientalis XVII (1987), pp 4-6."
My library doesn't have any of these references so I'm going to quit here. 100 demons seems to have been a theme in Japanese painting. I doubt there's a Zen connection because Addiss finds it "curious" that a Zen monk would choose this subject.
I agree that it's an inspiring idea, I think I'll give it a try as well. Thanks Mack, I quite enjoy your site.
Posted by: dcb at June 3, 2004 08:22 PMWow, dcb - that's far more exhaustive a backgrounder than I could hope for. Many thanks for digging it up to post it here.
The business of demons walking the earth at night brings to mind Miyazaki's wonderful Spirited Away - I'm guessing that he wrote it with that myth in mind.
Posted by: mack reed at June 4, 2004 10:49 AM