Re: CHAT!: Tao Te Ching (was Re: (OT) Morality (was: Re: aesthetic

In a message dated 06/18/2002 04.25.07 AM, the Very Erudite John Cowan
(jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM) writes:

>J Y S Czhang scripsit:
>
>>     Who is Grandmother Little Bear Woman? She a Native American wise-woman?
>
>Ursula [bear+DIMINUTIVE+FEM in Latin] Kroeber [as in A.L., her father,
>man of knowledge on the Indians of California] Le Guin, well-known sf and
>fantasy writer, and Englisher of the Tao Te Ching.  She wrote (with
>the assistance of Paul Seaton, a scholar of Old Chinese) the version
>I quoted in my previous post.
    I did not know she also went by a Native Americanized "nom de plume."

    BTW I recently acquired Jonathan Star's translation and commentary titled
_Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition_.  I am fairly impressed with his
format of verbatim translation and "literal character definitions that allow
the reader to create his or her own interpretation."  My father is also
impressed... thinks it is the best English translation to date.

>> ::tickled pink to hear such words of cultural praise
>> from a person from a somewhat different-but-possibly-"linked" culture::
>
>We all come from different-but-possibly-linked cultures, eh?
    And more so than previously thought before... and ever more so now ;)

>> Laurens Van Der Post, _Flamingo Feather_
>
>Ah yes, that cultural monument of AfrikHaner civilization....
    I have liked his quote ever since I read it in my book on Dada (Hans
Richter's _Dada: Art and Anti-Art_). [To my mind, this quote is more about a
Westerner's perception of a certain strain of Chinese Taoist thinking more so
than Chinese thinking in general - and - like Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson's
scholarly hoax _Letters from a Chinese Official, Being an Eastern View of
Western Civilization_ (circa 1901), it was written, I think, as a cultural
critique masked as coming from "the exotic Orient." {"Yeah, right! Credit it
to or blame it on the Wiley Oriental Gentlemen... " hehe...} ]
    I don't even know who Laurens Van Der Post was... Can you fill me in?


Hanuman Zhang /'hanuma~n  dZahN/
Avatar of Sun WuKong, a.k.a. "Monkey," a.k.a. "TricksterGod of Chinese Boxers"

~ om hung hanumatay rudratmakai hung phat ~
    mantra to Hanuman the Hindu Monkey TricksterGod

~§~  thee Prizc ov Existenz iz Ætern'l Warfær 'n' Creativ Playf'llniz  ~§~

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