Dennis Hollingsworth

Root Chakra

Andrew Hahn had a brilliant suggestion: to listen to Thomas Brinkmann's B-Day while viewing this gif. Give it a shot, the figure starts becomes animated as if it were dancing to the music, very nice. Try opening up another window or tab in your browser, play the B-Day video (that I could only find in Youtube, no joy for me from the torrents or iTunes) and click back to the gif for 6 minutes and 22 seconds of whirling (dervish?) pleasure. I was trying to mash a movie together... but trying to replicate all of the glitches in the gif would be a fool's errand. I tried shooting a video screenshot but the image was too fuzzy in comparison to the sharpness of the gif. By the time I considered recording the audio into iMovie from the YouTube link, the whole rabbit chase started to seem ludicrous, a natural cue to drop the whole idea and move on.

Just... move on, yo.

Postscript: ...and what's the root chakra all about? Years ago, when asked about the role architecture in my creative life (since I have borne down so single mindedly into painting), I used to respond with: "I've tucked architecture into my lower chakra.". And despite this flip answer I would savor the idea of my architectural capacity in a purgatorial reserve, architecture as a suppository, simmering in a Muladhara reserve, immersed and pressurized like Monkey and the Crucible of the Eight Trigrams:

?Take him at once to the execution block,? said the Jade Emperor. ?Cut him into a thousand pieces!?
?Your Majesty,? said Lord Lao Tzu, ?I?m afraid such a punishment is no longer possible. After eating so many of my Pills of Immortality, his body must be as hard as a diamond. No weapon could pierce or even scratch it.?
?Then what are we to do with him?? asked the Jade Emperor in dismay.
?Perhaps I can be of service,? said Lao Tzu. ?Hand him over to me, and I?ll heat him in my Crucible of the Eight Trigrams. In just an hour his body will be consumed to ash?and at the same time, I can recover my elixir.?
?I accept your kind and considerate offer,? said the Jade Emperor. ?We will return to the palace to await word of your success.?

The Buddha?s Bet

In the alchemy laboratory of the Cinnabar Palace, Lord Lao Tzu, Supreme Patriarch of the Way, dumped Monkey into the Crucible of the Eight Trigrams, clamped down the lid, and lifted the crucible onto the hearth.
?Stoke up the fire as high as you can,? he told his assistant. ?We?ll need the greatest heat possible to refine this villain.?