Vivaldi

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. Personal Names and Haiku .
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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
アントニオ・ビバルディ

March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741



Nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest"), was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas.
His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as
The Four Seasons.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


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Reference

. Antonio Vivaldi


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Haiku and Senryu


Venetian morning
the American tourist
whistles Vivaldi

Bill Kenney
BLOG : haiku-usa


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the four seasons -
so much time spent
in the commuter train

Gabi Greve

(Commuting from Kamakura to Tokyo, one hour going, one hour coming back ... for many years, when a small music player was all the fun to have on the way.)


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autumn -
Vivaldi's music
in dancing leaves

Alex Serban, Romania 2011

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Vivaldi
on the PC screen...
hoping it's spring

- Shared by Willie Bongky -
Haiku Culture Magazine, November 2013


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вкус утреннего кофе
у кухонного окна ...
зима вивальди, ларго

KAROL ROSIAK, Poland


the taste of morning coffee
by the kitchen window ...
Vivaldi's winter, largo
(English translation by Origa)

source : karolaha.blogspot.com


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春暁の雀に聴かすヴィヴァルディ　
shungyoo no suzume ni kikasu vivarudi

for the sparrows
in this spring dawn
I play Vivaldi

Akiyama Hakuto 秋山白兎
source : akiyama-hakuto.sakura.ne.jp


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Tadanori

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Ichijo Jiro Tadanori
Ichijō Jirō Tadanori , Ichijoo Jiroo Tadanori




There is a woodblock print about

Samurai Ichijo Jiro Tadanori and Notonokami Noritsune fighting, c. 1810-1820



by Shuntei Katsukawa (1770-1820)


His image has made it on T-Shirts and surfboards.


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Taira no Tadanori 平忠度
(1144–1184)



brother of clan head Taira no Kiyomori, and one of his generals in the Genpei War against the Minamoto.

Tadanori also took part in the Battle of Fujigawa, and in fighting Minamoto no Yoshinaka. He was killed in the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani. Tadanori had a son named Taira no Tadayuki.

Tadanori also features as the titular character in a Noh play by Zeami; in the play, his spirit returns to the mortal world to plead for recognition for having authored a well-known poem. According to the Heike Monogatari, a poem was found in his quiver after his death. The poem reads:

"Were I, still traveling as night falls,
to make a sheltering tree my inn,
then would my host tonight be
the blossoms themselves?"

In reference to this, Zeami designates a cherry tree as Tadanori's grave marker, and makes it the site of his play.
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. WKD : The battle of Kurikara



. Senteisai festival 先帝祭 and Antoku Tenno 安徳天皇 　


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Reference

. Ichijo Jiro Tadanori


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Haiku and Senryu


a stopped spear -
Tadanori writes
with his sword

Heike Gewi


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Related words

***** . WKD : Samurai, warriour, warrior (tsuwamono)


***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Stravinsky

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Igor Stravinsky

17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971

イーゴリ・ストラヴィンスキー




Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky
a Russian-born, naturalised French, later naturalised American composer, pianist, and conductor.

He is widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music.

He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets):
The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911/1947),
and

The Rite of Spring (1913).



The Rite, whose premiere provoked a riot, transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure, and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary, pushing the boundaries of musical design.
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Reference

. Igor Stravinsky


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Haiku and Senryu

Stravinsky's The Rite
the scent of Chanel drifts
through the theater

Chen-ou Liu
Canada





Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky was a Russian-born naturalized American composer. In addition to his outstanding achievement in music composition, Stravinsky also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, mainly at the premieres of his works. One of his famous works The Rite of Spring, premiered on Thursday, May 29, 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, provoked one of the most famous classical music riots in history due to its intensely rhythmic score and primitive scenario.

Pioneering French fashion designer Coco Chanel attended this "scandalous performance" and was impressed by his work.
Later, she fell in love with him and financially supported his family and musical performances.

Their story was made into a film entitled
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,
and was chosen as the Closing Film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.


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Related words

***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　

***** . Music and Haiku 　



***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Orwell George

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George Orwell

ジョージ・オーウェル

25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950



Eric Arthur Blair

better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture,Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and
the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945).



They have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture, are widely acclaimed.

Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, now a byword for any draconian or manipulative social phenomenon or concept inimical to a free society, have entered the vernacular.
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Reference

. George Orwell


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Haiku and Senryu





GPS -
big brother
is watching you


nineteen eighty four -
I wonder when reality
overtook !?

George Orwell -
if only he could see us
NOW

Gabi Greve
Japan



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Contribution from Chen-ou Liu, Canada:

I wrote an essay on Orwell, and it was titled
Newspeak: A Vision of the World.


There are known knowns...
Orwell’s Newspeak lingers
in my mind

Note:
L1 refers to the opening words of a statement made by Rumsfeld on February 12, 2002 at a press briefing where he addressed the absence of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

For further information, read the Wikipedia entry entitled
There are known knowns.

The following is a relevant excerpt from my abovementioned essay:

Behind all of Orwell's relentless criticisms of totalitarian society, there is a troubling, yet neglected outcry that the real threat is to human language and, thus, to human reason and even worse to the human soul. Certainly, the horrifying implications, though taken to the extreme, of Newspeak point out this central theme. Orwell, like many other literary scholars, is interested in the modern use of language and, in particular, the abuse and misuse of English.

The language crisis is clearly expressed at the outset of his essay entitled Politics and the English Language, which states that better use of language facilitates better development in politics, and ultimately, makes a better world:

"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

Today, in political language, always bursting with catch phrases and slogans, Orwell foresees the particular threat: "Such phrases will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself . . .. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine."

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell vividly depicts this kind of machine-like humanness, “This was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man’s brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.” The implication of men becoming “machines,” serves as Orwell’s darkest forecast, quite illuminating in our technology-obsessed culture.

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the glow
on facecrime suspect's face...
low-hanging cold moon


Note:
Facecrime is described in the following passage from Part 1, Chapter 5:

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence.
There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.


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marching students
shout it out loud, Black Is White
winter sky

Note:
L2 refers to a Newspeak word called Blackwhite, which is defined as follows:

“ ...this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this.
But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink."


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Pound, Ezra Pound

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Ezra Pound

30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972



an American expatriate poet and critic, and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry. He became known for his role in developing Imagism, which, in reaction to the Victorian and Georgian poets, favored tight language, unadorned imagery, and a strong correspondence between the verbal and musical qualities of the verse and the mood it expressed. His best-known works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos, which consumed his middle and late career, and was published between 1917 and 1969.
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IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

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エズラ・ウェストン・ルーミス・パウンド
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

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Reference

. Ezra Pound


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Haiku and Senryu

Reading the Book of Changes . . .
Ezra Pound's Make It New
lingers in my mind

Chen-ou Liu, Canada

Ezra Pound (1885-1972), the originator of the slogan
"Make It New,"
who lived in Europe, greatly influenced the development of modern literature.

His In a Station of the Metro has been endlessly researched by scholars, literary critics, and poets alike…
In his most widely-read book, The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku, William Higginson rightly emphasizes that Ezra Pound's metro poem is the "first published hokku in English" and "very important to its author`s development" – an excerpt from my essay entitled
Three Readings of Ezra Pound's "Metro Haiku"


The Yijing, also known as the Book of Changes, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts.


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I Ching 易經

The I Ching (Wade-Giles), "Yì Jīng" (Pinyin), also known as the Book of Changes, Classic of Changes; and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts.
Includes the 8 trigrams (八卦 ba gua) and their combinations.
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I Ging, Yi Jing 易經 / 易经
©　More in the German WIKIPEDIA !

"Buch der Wandlungen“ oder „Klassiker der Wandlungen“


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Nefertiti - Nofretete

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Queen Nefertiti - Nofretete

クィーン・ネフェルティティ

(c. 1370 BC – c. 1330 BC)



The Great Royal Wife (chief consort) of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (Echnaton). Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only. This was Aten (Aton), or the sun disc.

She was made famous by her bust, now in Berlin's Neues Museum, shown to the right. The bust is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt. It was attributed to the sculptor Thutmose, and it was found in his workshop. The bust is notable for exemplifying the understanding Ancient Egyptians had regarding realistic facial proportions. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly after her husband's death and before the accession of Tutankhamun as Neferneferuaten, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate.
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Nofretete
Nafteta, „die Schöne ist gekommen“
Nofretete: More in the German WIKIPEDIA !


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Reference

. Queen Nefertiti


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Oum Kalthoum / Umm Kulthum



Umm Kulthum war eine ägyptische Sängerin und Musikerin. Ihr Ruhm in der arabischen Welt ist mit dem von Maria Callas und der Beatles in der westlichen Welt vergleichbar.

(* zwischen 1898 und 1910, vermutlich am 4. Mai 1904 in Tammai az-Zahaira;
† 3. Februar 1975 in Kairo
source : www.lastfm.de



Om Koultoum, Om Kalthoum, Oumme Kalsoum and Umm Kolthoum
Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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Oum Kalthoum ...
the meaning of longing
rings out

Heike Gewi


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Haiku and Senryu


Queen Nefertiti
within the walls of glass
our gazes meet


seeing Queen of the Nile...
I hum Elope to the Moon
in the dark

Chen-ou Liu
Canada, 2011


Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile
is a film directed by Fernando Cherchio. It’s a romanticized story about the Egyptian sculptor Tumos and his love for Nefertiti that is embodied in his famous work, the Nefertiti Bust.
For further information, see
©　Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile : WIKIPEDIA !

Elope to the Moon
is one of the most popular love songs by Mayday, a Taiwanese band.


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Egypt - エジプト
is a transcontinental country situated mainly within North Africa, with its Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East, and the 15th most populated in the world.
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Egypt -
surrounded with sand
pyramids

- Shared by Gennady Nov -
Haiku Culture Magazine, 2013



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The Pyramids of Egypt ピラミッド





立秋の没日真つ赤や ピラミッド
risshuu no motsunichi makka ya piramiddo

in the crimson red sunset
at the beginning of autumn -
these pyramids

Kitagawa Eiko 北川英子


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ピラミッド叩けば熱砂こぼしけり　
piramiddo tatakeba nessa koboshikeri

when I tap
a pyramid spills
hot sand

Yajima Nagisao 矢島渚男
Tr. Fay Aoyagi


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Related words

***** . Egypt - Africa Saijiki .


***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Monroe Marilyn

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Marilyn Monroe

マリリンモンロー

June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962



born Norma Jeane Mortenson, baptized Norma Jeane Baker
American actress, singer and model.
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Reference

. Marilyn Monroe

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source : rirafumosama


Daruma Otoshi with Marilyn
だるまおとし＆マリリンモンロー風の柄です



. Daruma Otoshi 　だるま落とし Hitting Daruma Toy 　


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The hoochie coochie
was a sexually provocative belly dance that originated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. It became wildly popular during and after the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Described by the New York Journal in 1893 as "Neither dancing of the head nor the feet", it was a belly dance performed by women of, or presented as having, an Eastern European gypsy heritage, often as part of travelling "sideshows". Gooch, goochie or gootchie was apparently already a term in the American South term for a woman's vagina, and hoochie coochie has been suggested as referring directly to sex.



Since the dance was performed by women, a "goochie man", or "hoochie coochie man", either watched them or ran the show. Alternatively, from the directly sexual meaning of goochie goochie, he was successful with women. This inspired the classic blues song "Hoochie Coochie Man", written by Willie Dixon for Muddy Waters, and covered by numerous musicians since. The dance was still popular at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: the World's Fair of 1904, but had all but disappeared by the Second World War; the song was therefore harking back to an earlier "golden" era.
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Haiku and Senryu

蘭の名はマリリンモンロー唇々々
ran no na wa maririn monroo kuchi kuchi kuchi

the name of this orchid
is Marylin Monroe -
mouth mouth mouth

or


the name of this orchid
is Marylin Monroe -
lips lips lips
Tr. Gabi Greve


Look at a photo of this orchid:

. Yamaguchi Seison 山口青邨 .


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Marilyn
tattooed on her right forearm
lone star twinkling

Chen-ou Liu
Canada


Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle.
-- Marilyn Monroe

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花吹雪マリリンモンローになった気分
hana fubuki maririn monroo ni natta kibun

cherry blossom snow -
I feel like Marilyn
Monroe

Nishino Marika 西野茉莉香


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***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Mitchum Robert

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Robert Mitchum

ロバート・ミッチャム

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum

August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997



American film actor, author, composer and singer.
Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !



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Reference

. Robert Mitchum


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Haiku and Senryu




the cigarette
in Robert Mitchum's mouth
out of the past


"Out of the Past" is the title of one of the classics of film noir.
It starred Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer, and was directed by Jacques Tourneur.
The point of the ku is that the image of the tough guy hero with the cigarette in his mouth is "out of the past."

Bill Kenney
New York, 2011


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Related words

***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Mozart

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト



27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791
A prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg.
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. WKD : Salzburger Festspiele 　　


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Reference

. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


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Haiku and Senryu


風車賽の河原のモーツァルト
kazaguruma sai no kawara no moozaruto

windwheels
and Mozart at the limbo
for children

anonymous
http://gendaihaiku.gr.jp/haikukai/result/37_touku.htm


. WKD : The Limbo for Children 　


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初茜モーツアルトの雲迅し
hatsu akane mootzaruto no kumo hayashi

first red sky -
the clouds of Mozart
float by fast

Nakai Fujio 中井不二男


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long cold night . . .
I play some Mozart
for my ill cat

Gabi Greve, December 2009


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Mozartkugeln -
the long forgotten taste
of music

Gabi Greve


They are a speciality of filled chocolate balls, sold in Salzburg. It is said Mozart loved to eat them, hence the name.
A friend brought me a box from her visit to the town in Winter 2009. Need I say more ?!


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party time –
a few frogs sing along
with Mozart!


rising light ...
amongst the roses
Mozart whistles


latte and Mozart
the morning has more
karumi now

Don Baird

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Mozart birthday---
I listen to a little
night music

Fred Masarani
Joys of Japan, January 2012


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The Magic Flute –
charmed by the music
the canary remains silent

Shared by Virginia Popescu
Joys of Japan, February 2012


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melody of Mozart,
I fall asleep
lullaby or alarm

- - Hideo Suzuki on a night of insomnia
Joys of Japan, February 2012



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Related words

***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　

***** . Music and Haiku 　



***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Asmaa Mahfouz

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Asmaa Mahfouz

February 1, 1985 -



An Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement. She has been credited by journalist Mona Eltahawy and others with helping to spark mass uprising through her video blog posted one week before the start of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
She is a prominent member of Egypt's Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !



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Reference

. Asmaa Mahfouz


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Haiku and Senryu


I, a girl,
am going down to Tahrir Square:
Asmaa Mahfouz

Chen-ou Liu

written for International Women's Day, March 8

Note:
Asmaa Mahfouz, 26 years old, is an Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, a group that played a key role in organizing the January 25th protests. In a video blog posted to Facebook on January 18, she called for people to protest in Tahrir Square on January 25th and demand their fundamental human rights. The video was uploaded to Youtube and went viral across Egypt within days. She has been credited by journalist Mona Eltahawy and many others with helping spark the Egyptian Uprising.

The following is an excerpt from
Asmaa Mahfouz's video transcript


Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire to protest humiliation and hunger and poverty and degradation they had to live with for 30 years. Four Egyptians have set themselves on fire thinking maybe we can have a revolution like Tunisia, maybe we can have freedom, justice, honor and human dignity. Today, one of these four has died, and I saw people commenting and saying,
"May God forgive him. He committed a sin and killed himself for nothing. "

People, have some shame.

I posted that I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone. And I'll hold up a banner . . .


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Related words

***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　

***** . Egypt 　

***** . International Woman's Day 　



***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Miyamoto Musashi

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Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵)

(c. 1584 – June 13 (Japanese calendar: May 19), 1645),
also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke, or by his Buddhist name Niten Dōraku, was a Japanese swordsman and samurai famed for his duels and distinctive style.



Musashi became renowned through stories of his excellent swordsmanship in numerous duels, even from a very young age. He was the founder of the
Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū or Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship fighting with two swords and
the author of The Book of Five Rings (五輪書, Go Rin No Sho), a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.

He grew up in Miyamoto village, in the Yoshino district of Mimasaka Province, now Okayama prefecture.
In Kyoto he fought many duels against the Yoshioka school.

From 1605 to 1612, he travelled extensively all over Japan in Musha Shugyo　武者修行, a warrior pilgrimage during which he honed his skills with duels.

In 1611, Musashi began practicing zazen at the Myoshinji Temple 妙心寺.



On April 13, 1612, Musashi fought his most famous duel with Sasaki Kojiro 佐々木小次郎, on the island of Funajima, in the Kamon Straight.

In 1622, Musashi's adoptive son, Miyamoto Mikinosuke, became a vassal to the Himeji Domain. In Yamagata he adopted a second son, Miyamoto Iori.

In 1633, Musashi began staying with Hosokawa Tadatoshi, daimyo of Kumamoto Castle.

In 1643 he retired to a cave named Reigando 霊巌洞 as a hermit and died there.

Musashi created and perfected a two-sword kenjutsu technique called niten'ichi (二天一, "two heavens as one") or nitōichi (二刀一, "two swords as one") or "Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu" .

Musashi was hailed as an extraordinary sumi-e artist in the use of ink monochrome as depicted in two such famous paintings:

"Shrike Perched in a Dead Tree" (Koboku Meigekizu, 枯木鳴鵙図)
and "Wild Geese Among Reeds" (Rozanzu, 魯山図).
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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The most famous hero fighting with two swords is maybe Miyamoto Musashi, who was subject of a yearlong TV series on NHK in 2003.

Musashi also painted Daruma san, see below.
Katana 日本刀 The Japanese Sword




. The Book of Five Rings (五輪書, Go Rin No Sho) 　　
Samurai Life in the Edo Period

The first book, Chi no Maki 地の巻 Book of the Earth

1.Do not think dishonestly and to adhere to the Way
よこしまになき事をおもふ所
2.The Way is to train
道の鍛錬する所

3.Have knowledge of every art
諸芸にさはる所
4.Know the Way of all professions
諸職の道を知る事

5.Know the difference between profit and loss in worldly matters
物毎の損得をわきまゆる事
6.Develop intuition and an understanding of all things
諸事目利を仕覚ゆる事

7.See that which cannot be seen
目に見えぬ所をさとつてしる事
8.Attend even to the seemingly insignificant
わづかなる事にも気を付くる事

(- - - and if you have mastered ALL of the above )

9.
Do nothing which is useless / 　“Do nothing that is of no use”
役にたゝぬ事をせざる事

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kan no me ken no me　観の目　見の目　
- the way of "seeing" things
kan-no-me is strong, ken-no-me is weak
- reference -


ukoo mukoo　有構無構　uko muko no oshie
The guard without a guard
- reference -


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. Musashi and Takuan Soho 沢庵 宗彭 　


. Hotei painted by Miyamoto Musashi 　
布袋見闘鶏図


. 狸谷山不動院 Tanukidaniyama Fudo Temple .
Musashi no taki 武蔵の滝 Miyamoto Musashi Waterfall





枯木鳴鵙図 (こぼくめいげきず) koboku meigeki zu


枯朶に烏のとまりけり秋の暮
kara eda ni karasu no tomari keri aki no kure

Matsuo Basho

a crow is perched
on a barren branch -
this autumn evening 　
Tr. Gabi Greve 　


Musashi actually painted a 鵙, mozu, a (bull-headed) shrike; a butcher-bird.
also you find this as the title:
“Kingfisher Perched on a Withered Branch”


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Reference

. Miyamoto Musashi .


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source : collections.lacma.org

Miyamoto Musashi Slashing a Tengu
Alternate Title: 宮本無三四
by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839 - 1892)


. Musashi and the Tenku of Fukuoka .
- Musō Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi 夢想權之助勝吉 Muso Gonnosuke fighting two duels with Musashi
- Tengu Geijutson　天狗芸術論 The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts　


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Haiku and Senryu



宮本武蔵　蘆葉達磨図


wielding his sword
wielding his brush
wielding his life

Gabi Greve, August 2004


Musashi is really a good guide to Japanese Culture.
He was born in the old Sakushu province, close to my home now in Okayama prefecture !

And his lady-friend was called O-Tsu　お津, like my cat.
Or should I say, my cat was called after her !

Last year NHK state television had a yearlong once a week program about Musashi and his times, and since my cat was born that year she got that name.
(we wanted a Takezoo, the boys name of Musashi, but the stray kitten turned out to be a SHE)
As you know, her son is HAIKU Kun.

Discussion about Musashi Paintings
cherrypoetryclub


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glimmering swords ...
the calligraphy of Musashi
in the setting sun

Don Baird



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Related words

***** . Musashibo Benkei 武蔵坊弁慶 　　


***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　



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Levy, Hideo

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Ian Hideo Levy
リービ 英雄, Rībi Hideo

November 29, 1950 -

American born-Japanese Language author. He was born in California and educated in Taiwan, America, and Japan.

His English translation of the Man'yōshū won him the National Book Award in 1982.

He gained attention in Japan for his work Seijōki no Kikoenai Heya published in 1992, which won the Noma Literary Award for New Writers. He is one of the first Americans to write modern literature in Japanese. For his contributions to the introduction of Japanese literature to foreign readers he was awarded The Japan Foundation Special Prize for Japanese Language in 2007.

In 1996 his story Tiananmen was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize.

我的中国 Wareteki chuugoku

©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !





我的日本語 The World in Japanese


Hitomaro and the Birth of Japanese Lyricism

The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of the Man Yoshu, Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry

万葉恋歌Love Songs from the Man'yoshu

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A ROOM FOR WRITING JAPANESE
January 2001

Speaking English as his native language, exposed to Chinese at an early age and later Japanese, Hideo Levy made the excruciating decision to write in Japanese. Levy challenges the notion that the Japanese language belongs exclusively to people born Japanese. A foreigner writing in Japanese goes against the cherished concept of “homogeneity” and disproves the myth that nationality, race, language, and culture are one and the same. By eliminating the racial provisions of the Japanese language while still affirming its unique sensibility developed over 1,300 years, Levy explores new possibilities for Japanese, not as communicative discourse but as a literary language, in a time when Westerners are still perceived as being unable to speak Japanese. A foreigner who writes and reads Japanese still bewilders many Japanese people.

This book is a collection of fresh and vivid essays by an Japan's first Western-born novelist writing in Japanese. These essays share Levy's intimate experiences with the Japanese language and discuss the concept of transcending boundaries. By challenging the easy relationship between reader and writer, Levy's essays are a must read in Japanese literature today. Levy has no peers in world fiction as a writer who has crossed cultural and linguistic borders from the Western to the non-Western world.

About the Author
Born in the United States in 1950, Hideo Levy spent his childhood in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Moving to Japan in 1967, he has since traveled back and forth between Japan and the United States, earning his doctorate in Japanese Literature at Princeton University. He worked as a professor of Japanese literature at Princeton and at Stanford University. In 1982, Levy received the National Book Award for his English translation of Manyoshu (The Ten Thousand Leaves). But he left his roles as a professor and Japanologist just before his 40th birthday and relocated to Tokyo with the intention of living there permanently.

He has written exclusively in Japanese since that time. His first novel, A Room Where the “Star-Spangled Banner” Cannot Be Heard, received great acclaim as the first work of modern Japanese literature written by a Westerner. Published by Kodansha, this novel about an American boy who runs away from home won the 14th Noma Literary Award for New Writers.

Levy attracted greater attention in 1996, when his Tiananmen was nominated for the Akutagawa Award. His works include The Victory of Japanese; Identities; Songs of the People; The Shinjuku Manyoshu; and Last Trip to the Border.
source : www.iwanami.co.jp


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Reference

. Hideo Levy .


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Haiku and Senryu


Riibi san -
Japanese language life
with your touch

Gabi Greve


(I heared him talk in a TV program about haiku in January 2011.)


*****************************
Related words

***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Li Po, Li Bo

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Li Po, Li Bo, Li Bai




Chinese: 李白, lived 701 – 762

also known in the West by various other transliterations, especially
Li Po, or Li Bai, is a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


Ri Haku り‐はく【李白】"Plum White" meaning of the Characters

Matsuo Basho choose his pen name toosei 桃青 Tosei, "Peach Green", out of respect for his favorite Chinese poet.
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .





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Reference

. Li Po, Li Bo .


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Waterfall at Lu-shan

Sunlight streams on the river stones.
From high above, the river steadily plunges--

three thousand feet of sparkling water--
the Milky Way pouring down from heaven.

Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil




The Cold Clear Spring At Nanyang

A pity it is evening, yet
I do love the water of this spring
seeing how clear it is, how clean;
rays of sunset gleam on it,
lighting up its ripples, making it
one with those who travel
the roads; I turn and face
the moon; sing it a song, then
listen to the sound of the wind
amongst the pines.



Spring Night in Lo-yang Hearing a Flute

In what house, the jade flute
that sends these dark notes drifting,
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang?
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
who could help but long for the gardens of home?



Self-Abandonment

I sat drinking and did not notice the dusk,
Till falling petals filled the folds of my dress.
Drunken I rose and walked to the moonlit stream;
The birds were gone, and men also few.
tr. Waley
source : Daruma Museum Forum


Unter dem Vollmond
einsam zechend (I)

Im Blütendickicht und voll Wein der Krug.
Einsames Zechen, denn es fehlt ein Freund.
Ich heb den Becher: wink herbei den Mond.
Mit meinem Schatten sind nun drei vereint.

Und kann der Mond auch seinen Durst nicht löschen,
Folgt mir der Schatten doch im Augenblick.
Hab ich den Mond, den Schatten als Gefährten,
Gleicht dieser heitren Frühlingsnacht mein Glück.

Ich sing ein Lied, da schwingt der Mond im Kreise;
Ich tanze, daß der Schatten wirbelnd springt.
Noch bin ich nüchtern, und wir sind beisammen.
Dann kommt der Rausch, der uns die Trennung bringt.

Könnt ich mit dir, der Dinge ledig, wandern,
In Ewigkeit, vom Sternenglanz umringt.
(Übertragen von Günther Debon)



Drinking alone
with the moon

An arbour of flowers and a kettle of wine:
Alas! in the bowers no companion is mine.
Then the moon sheds her rays on my goblet and me,
And my shadow betrays we're a party of three!

Though the moon cannot swallow her share of the grog
And my shadow must follow wherever I jog,
Yet their friendship I'll borrow and gaily carouse,
And laugh away sorrow while springtime allows.

See the moon - how she glances response to my song;
See my shadow - it dances so lightly along!
While sober I feel, you are both my good friends;
When drunken I reel, our companionship ends.

But we'll soon have a greeting without a goodbye,
At our next merry meeting away in the sky.
(Transl. by Herbert A. Giles)


We Three

One pot of wine amid the Flowers
Alone I pour, and none with me.
The cup I lift; the Moon invite;
Who with my shadow makes us three.

The moon then drinks without a pause.
The shadow does what I begin.
The shadow, Moon and I in fere
Rejoice until the spring come in.

I sing: and wavers time the moon.
I dance: the shadow antics too.
Our joys we share while sober still.
When drunk, we part and bid adieu.
Of loveless outing this the pact,
Which we all swear to keep for aye.

The next time that we meet shall be
Beside you distant milky way.
(Transl. by Arthur Waley, 1919)

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/LIBAI2.RXML


Guenther Debon
was my professor for Chinese Language at Heidelberg Universtity.

I am grateful to have the chance to introduce him to you here.

Günther Debon - Wikipedia

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They ask me why I live in the green mountains.
I smile and don't reply; my heart's at ease.
Peach blossoms flow downstream, leaving no trace
- And there are other earths and skies than these.


. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! 　　


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Ri Haku Sake from Shimane, Japan
Cheers, Li Po san.

島根県松江市 李白酒造


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BRIGHT MOON, WHITE CLOUDS
Selected Poems of Li Po,
edited and translated by J.P. Seaton. Shambhala, 2012

Li Po (701-762), who is also sometimes known by other names such as Li Bai, is held to be one of the very greatest Chinese poets, from the golden age of poetry in the Tang dynasty. Not much is known about his life, though J.P. Seaton makes the best of what there is in a jocular introduction. Born in a remote area, somewhere on the borderlands of China, Li Po traveled a good deal, enjoyed distinguished company and patronage, including that of the emperor, and experienced some dramatic reverses. Famously, he drank a lot as well.

The classic story about the poet's death is that he fell into a pond and drowned trying to embrace the moon while he was drunk. He is often paired with the other great poet of the age, Tu Fu (712-770), with whom he was on friendly terms. Li Po cuts a more colorful and romantic figure, though some critics consider Tu Fu to have been more influential. There are some poems from Li Po addressed to his friend included here.

Arthur Waley, whom Seaton mentions in his account of Li Po's life, was one of the earliest to suggest that Chinese poetry was more about friendship than romantic love. Where the first section of five in the book is mostly about drinking, the second contains many poems about parting from friends, particularly other poets. Like Waley, Seaton renders the poems into English in unrhymed and fairly lucid versions. Sometimes he produces elegant lines, such as this sort of stretched alexandrine: "Of what there is that may give joy I bid you take, and taste."

If Li Po saw himself as "a Taoist Immortal banished from Heaven," Seaton updates him for modern times with references to Robin Hood and Timothy Leary. As a scholar of Chinese he is able to explain many things about the poems in the notes that follow, including the approach that he has taken to translation. His use of italics for stress, even in the poems, is a little irritating sometimes, but his versions of the poet are much better than the other two I have on my shelves.
By DAVID BURLEIGH
source :　Japan Times, October 2012





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Haiku and Senryu


盃に 三つの名を飲む 今宵かな

with a sake cup
I drink to the three names
this fine evening

Matsuo Basho drinking with Li Po !



ryuumon no hana ya
joogo no tsuto ni sen
Basho drinking sake at the Dragongate Falls in Nara
奈良県吉野町大字平尾龍門瀧


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"As an individual, Li Po was free-spirited. He took an unusual path in life and career. Well-traveled at a young age, he didn’t bother to take the Chinese civil service examination which was viewed as the only way to elevate one’s social status and guarantee their prosperity. He dared to challenge authority, and loved a good bottle of wine and making friends. His nonconformist personality characteristics continue to stand as a model for me to emulate.

As a poet, Li Po is one of the most loved Chinese poets and his poems are widely taught in schools, memorized by children, and constantly recited on all sorts of occasions. The first poem I ever memorized was his “Thoughts in Night Quiet,” the best known of all Chinese poems, especially among Chinese living overseas:

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,
and thinking it's frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,
then back, dreaming of my old home.
-- translated by David Hinton

When I was six, my father recited this poem to me with watery eyes. At that time, he hadn’t seen his family for two decades since he came to Taiwan in 1949, with the defeated Chinese Nationalist Army. I memorized the poem and didn’t fully reflect upon its meaning in my heart and mind. Little was understood about the suffering endured by my father and his generation due to the Chinese Civil War. It was not until the seventh year since I emigrated to Canada that I’d experienced this pang of nostalgic longing explored in Li’s poem through the moon imagery – a symbol of distance and family reunion – portrayed in simple and evocative language. Since then, every time when I thought of my parents, my family, and my hometown, I recited “Thoughts in Night Quiet,” which is not only Li’s poem but also mine.

More importantly, some of the recurring themes in Li’s poems appeal greatly to me, such as dreams, solitude/loneliness, and the passage of time, and they become the key motifs of my work. His skillful use of language, his great sensibility toward imagery, and his deep insights into the human condition through a Taoist lens capture nuanced human experience, which is the main goal I want to achieve in my writing."


autumn moonlight
slips into the attic window . . .
thinking of Li Po

Chen-ou Liu, Canada

Moon and related kigo


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moonlit night
reading between the lines
of Li Po's poem

This haiku alludes to one of Li Po's most famous poems,
Drinking Alone in the Moonlight.

For further information, read
. . . Li Bai drinking alone
"Li Bai drinking alone (with the moon, his shadow, & 42 translators)".

Chen-ou Liu



*****************************
Related words

***** ***** Personal Names used in Haiku
Introduction　


Du Fu, Tu Fu
杜甫


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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