Scorpions & Lizards
There is an ancient tale which explains the nature of things. The Scorpion and the Frog is a recent version. But the fable's story tracks back much further to a scorpion and a turtle (a tortoise which specialises in water).click on images to go to source
This cautionary parable has been the inspiration of many other stories. In the well known movie Natural Born Killers (1994), which uses the tale to question modern USA culture with a Dante journey of Post-Modernist montaged mayhem and chaos; about 2:07 minutes into the astonishing opening scene the script advises as follows:
EXT. NEW MEXICO DESERT HIGHWAY - DAY (PRESENT)
A black scorpion crawls towards us on hot tarmac. The sound of an approaching PICKUP. A tire crushes the life from the scorpion, CAMERA rising from it to reveal a desolate DINER in the middle of nowhere.
An unforgettable iconic image which cues the rest of the film's ethos of utter moral futility in the face of scientific realism's displacement of a God myth to live in; considering such a notion as merely a fairytale; simply a fabulous allegory from humanity's kindergarten Elysium.
We could ku that scorpion squish scene [ 2:07 ] thus:
New Mexico heat —
the wheel of a pick-up truck
crushes a scorpion
jp
Not a particularly outstanding ku, minus the motion picture's graphic context; more an Imagist snapshot than a haiku/senryu. However, with a little more motivation and transfer to a more topical theme five years after Natural Born Killers was released we have (quoted from: Haiku — Take Five Brilliant Corners, Frogpond 32.3 • 2009)
Depth in haiku may be about war or death, as in this memorable haiku by Dimitar Anakiev, 12
spring evening —
the wheel of a troop carrier
crushes a lizard
Haiku must evoke something intimate in the reader — not just intimate, but phenomenologically unique, embodying ecos (consciousness and world) and oikos (home). For myself, the taste of this haiku is complex, but not abstract —yet the paradox of that mechanized abstraction is a universal call to the pain of those survivors who are also victims, those who must live in memory, harboring the ghosts of the unlived. This too is lineage. Dimitar, I know you doctored at the war front. There’s a monograph on depth psychology that discusses the topic of uniqueness, Egalitarian Typologies Versus the Perception of the Unique.13 It is my hope that in the next five years of haiku, new poems and poets will take up this complex multicultural music.
12 Dimitar Anakiev in Knots: The Anthology of Southeastern European Haiku Poetry, Prijatelj Press, Tolmin Slovenia (1999).
BACKSTORY
Dimitar Anakiev (aka Kame San), among other things, is a film buff (moreover, according to his bio, "an independent filmmaker, writer and poet"). The transposition from the famous movie scene into a haiku was done by adding a seasonal reference by direct naming (not a kigo as such). Then, the pick-up was replaced by a troop carrier and the scorpion became a lizard. No doubt a regional situation was on the author's mind. Dimitir is an unusual character. He pens his versions of global haiku in a style which may baffle many who lean towards the classical model (hokku - particularly as revised and crafted into a sublime literary art form by Matsuo Basho and his school). Anakiev expounds his, somewhat unusual, unilateral aesthetic theories under the haiku nom de plume (pen name; a haiku writers pseudonym, aka haigo) of Kame San:
And so, a movie symbol transmitted an
ancient tale and a haiku came to pass...
REVIEW (1)
"That's a straight lift of a famous vignette [2:07 on video clip above] out of Natural Born Killers; the opening scene where a scorpion gets run over by a truck (camera at road level) full of cowboys, who then get killed by the Bonnie & Clyde type psycho couple, who then go on to create mayhem across the nation as media stars of Neo-Babylon. In Anakiev's templated pastiche, the weak (banal) "spring evening" is tagged at line-1 to frame and technically validate a 'haiku' and, presumably, contrast the season of burgeoning life (as the sun goes down) with death. The pick-up truck becomes a "troop carrier" and the scorpion becomes a "lizard". A literary ku using a found object ? A honkodori (Japanese aesthetic concept which allows reference to a prior cultural product) ? Plagiarised movie icon ? (Take your pick.)" - jp
To be fair and by way of comparison, George Swede also uses this furtive technique to beg, steal or borrow (again, you name it) a classic film icon's subliminal oomph. Here's a scene hijinxed out of From Here To Eternity and morphed into a ku, then into a haiga (the latter by kuni_san): almost unseen
among the tangled driftwood
naked lovers
- George Swede
REVIEW (2)
So, here we have a classic movie icon again transformed into the original image's subtextual ephemeral metaphor and re-worked (another part being surf's passion cliché, so often used by silver screens in more cautious times). With George's usage, it must be said, we have a little more artfulness and heart employed in his Hollywood remake; compared and contrasted with Dimitir's, more or less mechanical, intellectual transposition. Overall, both micropoems carry the whiff of ex-factory showroom models. In other words, transparently contrived. - jp
Interestingly, Mad Magazine spoofed this same movie (1954) and turned the classic beach scene into two entangled skellingtons (presumably to satirize eternal love). Perhaps an auxiliary source for Swede's muse.
POSTSCRIPT
In conclusion. Who can say the right or the wrong of it?
Like the appetising, or not, smell of fish. Perhaps it's just
a case of misplaced soil. (At a pinch.)
AS THEY TURN UP EXAMPLES OF THIS DEBATABLE TECHNIQUE WILL BE POSTED FOR PUBLIC APPRAISAL
trailing venus . . .
the harley's rumble
at midnight
Don Baird
"Another ku simulation technique is to rip off icons from the movies." - jp
Sample more of what some refer to as garakuta-haiku (junk haiku) here and a related item here.
Japanese to English Dictionary
"garakuta" garbage, jumble, odds and ends
jp
© 23-08-12
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