Luban Lu 魯班路 | June 3, 2019
One text says hundun 混沌 – tumultuous chaos – gives rise to form if you treat her right; an older one says fear men who want to treat you right
ZZ says “depressed” when I ask how it’s going and “this war” as to why and “oh, the trade war” when asked “which war”?
ZZ runs an AMZN AI lab, ZZ is friends with poets from the ’80s 文化热 culture fever days, ZZ knows poetry & history & code
ZZ is on university leave to devise AI solutions that will drive innovation & growth for retailers & service providers & clients of all kinds
ZZ asks whether students care about what we teach because everything’s falling apart: Do Chinese freshmen care about the humanities?
I say “Diogenes the Cynic” & “cosmopolitan” & “mindfulness” & “neuroscience” & “soft authoritarianism” & “Buddha” & “climate change”
ZZ says, “they should take that global society class when they’re seniors and know something. How about your poetry?” I show him my iPhone screen
It’s June 3, 2019, cool & cloudy, global atmospheric CO2 at 415 PPM, as we surveil & are surveilled: ZZ pulls up a WeChat I Ching mini-program
This is all predictable, given enough time, data & material: ZZ generates Zhun 屯 with his I Ching app. Zhun 屯: “Difficult Birth” (Minford)
Zhun 屯: “Birth Throe” (Hinton); “Beginning” (Huang); “Difficulty at the Beginning“ (Wilhelm), and I do indeed struggle with these lines
Yet with time enough to wander, I take the Metro to Luban Lu; I learn: Lǔbān 魯班 is the god of builders and contractors, I learn online:
Lǔbān, god of carpentry and masonry, invented the saw, the square, the planer, the drill, the shovel, the cloud ladder (for sieges), grappling hooks
Lǔbān, god of builders and contractors, invented a naval battering ram, a flying wooden bird, a wooden bicycle, and his wife invented the umbrella
Lǔbān, god of carpentry and masonry, was a bad student in the state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period preceding the Warring States
ZZ asks whether students care about what we teach because everything’s falling apart; Zixia set Lǔbān straight with the Shijing and Zhouyi, they say
A gate leads to a lane to a gate to a complex: A hospital through whose halls the old pass like Metro ads, aquarium fish, Candy Crush tiles in Dreamworld
Question: ZZ, how are things going with the AI?
Go to: Luban Lu 魯班路
WeChat app: 屯 Zhen LRLLLR
Date of walk: June 3, 2019