top of page
IMG_0619.HEIC

23 Chunks of Being:

Gregory Grieve’s Experiments in Transmitting Pure actuality

Screen Shot 2022-08-28 at 1.27.21 PM.png
IMG_0619.HEIC
Screen Shot 2022-08-28 at 1.14.51 PM.png
Screen Shot 2022-10-11 at 1.41.18 PM.png

5a. Hundredletter Thunderword
Ink on paper 

Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated

     — James Joyce

These are sketches for a future project, and Grieve had not intended these two pieces to be part of the exhibit. During the curation period, however, it was strongly suggested to him that he include them. Both images blend Japanese motifs with cephalopods. The first Hundredletter Thunderword fuses octopus-imagery with the Anime concept of moe (萌え). Coming from the Japanese word for "budding"(moeru [萌える]), moe describes a character (usually young and female) who elicits feelings of affection or lust. Moe characters often play to a particular fetish but focus on being “cute” rather than overtly sexual. Grieve attempted to blend moe with James Joyce’s “Hundredletter Thunderwords” from the novel Finnegans Wake. There are ten thunderwords in the Wake, the first nine are 100 letters long, the last 101. While they are aurally constructed to sound like thunder, they are not purely onomatopoetic words: they are assembled out of words or parts of words. Often it is said the thunderwords mark epochal moments in the dream. The Canadian media scholar, Marshall McLuhan, thought that each word was a cryptogram or codified explanation of the thundering and reverberating consequences of the major technological changes in all human history. Grieve sees Joyces thunderwords as attempts to communicate pure actuality.

Screen Shot 2022-08-28 at 1.14.51 PM.png

5b. A Dry Shit Stick (乾屎橛) (2018)
Ink on paper 

The image of the two monks is Grieve’s second attempt to fuse a Japanese theme with cephalopods. In this case, it is mono no aware, the “pathos of things” a feeling derived from being aware of an object’s transience and everydayness. In classic Japanese poetry, the “pathos of things” describes the feeling of being aware by the plaintive calls of birds or other animals, or the sound of temple bells which echoes the impermanence of all things. The most frequently cited example of mono no aware is the love of cherry blossoms, which are intrinsically no more beautiful than those of, say, the pear or the apple tree, but they are more highly valued because of their transience since they usually begin to fall within a week of their first appearing. It is precisely the evanescence of their beauty that evokes the wistful feeling of mono no aware in the viewer. Grieve alludes to “Case 2” from The Gateless Gate, a collection of 48 Zen koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Huikai. A “shit stick” is a thin stake or stick used instead of toilet paper for anal hygiene and was a historical item of material culture introduced through Chinese Buddhism to Japan. Rōshi Robert Aitken explains "dried shitstick" as "a soft stick that was used the way our ancestors used a corncob in their outhouses.” The American beat writer, Jack Kérouac, paraphrased this sentiment as “The Buddha is a dried piece of turd.” Case 21 states:  “A monk asked Unmon‚ ‘What is Buddha?’ Unmon answered‚ a ‘Dried shit stick.’” To which Mumon Comments, “Lightning flashes, Sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes. You have missed seeing.”

Screen Shot 2022-08-28 at 1.14.51 PM.png
Screen Shot 2022-10-11 at 1.44.39 PM.png
bottom of page