Word: ancient
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...lead sentence in your article "Wooden Priests, Painted Dragons" [Jan. 17] says, "In ancient China, wood was classified as an element, along with air, fire, water and earth." The "five categories" of China are metal, wood, water, fire, earth. Air is not one of the five. Fire, air, water and earth are the four elements of the Greek thinkers. The five categories form an endless cycle: wood giving birth to fire, fire to earth, earth to metal, metal to water, and water to wood again...
...ancient mariners, polar residents and all other serious outdoorsmen know well, simply heaping on clothes brings on the sweats-and the sweat can swiftly freeze. The best bottom-line investment (for about $18) is a thermal -meaning it traps the air-underwear with an inner lining of moisture-absorbent cotton topped with wool, cotton and nylon. On top the urban survivor wears a flannel shirt, a cashmere sweater or a goose-down vest, a tweed jacket, a muffler, mittens (which allow fingers to warm each other) and a heavy overcoat. On the assumption that the 8:30 a.m. train...
...human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?" So wrote Dante 600 years ago. Even in his age, the idea of individual flight was an ancient desire. Today no fantasy remains more universal than that of the airborne human, riding updrafts like a bird. Most people restrict their air travel to those steelbound auditoriums shuttling back and forth between continents or coasts, an experience that comes no closer to free flight than watching a rerun of Twelve O'Clock High. But as British Science Writer Peter Haining relates in his delightful chronicle...
...imporivsation directed by guest choreographer Aileen Passloff, are simple as well: huddling in a mass, journeying in a chain of linked arms, imitating birds and horses and animal-demons. Yet the logic of how one section plays off against the next is puzzling. What sort of beings are these--ancient creatures, spirits, dream images? It's easy to scoff at program notes that read, "In a sense it's a journey into ourselves"--until you lie awake recalling the shaman's grimacing trance-like stare...
Aristophanes' The Clouds, to be presented at Winthrop House in mid-April may finally persuade you that the ancient Greeks were not made of marble. As raunchy and satirical as any modern extravaganza, the play treats Socrates unmercifully. You might want to lasso a fiver into attending it with you, but most of the humor needs no exegesis...