Sorry I've figured it out. It is because a syntax error
The correct syntax is like this: (the single quotation)
curl -H "Authorization: Session 7b3337b8-1565-4faa-9257-4fbad48d7fb3_29110789" https://apie1.clarizen.com/v2.0/services/data/query -d "{q:'select name,CreatedOn,SYSID,project from task order by CreatedOn desc'}"
I got the hint from this post. Eyal posted 8 years ago!
keep on trying the upsert though.
regards
still