A few Sundays ago, I bought a book entitled "Love Letters of Great Men and Women", edited by Ursula Doyle and inspired by Sex and the City. The book is divided in two parts: first, love letters of great man, from Pliny the Younger to his wife Calpurnia to the letters by Chesterton to Frances Blogg; second, love letters of great women, from Katherine of Aragon to Henry the Eight, to the letters by Rosa Luxemburg to Leo Jogiches. I intendly looked for any sign of Spaniards, but there wasn't any.
Then, it came the turn of Jonhson's Heroes, but I could not find any Spaniards among the chapters.
The fact that Anglosaxon do not find any Spaniard capable of loving or carrying deeds to the fullest, at least to the extend of contribute to a overall anthology, get me dumbfound and upset. Obviously, Don Quixote belongs to fiction. The conquest and build of an Empire in 50 years do not count. The reality of my parents being married and loving to each other, as the majority of people of their generation, for 40 years, whilst European contemporaries do get married and divorce almost simultaneously, do not bear any recognition. Nor even Juana, la Loca, for Christ's sake.
Only two Spaniards Paul Johnson met and did write something about in his Brief Lives: Franco and Picasso. The judgement is, interestingly, opposite to the general understanding, as the balance is favorable to Franco and against Picasso.
This is what Johnson writes about Picasso: he "was probable the most evil man I ever actually came across. (...) While he was painting Guernica, two of his women, whom he had deliberately set upon each other, were fighting on the floor of his studio, to his delight. He (...) did more harm to art than all the Goths and Vandals, the Puritan iconoclasts and the totalitarian thugs combined".
However, Franco "ruled Spain for longer than anyone else in her history, and during a period of the greatest difficulty. (...) He must be accounted, overall, as one of the most successful politicians of the century". Johnson met Franco in 1950 when he was in the British Army, destined in Gibraltar, and Franco said to him: "I want to create a large middle class, as you have in England. Then we will have a tranquil state in which democracy can work".
One of the remarks Johnson makes about Franco is he being extraordinarily eccentric. For example, he wrote letters to the Daily Telegraph (a much kind press towards Johnson) and sign them Thomas Babington Macaulay. Apparently, Franco admire sense of humor the most about the English.
It would be great to have access to such letters! Does anyone have it or know how?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Monday, January 31, 2011
Siddhartha, a book for a life
I have just finished Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, in a 2006 edition by Modern Library. The translation in to English is new, by Susan Bernofsky. She and Tom Robbins, who prologues the edition, both, write a few-pages comment on Siddhartha, which leave me in surprise _it seems like they and I have read a different book.
To begin with, I don't understand Bernofsky's reference to the First World War. Hesse might have started writing Siddhartha in 1919, one year after the great conflagration finished, but I don't find any trace or major influence of it in the story. I mean, if someone tells me that Siddhartha was written in 1912, I'd believe it; if in 1929 or in 1946, the year Hesse was awarded the Noble Prize, I'd believe it. If the war had any influence, whatsoever, Siddhartha seems to represent just the opposite: a black-out topic to forget about it.
As for the psychoanalysis, Siddhartha's dream of the dead Kamala's songbird (it is a beautiful part of the story) is a prophetic one, which relates not with the sort of psychoanalysis dreams rooted in the past experiences of individuals.
When Siddhartha was published in 1922, Hermann Hesse had walked a good deal in life. He had already written several books of poems and a few novels; had held several jobs; had divorced his first wife and started a relationship with someone much younger than him; had undertaken the first trip to the East Indies; had suffered a nervous breakdown and undergone psychoanalysis; had done "relief work for German internees and prisoners of war" and lived later in the remote, mountain town of Montagnola, Switzerland; had consumed mescaline. Far, far away remained at that time the memories of his childhood naughtiness, perhaps portrayed in his explorations of young boys turning rebels (Beneath the Wheel, 1906; Demian, 1919).
However, Robbins and Bernofsky, looked mainly at young Siddhartha, as if the story was about that: a young rebel searching and thinking for himself. Robbins is, from my point of view, unfocused and astray in his analysis. For him, Siddhartha's journey "may be plotted indeed as a long succession of jettisoned doctrines and renounced dogmas" and would be erroneous to compare it with that of Larry Darrell in W. S. Maugham's The Razor's Edge just because of the different backgrounds and attitudes of both young boys. Well, I disagree deeply: Siddhartha is much more; Siddhartha is not this at all.
On her side, Bernofsky states: "Siddhartha, then, (...) represented an escape to a world in which a boy could grow up untouched by strife (...)". Untouched by strife! Wow, Siddhartha is all about striving in life. And "Siddhartha is a child of his time, a fin de siecle youth who has put on a loincloth and monk's robe (...)". Well, indeed, I wonder in wonder: how someone who has translated the whole story can make such incomplete and untrue remarks.
The characters in Siddhartha are always searching, always in motion, on a quest. They start when very young, but continue all through their lives and senility. In the last chapter, Govinda and Siddhartha, two old men, chat. Within the last ten pages of the story Govinda says: "Indeed, I am old, but I have not stopped searching. Never will I cease to search; this seems to be my destiny (...)". Siddhartha, of course, participates in this always being seeking, even when his hair has become gray. Everything that happens to him is important, he learns from everything: "A beautiful courtesan was my teacher for a long time, and a wealthy merchant was my teacher; and a few dice players. Once, even an itinerant disciple of the Buddha was my teacher. (...) From him, as well, I learned. (...) Most of all, however, I learned here, from this river, and from my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva (...)". From here, thus, I don't think "Siddhartha takes a detour through the pleasure lands of flesh and fermentation before moving on to more refined ground", as Robbins states in his introduction.
Siddhartha is a book for life, a humble recognition of our human nature in the whole, immutable eternity. Human beings go and come, live, love, hate, suffer, desire in an stoppable chain through the ages, a chain immutable and, at the same time, new from generation to generation. It is the continuous flowing of a river, Heraclitus' river, in the Greek, western philosophy. "All become the river, all of them striving as river to reach their goal, longingly, eagerly, suffering, and the river's voice rang out full of longing, full of burning sorrow, full of unquenchable desire". The flowing river is the symbol of the flowing of life, the eternal sounds of life, the eternal Om. This idea, this feeling of being flowing with the current of an eternal river that seems to be changing and the same at each instant, impossible to grasp or comprehend is indeed the meaning of the universal world religio, re-ligare. We come and go, appear and vanish, but life is always flowing, always there. A religion is the tie between our human condition and the eternal immutability-renovation of life.
All religions can be simplified by doctrines, no matter which one, all of them actually are. It occurs any time we cease to listen to the river, to the flow of life, when the om is silenced. And however, it is through listening to the river how Siddhartha saves his life and finds what he is looking for: peace and content and a still smile in his face, an impressive gait... At the end of his time, being old.
The quest expands, then, much farther than during the rebel years of the youth, far, far into the years of life. In addition, the sufferings of Siddhartha are certainly not the sufferings of the young. He is ready to commit suicide after the blooming of his time, after he has become rich, successful, after many years of weariness, once it seems that "there was nothing left in the world that could console him, give him pleasure", after having experienced the turbulence of sex-love of a woman, after all this. Kamala, the once most beautiful woman, with lips like "a fig parted in two", die because of the bite of a snake, in the very same bed where Vasudeva, the ferryman, lost his wife. Siddhartha is left with a spoiled and heartless boy, who runs away from him. The suffering of a father being rejected, despised, hurt and abandoned by his son is a terrible sorrow, not apt for youngsters against the bourgeois society! Siddhartha is a well matured individual, going through the ordeal of life.
Despite the love and appraisal the book has enjoyed from loose generations of young Europeans, incomparable since Goethe's Werther, Siddhartha is not, thus, a book for the young, but for the adult, and the older and beaten you are by the tidal waves of life, the better you will appreciate Hesse's beautiful story and poetic writing, all the emotions and feelings lying within its pages. Perhaps, Siddhartha is a book to read every 5 years.
Unlike knowledge, life is an initiation voyage.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
To begin with, I don't understand Bernofsky's reference to the First World War. Hesse might have started writing Siddhartha in 1919, one year after the great conflagration finished, but I don't find any trace or major influence of it in the story. I mean, if someone tells me that Siddhartha was written in 1912, I'd believe it; if in 1929 or in 1946, the year Hesse was awarded the Noble Prize, I'd believe it. If the war had any influence, whatsoever, Siddhartha seems to represent just the opposite: a black-out topic to forget about it.
As for the psychoanalysis, Siddhartha's dream of the dead Kamala's songbird (it is a beautiful part of the story) is a prophetic one, which relates not with the sort of psychoanalysis dreams rooted in the past experiences of individuals.
When Siddhartha was published in 1922, Hermann Hesse had walked a good deal in life. He had already written several books of poems and a few novels; had held several jobs; had divorced his first wife and started a relationship with someone much younger than him; had undertaken the first trip to the East Indies; had suffered a nervous breakdown and undergone psychoanalysis; had done "relief work for German internees and prisoners of war" and lived later in the remote, mountain town of Montagnola, Switzerland; had consumed mescaline. Far, far away remained at that time the memories of his childhood naughtiness, perhaps portrayed in his explorations of young boys turning rebels (Beneath the Wheel, 1906; Demian, 1919).
However, Robbins and Bernofsky, looked mainly at young Siddhartha, as if the story was about that: a young rebel searching and thinking for himself. Robbins is, from my point of view, unfocused and astray in his analysis. For him, Siddhartha's journey "may be plotted indeed as a long succession of jettisoned doctrines and renounced dogmas" and would be erroneous to compare it with that of Larry Darrell in W. S. Maugham's The Razor's Edge just because of the different backgrounds and attitudes of both young boys. Well, I disagree deeply: Siddhartha is much more; Siddhartha is not this at all.
On her side, Bernofsky states: "Siddhartha, then, (...) represented an escape to a world in which a boy could grow up untouched by strife (...)". Untouched by strife! Wow, Siddhartha is all about striving in life. And "Siddhartha is a child of his time, a fin de siecle youth who has put on a loincloth and monk's robe (...)". Well, indeed, I wonder in wonder: how someone who has translated the whole story can make such incomplete and untrue remarks.
The characters in Siddhartha are always searching, always in motion, on a quest. They start when very young, but continue all through their lives and senility. In the last chapter, Govinda and Siddhartha, two old men, chat. Within the last ten pages of the story Govinda says: "Indeed, I am old, but I have not stopped searching. Never will I cease to search; this seems to be my destiny (...)". Siddhartha, of course, participates in this always being seeking, even when his hair has become gray. Everything that happens to him is important, he learns from everything: "A beautiful courtesan was my teacher for a long time, and a wealthy merchant was my teacher; and a few dice players. Once, even an itinerant disciple of the Buddha was my teacher. (...) From him, as well, I learned. (...) Most of all, however, I learned here, from this river, and from my predecessor, the ferryman Vasudeva (...)". From here, thus, I don't think "Siddhartha takes a detour through the pleasure lands of flesh and fermentation before moving on to more refined ground", as Robbins states in his introduction.
Siddhartha is a book for life, a humble recognition of our human nature in the whole, immutable eternity. Human beings go and come, live, love, hate, suffer, desire in an stoppable chain through the ages, a chain immutable and, at the same time, new from generation to generation. It is the continuous flowing of a river, Heraclitus' river, in the Greek, western philosophy. "All become the river, all of them striving as river to reach their goal, longingly, eagerly, suffering, and the river's voice rang out full of longing, full of burning sorrow, full of unquenchable desire". The flowing river is the symbol of the flowing of life, the eternal sounds of life, the eternal Om. This idea, this feeling of being flowing with the current of an eternal river that seems to be changing and the same at each instant, impossible to grasp or comprehend is indeed the meaning of the universal world religio, re-ligare. We come and go, appear and vanish, but life is always flowing, always there. A religion is the tie between our human condition and the eternal immutability-renovation of life.
All religions can be simplified by doctrines, no matter which one, all of them actually are. It occurs any time we cease to listen to the river, to the flow of life, when the om is silenced. And however, it is through listening to the river how Siddhartha saves his life and finds what he is looking for: peace and content and a still smile in his face, an impressive gait... At the end of his time, being old.
The quest expands, then, much farther than during the rebel years of the youth, far, far into the years of life. In addition, the sufferings of Siddhartha are certainly not the sufferings of the young. He is ready to commit suicide after the blooming of his time, after he has become rich, successful, after many years of weariness, once it seems that "there was nothing left in the world that could console him, give him pleasure", after having experienced the turbulence of sex-love of a woman, after all this. Kamala, the once most beautiful woman, with lips like "a fig parted in two", die because of the bite of a snake, in the very same bed where Vasudeva, the ferryman, lost his wife. Siddhartha is left with a spoiled and heartless boy, who runs away from him. The suffering of a father being rejected, despised, hurt and abandoned by his son is a terrible sorrow, not apt for youngsters against the bourgeois society! Siddhartha is a well matured individual, going through the ordeal of life.
Despite the love and appraisal the book has enjoyed from loose generations of young Europeans, incomparable since Goethe's Werther, Siddhartha is not, thus, a book for the young, but for the adult, and the older and beaten you are by the tidal waves of life, the better you will appreciate Hesse's beautiful story and poetic writing, all the emotions and feelings lying within its pages. Perhaps, Siddhartha is a book to read every 5 years.
Unlike knowledge, life is an initiation voyage.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Sunday, January 30, 2011
A mighty advice
It is late. Of course... It is Saturday night, the night when all stops, a truce for all weekly toils. And bloody cold in London. Had a great day, though!
I will be brief today, I want to sleep sound and get up early to enjoy my Sunday.
The Eagles' Desperado (1973) comes to me repetitively. What a mighty song! What a mighty advice!
"Desperado,
why don't you come to your senses.
(...)
Freedom, oh, freedom,
that's just some people talking.
Your prison is walking
through this life all alone.
(...)
Come down from your fences,
open the gate.
It might be rainin',
but there's a rainbow upon you.
You better let somebody to love you
before it is too late."
Out of the several interpretations that became famous, rather than the original or that by Linda Ronstadt or The Carpenters, I prefer Johnny Cash's.
I will be brief today, I want to sleep sound and get up early to enjoy my Sunday.
The Eagles' Desperado (1973) comes to me repetitively. What a mighty song! What a mighty advice!
"Desperado,
why don't you come to your senses.
(...)
Freedom, oh, freedom,
that's just some people talking.
Your prison is walking
through this life all alone.
(...)
Come down from your fences,
open the gate.
It might be rainin',
but there's a rainbow upon you.
You better let somebody to love you
before it is too late."
Out of the several interpretations that became famous, rather than the original or that by Linda Ronstadt or The Carpenters, I prefer Johnny Cash's.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Coming forth by day
The north of Africa is burning these weeks, in a complex and concatenated series of violent demonstrations, riots and clashing between the people and governmental forces in Tunicia first, and Egypt now. Ben Ali's cleptocracy in Tunicia seems to have fallen, though the future is uncertain, and Mubarak's regime, which has been ruling the country since 1981, is now at stake. Morocco is assimilating the lesson in advance. From my point of view, the spark in Tunicia was that guy who put himself in fire in December, finally dying 2 weeks afterwards. This little, though terrible self-immolation did unravel a huge tidal of enormous proportions. I don't think this is the first time that happens, nor will be the last. Masses only need and emotion to move into action, in fire. From my point of view, facebook, twiter and youtube just work as channels in the conflict, but haven't any other relevance (as some has pointed out) than that of acting as huge catalysts, spreading feelings and conveying emotions in a flash. To issue restrictions or bans on their use and cutting-off communications will only feed the rage of the beast.
My ignorance on these topics is supine, though. I haven't the slightest idea about what is happening, nor now, nor in the past, ever, but ignorance is daring, as you all know, and I venture to speak.
***
Precisely in a moment when Egypt is in turmoil, I spend a couple of hours this evening walking the ancient Egyptian Book of the Death exhibition at the British Museum. I did not enjoy it as much as I'd wished (Friday evening, you are tired, I had to carry a bag, and rooms are dim-lighted as to protect the papyri, of course), but I was enlightened about few, simple ideas, which is always satisfying and fulfilling.
I loved a piece of amulet, the Heart Scarab, set in a mould made of gold and the beetle's body of green, beautiful jasper with, apparently, a human head carved on it (I can't see it). It belonged to King Sobkemsaf II from the 17th Dynasty (c. 1590 BC). It is just so nice and very tiny. The picture you can look at below is about the same size as that of the real piece. I love it. It will help the spirits of the king walk through the ordeal of the Afterlife and reach the Eternal Life by sealing his heart and keep it silent during "The Judgement of the Death".
And this also I liked it much. The scene is illustrated for example in the famous (as they say) Ani's Book of the Dead. The dead shows up for judgement. Thoth and Osiris, as a couple of first-year students are weighing the king's heart, which rest on the left plate of the balance, alone and red. Its mass is weighed against an ostrich feather reposing on the right plate!
After that, the dead undergoes "The Declaration of Innocence", a collection of 42 statements (as negative confessions), addressed to as many Gods, declaring his righteousness. Along with the illustrations, immediately before the beginning of the judgement, spell no.30, is written:
1 "O my heart which I had from my mother!
2 O my heart which I had from my mother!
3 O my heart of my different ages!
4 Do not stand up as a witness against me,
5 in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance,
6 for you are my ka which was in my body,
7 the protector who made my members hale
8 Go forth to the happy place whereto we speed;
9 do not make my name stink to the Entourage who make men.
10 Do not tell lies about me in the presence of the god;
11 it is indeed well that you should hear!"
(Translation: R.O. Faulkner. The British Museum Press).
The declaration of righteousness (spell no.125) is very detailed and some of the gods look terribly fearsome (I quote only some of them):
O Nosey (...), I have not been rapacious;
O Swallower of shades (...), I have not stolen;
O Fiery Eyes (...), I have done no crookedness;
O Bone-breaker (...), I have not told lies;
O You of the cavern (...), I have not been sullen;
O Eater of entrails (...), I have not committed perjury;
O Wanderer (...), I have not eavesdropped;
O Pale one (...), I have not babbled;
O You who see whom you bring (...), I have not misbehaved;
O Disturber (...), I have not been hot-tempered;
O Youth (...), I have not been deaf to words of truth;
O Foreteller (...), I have not made disturbance;
O You of the altar (...), I have not hoodwinked;
O Hot-foot (...), I have not been neglectful;
O You of the darkness (...), I have not been quarrelsome;
O Owner of faces (...), I have not been impatient;
O Nefertum (...), I have not done wrong;
O Water-smiter (...) I have not been loud voiced;
O Bestower of powers (...), I have not made distinctions for myself.
(Translation: R.O. Faulkner. The British Museum Press).
I understand completely now why so many precautions were taken to seal the mouth of the Heart: who has not told lies or deceived? Who has not been sullen? Who has not ever eavesdropped? Who has not talked too much? Who has not be disturbance and quarrelsome? Who has not been lazy and neglectful? Who has not been impatient? Who has not thought be better than anybody else? Who has not talked raising his voice?
In a sense, asking the heart to remain silence can be interpreted as a form of perjury _The Eater of entrails would be upset to know that the very sentence of "I have not committed perjury" is, indeed, perjuricious.
I try not to rely on interpretations, though (a couple more comes to my mind now), but to feel. The feeling is wondrous, startling. The whole of both spells (no.30 and no.125) is full of humanity, full of richness. The poetry, powerful. I even dare to say that I see sense of humor! Perhaps it is too much too say _the first recording of a laugh is Sarah's laugh, Abraham's daughter, in the book of Genesis, which dates, if I am right, in 1000 BC, centuries after these spells were composed.
I could be writing today for ever, don't have to get up as much early tomorrow and took plenty of notes: "The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony"; the ba spirit leaving the mummified body during the day, coming forth by day, and flying away into the sky and the land of the living, just to come back at night to join the body, as the lotus flower opens up everyday as soon as it is touched by the light of sun; or the impressive Greenfield Papyrus (930 BC) in honor of Nesitanebisheru, daughter of a high-positioned priest in Thebes and Upper Egypt, one of the most powerful women at the time. Its length is 37 m! I particularly liked a drawing portraying a huge naked female figure, all bent forming an arch (she is the sky goddess, Nut). Underneath, a god stands up with raised arms and hands as supporting the body of the woman, and holding out the sky; and a second god is kneed as to represent the current affairs of men and women on earth. The drawing is neat and like it very much.
Let me finish by pointing out at one very interesting comment of my audio guide. The Hunefer's Book of Dead is conserved complete and dates around 1285 BC. Hunefer was a scribe, among other things, from Thebes. The period was rich in fine books of dead but Hunefer's is a slavish copy without any freshness, full of errors and mistakes. Indeed, a MTO papyrus (make-to-order) could be quite expensive, as MTOs normally are today compared to standard products. Scribe must have been a prosperous profession as not too-wealthy people would ordered standard copies of the book of dead with blank spaces to fill the specific name of the buyer.
Anyhow, the number of errors and misunderstandings in Hunefer's book of dead shows a true different side of that civilization, which is not normally associated with. A quite-developed society, no doubt, but more human and less mystified.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
My ignorance on these topics is supine, though. I haven't the slightest idea about what is happening, nor now, nor in the past, ever, but ignorance is daring, as you all know, and I venture to speak.
***
Precisely in a moment when Egypt is in turmoil, I spend a couple of hours this evening walking the ancient Egyptian Book of the Death exhibition at the British Museum. I did not enjoy it as much as I'd wished (Friday evening, you are tired, I had to carry a bag, and rooms are dim-lighted as to protect the papyri, of course), but I was enlightened about few, simple ideas, which is always satisfying and fulfilling.
I loved a piece of amulet, the Heart Scarab, set in a mould made of gold and the beetle's body of green, beautiful jasper with, apparently, a human head carved on it (I can't see it). It belonged to King Sobkemsaf II from the 17th Dynasty (c. 1590 BC). It is just so nice and very tiny. The picture you can look at below is about the same size as that of the real piece. I love it. It will help the spirits of the king walk through the ordeal of the Afterlife and reach the Eternal Life by sealing his heart and keep it silent during "The Judgement of the Death".
Heart Scarab (British Museum), with spell no. 30, c. 1590 BC.
It was robbed in c. 1125 BC.
The confession of the robbery provided much information about the "procedure usually followed"
And this also I liked it much. The scene is illustrated for example in the famous (as they say) Ani's Book of the Dead. The dead shows up for judgement. Thoth and Osiris, as a couple of first-year students are weighing the king's heart, which rest on the left plate of the balance, alone and red. Its mass is weighed against an ostrich feather reposing on the right plate!
After that, the dead undergoes "The Declaration of Innocence", a collection of 42 statements (as negative confessions), addressed to as many Gods, declaring his righteousness. Along with the illustrations, immediately before the beginning of the judgement, spell no.30, is written:
1 "O my heart which I had from my mother!
2 O my heart which I had from my mother!
3 O my heart of my different ages!
4 Do not stand up as a witness against me,
5 in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance,
6 for you are my ka which was in my body,
7 the protector who made my members hale
8 Go forth to the happy place whereto we speed;
9 do not make my name stink to the Entourage who make men.
10 Do not tell lies about me in the presence of the god;
11 it is indeed well that you should hear!"
(Translation: R.O. Faulkner. The British Museum Press).
The declaration of righteousness (spell no.125) is very detailed and some of the gods look terribly fearsome (I quote only some of them):
O Nosey (...), I have not been rapacious;
O Swallower of shades (...), I have not stolen;
O Fiery Eyes (...), I have done no crookedness;
O Bone-breaker (...), I have not told lies;
O You of the cavern (...), I have not been sullen;
O Eater of entrails (...), I have not committed perjury;
O Wanderer (...), I have not eavesdropped;
O Pale one (...), I have not babbled;
O You who see whom you bring (...), I have not misbehaved;
O Disturber (...), I have not been hot-tempered;
O Youth (...), I have not been deaf to words of truth;
O Foreteller (...), I have not made disturbance;
O You of the altar (...), I have not hoodwinked;
O Hot-foot (...), I have not been neglectful;
O You of the darkness (...), I have not been quarrelsome;
O Owner of faces (...), I have not been impatient;
O Nefertum (...), I have not done wrong;
O Water-smiter (...) I have not been loud voiced;
O Bestower of powers (...), I have not made distinctions for myself.
(Translation: R.O. Faulkner. The British Museum Press).
I understand completely now why so many precautions were taken to seal the mouth of the Heart: who has not told lies or deceived? Who has not been sullen? Who has not ever eavesdropped? Who has not talked too much? Who has not be disturbance and quarrelsome? Who has not been lazy and neglectful? Who has not been impatient? Who has not thought be better than anybody else? Who has not talked raising his voice?
In a sense, asking the heart to remain silence can be interpreted as a form of perjury _The Eater of entrails would be upset to know that the very sentence of "I have not committed perjury" is, indeed, perjuricious.
I try not to rely on interpretations, though (a couple more comes to my mind now), but to feel. The feeling is wondrous, startling. The whole of both spells (no.30 and no.125) is full of humanity, full of richness. The poetry, powerful. I even dare to say that I see sense of humor! Perhaps it is too much too say _the first recording of a laugh is Sarah's laugh, Abraham's daughter, in the book of Genesis, which dates, if I am right, in 1000 BC, centuries after these spells were composed.
Egyptian Blue Lotus Flower
I could be writing today for ever, don't have to get up as much early tomorrow and took plenty of notes: "The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony"; the ba spirit leaving the mummified body during the day, coming forth by day, and flying away into the sky and the land of the living, just to come back at night to join the body, as the lotus flower opens up everyday as soon as it is touched by the light of sun; or the impressive Greenfield Papyrus (930 BC) in honor of Nesitanebisheru, daughter of a high-positioned priest in Thebes and Upper Egypt, one of the most powerful women at the time. Its length is 37 m! I particularly liked a drawing portraying a huge naked female figure, all bent forming an arch (she is the sky goddess, Nut). Underneath, a god stands up with raised arms and hands as supporting the body of the woman, and holding out the sky; and a second god is kneed as to represent the current affairs of men and women on earth. The drawing is neat and like it very much.
Let me finish by pointing out at one very interesting comment of my audio guide. The Hunefer's Book of Dead is conserved complete and dates around 1285 BC. Hunefer was a scribe, among other things, from Thebes. The period was rich in fine books of dead but Hunefer's is a slavish copy without any freshness, full of errors and mistakes. Indeed, a MTO papyrus (make-to-order) could be quite expensive, as MTOs normally are today compared to standard products. Scribe must have been a prosperous profession as not too-wealthy people would ordered standard copies of the book of dead with blank spaces to fill the specific name of the buyer.
Anyhow, the number of errors and misunderstandings in Hunefer's book of dead shows a true different side of that civilization, which is not normally associated with. A quite-developed society, no doubt, but more human and less mystified.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Friday, January 28, 2011
Penelope
Penelope Cruz (36) and Javier Bardem (41) are parents for the first time. The grandma, Pilar Bardem (71), can take a long breath as finally time has ripen and born a grandkid. Don't know the name of the boy_ they wouldn't say in the first place. I heard that few days after the birth, they sent a press note to the Spanish media without given out the genre of the offspring. The note said instead, I am not quoting, "the baby is fine, their parents are fine". Yea, of course, we would expect the father to be fine... That's hilarious, made me laugh.
The boy was born in Cedars Sinai medical center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. One night costs roughly $6,000_ Not bad for the Bardem family, recalcitrant and wild communists. Why not bringing the baby to life in Spain? Top clinics are excellent, probably better than the former, places for the royalty. Nevertheless, Spaniards always praise the foreign before the own... Or perhaps, it can bring some advantage to the boy since, as far as I know, he is now an American.
***
Years ago, ten or fifteen, there used to be in the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Salamanca a big column (maybe an absorption or extraction column, I don't remember), used for Ph.D. students as a pilot rig for their experiments. It has written in some color, I don't remember either, all across it, from one side to the other, the name Penelope. Never asked why, never knew why.
I'd like to baptize my Ph.D. rig now (a blue, old enclosure with a stainless steel mesh inside, so-called separator oil-water) Penelope and bestow upon it the virtue of faithfulness. Faithfulness to me, naturally, all through these up-coming years.
As today, I've been incapable of cope with the Odyssey. However, the story of Penelope is sort of familiar, though I am afraid I can distort it somehow. I can picture in my imagination Ulysses turning up in Sparta to compete for Helen's hand and, within few hours, meeting Helen's cousin in the corridor, Penelope, and falling in love with her. A movie could be shot just out of this (Ulysses, 1954, tells a whole lot more): the contender gives up the struggle to marry a second-line figure and, even more, takes personal interest in making the rules for Helen's selected suitor (finally, Menelaus) to comply with, as to easy up matters for the king, Tyndareus.
After that, Penelope's waiting for Ulysses to come back from Troy and adventures. Elements are juicy: the struggle to keep aside myriads of wooers, the story of the do and undo of the burial shroud, the actions and deceptions of Atenea to break her faithfulness, the evil, wicked maid who unveils Penelope's trick, and the last test of her resistance: the ordeal of bending Ulysses bow.
Nice story, nice symbol, nice encouragement.
Penelope at the Loom and Her Suitors - Pintoricchio,1509 - National Gallery, London.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
The boy was born in Cedars Sinai medical center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. One night costs roughly $6,000_ Not bad for the Bardem family, recalcitrant and wild communists. Why not bringing the baby to life in Spain? Top clinics are excellent, probably better than the former, places for the royalty. Nevertheless, Spaniards always praise the foreign before the own... Or perhaps, it can bring some advantage to the boy since, as far as I know, he is now an American.
***
Years ago, ten or fifteen, there used to be in the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Salamanca a big column (maybe an absorption or extraction column, I don't remember), used for Ph.D. students as a pilot rig for their experiments. It has written in some color, I don't remember either, all across it, from one side to the other, the name Penelope. Never asked why, never knew why.
I'd like to baptize my Ph.D. rig now (a blue, old enclosure with a stainless steel mesh inside, so-called separator oil-water) Penelope and bestow upon it the virtue of faithfulness. Faithfulness to me, naturally, all through these up-coming years.
As today, I've been incapable of cope with the Odyssey. However, the story of Penelope is sort of familiar, though I am afraid I can distort it somehow. I can picture in my imagination Ulysses turning up in Sparta to compete for Helen's hand and, within few hours, meeting Helen's cousin in the corridor, Penelope, and falling in love with her. A movie could be shot just out of this (Ulysses, 1954, tells a whole lot more): the contender gives up the struggle to marry a second-line figure and, even more, takes personal interest in making the rules for Helen's selected suitor (finally, Menelaus) to comply with, as to easy up matters for the king, Tyndareus.
After that, Penelope's waiting for Ulysses to come back from Troy and adventures. Elements are juicy: the struggle to keep aside myriads of wooers, the story of the do and undo of the burial shroud, the actions and deceptions of Atenea to break her faithfulness, the evil, wicked maid who unveils Penelope's trick, and the last test of her resistance: the ordeal of bending Ulysses bow.
Nice story, nice symbol, nice encouragement.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Expropriate!
Hugo Chavez is a bloody bastard. He is so literally. As an usurper, "El Gorila Rojo" (Red Gorilla) tramples on people sovereignty and despises the separation of powers. He is a petty dictator, one of the countless of the type L'Etat ce moi.
Want a proof beyond any reasonable doubt of this assertion? Few months ago, he expropriated several small businesses in a centric square in Caracas:
Wanna more? This is what I found today in Libertaddigital.com.
What strikes me so much is that grotesque episodes like these do not make the slightest fuss in the "civilized" world, nor the faintest beep. You have to toil almost daily with the nazis of the past and all that fascism drama as the paradigm of liberticide, or even as its sole expression, although -as Revel put it- Fascism died in 1945. However, folks do not recognize or, worse, justify these forms of primitive abuse against our fellow men and their properties.
Chavez is a despicable bastard; a tiny, tiny, little bully.
Expropriate!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Want a proof beyond any reasonable doubt of this assertion? Few months ago, he expropriated several small businesses in a centric square in Caracas:
Wanna more? This is what I found today in Libertaddigital.com.
What strikes me so much is that grotesque episodes like these do not make the slightest fuss in the "civilized" world, nor the faintest beep. You have to toil almost daily with the nazis of the past and all that fascism drama as the paradigm of liberticide, or even as its sole expression, although -as Revel put it- Fascism died in 1945. However, folks do not recognize or, worse, justify these forms of primitive abuse against our fellow men and their properties.
Chavez is a despicable bastard; a tiny, tiny, little bully.
Expropriate!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
If a body meets a body
If you really want to know the truth, I don't see why people get that swell about Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. They're a bunch of goddamn phonies, all of them.
The style of the writing is the remarkable feature of the novel: slang, redundancies, repetition of grammatical structures, etc. I have no elements to judge, but I am incline to believe that the style of prose and the personal manner the story is told by the character of Holden Caulfield are the main achievements of the novel, as purposely casted. Indeed, the thoughts, the actions of Holden seem to me realistic for a 16-year old child, as well as his propensity to lie and tease around, at least of a 16-year old guy like Holden. Even the end, cut out all of a sudden in the exact way I would do (or I did) when I was 16-year old: suddenly, you are not interested any more in writing and stop. I should read Salinger's short stories, the ones not featuring Holden Caulfield, and check whether the style is alike or not. I feel a little curious about that.
I almost cry tears (I promise I felt like to it) when at the end a wretched Holden sends a note to his sister Phoebe and ask her to meet at the Museum of Art at 12.15 for farewell before he runs away. Phoebe is late but shows up carrying Holden's old suitcase and says: "I am going with you. Can I? Ok?" And she makes her point: "All I have in it is two dresses, and my moccasins and my underwear and socks and some other things. Feel it. It isn't heavy. Feel it once". Phoebe is a lovely character, the only authentic resource in the novel. As Holden put it and I put it, Phoebe "kills me". Another scene had happened before, when Holden furtively visits her in the night. His parents were out, but came back and entered into Phoebe's room but she concealed him. The dialogue between Mother and Sister is tender and beautiful.
Thanks to genuine Phoebe, Holden stays, does not escape into the West. Phoebe and Holden both walk towards the zoo in opposite sidewalks, and Phoebe always follow him. That's remarkable: the whole story is a get-away, with characters shaking off from each other. All people elude Holden and, if not, will stay and wrong him. In that case, Holden will extricate himself from the situation and be on the run. That's it: a continuous escape. On the contrary, Phoebe would follow him and stay with him.
And thus, Phoebe is the true body, coming through the rye, who catches her brother. She is who prevents Holden from the fatal escape, from flinging himself of the window, from jumping out of the cliff in the rye field.
Note: The Rye is/was a river in Scotland, though.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
The style of the writing is the remarkable feature of the novel: slang, redundancies, repetition of grammatical structures, etc. I have no elements to judge, but I am incline to believe that the style of prose and the personal manner the story is told by the character of Holden Caulfield are the main achievements of the novel, as purposely casted. Indeed, the thoughts, the actions of Holden seem to me realistic for a 16-year old child, as well as his propensity to lie and tease around, at least of a 16-year old guy like Holden. Even the end, cut out all of a sudden in the exact way I would do (or I did) when I was 16-year old: suddenly, you are not interested any more in writing and stop. I should read Salinger's short stories, the ones not featuring Holden Caulfield, and check whether the style is alike or not. I feel a little curious about that.
I almost cry tears (I promise I felt like to it) when at the end a wretched Holden sends a note to his sister Phoebe and ask her to meet at the Museum of Art at 12.15 for farewell before he runs away. Phoebe is late but shows up carrying Holden's old suitcase and says: "I am going with you. Can I? Ok?" And she makes her point: "All I have in it is two dresses, and my moccasins and my underwear and socks and some other things. Feel it. It isn't heavy. Feel it once". Phoebe is a lovely character, the only authentic resource in the novel. As Holden put it and I put it, Phoebe "kills me". Another scene had happened before, when Holden furtively visits her in the night. His parents were out, but came back and entered into Phoebe's room but she concealed him. The dialogue between Mother and Sister is tender and beautiful.
Thanks to genuine Phoebe, Holden stays, does not escape into the West. Phoebe and Holden both walk towards the zoo in opposite sidewalks, and Phoebe always follow him. That's remarkable: the whole story is a get-away, with characters shaking off from each other. All people elude Holden and, if not, will stay and wrong him. In that case, Holden will extricate himself from the situation and be on the run. That's it: a continuous escape. On the contrary, Phoebe would follow him and stay with him.
And thus, Phoebe is the true body, coming through the rye, who catches her brother. She is who prevents Holden from the fatal escape, from flinging himself of the window, from jumping out of the cliff in the rye field.
Note: The Rye is/was a river in Scotland, though.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Football Stories
In March 2007 I did fly in to Deerfield Beach, Fl, for a position interview as Application Engineer. The company troubleshoots and commisions water desalinization plants in the Caribeean, mainly Bahamas. It is a small team. The boss, O., is originally from Honduras, but is married to an American and has lived for a score of years in the States.
The interview was held in Friday, and decided to stay for the weekend, which turned to be a pain in the back, as my plain on Sunday got cancelled and I ended up stranded in Charlotte, SC at the Hilton Hotel. I could not make it to work on next day. We were just by mid-March and because of this incovenience and my need to change status to a work visa early in January (for which I had to travel for a few days to Madrid) I got only 24 hours left of my vacation leave for the rest of the year. So I got this blunt and damned letter from my current employer at the time, as a warning, accusing me of being work absent, which upset me pretty much.
Anyhow, that Saturday, O. offered a few tickets to go to a soccer game, Honduras vs. El Salvador. First of all, it was sort of funny that both countries go to the States for a friendly game and, secondly, it startled me the security precaution, will all the police being around and dull-countenance checkings at the entrance. About 1 hour before the game, the parking lot was crowded with cars and people, everyone drinking beer and eating at the rear, having the trunk opened and playing load music. Of course, we were doing the same. I said something like "Oh, all this ambient is nice", but I really meant it is nice and interesting to see, all this cultural display. O. replied to me "Really?". Later, the match was boring.
In a would-be collection of short stories of football (which you could write or shot), the account of the games that foreran the so-called the soccer war between Hunduras and El Salvador could be first. I would name it Amelia, after the young Salvadoran lady who killed herself in the aftermath of the first game in Tegucigalpa (1 - 0, Honduras). It ran 1969, and both teams contended for a place in the final round of the World Cup Mexico 1970. A suggestive and entertaining telling of it is in Kapuscinski which, without being its best, retains all his wit and style and marvellous attraction ("the soccer war lasted one hundred hours. Its victims: 6,000 dead, more than 12,000 wounded. Fifty thousand people lost their homes and fields. Many villages were destroyed").
The second story could be set in current time, and show some frivolity or naughtiness or scandal or true love: Pique and Shakira, Beckham and Victoria, the religious Kaka and spouse, Cristiano Ronaldo secret's, the soooo romantic kiss of Casillas to Carbonero at the end of the World Cup in South Africa or, even, You an Me, the adventures of a couple, Rivery and Benzema, roaming Paris la nuit. A nice plot could be set in an up-class whore house where girls tend to throw lies to clients about their connections with the high society meaning, of course, the soccer-player class.
A third story would refresh the epic game of Uruguay and Obdulio Varela in Maracana (1950) against Brazil and a mass of 200,000 (?!!) hauling beasts. The great players of today do not bear special names. I like, tough, those old soccer players, always carrying a distinctive nickname. Obdulio Varela was known as "The Black Boss".
Of most interest could be the terrible stories of Sindelar, "the Papier-Mache man" and Eduard Streltsov, known as "the Soviet Pele". (I think this comment was made by Karpov). Streltsov was a handsome, young man, physically strong, but aficionated to drinks, orgies and girls. Committed several and varied slip-ups, but the unforgivable mistake was to become intimate with the daughter of a very wicked and influencial Politburo woman (Iekaterina Furtseva). Later on, he was accused of raping a 20-year old girl, and outcasted in the Gulag for 5 years. He died in 1990, throat cancer. It is said that that 20-year old girl was seen bringing him flowers to the tomb.
The Austrian Mathias Sindelar was the Wunderteam star and a extraordinary player, in spite of his squalid constitution. Jewish origins (at least, according to Gestapo). Austrian and German teams were unified at some point in 1938, months before the World Cup in France. Sindelar woudn't play and keep throwing pretensions about it. In April, Austria was already anexionated to German and both teams played as "celebration", with a written script. Sindelar was a heartsore bluff during the whole match until in the 70-minute, he unconcealed his unbearable distressed and did score (2 - 1 Austria). He made a whole fuss about it, celebrating and dancing in front of the Nazi authorities. Inmediately after it, he became a symbol for the Austrians who do not accept the German Anschluss.
On Jan 23, 1939 he and his Italian wife were found dead in their bed.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
The interview was held in Friday, and decided to stay for the weekend, which turned to be a pain in the back, as my plain on Sunday got cancelled and I ended up stranded in Charlotte, SC at the Hilton Hotel. I could not make it to work on next day. We were just by mid-March and because of this incovenience and my need to change status to a work visa early in January (for which I had to travel for a few days to Madrid) I got only 24 hours left of my vacation leave for the rest of the year. So I got this blunt and damned letter from my current employer at the time, as a warning, accusing me of being work absent, which upset me pretty much.
Anyhow, that Saturday, O. offered a few tickets to go to a soccer game, Honduras vs. El Salvador. First of all, it was sort of funny that both countries go to the States for a friendly game and, secondly, it startled me the security precaution, will all the police being around and dull-countenance checkings at the entrance. About 1 hour before the game, the parking lot was crowded with cars and people, everyone drinking beer and eating at the rear, having the trunk opened and playing load music. Of course, we were doing the same. I said something like "Oh, all this ambient is nice", but I really meant it is nice and interesting to see, all this cultural display. O. replied to me "Really?". Later, the match was boring.
In a would-be collection of short stories of football (which you could write or shot), the account of the games that foreran the so-called the soccer war between Hunduras and El Salvador could be first. I would name it Amelia, after the young Salvadoran lady who killed herself in the aftermath of the first game in Tegucigalpa (1 - 0, Honduras). It ran 1969, and both teams contended for a place in the final round of the World Cup Mexico 1970. A suggestive and entertaining telling of it is in Kapuscinski which, without being its best, retains all his wit and style and marvellous attraction ("the soccer war lasted one hundred hours. Its victims: 6,000 dead, more than 12,000 wounded. Fifty thousand people lost their homes and fields. Many villages were destroyed").
The second story could be set in current time, and show some frivolity or naughtiness or scandal or true love: Pique and Shakira, Beckham and Victoria, the religious Kaka and spouse, Cristiano Ronaldo secret's, the soooo romantic kiss of Casillas to Carbonero at the end of the World Cup in South Africa or, even, You an Me, the adventures of a couple, Rivery and Benzema, roaming Paris la nuit. A nice plot could be set in an up-class whore house where girls tend to throw lies to clients about their connections with the high society meaning, of course, the soccer-player class.
A third story would refresh the epic game of Uruguay and Obdulio Varela in Maracana (1950) against Brazil and a mass of 200,000 (?!!) hauling beasts. The great players of today do not bear special names. I like, tough, those old soccer players, always carrying a distinctive nickname. Obdulio Varela was known as "The Black Boss".
Of most interest could be the terrible stories of Sindelar, "the Papier-Mache man" and Eduard Streltsov, known as "the Soviet Pele". (I think this comment was made by Karpov). Streltsov was a handsome, young man, physically strong, but aficionated to drinks, orgies and girls. Committed several and varied slip-ups, but the unforgivable mistake was to become intimate with the daughter of a very wicked and influencial Politburo woman (Iekaterina Furtseva). Later on, he was accused of raping a 20-year old girl, and outcasted in the Gulag for 5 years. He died in 1990, throat cancer. It is said that that 20-year old girl was seen bringing him flowers to the tomb.
The Austrian Mathias Sindelar was the Wunderteam star and a extraordinary player, in spite of his squalid constitution. Jewish origins (at least, according to Gestapo). Austrian and German teams were unified at some point in 1938, months before the World Cup in France. Sindelar woudn't play and keep throwing pretensions about it. In April, Austria was already anexionated to German and both teams played as "celebration", with a written script. Sindelar was a heartsore bluff during the whole match until in the 70-minute, he unconcealed his unbearable distressed and did score (2 - 1 Austria). He made a whole fuss about it, celebrating and dancing in front of the Nazi authorities. Inmediately after it, he became a symbol for the Austrians who do not accept the German Anschluss.
On Jan 23, 1939 he and his Italian wife were found dead in their bed.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Monday, January 24, 2011
Jack the Ripper's East London
Last week I bought in Baker Street a little, tiny red booklet by the Louis' London Walks, "The Jack Ripper Walk", which I took today as my companion through the East End of London. It was certainly not quite a stroll though, since the weather was cold and the sky was overcast and unfriendly.
Absolutely nothing has been spared that may enlighten how that terrible neibourhood must have looked like. Just the myth seems to survive _or even maintained, I would venture to say. There is not the single trace nor indication of the heaps of dark alleys, slums and shabby holes, obscure corners and sordid pubs that was that part of East London. Even today, people congregate themselves around the bullicious Whitechappel and Commercial streets or into the Spitalfields and Petticoats markets. (Surprisingly, Brick Lane was deserted by 11 am). The old places where the action took place (Mitre Square, Goulston, Old Castle, Gunthorpe, Angel Alley, Fashion and Thrawl, Fournier, etc., streets) are unattractive and dull, and lay inconspicuously silent for anyone unaware of their significance.
In Artillery Lane, my guide points out the house at no. 56, dating from 1756, as a fine example of the style of housing of the time, but still, what I see and can imaginate leaves me cold. Neither the sight of the short and narrow Artillery Passage feels touchy, which looks in my eyes more like a cozy hidden street in Chambery or Anncey (French Savoy), rather than a frighten passage in Medieval London.
The no. 29 of Hanbury Street, place where Annie Chapman was killed does not exist today. The Providence Row Night Refuge and Convent, in Crispin St., where Annie stayed by the time she was murdered, is now a housing for students of the London School of Economics in Holburn. Right across to it, it stands a parking lot, in White's Row. In 1888 that was the place, however, of a mould of diseased flats and narrow alleys. Precisely there, in one called Miller's Court lived Mary Jane Kelly. Apparently Jack the Ripper "worked" the whole night on her to the light of a large log fire. It was the most elaborated and gruesome of all mutilations.
On another hand, Catherine Eddows, who was 46 years old, was slaughtered in barely twenty minutes. Her body was found in Mitre Square, an unnoticeable place today, unless you look to the right up the modern St. Mary's Axe. Also the Gunthorpe Street and Passage, where Martha Turner's body was found, and the Angel Alley, where Martha's friend, Pealy Poll, used to work, are forgotten places now, deprived of significance. In between both places it is now the white-walled and luminous Whitechapel Art Gallery. (By the way, I bought there Jack London's The People of the Abyss).
In Goulston Street, there was a passage where a piece of Catherine's dress, stained in blood, was found. Today, the passage is blocked. Even the "world-famous" Tubby Isaacs stall on the corner looks like falling apart.
Regarding pubs, I did not look for the Still and Star Pub in Little Somerset Street, and the interesting Hoop and Grapes Pub was closed, as it was Sunday. I did have half a pint, however, at The Ten Bells, on the corner of Wilkes with Commercial Street, right across Spitalfields. Looked kind of crappy to me and, curiously enough, small children are not allowed.
***
I must say that the question of who was Jack the Ripper bears no interest to me. Who knows? Maybe, they actually knew who this guy with a dark moustache "wearing a tweed-jacket, deer stalker cap and red neck scarf" was; maybe several intrigues, interests and circumstances diverted the Metropolitan Police or Scotland Yard from it. It is plausible, I think, this case be corroded by falsehood and hypocrisy, and the truth remain forever buried. Maybe he was more than one. Could it also be plausible that the murders were planned with any purpose, from personal to public affairs? In that case, by whom or whom(s)?
This second plausibility carries the real important question: why? The murders of 5 prostitutes are circumscribed in a very short period of time, with two other murders spaciated a little before and after those five. Why? What reason might an apparently anonymous man have to kill those women in that time, in that area and in that horrific manner just to vanish afterwards? The profile of a serial killer just does not work that way, does it?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Absolutely nothing has been spared that may enlighten how that terrible neibourhood must have looked like. Just the myth seems to survive _or even maintained, I would venture to say. There is not the single trace nor indication of the heaps of dark alleys, slums and shabby holes, obscure corners and sordid pubs that was that part of East London. Even today, people congregate themselves around the bullicious Whitechappel and Commercial streets or into the Spitalfields and Petticoats markets. (Surprisingly, Brick Lane was deserted by 11 am). The old places where the action took place (Mitre Square, Goulston, Old Castle, Gunthorpe, Angel Alley, Fashion and Thrawl, Fournier, etc., streets) are unattractive and dull, and lay inconspicuously silent for anyone unaware of their significance.
In Artillery Lane, my guide points out the house at no. 56, dating from 1756, as a fine example of the style of housing of the time, but still, what I see and can imaginate leaves me cold. Neither the sight of the short and narrow Artillery Passage feels touchy, which looks in my eyes more like a cozy hidden street in Chambery or Anncey (French Savoy), rather than a frighten passage in Medieval London.
The no. 29 of Hanbury Street, place where Annie Chapman was killed does not exist today. The Providence Row Night Refuge and Convent, in Crispin St., where Annie stayed by the time she was murdered, is now a housing for students of the London School of Economics in Holburn. Right across to it, it stands a parking lot, in White's Row. In 1888 that was the place, however, of a mould of diseased flats and narrow alleys. Precisely there, in one called Miller's Court lived Mary Jane Kelly. Apparently Jack the Ripper "worked" the whole night on her to the light of a large log fire. It was the most elaborated and gruesome of all mutilations.
On another hand, Catherine Eddows, who was 46 years old, was slaughtered in barely twenty minutes. Her body was found in Mitre Square, an unnoticeable place today, unless you look to the right up the modern St. Mary's Axe. Also the Gunthorpe Street and Passage, where Martha Turner's body was found, and the Angel Alley, where Martha's friend, Pealy Poll, used to work, are forgotten places now, deprived of significance. In between both places it is now the white-walled and luminous Whitechapel Art Gallery. (By the way, I bought there Jack London's The People of the Abyss).
In Goulston Street, there was a passage where a piece of Catherine's dress, stained in blood, was found. Today, the passage is blocked. Even the "world-famous" Tubby Isaacs stall on the corner looks like falling apart.
Regarding pubs, I did not look for the Still and Star Pub in Little Somerset Street, and the interesting Hoop and Grapes Pub was closed, as it was Sunday. I did have half a pint, however, at The Ten Bells, on the corner of Wilkes with Commercial Street, right across Spitalfields. Looked kind of crappy to me and, curiously enough, small children are not allowed.
***
I must say that the question of who was Jack the Ripper bears no interest to me. Who knows? Maybe, they actually knew who this guy with a dark moustache "wearing a tweed-jacket, deer stalker cap and red neck scarf" was; maybe several intrigues, interests and circumstances diverted the Metropolitan Police or Scotland Yard from it. It is plausible, I think, this case be corroded by falsehood and hypocrisy, and the truth remain forever buried. Maybe he was more than one. Could it also be plausible that the murders were planned with any purpose, from personal to public affairs? In that case, by whom or whom(s)?
This second plausibility carries the real important question: why? The murders of 5 prostitutes are circumscribed in a very short period of time, with two other murders spaciated a little before and after those five. Why? What reason might an apparently anonymous man have to kill those women in that time, in that area and in that horrific manner just to vanish afterwards? The profile of a serial killer just does not work that way, does it?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The sacred night
It is kind of late tonight and I feel tired but content. A good sleep will make me anew. Nevertheless, I must write something.
I vindicate the nature of night as mystic and sacred. Nights are unknown and mysterious for kids, bestowed by an unfathomable power, and they render it with sacred tremor _all rules of Nature can be overwhelmed and inverted by the reign of night.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, as a boy, my father used to take us all down to the cost in Spain for 2 or 4 week-vacation the very early morning of the 1st for August. The trip was of an odyssey type, long and tedious, and lasted for quite a few hours. However, I used to get very excited about it. I got waken up at 2.30 or 3 am and driving by passed the empty streets of the town as we left it, I beheld furtively well into the night mesmerized by the gift of such an unusual contemplation.
Today, being a grown-up, I only possess since a long, long way back the rotten shatters of that virginal whiteness of the night _all its secrets violated, it is not magical any more, and rather than a pure breeze crowded by the invisible, blinking lights of its fairies, night has become the nest of crooks and degradation. All my tigers come at night, all untamed instincts of self-depredation. In the dark hours, only evil and temptation exert their reign upon me.
One only chance I have... Where shall I conquer you, my dear Beatrice, so your peace shall heal my wretched soul, and my nights shall be sweet and magical, once and for ever?
***
MY FAITHFUL FOND ONE
Paul Mounsey, Nahoo (1994)
My fair and rare one,
My faithful fond one,
My faithful fair,
Wilt not come to me,
On bed of pain here,
Who remain here,
With weary longing for a sight of thee
If wings were mine now,
To skim the brine how,
And like a seagull,
To float me free,
To Islay's shore now,
They bear me o'er now,
Where dwells the maiden that is dear to me
My fair and rare one,
My faithful fond one,
My faithful fair,
Wilt not come to me,
On bed of pain here,
Who remain here,
With weary longing for a sight of thee
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
I vindicate the nature of night as mystic and sacred. Nights are unknown and mysterious for kids, bestowed by an unfathomable power, and they render it with sacred tremor _all rules of Nature can be overwhelmed and inverted by the reign of night.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, as a boy, my father used to take us all down to the cost in Spain for 2 or 4 week-vacation the very early morning of the 1st for August. The trip was of an odyssey type, long and tedious, and lasted for quite a few hours. However, I used to get very excited about it. I got waken up at 2.30 or 3 am and driving by passed the empty streets of the town as we left it, I beheld furtively well into the night mesmerized by the gift of such an unusual contemplation.
Today, being a grown-up, I only possess since a long, long way back the rotten shatters of that virginal whiteness of the night _all its secrets violated, it is not magical any more, and rather than a pure breeze crowded by the invisible, blinking lights of its fairies, night has become the nest of crooks and degradation. All my tigers come at night, all untamed instincts of self-depredation. In the dark hours, only evil and temptation exert their reign upon me.
One only chance I have... Where shall I conquer you, my dear Beatrice, so your peace shall heal my wretched soul, and my nights shall be sweet and magical, once and for ever?
***
MY FAITHFUL FOND ONE
Paul Mounsey, Nahoo (1994)
My fair and rare one,
My faithful fond one,
My faithful fair,
Wilt not come to me,
On bed of pain here,
Who remain here,
With weary longing for a sight of thee
If wings were mine now,
To skim the brine how,
And like a seagull,
To float me free,
To Islay's shore now,
They bear me o'er now,
Where dwells the maiden that is dear to me
My fair and rare one,
My faithful fond one,
My faithful fair,
Wilt not come to me,
On bed of pain here,
Who remain here,
With weary longing for a sight of thee
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Friday, January 21, 2011
Stuart and Johnson
Paul Johnson's Intellectuals made a deep impression on me when I read it around 2004 or 05. On the back cover of one of his books I see now a comment from "The Spectator" which summarized what I think it is so hypnotizing in his work: "Crisply written... In their directness and clarity, his thoughts are always stimulating to discover".
Johnson's body of production is amazing. Year after year he has been published, in many cases, admirable pieces of work (Modern Times, for example, is a tremendous construction).
Have the impression, nevertheless, that he is or was not the kind of dull and cloistered scholar at all but, on the contrary, one of those impressive characters with a hidden resort to stop the time and live days as two in one. He can read and write like crazy; give birth, support, contribute and be awarded by a score of acclaimed publications; raise four children and attend a bunch of grand kids; paint; and all looking like he is afresh, enjoying the life of a well-to-do bachelor. Me, on the contrary, get uptight about my pending chores and have the sense of wasting life 2 out of 3 times I put seriously myself to something.
In 1997, the beautiful Gloria Stuart came to the spotlight, after 50 years, playing the sweet old Rose in Titanic. She'd been gone since 1946 until 1982, and made only 3 unnoticed appearances until she jumped secondly to stardom. One year after, in 1998, she publicized in Daily Express her extra-marital affair with Johnson, apparently highly erotic and sexual, over more than a decade. (Annoying enough, I would not spend one more second on the Internet seeking the traces of the time when such relationship took place. If you do, please, let me know, will be most valuable).
My question is: why? Why did Gloria, who was 88 years old at the time, do such thing? (She just recently passed away, in 2010).
Remarkable is the fact that Paul Johnson was 18 years Gloria's junior, which accounts for the level of self-confidence and ambition this Englishman from Manchester had. He recalled the episode in an interview last year for The Telegraph by paraphrasing Shakespeare's verses in The Tempest: "the dark backward and abysm of [the past]".
... A storyteller of characters' life and history makes himself history and becomes a character...
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Johnson's body of production is amazing. Year after year he has been published, in many cases, admirable pieces of work (Modern Times, for example, is a tremendous construction).
Have the impression, nevertheless, that he is or was not the kind of dull and cloistered scholar at all but, on the contrary, one of those impressive characters with a hidden resort to stop the time and live days as two in one. He can read and write like crazy; give birth, support, contribute and be awarded by a score of acclaimed publications; raise four children and attend a bunch of grand kids; paint; and all looking like he is afresh, enjoying the life of a well-to-do bachelor. Me, on the contrary, get uptight about my pending chores and have the sense of wasting life 2 out of 3 times I put seriously myself to something.
In 1997, the beautiful Gloria Stuart came to the spotlight, after 50 years, playing the sweet old Rose in Titanic. She'd been gone since 1946 until 1982, and made only 3 unnoticed appearances until she jumped secondly to stardom. One year after, in 1998, she publicized in Daily Express her extra-marital affair with Johnson, apparently highly erotic and sexual, over more than a decade. (Annoying enough, I would not spend one more second on the Internet seeking the traces of the time when such relationship took place. If you do, please, let me know, will be most valuable).
My question is: why? Why did Gloria, who was 88 years old at the time, do such thing? (She just recently passed away, in 2010).
Remarkable is the fact that Paul Johnson was 18 years Gloria's junior, which accounts for the level of self-confidence and ambition this Englishman from Manchester had. He recalled the episode in an interview last year for The Telegraph by paraphrasing Shakespeare's verses in The Tempest: "the dark backward and abysm of [the past]".
... A storyteller of characters' life and history makes himself history and becomes a character...
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Kafka and "his" Metamorphosis
Yes, sir, I finish Kafka's Metamorphosis and, as Kafka himself wrote in his diary, it is a weak end _The man-bug just die by himself, and all the tension and agony carefully built and blew out through the story in the reader's nerves prematurely busted off and swiftly vanished away.
The number of interpretations of this story is massive, and I presume all most critics do is to bring out their own, sui generis interpretation. If we disregard interpretations (Susan Sontag's suggestion), particularly the indisputable thesis of "alienation", we end up with the most value pose of the story: the emotions, the images, the flow of energy that strikes each individual reader, the after-reading transformation. And this is why the end is flaw and castrating, like a suddenly quenched orgasm.
If you look at the facts, Gregor is a creature in decomposition, fading away in many senses as the story travels. His death body will not even being remembered or taken into any transcendental rituals of any kind. On the contrary, it is left to the charwoman to be disposed of. However, the father and the sister characters undergo a progressive transformation along the story. If you ask yourself (as Ronald Reagan did ask to his fellow Americans): are these two characters better off after or before Gregor's Calvary?
The answer is: "better".
On second hand, the mother, considered apart, is stricken and shocked and in terrible pain, which is a feature of tremendous humanity, since the unfathomable and unassailable grief of a mother for his lost (or miscarried) son is universal. In this case, however, all improvement I can see is the family solid ties just born, as a mild relieve to save her from her own doom.
And thus Metamorphosis is the story of liberation and breaking-free of three people, instead of any sort of alienation. They become independent, working and occupied folks, more dignified and self-respected, non-dependent on any bossy chief clerk or general director, masters of their own house. And all this they got at the expense of Gregor's destruction and annihilation. Against his will, most likely, Gregor becomes savior of other three.
I may say some nonsensical thing, but this story of a man liberating others by means of his self-sacrifice (meekly accepted) and through a humiliating and terrible death is well familiar:
Is perhaps Kafka moving one step forward beyond his Jewish roots?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
The number of interpretations of this story is massive, and I presume all most critics do is to bring out their own, sui generis interpretation. If we disregard interpretations (Susan Sontag's suggestion), particularly the indisputable thesis of "alienation", we end up with the most value pose of the story: the emotions, the images, the flow of energy that strikes each individual reader, the after-reading transformation. And this is why the end is flaw and castrating, like a suddenly quenched orgasm.
If you look at the facts, Gregor is a creature in decomposition, fading away in many senses as the story travels. His death body will not even being remembered or taken into any transcendental rituals of any kind. On the contrary, it is left to the charwoman to be disposed of. However, the father and the sister characters undergo a progressive transformation along the story. If you ask yourself (as Ronald Reagan did ask to his fellow Americans): are these two characters better off after or before Gregor's Calvary?
The answer is: "better".
On second hand, the mother, considered apart, is stricken and shocked and in terrible pain, which is a feature of tremendous humanity, since the unfathomable and unassailable grief of a mother for his lost (or miscarried) son is universal. In this case, however, all improvement I can see is the family solid ties just born, as a mild relieve to save her from her own doom.
And thus Metamorphosis is the story of liberation and breaking-free of three people, instead of any sort of alienation. They become independent, working and occupied folks, more dignified and self-respected, non-dependent on any bossy chief clerk or general director, masters of their own house. And all this they got at the expense of Gregor's destruction and annihilation. Against his will, most likely, Gregor becomes savior of other three.
I may say some nonsensical thing, but this story of a man liberating others by means of his self-sacrifice (meekly accepted) and through a humiliating and terrible death is well familiar:
Is perhaps Kafka moving one step forward beyond his Jewish roots?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Students, phone, phone, phone and Kafka
I came to think a while ago that breeding an idle student life is so prejudicial. There is little good in students leading such student life, apart from myth and nonsense. The worst of them, those with less responsibilities. I like the suggestion that people working their asses hard to carry on family lives, to toil with any nasty drudgery that may fell upon them, or simply to deal with their daily grinds, have little time, if any, to think of flipping and messing with the establishment and, not at all, of course, to drop dead in the lap of fashion, snobbery or frivolity. The rich gangs of students at the universities of London, probably with nothing to squeeze their small brains about, spend the tax-payers' money occupying public buildings, assaulting private business and stores in the street and, even insulting the dead and flinging fire extinguisher from the roof of a few-yard-tall building in the streets (when not drinking, drugging up themselves, fucking to each other, literal or figuratively, I don't know, I don't know what they actually do, I am talking like an oldie...) . On the contrary, the busy people minding their own business and assuming the obligations tend, at most, to feed art and humanity (http://www.goear.com/listen/113c04d/that-lucky-old-sun).
***
I perceive that people talk too much on the phone. Mobiles, cells, whatever you wanna call them, all day long. I overheard a guy in the department today explain joyfully how he finally had found an explanation for the bad measurements he was taken (eavesdropping is easy for me without lose attention on what I am doing). Apparently, the mobile phones around induce a certain distortion on the electrical/magnetic signals of the device he uses to take measurements.
You are in the bus and it is so common the scene of folks fingering their cells, now scrolling their little screens up and down, then pressing buttons or playing, later talking to somebody, normally small-talking to somebody and taking the right precautions -'cause I don't believe it is unnoticed for them- to be overhead by everyone. The same scenes are in the pubs, in the line inside a coffeeshop, waiting for the train, inside any store, anywhere _it is like a pandemia of fashioness and addictive necessity. Even in a restaurant, you see so often two people talking to each other. If one goes to the restroom, the other seizes the moment to check on his phone. Furthermore, sometimes both stop talking and check their phones, until the bill is ready and they are free to go.
It comes so handy that routine of the stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld, in a time where cell phones were yet a long way to become public and widespread, speaking about, if I am not wrong, the voice message in answer machines: "Come on! Relax, you have to give people a chance to miss you a litleeeeeee".
***
I will finish as soon as I complete my writing tonight here Metamorphosis. Unfortunately, I don't read German, and I am a little discourage to get myself to it, first because I really am not determined and, second, because I am not sure if I could read the needed German in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, though I can read as fast as in Spanish, the good English takes me the best in matters of vocabulary, so I wouldn't be surprise to go crazy with German.
I never tried Metamorphosis in Spanish, don't know why, probably because the translation that I had on made the story funny. Do you know what I mean? Traduttore, traditore! There are things that you cannot translate. I imagine that if literature could be treated formally in a general way, it wouldn't be hard to demonstrate beyond any doubt that translation is not always possible without making the writer a fool, and the reader a childish, deceived poor guy, missing out everything.
Despite not enjoying myself the writing -as I did indeed with The Wind in the Willows-, the story is powerful and keeps me surprising as I turn page after page. I actually can't wait to see the end! But it is a dark story, quite painful _the agony of Gregor's family, mainly his mother's breaks my heart. For Gregor, it must be an unbearable feeling the vanishing of his life as he knew it and, probably, liked _First, his identity goes away, then his work and value for others as head of the family, later the love, care, consideration and even recognition of his own home and house. His most beloved objects and memories, all gone. At the end, he is just a mere object sitting in a forgotten, secret room along with toss-away paraphernalia until, I am afraid, I guess (I haven't finished it yet), his life will be taken. The hinge on which the fate of Gregor turns and depends upon, after he became an animal, is his sister: she demands to spare his life, she demands to dispose of it.
What do we mean by kafkanian scenes? I tend to read novels more in an abstract way, so I lose perceivable images. However, the whole story is full of tremendous images. I can see, as an example, Gregor's father in a rage attempting to murder him at the end of the 2nd part, hurling red apples against him, the mother in shock and in underwear, the sister crying and placating the furious man. Finally, (no-more)Gregor, in an empty room, being a crawling, hideous cockroach clang to the wall, motionless, dusty and hopeless.
(LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
***
I perceive that people talk too much on the phone. Mobiles, cells, whatever you wanna call them, all day long. I overheard a guy in the department today explain joyfully how he finally had found an explanation for the bad measurements he was taken (eavesdropping is easy for me without lose attention on what I am doing). Apparently, the mobile phones around induce a certain distortion on the electrical/magnetic signals of the device he uses to take measurements.
You are in the bus and it is so common the scene of folks fingering their cells, now scrolling their little screens up and down, then pressing buttons or playing, later talking to somebody, normally small-talking to somebody and taking the right precautions -'cause I don't believe it is unnoticed for them- to be overhead by everyone. The same scenes are in the pubs, in the line inside a coffeeshop, waiting for the train, inside any store, anywhere _it is like a pandemia of fashioness and addictive necessity. Even in a restaurant, you see so often two people talking to each other. If one goes to the restroom, the other seizes the moment to check on his phone. Furthermore, sometimes both stop talking and check their phones, until the bill is ready and they are free to go.
It comes so handy that routine of the stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld, in a time where cell phones were yet a long way to become public and widespread, speaking about, if I am not wrong, the voice message in answer machines: "Come on! Relax, you have to give people a chance to miss you a litleeeeeee".
***
I will finish as soon as I complete my writing tonight here Metamorphosis. Unfortunately, I don't read German, and I am a little discourage to get myself to it, first because I really am not determined and, second, because I am not sure if I could read the needed German in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, though I can read as fast as in Spanish, the good English takes me the best in matters of vocabulary, so I wouldn't be surprise to go crazy with German.
I never tried Metamorphosis in Spanish, don't know why, probably because the translation that I had on made the story funny. Do you know what I mean? Traduttore, traditore! There are things that you cannot translate. I imagine that if literature could be treated formally in a general way, it wouldn't be hard to demonstrate beyond any doubt that translation is not always possible without making the writer a fool, and the reader a childish, deceived poor guy, missing out everything.
Despite not enjoying myself the writing -as I did indeed with The Wind in the Willows-, the story is powerful and keeps me surprising as I turn page after page. I actually can't wait to see the end! But it is a dark story, quite painful _the agony of Gregor's family, mainly his mother's breaks my heart. For Gregor, it must be an unbearable feeling the vanishing of his life as he knew it and, probably, liked _First, his identity goes away, then his work and value for others as head of the family, later the love, care, consideration and even recognition of his own home and house. His most beloved objects and memories, all gone. At the end, he is just a mere object sitting in a forgotten, secret room along with toss-away paraphernalia until, I am afraid, I guess (I haven't finished it yet), his life will be taken. The hinge on which the fate of Gregor turns and depends upon, after he became an animal, is his sister: she demands to spare his life, she demands to dispose of it.
What do we mean by kafkanian scenes? I tend to read novels more in an abstract way, so I lose perceivable images. However, the whole story is full of tremendous images. I can see, as an example, Gregor's father in a rage attempting to murder him at the end of the 2nd part, hurling red apples against him, the mother in shock and in underwear, the sister crying and placating the furious man. Finally, (no-more)Gregor, in an empty room, being a crawling, hideous cockroach clang to the wall, motionless, dusty and hopeless.
(LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The life before me
Being struck after dinner and a couple of pints today, I've seen my life pass before me, my previous life. Have you experienced it anytime? It seems that any other time worked better for you and you start recalling all types of people you have met and episodes you have lived. You get your eyes staring through different angles in space, but up to a fair distance beyond and your mind goes away and away, reviewing. The feeling can be described as an enormous sense of nostalgia, coped with a final detail of uncertainty in the future. You wish to talk about the old times unstoppably with a friend from the ol' times, and long for having him or her in front of you sitting at the table. Your friend is not here and so you yearn and long for it. Nevertheless, rationally, there is not reason to think that those ol' times were better at all, but still, the sense is predominant. I guess this is an experience recognizable for the inductee, but not for the layman. A singular iniciatic experience. If you have lived something of the sort, you will very well know what I am talking about. Of course, you need to be a little loose to release the thick hawser anchoring your dignities and selves here and now, have yourself levitate a little, and take your life across such a frightful, heavy-hearted perspective. Don't look for it, anyhow, won't find it. The initiatic distortions will find youuuuu. You must pay your duty to life the way it takes and as it pleases and, either you like it or not, you will have it _will have that uncontrolled defile of images and emotions. However, make sure you give your respects to and only to life. No matter if thorny and disgraceful, unfair and desperate, (always you will be short-eyed and ungrateful, as a matter of fact), life won't be frivolous itself, nor fake, nor plastic, but will just be real and that's what counts. Embrace it as it comes and fight your way through to plenitude. In days like today, although for only the time elapsed for the drink of two pints of beer, I realize life's all I possess.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Like summer tempests came his tears
I came to finish The Wind in the Willows today _Started early in the morning, in my way to work in the bus, continue during supper at Toff's Fish up in Muswell Hill, and rounded and terminated upon 2 pints of London Pride at the fox hunter's pub next door to my dwellings.
It is a marvellous book, full of poetry, a tender and thoughtful story.
My querie is: why is this considered to be a book for children?
Do you know why?
I ignore the intentions of Graham by writing the book. I read that the book is actually the output that came from the inspiration of the letters Graham wrote to his son. Is that so?... The book is so rich that I doubt an infant of any age will be capable of appreciating the vast amount of adult experience inscribed in the pages of the book.
On the other hand, the story is plentiful of imagination and originality. It is a well-written couple of hundred pages. If you go to Oxford and have a chance to take a look into the Bodleian Library you may see the original hand-writing pages of The Wind of The Willows, I don't know, I wish, really, perhaps I am talking too much, as Toad (for sure, you will find some samples in the Internet). It is a story to enjoy, to read over and over_it is probably the book the Angle Clarence should have been carrying about when came to Earth to save George Bailey.
Powerful and rich language. Great prose, truly poetry. A shiny portrait of friendship, a survey of human most inner psychologies and weaknesses. Would you share with me this appreciation?
What did I like the most?... Difficult to say. I certainly enjoy the last two chapters today, "Like Summer Tempests Came his Tears" and "The Return of Ulysses". It is such a full-of-sense development of the story to have the great Toad's mansion taken and ruled by weasels, stoats and ferrets after his gone-away and imprisonment... However, I foremost was delighted with "Wayfarers All"... Maybe it is a sensible matter for me to be on the road... It might be as well the senses and smells and sounds that Grahame is able to convey and all the familiar feelings _or, at least, understandable feelings_... Perhaps, it is just that I read that chapter on Sunday morning, after a good sleep.
If you have not done it yet, please, read it _it is full of poetry!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
It is a marvellous book, full of poetry, a tender and thoughtful story.
My querie is: why is this considered to be a book for children?
Do you know why?
I ignore the intentions of Graham by writing the book. I read that the book is actually the output that came from the inspiration of the letters Graham wrote to his son. Is that so?... The book is so rich that I doubt an infant of any age will be capable of appreciating the vast amount of adult experience inscribed in the pages of the book.
On the other hand, the story is plentiful of imagination and originality. It is a well-written couple of hundred pages. If you go to Oxford and have a chance to take a look into the Bodleian Library you may see the original hand-writing pages of The Wind of The Willows, I don't know, I wish, really, perhaps I am talking too much, as Toad (for sure, you will find some samples in the Internet). It is a story to enjoy, to read over and over_it is probably the book the Angle Clarence should have been carrying about when came to Earth to save George Bailey.
Powerful and rich language. Great prose, truly poetry. A shiny portrait of friendship, a survey of human most inner psychologies and weaknesses. Would you share with me this appreciation?
What did I like the most?... Difficult to say. I certainly enjoy the last two chapters today, "Like Summer Tempests Came his Tears" and "The Return of Ulysses". It is such a full-of-sense development of the story to have the great Toad's mansion taken and ruled by weasels, stoats and ferrets after his gone-away and imprisonment... However, I foremost was delighted with "Wayfarers All"... Maybe it is a sensible matter for me to be on the road... It might be as well the senses and smells and sounds that Grahame is able to convey and all the familiar feelings _or, at least, understandable feelings_... Perhaps, it is just that I read that chapter on Sunday morning, after a good sleep.
If you have not done it yet, please, read it _it is full of poetry!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Unlike love, friendship does not require presence
As I walked today towards Kilburn, passed by a couple of attractive young women, in absorbed conversation in the outside of a building, while smoking (it is a sexy thing, isn't it, two hot women talking womanly and smoking). It caught my attention the fact that I have noticed in too many other occasions: the high level of focus and pondering two persons smoking outside can put in to a conversation. Again, when I was drinking a beer inside a pub, looked at a couple of man and woman in the terrace outside through the window, absorbed, like spellbound, speaking the language of complicity. A new social circumstance might come into action: the terms of the smoking friends.
Is friendship an indicator of social success, I wonder? Remember Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, and its final message for George Bailey: "No one is a failure if he has friends". And thus, who are you if you are not good at brewing friendship? Facebook is the artificial expression of the formula: friendship = social network = success. And more, what are the elements of a friendship?
I know that learning to harvest good friends is a social skill, much needed... . I am just looking at that other side of people.
I see C.'s profile in facebook _170 contacts. Remember when I met her, about 10 years ago, she was the type of out-casted girl, emotional and socially thin. Or at least, that tender shape is what beguiled me. If friendship (and change) is a clear case for success, ok, I give in: she is successful. My case is quiet the contrary, unfortunately.
My friend A. sent me a mail today: he implies that I did not have time to meet him in Christmas, and brings out what Bioy Casares said about his relation with Borges: "Unlike love, friendship does not require presence". Moreover, my friend A. completes it with something else, out of the Esthetica Originaria's philosophical principles: "Like love, friendship is presence in the absence".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Is friendship an indicator of social success, I wonder? Remember Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, and its final message for George Bailey: "No one is a failure if he has friends". And thus, who are you if you are not good at brewing friendship? Facebook is the artificial expression of the formula: friendship = social network = success. And more, what are the elements of a friendship?
I know that learning to harvest good friends is a social skill, much needed... . I am just looking at that other side of people.
I see C.'s profile in facebook _170 contacts. Remember when I met her, about 10 years ago, she was the type of out-casted girl, emotional and socially thin. Or at least, that tender shape is what beguiled me. If friendship (and change) is a clear case for success, ok, I give in: she is successful. My case is quiet the contrary, unfortunately.
My friend A. sent me a mail today: he implies that I did not have time to meet him in Christmas, and brings out what Bioy Casares said about his relation with Borges: "Unlike love, friendship does not require presence". Moreover, my friend A. completes it with something else, out of the Esthetica Originaria's philosophical principles: "Like love, friendship is presence in the absence".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Vocational artists
I came to praise above all the vocational being, instead and against any professional manifestation of the being. The former implies passion and dedication; the latter, just self-interest, in many cases. A vocation is an irresistible force that pushes you through life with the balm of content, avoiding the neurosis of the search for meaning.
I want you to follow with me these two persons, related to me in one or another way, who account for long years of dedication and passion: they both are today to me truly vocational beings:
Hilary Rosen
http://www.hilaryrosen.co.uk/Site_3/Home_Page.html
Victor Ausin Sainz
I want you to follow with me these two persons, related to me in one or another way, who account for long years of dedication and passion: they both are today to me truly vocational beings:
Hilary Rosen
http://www.hilaryrosen.co.uk/Site_3/Home_Page.html
Victor Ausin Sainz
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Deborah number
While I prepared a practical experiment for the first-year students in the unit operation of mixing, I did some reading regarding the dimensional analysis and its historical application in Chemical Engineering. I counted up to 21 dimensionless groups in Coulson's Chemical Engineering (Perry's Handbook shows a few less), out of which 19 bear the name of the author _male author. Only 1 number out of these 19 is named after a woman: Deborah number.
However, I found rather peculiar two aspects: first, that Deborah group was proposed by a man if not two (Marcus Reiner and Eugene C. Bingham _yes, sir, the one that gives name to Bingham plastics); and second, that its derivation (as a simple ratio between two time magnitudes) comes from religious inspiration, rather than from any dimension analysis.
The story is tastefully told by Reiner himself in the after-dinner of the Fourth International Congress in Rheology held in Providence in August 1963. It is indeed a juicy talk, that suggests me the idea of doing a short film out of it, in a documental collection dedicated to the story of the dimensional numbers, and can be found here (it is a pdf file, so you can save it and print it and keep it).
http://www.cours.polymtl.ca/gch2310/Doc%20supplementaire/Deborah-Rainer.pdf
The points of the story that attracts are many: the meeting between Reiner and Bingham, how the term Continuum Mechanics was despised by a chemist like Bingham, the origin of the term rheology, the confusion with the term theology, the train to Oxford from Paddington Station full of theologians and scholars (actually, I will go to Oxford in a few hours, precisely from Paddington, I should have been in bed a few hours ago already), the beautiful Song of Deborah, apparently one of the oldest parts of the Bible (back to the 12th century before Christ), and the incredible remark of Reiner about the necessity of deriving a dimensionless number:
"But Deborah knew two things. First, that the mountains flow, as everything flows. Second, that they flow before the Lord, and not before the man, for the simple reason that man in his short lifetime cannot see them flowing. We may therefore well define as a non-dimensional number the Deborah number D = time of relaxation / time of observation. The difference between solids and fluids is then defined by the magnitude of D"
Reiner also addressed the teapot effect, about which I shall expand a little further some other time.
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT).
However, I found rather peculiar two aspects: first, that Deborah group was proposed by a man if not two (Marcus Reiner and Eugene C. Bingham _yes, sir, the one that gives name to Bingham plastics); and second, that its derivation (as a simple ratio between two time magnitudes) comes from religious inspiration, rather than from any dimension analysis.
The story is tastefully told by Reiner himself in the after-dinner of the Fourth International Congress in Rheology held in Providence in August 1963. It is indeed a juicy talk, that suggests me the idea of doing a short film out of it, in a documental collection dedicated to the story of the dimensional numbers, and can be found here (it is a pdf file, so you can save it and print it and keep it).
http://www.cours.polymtl.ca/gch2310/Doc%20supplementaire/Deborah-Rainer.pdf
The points of the story that attracts are many: the meeting between Reiner and Bingham, how the term Continuum Mechanics was despised by a chemist like Bingham, the origin of the term rheology, the confusion with the term theology, the train to Oxford from Paddington Station full of theologians and scholars (actually, I will go to Oxford in a few hours, precisely from Paddington, I should have been in bed a few hours ago already), the beautiful Song of Deborah, apparently one of the oldest parts of the Bible (back to the 12th century before Christ), and the incredible remark of Reiner about the necessity of deriving a dimensionless number:
"But Deborah knew two things. First, that the mountains flow, as everything flows. Second, that they flow before the Lord, and not before the man, for the simple reason that man in his short lifetime cannot see them flowing. We may therefore well define as a non-dimensional number the Deborah number D = time of relaxation / time of observation. The difference between solids and fluids is then defined by the magnitude of D"
Reiner also addressed the teapot effect, about which I shall expand a little further some other time.
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT).
Thursday, January 13, 2011
How do you know that your English wife is dead?
I pushed myself ahead and showed up for an audition at the London Philharmonic Choir (LFC). It took one minute to raise a verdict: lack of strong and confident voice. Need vocal training. DENIED.
I attended the rehearsal before the catastrophe _An impressive rehearsal, the guy next to me, to my right, was a trumpet-voice, used to sing in the Phantom of the Opera, they say. He was very kind, all of them were kind. In 3 weeks time they will be singing the Das Klagende Lied ("A Plaintive Song"), the original piece (no later revisions) Gustav Mahler composed in 1880, when he was 20 years old! Apparently, it was published and sung for the first time in 1997 in Manchester, UK.
The piece of music is extraordinary, enjoyed it! It is a story rooted deeply in the primordial fraticidal sin. Two brothers intend to marry a bliss woman who would not marry anyone, except he who finds a special flower (red flower, if I remember right). The good brother finds it, put it in his hat and puts himself to sleep. The bad brother finds him and kills him. Then, he buried him. So he can court the woman and everyone gets ready for the marriage.
However, one of the bones glitters at the light of sun and a peasant discoveres it and makes a flute out of it. A very plaintive child's voice tells the story with a strange and sad music. Then, the peasant goes to the wedding and plays the flute and brings disgrace and woe to the king. The last words of the lyrics (written by Mahler, as well) are "O, Leide" ("O, agony").
It is ironic, isn't it? I got a very plaintive experience after (trying) singing a very plaintive story.
The man to my left told this joke during the break: "How do you know that your English wife is dead? Well, the sink is full of dishes, plates and hotplates and pans... But the sink is better".
I attended the rehearsal before the catastrophe _An impressive rehearsal, the guy next to me, to my right, was a trumpet-voice, used to sing in the Phantom of the Opera, they say. He was very kind, all of them were kind. In 3 weeks time they will be singing the Das Klagende Lied ("A Plaintive Song"), the original piece (no later revisions) Gustav Mahler composed in 1880, when he was 20 years old! Apparently, it was published and sung for the first time in 1997 in Manchester, UK.
The piece of music is extraordinary, enjoyed it! It is a story rooted deeply in the primordial fraticidal sin. Two brothers intend to marry a bliss woman who would not marry anyone, except he who finds a special flower (red flower, if I remember right). The good brother finds it, put it in his hat and puts himself to sleep. The bad brother finds him and kills him. Then, he buried him. So he can court the woman and everyone gets ready for the marriage.
However, one of the bones glitters at the light of sun and a peasant discoveres it and makes a flute out of it. A very plaintive child's voice tells the story with a strange and sad music. Then, the peasant goes to the wedding and plays the flute and brings disgrace and woe to the king. The last words of the lyrics (written by Mahler, as well) are "O, Leide" ("O, agony").
It is ironic, isn't it? I got a very plaintive experience after (trying) singing a very plaintive story.
The man to my left told this joke during the break: "How do you know that your English wife is dead? Well, the sink is full of dishes, plates and hotplates and pans... But the sink is better".
Yes, why not?
Got internet back finally. Am tired today. I was in the movies up here in Muswell Hill with J. and his girlfriend. The King's Speech. I don't know what to say... . Geoffrey Rush is a leading and versatile actor, excellent. Colin Firth is quite likable and actually he is liked. And then you have as the mighty Derek Jacobi, in an ugly and caricatured role as Archbishop of Canterbury, I guess, but his character does not offer much in the film. I found the movie slow, with nice moments of comedy (excellent is Lionel Logue playing with the kids in the old house with no heater, reciting), and nice parts with dramatic intensity (remarkable is the scene when Lionel and Bernie are about to rehearse the ceremony in which Bernie will be enthroned as George VI).
But that's all I can think of. Perhaps, I will change my mind some time afterwards... Well, one detail: don't understand the music along the final speech... Beethoven! A speech against the German nationalism (yes, Nazism is deeply a form of nationalism with pretensions to expanding) by the king of England and you used Beethoven? (Anyhow, silence would be much more dramatic, along with the sweat of the king). I find the story, no doubt, a much better match for acting shows and theatrical adaptation than for cinema. You have to create a magnificent movie to make the story an unforgettable classic.
What do you think?
***
I was in East London today doing an errand for my PhD and while walking back I took a glimpse of Keri Smith's last book Mess: A Manual of Accidents and Mistakes in a bookshop window. I must say that it helped me out a little to work out a few bad feelings I had. I was given by some friends a nice notebook by the time I moved from Madrid to London, and I have not found yet a perfect aim for it. Perhaps, I could start writing in it all my mistakes and "pooh-pooh" (how do you say it?).
For the only occupation that I master and at which I have remained loyal, determined and tenacious is at making the same mistakes over and over again. Wherever I go, whatever I do, always the same mistakes and errors. Will that make me a loser? I must pay close attention and learn from them, but I guess I never got myself to it, and don't even know if I should.
I have not read anything by Keri Smith. The whole thing is so stinky that I get prejudicial towards her and her work. In her web page she defines herself as "an author/illustrator turned guerrilla artist" (??) and confess the leading of a formidable life: "Keri spends her days playing with her husband and son, reading, cooking and writing books". Yes, sir: the perfect life!
Actually, I realized that I hate to work, that's the core of my very problems. I would love to wander about in the world (maybe exploring, yes) with no worries about money or my senility, and extrude some conceited purposes and hopes by writing a blog (like this one).
Yes, why not?
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT)
But that's all I can think of. Perhaps, I will change my mind some time afterwards... Well, one detail: don't understand the music along the final speech... Beethoven! A speech against the German nationalism (yes, Nazism is deeply a form of nationalism with pretensions to expanding) by the king of England and you used Beethoven? (Anyhow, silence would be much more dramatic, along with the sweat of the king). I find the story, no doubt, a much better match for acting shows and theatrical adaptation than for cinema. You have to create a magnificent movie to make the story an unforgettable classic.
What do you think?
***
I was in East London today doing an errand for my PhD and while walking back I took a glimpse of Keri Smith's last book Mess: A Manual of Accidents and Mistakes in a bookshop window. I must say that it helped me out a little to work out a few bad feelings I had. I was given by some friends a nice notebook by the time I moved from Madrid to London, and I have not found yet a perfect aim for it. Perhaps, I could start writing in it all my mistakes and "pooh-pooh" (how do you say it?).
For the only occupation that I master and at which I have remained loyal, determined and tenacious is at making the same mistakes over and over again. Wherever I go, whatever I do, always the same mistakes and errors. Will that make me a loser? I must pay close attention and learn from them, but I guess I never got myself to it, and don't even know if I should.
I have not read anything by Keri Smith. The whole thing is so stinky that I get prejudicial towards her and her work. In her web page she defines herself as "an author/illustrator turned guerrilla artist" (??) and confess the leading of a formidable life: "Keri spends her days playing with her husband and son, reading, cooking and writing books". Yes, sir: the perfect life!
Actually, I realized that I hate to work, that's the core of my very problems. I would love to wander about in the world (maybe exploring, yes) with no worries about money or my senility, and extrude some conceited purposes and hopes by writing a blog (like this one).
Yes, why not?
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A sunny Sunday afternoon at the National Gallery
I am complete layman in painting art and history but, every once in a while, during my random ramblings, I end up in a painting museum, an exhibition or something of the sort. Last Sunday London was surprisingly radiant, dressed in a mild and sunny day. I had my morning jogging, my shower and, after a disappointment because of the Internet failure in the area, a sound roast beef. Then, I grabbed the bus and, after a few strolls, led my pace to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
It was lovely, I must say. I hired an audio guide at the front desk and got a piece of paper with a recommendation for a 60-minute walk, though it took me almost 3 hours to complete it. I enjoyed every bit of it.
If I am to take one piece of art above all, I would choose The Doge Leonardo Loredan, a portrait Bellini painted sometime between 1501 and 1504. I was captured by the face of this gentleman, impressively alive, rich and psychologically profound, and so is the use of light, the details of light and color. I loved it. It is in room 62, dedicated to the Venice artists of the age.
In room 34, I think, I found An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) by the English Joseph Wright of Derby (1734 – 1797), a nice surprise, indeed. The painting is used in the cover of a recent edition of Tiempo de Silencio, written by Luis Martin Santos in 1966 if I remember correctly (very recommendable, a great novel!).
This is what I saw in the National Gallery:
1. “Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by his Patron Saint John the Baptist and Saints Edwards and Edmund” (The Wilton Diptych), unknown, 14th century, room 53 (Tuscany)
2. “The Battle of San Romano”, Ucello, 1438 – 40, room 54 (Central Italy)_ The battle between Florence and Siena for Pisa in 1432; the room shows pieces by Gioto and Masaccio amongst others.
3. “The Arnolfini Portrait”, J. Van Eyck, 1434, room 56 (The Neatherlands)_ The celebrated portrait of the wealthy couple, the woman seems to be pregnant, but she is not, as she poses according to the fashion of the year; the detail of the candle lights burning, though it is daytime outside (thought to be used by the painter to show his ability and technique).
4. “Venus and Mars”, Botticelli, 1485, room 58 (paintings from Florentine palaces)_ it is interpreted as a message for young married couple. Woman: she is dressed-up, alert and thoughtful; Man: he is sleeping and naked, and the cherubims are playing with his arms.
5. “Doge Leonardo Loredan”, Bellini, 1501 – 04, room 62 (Venice).
6. “The Baptism of Christ”, Piero della Francesca, 1450s, room 66 (P. della Francesca)_ Apparently, the guy was also a mathematician and was crazy about geometry and order.
7. “The Virgin of the Rocks”, L. da Vinci, 1491 – 1508, room 2 (Da Vinci & North Italy)_ The contrast between the rough and unfathomable landscape of terrible and unassailable mountains and the tenderness of the Virgin Mary, Her Son, John the Baptist and the Cherubim; and the sfumato technique employed.
8. “The Ambassadors”, Holbein the Young, 1533, room 4 (Germany)_ A powerful portrait of the motto of the time: the futileness of life against death: 2 young, handsome ambassadors surrounded by all the science and splendor of the time, except for 2 details of death: the scalp with a skeleton hanging around the neck of one of the ambassadors, and the broken lute .
9. “A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)”, Holbein the Young, 1526 – 28, room 4.
10. “An Allegory with Venus and Cupid”, Bronzino, 1545, room 8 (Florence & Rome)_ An example of Manierism.
11. “Portrait of Pope Julius II”, Raffaello, 1511, room 8_ The angle from where the portrait is taken is new and original, a landmark in painting history. The Pope is bearded.
12. “The Entombment”, Michelangelo, 1500, room 8_ It is unfinished, and I don’t see the importance of this piece.
13. “The Madonna of the Pinks”, Raffaello, 1506 – 07, room 8.
14. “Bacchus and Ariadne”, Tiziano, 1520 – 23, room 12 (Tiziano & Venice).
15. “The Adoration of the Kings”, Gossaert, 1510 – 15, room 14 (The Neatherlands)_ I like it. A big score of details, great attention paid to them, very well-defined figures, lots of colors. The Adoration takes place in a Greco-roman palace in ruins, which convey the message of the Old Order being revoked by the New Kingdom and Law.
16. “Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula”, Claude Lorraine, 1641, room 20 (Claude Lorraine)_ Beautiful works, those of this man! Never heard of him before. He is the painting of sunset and sunshine. Here he shows the embarking of the British princess, Saint Ursula, to Rome in pilgrimage, along with 11,000 virgins. Her fate was, however, doomed, as she was killed in Colonna during the return trip.
17. “Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid (The Enchanted Castle)”, Claude Lorraine, 1664, room 20_Painting and story, both nice.
18. “Self Portrait at the Age of 63”, Rembrandt, 1669, room 23 (Rembrandt & Dutch painters)_ Was painted the same year of his death. His mistress for more than 30 years had just died. Rembrandt never recovered from his bankruptcy in 1656. His last years were indeed dark.
19. “Self Portrait at the Age of 34”, Rembrandt, 1640, room 24 (Rembrandt & Caravaggists)_ Confident, young man, only the most important painter of portraits in Amsterdam at the time.
20. “A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal”, Vermeer, 1670, room 25 (Vermeer and Delft Painters).
21. “Samson and Delilah”, Rubens, 1609 – 1610,room 29 (Rubens)_ Use of light, study of the muscles of Samson back from Greco-roman statues.
22. “The Rockeby Venus”, Velazquez, 1647 – 51, room 30 (Spain)_ The sole Venus deserves attention: she occupies the whole picture and she herself looks in the mirror held by her son, Cupid. The reflection gets also back to us. Now, why does the guide have to mention the Inquisition? Stop the nonsense!!... Who is the Venus? The Duchess of Alba??
23. “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I”, A. Van Dick, 1637 – 38, room 31 (Van Dyke)_ Was he making fun of the king? You know, the long hair of the horse, as Charles’ long hair. It is a powerful image of the king, in spite of his short stature.
24. “The Supper at Emmaus”, Caravaggio, 1601, room 32 (Italy)_ Jesus is alive and presents Himself to the Emmaus disciples and they recognize Him during supper, as Jesus partakes the Bread. Jesus is with no beard. Reactions of the three disciples as they recognize Him are showed.
25. “Madame de Pompadour at Her Tambour Frame”, Drouais, 1763 – 4, room 33 (France)_ This lady, tremendously influential in France, 18th century, was Louis XV’s wife.
26. “The Hay Warn”, Constable, 1821, room 34 (UK).
27. “The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up, 1838”, Turner, 1839, room 34_ A symbol of the new age: a small steam-ship carrying the huge old war boat from Trafalgar Battle against the Spaniards.
28. “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews”, Gainsborough, 1748 – 49, room 35 (Hogarth & the British).
29. “Mr. and Mrs. William Hallet (The Morning Walk)”, 1775, room 34.
30. “Madame Moitessier”, Ingres, 1844 – 56, room 41 (dedicated to the artists influenced by the Paris Academy, The Ecole des Beaux-Arts)_ Ingres took 12 years to complete this work.
31. “Bathers at Asnieres”, Seurat, 1883 – 84, room 44 (beyond Impressionism, Pisarro & Seurat)_ Shows the technique of Punctualism.
32. “Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses), Cezanne, 1888 – 1905, room 45 (Van Gogh & Cezanne).
33. “Sunflowers”, Van Gogh, 1888, room 45_ Apparently, this piece is important for its brilliant colors, which points out to optimism in time. It shows deep hope. The paint was done before Van Gogh’s mental breakdown.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Mr. Toad
Got no connection to Internet at home yesterday. Just in case it has not been restored yet when I get home in a few hours, I will jot down the following, scribbled when in the bus last night.
In The Wind in the Willows you have:
The Mole
The Rat
The Toad
The Badger
I wouldn't ask you which one could you be or on the shoe's of what animal see yourself fit into. That would be an easy question.
Now, image that I tell you that myself is a Toad, even more, that Mr. Toad could be casted out of a mould of mine. The question is: what can a man like Mr. Toad do with his lofe?
What can a man like myself do with his life?
What would you do if you were me?
Ok, I got a-run now.
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT)
In The Wind in the Willows you have:
The Mole
The Rat
The Toad
The Badger
I wouldn't ask you which one could you be or on the shoe's of what animal see yourself fit into. That would be an easy question.
Now, image that I tell you that myself is a Toad, even more, that Mr. Toad could be casted out of a mould of mine. The question is: what can a man like Mr. Toad do with his lofe?
What can a man like myself do with his life?
What would you do if you were me?
Ok, I got a-run now.
(PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT)
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Vatican City of the middle-class liberalism
The afternoon suddenly got sunny and I finished my late lunch and rushed to take a few strolls out in Alexandra Park. The sky is clean and cold, the views and landscape from the Court building, delightful. Muswell Hill is such a lively community, a lovely bunch of cross-roads crowded with people during daytime as they do errands or shopping or walk out their dogs or children. Bookshops and supermarkets, restaurants and coffee shops, barbers and iron mongers, parks and kiosks and the movie theatre, pubs and travel agencies, all only comes too handy.
As I walked back through the park I passed by a kiosk. Two couples are sitting outside, drinking a cup of something and smoking cigarettes; there is a baritone voice singing an opera aria out of a player. The scene is so inviting that I came in and ordered a cafe latte, middle size. The place is rather small and cozy. An Italian man and woman are attending the place. While I waited for the coffee I took a look around and had time to read a favorable critic in a piece of newspaper, pinned on the wall: "On a Sunday on my bike, I ended up in a kiosk in Alexandra Park, Muswell Hill, the Vatican City of the middle-class liberalism...".
Out with my coffee I stopped for a minute and looked in front of me.There is a green parcel of a meadow, all green, and down beyond the naked trees and much further down, behind detached and semi-detached houses, the high buildings of The City in London. Out in the meadow, about 300 yards there is a girl playing with a dog, wearing a light dress, bared arms, while a couple of adults are next to her watching, the woman wrapped in fur.
Muswell Hill and surroundings... The place where lived Peter Sellers and Ray Davies of The Kinks (who said that wouldn't go further south of Archway). Next to my door I learned that Steve Norman's family still lives (of Spandau Ballet, once separated or divorced, he moved away). In Muswell Hill lives also, when at home, Clive Owen, and J. told me that he once saw him at WHSmith.
Muswell Hill, the home place of Michael Mcintyre as well...
As I walked back through the park I passed by a kiosk. Two couples are sitting outside, drinking a cup of something and smoking cigarettes; there is a baritone voice singing an opera aria out of a player. The scene is so inviting that I came in and ordered a cafe latte, middle size. The place is rather small and cozy. An Italian man and woman are attending the place. While I waited for the coffee I took a look around and had time to read a favorable critic in a piece of newspaper, pinned on the wall: "On a Sunday on my bike, I ended up in a kiosk in Alexandra Park, Muswell Hill, the Vatican City of the middle-class liberalism...".
Out with my coffee I stopped for a minute and looked in front of me.There is a green parcel of a meadow, all green, and down beyond the naked trees and much further down, behind detached and semi-detached houses, the high buildings of The City in London. Out in the meadow, about 300 yards there is a girl playing with a dog, wearing a light dress, bared arms, while a couple of adults are next to her watching, the woman wrapped in fur.
Muswell Hill and surroundings... The place where lived Peter Sellers and Ray Davies of The Kinks (who said that wouldn't go further south of Archway). Next to my door I learned that Steve Norman's family still lives (of Spandau Ballet, once separated or divorced, he moved away). In Muswell Hill lives also, when at home, Clive Owen, and J. told me that he once saw him at WHSmith.
Muswell Hill, the home place of Michael Mcintyre as well...
No wife's men
I have finally read Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde. I don't find the writing brilliant, as in the classics. In there, it seems like the sentences are unquestionable, formally neat and necessarily precious, the contents true and indisputable. On the contrary, the story by Stevenson is written in a form close to the writings of today's best-sellers: direct and catchy, like in a hurry, like any single sentence can be written in a thousand alternative ways.
Nevertheless, the tale is fascinating. If men are made of two natures, one good and another pure evil, it is a matter of time and probability that one of them will look at it and fell curious about it. And here Harry Jekill comes, with his purpose of separating one out of the other. I like the final detail when Jekill confess that it might not been the salt that operates the miracle, but certain impurity of it, not identified before, as Jekill did not acknowledge its importance initially. As his original supply of salt is running short, the doctor is in distress because he cannot find anymore that impurity and new cargoes of salt render no results. From this moment, the circumstance is unbearable and satanic, terrible and desperate: first, because of Edward Hyde's pushing and taking over, as Jekill nature is crumbling away; and, second, because he realizes that his incredible finding has been in fact fortuitous, over which he has no control whatsoever. He who wants to control Nature, finds himself outwitted by it, dismally lost.
I would last ten seconds after getting myself in this situation.
What fascinates me most, as I have already indicated some other time and partly the reason for this blog to exist, is the topic of duplicity in human nature ("the other side"). Stevenson addresses it just explicitly. Health and common individuals walk in life having both natures joined to each other, being education, social standards and such the main driving force to keep evil under control and caged. For men tend to evil, that's the point, is evidently corruptible. If you loose control, the indisputable entropy law of human nature says that you won't be better, but worse. On the other extreme, the man in madness shows a breach between both natures, which inexorable will grow larger and larger to the point of the vanishing of the good and the prevalence of evil.
The same topic of duplicity appears in The Picture of Dorian Grey.
The human tragedy of duplicity, played to the extreme, is resolved in both cases with the death of the doomed.
Even if we pay attention to details, context and interpretations, this topic of duplicity works for today! I can see many folks that follows the wrong way having one part fighting the other and falling apart, until nothing really matters and the kingdom of self-destruction is come.
I have been appealed by a common fact of the characters in this two nineteenth-century stories: the absence of the woman-wife figure. What sad people are they all, walking around life with their disputes about science, their social gatherings and their butlers in black and severe expressions! Satan is lurking amongst solitary, no wife's men.
Again, context and interpretations apart, the topic works for today, don't you think?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS).
Nevertheless, the tale is fascinating. If men are made of two natures, one good and another pure evil, it is a matter of time and probability that one of them will look at it and fell curious about it. And here Harry Jekill comes, with his purpose of separating one out of the other. I like the final detail when Jekill confess that it might not been the salt that operates the miracle, but certain impurity of it, not identified before, as Jekill did not acknowledge its importance initially. As his original supply of salt is running short, the doctor is in distress because he cannot find anymore that impurity and new cargoes of salt render no results. From this moment, the circumstance is unbearable and satanic, terrible and desperate: first, because of Edward Hyde's pushing and taking over, as Jekill nature is crumbling away; and, second, because he realizes that his incredible finding has been in fact fortuitous, over which he has no control whatsoever. He who wants to control Nature, finds himself outwitted by it, dismally lost.
I would last ten seconds after getting myself in this situation.
What fascinates me most, as I have already indicated some other time and partly the reason for this blog to exist, is the topic of duplicity in human nature ("the other side"). Stevenson addresses it just explicitly. Health and common individuals walk in life having both natures joined to each other, being education, social standards and such the main driving force to keep evil under control and caged. For men tend to evil, that's the point, is evidently corruptible. If you loose control, the indisputable entropy law of human nature says that you won't be better, but worse. On the other extreme, the man in madness shows a breach between both natures, which inexorable will grow larger and larger to the point of the vanishing of the good and the prevalence of evil.
The same topic of duplicity appears in The Picture of Dorian Grey.
The human tragedy of duplicity, played to the extreme, is resolved in both cases with the death of the doomed.
Even if we pay attention to details, context and interpretations, this topic of duplicity works for today! I can see many folks that follows the wrong way having one part fighting the other and falling apart, until nothing really matters and the kingdom of self-destruction is come.
I have been appealed by a common fact of the characters in this two nineteenth-century stories: the absence of the woman-wife figure. What sad people are they all, walking around life with their disputes about science, their social gatherings and their butlers in black and severe expressions! Satan is lurking amongst solitary, no wife's men.
Again, context and interpretations apart, the topic works for today, don't you think?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)