In the dark Universe of bugs and small insects of Vargas Llosa, with no hope nor joy, there is only one being pulling against the ceiling glass: Lieutenant Gamboa, a stupidly straight and disciplined young man, the only moral being of rectitude. Vargas Llosa was only 26 when he finished writing La Ciudad y los Perros. The story of the novel is succinctly told in the prologue; I found it a couple of weeks ago in the Metro of Madrid, stuck in the wall of one of the trains, out of this program of "come, come close to the books and you'll find out". I bumped into it and bought a cheap pocket edition in the airport a couple of days later, on my return. The novel is excellent: dirty water was never as much fresh, misery never shined as much human and tender.
It is amazing the achievements of certain people at certain age. In the prologue, Llosa confesses that to write La Ciudad he had to read "many adventures books as a teenager, believed in Sartre's thesis on activist literature, devoured Malraux's novels and admired with no limits the American novelist of the lost generation, mainly and above all, Faulkner". I could spend a second childhood reading all that stuff and I would not possibly be able to even scratch the skin of human nature, the nature Llosa dissects masterly. Even more: sooner or later, I would go nuts.
Einstein was also 26 when he formulated the Special Relativity postulates in 1905. T.J.C., a Distinguish professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, was 75 when he beat cancer and, after 40 years of teaching, decided to spend the nights in his office conquering the dream of his life: formulate the essence of the Universe in equations. Like that. I was taking CFD courses at the time and I remembered him coming into class amazed by the brain of a Einstein: how a 26-year old guy could have had something like that in his mind? I was more amazed by T.J.C.
Steven Spielberg was also 26 or something like when he shot Duel and 30 or 32 when did Jaws. And so, and so, with other examples of today.
My good friend A. reminded me the episode of Julius Caesar weeping in Hispania, before a statue of Alexander the Great, because he realized to be of the same age of Alexander when he died and having done nothing in life... Well, Caesar was a quaestor then in Spain, but had not being precisely quiet, and the story denotes precisely his ambition... But Alexander was Alexander... Unsurpassed and unrivaled in all the Ancient Age. Precisely, Paul Johnson dedicates one chapter to both of them (the same chapter) in his Heroes.
At this hour of the night, I look down into the empty, drowsy and forgotten street. It is a magical moment. What have I been doing in life?... Just sparing my life, I mutter... That is! Sparing my life... I am a sparer, beloved and interesting, if you wish, but a sparer. I am ready to take the verdict. The drapes of the stage can be pulled up now: that is my character, my final dramatis persona. A. would say that Destiny is the last micron of my human stature... But real life does not work this way, does it not? We are incomplete, possibility does not imply necessity... I say to myself, Self! Let it be, sparer, just live. Give in your life. Then, the real game will start. You know it.
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Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Ramsay, Morton and Rayleigh
If you ask the students of the Chemical Engineering Department attending tomorrow the Ramsay dinner who William Ramsay was or what he did, how many would give you an answer? How many, if you address the enquire to members of the staff? How many, if you pose the question to lecturers or readers?
It is curious how the essence of events, the true meaning of facts fades out or gets distorted drastically. William Ramsay (a born Scottish), chair of the Inorganic Chemistry Department at UCL from 1887 to 1913, got the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his discovery of the rare gases in air (helium, neon, argon, xenon) and the finding out of their location in the Periodic Table. The relevant facts, however, are: first, he was a chemist (not an engineer); second, he was an obsessive experimentalist; and third, in appearance, Ramsay had an open, sincere spirit for collaboration (i.e. daily correspondence with Lord Rayleigh, from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in the case of argon). John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, in turn, was reported to be an excellent instructor and a developer of experimentalists. Both Rayleigh and Ramsay produce contributions in Physics, Chemistry and Math (i.e. Rayleigh, 446 papers).
Perhaps, it is only in the amount of publications that one can find an avid interest for resemblance within the Ch. Eng. Department of UCL today and, I dare, within many, many others everywhere else. The quality, the genius, unfortunately, cannot be reproduced: it is a general feature of the Academia of today the dissemination of shit.
I find relevant -and, somehow, amusing- that the main figures to who tribute is paid at the Ch.Eng Department of UCL are Ramsay and Frank Morton (another British, this one, a Chemical Engineer, with a clear and proved vocation for teaching; he passed away a few years ago, I believe). The staff of Universities today, with 95% confidence, stops working in labs after their PhDs and, usually, do not give a damn about teaching. Ain't it amusing?
These lines might sound blunt or unfair; I know I am not writing much lately, and this comment might sound unfair but, -you gotta believe me-, it comes from sadness rather than spite.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
It is curious how the essence of events, the true meaning of facts fades out or gets distorted drastically. William Ramsay (a born Scottish), chair of the Inorganic Chemistry Department at UCL from 1887 to 1913, got the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his discovery of the rare gases in air (helium, neon, argon, xenon) and the finding out of their location in the Periodic Table. The relevant facts, however, are: first, he was a chemist (not an engineer); second, he was an obsessive experimentalist; and third, in appearance, Ramsay had an open, sincere spirit for collaboration (i.e. daily correspondence with Lord Rayleigh, from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in the case of argon). John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, in turn, was reported to be an excellent instructor and a developer of experimentalists. Both Rayleigh and Ramsay produce contributions in Physics, Chemistry and Math (i.e. Rayleigh, 446 papers).
Perhaps, it is only in the amount of publications that one can find an avid interest for resemblance within the Ch. Eng. Department of UCL today and, I dare, within many, many others everywhere else. The quality, the genius, unfortunately, cannot be reproduced: it is a general feature of the Academia of today the dissemination of shit.
I find relevant -and, somehow, amusing- that the main figures to who tribute is paid at the Ch.Eng Department of UCL are Ramsay and Frank Morton (another British, this one, a Chemical Engineer, with a clear and proved vocation for teaching; he passed away a few years ago, I believe). The staff of Universities today, with 95% confidence, stops working in labs after their PhDs and, usually, do not give a damn about teaching. Ain't it amusing?
These lines might sound blunt or unfair; I know I am not writing much lately, and this comment might sound unfair but, -you gotta believe me-, it comes from sadness rather than spite.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The hopelessness of Lorca and Llosa
The Almeida Theater in Angel (London) is showing this days The House of Bernarda Alba, directed by Bijan Sheibani, in a new version of Emily Mann. The possibilities that the set, the plot and the characters created by Lorca bring up are rich and profound. Not in vain, characters from this play -as well as the august and grotesque and genial Valle Inclan's Max Estrella- are used in workshops in Spain to learn techniques in developing acting characters. The location of the house and the play in today's Iran I find interesting; also, the mix of accents -although, I lost quite a lot, being myself, unfortunately, hard of understanding sometimes-. There was a mild touch of anachronism, perhaps (i.e. the detail of the vacuum cleaner at the beginning), and a touch of surrealism that I saw in the figure of the crazy mother, probably from the time the play was written (1936): all aspirations and dreams of the house are kept locked in the head of a demented, old woman, and sometimes escape at night.
The production lacks intensity at several moments and, I believe the figure of Bernarda was quite soft and ill-built; I had the impression that the actress was in love with her own voice. Most surprising to me was the timid laughing out-bursts that the audience was keenly provoking during the play. Why? Why was so?... It is a bad indication when a drama of the magnitude of The House falls into the laughs of the public, but perhaps, it is in the intention of the public to make something different out of it. It is interesting. Jokes and occurrences, nevertheless, never lead to laugh in a drama but only, perhaps, to sad, sad, tender smiles.
I had the vague sensation during the play of being gravitating in an Universe of blurred time coordinates, which is nice. This Universe, however, was secured and pillared by the modernity of death and pain _always there, like the light of sun, now and then, and tomorrow; also, the everlasting yearnings of humans for happiness; and the constant claw of hopelessness, squeezing tight.
Indeed, the house of Bernarda Alba is a nest of unhappiness -a house full of "women without men"-, covered with dust, the dust of the burning dessert next door. However, men do not seem to make things better. Bernarda herself has been married twice and she is not doing well: a tragic, crippled, dark and spoiled figure, an authoritarian and chocking fist upon the fate of the rest, feared and hated as much as Tiberium. Men come and go -"sigh, no more, ladies, sigh no more: men are deceivers ever", is sung in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing-, and come because attracted to money or to the juicy fruit of a 20 year-old rose. This is a hard world for women, and even death is unfair to them, as men live less, and the honor of a woman never let her rest in peace. The marriages of Bernarda have also brought discord to the house in the opposition between Angustias and Adela, the oldest and the youngest daughters, having different fathers and ruined by the same man. All attempts to escape reality are chocked and the house has its gates opened to hopelessness.
But Lorca provides an exit: death.
**
The world of the characters of Vargas Llosa (i.e. La Ciudad y los Perros, Conversacion en la Catedral) is much hopeless and dark as the house of Bernarda Alba. But Llosa does not let them escape; the people in his stories hardly killed themselves, hardly complaint about their fate, hardly gather together around a sewing table to reflect on their state. They are puppets always shook in motion and struggling for survival, animals caged by their instints. The sky is low and gray, no one sees higher inspirations, no one spot room for virtue. The Universe is a narrow slot through which creatures crawled blind-folded, betrayed once and again and again over their petty, low and unimportant affairs. Llosa shows his characters dragged in the dust from before they are born and let them die slowly and inadvertently without a ray of sun, without a hope.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
The production lacks intensity at several moments and, I believe the figure of Bernarda was quite soft and ill-built; I had the impression that the actress was in love with her own voice. Most surprising to me was the timid laughing out-bursts that the audience was keenly provoking during the play. Why? Why was so?... It is a bad indication when a drama of the magnitude of The House falls into the laughs of the public, but perhaps, it is in the intention of the public to make something different out of it. It is interesting. Jokes and occurrences, nevertheless, never lead to laugh in a drama but only, perhaps, to sad, sad, tender smiles.
I had the vague sensation during the play of being gravitating in an Universe of blurred time coordinates, which is nice. This Universe, however, was secured and pillared by the modernity of death and pain _always there, like the light of sun, now and then, and tomorrow; also, the everlasting yearnings of humans for happiness; and the constant claw of hopelessness, squeezing tight.
Indeed, the house of Bernarda Alba is a nest of unhappiness -a house full of "women without men"-, covered with dust, the dust of the burning dessert next door. However, men do not seem to make things better. Bernarda herself has been married twice and she is not doing well: a tragic, crippled, dark and spoiled figure, an authoritarian and chocking fist upon the fate of the rest, feared and hated as much as Tiberium. Men come and go -"sigh, no more, ladies, sigh no more: men are deceivers ever", is sung in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing-, and come because attracted to money or to the juicy fruit of a 20 year-old rose. This is a hard world for women, and even death is unfair to them, as men live less, and the honor of a woman never let her rest in peace. The marriages of Bernarda have also brought discord to the house in the opposition between Angustias and Adela, the oldest and the youngest daughters, having different fathers and ruined by the same man. All attempts to escape reality are chocked and the house has its gates opened to hopelessness.
But Lorca provides an exit: death.
**
The world of the characters of Vargas Llosa (i.e. La Ciudad y los Perros, Conversacion en la Catedral) is much hopeless and dark as the house of Bernarda Alba. But Llosa does not let them escape; the people in his stories hardly killed themselves, hardly complaint about their fate, hardly gather together around a sewing table to reflect on their state. They are puppets always shook in motion and struggling for survival, animals caged by their instints. The sky is low and gray, no one sees higher inspirations, no one spot room for virtue. The Universe is a narrow slot through which creatures crawled blind-folded, betrayed once and again and again over their petty, low and unimportant affairs. Llosa shows his characters dragged in the dust from before they are born and let them die slowly and inadvertently without a ray of sun, without a hope.
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The importance of being Mendeleiev
During the course of a facilitation-skills training with students, the participants (19-20 years old) had to compose as a group two puzzles (crosswords of letters) containing the names and symbols of chemical elements, respectively. The most difficult task in my view was to complete the puzzle with the names, because there was not any indication a priori of the order or pattern to be followed. The symbols were just to be arranged in their periodic-table order.
It turned out, however, that students could not solve the second puzzle but dedicated strong efforts and time to complete the first one. Two mobile cells were on the table displaying periodic tables, though. A second group also used mobile phones, but realized that at the back of one of the sheets to hold the puzzle there was a periodic table of elements. They took photographs of the back, turned the sheet over and started composing the puzzle on the top face.
It came straight to me that none of them knew by heart the periodic table. Apart from this revealing fact -quite surprising in Chemical Engineering students-, there is a shear conclusion that one dares to extract. When one group was asked whether or not knowing by heart the arrangement of elements in the periodic table would have benefited the performance during the task, the answer was positive. This is to me one proof that the general stigmatization of memory and learning by memorizing in schools and public spaces for decades has been misguiding, detrimental and mistaken.
At the entrance of the British Library off Euston Road in London there is a panel stating: "there are too kinds of knowledge; that which is already known and that which is not, but the means and tools to find it are". Something like this. In my view, this assertion is simplistic and, strictly speacking, untrue, because the quality of both knowledges might be different in a given application and when set in time (as shown in the example above). Thus, both kinds do not fall within the same category of knowledge.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
It turned out, however, that students could not solve the second puzzle but dedicated strong efforts and time to complete the first one. Two mobile cells were on the table displaying periodic tables, though. A second group also used mobile phones, but realized that at the back of one of the sheets to hold the puzzle there was a periodic table of elements. They took photographs of the back, turned the sheet over and started composing the puzzle on the top face.
It came straight to me that none of them knew by heart the periodic table. Apart from this revealing fact -quite surprising in Chemical Engineering students-, there is a shear conclusion that one dares to extract. When one group was asked whether or not knowing by heart the arrangement of elements in the periodic table would have benefited the performance during the task, the answer was positive. This is to me one proof that the general stigmatization of memory and learning by memorizing in schools and public spaces for decades has been misguiding, detrimental and mistaken.
At the entrance of the British Library off Euston Road in London there is a panel stating: "there are too kinds of knowledge; that which is already known and that which is not, but the means and tools to find it are". Something like this. In my view, this assertion is simplistic and, strictly speacking, untrue, because the quality of both knowledges might be different in a given application and when set in time (as shown in the example above). Thus, both kinds do not fall within the same category of knowledge.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The past is chasing
I run into someone today in the tube, someone I had not seen for the last 11 years in another part of the planetary geography. It is hard to believe these chances actually have a chance to happen. I mean, London, the tube... Savage jungles... At this hour of the night I feel the past is chasing me. One is under the impression that he was stupid in the past and, worse, he is wise now. "Things are to be done differently if I had the chance to edit my past now". But I doubt it. I see myself in a time mirror lately, that's all... The past is chasing. A way to get younger, perhaps?
**
I flought into Madrid last Friday. I like taking off from routine on Fridays -almost as much as the sense of eternity you feel on coming-back Sundays-, but I hate plains and dislike human behavior in it. Time is moving on and times are changing. I had next to me a boy no more than 11 or 12 years old. He was sitting between two adults and looks like travelling alone. Probably he was not, but he looked like so. He was Spanish, but was reading a novel for youngsters in English. His passport was populated with stamps from a variety of places... And still, he looked like travelling alone. I know he was not, but he looked like so.
**
I tried to read Popper and his theory of Common Sense. Earlier philosophies struggled to find a robust starting point on which cementing a theory of knowledge. Popper is not concerned with such a futile task. He proposes instead "common sense" as a starting point, provided it can be correctly lately by criticism. Back to history, however, "Descartes was perhaps the first to say that everything depends upon the security of our starting-point" (Two Faces of Common Sense). And in his search of a strong pillar on which supporting knowledge, "he suggested the method of doubt: accept only what is absolutely indubitable". Descartes started then from his own existence, which seemed to him indubitable.
Popper shows how this apparently solid point can be argued. However, and this is the important point, he says: "I am no more sceptical about the existence of my own self than Descartes was of his. But I also think (as did Descartes) that I shall die soon and that this will make little difference to the world, except to myself and two or three friends". And he adds: "Obviously the issues of one's own life and death are of some significance, but I conjecture (and I think Descartes would agree) that my own existence will come to an end without the world's coming to an end too". This is Popper's common sense, a key point in his philosophy of Realism.
I came to remember this two days later, upon Whitney Houston's death.
**
A second teaching lesson from Popper is this indubitable sentence:
"We all have philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating".
The use of the word devastating makes Popper a truly apostle of Realism and an on-the-ground philosopher. But his statement is shear truth - as much as the tremendous fight he foretells, although many are unwilling to take: "This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continued existence of philosophy which I am able to offer".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
**
I flought into Madrid last Friday. I like taking off from routine on Fridays -almost as much as the sense of eternity you feel on coming-back Sundays-, but I hate plains and dislike human behavior in it. Time is moving on and times are changing. I had next to me a boy no more than 11 or 12 years old. He was sitting between two adults and looks like travelling alone. Probably he was not, but he looked like so. He was Spanish, but was reading a novel for youngsters in English. His passport was populated with stamps from a variety of places... And still, he looked like travelling alone. I know he was not, but he looked like so.
**
I tried to read Popper and his theory of Common Sense. Earlier philosophies struggled to find a robust starting point on which cementing a theory of knowledge. Popper is not concerned with such a futile task. He proposes instead "common sense" as a starting point, provided it can be correctly lately by criticism. Back to history, however, "Descartes was perhaps the first to say that everything depends upon the security of our starting-point" (Two Faces of Common Sense). And in his search of a strong pillar on which supporting knowledge, "he suggested the method of doubt: accept only what is absolutely indubitable". Descartes started then from his own existence, which seemed to him indubitable.
Popper shows how this apparently solid point can be argued. However, and this is the important point, he says: "I am no more sceptical about the existence of my own self than Descartes was of his. But I also think (as did Descartes) that I shall die soon and that this will make little difference to the world, except to myself and two or three friends". And he adds: "Obviously the issues of one's own life and death are of some significance, but I conjecture (and I think Descartes would agree) that my own existence will come to an end without the world's coming to an end too". This is Popper's common sense, a key point in his philosophy of Realism.
I came to remember this two days later, upon Whitney Houston's death.
**
A second teaching lesson from Popper is this indubitable sentence:
"We all have philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating".
The use of the word devastating makes Popper a truly apostle of Realism and an on-the-ground philosopher. But his statement is shear truth - as much as the tremendous fight he foretells, although many are unwilling to take: "This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continued existence of philosophy which I am able to offer".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Must write
Now I feel I must write. Don't know waht. Mabey I cnat takl bouat this cmeromcial I saw at the dpaerutre deck of Gwickta epxrsse: the lrsttee wree all miedx up, but sltil you culdo udsternda, in the same way you can understand the previous sentence... It is this night without intensity, asking so badly for something to happen. I think Einstein was the one who stated that things should not be done more complicated than what they really are... Nor simpler either. Vectors are mistreated! Misunderstood! Vectors are taken for granted, made simpler than they should... . Undervalued, underrated. That I used to say... The right to speculate. We all shall have the right to speculate and learn how to do it. Again, alas! I found something in the tube: "It is never too early to jump on conclusions"... True!... The tube, that jealous part of our lives... . Never too early to draw conclusions... True!... Still, don't feel right when I do. I guess I do it wrong. When done it right, it must feel good.... In Spain there are as many prisons as universities... 78... As many crowded prisons as universities... 78... It's been ages since the last time I followed the news in UK, London, here... From outside the country I heard Elisabeth celebrated her 60 anniversary as a Queen. Is that so? A furtive peak to tube newspapers shows St. James street all decked out, dressed up for the occasion with banners and bunting... Ok... . It is this night wanting for more, its young heart caged and consumed in lack of intensity, sweetened in the chloroform of dark, bitter ale... The voice of E. E. Cummings go... "When god lets my body be / From each brave eye shall sprout a tree / fruit that dangles thereform". I feel curious... I just feel, I am not curious. It is a blessing to be curious... . What the music shall be for my funeral? I wondered before. Gracias a la Vida. I watched Le Fate Ignoranti with Don M., a priest now over 70... How long ago? 10 years? There is this scene, the camera moving along the faces of friends gathered at the table, and the music goes on. Gracias a la Vida. Who sang it? Violeta Parra? Mercedes Sosa? Don M. leaned to me and whispered: when I die, that is the song I want at my funeral... . "Into strenuous birds shall go / my love walking in the grass / their wings will touch with her face / and all the while shall my heart be / with the bulge and nuzzle of the sea"... .
Now, go to sleep.
Now, go to sleep.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
And white Sunday morning
I am remembering now my father singing to us as kids the first lines of a jota corrida: "Esta noche ha llovido, manana hay barro" (Last night it rained, tomorrow will be muddy). And goes on: "pobre del carretero que va en el carro" (poor cartwright who rides the cart).
Last night it snowed. The roads up to Muswell Hill are muddy. Sidewalks remain clean and soft, sometimes frozen white, trodden and yellowish; but the roads are thick with dark mud, a mud pregnant of thick water. As wheels roll by on it, the mud bursts and splash its liquid offspring aside It is rich and heavily pregnant, no one could tell. Up in Highgate Wood, the snow is virginal white, though, a good 5 inches in thickness of soft snow that smells strawberry. A couple of snowmen look upon the central meadow. A dog looks upon them and barks, sitting on its hindlegs, happy. The air is still, the white is total, the sky is gray locked and low. A flock of bells fly up and down the stillness from St. James. Young kids pull their blue or red, plastic sledges up the hill. When convenient or tired, they untie the string away from their little wrists and ask the mother to take on the job of pulling the double load. Young women look pretty, deliciously coquette and feminine, in their winter outfits, wearing colorful gloves and jackets and overcoats, tights and boots, with a pair of big and clear eyes emerging from a woolen hat and a sea of red or blond hair, soft and amazed, taking photographs, walking as women should walk.
The hypnotizing power of snow is as big as that of fire. On my way back, my running feet compress the snow underneath and the sound sounds like the snow is being compressed. A girl passes me by towards the opposite direction, running. I see again a big pair of soft and amazed eyes. One guess that we are not used to look into each other eyes in the mist of this silence, as sudden as unexpected... Oh! Sweet and scary morning. Time to read in the book of infinity, half asleep with listless eyes and spirits, cradled by the redemptive smoke of a reassuring drink and the fire in the fireplace.
Last night it snowed. The roads up to Muswell Hill are muddy. Sidewalks remain clean and soft, sometimes frozen white, trodden and yellowish; but the roads are thick with dark mud, a mud pregnant of thick water. As wheels roll by on it, the mud bursts and splash its liquid offspring aside It is rich and heavily pregnant, no one could tell. Up in Highgate Wood, the snow is virginal white, though, a good 5 inches in thickness of soft snow that smells strawberry. A couple of snowmen look upon the central meadow. A dog looks upon them and barks, sitting on its hindlegs, happy. The air is still, the white is total, the sky is gray locked and low. A flock of bells fly up and down the stillness from St. James. Young kids pull their blue or red, plastic sledges up the hill. When convenient or tired, they untie the string away from their little wrists and ask the mother to take on the job of pulling the double load. Young women look pretty, deliciously coquette and feminine, in their winter outfits, wearing colorful gloves and jackets and overcoats, tights and boots, with a pair of big and clear eyes emerging from a woolen hat and a sea of red or blond hair, soft and amazed, taking photographs, walking as women should walk.
The hypnotizing power of snow is as big as that of fire. On my way back, my running feet compress the snow underneath and the sound sounds like the snow is being compressed. A girl passes me by towards the opposite direction, running. I see again a big pair of soft and amazed eyes. One guess that we are not used to look into each other eyes in the mist of this silence, as sudden as unexpected... Oh! Sweet and scary morning. Time to read in the book of infinity, half asleep with listless eyes and spirits, cradled by the redemptive smoke of a reassuring drink and the fire in the fireplace.
White
The snow has finally come to London. Streets are paved in white velvet, and cars and buses roll in silence as much white. White, chilly Saturday night, dressed in cashmere white. Only humans are heard in the dead of the white and its scattered light. Machines, cars and buses, are mute. The Syfy channel is showing Christine, a film by John Carpenter (1983, BV -before vampires). The perfect oldie for the white, the Saturday and the cold. It is the speech of machines in retaliation at the white end of the street.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Lord Jim
Years ago, almost centuries ago, I read in an BBC English Manual that Joseph Conrad had learned to speak English in a ship, out off the sea, around seamen; that his name was not such and that he was indeed Polish. I was only a child struggling with the impossible task of learning a hostile language (still am, still is) and got aghast and amazed _such was the impression on me.
I have Lord Jim in my hands now and I can say that his learned prose is noticeable_ I can sense the invisible, subtle difference of the non-native writer from the native one. Conrad's stream of ink is, nevertheless, personal and independent, sweet and deep at the same time. It soaks your nerves unpredictably, in an imperceptible way. His use of words like "men" and "heart" feels like welcome and profound sips of warm broth _ the feeling is vast and wild, like a window opened to eternity.
"(...) And a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of three months' passage out of a seaman's heart".
"He (...) quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men".
Oh!
The epilogue written on the frontispiece by Novalis is, as well, revealing:
"It is certain any conviction
gains infinitely the moment another soul
will believe in it".
I feel the opposite is also true and as much revealing...
How lonely the idea, how lonely the man who stands alone!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
I have Lord Jim in my hands now and I can say that his learned prose is noticeable_ I can sense the invisible, subtle difference of the non-native writer from the native one. Conrad's stream of ink is, nevertheless, personal and independent, sweet and deep at the same time. It soaks your nerves unpredictably, in an imperceptible way. His use of words like "men" and "heart" feels like welcome and profound sips of warm broth _ the feeling is vast and wild, like a window opened to eternity.
"(...) And a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of three months' passage out of a seaman's heart".
"He (...) quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men".
Oh!
The epilogue written on the frontispiece by Novalis is, as well, revealing:
"It is certain any conviction
gains infinitely the moment another soul
will believe in it".
I feel the opposite is also true and as much revealing...
How lonely the idea, how lonely the man who stands alone!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Two women
There are women who improve as they age, like the wine, like some men do.
One is Marlee Matlin. I always liked her. From "Children of a Lesser God", the violent outbursts with William Hurt and the superimposed peace of beauty, to this, all the way through stuff and stuff. Matlin is 47. She has a tremendous gestural energy. A hypnotizing power.
Another woman is Julia. Julia Louis Dreyfus is over 50 now. Nice. Just to enjoy here and here.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
One is Marlee Matlin. I always liked her. From "Children of a Lesser God", the violent outbursts with William Hurt and the superimposed peace of beauty, to this, all the way through stuff and stuff. Matlin is 47. She has a tremendous gestural energy. A hypnotizing power.
Another woman is Julia. Julia Louis Dreyfus is over 50 now. Nice. Just to enjoy here and here.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
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