[...] and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret [...]

“On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realised that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny -- Philemon Holland's -- and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight); I saw a sunset in Querétaro that seemed to reflect the colour of a rose in Bengal; I saw my empty bedroom; I saw in a closet in Alkmaar a terrestrial globe between two mirrors that multiplied it endlessly; I saw horses with flowing manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending out picture postcards; I saw in a showcase in Mirzapur a pack of Spanish playing cards; I saw the slanting shadows of ferns on a greenhouse floor; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides, and armies; I saw all the ants on the planet; I saw a Persian astrolabe; I saw in the drawer of a writing table (and the handwriting made me tremble) unbelievable, obscene, detailed letters, which Beatriz had written to Carlos Argentino; I saw a monument I worshipped in the Chacarita cemetery; I saw the rotted dust and bones that had once deliciously been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my own dark blood; I saw the coupling of love and the modification of death; I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth; I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon -- the unimaginable universe.

I felt infinite wonder, infinite pity.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

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[...] Hughie let the front legs of his chair down on the floor

“Where’s Hazel today?” Mack asked.

Jones said, “Hazel went out with Doc to get some starfish.”

Mack nodded his head soberly. “That Doc is a hell of a nice fella,” he said. “He’ll give you a quarter any time. When I cut myself he put on a new bandage every day. A hell of a nice fella.”

The others nodded in profound agreement.

“I been wondering for a long time,” Mack continued, “what we could do for him – something nice. Something he’d like.”

“He’d like a dame,” said Hughie.

“He’s got three four dames,” said Jones. “You can always tell – when he pulls them front curtains closed and when he plays that kind of church music on the phonograph.” Mack said reprovingly to Hughie, “Just because he doesn’t run no dame naked through the streets in the daytime, you think Doc’s celebrate.”

“What’s celebrate?” Eddie asked.

“That’s when you can’t get no dame,” said Mack.

“I thought it was a kind of a party,” said Jones.

A silence fell on the room. Mack shifted in his chaise longue. Hughie let the front legs of his chair down on the floor. They looked into space and then they all looked at Mack. Mack said, “Hum!”



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Stance: Educating Rita (1983)

- Is that a book you're reading?
- Yeah, yeah.
- What's it called?
- Of Human Bondage.
- Yeah? My husband's got a lot of books like that.
- What, Somerset Maugham books?
- No, bondage books.



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Acești cocălari aroganți și căruțele lor zburătoare și homerice

Un istoric care scrie intr-o engleza superba despre manierele de cocalar si de Gigi Becali ale eroilor homerici. Fabulos. Nici nu-mi pare ca citesc istorie, ci relatari tabloide din presa recenta :)

"But if what Homer tells us about Mycenaean battle tactics is correct, the European warriors failed to use the chariot's combination of mobility and firepower to good effect.

Instead, Homer's heroes dismounted from their chariots to fight on foot with spears and other close-combat weapons, using their chariots for show and as mere conveniences in coming and going from the field of battle.

However absurd, Homer's report may be accurate. The tactics he described may have been a function of numbers and terrain.

To succeed, a chariot charge required a critical mass - enough arrows and charging chariots to break opposing infantry and persuade foot soldiers to flee.

But in a land like Greece, where hills abound and fodder for horses is short, chariots had to remain few - to few, perhaps, to achieve decisive effect in battle.

Yet, like Cadillacs of the recent past, the prestige of the chariot after its victories in the Middle East was such that every local European chieftain was eager to have one, whether or not he could use it effectively in war."

William H. McNeill - The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force and Society Since AD 1000 (1982; pp. 11 - 12 and footnotes)





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[...] between mighty outbursts of pleasure and terror [...]

"Even in this form as a control organization, however, physical violence and the threat emanating from it have a determining influence on individuals in society, whether they know it or not. It is, however, not a perpetual insecurity that it brings into the life of the individual, but a peculiar form of security.

It no longer throws him, in the swaying fortunes of battle, as the physical victor or vanquished, between mighty outbursts of pleasure and terror; a continuous, uniform pressure is exerted on individual life by the physical violence stored behind the scenes of everyday life, a pressure totally familiar and hardly perceived, conduct and drive economy having been adjusted from earliest youth to this social structure. It is in fact the whole social mould, the code of conduct, which changes; and accordingly with it changes, as has been said before, not only this or that specific form of conduct but its whole pattern, the whole structure of the way individuals steer themselves.

The monopoly organization of physical violence does not usually constrain the individual by a direct threat. A strongly predictable compulsion or pressure mediated in a variety of ways in constantly exerted on the individual.

This operates to a considerable extent through the medium of his own reflection. It is normally only potentially present in society, as an agency of control; the actual compulsion is one that the individual exerts on himself either as a result of his knowledge of the possible consequences of his moves in the game in intertwining activities, or as a result of corresponding gestures of adults which have helped to pattern his own behaviour as a child.

The monopolization of physical violence, the concentration of arms and armed men under one authority, makes the use of violence more or less calculable, and forces unarmed men in the pacified social spaces to restrain their own violence through foresight or reflection; in other words it imposes on people a greater or lesser degree of self-control."

Norbert Elias, On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge: Selected Writings, Ch. “The Social Constraint towards Self-Constraint”, p. 57; The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998



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Calea, Adevărul și Viața

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Tigrule tu fiară rară

Tigre tigre fiară rară
Prin codrul de-odinioară

Dan Alexe se încumetă să traducă Tyger tyger burning bright al lui Blake. Pasămite, se sburlește pielea și părul pre el văzînd cum famenii se semețesc s-o traducă aiurea și o dau iremediabil de gard.

Și o traduce el atunci.

Ceea ce l-a făcut mintenaș pe Turambar să se semețească și el și să-și scoată cuvintele de la naftalină și să accepte provocarea. Nu o dată, ci de doo ori.

Tigrule tigruț bolînd
De-mi tot hălăduiești prin gînd

Că tot am de lucru la doctorat, da?

Fuck. Să cînte lăutarii. Dați drumu la cuvinte. Să sfîșie. Să ne curgă vorbele din ochi cum curge vinul de la streașină.

* * *

Varianta inițială, dintr-o suflare. Imperfectă și fierbinte

Pardos pardos ce-aprig arzi
Prin codru negru de brazi
Ce mînă ori ochi de naibă
Făcutu-te-a făr’ de zgaibă?

Prin ce hău, prin ce tării
Flăcări îți tot scuipă ochii?
Pe ce aripi a-ndrăznit?
În ce mînă focu-i prins?

Și ce spată, și ce vînă
Țîțîna inimii-o scurmă?
Și cînd inima-ți porni
Ce mădular îndrăzni?

Ce ciocan? Ce lanț de fier,
În ce cazan al tău cre’er?
Ce ilău? Ce cruntă ținere
Groaza-ți îndrăzni cuprindere?

Stelele cînd se predară
Și-n lacrimi cer scufundară:
Cînd te văzu, Domnu’o fi rîs?
Miel de făcu, facutu-te-a în plus?

Pardos pardos ce-aprig arzi
Prin codru negru de brazi
Ce mînă ori ochi de naibă
Îndrăznitu-te-a făr’ de zgaibă?


* * *

Și varianta cea mai foarte finală, bibilită pîn la miez

Tigrule tigru arzător
Prin pădurea nopților
Ce mînă ori ochi de zeu
Făr’ de greș te vrea mereu?

În ce negură ori hău
Flăcări scoate ochiul tău?
Pe ce aripi se înalță?
Ce mînă focul înhață?

Și ce spată, și ce artă
Vîna inimii-ți deșteaptă?
Și cînd inima-ți zvîcnește
Ce-nfricate tălpi ori dește?

Ce ciocan? Ce lanț avan,
Mintea ta din ce cazan?
Ce ilău? Ce-a-ncumentat
Groaza-n pumn de ți-a-nșfăcat?

Stelele cînd suliți zvîrlă
Și lacrimi pe cer dau gîrlă:
Munca de-Și văzu, vreun zîmbet avu?
Cel ce miel făcu, și pe tine-acu'?

Tigrule tigru arzător
Prin pădurea nopților
Ce mînă ori ochi de zeu
Făr’ de greș tocmitu-te-a?

* * *

LATER EDIT:
Și varianta lui Florin Pîtea, care se prinde și el în joc. Marele joc. Singurul joc :)
Și ce traducere face și el!

Tygrul

Tygru, tygru-arzînd departe
În pădurile din noapte
Ce ochi, mîini nemuritoare
Simetria-ngrozitoare

Ţi-au croit? În care hău
Mistui-s-a ochiul tău?
Pe ce aripi avîntat?
Ce mîini focu-au înşfăcat?

Care umăr, care artă
Ţi-au făcut inimii hartă?
Inima-ţi cînd a bătut,
Mîini, picioare s-au temut?

Care lanţ, care ciocan
Creier ţi-au forjat avan?
Nicovală? Aprig cleşte
Groaza i-a prins ca-ntre deşte?

Cînd din ceruri plîns-au stele
Suliţe zvîrlit-au ele:
Făuraru-ţi a zîmbit?
Tată de miel te-a croit?

Tygru, tygru-arzînd departe
În pădurile din noapte
Ce ochi, mîini nemuritoare
Simetria-ngrozitoare...

Ţi-au croit?

LATER LATER EDIT: iata ca lista de traduceri se completeaza. P, cititorul nostru fidel, vine si el sa striveasca cea corola de cuvinte a lumii. O traducere avintata, iesita un pic din litera, dar clar pastrind spiritul :) Enjoy!


Tigrule, tigre în flamă
De treci codrii de aramă.
Tigre, tigre, flacără
Prin codrii de negură.

Tigrule, tigre aprins
Foc de viu în codrul stins
Care Zeu din veșnicie
Te-a urzit în simetrie?

În ce crug ori cari genuni
Ochii tăi arunc tăciuni?
Ce aripi cutează zborul?
Cine-ți va fura dogorul?

Ce priceperi și-arte brute
Te-ar putea lovi-n virtute?
Cand ți-a bate bate inima
Cine-și va struni spaima?

Din ce oțel, sub ce baros
Ți-e forjat al țestei os?
Gheara, fier bătut pe muchie
Cine-o va curma să junghie?

Dar când stele-or scăpăta,
Bolta-n lacrimi de-or scălda,
Domnu-ți va zâmbi zicând:
˝Tigre, de-azi vei fi miel blând?˝

Tigre, tigre, ochi aprinsă
Foc șoptit sub bolta stinsă.
Tigre, tigre ochi de jar
Crunt din formă, miel prin har.

* * *

Și originalu' lu' conu' Blake, pentru conformitate:


Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
And what hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat
What dreaded hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?




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You're just less orderly

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[...] the entire sub-culture of rugby union was very much the domain of the players [...]

Critics of contact sports, notably in the 1970s by neo-Marxists, such as Brohm, reinforced the view of rugby football as the most ‘uncivilized’ of football codes; ‘a perfect illustration of the fascistic delirium . . . a case book of the deliberate cultivation of brutality’.

The untamed, or so it was thought, mayhem of the ‘traditional’ rucks and mauls; the dangerous impacts of the unrestrained scrum contacts; lineouts that were viewed by critics as being nothing short of ‘dockyard brawls’; and the tolerance of the dispensing of swift, heavy and violent justice, meant the game still had a foot firmly planted in its mob-football origins.

Prior to its shift into the entertainment sector, the entire sub-culture of rugby union was very much the domain of the players; it was characterized as the players’ game.

Central to this was the fact that the vast majority of administrators, officials and coaches were predominantly ex-players. Management support thus came from those steeped in the culture of the game and tolerant of its uncompromising physical nature, largely manifested in tight-forward dominated and dour contests.

The spectators were an integral part of the game’s sub-culture. They came largely from the rugby community and the games were not, in essence, about entertainment but rather were about identity, loyalty and parochialism.

Peter Horton (2009): Rugby union football in Australian society: an unintended consequence of intended actions, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 12:7, 967-985 (p. 972)

Courtesy of Bogdan Voicu, care mi-a atras atentia ca Routledge ofera in luna ianuarie liber la articolele despre rugby, in anticiparea inceperii Turneului celor 6 natiuni. Si din motive de marketing, evident :) .



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[...] that Truth is a matter of the imagination [...]

I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone. Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better. But it is all one, and if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.

Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand Of Darkness (1969)



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Ce-ți doresc eu ție, dulce Italie?

Vedeți vreo diferențǎ? Eu, sǎ moarǎ pisicile din Forumul Roman, zǎu dacǎ vǎz vreuna. Ai dracu’ veri de ginte latinǎ, cum sîntem noi la fel, dar doar în cele rele...

“This is the formula. It was good in the past and it will probably be good enough for many years to come.

Take a vast, hard-working, pliable, ingenious population, worried about its daily bread, capable at times of accepting untold sacrifices, but restless and anxious for novelties.

Keep the people ignorant by providing the minimum amount of schools. Keep them in want by regimenting with an iron hand or persecuting industry and trade. Keep them bewildered and insecure by the arbitrary manipulation of vaguely worded laws.

See that there never are clearly defined rights and duties, but always favours from above or abuses of power. Keep the people happy with a steady rain of miserable alms, distracted with many holidays, more holidays than any other nation in Europe, feasts, the inauguration of splendidly decorated and sometimes useful public works.

Spend most of the money on superfluous things, the armed forces and insensate wars in the past, and now on entertainments, public spectacles, games; spend as little as possible on improving the people’s moral and physical conditions. Keep them always drunk with stirring appeals to their more primitive emotions.

Then take a small oligarchy of leaders, eternally squabbling among themselves, frightened for their position and, often enough, for their life, whose power depends precariously on the favour of a few or of one man, sometimes even a foreign chief, residing abroad.

Put these leaders above the law. This tends to make the best of them wary, pitiless, overbearing, unscrupulous and avaricious.

In the old days such men were courtiers, land-owning aristocrats, high dignitaries and generals; later they were also bankers, shipowners, industrialists; yesterday they were Fascist chieftains. Today they are the heads of mass parties, exponents of organizations turning out million of votes, controllers of industrial empires privately- or State-owned and trade-union chiefs.

The grand seigneurs of old had better taste, were braver, more polite, and carried themselves with greater dignity; the liberal patriots of the nineteenth century often loved their country, encouraged industry and trade, and tried at times to do something to better the people’s living conditions; today’s leaders are more intelligent, efficient and have studied more. But such differences are as unimportant as the fashions of the clothes they wore.

When one forgets superficial variations, one can see that the Italian leaders of today behave more or less as their predecessors have always behaved. They manage Italy as if it were cosa nostra; carry out vast, ambitious, impressive political designs, which are described as essential to the welfare of the country but are brutally and transparently conceived mainly to reinforce their own power.

They use the people as if they were extras on a Graeco-Roman film set, to be moved by remote control, to whom nobody explains the plot. Anything else would be unthinkable. To persuade their countrymen to cultivate the arts of reading and writing, to allow them to gain and enjoy a moderate prosperity, to encourage as many as possible to become soberly responsible would endanger the hold of the élite, or, as the élite prefers to say, weaken the social structure.

There is, however, this to be said in the leaders’ defence. They are the product of their society. The grand seigneurs of old as well as the contemporary cabinet ministers or controllers of State monopolies share the qualities and defects of the people, nourish the same ideals. They are, in fact, what the Italians make them.

[...] This, it must be pointed out with solemnity, was in the past and still is today the crux of the Italian problem, of all Italian problems, the heart of the matter, the only significance in many apparently meaningless and disorderly intricacies of Italian history. It is the only explanation of many otherwise puzzling aspects of the national behaviour, the question people debated passionately down the centuries and are still debating today in cafés and Parliament, the thorn in the heart of all good Italians of all ages.

Why did Italy, a land notoriously teeming with vigorous, wide-awake and intelligent people, always behave so feebly? Why was she invaded, ravaged, sacked, humiliated in every century, and yet failed to do the simple things necessary to defend itself?”

Luigi Barzini, The Italians (Penguin Books, London, 1964; pp. 358-359; 360-361)



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[...] I feel they have missed a layer of depth [...]

Despre lucrurile cu adevarat importante.

"I think it's true that when a country is seeing low fertility rates, it can be associated with a society-wide sense of solipsism or futility.

One common factor in Vietnam and Russia, another country where birthrates have cratered, is that over the past couple of decades both societies have lost what was once a very strong sense of national mission.

In both countries, the old national narrative has been increasingly replaced by a creed of pure capitalist consumption. That creed provides no logic for the transmission of durable cross-generational values; some of the worst child-rearing I have ever seen was going on among newly rich Vietnamese.

Of course, you could describe the problem via a different channel: in both countries, the collapse of the national narrative has predictably been associated with a sharp deterioration of the public sphere and a huge increase in corruption, which makes these societies worse places to raise children.

But either way, I think there is an association between the transition in such countries to a value system that sees no higher goal than Ferraris, football clubs, mistresses and stupidly expensive wine, and a declining interest in fashioning a child-friendly society.

Finally, though, and I'm frankly hoping that some of my childless friends don't read this: I think, as a matter of personal sensibility and conviction, that having children is an extremely important part of interacting with the universe at a level that extends beyond your own immediate circumstances.

There are, of course, many other ways one can achieve similar kinds of future-directed, altruistic engagement with what Dutch call the "whole-all". You can adopt. You can teach. You can give yourself over to some pioneering project, social, scientific or spiritual, that extends beyond any hope of renown for yourself and attempts to explore or shape a larger reality.

But having children is one of the best ways of doing this, and one that is both unique and an obvious core aspect of what humans are designed to do. I feel bad for my friends who won't have the experience, and I feel, since they are my friends, that the universe has missed something through that absence.

Some of those friends are sad about it too; others have decided they were lucky or smart not to have kids, just as most all of us decide we were lucky or smart to have ended up with the lives we've ended up with. Some of them never wanted kids, some really are better without kids, some have found ways to engage with the world that are every bit as deep.

But for at least some friends, I feel they have missed a layer of depth, have not been made to think about how to live in a way deserving of being passed on to the future (though God knows most of us parents rarely meet that standard), and have not been forced into dialogue with the time travelers from that future, who will ultimately decide what to keep and what to throw away.

I'm not sure I would call it "decadent" when a higher number of people don't engage with the future by having kids, but I certainly think it's a shame, and we ought to shift both social mores and corporate and government policy to make it easier for more people to do so."



Sursa: The Economist, It takes a decadent village



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Niciodatǎ sǎ nu

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De 150 de ani tot vin alegerile

.

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[...] in the absence of human hubris, the universe looks more and more random [...]

Ai dracu negri nemernici, cum strivesc ei corola de minuni a sensului. Tz tz tz. Ar trebui exterminati ca dinozaurii, mama lor de negri multi si mici si ai dracu de retorici.

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[...] contempt was written into her face [...]

I was at the Oriental that evening, just in time for the first show at 8.15. The girl dancing naked on the pagoda-like dance floor, to the accompaniment of a six-piece orchestra, had eyes that were as cold and hard as the blackest piece of Pichler’s porphyry. Contempt was written into her face as indelibly as the birds tattooed on her small, girlish breasts. A couple of times she had to stifle a yawn, and once she grimaced at the gorilla who was detailed to watch over her in case anyone wanted to show the girl his appreciation. When after forty-five minutes she came to the end of her act, her curtsy was a mockery of those of us who had watched it.

[...]

‘Oh, will you look at that?’ he chuckled, with schoolboyish glee. Put a nice frame around her ass and I could hang it on my wall.‘ He tossed back his beer and winked lasciviously at me. ’I’ll say one thing for you krauts. You build your women every bit as well as you build your automobiles.‘

Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir III: A German Requiem





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O dimineațǎ seninǎ, dar friguroasǎ de toamnǎ din 2012

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.

Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.





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Singurele lucruri care merita sa fie invatate pe de rost

Putine versuri stiu pe de rost. Printre ele, primele patru dintre cele de mai jos.

The rest is silence. And fear of death, of course.

* * *

I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.

Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove;
But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?

I am sick of singing: the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain
To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain.
For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath,
We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death.

O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day
From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.
New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods;
They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods.

But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare;
Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.
Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof,
Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love.

I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace,
Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease.
Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean ? but these thou shalt not take,
The laurel, the palms and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake;

Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath;
And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death;
All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre,
Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire.

More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things ?
Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings.
A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may?
For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day.

And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears:
Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years ?
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.

Charles Algernon Swinburne, "Hymn to Prosperpine"






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Trickster, trickster, failing bright Thru the forests of the might

– Do you want to trick them or to teach them? said the joker to the clown, expertly chewing the end of a half-burned cigarette.

– I want to trick them into learning, answered the clown with his usual sad, serious face.

– What do you want to teach them? What should they learn? The jokew blew fat rings of smoke in the air. The clown resented it. He didn’t like people smoking. He chased the smoke away.

– I want to teach them they are tricked.

– Aha. Nice. That’s a nice trick. But it won’t work, said the joker to the clown, butting the cigarette, while with the other hand mindlessly playing with the topmost piece from a deck of cards. It was a king of hearts.

– They never learn. You’d better start teaching them to laugh. Or to run.

Outside, the wind cried Mary.

– Don’t listen to it. It’s just another trick, said the joker to the clown, snapping the card between his fingers.

It was a king of hearts.

The clown resented it.




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Nu sintem noi unici

Deci sa nu va mai auz ca noi sintem exceptionali in prapastiozitatea noastra mediocra. Si italienii sint fics la fel, doar ca trebuia sa vina nasoii de nemtzi sa ne-o spuna. Enjoy the Latin apocalypse, now in a new presentation.

“Italians have two explanations for their dilemma: gerontocrazia, rule by the elderly, and raccomandazioni, recommendations. Both ensure that jobs are passed on to friends and family. Universities -- an educational institution that was invented here and helped establish Italy's worldwide fame -- have become intellectual wastelands, not least because of the antiquated concorsi, the selection process for senior positions at schools and universities, in which applicants are crammed into gymnasiums and forced to write essays like elementary school students.

The country is also suffering from a cultural decline, says Savaglio, the physicist. There is an almost adolescent form of anarchy, in which motorists don't stop at red lights because no one does, as well as a paralyzing fatalism; it's always been like that and there's not much you can do about it. "We wallow in our glorious past," she says, "but what good are the old Romans if the buses aren't running?" What is missing, she argues, is respect and a sense of civic responsibility -- fellow citizens who feel not only responsible for themselves, but also for the common good, the "res publica".

[...]

Labate says that Italians lack seriousness and speed, and that they have an allergic reaction to everything new. She groans over the endless bureaucratic formalities, the record tax rate of up to 55 percent and 60-year-old CEOs who don't know what Facebook is. She longs for Silicon Valley, where she sometimes flies because she "accomplishes more in one month there than in Italy in half a year." Why did she nevertheless return? "Because Italy's crisis is an opportunity," she says, and because it's more satisfying to see lemons growing on your own soil, no matter how barren it may be. "Anyone who remains abroad only clears the stage for those from whom he once fled."”

Fiona Ehlers, "Italy's Lost Generation. Crisis Forces Young Italians to Move Abroad" (Der Spiegel, 6 august 2012)


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