Saturday, February 28, 2009

Smoke




η συνεχεια
smoke N2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTaFQlGJbWA&feature=related
smoke N3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PapxE1xTWM0&feature=related

ignatus : Dans l'herbe - PIssing in the grass - Mear en la hierba

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

one nation under CCTV

one nation under CCTV

is london a safe city thanks to the thousands of CCTV cameras that record us constantly in our every day life? or is it london still a safe city despite all those cameras? Is it actually london a safe city?

The Truman Effect




Ghoststop

desolation

Screen Vinyl Image

Είχα καιρό ν' ακούσω ένα shoegaze δίσκο ο όποιος θα έχει κάποιο ίχνος πρωτοτυπίας πάνω του! Και μπορώ να πω ότι το "Interceptors" των Screen Vinyl Image με εξέπληξε θετικά!
Shoegaze, electronica αλλά και πολύ παραμόρφωση αναμειγνύονται με τέτοιο τρόπο που κάνουν το "Interceptors" ν' ακούγεται ξανά και ξανά!Αναζητήστε το με νύχια και με δόντια!

album tracklist :
01. Synthetic Apparition
02. Cathode Ray
03. Slipping Away
04. Fever
05. Asteroid Exile
06. Lost in Repeat
07. Until the End of Time
08. Death Defiance
09. What You Need
10. Conscience Collider
11. Chaser


Ακούστε εδώ...

I´m happy with my mum


Tuesday, February 24, 2009

For A Minor Reflection

Ότι η Ισλανδία βγάζει υπέροχη μουσική το ξέρουμε όλοι και το έχουμε πει όλοι!Αλλά Ισλανδία δεν είναι μόνο οι Sigur Ros, οι Mum και η Bjork! Ισλανδία είναι και οι For A Minor Reflection που με το εξαιρετικό ντεμπούτο album τους "Reistu Thig Vid, Solin Er Komin A Loft... (κυκλοφόρησε το 2007)" μας παρουσιάζουν ένα άλλο πρόσωπο της ισλανδικής μουσικής που ίσως να έχουμε ξεχάσει!Γ*μηστερό και γεμάτο ένταση post rock από τα παλιά!


Ακούστε εδώ...


συνέντευξη απο τον μεγαλύτερο συνθέτη της εποχής μας, κατα την ταπεινή μου άποψη...εξηγει στην Bjork την κεντρική φιλοσοφία του για την μουσική του.... σε έναν κόσμο τόσο εξαρτημένο απο την βιομηχανία και το "μοντέρνο", η μουσική του Arvo Part ,καταφέρνει να γονατισει ακομα και τις πιο άγριες και ατίθασες ψυχές,φερνωντας μελωδιες που σε κανουν να ξεχασεις οτιδηποτε επιγειο και σαρκικό...στο 5ο λεπτο μπαiνει το miserere μία απο τις μεγαλύτερες συνθέσεις του...μεγαλοφυία...

Monday, February 23, 2009

Flash(is)back follows Joseph Kittinger 102,800 feet above the earth's surface

Meet Colonel Joseph Kittinger

On August 16, 1960, Kittinger surpassed the altitude record set by Major David Simons, who had climbed to 101,516 feet (30,942 meters) in 1957 in his Man-High II balloon. Kittinger floated to 102,800 feet (31,333 meters) in Excelsior III, an open gondola adorned with a paper license plate that his five-year-old son had cut out of a cereal box.

Protected against the subzero temperatures by layers of clothes and a pressure suit--he experienced air temperatures as low as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 degrees Celsius)--and loaded down with gear that almost doubled his weight, he climbed to his maximum altitude in one hour and 31 minutes even though at 43,000 feet (13,106 meters) he began experiencing severe pain in his right hand caused by a failure in his pressure glove and could have scrubbed the mission.

He remained at peak altitude for about 12 minutes; then he stepped out of his gondola into the darkness of space. After falling for 13 seconds, his six-foot (1.8-meter) canopy parachute opened and stabilized his fall, preventing the flat spin that could have killed him. Only four minutes and 36 seconds more were needed to bring him down to about 17,500 feet (5,334 meters) where his regular 28-foot (8.5-meter) parachute opened, allowing him to float the rest of the way to Earth. His descent set another record for the longest parachute freefall.

During his descent, he reached speeds up to 614 miles per hour, approaching the speed of sound without the protection of an aircraft or space vehicle. But, he said, he "had absolutely no sense of the speed." His flight and parachute jump demonstrated that, properly protected, it was possible to put a person into near-space and that airmen could exit their aircraft at extremely high altitudes and free fall back into the Earth's atmosphere without dangerous consequences.
and finally the reason I come to all this, is the music of Boards of Canada that lead me to discover Colonel Joseph and his achievement. Enjoy

Source: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/Kittinger/EX31.htm

London


Sunday, February 22, 2009

M.Hulot's Nothing Days


This weekend I discovered the word of Mr M.Hulot. It's mainly a music world. He has been blogging for more than 4 years digging treasures of a wide range of alternative releases, and he is doing it very well. Apart from the great effort to get music out of the monster behind our screens (aka the web) M.Hulot pays particular attention to the pictures with which he accompanies each of his postings. Some photoshoped others original, he caught my attention immediately. I bring you here one example. The same goes for my previous posting (Where?)
http://mhulotsnothingdays.blogspot.com/
Enjoy

Where?


Stolen from the web, during times of boredom...

Yes, again: Burial-Untrue


Δε σκέφτομαι από πού θα έρθουν οι σκοτεινές μέρες, από μέσα μου ή απ’ έξω. Είμαι αισιόδοξος και σ’ αυτό μ’ αρέσει να ταμπουρώνομαι. Αλλά να που στα ξαφνικά κρατώ ένα κομμάτι του soundtrack τους στα χέρια μου, και ψάχνω την ταινία, το μοντάρισμα, το φωτισμό, που κοίτα, όλα τους βρίσκονται σε μια τυπική νύχτα που δε θα θέλω να βγω απ’ το δωμάτιό μου. Απλά. Τόσο, που από αυτό είναι να τρομάζεις περισσότερο.
Το “Untrue” –εύστοχος τίτλος για την περίσταση, δεν το περίμενα– λέω πως είναι πιο φωτεινό απ’ το περσινό “Burial”. Σιγά το φως, μια σπίθα στα μαύρα σκοτάδια και κάτι έγινε. Έχει και περισσότερες «φωνές». Μα και το μυαλό μου έχει. Ακούγοντάς το μπερδεύεσαι, δεν ξεχωρίζεις αν είναι από λαρύγγι ανθρώπινο, αν έρχονται απ’ τα ηχεία ή απ’ τον επάνω όροφο, αν μιλάνε άλλοι ή εσύ μονολογείς και το δυσκολότερο, αν έρχονται από βαθιά εντός σου. Δε θέλει να βγει σε λάιβ ακούω. Και ποιος θα ήθελε να λύσει το μυστήριο, όταν αυτό εκφράζει απόλυτα τη δεκαετία των δύο μηδενικών. Μπορεί πλέον να γραφτεί ικανή μουσική από ανθρώπους που δεν κρατούν στα χέρια τους κάποιο όργανο. Ανώνυμους. Αυτό είναι το τίμημα, κι είναι τέτοιο επειδή φέρνει αναπόφευκτα την αντίληψη στα όριά της. Συν την αισθητική. Την έκφραση και τους κώδικες επίσης.
Το έχουν κάνει και συνεχίζουν να το κάνουν κι άλλοι, ο Burial όμως δημιουργεί τη σχολή. Τελεία. Για τα τραγούδια του που ξεπατικώνουν το ιδιάζον των μοναχικών ωρών, την πίκρα του μάταιου που δεν έχει τέρμα, για τη hype τοξικότητά του, επειδή συνθέτει μουσική μετέωρη, ατέρμονη, χωρίς άκρα. Προπάντων, όμως, επειδή είναι φρέσκος κι επειδή είναι τόσα πολλά που στην τελική δεν είναι. Δεν μπορεί, του αναγνωρίζεις τον τρόπο να μιλάει για παγωμένα, στοιχειωμένα τοπία κι επικίνδυνες γωνιές χωρίς καν να έχει διαβεί το κατώφλι της πόρτας του. Μόνον με υποψίες. Θεολογώντας. Επειδή άκουσε μελωδίες σαν το “Archangel”, το “Near Dark” ή το “Raver” στο μυαλό του και τις αναπαράγει πατώντας πλήκτρα και δουλεύοντας καταχρηστικά το copy/paste. Επειδή φαντάζεται περισσότερο από άλλους.

Μπορείς να βρεις λόγους για να σ’ απωθήσει ο μη πραγματιστικός και μη απτός κόσμος του “Untrue” (είναι μονόχνοτος είναι ο ένας). Κανέναν ωστόσο που να αντικρούει τη μοναδικότητά του για το 2007. Replay…

Πάνος Πανότας Αρχισυντάκτης του www.mic.gr.

get it here: http://www.sordomusic.com/db/search.php?q=Burial

Friday, February 20, 2009

Another Brief Conceptualization of Critical Thinking


Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They strive never to think simplistically about complicated issues and always to consider the rights and needs of relevant others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.

~ Linda Elder, September, 2007

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sonic Slaughterhouse presents: Burial-Archagel

Not much is known about who the hell is behind Burial but I couldn't care less. On his own words he claims to be "a lowkey person" that "just wants to make some tunes, nothing else" and he does so better than any big time producer in the dubstep scene. Both of his albums are based on very similar soundscapes although it sounds to me that he has mastered his style a lot better in the 2nd one titled "Untrue". Here is a good example of it to love it or loath it...

Why human evolution pretty much stopped about 10,000 years ago


Darwin published his landmark research on the origin of species 200 years ago. Some people still find it hard to follow common logic. Of course, as one notable man once said 'common sense is not always common'. Below you will find a view that goes even further than just assuming that we naturally evolve:

The British geneticist Steve Jones has recently given a lecture at University College London entitled “Is human evolution over?” His answer to his own question is in the affirmative. I agree with Jones that human evolution has pretty much stopped, but for entirely different reasons.

His argument is that human evolution, at least in the western societies, has stopped or slowed down because very few older men in such societies reproduce. Sperm of older men carry many more mutations than those of younger men. Mutations provide the source of genetic variations on which natural selection works. Hence, no older fathers, no genetic mutations, no evolution.

Jones may be right; however, I think he is underestimating how long ago human evolution stopped. I think it stopped roughly 10,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture.

Evolution takes many generations, and so the speed of evolution of a species is relative to how long it takes for individuals of the species to mature sexually and start reproducing (holding constant, for the moment, the other important determinant of the speed of evolution, the strength of selection pressure). Evolution happens faster for fast-maturing species and slower for slow-maturing species. Fruit flies are one of the fastest-maturing species in nature, and humans are one of the slowest. It takes only seven days for fruit flies to mature sexually under ideal conditions, whereas it takes 15 to 20 years for humans. It means that there can be more than 50 generations of fruit flies in one year, before a human baby can even begin to walk. There are more than a thousand generations of fruit flies in one human generation (20 years), for which human need more than 20,000 years. Evolution for fruit flies can happen pretty fast, which is precisely the reason why they are the favorite species for geneticists to study. Human evolution happens much, much more slowly. No human scientists can see it in action the way they can observe fruit fly evolution unfold in the lab.

Natural selection under most circumstances requires a stable, unchanging environment for many, many generations (once again, unless the selection pressure is enormously strong). For example, if the climate is very cold for centuries and millennia, then gradually individuals who have better resistance to cold will be favored by natural selection, and their neighbors who have less resistance to cold (who are more adapted to a hot climate) will die out before they can leave many children. This will happen generation after generation, until one day all humans have great resistance to cold. A new trait – resistance to cold – has now evolved and become part of universal human nature. But this trait could not have evolved if the climate was cold for one century (only five human generations, albeit 5,200 fruit fly generations) and then hot for another century, only to be cold again in the third century. Natural selection would not know who (with which traits) to select.

Since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago and the birth of human civilization which soon followed, humans have not had a stable environment against which natural selection can operate. For example, a mere two centuries (10 generations) ago, the United States and the rest of the Western world were largely agrarian; most people were farmers. In the agrarian society, men achieved higher status by being the best farmers; those who possessed certain traits that made them good farmers had higher status and thus greater reproductive success than others who didn’t possess such traits.

Then, only a century later, the United States and Europe were predominantly industrial societies; most men made their living working for factories. Traits that make men good factory workers (or, better yet, factory owners) may or may not be the same as the traits that make them good farmers. Certain traits – such as intelligence, diligence, and sociability – probably remained important, but others – such as a feel for nature, the soil, and animals, and the ability to work outdoors or forecast weather – ceased to be important, and other traits – such as punctuality, the ability to follow instructions, a feel for machinery or mechanical aptitudes, and the ability to work indoors – suddenly became important.

Now, only one century later, we are in a post-industrial society, where most people work neither as farmers nor factory workers but in the service industry. Computers and other electronic devices become important, and an entirely new set of traits is necessary to be successful. Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson (and other successful men of today) may not have made particularly successful farmers or factory workers. All of these dramatic changes happened within 10 generations, and there is no telling what the next century will bring and what traits will be necessary to be successful in the 21st century. We live in an unstable, ever-changing environment, and have done so for about 10,000 years.

For hundreds of thousands of years before that, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers on the African savanna and elsewhere, in a stable, unchanging environment to which natural selection could respond. That is why all humans today have traits that would have made them good hunter-gatherers in Africa – men’s greater spatiovisual skills, which allowed them to follow animals on a hunting trip for days and for miles without a map or a global positioning device and return home safely; and women’s greater object location memory, which allowed them to remember where fruit trees and bushes were and return there every season to harvest, once again without maps or permanent landmarks.

For the last 10,000 years or so, however, our environment has been changing too rapidly for evolution to catch up. Evolution cannot work against moving targets. That’s why humans have not evolved in any predictable direction since about 10,000 years ago.

I hasten to add that certain features of our environment have remained the same – we have always had to get along with other humans, and we have always had to find and keep our mates – so certain traits, like sociability or physical attractiveness, have always been favored by natural and sexual selection. But other features of our environment have changed too rapidly relative to our generation time, in a relatively random fashion – who could have predicted computers and the internet a century ago? – so we have not been able to adapt and evolve against the constantly moving target of the environment.

By Satoshi Kanazawa

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I hate my generation...

Σήμερα έμαθα ότι ένα μεγάλο και σπουδαίο "πολιτιστικό" γεγονός θα λάβει χώρα στις οθόνες μας το βράδυ!Ναι, ναι καλά καταλάβατε!Μιλάω για την εκλογή του τραγουδιού που θα εκπροσωπήσει την χώρα σας στον υπέρτατο μουσικό διαγωνισμό που ακούει στο όνομα eurovision!Δεν μπορείτε να νιώσετε τι άγχος με έπιασε για το τι θα γίνει!Θα είναι άραγε το τραγούδι το κατάλληλο για να πάρουμε την πρώτη θέση;;;...Τι να πω ρε μ*λάκες αυτής της χώρας που ασχολείστε με την οποιαδήποτε τελευταία μπούρδα!Να πάτε να γ*μηθείτε και σεις και ο κάθε Sakis!Εγώ πάντως στην δικιά μου eurovision κατέληξα σε ποιο τραγούδι θα στείλω για να με εκπροσωπήσει!
Αφιερωμένο...

Caigo


Vida rural


El Kiosco


fire=smoke=firemen

park+boring evening=fire up a bin

Souvenirs of Colonialism

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Monday, February 16, 2009

Flash (is) Back meets Cinemust / Reinaldo Arenas: cursed till the very end in Before Night Falls


How could I not merge these two columns when I deal with the underrated phenomenon of Reinaldo Arenas? The art of cinema pays tribute to poetry with Julian Schnabel's adaptation of BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, the autobiographic book by the most cursed of all Cuban poets. The film is visually stunning and the casting brings the plot to the very edge, delivering a very respectful effort that depicts the living hell of this man's life. Javier Bardem made his international breakthrough here, with this role. After watching the film, Al Pacino called Bardem to congratulate him for the true spirit that he showed when portraying Arenas. I bring you here the most complete article about Arenas that I have found online. It is written by Jaime Manrique for the Village Voice. All yours...


Ten years after Reinaldo Arenas's grim ending—he killed himself in 1990 in his Hell's Kitchen apartment, where he lived in poverty, ravaged by AIDS, without health insurance—the exiled Cuban writer is in vogue. Last summer saw the belated publication of The Color of Summer (the final novel in Arenas's pentagonía about Cuban history), and Julian Schnabel has directed a powerful film based on his autobiography, Before Night Falls. Who could have predicted it? His memorial service was attended by fewer than a dozen people. Walking out of the church, Tom Colchie, our mutual agent, said to me, "When he was alive, I couldn't give his books away."

If ever there were a writer less destined to become one, it would be Reinaldo Arenas. The son of illiterate peasants, he had little formal education, and carved with a knife his first poems on tree trunks in the Cuban countryside. It was good training for what was to come. Arenas's life was about the act of writing—writing as salvation and, most important, writing as revenge. As a fugitive from the law, he wrote high up in the canopy of trees in Havana's parks, where he hid from the Cuban police. He continued to write in El Morro prison, a fortress built by the Spaniards during colonial times that early in the revolution became a dungeon where homosexuals, political dissidents, and other undesirables were locked up. By his own account, Arenas rewrote three times his voluminous novel Farewell to the Sea, a work that kept being confiscated and disappearing from his and his friends' homes. His epic poem, El Central, is dedicated to "my dear friend R., who made me a present of 87 sheets of blank paper." He penned the monumental The Color of Summer and his expansive autobiography while dying of AIDS. By comparison, the heroic Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who had to memorize her poems so they would not be found by Stalin's goons, had it easy.

If ever there were a writer less destined to become one, it would be Reinaldo Arenas. The son of illiterate peasants, he had little formal education, and carved with a knife his first poems on tree trunks in the Cuban countryside.

Weeks before Reinaldo died, when I went to visit him at his apartment, he gave me a copy of his book of poems, Voluntad de Vivir Manifestándose, and a manuscript copy of Before Night Falls. When I saw Reinaldo again I was able to tell him how utterly extraordinary I thought they were. "I'm glad you think so," he said, in a tone that suggested he realized the magnitude of his achievement. After he died, I tried to communicate my excitement about the greatness of these late accomplishments, but my friends, Latin Americans and North Americans alike, dismissed my enthusiasm. When Before Night Falls appeared in Latin America and Spain—despite glowing endorsements by Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Mario Vargas Llosa—it went mostly unread.

Fortunately, the appearance in English of the autobiography was treated as a major event, and Reinaldo was discovered by many gay readers who, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, found that the man's struggles, and his end, resonated with their recent experiences. He became a darling of academia, where several of his books are required reading and the object of much abstruse deconstruction.

It's beginning to look like Reinaldo will become the Sylvia Plath of Latin American letters. He shared with Plath a talent for self-dramatization and a fury that could scorch anyone who got too close. If Plath's nemeses were her parents and her husband, Reinaldo's were Communism and Fidel Castro. Perhaps his politics, as well as his homosexuality, were responsible for the scorn heaped on him by the Latin American leftist intelligentsia. But to mistake him for a reactionary is a grotesque travesty of who the man was. Reinaldo, for example, confronted the Cuban community in Miami with their racism, homophobia, and materialism. He was equally critical of the worship of money in the United States, and of the gay movement which aspired to embrace the middle-class values that Reinaldo despised.

He had a streak of John the Baptist, raging at the injustices of the world. His dualistic vision allowed him to see both sides of the coin and not flinch when it came to writing about what he saw. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes called Singing From the Well "one of the most beautiful novels ever written about childhood, adolescence, and life in Cuba," but in Before Night Falls Reinaldo writes that upon meeting Fuentes he felt he was in the presence of a man who talked like a computer, full of programmed answers. Was this return of bile for generosity an appalling ingratitude? Or was it yet another example of Reinaldo telling the truth, as he saw it, regardless?

Most of his novels, though filled with moments of exceptional brilliance and genius (at his best there's no writer alive who can touch him), are marred by rococo excesses. I find the novels' amorphous, repetitious structures often enervating. The most conventional and accessible novel he wrote, The Doorman, was also the least compelling; this defanged satire of New York and New Yorkers showed Reinaldo's imperfect understanding of North American society.



Among his books, the beautifully contained novellas Old Rosa and Arturo, the Brightest Star are chiseled jewels perfect on their own terms. His masterpieces, Before Night Falls and Singing From the Well (his first and most cohesive novel), are unassailable works that should survive. Singing is a novel of awesome lyrical purity, containing echoes of García Lorca (the women in the household are like the daughters of Bernarda Alba turned medusas) and of Juan Rulfo's ghostly Pedro Páramo. Its maturity is even more astonishing if one knows that Reinaldo wrote it when he was only 21. The novel's limpid lyricism, infused with the spirit of Hardy's and Lawrence's pantheistic views of nature, is almost sacramental in its respect for the overpowering forces of the natural world.

He was a considerable poet, too. Poetry, as in Borges's case, was his greatest love, and arguably his highest gift. His epic poem, El Central, records and re-creates the atrocities committed against the Cuban people through the ages—and does it more succinctly and more gracefully than the novels do. At least a dozen of his poems will one day take their place among the most beautiful written in Spanish. Many writers have laid a claim to immortality with fewer—and less original—works.

Reinaldo's most valuable legacy as a man is his bravery in denouncing the crimes committed in the name of social justice. His point was that the brutalities committed by the left sting even more than those committed by the right. We expect the worst from the Pinochets of this world, but we expect nothing less than utopia from an ideology that promises us the dawn of the New Man. This betrayal of the Cuban revolution fueled the rage that galvanized the life and the work of Reinaldo Arenas, and it is ultimately responsible for making him one of the most searing satirical writers of the 20th century, a worthy successor to Aristophanes and Swift.



New York, December 7, 1990

Dear friends:

Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible emotional depression it causes me not to be able to continue writing an struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life. During the past few years even though I felt very ill, I have been able to finish my literary work, to which I have devoted almost thirty years. You are the heirs of all my terrors, but also of my hope that Cuba will soon be free. I am satisfied to have contributed, though in a very small way, to the triumph of this freedom. I end my life voluntarily because I cannot continue working. Persons near me are in no way responsible for my decision. There is only one person I hold accountable: Fidel Castro. The sufferings of exile, the pain of being banished from my country, the loneliness, and the diseases contracted in exile would probably never have happened if I had been able to enjoy freedom in my country.

I want to encourage the Cuban people out of the country as well as on the island to continue fighting for freedom. I do not want to convey to you a message of defeat but of continued struggle and of hope.

Cuba will be free. I already am

(signed) Reinaldo Arenas

Dying Soul

My angel, my all, my very self.

Just a few word and those here.

Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks?
Can our love endure except through sacrifices,
through not demanding everything from one another?
Can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I am not wholly yours ?
We shall surely see each other soon.
I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life.
If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these.
My heart is full of so many things to say to you.
Oh,there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all.
Cheer up, remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours.
Wherever I am, there you are also.
Much as you love me, I love you more .
But do not ever conceal yourself from me .
Oh God,so near! So far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?

Every single second, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved,
now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us.
I can live only wholly with you or not at all .
Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you
until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you,
and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits.

You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you.
No one else can ever possess my heart....never....never....
Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves?
And yet my life is now a wretched life.
Your love makes me at once the happiest of women.

Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together.
Be calm...love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - YOU - my life - my all - farewell.
Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours...

Friday, February 13, 2009

wind

Ένα συνηθισμένο Παιδί

Ήταν ένα συνηθισμένο παιδί.
Ή μάλλον γεννήθηκε όπως όλα τα συνηθισμένα παιδιά.
Είχε δυο μάτια, δυο χέρια και όλα τα συνηθισμένα απαραίτητα ανθρώπινα στοιχεία και ένα συνηθισμένο όνομα, (προς χάρην αοριστίας ας το φωνάζουμε Παιδί).
Είχε μια συνηθισμένη ανατροφή, μια συνηθισμένη οικογένεια και μεγάλωνε όχι με πολλά δράματα, όχι με πολύ ευτυχία, όχι με πολλά γενικώς, με μέτριες και σταθερές καταστάσεις γύρω του. Ελεγχόμενες και κανονικές που στο μέλλον θα του χάριζαν όμορφες αναμνήσεις και μια ευχάριστη νοσταλγία, συνηθισμένη.
Στο σχολείο η συμπεριφορά του ήταν συνηθισμένη για ένα παιδί της ηλικίας του, δεν ήταν πολύ καλός μαθητής, ούτε κακός αλλά ένας συνηθισμένος μέτριος μαθητής (το μέτριος που λένε οι δάσκαλοι) και είχε κι ένα συγκεκριμένο πρόβλημα, του άρεσαν οι εξαιρέσεις. Τόσους κανόνες μάθαινε στο σχολείο μα αυτό θυμόταν μόνο τις εξαιρέσεις χωρίς να θυμάται καν σε ποιόν κανόνα αναφέρονται, «συνηθίζεται.. όλα τα παιδιά έχουν κάποιο πρόβλημα στο σχολείο» λέγανε οι δάσκαλοι στην μητέρα που ανησυχούσε για την πρόοδό του (πάντα ανησυχούν οι μανάδες).
Καθώς περνούσαν τα χρόνια και το Παιδί μεγάλωνε γενικότερα ακολουθούσε εξαιρέσεις στην ζωή του και έτσι πάντα έφτανε σε αδιέξοδα, (ως γνωστόν σε έναν κόσμο που λειτουργεί με κανόνες είναι δύσκολο να επιβιώσεις με εξαιρέσεις). Κάποια καλοκαιρινή μέρα, κι ενώ κατάπινε τα κουκούτσια από το καρπούζι και έφτυνε την κόκκινη ζουμερή σάρκα, η μητέρα του (ω! μα της συνήθειας) που είχε κάνει πολλούς προλόγους επί του θέματος, του είπε ότι δεν είναι πια Παιδί κι ότι πρέπει να κανονίσει να βρει απασχόληση (επί πληρωμή). Κάπου σε αυτό το σημείο το Παιδί σάστισε και ένα «μα» σκάλωσε στα χείλη του. Δεν ήταν φυσικά ότι ήταν τεμπέλικο Παιδί, κάθε άλλο, απλά είχε πάντα ένα «μα» στα χείλη, όχι για να μεταπείσει, όχι επίτηδες αλλά εκ γενετής. Η μητέρα δάγκωνε την σάρκα από το καρπούζι και έφτυνε τα κουκούτσια κάπου μεταξύ «μα» και ηλιοβασιλέματος πάνω στα συνηθισμένα πλακάκια της βεράντας. Έτσι, το Παιδί της ιστορίας μας, άρχισε μια αναζήτηση απασχόλησης ώσπου κατέληξε να γίνει μισθοφόρος (το «κατέληξε» που χρησιμοποιούμε για τον θάνατο) ήταν άλλωστε συνηθισμένο για Παιδιά της ηλικίας του. Η μητέρα του ανησύχησε φυσικά αλλά όπως είπαμε, πάντα ανησυχούν οι μανάδες.Κι έτσι βρέθηκε στην άλλη άκρη του πλανήτη, με βαριές μπότες στα συνηθισμένα πόδια του και ένα δεύτερο κεφάλι μεταλλικό να περιορίζει το δικό του και να κλείνει καλά τις σκέψεις του μαζί με τις εξαιρέσεις για να αφήνει χώρο στους κανόνες να το πλησιάζουν.
Η μοίρα του συνηθισμένη φυσικά, θα επιβιώσει ή θα «καταλήξει».
Κάποτε μου έστειλε ένα γράμμα, δεν κατάλαβα πολλά, οι λέξεις του ήταν δυσανάγνωστες και ο φάκελος έσταζε αίμα με γεύση καρπούζι.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Magic


...


Reading the discounts


Cinemust: Reservoir Dogs at their pick



Remember this scene? Well many people are still trying to forget it, but thanks to these plots turnarounds Tarantino booked himself a place in the recent history of Cinema. He had seen already the worse from the big cinema studios when his Natural Born Killers and True Romance scripts were given to Oliver Stone and Tony Scott. Now though he had it his way. His special effect team told him clearly: "we'll make it look more believable than being real. If you want to show it, it's up to you." and so they did. Tarantino chose to turn the camera away just for a few seconds till his actor finished the job and came back into action. Now you tell me if you have seen anything similar on film...

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

El Zoco


stories of the city (part one)




the worst and the best by Charles Bukowski
the worst and the best in the hospitals and jails it's the worst in the madhouses it's the worst in penthouses it's the worst in skit row flophouses it's the worst at poetry readings at rock concerts at benefits for the disabled it's the worst at funerals at weddings it's the worst at parades at skating rinks at sexual orgies it's the worst at midnight at 3 a.m. at 5:45 p.m. it's the worst falling through the sky firing squads that's the best thinking of India looking at popcorn stands watching the bull get the matador that's the best boxed lightbulbs an old dog scratching peanuts in a celluloid bag that's the best spraying roaches a clean pair of stockings natural guts defeating natural talent that's the best in front of firing squads throwing crusts to seagulls slicing tomatoes that's the best rugs with cigarette burns cracks in sidewalks waitresses still sane that's the best my hands dead my heart dead silence adagio of rocks the world ablaze that's the best for me.

Charles Bukowski

El Zoco


Marruecos


Boda en Marruecos


Snow patrols in London