tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39143933142146527392024-02-19T13:40:57.484+02:00Maison de toléranceOn the difficulty of freedomScribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-37083401452603709872012-03-08T11:45:00.000+02:002012-03-08T11:45:54.231+02:00The music that keeps coming.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://a3.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/150/c06947c72aa14c7188e26d440766b1fe/l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://a3.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/150/c06947c72aa14c7188e26d440766b1fe/l.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><br />
Darling strangers. I break the ongoing silence of my ponderings by sharing the MySpace profile of a very dear artist. There are presently three touching songs available, and let's hope that we get to buy her record soon. She's even more soulful live.<br />
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<a href="http://www.myspace.com/katjalaaksonen/music">http://www.myspace.com/katjalaaksonen/music</a>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-50031145423131167642011-07-05T15:20:00.003+03:002011-07-13T15:42:59.072+03:00Stillborn rivers, leaky mires<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;"><i>Well, I have never seen such a terrible room</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;"><i>Gilded with the gold teeth of the women who loved you</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypHLE02Txrnfw7so_N8UJAzpl5OWyOc7Xe5KAvx24-Zf3Rn_soald2WB0_P3R7bm0jwIKfevxCZOakXGKTF0HCWxZ-R9pwuwZDVl2a5oN-rCqok5E_ROeUM43DFwRqoIhIedwDJMbjW0/s1600/shot_1309789079305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypHLE02Txrnfw7so_N8UJAzpl5OWyOc7Xe5KAvx24-Zf3Rn_soald2WB0_P3R7bm0jwIKfevxCZOakXGKTF0HCWxZ-R9pwuwZDVl2a5oN-rCqok5E_ROeUM43DFwRqoIhIedwDJMbjW0/s320/shot_1309789079305.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The quote's room incites a personal moment of ill hubris. Its wavelength becomes accessible every now and then on this cozy <i>regio</i> of mine that, in the end, doesn't have all that many different layers. Yet it contains some that activate under the golems of new moons </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> animated new moons that inevitably return. The hissing mythagos ignite into the pale light of consummation; they flare, flicker, sigh and wane. I glare down at the mystery play and watch the trigger go off repeatedly in a cinematographic sequence. I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">n disjunct stages, the <i>regio</i> expands into a vertical village of stone columns, the <i>regio</i> collapses into a fragment; a faded blueprint of all the designs that were, scattered teeth of varying ages. T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;">he room slowly turns the great wheel toward its very own seasonal summer and beyond.</span><br />
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</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(image: a snapshot; lyrics: Joanna Newsom, <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtVaHkJc4I">Go Long</a></i></span>)</span><br />
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</span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-88271249439204543142011-06-27T09:08:00.002+03:002011-07-04T11:47:10.270+03:00On a tree where the doves go to die<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">There's a lobby with nine hundred windows</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">There's a tree where the doves go to die</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">There's a piece that was torn from the morning</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><i><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V9-dPXZKECA/SsunOKWHb3I/AAAAAAAAA8M/KfCoIQvQZ3M/s400/creepydoll1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V9-dPXZKECA/SsunOKWHb3I/AAAAAAAAA8M/KfCoIQvQZ3M/s320/creepydoll1.jpg" width="213" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This early summer the endless shades of green haven't enchanted me; I have not felt the allure of life that fills the balcony and windowsills with basils, oreganos, lavenders, dill, parsley, physalis, blossoming little trees and perky vines. I did not wander away in order to revel in the faint shadows of pristine apple blossoms, even if the overwhelming scent of lilacs and bird cherries passingly intoxicated me as I drifted past them in the lingering stream of summer air. There's a lurking translucency to all that is green, a dry sensation of death. Where does the lurking premonition emanate from? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> a gray, cold and damp stone too close to the surface, now dominated by warm sands and urine dust. The birches outside my windows are like wispy grey drapes, bashfully trying to cover the cavernous stone walls of the tomb that marks the world outside.</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">Oh I want you, I want you, I want you</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">On a chair with a dead magazine</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">In the cave at the tip of the lily</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">In some hallways where love's never been</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">On a bed where the moon has been sweating</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">In a cry filled with footsteps and sand</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My pet god or goddess,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> that is my love of human beings,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> is not reliably present. I sense the ascending tremor. I mean this highly figuratively, of course </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I entertain little Theism </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> but the frigid eye lens through which I occasionally observe the stumbling life around me is as close to sacrilegeous disinterestedness as I get. The lovelike animal inside me is vague, troubled. Its dim gem struggles, developing a smoky hue that normally comes with seasonal darkness only. It's not that I haven't previously professed cynicism come to flesh, or all the available dark varieties of ill humour. It's the nonchalant <i>danse macabre</i> that's gone. Does a vampire realise its existential condition? Something reminiscent of a plastic doll underneath my gem kicks and tumbles over. It does not know whether birth is a variable here, where such processes are so closely bound to organic cycles. So foreign to us.</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">There's an attic where children are playing</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">Where I've got to lie down with you soon</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">In a dream of Hungarian lanterns</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">In the mist of some sweet afternoon</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">All your sheep and your lilies of snow</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;">A book in the mail falls on the floor with a hollow, rattling clunk </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"> or I imagine one will. An artefact of sunburnt, pale, Derridan <i>trace</i>. It comes packed with a lot of inevitably delayed memory, another human being, badly preserved, ghastly, reminiscent enough to evoke a treacherous hope of mutual presence.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And I'll dance with you in Vienna</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">I'll be wearing a river's disguise</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">My mouth on the dew of your thighs</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">With the photographs there, </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">and the moss</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">My cheap violin and my cross</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">And you'll carry me down on your dancing</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">To the pools that you lift on your wrist</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">Take this waltz, take this waltz</span></i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;">Take its broken waist in your hand</span></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I feel so incredibly hungry.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(image: an unknown doll by an unknown photographer; the poem: excerpts from Take This Waltz by Leonard Cohen, based on Little Viennese Waltz by Federico García Lorca)</span><br />
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</span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-46301154153371914112011-06-19T09:31:00.002+03:002011-06-19T10:14:51.553+03:00Fanciful words after a night of little sleep<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Luminary language, lozenges with coffee.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sleight loof hurdy-gurdy legerdemain. Carouse (<i>gar aus</i>) or slatter. Rate or berate. Nigh genuflect, smitten. A pert young quean. Vial, veal, vile, vale.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">YW2NB3WGA7XG</span></div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-418871393970519962011-06-18T09:51:00.000+03:002011-06-18T09:51:44.612+03:00On nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I simply have to share this gentle nature/culture piece by a fellow deviant. Click to read, please.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://d3uwin5q170wpc.cloudfront.net/photo/141807_700b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://d3uwin5q170wpc.cloudfront.net/photo/141807_700b.jpg" width="78" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Originally <a href="http://humon.deviantart.com/#/d3fh24i">Mother Gaia by *humon</a> at deviantART.</span><br />
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</span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-54659973101836485882011-06-14T10:24:00.003+03:002011-06-21T13:22:06.219+03:00The flutter of hope and desperation<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFkSASlDcSV_BmVPvYmbGe2QB17FKVz7bFygOQYnzeyaEUl8Gtg9kPtROgwgBifFqdju4feOfd8lmxgl5d3Ezn4XbsCpcRpdUJyBfjvkoSCbtHr6VTKYHGWEx4ughClB_3MNl3TdsKx4/s1600/CC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFkSASlDcSV_BmVPvYmbGe2QB17FKVz7bFygOQYnzeyaEUl8Gtg9kPtROgwgBifFqdju4feOfd8lmxgl5d3Ezn4XbsCpcRpdUJyBfjvkoSCbtHr6VTKYHGWEx4ughClB_3MNl3TdsKx4/s320/CC.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spiritual intoxication and such crispness of mind! One hour and a half wasn't enough to dash, dodge and squirm my menacingly trim legs sore, but my shirt undoubtedly got wet <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> both from everyone's sweat and from the beer of a stranger. Urg. Oh, those strangers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.youtify.com/videos/Xqy5nrzhs0g">Crystal</a> <a href="http://www.youtify.com/videos/vStjmYxetY0">Castles</a>, with <a href="http://www.youtify.com/videos/nlCjRuo8ayM">Ladytron</a>, epitomises what the allure of electronica means to dancing. The melancholy soundscape laced with a fracture of trashy hope shares the basic passion of (all?) science fiction writing or the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRqvpskK4zc">Ocean loader</a> music by Jonathan Dunn: humanity alone at the edge of unstable and isolated worlds, the frontiers of which can often only be pushed further at the cost of the little one already has.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-81631601075306191802011-06-10T11:53:00.004+03:002011-06-14T10:25:31.067+03:00Dream on flying<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It all began as an utterly innocent experiment on someone's hookah, to follow a mid-afternoon of rather not that elegant boozing over colourful vials of liquid. It was more like a laboratory. There was dancing in the streets, a busy bazaar of people, and I was going somewhere but I couldn't recall whereto. So I felt like soaring soaring toward the drifting and twirling clouds. In awe of my newly acquired vision, I flew the top part of a dragster car's motor, streamlined Satan-style wings and rocket boots, among some hard to name things </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">–</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> a cyborg seraph. The scenery and laws of nature bent kaleidoscopically. I had good time. =x) Then I wasted the dream by rescuing George Clooney falling from the sky and woke up sweating.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">P.S. I've grown quite irritated with the constant changes and the increasingly cumbersome service introduced by Spotify, and moved back to more diversified listening. Since Google's Music service hasn't reached Europe yet, <a href="http://www.youtify.com/">Youtify</a> isn't such a bad addition at all.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-49821820898448039512011-05-30T15:34:00.002+03:002011-05-30T17:30:05.072+03:00On Smoking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXEbCBF90iAh5osKDxb2PzVwy6Qt48dE3bkj2Uu59ZIakmu5_fc6T_h86rZYUHpaDs_-Vu_Wxomlxi6R3HWh0ojb3lTgfAnGnF01Y2huEp6t_0IOhNqbeIgpF_BwRCBkOGn7HtDeb6c4/s1600/Coffee+and+Cigarettes_Renee+French.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXEbCBF90iAh5osKDxb2PzVwy6Qt48dE3bkj2Uu59ZIakmu5_fc6T_h86rZYUHpaDs_-Vu_Wxomlxi6R3HWh0ojb3lTgfAnGnF01Y2huEp6t_0IOhNqbeIgpF_BwRCBkOGn7HtDeb6c4/s320/Coffee+and+Cigarettes_Renee+French.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So, I think of picking up smoking now that it's mainstream aesthetically so <i>pass</i><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"><i>é</i> in the places, where I tend to live. I keep experiencing these poignant fits of longing as a person, who has never even experimented with cigarettes. Well, when I was about 11 we cut small pipes of dried wild chervil, </span></span>–<span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"> same ones we used in fresh form to shoot rowan berries at each other </span></span>– and <span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">stuffed them with assorted dry plants and their unknown seeds. We then tried to light the other end of the straw-coloured and taupe packages to no marked avail.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">At school I point-blank refused the cigarettes that were offered to me during breaks. They were an informal sign of non-questioning consensus and a formal application to enter the lower secondary school social hierarchy. At the same time I actually admired </span></span>– <span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">and I still do </span></span>–<span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"> the lithe, dreamy figures of 1920s cigarette advertisements, pipe-smoking men (yes, gendered) with or without suits and both the appearance and smell of good cigars; or what I only imagine is a good cigar. Pipe-smoking men preferably with a beard, cigar-smoking men preferably with only a modest beard at most, cigarette-smoking women, and all who weren't a rock 'n roll icons, with tall cigarette holders. It's still pretty much the same.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">The aesthetic appeal of never having partaken in a majority vice is powerful. Whether this aesthetic power is more delimited or enhanced by my continuing abstinence, I don't know. Yeah, and cigarettes cost money (to fend myself off). Sexually speaking they are an ambivalent product: especially if used at all extensively they generate new flavours, odours and reactions all around the human body, yet the sophisticated or rebel imageries conveyed by smoking can be quite alluring. And then there's the health-side, which I'm not that concerned by. Now that bar and public smoking bans are being enforced all around Europe and North America, I still think that it should've been up to businesses and direct democracy to decide. Outdoor sites are largely well ventilated </span></span>–<span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"> as far as ventilation is possible on this planet or our metropoleis </span></span>–<span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"> and people are quite capable of voting with their feet in choosing a smoking or non-smoking milieu. The employees of any given pub were aware of smoke when they accepted the job. Even as a non-smoker myself, I had learned that the bitter smell of chain smoking added something essential to a pub feeling. The stench of old smoke and grease was staggering after the ban had been enforced. A sad thing (<i>nota bene</i>). All those crippled old places. But enough of politics.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">I continue to maintain a yearning to embody the old smoking imageries. I also recognise that cigarettes are one of our many ways to diversify the manner in which time is practiced beyond conscious standardisation of weights and measures. A lot of activities are calculated per cigarette, a half, two thirds. It marks a break, a change, a continuation. Smoking creates particular social <i>places </i>from the balconies, doorways or field sides, where people gather at a party or work, urban or rural. Cigarettes are such a widespread covert economy that I almost feel like calling it global. They have at different points bought social time in almost all nameable socioeconomic genres. In prisons from Canada to Port Moresby they replace money. To ethnographers they have been and still are a major tool, though the methodology gets only a passing remark in field diaries. Increasingly, because of the fuss, tobacco also marks rebellion and civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is sexy.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"><br />
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<span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of">P.S. Otis Redding, <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0eUE0nBbA8">Cigarettes and Coffee</a>,</i> for some lingering 1960s feel. I'm not a big fan of soul myself, but with this enormous bowl of dark and full French roast coffee in front of me, sigh...</span></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(image: from Jarmusch's <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_Cigarettes">Coffee and Cigarettes</a></i>)</span></span></span></div><span class="infl-inline"><span class="form-of comparative-form-of"><br />
</span></span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-45860525272525408032011-05-28T16:10:00.001+03:002011-05-28T16:17:29.033+03:00Pragmatic physics<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The theoretical maximum speed of all perceiving things, the speed of life – totally not in vacuum.</span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-21662620993634841452011-05-26T08:52:00.000+03:002011-05-26T08:52:42.450+03:00The Book of Kells: an unfinished thought<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg99QACdQhrBhzHwYg1VgFUMunX8OCEm0iBq6BIDRjnlvXUU4hVuyWycbmmDUhP-gPiL6FiU96JnAVe-G0j7OcWA6GWrRVjudjTDx3bxU7WH5YT0DVTL6Kh7xT69oGkWe7hDuXDtYB-EE/s1600/book-of-kells-opening-page-of-the-gospel-of-mark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg99QACdQhrBhzHwYg1VgFUMunX8OCEm0iBq6BIDRjnlvXUU4hVuyWycbmmDUhP-gPiL6FiU96JnAVe-G0j7OcWA6GWrRVjudjTDx3bxU7WH5YT0DVTL6Kh7xT69oGkWe7hDuXDtYB-EE/s320/book-of-kells-opening-page-of-the-gospel-of-mark.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I was reminded of the Book of Kells today. One could legitimately consider a pilgrimage to it; though not due to conventional religiosity but, <i>rather, as a bibliophile</i>; yet not as a bibliophile, who glorifies either the visual complexity of the book or the way in which someone has ruminated over the old gospels – as if bored or uninterested to read something new – filling the margins and empty spaces with endless, colourful scribblings. The journey would take place to downshift the pilgrim's fetish for pretty books: to accept by heart the value of literature on sparser surfaces. Once and for all.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I already doubt the validity of my proposed tension between complex and austere. This is not because every scribbling has its end. The Book of Kells is far from being a single literary work, even if such things are thought to exist. I now see moments of austerity everywhere in its coastal labyrinths of death.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">(image: the opening page of <i>the Gospel of Mark</i>)</span>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-79226278833194209132011-05-24T16:19:00.000+03:002011-05-24T16:19:08.359+03:00Dust-laden Tiersen (av)ant-garde<div style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</span></div><div> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF9efKQc85rMILEbWxTEeFj4XePy6B7Jqa485v570k5QZX15cz6rvuX1NUQeMcS4qF2SDPqhOc7mhipBa7GrslleBAxKDdQzXt7w1W3QRoLtQLJwTeZQt3AMlvtzjeR7G-n02kQwaNcQo/s1600/Dust+Lane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF9efKQc85rMILEbWxTEeFj4XePy6B7Jqa485v570k5QZX15cz6rvuX1NUQeMcS4qF2SDPqhOc7mhipBa7GrslleBAxKDdQzXt7w1W3QRoLtQLJwTeZQt3AMlvtzjeR7G-n02kQwaNcQo/s320/Dust+Lane.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">This is a world full of dirty surprises. Yesterday I witnessed how Yann Tiersen offered his rear to the cheapest kind of electronic copy-paste Anglo-American synthpop. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Lane_%28album%29"><i>Dust Lane</i></a> lacked the kind of meticulous variation, intellectual exploration and virtuosity that I’ve grown to expect from him. I simply could not believe my ears – the anticlimax of the decade! Or let’s still bundle this with the last one, so that I don't have to share a decade. This may be a tad unfair, but I couldn’t help feeling that the maestro Midas has begun to envision that all he touches turns to gold. <i>‘Look, I’m Gandhi on the Moon’</i>, Tiersen seemed to wave about erratically and braced for his apotheosis. He seemed to treat his band as if they were accessories or slaves, without offering the courtesy of, say, introducing them to the audience. The concert was an utter, defeating contrast to the previous marvel of composition and the tribute to continental music he’s previously served. I say this as a person who’s listened through most of Tiersen’s pre-2010 discography. Sure, I most loved his best known soundtracks, his cooperation with Claire Pichet and his involvement of ondes Martenot on <i>C’était ici</i>. A simple piano melody <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgYnRh8ACGQ"><i>Comptine d'un autre été</i></a>, accordion variation and innovative percussions appear the height of his musical style to me.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">To add and with all due respect, I’d also prefer if Yann Tiersen never publicly sang in English.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">The venue wasn’t acoustically optimal at all, I admit: a rock ‘n roll ditch that easily breaks and muffles the sound – but since the performance was so unrefined in itself, I don’t really think that this was the problem. I’ve seen people like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwVx6ynYjk">Joanna Newsom</a> and Owen Pallett (you can call <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRs5YkdrCpQ">this</a> time travel) offer immaculate, staggering performances in the same space. If Joanna Newsom can play the harp in that cave, then Tiersen should have no excuse whatsoever in that area. And now, breathe… …</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I must still say that the ticket money was not entirely wasted, though this is not due to the hypnotic last two minutes of Tiersen’s undeserved encore (I felt morally wrong when I joined the audience in applauding him back in hope of hearing some older pieces) as all the sawing, thumping and one of Tiersen’s two synth effects seemed to fall into their right places. The warm-up East-London band <a href="http://www.myspace.com/drytherivermusic"><i>Dry the River</i></a> was delicious on stage, and won my heart with their highly motivated performance, though a lot of their pieces took a long time </span><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"> up to one and half minutes – to launch properly</span><span lang="EN-GB">. Still pretty impressive. I heard afterwards that they haven’t even yet published an album. I really should’ve recorded them… just a tiny bit. Listening to the music available on their MySpace makes me think that their music can lose quite a lot in terms of emotion if produced and polished too carefully. They were a breathtaking live band, however </span><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"> if only they can manage to transfer that life force onto an album.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Well, done, given the hard to define exhaustion that presently plagues me. Even with <i>Dry the River</i> it really took until the last song to penetrate the thick membrane that seems parasitically to embrace my aesthetic instinct. To think, last evening it took five people seemingly giving everything they could to touch and vitalise me. Should I be worried? Not that I'm a vitalist </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB"> or am I?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">The following Brussels recording is bad quality but it is the only one I found that has a hint of the ecstatic suggestion last night. I'll replace it if someone uploads something better:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/yzwWo4XoPqk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-80793261992482402882011-05-19T22:19:00.003+03:002011-05-24T16:27:42.590+03:00On the Lousy Conversationalists at Cannes<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRtRNlJk0hLscppwxLIc7P7RmxnB41OUealTkuM1Bi_R5-yOsBLiT08ErrfXYdFmXP3wpAHE5iB-aA71ZqDZIo3g1b_SF-wAN4v5eJB69ADoJiYRomg3W4qUrw4HECS_WUNRXLcPK19o/s1600/ride_with_hitler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRtRNlJk0hLscppwxLIc7P7RmxnB41OUealTkuM1Bi_R5-yOsBLiT08ErrfXYdFmXP3wpAHE5iB-aA71ZqDZIo3g1b_SF-wAN4v5eJB69ADoJiYRomg3W4qUrw4HECS_WUNRXLcPK19o/s320/ride_with_hitler.jpg" width="248" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">Lars von Trier’s combined irony and intellectual honesty at </span><span lang="EN-GB">Cannes</span><span lang="EN-GB"> was too much for those less acquainted with European humanism – including the present organisers – when he tried to ridicule his own family background while circumventing standard demonisation of Adolf Hitler. See for yourselves in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13452978">video clip</a> available on the </span><span lang="EN-GB">BBC</span><span lang="EN-GB"> site. International media headlines have screamed that the director had praised Hitler (of course), though he simply insisted on some common notion of humanity that had to be shared with even the cruellest murderer in history. Surely anyone familiar with von Trier’s cinematography from <i>Dogville</i> to <i>Breaking the Waves</i> to <i>Antichrist</i> is painfully familiar with the recurrence of his critical eye for the human condition? </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">This is at the very least his second film in row that apparently won’t get the critical opportunity that it deserves as a piece of art to be, given media and random celebrities with unnecessarily loud and uncontemplative voices. At least all the critiques of Antichrist in the mainstream media that I read were too occupied with violent fetishes – and the recurrent panic – of the reviewers themselves to see the questions posed by the director. A pity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Though I'm sure von Trier has often enough depicted how apparently good it feels have a fellow human being on his/her/its knees.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">That’s what you get when you let entertainers organise what was intended assumedly to be an <a href="http://www.festival-cannes.com/en.html">art festival</a>, and invite politicians and super models as guests. Bonfires of anything that attempts to address our worst fears and sins too honestly will burn all too often, as they always have. Perhaps this is a moment of hope: Art is still dangerous and </span><span lang="EN-GB">Europe</span><span lang="EN-GB"> still retains some of its faculties. It is a fine and optimistic gesture from von Trier to place the judging power on other film directors. Could an artist or a thinker of any merit silence another and live with oneself? </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">In any event, is it necessary (/possible) for a fine cultural philosophical thinker to be a reliably nice human being?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(image: so that von Trier will know better!) </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
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</span></div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914393314214652739.post-71240552920093112502011-05-18T13:42:00.005+03:002011-05-28T15:59:19.384+03:00Bios Politikos from a Dead Angle<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">…prostituere</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> (to set forth in public, to expose to dishonor, to prostitute, to put to unworthy use). The Latin verb is a composition of pro (forward) and statuere (to cause to stand, to station, place erect).</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> (Wikipedia, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution">Prostitution</a>)</span></span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB803UBaLvbMTXjvjbnWHduWAvgUOX4fzYhqdFS2DrVB1x12Kiw6IAWLNyFFF8ljPFeDv3kKE159BRJwm1hUGj8RtRYWxCHhugztR8NY1ngI-WwlT6fUQd3lQZa3DwZRAxNGZj130hscE/s1600/Harboured+Hopes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB803UBaLvbMTXjvjbnWHduWAvgUOX4fzYhqdFS2DrVB1x12Kiw6IAWLNyFFF8ljPFeDv3kKE159BRJwm1hUGj8RtRYWxCHhugztR8NY1ngI-WwlT6fUQd3lQZa3DwZRAxNGZj130hscE/s320/Harboured+Hopes.JPG" width="240" /></a></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">The name of this yet undefined little building – a French euphemism – is intended as a reference to the mutual reluctance with which people’s attempts to create and furnish some personal space for themselves are treated in pretty much all human social organisation.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Olivier Razac states it in his history of barbed wire (<i>Histoire politique du barbelé</i>, Le Fabrique Éditions, 2000): barbed wire marks something akin to the game of citizenship that bestows symbolic tokens to all those, who are ready to embrace the figurative, not that actual at all, equality within. In a landscape of direct and indirect borders, biofilters, those <i>without</i> the game tend to be unpronounced, undeveloped property that yet waits to be conceptually and physically earmarked.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">I have a nagging feeling that it’s not all this simple, though, and I’m perhaps not primarily interested in workings, rights and wrongs of any particular political agenda. I don’t mean to sound like an anti-globalist either. I’m still figuring out the globular part. Bitter-smelling territory markings, gradually washed away by recurring showers of rain or covered in particles, are unavoidable in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention that in a way or another, when correctly positioned in the right conversations, the scent compels us all.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">All the small ways in which human life-spheres and bodies necessarily keep being prostituted as a sign of submission to the game – aesthetic, economic, political, ethical, you name it to make it seem true – mark the site of <i>maison de tolérance</i>, the barely tolerant tension that marks the most palatably queer of our storytelling traditions; or the embarrassed feelings that fill those, who suddenly become aware of their own curiosity toward their newly incarcerated playthings in the game of barbed wire relations. Without the right stories to go with, leaving to die is not all that different from keeping alive.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">No promises, other than where there stands a treelike tree in all its hierarchical, arborescent form, it stands on a plateau that gazes at it from many a more unknown places.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">And how can we talk of order overall</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">when the very placement of the stars</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">leaves us doubting just which one shines for whom?</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">(from Szymborska, Psalm)</span></span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">(image: <i>Harboured Hopes, </i>Scribe of Salmacis<i> 2010</i>) </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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</div>Scribe of Salmacishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17032158602548865159noreply@blogger.com2