World Press Photo 2014 picture

Amir Parmand won the 3rd prize singles in the General News category with this picture taken in Iran: "Just before a noose is put on his neck, Alireza Mafiha, 23, lays his head on an executioner's shoulder".  

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014/general-news/amir-pourmand    



Borges on beauty

La música, los estados de la felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es, quizá, el hecho estético.

 

Jorge Luís Borges

António Ramos Rosa

Poema dum Funcionário Cansado

A noite trocou-me os sonhos e as mãos
dispersou-me os amigos
tenho o coração confundido e a rua é estreita
estreita em cada passo
as casas engolem-nos
sumimo-nos
estou num quarto só num quarto só
com os sonhos trocados
com toda a vida às avessas a arder num quarto só
Sou um funcionário apagado
um funcionário triste
a minha alma não acompanha a minha mão
Débito e Crédito Débito e Crédito
a minha alma não dança com os números
tento escondê-la envergonhado
o chefe apanhou-me com o olho lírico na gaiola do quintal em frente
e debitou-me na minha conta de empregado
Sou um funcionário cansado dum dia exemplar
Por que não me sinto orgulhoso de ter cumprido o meu dever?
Por que me sinto irremediavelmente perdido no meu cansaço
Soletro velhas palavras generosas
Flor rapariga amigo menino
irmão beijo namorada
mãe estrela música
São as palavras cruzadas do meu sonho
palavras soterradas na prisão da minha vida
isto todas as noites do mundo numa só noite comprida
num quarto só.

António Ramos Rosa, 1924-2013

On taking risks

“I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.

 

And here is the shock – when you risk it, when you do the right thing, when you arrive at the borders of common sense and cross into unknown territory, leaving behind you all the familiar smells and lights, then you do not experience great joy and huge energy.

You are unhappy. Things get worse.

It is a time of mourning. Loss. Fear. We bullet ourselves through with questions. And then we feel shot and wounded.

And then all the cowards come out and say, “See, I told you so.”

In fact, they told you nothing.”

Jeannette Winterson, in Why be happy when you could be normal? (Grove Press)

Things I did in New York this September

I went to the Guggenheim and saw James Turrell exhibition

  

I saw the Iranian collection at the Metropolitan Museum



Chess game





I read next to the Peace Fountain near the Cathedral of St John the Divine

I went to the Lenox Lounge, which was closed (for good?)

I visited the African burial ground

I crossed the Williamsburg bridge on foot

I saw the sunset from the Staten Island ferry

I visited St Mark's Bookshop, 192 books, and Printed Matter Inc

and I had countless bagels at Murray's.

Selexyz bookshop in Maastricht, in an ancient Dominican church

 

Crossroads

"If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

 

Every now and then we all stop to think where we are and where we're heading to. As years pass those moments seem to bring more pressure and fear, as if we had less time (for yes, each day brings less time) especially when we are aware that we are on the wrong track in one or another aspect of our lives - that we boarded the wrong train. Questions assail us: where do I get off? Which train will be waiting for me? Will that train be the right one? Should I get off this train at all, or just accept I'll end up some place else? What if there are several trains at the station, which one shall I board?

 

Some people do choose to get off the train after many many kilometres and board another one. Studies show this tends to happen when people are in their forties and realise "it is now or never". They break up with their partners, quit their well-paid jobs or the country where they have lived in and built their lives for years,... They get off the train and start another trip. They take huge risks, knowing that it is either that or wasting the rest of their lives.

 

Some other people stay at the station waiting for the right destination but are incapable of taking a decision for fear they might board the wrong train, so they never actually board one. They do not take any risks and life just passes. These people are the most unhappy of all.

 

Then you have people who make boarding wrong trains an art. They don't know where they are going, change trains as soon as they are tired and do not give much thought to the consequences. Some eventually find the right track, others don't.

They just enjoy the landscape.

Kerala, January 2008

 

 

Mona Ki Ngi Xica

"Brown babies"

An incredible documentary about the babies born in Germany after WWII from a German mother and an Afro-american soldier:

 

 

O sodade na coração

Kingfisher

Misunderstandings

The other day I went to this cinema I love which has two rooms, one on the groundfloor and one upstairs. There were only two people in the hall, a mother and her child. Then the guy who checks the tickets showed up and with the most serious face asked me: "Is it for The Ugly Duckling?". The lady waiting in the hall burst into laughter. I answered no, I was actually there to see "Fill the void" (a film about the Jewish ultra-orthodox community by Rama Burshtein, herself a member of that community). "Upstairs", he said. As I took the stairs I heard him speaking to the lady: "I saw the child and thought you three were together...", as if excusing himself.

 

I love the Ugly Duckling. Maybe next week.

Erlkönig interpreted by Jessye Norman

Korea, one year later

Almost one year after I visited South Korea, tension is high in the Peninsula... I had a look at the pictures I took during my visit and found this one taken in the Haeinsa Temple.

 

 

Food for love

They say, in several languages I know, that love goes through the stomach. I happen to live with someone who could be a chef and cooks five-star meals on a daily basis.

 

An old friend to whom I was describing on the phone, this Saturday morning, the luxury breakfast awaiting me on the table, observed that from an early age I have been well fed, first in my family environment and now by my partner. Gourmet meals have always been something normal in my life ever since I was a child.

 

I looked at the fresh home-made bread on the table. Bread, the most symbolic of all meals in the Western and Middle Eastern worlds, which nourishes body and soul.

 

The smell of fried king scallops reached my nostrils. I said goodbye to my friend and indulged once more in a delicatessen experience.

 

Bread (food). Love. What else do we need to live well?

What Iranians wish

Sleep and noise in Geneva

Some people would like Geneva to be like a cemetery. A group of citizens came up with a creative initiative to try to keep the city alive: www.notrebruit.ch

 

©www.notrebruit.ch

 

 

 

Pierre Rabhi

La modernité est fondée sur une rupture avec la nature et le désir, c’est-à-dire l’intuition, la sensibilité, la sensualité (…). Aves les grandes promesses technologiques, nous avons manqué de générosité, nous sommes allées contre les lois de la nature. L’intelligence manque : elle ne se mesure pas au nombre de diplômes, mais à la lucidité que seule l’intelligence de la vie possède pour éclairer notre regard.

Interview, Am, 12/2009

On ageing

An enlightening article by Tim Kreider on the issue of ageing: You Are Going to Die