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Location: Athens, Greece

A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Its loveliness increases
It will never pass into nothingness
But still will keep a bower quiet for us
And a sleep full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing
Endymion,J.Keats
End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back and all change to silver glass and then you see it.White shores and beyond. A far green country under a swift sunrise
Gandalf
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition
I.Asimov
Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring
C. Sagan
'O me!O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish;what good amid these,O me,O life?
Answer.That you are here that life exists,and identity;that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.'
W.Whitman

Monday, November 29, 2010

Solitude


MORPHEUS: For the hundredth time since I regained it, I reach into the pouch and I touch the sand. I shift it through my fingers. Feel each grain of it, inexhaustible. Endless. Like myself, like the few others of my kind. Endless. Tonight I feel alone. I have always been solitary, but here on the nightward shores of dream, loneliness washes over me in waves, lapping and pulling at my spirit. I sprinkle sand into the waters of night. The grains burn as they fall, reminding me of another in times long passed away. I watched him even then as he fell, his face undefeated, his eyes still proud. It is time for me to walk the abyss. Time to reclaim my own. I must talk to the Morningstar.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Intense Life


It's only half past 4 in the afternoon but its really dark and misty outside, raining on and off and the weather is certainly not a mood elevator today.

Back to my old discussion on 'meaning' with myself. Yes yes not that again I know. But what can you , some things just don't change. I guess this is one of them.

I really don't mean to be boring and certainly I don't have to write about it...then again since probably whoever reads this will want to read it (probably just me) it will not be boring. Anyway.......

'Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition' as the Monty Pythons said :-) Then again the unchanged turn of events, the days that pass and the time that floats all around us......the familiarity of everyday life which may be boring or not......it doesn't hold the intense meaning of life that one expects.

So what to expect, lightning to strike? Oh probably not a good idea but then again something DIFFERENT, out of the ordinary, something exquisite, magnificent, meaningful.

I'm sure Brunelleschi felt the same about his faboulous Dome, Sir Christofer Ren for St Peter, Michaelangelo about David, Leonardo about...well Leonardo about everything really, Byron, Keats, Burns, and then the Scientists, Darwin , Einstein, Feynman, Planck, etc etc etc ...and then some more etc.

The thing is.....the thing is I have no Dome to build, no Cosimo to fund me and certainly not Leonardo's flame of inspiration.

I'm left with an agonizing desire for a moment's proximity with experiencing Intense Life as those guys (and so many others) did. (and payed for it dearly with agonizing mental pain)

Intense Life, as described by F.S.Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby (yes I'm stuck with the great American novel again its that time of the year) and Walt Whitman in his (fabulous) Leaves of Grass.


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Intense Life. Always connected with creativity, genious and a dash of maddness in my mind. Oh and maybe the feeling of being in love but that is a byproduct I guess.

How do you get to experience Intense Life? Do you really have to be a fictional character, living in someone's fantasy? How do you avoid Thoreau's Lives of quiet desperation? How do you find Meaning?

Well not with Oracle (sorry Larry) and not Unix (sorry Berkeley - LSD and Unix):-)

As Todd says in The Dead Poets Society '
Truth is like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. Kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying, to the moment we leave dying, it'll just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream'

G-R-E-A-T . So what is there to do?

I don't know....I'm more than 3 decades in this world and I don't know.....

I am old enough not to fool myself with the byproducts and excuses and cheap replacements others use to avoid facing the reality of the intensity of the meaning of Life as it should be experienced.

But I do feel it...as sparks in the neurons of my brain that never, absolutely never, stops thinking (uncomfortable at times but makes me....well me), heartbeats that I miss, or chills from the cold rain. Racing heartbeats from intensity of feelings or proximity with extreme creativity or genious, joy from sights that are imprinted forever in the mind to be reflected upon later and missed.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Yes John Keats, my favourite romantic poet, yes you were right but then again you were desperate were you not?

Why is the burden of Meaning and Intense Life so heavy that makes living unbearable?

I need meaning......(and sugar....I think I definately need sugar):)

P.S. I am listening to Ramstein......really? Me?

P.S.2 No, being Jack Bauer does not qualify as Intense Living either :-)

P.S.3
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life ... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Thoreau (who else)

P.S.4
Keating: A phone call from God. If it'd been collected, that would have been daring. (and I rest my case) :-)

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love



I can't really explain why my 'obsession' with Peanuts has returned but it has....

So here is my clip for the day....

Now on to other matters at hand.....

My new office is a bit louder and quite more in the center of things....jeez I cant get a moments peace here - everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY can just stop by for....whatever.....

I miss my old office :( Oh well this one is a step closer to the desired goals.....

As I wrote before.....decisions, decisions, decisions.......so hard to make and so hard to stick by......

When you are just starting out you usually go with the flow, you try but without a clear picture of what you actually wish to achieve.

Now, almost 10 and more years later I cannot say my vision is more clear. It has gained more perspective, much more experience but also many more choices have presented themselves. And a lot of accumulated pressure and fatigue. And it is this fatigue that makes the vision blurry.

You think you can handle things but the truth you can only handle things as long as no new elements are introduced. And you don't even know you wanted these new elements to be introduced until they did. And then...then....you want them so much that the whole perspective changes. A...reality switch.....as it is called.

How strange, this kind of certainty, how inexplicable. I have the feeling I will be reading this post some time in the future and not even I will be able to quite understand what I meant. But my reluctancy to reveal things, to express them out into the void appears to grow expotentially.

I feel so tired.......and I wish I could rest but I guess that is not in the stars for me. Come to think of it...I cannot really remember the last time I had a real holiday....when I say holiday I mean, no worries, no concerns, leaving the whole world behind, even for a few days and just ....resting....even if that means climbing Anapurna:)

Well I 'm pretty sure I will not be climbing Anapurna any time soon but I would love a holiday (also not in the plans for the near future unless I make this decision which cuts me up like a knife and is therefore extremely difficult to make). Am I hurting myself by not making it? I don't know but it is my perception that the way I conceive the world and myself in it is through the things I do and accomplish and therefore to give up is a decision I do not know if I can bare.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

I know my path is not a frequently walked-upon path. It has been a hard hike but as MacGyver used to say 'I'm a sucker for mornings' (though not such an early riser myself) :-) so every morning brings with it a new day and new opportunities. Does my fatigue stop me from exploring them? I have to entertain this idea, it is a possibility but the thing is, leaving behind a big part of my life, what defines a big part of who I am is so damn hard. I really do not know if or how to do that and I fear it would break me if I did.

So what to do? Oh what to do?

I'm going to go with Baz Lurhman here :

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 97
Wear sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience
I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you cant grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked.You re not as fat as you
imagine.

Dont worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Dont be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes
you're behind,the race is long, and in the end, it's only with
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your
life,the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children,maybe
you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary,what ever you do, don't
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either , your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can,don't be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever
own..

Dance,even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for
good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

I do love that song......

I have asked for focus and strength which is what someone who always relies on herself asks for. I now ask for hope, courrage and ....(I write the word and I delete it over and over again) help. So if Life is as wise as I think, please listen to me and give me a hand will you? I'm over my head here :)

But no matter how tired I am, the strenght of my convictions and my beliefs is intact. I do still believe in relativity (duh) and what Einstein said 'Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love' .

Hehe.......nope, its definately not gravity.........(I think.....you never know with physics) :-)

*Listening to Where the Streets have no name/Can't get my eyes off of you by The Pet Shop Boys

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Sunday, September 06, 2009

Fellini's 8 1/2

A new day dawns....

As the great Fellini says in his movie 8 1/2 in the ending which is invigorating, letting us know that life is a game in which each of us is on the stage performing our roles and the only sane response to its turmoil is to join hands in love and celebrate the moment. So join hands and experience this carnivale called life...and dance to its mystical ways...

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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

A hope in Hell - Sandman Neil Gaiman

CHORONZON: I am a dire world, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.

MORPHEUS: I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.

CHORONZON: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.

MORPHEUS: I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.

CHORONZON: I am a snake, spider-devouring, posion-toothed.

MORPHEUS: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy footed.
CHORONZON: I am an anthrax, butcher, bacterium, warm-life destroying.

MORPHEUS: I am a world, space-floating, life nurturing.

CHORONZON: I am a nova, all-exploding... planet-cremating.

MORPHEUS: I am the Universe -- all things encompassing, all life embracing.

CHORONZON: I am Anti-Life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... of everything. Sss. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?

MORPHEUS: I am hope.

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Morpheus in Hell - Sandman

LUCIFER:Look around you.The million Lords of Hell stand arrayed about you.Tell us why we should let you leave?Helmet or no,you have no power here.What power have dreams in hell?

MORPHEUS:You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly.But you say that Dreams have no power here?Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar.Ask yourselves,all of you.What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?

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Monday, April 06, 2009

I am still here




Life is pain.

Well thank you for the enlightenment dear Buddha but as I wrote some time ago in my fb I don't think the reason for life's pain is desire, I think the reason for life's pain is consciousness.

And as much as this was argued in my facebook status here it cannot be argued since ...well....it is my blog really :)

Anyway.....pain.....can be perceived in so many different ways spiritual or emotional or physical but still pain nonetheless.

The last 3 months have been a cocktail of sorts for me in this area.

Emotional due to the life changing events that took place in my life, changes I did not desire nor expected nor cared for. The very foundations I built my life upon were shuttered and I was left to gather the pieces frightened -truly frightened for what was left for me to be now- and alone.

Spiritual due to the fact that all the decisions I made in the past few years were put under the microscope and many were found wanting. Spiritual because the very meaning of my life was in question here, not just because of what happened but also because of the sudden (although not unexpected) disappearance of everyone I counted on as friend or even more. And not just disappearance but also attempts of manipulating the situation to some other ends...it is one thing to try and manipulate someone when he is strong but it is a completely another thing to do it when he is down. Now that...is cruel and immoral. Very immoral. Many of my memories from the past related to many people were shuttered and for that I am truly in pain. I was....in a very very dark and lonely place , quite resembling my images of Dante's inferno where I could see no light, only darkness.

Physical because I also got ill and was hospitalized which added to this whole situation the sudden break of my body...not unexpected under the circumstances.

But....we humans have an extreme tolerance as it seems and we also have amazing healing abilities. We have a built in mechanism to forget and survive I guess.

Well I have not forgotten, it is after all too soon , but I am beginning to see glimpses of light.

The road to enlightenment is a very lonely road , yes it is indeed, but does it really have to be so damn hard???? Yes...I guess it does.....

I was looking out my hospital window and was utterly miserable and lonely, it was evening and a very dark evening with no afterglow. Suddenly the first drops of rain started to fall, hesitant at first and then all the more bold and even violent. I got up and touched the cool windowglass with my forehead and that touch was sort of liberating, as if the anger of the storm calmed the storm within me, released me even if it was for a brief period of time.

I am used to my solitude, seek it even. Loneliness is marked by a sense of isolation. Solitude, on the other hand, is a state of being alone without being lonely and can lead to self-awareness.

In that dark place I could only enjoy my solitude in those hours of the night just before dawn when everyone is asleep, and nature is waiting for the first ray of light.

I had lost myself.

Now I am slowly beginning to find myself again but I am far too tired....oh so tired......so very tired......I do not have the luxury of being tired I have to perform, I have to be there for others and I have to work but oh I'm so very tired.

Sometimes I look at those fairy tale drawings and I see fairies sleeping this enchanted sleep of the fairy queen and I so long for that sleep, I so long to slip into this world as Marion did , to find my long saught after Avalon.

I read lately again Hamlet's monologue from the play Act III Scene I, 'To be or not to be'

Maybe it is that I have grown or maybe it is that I can finally relate to what this monologue is really about :




“

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy take
s,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And los
e the name of action.[2]

”

When we have shed of this mortal coil, and in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

But then again there is this unfulfilled promise to myself, that I will travel all around the world, see some new things just like Mac said and enjoy as much of this pale blue dot as possible.

But conscience ......it does make cowards of us all......you were right Hamlet.....I had to grow to really understand.

I am still here.

(on the left my spirit on the right my psyche)







(all pictures by Arthur Hughes, John Collier and John William Waterhouse, my imaginery companions)

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Nonno's poem - The night of iguana

calmly does the olive branch / observe the sky begin to blanch, / without a cry, without a prayer, ' with no betrayal of despair.

Sometime while light obscures the tree, / the zenith of its life will be gone, / past, forever. And from thence, / a second history will commence.

A chronicle no longer gold / of bargaining with mist and mold, / and finally the broken stem, / the plummeting to earth, and then

An intercourse not well designed / for beings of a golden kind / whose native green must arch above / the Earth's obscene, corrupting love.

And still the ripe fruit and the branch / observe the sky begin to blanch, / without a cry, without a prayer, / with no betrayal of despair .

Oh, courage! Could you not as well / select a second place to dwell? / Not only in that golden tree / but in the frightened heart of me?

Tenessee Williams

The night of iguana

Nothing human disgusts me unless its violent or dirty

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Ralph Fiennes


"The people I consider successful are so because of how they handle their responsibilities to other people, how they approach the future, people who have a full sense of the value of their life and what they want to do with it. I call people successful not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings -- their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born. Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word."

Ralph Fiennes

After watching the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards 2009 I was really intrigued by 'Bernard and Doris'...and oh dear what a spectacular Bernard Ralph is you cannot tell he is acting the drama is so underlying and painful it is simply heartbreaking to watch.

I loved Ralph ever since 'The English Patient', absolutely hated-adored him in 'Schindler's List' and could not believe he would be the one to play Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, a role he played in 2 days.

Well he is a great actor, one that encapsulates for me the essence of 'an actor is a light', a great artist and a man with a soul larger than life.


This spectacular actor and human being has been greatly mistreated by the academy he deserved the award for every nomination he ever got.

Bow!

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

2009 - Advertising Space


Advertising Spaces by Robbie Williams

There's no earthly way of knowing
What was in your heart
When it stopped going
The whole world shook
A storm was blowing through you

Waiting for God to stop this
And up to your neck in darkness
Everyone around you was corrupted
Saying somethin'

There's no dignity in death
To sell the world your last breath
They're still fighting over
Everything you left over

I saw you standing at the gates
When Marlon Brando passed away
You had that look upon your face
Advertising space

And
No one learned from your mistakes
We let our profit s go to waste
All that's left in any case
Is Advertising space

Through your eyes
The world was burning
Please be gentle
I'm still learning
You seemed to say
As you kept turning up

They poisoned you with compromise
At what point did you realise
Everybody loves your life
But you ahahh

Special agent for the man
Through watergate and vietnam
No one really gave a damn
Did you think the CIA did

I saw you standing at the gates
When Marlon Brando passed away
You had that look upon your face
Advertising space

And
No one learned from your mistake
We let our profits go to waste
All that's left in any case
Is Advertising space ooooohh

I saw you standing at the gates
When Marlon Brando passed away
You had that look upon your face
Advertising space

No one learned from your mistakes
We let our profits go to waste
All that's left in any case
Is Advertising space

I've seen your daughter
Man shes cute
I was scared but I wanted to
Boy she looks a lot like you

Facing the new year bloody but unbowed, I will not speak, I will not yield, I will only dedicate this song to the previous years, to what I've lost and what I've learned and to everything that has been my life for the past years.

All that's left in any case
Is Advertising space

Invictus.


"Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god."
Aristotle

"Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than the suns and the stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from traveling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning - solitude;" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may take acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude." -- from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Conduct of Life"

SOLITUDE

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breath his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind;
Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope


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Friday, November 28, 2008

Semper fidelis, Semper eadem

"Mostly, we have manufactured ladies -- with the exception of Ingrid, Grace, Deborah, and Audrey." ~ Cary Grant

"Semper Eadem" or "Always the Same" ~ Queen Elizabeth I's royal motto and one of Queen Anne Boleyn's.

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Bridges of Madison County


Are 4 days enough to last a lifetime?

After my post about Mr.Darcy I thought to myself.....is this what one should really look forward to?

And no....most certainly not even though it is a great fantasy as it is.....

But Robert Kincaid is....the love story between the National Geographic and not only photographer Robert Kincaid and Francesca is. As he says....this kind of certainty that comes but once in a lifetime, this kind of bonding between adult souls that have matured and ached and lossed and have become accustomed to the idea of solitude....(the boundaries of each other's solitude - thinking of Rilke again) this kind of certainty....you are lucky if it comes once in a lifetime.

Francesca: And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.

Francesca:
Robert, please. You don’t understand, no-one does. When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you’re expected move again only you don’t remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself. You never in your life think that love like this can happen to you.
Robert Kincaid: But now that you have it...
Francesca: I want to keep it forever. I want to love you the way I do now the rest of my life. Don't you understand... we'll lose it if we leave. I can't make an entire life disappear to start a new one. All I can do is try to hold onto to both. Help me. Help me not lose loving you.
Robert Kincaid: This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.

Robert: The old dreams were good dreams; they didn't work out, but glad I had them.

Robert Kincaid: Things change. They always do, it's one of the things of nature. Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.


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Sunday, March 16, 2008

Το πανηγύρι της Κακάβας

Εμπρός! Θέλω για πατρίδα μου τον απέραντο ροδοκοκκινισμένο ορίζοντα! Ζηλεύω, εγώ, κι έχω για τζάκι μου μανάκριβο μια ταξιδεύτρα του ήλιου αχτίδα.

M.Guyau

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Stargate Sg-1


Carter: Are you crazy? It's a paradise.
O'Neill
: Yeah, sure, have an apple. What could happen?

Jackson: Hathor was the Egyptian goddess of fertility, inebriety, and music.
O'Neill: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll?


O'Neill: How do I know you're really Daniel?
Jackson: Because.
O'Neill: Yeah, okay.

O'Neill: All right, I gotta know. What the hell does "kree" mean?
Jackson: Well, actually, it means a lot of things. Loosely translated it means "attention," "listen up," "concentrate—"
O'Neill: "Yoo hoo"?

O'Neill: You know that "we come in peace" business? Bite me.

O'Neill: We'll be unavailable, inaccessible...
Hammond: Incommunicado...
O'Neill: Minnesota, Sir.
Hammond: I stand corrected.

Carter: Our goal is to take out Anubis' new super weapon. It's what gives him a clear advantage over the rest of the Goa'uld mother ships. Now, we've received word from Teal'c that Yu has pledged to bring the full force of the remaining system lords' fleet down on Anubis once we've succeeded.
O'Neill: Okay. Everyone who thinks this is absolutely an insane idea, raise your hand. Come on, be honest.
Everyone, including Carter, eventually raise their hand

O'Neill: Teal'c. Are you there?
Teal'c: Proceed, O'Neill.
O'Neill: You know how I get when you don't call.

Jackson: Jack, we need to talk! Oh! Sorry for interrupting.
O'Neill: No! It's important. You must interrupt. You must.
Jackson: I think we may have found a ZPM.
O'Neill: Yes!


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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

R.M.Rilke

"o stars, isn't it from you that the lover's desire for the face
of his beloved arises? doesn't his secret insight
into her pure features come from the pure constellations?"

- from rainer maria rilke's third elegy

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The meaning of life part 3 - Einstein

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

- Albert Einstein

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To be or not to be

“

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.[2]

”

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The meaning of life part 2

In the programming language Java, the meaning of life is a NullPointerException (from wikipedia)

:-)

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Life and the awareness of living

Because of my recent obsession with P.Pullman and 'His Dark Materials' here are 2 quotes from one of his interviews:

"PP: Yes. When I took Lyra down to the world of the dead, I didn't know how I was going to get her out. But I relied on her quick-wittedness and I relied on luck or chance or whatever. The ghosts came along and they asked this question, as you described, and Lyra, for the first time in her life, has to tell a story that is true. Up till then, she's been a fantasist. She has spun lie upon lie, and story upon story, not only to get herself out of trouble, but also to entertain her listeners. And she is very good at it. She tries this with the harpies, who guard the world of the dead, when she first goes down there. But they see through it at once, and they screech and they fly at her with claws and they cry "liar-liar-liar!" -- which sounds like her name. So when she is confronted with these desperate children, so eager to hear about the world and what it was like, she begins to do exactly what they ask for, to tell them a story that's not a fantasy, but a piece of realism. And she describes the day that she and her friends played in the mud beside the river, and they had a great battle, and they threw mud at each other. She describes all the feelings, the mud squishing through her fingers, and the sight of the sun coming through the dappled leaves as it strikes the riverbank, and the coolness of the water, and the smell of the cooking fires. She brings all those things life. Then she has a terrible shock, because she looks up and sees the harpies sitting around listening to this. This is what they've been hungering for all this time, and they had never thought to ask. But now they've heard it, they want more. They want more, they want more.

That's the point at which Tialys, the Gallivespian who is the length of one of our fingers and rides a dragonfly, has the great idea of making a bargain with the harpies, as you've mentioned. From now on, every ghost who enters the world of the dead will have to come with a story, the story of his or her life, and tell it to the harpies. It doesn't have to be a big adventure; it can just be a description of a day playing with the children, like Lyra's, or whatever it might happen to be. In exchange for this true story, the harpies will lead that ghost outside to dissolve into the Universe and be one with everything else.

Of course, I stole that, as I stole everything else! I stole that from the Oresteia -- the bargain Aeschylus's characters make with the Furies that are following them about. "You will be the guardians of this place, and we will worship you and we will give you honor," they say. Then the Furies are satisfied, and they leave off their pursuit of Orestes. There's nothing new in stories. It goes round again and again and again.

But that was something that I thought was a good way out for Lyra, and it did reassert the value of story. States it fully and clearly, brings it out. And also the value of realistic story. It's got to be true. And there's a moral consequence; for those who have eyes to see, they can see it: you have to live. You have to experience things to have a story to tell, and if you spend all your life playing video games, that will not do."


And :

"The thing this is saying is what Will says later on about the angels. He says, "They wish they had bodies. They are envious of us. They wish they could smell the roasting coffee and these things. They can't understand why we, who have the power to feel these things, who have nerves and senses, aren't in a continual state of ecstasy. That we can touch things, that we can hear things and smell things, and taste things."

If there was one feeling or one idea that I would like readers to take away from the trilogy (though I don't tell them this is what they must take -- they can take what they choose), I would like them to take away this emphasis, this continuing and strong emphasis that I put on the value of being alive and having nerves and senses -- of having a physical body.

This is where I owe a great debt to William Blake, of course: "Show me a world where every particle of dust breathes forth its joy," he wrote. And:

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

And: "Every thing that lives is Holy." Blake celebrated the sense that this world we live in is the most extraordinary, miraculous place, and we should cherish it, we should look after it -- with delight begins responsibility."

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Liberty by Paul Eluard

Liberty

On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name

On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name

On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name

On the jungle the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name

On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name

On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name

On the fields the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name


On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name

On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name

On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name

On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name

On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name

On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name

On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name

On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name

On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name

On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name

On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name

On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name

By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you

LIBERTY


This is dedicated to a memory not lost to a professor never forgotten that taught me so much in so little time.......about Paul Eluard and about R.M.Rilke and about Y.Ritsos and Kavafis and so many others.....

and my favourite:


In the name of the perfect profound face
In the name of the eyes I look at
And the mouth I kiss
For today and for always

In the name of buried hope
In the name of tears in the darkness
In the name of sorrow that brings laughter
In the name of laughter that brings fear

In the name of laughter in the street
Of the gentleness that links our hands
In the name of fruits covering flowers
On an earth good and beautiful

In the name of the men in prison
In the name of the women deported
In the name of all our comrades
Martyred and massacred
For not accepting the shadow

We must drain our rage
And make the iron rise up
To preserve the high image
Of the innocent everywhere hunted
And who will triumph everywhere.

Και στα ελληνικά (γιατί αυτό το ποίημα για πρώτη φορά στα ελληνικά το διάβασα....και για να βρω τη μετάφραση ξέθαψα το βιβλίο λογοτεχνίας της τρίτης λυκείου...που το είχα κρατήσει μόνο για αυτό το ποίημα....)

Στ' όνομα του τέλειου ψηλού μετώπου,
Στ' όνομα των ματιών που κοιτάζω
Και του στόματος που φιλώ
Για σήμερα και για πάντα

Στ' όνομα της χαμένης ελπίδας
Στ' όνομα των δακρύων μεσα στη νύχτα
Στ' όνομα της θλίψης που φέρνει γέλιο
Στ' όνομα του γέλιου που φέρνει φόβο

Στ' όνομα του γέλιου κάτω στο δρόμο
Της ευγένειας που δένει τα χέρια μας
Στ' όνομα της οπώρας σαν σκεπάζει το λουλούδι
Σε μια όμορφη γη και καρπερή

Στ' όνομα των ανθρώπων που σαπίζουνε στη φυλακή
Στ' όνομα των εξορισμένων γυναικών
Στ' όνομα όλων των συντρόφων μας
Που μαρτύρησαν και σφαγιάστηκαν
Για να μη δεχτούν τον ίσκιο

Πρέπει να στραγγίξουμε την ορμή
Και να σηκώσουμε το ξίφος
Για να φυλάξουμε την ιερή εικόνα
Των αθώων που κυνηγήθηκαν παντού
Και που παντού και πάντα θα θριαμβεύουν.



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