MINE

Mărțișoare - ultima zi de marte, cu un băiat și o carte

2011-03-31T12:28:00.003+02:00

"[...]
Mâna-i stă pe-aici, pe-alături.
Pune-i degetare
Câte-o sărutare.
Umblă-ncet, ia-i mâna-ncet,
Mută-i-o incet,
Să nu se deștepte ...
Și-n cuprinsul pălmii drepte,
De zîntâi de marte,
Pune-i mărțișor o carte."

Rumania Rumania

2010-12-01T05:08:00.001+01:00

The Lee Shore

2010-10-04T11:08:00.002+02:00

A small chapter from Moby Dick. Read it yesterday. For some, the struggle is to hang on to something. For others, to keep away, and there is honor and there can be beauty in both.

"Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!"

AM WAS FRUNZE

2010-04-20T12:18:00.003+02:00

FRUNZE
as vrea sa ma asez pe marginea trotuarului,
sa astept sa se faca noapte la capatul strazii – singuratatea
mea de acuma mai are
ceva la fel cu cea din copilarie,
când nu stiam ca trece pentru totdeauna
vremea? nu se poate rascumpara
cu nimic vremea de atunci? nu mai ramâne
adevarat nici un gest, chiar asezat
pe strada cu capul în mâini?
si lumina, care se spulbera pe obiecte,
si obiectele se fac frunze,
si se fac frunze.

mircea ivanescu

AM WAS

am was. are leaves few this. is these a or
scratchily over which of earth dragged once
-ful leaf. & were who skies clutch an of poor
how colding hereless. air theres what immense
live without every dancing. singless on-
ly a child's eyes float silently down
more than two those that and that noing our
gone snow gone
yours mine
. We're
alive and shall be:cities may overflow(am
was)assassinating whole grassblades,five
ideas can swallow a man;three words im
-prison a woman for all her now:but we've
such freedom such intense digestion so
much greenness only dying makes us grow

e.e. cummings

NBD

2010-04-02T17:14:00.001+02:00

For What It's Worth: Placebo!

2010-03-15T15:41:00.009+01:00

HOMEOPATHY - House of Commons Science and Technology Committee

54. We conclude that the principle of like-cures-like is theoretically weak. It fails to provide a credible physiological mode of action for homeopathic products. We note that this is the settled view of medical science. [...]
61. We consider the notion that ultra-dilutions can maintain an imprint of substances
previously dissolved in them to be scientifically implausible. [...]
70. In our view, the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos.
110.[...]The Government should stop allowing the funding of homeopathy on the NHS.
111. We conclude that placebos should not be routinely prescribed on the NHS. The funding of homeopathic hospitals—hospitals that specialise in the administration of placebos—should not continue, and NHS doctors should not refer patients to homeopaths.

Strangely enough, sometimes it takes scores of scientists to convince you that gin and tonic with only the memory of gin molecules won't get you drunk. If still unconvinced, try taking the holistic approach to getting the car to run on 'memory of gasoline molecules'.

A room of one's own - 8 March 2010

2010-03-08T20:48:00.004+01:00

"For my belief is that if we live another century or so—I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals—and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting–room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky. too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton’s bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would he impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while."

Virginia Woolf - "A Room of One's Own"

"Magnificent desolation"

2010-03-03T16:14:00.006+01:00

I am not sure why I post this. I was on youtube, trying to find something serene, in tune with this beautiful beginning of spring here in Brussels. It would be really difficult to trace how I got to it. I remember Jacques Brel and Gardel along the way. This little clip is beautiful and there are plenty like it in the same online nest.

Space travel, landing on moons and planets, fresh starts, perhaps, in the midst of 'magnificent desolation' - thoughts not quite out of tune with spring, isn't it?

Leapșa 'România tăcută'

2010-01-12T22:35:00.009+01:00

Eu nu cred ca Romania e tacuta, asa cum zice Lil.
E zgomotoasa ca o manea si roasa de frustrari si de mediocritate. Cei care n-au votat n-au tacut, ci au urlat manele, si nu-i cainez. O prietena univesitara imi spunea pe Facebook inainte de alegeri ca nu poate vota cu Geoană pentru ca 'suge pula la Patriciu si Vantu', ca spera ca Patriciu se imbuneaza si da la toata lumea case, masini si femei (nu vorbea serios cind zicea de Patriciu, masini, bani si femei, evident, dar campul semantic e interesant aici). 'Tacerea' celor care n-au votat in felul asta e tot o mare si zgomotoasa manea si n-am de ce si cum sa vreau sa-i scot din 'letargie'. Daca as vrea sa ies dintre eufemisme, as gasi alte cuvinte pentru letargia asta.
Nu tacerea e problema. E marea si monstruoasa ignoranta si indolenta. Lipsa de respect si de principii.
Ati vazut vreodata The Festival of Remembrance in Marea Britanie? Daca da, ganditi-va ca la 20 de ani de la revolutie in Romania nimeni n-a stiut sa faca un gest public de comemorare bine organizat si decent.

Unii se exprima asa. Stiu ca au cui sa fie recunoscatori. Altora...cum spuneam mai sus, pina si tacerea le suna a manele.
In alta ordine de idei - da, UE, de exemplu, are o gramada de continut si nu se stie povesti si comunica. Dar la noi (partide, institutiile statului) problema nu e asta. La noi continutul cam lipseste. Stiti ca toti se pling la la reuniunile cu experti europeni Romania nu trimite aproape niciodata pe nimeni? (azi am auzit asta despre produsele farmaceutice, de ex). N-au niciodata o pozitie, nu negociaza, nu sunt prezenti. O fi costind mai mult deplasarile decit ce pierdem de pe urma nesustinerii interesului national. Nu pot decit sa fierb de minie si frustrare cind aud asa ceva.
In Romania ziaristii numara deplasarile parlamentarilor in strainatate ca si cum orice calatorie sau contact cu strainii ar fi inca doar o sursa de leisure si beneficiu personal. Tunsul oilor e mai bine vazut.
Despre bloguri, foarte bine. Mai bine 'cu' decit 'fara' si simt ca e un privilegiu sa va citesc si sa va cunosc. Mi-ar placea insa sa vad si agenda personala de prioritati legislative a parlamentarilor publicata pe site-uri mai complexe, facute si cu ajutorul unor colaboratori sau stagiari, de exemplu.
Ma scuzati pentru dezlinare. Voiam sa scriu azi si sunt destul de obosita. Public acum si poate mai ajustez-completez-tai maine.

Turkish Foreign Policy

2010-01-09T21:41:00.004+01:00

While on holiday in Istanbul, I used to read the Turkish press in English provided at the hotel. On the very first days of 2010, the Turkish Prime Minister was talking to Brazil for drilling in the Black Sea, the minister for the economy was in Turkmenistan and the trade minister was in Libya. There were editorials about the long-term Turkish foreign policy goals (up to 2020).
Moreover, today I read this online:

Foreign Minister in Mardin to evaluate Ambassadors' Conference

"Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is in Mardin for a meeting to evaluate the Second Ambassadors' Conference.

The meeting will take place over the next two days to evaluate the Ambassadors' Conference themed "Democracy, Security and Stability: Foreign Policy Outlook for 2010", which began on Monday in Ankara with the participation of nearly 200 Turkish ambassadors from all over the world and eight Cabinet ministers."

Meanwhile, I wish I heard anything about the 'mind', language and 'methods' of those who are supposed to do the same - i.e. move, come up with a foreign policy and try to implement it in an efficient and coordinated way - in Romania. Wishful thinking.

"...and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well..."

2009-12-24T12:11:00.005+01:00

...if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

Pentru Lilick, Anca si Mihai Voicu

2009-12-24T09:41:00.006+01:00

Cum zice Anca...muzică!
Îl pregătisem încă de aseară. Mi-a luat ceva timp sa gasesc un progrămel care să-l taie așa cum voiam (cadoul mic, nepriceperea mare).

E o bucată din 'Before Night Falls,' about breaking free.

Așa, ca sa vă mulțumesc pentru conversație. Iar postarea care va urma inainte de sfârșitul anului nu va fi nici ea mai puțin pentru voi.

For the days 20 years ago and for the days left to this year

2009-12-21T23:04:00.006+01:00

ALL IS TRUTH
O ME, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof--denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none,
but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon
itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth
does.

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately--But it must be
realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

Where has fail'd a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?
or in the meat and blood?

Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return--And that what are called
lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded
it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as
space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but
that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Walt Whitman

"Vă sunt recunoscător"

2009-12-06T22:19:00.000+01:00

Geoană la PNL, după ce termină discursul, extra: "vă sunt recunoscător!" râdeți voi râdeți, dar eu așa ceva n-am auzit în 20 de ani de post-revoluție. "Vă sunt recunoscător!" Cuvinte de o frumusețe Steinhardtiana.

Eu ma simt onorată să am un președinte căruia îi vin firesc cuvintele astea.

M-am săturat de cinism.

Update: Romanii lui 'vă sunt recunoscator' sunt mai putini decit cei ai lui 'v-am ciuruit'. Poate ar trebui sa schimb unele timpuri ale verbelor din acest mic post. N-o s-o fac. I stand by my words.

My traditional 'Happy Birthday, dear R!' post

2009-12-01T14:01:00.000+01:00

azi eu nu vorbesc de b.

Twenty years after!

2009-11-13T12:07:00.000+01:00

Romania, 1989

Romania 2009
20 years after, while all celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, the same disident poet Mircea Dinescu, in a country where very few stood up like him, for the dignity and liberty of many, is threatened and demeaned in public, repeatedly.

REALITATEA.NET - Antonie Solomon: Dinescu, dacă vrea să rămână în Oltenia, să îşi schimbe purtarea!
Warned that he must stop being hostile to the President or else he will be thrown out of the country,over to the other shore of the Danube!!!
Insulted in front of the democratically-elected President, of the acting Prime Minister, of MPs and MEPs Monica Macovei, Theodor Stolojan, who all cheer and applaud. Great EU EPP family members!!!

Remember!

"Nebunul isi cloceste crima
si ne omoara fiindca ne iubeste,
când ne e foame deseneaza peste,
când vine frigul aresteaza clima,
opriti Istoria-cobor la prima
opriti la statia Doamne-Fereste."

Unutulmuş Birer Birer Eski Dostlar

2009-11-07T00:08:00.000+01:00

Unutulmuş birer birer (Forgotten one by one)
Eski dostlar, eski dostlar (old friends, old friends)
Ne bir selâm, ne bir haber (neither any "hello"s, nor any news)
Eski dostlar, eski dostlar (old friends, old friends)

Hayâl meyâl düşler gibi (Like vague dreams)
Uçup giden kuşlar gibi (Like fleeing away birds)
Yosun tutan taşlar gibi (Like stones getting mossy)
Eski dostlar, eski dostlar (old friends, old friends)

Unutulmuş isimlerde (Forgotten names)
Bilinmez ki nasıl, nerde (it is not known how he/she is, where he/she is)
Şimdi yalnız resimlerde (Now, it is only in photographs)
Eski dostlar, eski dostlar (old friends, old friends)

Literal translation kindly provided by Nazli. Thanks!

Now we can sing along. I still very much prefer the surrealist Mehter in Holland version.
Trying to exorcise a bit of the political folly of the latest posts.

New "Leapşa" from blogger friends

2009-11-06T11:12:00.000+01:00

I got it from Lilick.
Apparently people thought of rolling questions like a huge snowball that would come upon our Fuehrer.
The only question that I would ask him and the only manner in which I would do it, is this:

Does RO look like a bitch to you?

A Brussels photo, to help me pass the blogging inspiration gap

2009-09-23T00:09:00.000+02:00

Madeleine

2009-08-06T17:21:00.000+02:00

Brussels supermarket, shopping on a Friday evening. Tired at the end of another week at work (novelty is exciting, yes, but it can be also exhausting). Among the shelves of the over-cooled supermarket, a Proustian moment:

Suddenly, all is warm and homey. Suddenly it smells and feels like pre-Christmas.
(Every now and then I think of the anomynous and sometimes surreal writers/translators of texts and words that we read every day, on vending machines - 'thank you for your purchase' - or on food wrappings.)
Someone from 'Delhaize' had set up a beautiful Proustian minute, for me. And it was not the madeleine itself (is this really a madeleine, btw?) nor was it the word Madeleine. My madeleine was a Prăjitură.

Hadrian's Temple, Rome

2009-07-19T17:05:00.001+02:00

In the beginning of this month, my new job had me attend a meeting at this venue:

.

It is strange, where life takes us and how the things and people that we love are connected among themselves with threads that weave a homey and beautifully-incomplete universe, just for ourselves.

Marguerite Yourcenar in 'Memoirs of Hadrian' - "Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time."

After Jukebox Model, Jukebox...Godmother

2009-07-01T21:32:00.000+02:00

One day an interaction design professor asked me about possible name for new types of jukeboxes that his brilliant students are thinking of. And me, I came up instantly with a name...TONOMAT. I hope Romanians are smiling this very moment.
And for someone, somewhere else, tonomat has become once more a little opening to universe of positive connotations and pleasant expectations.

Brussels, street

2009-06-24T08:50:00.000+02:00

Bruxelles, June 23, Rue Goffart

La pluie tombe, les fantômes rient

wall graffiti

Design for Effective Campaigning

2009-06-10T11:12:00.000+02:00

"The campaign typography demonstrates similar thought and restraint featuring, as it does, the controlled but elegant, all-American Gotham typeface. Typography, the way in which typefaces are selected and used, has phenomenal power of influence over any written communication. If ill-considered as in, say, the average word processing document, it can hinder a message. If well thought out it can add significant weight to the written word, supporting its meaning through countless small details that communicate subliminally but are ultimately effective. Sender LLC, Obama’s branding consultancy, know this. The well-chosen Gotham reflects the candidate’s values through its physical attributes and pedigree, an effect only heightened by the refined and staggeringly consistent way it has been applied to all campaign materials, even to the placards held by supporters at his rallies. The suitability of the typeface is even more remarkable when the hundreds of similar typefaces are considered, the overwhelming majority of which have their origins in 1940s old Europe. Stephen Heller, a respected graphic design commentator, has noted that the consistency of brand message achieved by the Obama campaign has rarely been seen in commercial enterprise, let alone in the far less design savvy world of political campaigning." Katherine Hepworth - Yes we can: Barack Obama, graphic design and liberal democratic process

Hepworth notes how even event tickets are in the same beautiful typography. Highly readable as well.

Attn. embattled and communication-challenged Romanian PNL: they used digital brand consultancy Sender LLC. You might consider contacting them.

Land of Stupid Choice

2009-06-08T09:54:00.000+02:00

Total sectii de votare: 18317
(Polling stations)

Prezenta la vot: 27.4 %
(Turnout)

Norma PâDâLâ pentru EBă/sectie de votare: 10
('mandatory' votes for President daughter
to be produced by President's Party local orgs/polling station)

Rezultat EBă: 188593
(Daughter result)

Voturi pe bune pentru Ebă: nu mult mai multe decit Pavel Abraham (check out his beautiful webpage, Borat!). 'Pe bune' in cazul ei sunt si cele furate.

Concluzie: nu prostii care au votat-o, ci puturosii, au pus-o unde e.

(date BEC ora 7)

Joc Secund

2009-05-31T22:09:00.001+02:00

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

2009-05-17T19:28:00.000+02:00

I fantasize about him being our Finance Minister. If you have 2 minutes, watch it and note in awe how, when telling what is and what is not to be done in 2009, he is at complete odds with the words or actions of our own dreadful ___ government (I mean the Romanian one, but am sure many can fill in the blank with their own country's). He has a few words on borrowing from the IMF, as well.

"Ahluwalia's official title only hints at his influence: as the government's chief policy adviser, Ahluwalia is instrumental in charting India's way ahead. The Oxford-educated economist spent 11 years with the World Bank in Washington before returning to Indian in 1979 to work as an economic adviser to the government, a task he continues today. Ahluwalia's fingerprints can be found in policies from economics to education reform, and he has been a driving force in the liberalization program of the past 16 years. You may not have heard of him but today's India owes a lot to his thinking." (time.com)

The Janissaries Reached the Atlantic. And all's jolly

2009-05-10T17:50:00.000+02:00

Mehter in Holland. Erdem says they are singing about`Good old friends'. And he promised to pass me the lyrics. Then we might be able to sing along.

Poetry Jukebox Model

2009-05-01T19:41:00.001+02:00

Because it's the first of May and the weather is nice and I did not go to 'iarba verde' (a bit too lazy and relaxed to fight a cold), I am shifting this unassuming little blog to a lighter mood and announcing the world that I have become a model: not a testimonial for Ferrari, but for the poetry jukebox of the public library in Rotterdam. The picture actually appeared in the jukebox catalog of SCF Consorzio Fonografici made for the Milan Salone del Mobile.

Photo by Walter Aprile.

I can only add that I endorse the product in the picture warmheartedly. It plays videos of poets reciting. The library itself is a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Disgraceful bow

2009-04-08T16:43:00.000+02:00

The President of a country where once a black man was three fifth of a person bows to the king of the place where a woman is only half a person (at most).

People have not fought revolutions and civil rights battles in order to end up seeing this. What the US President did is an offense to human reason, dignity and fight for equality all over the world. Presidents don't bow 90 degrees to kings.
A bow from the waist and with the knee bent. That's a fealty bow:

Only less graceful and totally uncalled for

The President of Walt Whitman's country.

"To A President

ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn'd of Nature--of the politics of Nature, you have
not learn'd the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from
These States."

Schouwburgplein - Rotterdam

2009-04-06T14:35:00.001+02:00

Crin! - "That, pow'rful Lilly, now awaken'd"

2009-03-24T19:38:00.000+01:00

Now, my best Lilly, let's walk hand in hand,
And smile at this un-understanding land;
Let them their own dull counterfeits adore,
Their rainbow-cloaths admire, and no more.
Within one shade of thine more substance is,
Than all their varnish'd idol[s]'
(Richard Lovelace)

My First Pano, Rotterdam again

2009-03-08T00:29:00.001+01:00

It was as cold as this picture is blue, that Saturday evening

Tonight I made a pano of the pictures I took there. Came out pretty blue.

And this is W's (better) version of it (he also took my pictures-taking picture)

And then (beginner's enthusiasm), I made another little one

End of Winter in Rotterdam

2009-03-02T12:50:00.000+01:00

Images from my weekend strolls

Un matin, à Rotterdam, sur le quai des Boompjes,
(C’était le 18 septembre 1900, vers huit heures),
J’observais deux jeunes filles qui se rendaient à leurs ateliers ;
Et en face d’un des grands ponts de fer, elles se dirent au revoir,
Leurs routes n’étant pas les mêmes.
Elles s’embrassèrent tendrement ; leurs mains tremblantes
Voulaient et ne voulaient pas se séparer ; leurs bouches
S’éloignaient douloureusement pour se rapprocher aussitôt
Tandis que leurs yeux fixes se contemplaient...
Ainsi elles se tinrent un long moment tout près l’une de l’autre,
Debout et immobiles au milieu des passants affairés,
Tandis que les remorqueurs grondaient sur le fleuve,
Et que les trains manœuvraient en sifflant sur les ponts de fer.
Valéry Larbaud: Images

It was in this poem that I met Rotterdam first. I had always fantasized about big cities with harbors. And now, here I am, at least for some time.

Darwin Day

2009-02-12T17:25:00.000+01:00

Darwin, at reaching Cape Horn:
“It is a grand spectacle to see all nature thus raging; but Heaven knows every one in the Beagle has seen enough in this one summer to last them their natural lives.” "
NY Times editorial

Rotterdam, Groothandelsgebouw

2009-02-08T18:32:00.000+01:00

I took this picture on a Saturday evening (February 7th).
Groothandelsgebouw was the first commercial building erected in post-WWII Rotterdam (1951) - designed after the heavy bombing of the city, but before the war was over, for the merchants and traders that had lost their warehouses and shops.

Pear

2009-01-20T14:52:00.000+01:00

They say yesterday was Blue Monday - January 19th - the most depressing day of this year. Could be. Still, towards its end there was a big, golden, incredibly sweet and juicy pear. Offered to me carefully peeled. I was dared to write about it on my blog, in exchange.
Which I am doing now, also because it is the perfect excuse for mentioning one of the most poetic things that I have ever encountered online: the pdf of a patent application for a new pear called Ambrosia.

I imagine not many of us happened to have ever seen such a document. Here it is, in all its splendor - a one-page, precise description of something created by a wonderful horticulturist and scholar: "Picking date in Lafayette, Ind., is mid-August, which is earlier than ‘Bartlett’. When ripened at room temperature the flavor is rich and delicious. The texture is buttery and grit free with a very small core" - a fruit like the one that left its juice on the fingers of my lover, to end the Blue Monday.

Happy Birthday, dear R.!

2008-12-01T17:21:00.000+01:00

Mist

2008-11-14T14:54:00.000+01:00

1. Non trovo più la mia casa

2.
Mopete in atmosfera lăuntrică

Mopete s-a instalat intr-o seară comod
la marginea focului, să-și citească gazeta
în spatele lui, scara care suia la pod
trosnea când lumina focului își înfigea egreta
pe câte-o treaptă, mai foșnea și mopete
când întorcea foaia să urmărească ce scrie
despre una sau alta, din când în când își nota pe manșete
câte-o idee, ca să poată mai târziu să o transcrie
când avea să se ducă la culcare, pe perete deasupra
patului, alături, pe măsuță, avea sticla și paharele.

(Îl așteptase în seara aceea pe marele
lui prieten, dar nu venise)
asupra întregii scene era o liniște binefăcătoare
nivelul lichidului din sticlă scădea
cu câte-o palmă liniștitoare.

3.

"And mist that rises from the valleys, they say, is not smoke, but nostalgia that escapes the fissures of the sleep of the brave"

Courage

2008-09-02T15:21:00.001+02:00

Now I know that the reference in this post is not to fresh news. Nevertheless, the face of a nation's leader decomposed with fear is a sad, sad spectacle. Brains and good will and education count for little if the base tones are any other than those comforting old spices - Courage and Decorum:

It was certainly not the Finest Hour of the hare-hearted leader of Georgia when he served as some sort of whining CNN\BBC correspondent on the ground after recklessly endangering his country. Irrespective of how despicable the other's side conduct might be, I believe, with Machiavelli, that: "It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him."

Obama

2008-09-01T17:30:00.001+02:00

The moment that made my day on Saturday, while walking a busy street in Rotterdam:
I notice two little black girls stopping in front of the newspaper stand. One of the girls points her finger to the freshly-nominated Democratic candidate and exclaims: "Look! Papa!"

Le « torchecul* » de Guargantua

2007-12-11T17:10:00.001+01:00

In 2002, during a visit in Bulgaria, Italian PM Berlusconi mentioned three TV figures - two journalists and one comic (E. Biagi, M. Santoro and D. Luttazzi, respectively) - that were 'making criminal use' of public television. Meaning they were too vocally critical of him. All three disappeared from public television (RAI) briefly after that. This episode came to be known in Italy as the Bulgarian Edict (editto bulgaro It.)

Michele Santoro returned as a host on Italian TV only in September 2006.
Mr. Biagi died in November 2007, after long legal quarrels with RAI.
The last of the three, Daniele Luttazzi, got back on TV screen with a show called Decameron, on La7, the only non-Berlusconi national private channel in Italy.

Decameron was censured last week. Discontinued. Stopped. By the TV channel Director, this time. La7 removed all the Decameron videos from Youtube and apparently intended to destroy all the copies of the show, even those not broadcast yet. Why? Luttazzi had ridiculed a journalist friend of Berlusconi (and supporter of the Iraq war) who hosts a daily talk show on the same channel. He had made 'irresponsible use' of the artistic freedom granted to him in his contract (sic!), La7 claims.

Now, these are lewd words. What was I thinking? How come I laughed like crazy at such vulgarity? Such bad taste of me, to be enjoying such shows! This is my public mea culpa. I am ashamed of myself and am going back to the classics of satire for a good taste laugh. Hmmm. ..Maybe Rabelais?

Rabelais, Gargantua, 1534

Chap. 13
Comment Grandgousier congneut l'esperit merveilleux de Gargantua à l'invention d'un torchecul.

....A ce Gargantua fEist response qu'il y avoit donné tel ordre qu'en tout le pays n'estoit guarson plus nect que luy.
"Comment cela ? dist Grandgousier.
- J'ay (respondit Gargantua) par longue et curieuse experience inventé un moyen de me torcher le cul, le plus seigneurial, le plus excellent, le plus expedient que jamais feut veu.
- Quel ? dict Grandgousier.
Comme vous le raconteray (dist Gargantua) presentement.
"Je me torchay une foys d'un cachelet de velours de une damoiselle, et le trouvay bon, car la mollice de sa soye me causoit au fondement une volupté bien grande ;
"une aultre foys d'un chapron d'ycelles, et feut de mesmes ;
"une aultre foys d'un cache coul ;
"une aultre foys des aureillettes de satin cramoysi, mais[...]
concluent, je dys et mantiens qu'il n'y a tel torchecul que d'un oyzon bien duveté, pourveu qu'on luy tienne la teste entre les jambes. Et m'en croyez sus mon honneur. Car vous sentez au trou du cul une voluptémirificque, tant par la doulceur d'icelluy dumet que par la chaleur temperée de l'oizon laquelle facilement est communicquée au boyau culier et aultres intestines, jusques à venir à la region du cueur et du cerveau. Et ne pensez que la beatitude des heroes et semi dieux, qui sont par les Champs Elysiens, soit en leur asphodele, ou ambrosie, ou nectar, comme disent ces vieilles ycy. Elle est (scelon mon opinion) en ce qu'ilz se torchent le cul d'un oyzon, et telle est l'opinion de Maistre Jehan d'Escosse. "

This humorous, right? Still, doesn't it make one wonder whether a nowadays' reputable publisher would print it? Or would it be also considered a form of "irresponsible use of artistic freedom"?

"Ridicule is a distinct kind of expression; its substance cannot be repackaged in a less offensive rhetorical form without expressing something very different from what was intended." Indeed, Prof. Dworkin!

The latest Luttazzi case is a very example of private censorship. In a country with a plurality of visual media, this would have been no tragedy at all. The 2,000,000 viewers would have simply followed him to another channel. Unfortunately, the only other national Italian channels are Mr. Berlusconi's (Mediaset) and the public RAI channels, politically controlled. Now, where can he possibly go?

*a torchecul is an asswipe.

Good grammar

2007-12-07T19:41:00.000+01:00

The Romanian National Audio-Visual Council (NAC) published the results of a language monitoring carried out by Academy linguists in November. They monitored the most important TV and Radio Channels for linguistic correctness. Results were published on the NAC website. Reading anthologies of errors is fun. Apart from that, what is stunning is how much one actually gets used to messy and incorrect speech. One just does not notice it any more. How many of us stop to think that saying "huge masses of people" is redundant/pleonastic?
Focused on the news or the debate, one overlooks the bad quality of the speech, the clumsily-written crawls. Yet, once in a while it hits us: someone with a well-tuned voice, clear, articulated, accurate. It is like the blessed moment when the vacuum cleaner noise stops.

1989

2007-12-04T18:05:00.001+01:00

che la settimana era tutta divina (para procurarse el amor,

giust'appunto)

me lo garantì, al primo colpo, già il 4, insinuato di striscio

sotto l'uscio

it was only this that I had thought to post today. Was in a good mood and came across a cute Edoardo Sanguineti poem. Then I was tempted to look around on the web, see whether there was anything new on him online.
I wish I hadn't. I found a piece of an interview where he was talking down on the demonstrators of Tienanmen Square - "ragazzi poveretti, sedotti da mitologie occidentali, un poco come quelli che esultarono quando cadde il muro; ma insomma, erano dei ragazzi che volevano la Coca-Cola"- "poor children, seduced by western mythologies, a bit like those who rejoiced when the wall fell; after all, they were children who wanted Coca-Cola."

A Chinese Coca Cola fan of Tienanmen Square '89

And two Romanian Coca Cola fans in Bucharest, December '89

Must have been the International Coca Cola year, that 1989! It made me remember that I had wanted some Coca Cola myself!

Băsescu ordered himself a new party...

2007-12-03T19:06:00.000+01:00

...and a new party was served to him. His former Democratic Party [ex social-democrat, stemming from the very first former-communists' National Salvation Front (haha! those long-gone 'post-revolutionary' Romanian politics) now belonging to the EPP] is going to fuse with the Liberal Democratic Party, a small party that Băsescu had managed to tear apart from the Liberal Party. Great ideological confusion, but no ideology is needed for populist political formations that go up and down in the polls with their 'charismatic' leaders.

Question: do all the 'charismatic,' populist leaders have to be badly-dressed, with terrible haircuts, of dubious sense of humor and terrible manners? Are all these necessary ingredients for 'charisma'?

Chavez lost his referendum

2007-12-03T12:43:00.000+01:00

One bad news and one good news :
The bad news: Putin's party won overwhelmingly.
The good news, unexpected: Chavez lost his referendum.
Dostoievsky once said that there is nothing that people give away so willingly and rapidly as their freedom. I agree. Nevertheless, once in a while, people seem to want freedom and civility back. This is no small thing.

National Day (Unification Day)

2007-12-01T17:43:00.000+01:00

I hear there's snow in Transylvania. I imagine people go out in the afternoon, drinking glow wine, eating sausages with beans or sarmale and waiting for the fireworks. I don't particularly like military parades, though.

The Romanian President, when asked what he wanted for Romania for the following year, said he wished for a new ('competent', he said) Prime Minister. Cohabitation is seldom a pleasant thing, but, really, why can some people never relax? ['a fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject,' Sir Winston Churchill once said, according to an internet quotes site.]

In Bucharest it became a tradition to switch on the (electric) Christmas tree on December 1. This year, they say, it is a particularly large one. In the end, there was a huge mess: tens of thousands of people jamming the city center, mothers who lost their children in the crowd, everybody more annoyed by the jamming than charmed by the tree.

EP elections in Romania

2007-11-30T17:45:00.000+01:00

Romanian liberals did not fare as bad as I expected them to. Exit polls had them third, at over 15%. It was 13, 44, in the end. From Italy, I could only see that they had no online campaign whatsoever. Their website is ugly, obsolete and is not updated.
My sister in Bucharest tells me they were present in the student campuses, but that their young candidates seemed both unconvincing and patronizing (I think she was talking about Iulia Huiu - she did not make it, in the end).
Nevertheless, their no. 1 and 2 candidates, Renate Weber and Daniel Dăianu are a proof that Liberals come always the closest to doing the right thing in Romanian politics. While I have no doubts about Ms. Weber, I hope that Mr. Dăianu will be an active MP.