"In Britain the most striking abuse of language is the redefinition of private, for-profit economic activities as services provided by the state. A concrete example is the way private entrepreneurs were given the right to run old people’s homes. However, no one wants to spell that out, which is why they are described as ‘delivering’ the service, as if they were the milkman bringing milk to old people. It prevents people from fully grasping that the state has handed over its mandate of responsibility to a private actor, whose motivation is to provide the cheapest possible service and make the most money.
In France something else is happening, a kind of abusive reworking of republicanism. The old French ideal of egalitarian republicanism with no distinctions, no compromise with religion or localism, with everyone having the same opportunities, speaking the same language, living in the same France – an ideal that was invented in the late 18th century as a way to make a radical break with the Ancien Régime – is now used to paper over the disadvantages of young people, particularly if they are black or brown, from the suburbs or North Africa. The old egalitarian language has been transfigured into saying we all have the same opportunities, we are all equal, we will not talk about the fact that you are female and brown, or allow you to dress differently, because that would not be republican. This subterfuge enables very illiberal behaviour in the name of a ‘liberal ideal’."
very interesting interview of Tony Judt
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Grey Rock by Ezra Pound's sugestion
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.
2. The Grey Rock
POETS with whom I learned my trade,
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,
Imagining ’twould better please
Your ears than stories now in fashion, 5
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
The bow-legged Goban had no say; 10
The moral’s yours because it’s mine.
When cups went round at close of day—
Is not that how good stories run?—
Somewhere within some hollow hill,
If books speak truth in Slievenamon, 15
But let that be, the gods were still
And sleepy, having had their meal,
And smoky torches made a glare
On painted pillars, on a deal
Of fiddles and of flutes hung there 20
By the ancient holy hands that brought them
From murmuring Murias, on cups—
Old Goban hammered them and wrought them,
And put his pattern round their tops
To hold the wine they buy of him. 25
But from the juice that made them wise
All those had lifted up the dim
Imaginations of their eyes,
For one that was like woman made
Before their sleepy eyelids ran 30
And trembling with her passion said,
‘Come out and dig for a dead man,
Who’s burrowing somewhere in the ground,
And mock him to his face and then
Hollo him on with horse and hound, 35
For he is the worst of all dead men.’
We should be dazed and terror struck,
If we but saw in dreams that room,
Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
That emptied all our days to come. 40
I knew a woman none could please,
Because she dreamed when but a child
Of men and women made like these;
And after, when her blood ran wild,
Had ravelled her own story out, 45
And said, ‘In two or in three years
I need must marry some poor lout,’
And having said it burst in tears.
Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
Maybe your images have stood, 50
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
Before that roomful or as good.
You had to face your ends when young—
’Twas wine or women, or some curse—
But never made a poorer song 55
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,
And unrepenting faced your ends, 60
And therefore earned the right—and yet
Dowson and Johnson most I praise—
To troop with those the world’s forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.
‘The Danish troop was driven out 65
Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;
‘Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland’s dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.’
‘When this day 70
Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,
Foot after foot was giving way,
He and his best troops back to back
Had perished there, but the Danes ran,
Stricken with panic from the attack, 75
The shouting of an unseen man;
And being thankful Murrough found,
Led by a footsole dipped in blood
That had made prints upon the ground,
Where by old thorn trees that man stood; 80
And though when he gazed here and there,
He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,
“Who is the friend that seems but air
And yet could give so fine a stroke?”
Thereon a young man met his eye, 85
Who said, “Because she held me in
Her love, and would not have me die,
Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,
And pushing it into my shirt,
Promised that for a pin’s sake, 90
No man should see to do me hurt;
But there it’s gone; I will not take
The fortune that had been my shame
Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.”
’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came 95
He had betrayed me to his grave,
For he and the King’s son were dead.
I’d promised him two hundred years,
And when for all I’d done or said—
And these immortal eyes shed tears— 100
He claimed his country’s need was most,
I’d saved his life, yet for the sake
Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.
What does he care if my heart break?
I call for spade and horse and hound 105
That we may harry him.’ Thereon
She cast herself upon the ground
And rent her clothes and made her moan:
‘Why are they faithless when their might
Is from the holy shades that rove 110
The grey rock and the windy light?
Why should the faithfullest heart most love
The bitter sweetness of false faces?
Why must the lasting love what passes,
Why are the gods by men betrayed!’ 115
But thereon every god stood up
With a slow smile and without sound,
And stretching forth his arm and cup
To where she moaned upon the ground,
Suddenly drenched her to the skin; 120
And she with Goban’s wine adrip,
No more remembering what had been,
Stared at the gods with laughing lip.
I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,
To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot, 125
And the world’s altered since you died,
And I am in no good repute
With the loud host before the sea,
That think sword strokes were better meant
Than lover’s music—let that be, 130
So that the wandering foot’s content.
2. The Grey Rock
POETS with whom I learned my trade,
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,
Imagining ’twould better please
Your ears than stories now in fashion, 5
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
The bow-legged Goban had no say; 10
The moral’s yours because it’s mine.
When cups went round at close of day—
Is not that how good stories run?—
Somewhere within some hollow hill,
If books speak truth in Slievenamon, 15
But let that be, the gods were still
And sleepy, having had their meal,
And smoky torches made a glare
On painted pillars, on a deal
Of fiddles and of flutes hung there 20
By the ancient holy hands that brought them
From murmuring Murias, on cups—
Old Goban hammered them and wrought them,
And put his pattern round their tops
To hold the wine they buy of him. 25
But from the juice that made them wise
All those had lifted up the dim
Imaginations of their eyes,
For one that was like woman made
Before their sleepy eyelids ran 30
And trembling with her passion said,
‘Come out and dig for a dead man,
Who’s burrowing somewhere in the ground,
And mock him to his face and then
Hollo him on with horse and hound, 35
For he is the worst of all dead men.’
We should be dazed and terror struck,
If we but saw in dreams that room,
Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
That emptied all our days to come. 40
I knew a woman none could please,
Because she dreamed when but a child
Of men and women made like these;
And after, when her blood ran wild,
Had ravelled her own story out, 45
And said, ‘In two or in three years
I need must marry some poor lout,’
And having said it burst in tears.
Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
Maybe your images have stood, 50
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
Before that roomful or as good.
You had to face your ends when young—
’Twas wine or women, or some curse—
But never made a poorer song 55
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,
And unrepenting faced your ends, 60
And therefore earned the right—and yet
Dowson and Johnson most I praise—
To troop with those the world’s forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.
‘The Danish troop was driven out 65
Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;
‘Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland’s dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.’
‘When this day 70
Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,
Foot after foot was giving way,
He and his best troops back to back
Had perished there, but the Danes ran,
Stricken with panic from the attack, 75
The shouting of an unseen man;
And being thankful Murrough found,
Led by a footsole dipped in blood
That had made prints upon the ground,
Where by old thorn trees that man stood; 80
And though when he gazed here and there,
He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,
“Who is the friend that seems but air
And yet could give so fine a stroke?”
Thereon a young man met his eye, 85
Who said, “Because she held me in
Her love, and would not have me die,
Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,
And pushing it into my shirt,
Promised that for a pin’s sake, 90
No man should see to do me hurt;
But there it’s gone; I will not take
The fortune that had been my shame
Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.”
’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came 95
He had betrayed me to his grave,
For he and the King’s son were dead.
I’d promised him two hundred years,
And when for all I’d done or said—
And these immortal eyes shed tears— 100
He claimed his country’s need was most,
I’d saved his life, yet for the sake
Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.
What does he care if my heart break?
I call for spade and horse and hound 105
That we may harry him.’ Thereon
She cast herself upon the ground
And rent her clothes and made her moan:
‘Why are they faithless when their might
Is from the holy shades that rove 110
The grey rock and the windy light?
Why should the faithfullest heart most love
The bitter sweetness of false faces?
Why must the lasting love what passes,
Why are the gods by men betrayed!’ 115
But thereon every god stood up
With a slow smile and without sound,
And stretching forth his arm and cup
To where she moaned upon the ground,
Suddenly drenched her to the skin; 120
And she with Goban’s wine adrip,
No more remembering what had been,
Stared at the gods with laughing lip.
I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,
To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot, 125
And the world’s altered since you died,
And I am in no good repute
With the loud host before the sea,
That think sword strokes were better meant
Than lover’s music—let that be, 130
So that the wandering foot’s content.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Young Bruce, working class hero
Young Springsteen and his suicide machines : there's nothing like rock'n'roll, 'cause baby, tramps like us we're born to run*
the world spins
Gostava de ter um momento da tua atenção
um bater do teu coração
Gostava de ter um gesto teu
para guardar como meu
mas nem isso é justo, nada será
porque o mundo gira, gira sem parar
e nós tolos, não queremos ficar para trás,
com ele vamos até ao fim,
o nosso fim.
O mundo gira, gira, ponto.
New York
Couldn't help to notice the similarities between these images and the paintings of New York by Georgia O'Keefe, that I posted the other day.
artes da pesca
Vi o meu avô Manuel fazer isto tantas vezes...o boné está igual, só que o meu avô prendia a rede com o dedo grande do pé e tinha sempre mais linha numa espécie de agulha atrás da orelha...(Tenho de conseguir fotografar os utensílios desta faina.
Eaarth
Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
listen to this
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
listen to this
Earth's day
Utagawa Hiroshige
Sudden Shower, after 1856
Parece que hoje é dia da Terra...so Hallelujah !
Summer nights walking
Hoje do meu poiso no comboio, o Tejo não tinha fim. Será que as partidas acontecem em dias assim ?
Mais fotos aqui
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Baltazar e Leah
A noite está apenas no inicio,
parou de chover hà pouco, é Primavera e o ar cheira bem,
a terra molhada e a plantas em flor.
Caminho sob as luzes da rua
a minha sombra confunde-se
com a das árvores acima
sinto-me bem e parece-me bom.
~~***~~
It has stopped raining, it’s Spring and the air smells good
to moisten land and plants in bloom.
Night has just fallen,
As I walk under street lights
my shadow mingles with the ones
from the trees above
I feel good and it looks right.
(Obrigado ao Baltazar e à Leah que me levam a passear e à Paula que me atura há uma vida.)
Glamorous Gotham
Turns out the O'Keefe painting I posted wasn't the right one - this one is it. I also was refered to this wonderful post, do see it, please.
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