Vom Sagen, vom Müssen, vom Dürfen.

Es gibt Dinge die gesagt werden müssen
Dinge die hätten gesagt werden müssen
Aber, und vor allem gibt es Dinge
Die gesagt werden dürfen
Und das sind alle Dinge.
Darauf gibt es ein Recht in diesem Land
Ein Recht auf die Freiheit das auszusprechen
Was einem auszusprechen nötig ist.
Ein Recht – und das gehört auch klar gesagt
Das nicht erkämpft, das nicht erobert wurde
Das vielmehr mit Gewalt
Von außen aufgezwungen werden musste.

Vieles wurde verschwiegen
Das besser ausgesprochen worden wäre
Und vieles was vermeintlich
Zu sagen nicht erlaubt war, wurde täglich
Vom ersten Tag an, zig Mal wiederholt.
Überall, an Stammtischen, in Wohnzimmern
Am Morgen beim empörten Kommentieren
der jüngsten Schlagzeilen am Zeitungsstand
Geborgen in der anonymen Gruppe

Es bedarf keines Muts offen zu sprechen
Wenn einem das Recht dazu sicher ist
Auch dann nicht wenn man gewillt ist vermeintlich
An beugendem Zwang und Strafe zu glauben
Vielmehr, sich dafür als mutig zu wähnen
Verspottet den Mut derer die Ihr Sprechen
Mit teurem Preis bezahlten
Ehrlicher wäre der Mut sich zu Fragen
Ob man verschwieg aus unbewusstem Scham
Von anderen zu sagen
Was man über sich selbst
Zu sagen nicht gewillt war

Ostern 2012

Do English native speakers consider the formulation of the warning in brackets as ridiculous as I do?

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/statuses/187456695948156928

Ponder this: Since the xx century the most devastating triumphs of mathematics and physics have been against rationalist certainty ¿Paradox?

Musings on Quantum Entanglement across Time

So if the grammar of the universe
Requires speaking in two different tenses
Of things that met -and haven’t yet- our senses
Then who is it and when that writes this verse?

Sometimes we’ll find delight and sometimes pain
But if -entangled with ourselves- we act
As whether both were just the same in fact
When would our mad self be, and when the sane?

Or must the books of truth shift in their shelves
To cope with an infection out of time
Until each moment is the same, a rhyme
Prionic twin of past and future selves?

It would be better if the world did not
Speak thus, and spared us such a boring lot

Los Racionalistas II

Que el mundo va a morirse de tibieza
No hace falta que lo diga la ciencia
basta con ver los ojos de la gente
Esquivando verdades en la calle
Basta con escuchar sin desapego
Los diálogos tan cómodos
De los que pudieran poner remedio
O leer las palabras
Que se alternan efímeras
En el parpadeo de las pantallas

Debiera sorprendernos
– Como a un niño que encuentra abierta
La puerta que siempre estuvo cerrada
Y descubre que detrás no hay nada
Ningún pasaje a otro lugar
Solamente un cuarto de escobas,
Un armario empolvado –
La ironía mordaz del universo:
Que la entropía desate su furia
Aquí en la cima de la evolución
En el soberbio imperio de la razón
Vencedora intangible del instinto
Y justo ahora que ya se veía
El fin de la tiranía, del yugo
Del substrato mecánico.

A veces, inmerso en la realidad
Que se desteje con cada latido
Pienso – y los envidio – que los ateos
Y los racionalistas más severos
No es tanto que duden
De Dios inescrutable Pantocrátor
Sino que buscan consuelo y certezas
En creencias menos inabarcables.

Los Racionalistas

Creían en un mundo sin olores
Sin colores, caricias ni suspiros
Dibujo de una fórmula magnífica
Reflejo de un espejo razonado

Pensaban que la vida era intrusa
A un mundo mineral y sin sentido
Imperio de la ley termodinámica
Que niega al orden alza y permanencia.

Tan ciegos al rumor de los sentidos
Y sordos al fragor del sentimiento
Que olvidaron que no son las medidas
Lo que importa, sino las vivencias.

A veces la Luna.

            I

Por querer estar con ella, baja todas las tardes –casi-
Al malecón
Y allí sentado,
Con una taza o un vaso según la estación
Sobre la mesa blanca y decrépita (hierro forjado y mármol)
Imagina que es ella – la de la mirada absorta –
La mujer que pasa
Aunque el abrigo es otro, curtido en otro clima
Y la mirada, que si bien es fija,
Es de ausencia y solo los dioses saben que alma
Regresa al cuerpo cuando la mujer vuelve
A donde sea que es
De donde salió.
Al lado alguien conversa;
“Ese fue el año” dice –en ese tono
Que sugiere certeza sin convicción¬ –
 y explica como
Algún hecho  
–desapercibido por el resto del mundo –
Hizo a aquellos días
“Definitivos”.
Las palabras se pierden en el romper de las olas
Que sala el aire y las manos.
El mundo y el mar huelen y giran,
Se estremecen.
Pero Galileo se equivocó y las mareas
Son ansias de la Luna,
Su sed esplendente.
La Luna que es también la puerta
– A veces de cuerno, a veces de marfil-
Por la que entran los sueños
Que revelan verdades
Y despiertan locuras.
Acción a distancia.

    II

El sabe que ella murió en otro tiempo, recuerda:
El día y la hora de la anunciación,
El frío en los huesos y el latido de hiel,
El momento que nunca compartirán.
–
El sabe que ella vive en otra ciudad, donde hablan
Una lengua distinta. Un amigo común
Le trae noticias:
Ella está bien, la misma de entonces,
Sus hijos crecen –se parecen a ella,
Ella lo recuerda con mucho cariño.
El agradece y perdona
La mentira piadosa. Y a veces imagina una carta
En el buzón vacío.
–
El sabe que ella se fue sin dejar rastro:
Que lo dio por perdido y no soportó
Mirar al mar y guardar la esperanza
Que nunca supo que no había naufragado.

            III

Ella que en cambio no sabe estas cosas,
Lo observa a través
De la claraboya
En lo alto del faro y recuerda las noches
De conspiración,
Esperando la tarde
Cuando por fin
Bajará al malecón y lo tomará de la mano.

What if we blew this place to pieces?
This thing we have made
-fools-
Out of ourselves?
What if we sat there on the hill and watched
Our endeavours go up in smoke
And watched
The fallout and the ashes fertilize
A future of the future?

But –
Not so fast
What if the fuse will not catch?
What
If the powder has grown stale, its power
Gone for ages
Squandered in the waiting?

What if –standing by the pier–
We saw the current turn,
The silt and the wreckage
Of ages
Wash up to the mountains?
The waters fall into the spring,
Into the darkness until
The sea and the river, their beds
Become new things
Under the sun?

I will not wait longer.
I will go out now; out through the door
And see what’s revealed
When the clouds blow away.

I admire Clint Eastwood’s work as a director. Since the 60’s he has made several magnificent, flawless, solid movies in all kinds of genres (and a few horrible bombs too). “J. Edgar” is one of his great ones and something else too; it is a brave movie. I think it takes a lot of courage to make a film that has an utterly unlikeable man as its main character; not an anti-hero, not a bad guy, not the kind of person that appeals to us through our fascination with The Evil, but simply a man you wouldn’t care too much to have dealings with. Eastwood’s Hoover –whatever he may have been in real life—is not a monster or a fabulous monster even, he is just a petty, flawed unlikable man. And he stays that throughout the story, there is never a condescending or sympathetic gesture towards him. But he is also completely human, the portrait is convincing and realistic, and you can recognize your own baser self that comes out when you lower the guard that keeps your civility in place.

I heartily recommend this film to cinephiles. To people who “just” like watching a good movie I can say this is a great one, but be prepared to dislike what you get to see.

This might turn out a bit embarrassing, but I'm rather curious to see what replies I'll get. Over the weekend I realised that if I would be in trouble to give sound answers if, confronted by one of those fanatics of ignorance, I were challenged to explain how it is that we know that the Earth rotates on its axis and orbits the Sun. I tried to recall what I was taught in school about the matter, but I only could remember that they told us that people used to be frightfully ignorant and superstitious, and implicitly dumb, until science came along and showed us the truth; nothing though as to why the truth was true. I don’t intend to debate well established facts, but rather to see how far these facts are accepted mainly on Science’s authority. If your LJ friends are the kind of people who care for this kind of questions, kindly point them to this entry. So, this is not a quiz but a poll it's not about giving the right answer but about telling what you learned:
What proof do we have that Earth rotates on its axis?
What proof do we have that Earth revolves around the Sun?
Did you learn this in school? College? Or in self study?

I recently finished reading John Crowley’s complete Ægypt quartet for the second time. For some of the books it was actually the fifth or sixth time. I know that, like the characters of the novel we left resting at their picnic on top of mount Randa before they have to return down into their world of words, I will also return there in time. But for now I can take a look back and muse. This time I set out with the intention of taking notes and writing clever stuff about the novel afterwards, but I gave up quite soon, driven by the hunger for it, eager to use my available time to read instead of wasting it writing down thought up stuff that couldn't be so important if it won’t stick to the memory on its own. And a good thing it was, because the novel is so wonderfully self contained that it doesn’t make much sense to try and get smart with it; it’s better to pay attention and listen to what it tells you.
I heartily recommend a second reading of the whole series. Not only because of the pleasure – which is reason enough –, not just because the book itself suggests it, but because having the thirst for resolution out of the way allows the reader to get a better perspective on the whole of the work. And a whole thing it is, for all its vastness and multiplicity of layers. It is amazing how much the novel says about itself, about the intention of certain of its aspects. I strongly believe that a piece of literature has an identity that is wholly dependent on its reader – on the beliefs, longings and experience that shape the way the reader absorbs it. But I also believe as strongly that a work of literature has an identity given to it by the author – not only by his beliefs and longings but also by his intentions as an artisan. This latter identity is much more evident in Ægypt than in most books that I know, and its presence – and the potential conflict between both identities – subtly woven into the matter, enhances by much the book’s power of evocation.
I’d be saying nothing new by pointing out the self-referentiality of certain passages, but I think that Crowley accomplished something in the totality of Ægypt that transcends mere pointing at-, or speaking more or less explicitly about- itself; something that is more like the kind of recursion that Quine’s Paradox arises from. Realising this revealed to me for the first time a further layer, a story hidden inside the story; A story that had been pointed out to me before, that is hinted at in all of Ægypt’s books, and is also present in other of Crowley’s novels, but that I had not seen here through my own eyes yet. It is the story of the characters living in the novel, not as characters confined to the discernible plot, but as actual beings striving in an actual – if fictive – (don’t blame me for this paradox, blame Descartes or whoever) universe made of words, as actual as microorganisms striving in a drop of water. At least some of the characters know this and it is evident that Crowley works from this premise, evident in the fact that he doesn’t end the story but simply stops telling it – a fact by the way given a reason for in the novel. The chapter that gives away this secret story – if it is secret at all – is, not surprisingly, the central chapter of «Endless Things»; central because of that, because it tells what the precious thing was that Kraft found in Prague, because it begins exactly at the middle of the book.
The cosmology of the universe in which the hidden story takes place is laid out in that chapter too. It would appear that in Crowley’s opinion it is a mirror image of our own cosmology; according to it, in such a universe what is most unreal are material things, because they are only nouns, and what is most real is the intellectual order; in the book it is brilliantly and explicitly equated to Gnostic cosmology. I’m not sure that I personally believe in that perfect symmetry, I think that fictional works and reality sometimes spill their ontologies into each other – especially in disturbing ways, think of Goethe’s Werther or book burnings – and mess up the hierarchies. Nevertheless, next time I go back there I’ll be equipped with this knowledge and I wonder what new layers it will reveal.
It seems almost astonishing that I’ve managed to write close to a thousand words about Ægypt without mentioning the renaissance, magic, Appalachia or the mutable history of the world, but there you go. It should at least suggest that, even if nothing much can be made of my ramblings, there must be a lot more in that book than meets the eye.

How does flying 8500 strike sorties constitute the implementation of a U.N. resolution to protect civilians and enforce a cease fire? And in case you think I'm unnecessarily worried about collateral victims in our high tech world of high precision armament, how does blasting the road free to enable antagonistic forces to besiege and storm towns and cities constitute one? As I said a couple of months ago: If our governments feel an imperative need to stuff a couple of billions of taxpayers' money into the pockets of the weapons industry, why can't they just give it to them, without actually getting the guns and killing people with them?

is arguably Coppola's best film. Arguably in purely cineastic terms. But I'm not going to lecture you about it, all I can offer is to make you curious. Even on this second viewing, which removes the element of surprise -brilliantly set up and gratifying- the movie remains perfect.
And it comes with a bonus too, at least for those of us who were too young in the first half of the 70's: Though staying completely away from the stridency of say, a New York Scorcese film of the period, without dealing with any politics or ideologies at all, it manages to capture a world suddenly gone sour, depleted of warmth and colour. It features Gene Hackman at his best, a chilling Harrison Ford in a secondary role and a brief but Wow appearance by Teri Garr.

My heart aches from reading «AEgypt». I just got through «Love and Sleep» and feel dread and delight at the thought of the coming two. This is my first reread since the quartet was finished and a lot of things really stand out differently now that the story is whole. I set out purposefully, taking notes to ponder afterwards, and pausing to make sure I was “getting” it all. But soon I was too immersed, barely able to keep an appropriate emotional distance. In fact, though I first would not admit it, I’ve been growing a bit depressed or anxious over the last few days, in anticipation of the mounting darkness I now know. By now my previous words have made it necessary that I state explicitly a very obvious thing: I also very much enjoy reading these books. The thing is, they have a very strong grip on me. John Crowley is not the only author, this novel not the only that I reread every few years, but I am starting to learn that «AEgypt» is the one among them that resonates within me in the least abstract manner. Which is not really expectable considering that neither John Crowley’s nor his characters’ life experiences are too similar to mine.
I apologize to anyone who has read this far in the hope of learning anything new from within the story from me, but I’m not going to inflict my observations here now; I’d probably be just boring you if you are among the potentially interested.
Oh well, just one thing. I have new theory about the chest: It is not a container, it is a device. In two senses, it’s a mechanism (that is set off by turning the key in it), and it is a teaser (that will nag at the back of your mind for two more novels), an element of plot. And therefore it is a pun too, and with that, it is three things actually.

  Yesterday I watched a show on the Swiss /
German TV channel 3 Sat about dark matter. It was the usual thing, of rather
good quality, but this time I paid attention in an unusual way. They had three
astrophysicists talking in the studio who recounted the history and then gave
an overview of the current state of things in cosmology. They explained that
there has to be a large amount of mass in the universe – not accounted for by
the observable objects – that keeps stars fixed in galaxies which otherwise
would drift apart like clouds in a storm. Then they said that this matter must
be made out of something we don’t know yet, not out of elements, not even out
of the stuff the elements are made of. And that’s where it struck me; I’d heard
that one before. In the good old cosmology, Plato’s, Ptolemy’s, Copernicus’,
the planets and the stars were fixed on spheres made out of an invisible
substance, not composed of the elements, something altogether different from
the four elements: the Quintessence.

Later they went on to talk about certain
observations that have been made that are not in accordance with current
theories. There seem to be objects out there, galaxy arms and such – nothing
that can be swept under the rug easily – that are spinning faster than the
model allows for, or showing strange disturbances in their period. In order to
account for these, the theories have had to be extended to include so called “dark
energy”, a concept that apparently can’t be imagined or explained by anyone but
seems to be indispensable to reconcile science with reality. But as it happens,
we’ve heard that one before too, haven’t we? Good old Ptolemy and Copernicus
knew it too, only they called it by a more honest, appropriate name: Epicycles.

Epicycles and Quintessence indeed, that’s where
four centuries of science have gotten us to; Kepler must be turning in his
grave. And the Catholic Church should take back any admissions of wrongdoing in
its dealings with Galileo.
I want to follow this up with another post that
will have to wait a bit. In the meantime, there is also a good album of Quincy Jones' by the same title.

It seems to me that I have found – in a dreamlike state by the way – the one thing that lets us know dreamland from reality. Dreamland has several qualities that apparently characterize it unequivocally: absurdity, impossibility, profundity of meaning in inexistent words, extreme intensity of feelings and many more, which make dreams dreamlike. But these are neither sufficient nor necessary, some of them can be qualities of reality too and make it feel just as dreamlike.

Consciousness, it would seem, doesn’t seem to care too much about the plausibility of the context it operates in; we mostly don’t realize that we are in a dream because something is weird or unusual, we just go along with that. In fact there are not as many surprises in dreamland – in spite of how much more unexpected things are there – as in reality.

But there is one definitive difference between reality and dreamland: the latter is wholly esoteric to the mind. Reality is perceived through the senses before consciousness experiences it, but the world of dreams has to be made up on the go by the same mind that is going to experience it immediately afterwards. Now, do you know that little inner voice that comments on the world just as we are taking it in? That same little voice also comments on dreamland as it is being made up, but it goes on in a different tone. Instead of checking against memory and known fact, it checks the quality of what is coming up.

And that is the one subtle thing that we can know dreams by, the difference of tone. We don’t need the fictional oneironaut’s spinning top, all we need to do is listen to our inner voice as it chatters about what we are in the midst of.

The nights together gone
The days are still and dark without
The warmth, the fears, the conspirations.

What is to be done when someone you loathe tears to ribbons someone who you admire and you know he is completely right about it? I just read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/book-review-the-secret-knowledge-by-david-mamet.html?_r=1

and lost one more bit of my shrivelled faith in mankind. I hate Hitchens’ guts because I am a pig headed bigot – I don’t think I would like him one little bit more if I bothered to actually listen to him and to what he has to say, but I have this feeling that there is so much more I should put my efforts to, before covering my back on that front. David Mamet I admire because of his narrative power as a playwright, screenwriter and film director. It’s not the politics that upset me – I have been around for long enough to know that my political views are often incompatible with those of people I sympathize with – it’s the brutishness (obstreperousness rings at the back of my mind) of his argumentation, so sharply exposed by Hitchens. It just won’t get into my mind why someone so evidently intelligent and proficient with the ways of language and its traps, should suddenly devolve into numb minded discourse, but there you are. I guess I should read Mamet’s book if I am to lay any claim on the righteousness of my rant, but, as I said above, I’m just a pig headed bigot. I’ll take Hitchens’ word on this one.

Terrence Malick's «The Tree of Life» offers too much of a splendid opportunity for theorizing, displaying wit and erudition, and generally making a fool of myself – but don’t worry, I’ll spare you.
His directing style has been constantly progressing towards what it is now  – which is in my opinion, perfect for conveying a sense of absolute subjectivity; a style optimally suited  to the task of communicating one’s – in this case Malick’s – way of feeling about the world.
If you didn’t become disenchanted by his last two pictures, watching this one will be worth your time too. Especially on the big screen.