The Ordinary of Newgate's Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and Last Speech of George Skelthorpe, executed at Tyburn on March 23rd, 1709

At the Sessions held at Justice-Hall in the Old- Baily, on Wednesday the 2d, and Thursday the 3d, and then adjourn'd to Thursday the 10th day of March 1708-9, Seven Persons being found Guilty of Death, received Sentence accordingly. Of these 7, One only is order'd for Execution, and the other Six have obtain'd a gracious Reprieve; which I hope they will take care to improve into further Mercy.

As soon as they were cast for their Lives [i.e formally sentenced to be hanged], I constantly attended them every day: And upon each of the following Solemn Days, viz.

1. Sunday the 6th.
2. Tuesday, the Anniversary of Her Majesty's Accession to the Throne, being the 8th. of this instant March,
3. Ashwednesday the 9th.
4. Sunday the 13th.
5. Sunday the 20th.

I preach'd to them and others then present, both in the Morning and Afternoons, upon these several Texts.

1. Upon Job 14.14. If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.
2. Upon Psal. 40.16. Let all those that seek Thee, rejoice and be glad in Thee: Let such as love Thy Salvation, say continually, The Lord be magnify'd.
3. Upon Isai. 55, 6 & 7. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
4. Upon Luke 24.46 & 47. (Part of the 2d Morning-Lesson). And (Jesus) said unto them, Thus it is written, and this it beloved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the Dead the third Day: And that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name amongst all Nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
5. Upon Prov. 28.13. He that covers his Sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesses and forsakes them, shall have Mercy.

I shall not here (as I usually do in the like Cases) set down the Heads of those Sermons: That would make this Paper of a larger Extent than I intend it. This only I shall observe, That I concluded every one of those ten Set Discourses with such an Extempore Exhortation and Application, as I thought most suitable to the Condemned; whom I visited and pray'd with in the Chapel twice every day, and had sometimes under private Examination. And then it was that I received from George Skelthorp his Confession, as hereafter follows.

This George Skelthorp, the only Person that is now to suffer, was try'd upon two Indictments, and found guilty of both. The first was for assaulting William Hills, upon the QUEEN's High-way (that is in the Streets from the Strand through the New Buildings to Covent-garden) and taking from him 4s. 6d. on the 18th of February last. The other Indictment was for his assaulting James Booker on the 27th of the said Month of February, and taking from him a Gold-Ring, a Muslin Neck-Cloth, and 10s. in Money, in or about the same place, where he had committed the former Robbery. The Account that he gave me, First, of himself; and then of what has a relation to those Facts of which he was accus'd, and for which he was condemn'd, was this:

First, As to himself; He said, he was about 25 years of age, born at St. Edmunds Bury, in the County of Suffolk; That he had been for a time a Domestick Servant in the Families of some Gentlemen, both in the Country and here in Town, and for above these Seven years last past, in the QUEEN's Service, first in Ireland, in the Regiment of Colonel Granfield, in Captain North's Company; and then in Flenders in the same Regiment, and afterwards here in HER MAJESTY's First Regiment of Foot-Guards, in Brigadier Totton's Company: That as he had not had much Education in Matters of Religion, and knew very little of that which is a great Help thereto (viz. Reading) but what he had of himself pickt up of late; so he was easily induced to a Loose Life of Drinking, Whoring, and Breaking the Sabbath-day, and totally neglecting the Service of God. All which heinous and crying Sins were now very grievous to him, and lay very heavy upon his Conscience.

Secondly, As to what concern'd the Facts for which he was to die; he deny'd his being guilty of them, or of any Crime that should have brought him before any Justice; but this only, That he knowing the time when, and the places where some Sodomites were resorting about Covent-Garden, he went to stand in their Way, and when any of them would (as they often did) carry him to a By-place thereabouts to commit their foul Acts with him, he went with them; and then he taking hold of them, threaten'd them, that he would presently bring them before a Justice, unles they gave him Satisfaction. By which means (he said) he got a great deal of Money at several times, of such Persons; who rather than suffer themselves to be exposed (some of them being Men of good appearance) gave him either Money, Rings, or Watches, or what else they had then about them. Which he would fain perswade me was the only thing that had brought this Prosecution upon him; acknowledging at the same time, that it was just with God thus to punish him, for having concealed and conniv'd at those foul Acts, which he easily might have discover'd and brought to Justice, as he ought to have done. But the Love of filthy Lucre had kept him from it; though it had not as yet (but he could not tell whether if he had gone on in that Trade, it would not at last have) brought him to yield to their lewd and foul Practices. This is the Substance of what he said; adding only as to this Matter, That there was a certain publick House about Covent-Garden, where he knew those Sodomites us'd frequently to meet, and had seen some of them there several times, And it now repented him, that he had not made a Discovery of them, as he often had fair opportunities for it.

He seem'd all along, from the time of his Trial to that of his Death, to be very willing both to learn and practice those Religious Duties, which (by his own Confession) he had too much neglected before. He desired both my Instructions and Prayers, which he had, and I hope were not bestow'd in vain. But God knows the Heart of Man. He was very attentive to the Word of God, when read and expounded to him; and I could not observe any thing in his Behaviour, but what was becoming a Man under his sad Circumstances. He pray'd very earnestly to God for the Pardon of his Sins; and declar'd, that he forgave all his Enemies, and dy'd in Charity with all Men.

When he was carry'd this Day from Newgate in a Cart to the Place of Execution, I met him there, and discharged, for the last time, my Ministerial Office to him. I exhorted him more and more to repent and clear his conscience before he dy'd. To which he return'd this answer, That he repented with all his heart of all the Sins that he ever had committed, and trusted in God for Mercy, through the Merits of Jesus Christ. And here he further declar'd, That what he had told me before was true; and, That his Guilt was no other than he had then confess'd to me.

After this I pray'd and sung some Penitential Psalms with him: I made him rehearse the Articles of our Christian Faith: And then he said, That by the Grace of God he would die in that Faith, and hop'd for Eternal Life and Salvation.

Then he spoke to the People to this effect, That he had serv'd the QUEEN seven Years, and been in five Campaigns; That he had been a wild Young-man, and would be rambling abroad instead of going to Church: That tho' he was not guilty of those Robberies for which he was now to suffer, (that is to say, just in the manner as they were sworn agaisnt thim) yet as he had greatly offended God, so God had justly brought him to this his Shameful and Untimely End. This he acknowledg'd. Now there being (it seems) one of the Witnesses that had sworn against him, close by the Cart, he was entring upon a Discourse with him in his own Justification of the Facts he was charg'd withal; but upon my telling him, That this was not a proper Time and Place to reflect upon any body but himself; and, That he should consider the few minutes he had now to live in this World, and think on that Great GOD, before whose Tribunal he just going to appear, &c. he presently return'd to his Prayers, That God would be pleas'd to forgive him a great Sinner. He desir'd all Young Men, and others, to take Warning by him, and avoid his Sins, that they might not come to the like Condemnation. Sometimes he would express some uneasiness for his now having had the same Mercy shewn him as the other six Persons that receiv'd Sentence with him: But being made sensible, that his Crimes appear'd greater than theirs, he seeme'd to be more satisfied, and acquiesce in the Justice of his Condemnation. He solemnly (and that more than twice) declar'd here, That he died in Charity with all the World, and freely forgave all those that had done him any Injury, as he desir'd to have Forgiveness at God's Hand.

This being done, I retired; and after some further time allow'd him for his private Devotions, the Cart drew away, and he was turn'd off; all the while calling upon God in these and the like Ejaculations, Lord JESUS have mercy upon me! Lord receive my Soul, &c.

This is all the Account here to be given of this Dying Person, by

PAUL LORRAIN, Ordinary of Newgate.
March 23. 1708/9

China, 816 A.C.

Yuan Zhen to Bo JuYi:

Other people too have friends they love;
But ours was a love such as few friends have known.
You were all my sustenance; it mattered more
To see you daily than to get my morning food.
And if there was a single day when we did not meet
I would sit listless, my mind in a tangle of gloom.
To think we are now thousands of miles apart,
Lost like clouds, each drifting on his far way!
Those clouds on high, where many winds blow,
What is their chance of ever meeting again?
And if in open heaven those beings of the air
Are driven and thwarted, what of Man below?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


Bo JuYi to Yuan Zhen:

Last night the clouds scattered everywhere,
for a thousand leagues the same moon color.
At dawn's coming I saw you in dreams;
it must be you were thinking of me.
In my dream I grasped your hand,
asked you what your thoughts were.
You said you thought of me with pain,
had no one to send a letter through.

When I awoke, I still had not spoken in reply.
a knock-on-the-door sound, rap rap!
Saying, "A messenger from Shangzhou,"
he delivered a letter of yours.
From the pillow I rose sudden and startled,
putting on my clothes topsy-turvy.
I opened the seal, saw the hand-letter,
one sheet, thirteen lines.

La luna

de Jaime Sabines (gracias, Valeria!)

La luna se puede tomar a cucharadas
o como una cápsula cada dos horas.
Es buena como hipnótico y sedante
y también alivia
a los que se han intoxicado de filosofía.
Un pedazo de luna en el bolsillo
es mejor amuleto que la pata de conejo:
sirve para encontrar a quien se ama,
para ser rico sin que lo sepa nadie
y para alejar a los médicos y las clínicas.
Se puede dar de postre a los niños
cuando no se han dormido,
y unas gotas de luna en los ojos de los ancianos
ayudan a bien morir. Pon una hoja tierna de la luna
debajo de tu almohada
y mirarás lo que quieras ver.
Lleva siempre un frasquito del aire de la luna
para cuando te ahogues,
y dale la llave de la luna
a los presos y a los desencantados.
Para los condenados a muerte
y para los condenados a vida
no hay mejor estimulante que la luna
en dosis precisas y controladas.

Al futuro tú

El futuro tú
no será como nadie.
ni como Mambrú
ni como las caries.

El futuro tú
será hijo del aire
cero esclavitud
nada que lo empañe.

Del futuro tú
deseo que ame
más allá del tú
y aprenda del aire.

Que al futuro tú
la sed de saber
nunca se le acabe.

En mi uña cabes...
pero eso era ayer.
Mi futuro tú.

(postdata agregada el 15 de octubre de 2010: hoy cumplís 5 meses, Consuelo, y aquel futuro tú resultaste ser vos. Prometo hacer lo posible porque este poema se te cumpla.)

Setenta balcones y ninguna flor

de Baldomero Fernández Moreno

Setenta balcones hay en esta casa,
setenta balcones y ninguna flor.
¿A sus habitantes, Señor, qué les pasa?
¿Odian el perfume, odian el color?

La piedra desnuda de tristeza agobia,
¡Dan una tristeza los negros balcones!
¿No hay en esta casa una niña novia?
¿No hay algún poeta bobo de ilusiones?

¿Ninguno desea ver tras los cristales
una diminuta copia de jardín?
¿En la piedra blanca trepar los rosales,
en los hierros negros abrirse un jazmín?

Si no aman las plantas no amarán el ave,
no sabrán de música, de rimas, de amor.
Nunca se oirá un beso, jamás se oirá una clave...

¡Setenta balcones y ninguna flor!

Nombres que me gustan

Cielo, Luz, Flor, Aurora, Amalia, Margarita, Eva, Quillén (Luna), Ágata, Camila, Carlota, Celia, Dana, Alelí, Elisa, Ema, Filipa,
Nehuén (Fuerte), Enzo, Andrés, Boris, Dan, Dante, Andante, Emilio, Félix, Horacio, Alejo, Antu (Sal en araucano)

La parábola de los talentos

En esta parábola un señor se va de viaje y deja su dinero, repartido en cantidades diversas, en manos de tres de sus siervos. A uno lo pone a cargo de 5 talentos, a otro de 2, y al tercero, de 1.

Los siervos que estaban a cargo de 5 y 2 talentos respectivamente, se ponen a comerciar con ellos y con sus ganancias doblan la cantidad de dinero a su cuidado, pero el tercer siervo simplemente entierra su talento, para mantenerlo al seguro.

Cuando después de mucho tiempo el señor vuelve, se muestra encantado con los dos primeros siervos, y les promete que los pondrá a cargo de muchas cosas más, puesto que se portaron tan bien con unos pocos talentos.

El tercer siervo, por su parte, explica sus acciones aduciendo temor, pues no quería correr el riesgo de perder el talento de su señor, a quien ve como a "un hombre duro, que cosecha donde no siembra y recoge donde no esparce".

El señor le responde, muy enojado, que si eso es lo que piensa de él, con más razón tendría que haber hecho algo con el dinero. Dice que el tercer siervo es "malo y perezoso" y ordena que le quiten su talento, sentenciando que "a todo el que tiene le será dado, y tendrá en abundancia; pero al que no tiene, aun lo que tiene le será quitado". Luego llama al siervo "inútil" y lo hace echar a la calle oscura.

La moraleja a extraer de este texto es obvia, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que la unidad monetaria en cuestión se llama "talento": todos tenemos ciertas habilidades y capacidades, y tenemos que hacer lo mejor que podamos con ellas, mientras las poseamos. Mientras más hagamos, mejor nos irán las cosas, y si no hacemos nada, esas capacidades se atrofiarán y luego no podremos usarlas, incluso si lo deseamos.

Un precepto maravilloso, e interesante también porque presta argumentos en contra de quienes interpretan la biblia literalmente.

Por otro lado, me disgusta el elemento económico de la parábola... Además, el argumento literal de la historia es crudelísimo: este señor es muy sádico.

Las parábolas funcionan porque crean paralelos, pero si el señor es dios, a mí me parece que se comporta de forma mucho más mezquina y haragana que el tercer siervo.

Lo que pasa en realidad es que este precepto funciona mucho mejor sin la existencia de ningún señor. Tenemos que hacer lo mejor posible con los talentos que tenemos NO porque nadie nos los haya dado, sino porque intentarlo con todas nuestras fuerzas es nuestra mejor chance de alcanzar cualquier medida de felicidad para nosotros y quienes nos rodean.

La meseta

Subí hasta aquí, mas no para llegar
sino porque nací en una ladera:
abajo se veía una pradera
sin límites, rotunda como el mar.

Fui arriba entonces, puesto que al trepar
el horizonte nunca el mismo era
por delante. Que siempre cambio hubiera
fue todo cuanto yo aprendí a desear.

Ahora que el ascenso ha terminado
creía haber conquistado lo subido
pero parece que nada ha cambiado.

Abajo la pradera se ha extendido,
pues la altura me la ha desparramado
y es invisible el camino batido.

Poem to someone who's fallen asleep in the back seat

Akimbo
is the adjective to use
when your limbs
go each their own way.

Akimbo
like a man
so named
from some country
where they play drums
and have a thick rainforest.

Hello, Akimbo!
What's up today?
Nothing much, just saw Ikumba at the corner.
He was just drumming away.

Akimbo.

But that's not it, after all.

It looks plain
UNCOMFORTABLE

like
my chair sank under me
oops!

like
I've been hit in the back of the head
auch.

like
this is really worrying me
hmm...

like
I have to try and hold it in until these people get the hell
out.

Hans Would Wince

The fog is deep
and of cigarette smoke.
The foghorn is hoarse
punk rock guitars
that drift in
when she opens the door.

She then falls
more than sits,
petite
like the little mermaid
except this ain't Copenhagen bay
but some messy dorm's
dayroom
and rather than a sea-slicked rock
what she's crumpled down on
is a half deflated
red plush
airbag.

No scaly fish tail flipflops
on the dusty carpet
but tails she has,
nevertheless:
the pony kind
one blue
one orange
and flip-flop do go
her eyelids
a few times
before she definitely falls
asleep.

Lava lamp light
glints off her piercings
like sun rays do off the green waves
and deep as the ocean
is the rumor of her snores.

Play Death

To play Death,
take first thing your glasses off,
so that she knows who's in charge.
Play with her
and not at her.

Play as in toy with,
as in laugh at,
to make it always obvious
that you aren't truly
giving in or up.

You should always play
Death in an unnatural way,
because that she is not
and both you and her can tell
the difference.

Play Death
as a mime pretends to ride a horse
with a broom between his legs.

Play Death ludicrously,
in no position
that she would adopt
if left to her own devices.

When you play Death
be always
cackling,
insane.

Particularly
when it is her turn
to play.

Paper

Paper has a certain bounciness,
like mulchy soil.
It's made to be looked at
and yet it looks back.

Bored by your penetrating glare
it spurts up its dark riches,
geisers of black inked letters
and forest-dense images that
piped through your pupils,
power your neurons.
Curiosity put-put-putters on,
soul and thoughts get rolling.

That which inspires

WE EACH STAND ALONE, BUT WE ALL HAVE THAT IN COMMON.

PADRE NUESTRO

Padre nuestro que estás no sé dónde,
haz que no peleemos por tu nombre;
Venga a nosotros el razonamiento;
Hágase presente la empatía
en toda mente, incluso la mía;
El pan nuestro de cada día démosnoslo unos a otros no sólo hoy,
y perdonémonos nuestras ofensas, así como nos damos la oportunidad
de mejorar como personas;
Si caemos en la tentación,
puedan todos librarse del mal
y que nos sirva de lección;
Pues nuestros son la responsabilidad, el peligro y la determinación, por siempre.
Amén

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Our father who art who knows where,
let us not fight for your name;
May reasoning come;
Room for empathy be done in all minds, even mine;
Let us give each other every day our daily bread
and let us forgive each other our trespasses, as we give each other the chance of becoming better people;
If temptation overcomes us,
may everyone be delivered from evil
and let it be a lesson to all involved;
For ours is the responsibility, the danger and the resolve, for ever.
Amen.

Your Friend (by Khalil Gibran)

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside,
for you come to him with hunger,
and you seek him for peace.

Tu amigo es la respuesta a tus necesidades.
Es el campo que siembras con amor y cosechas con gratitud.
Él es tu hogar y tu mesa,
pues acudes a él cuando tienes hambre
y lo buscas cuando precisas paz.

Hávamál

Norse poetry from around the IX century. Here are some fragments:


Elds er þörf, þeims inn er kominn ok á kné kalinn;
matar ok váða er manni þörf, þeim er hefr um fjall farit.

Den som har komme inn og frys på knea, treng eld.
Den som har fare i fjell, treng mat og klede.

He who comes in with cold-shaking knees, needs fire.
He who has experienced the danger of the mountain, needs food and clothing.

- - -

Er-a svá gótt sem gótt kveða öl alda sona,
því at færa veit, er fleira drekkr síns til geðs gumi.

Øl er kje så godt for vettet som folk seier det er.
Når ølet går inn, går vettet ut.

Beer is not so good for wits as people say it is.
When beer goes in, wit is lost.

- - -

Ungr var ek forðum, fór ek einn saman, þá varð ek villr vega;
auðigr þóttumk, er ek annan fann,
maðr er manns gaman.

Då eg var ung og fór aleine, fór eg vill på vegen.
Då eg møtte ein annan, syntest eg at eg blei rikk.
Mann er mannens glede.

Once I was young and wandered alone and knew nothing of the road.
When I found a comrade, I felt rich,
for man is man's delight.

Harp Song of the Dane Women (by Rudyard Kipling)

WHAT is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre.
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken- -

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables
To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

Din tanke er fri

En la clase de noruego escuchamos esta canción, que es una traducción noruega de una canción alemana que, durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, era popular entre la resistencia. El título significa "tu pensamiento es libre".

Din tanke er fri,
hvem tror du den finner.
Den flykter forbi,
slik skygger forsvinner.
Den kan ikke brennes,
av fiender kjennes.
Og slik vil det alltid bli:
Din tanke er fri.

Jeg tenker hva jeg vil,
mitt ønske bestemmer.
I stillhet blir det til,
i ukjente drømmer.
Min tanke og lengsel
vil bryte hvert stengsel.
Og slik vil de alltid bli:
Min tanke er fri!

Og tvinges vi inn
bak jernslåtte dører,
da flykter den vind
som tankene fører.
Fordi våre tanker
kan rive ned skranker.
Os slik vil de alltid bli:
Vår tanke er fri!

Olav H. Hauge

A new poet I've found. Well, in fact, he's not so new. He wrote a while ago. Høgne introduced us to some of his poems in the nynorsk class. Here they are:

DET ER DEN DRAUMEN

Det er den draumen me ber på
at noko vedunderleg skal skje,
at det må skje --
at tidi skal opna seg
at hjarta skal opna seg
at dører skal opna seg
at berget skal opnsa seg
at kjeldor skal springa --
at draumen skal opna seg,
at me ei morgonstund skal glida inn
på ein våg me ikkje har visst um.

IT'S THE DREAM

It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen --
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the rockface will open
that springs will gush --
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.

**********

I DAG SÅG EG...

I dag såg eg to månar --
ein ny og ein gamal.

Eg har stor tru på ny-månen,
men det er vel den gamle.


TODAY I SAW...

Today I saw two moons --
a new one and an old one.

I have great confidence in the new moon,
but it is the same as the old one.

**********

KATTEN

Katten sit i tunet når du kjem.

Snakk litt med katten,
det er han som er varast i garden.

THE CAT

The cat sits in the yard when you come.

Speak a little with the cat;
it is him who's best acquainted with the farm.

Sullabullyam

This is a poem/song written by norwegian author Edvard Hoem. It talks about how everything passes and disappears from the world; even of the most sublime things that are, no traces will be left after a time... And yet, joyously, SULLABULLYAM!!!

Når vi har forlate den rullande jord,
og vatnet og vinden stryk ut våre spor,
når alt det vi sleit med er slutt og forbi,
høyr songen vi syng om den bortfarne tid.
Sullabullyam!

Lik lyset frå stjerner som ikkje fekk namn,
lik draumen om liv i den eviges famn,
slik styrer vår lengsel frå mørker og grav
til kystar ein stad bakom himmel og hav.
Sullabullyam!

Alt vakkert skal kverve i botnlause rom.
Den søtaste smak skal bli bitter og tom.
Og du som eg elska, skal også forgå!
Vi jublar mot vårar vi aldri skal sjå!
Sullabullyam!

Så lytt til ei nynning når natta er still,
ja, lytt til vår song når vi ikkje er til.
Høyr fuglar og harper og stigande song,
frå oss som gjekk bort, men som levde ein gong!
Sullabullyam!

Marble

What did Sabina think about Hadrian's relationship with Antinous? What were Hadrian feelings for each of them? How did they fill their days? What did they say to each other and what did they refrain from saying? Was there fear, love, submission, hate, pain, acquiescence, indifference? How were their lives like before they met? What were Antinous' expectations for the adulthood he never reached?

I'd love to know. These marble portraits, particularly Hadrian's, look so very lifelike and expressive. I know they do not hold the answers, but they must have been posed for, or been copied from posed-for originals. How much do these faces communicate of the thoughts that fleeted behind them when they were flesh? Antinous, idolized, was re-sculpted so many times after his death that he is somehow the least real to me, and thus the hardest to read. Sabina, on the other hand... did her bitterness and resignation and sadness truly pass into the stone, or am I just imagining them?

Armani Jeans Publicity

Here's a picture of a 5m x 5m poster advertising Armani Jeans at Termini Train Station in Rome. If you happen to go there these days, you'll see it still.
My thoughts (funnily, all questions) on looking at this add are:
1) Are these the jeans one buys when one is a drug addict and/or drunk and/or anorexic and/or suicidally depressed?
2) After the photo shoot, did the Emporio Armani people also provide the necessary medical care to these two girls?
3) If this is a jeans add, why didn't they include an image of the jeans in the poster?

Having acquired

Having acquired 60 minutes of internet connection at Oslo Airport, and with only 10 to go, i decide to write a few sentences here, after having skyped with my family in Argentina and facebooked a little with Liz, whom i'll be meeting in Budapest.

Weird to think that internet connection is bought, immaterial as it is. What is one buying? Bandwith... But really, there's no band, and the width we're talking about is not truly measurable in the metric system. What is the material make-up of what i'm buying?

What i'm really buying is the possibility of doing something. In the end, that's what it comes down to: when you buy food, you buy the possibility to continue to fuel your body. When you buy a car, you pay for the possibility to move faster and at your whim from one place to another. And so on and so forth.

Air will be paid for, also, when someone comes up with the idea of scrubbing all the shit we've put into it with factories and cars.

Steamer in a Snowstorm (1842, William Turner)

Franco Sacchetti (1330? - 1400)

Passando con pensier per un boschetto,
Donne per quello givan fior cogliendo,
"To' quel, to' quel" dicendo,
"Eccolo! eccolo!"
"Che è, che è?"
"È fior alliso."
"Va' là per le viole!"
"Omè, che 'l prun mi punge!"
"Quell'altra me' v'aggiunge."
"Uh! uh! o che è quel che salta?"
"È un grillo."
"Venite qua, correte:
Raponzoli cogliete."
"E' non son essi." "Sì, sono."
"Colei, o colei,
Vie' qua. Vie' qua pe' funghi."
"Costà, costà pel sermollino."
"No' starem troppo,
Chè 'l tempo si turba!"
"E' balena."
"E' truona."
"E vespero già suona."
"Non è egli ancor nona."
"Odi, odi:
È l'usignuol che canta:
Più bel v'è,
Più bel v'è."
"I' sento... e non so che."
"Ove?" "Dove?"
"In quel cespuglio."
Tocca, picchia, ritocca,
Mentre che 'l busso cresce,
Ed una serpe n'esce.
"Omè trista!" "Omè lassa!"
"Omè!"
Fuggendo tutte di paura piene,
Una gran piova viene.
Qual sdrucciola,
Qual cade,
Qual si punge lo pede.
A terra van ghirlande.
Tal ciò c'ha colto lascia, e tal percuote.
Tiensi beata chi più correr puote.
Sì fisso stetti il dì che lor mirai,
Ch'io non m'avidi, e tutto mi bagnai.

Cecco Angiolieri (1260? - 1312)

Incredible! Over 700 years ago! How did they let him live?

S'i' fosse foco, arderei 'l mondo;
S'i' fosse vento, lo tempesterei;
S'i' fosse acqua, i' l'annegherei;
S'i' fosse Dio, mandereil' in profondo.
S'i' fosse papa, sare' allor giocondo,
Che tutt'i cristiani imbrigherei;
S'i' fosse 'mperator, sa' che farei?
A tutti mozzarei lo capo a tondo.
S'i' fosse morte, andarei da mio padre;
S'i' fosse vita, fuggirei da lui;
Similmente faria da mi' madre.
S'i' fosse Cecco, com'i' sono e fui,
Torrei le donne giovani e leggiadre,
E vecchie e laide lasserei altrui.

If I were fire, I'd torch the world;
If I were wind, I'd storm it;
If I were water, I'd drown it;
If I were God, I'd send it to the deep.
If I were Pope, I'd then be happy,
To have swindled all Christians;
If I were emperor, do you know what I'd do?
I'd straight away chop everybody's head off.
If I were death, I'd go to my father;
If I were life, I'd flee from him;
I'd do the same with my mother.
If I were Cecco, as I am and was,
I'd take the women who are young and graceful,
And leave for others the old and the ugly.

La Compiuta Donzella (1250? - 1300?)

Not much is know of this poet; even her real name is lost. "Compiuta Donzella" means simply "Accomplished Maiden". She wrote in Toscanian dialect, which was later to became Italian, sometime during the second half of the XIIIth century. This sonet begins sweet, talking about lovers in spring. Then, on the eighth verse, it adds sadness to the sweetness.

A la stagion che il mondo foglia e fiora,
Accresce gioia a tutti i fini amanti,
Vanno insieme alli giardini allora
Che gli augelletti fanno dolci canti,
La franca gente tutta s'innamora,
Ed in servir ciascun traggesi innanti,
Ed ogni damigella in gioi' dimora.
A me n'abbondan marrimenti e pianti.
Chè lo mio padre m'ha messa in errore,
E tienimi sovente in forte doglia:
Donar mi vuole, a mia forza, signore.
Ed io di ciò non ho disio nè voglia,
E in gran tormento vivo a tutte l'ore:
Però non mi rallegra fior nè foglia.

During the season when the world leafs and flowers,
It brings joy to all pure lovers,
They go together to the gardens whenever
Little birds make sweet songs,
All free-hearted people fall in love
And every man brings himself forward to serve,
And every maiden lives in joy.
Except for me, for whom miseries and tears abound.
For my father has put me in a quandary,
And often keeps me in terrible pain:
He wants to give me, against my will, a husband.
And I for such have neither wish nor want,
And in great torment live I at all hours:
Thus, neither flower nor leaf gladden me.

The Day The Earth Stood Still, Version II

I've just gotten back from seeing this movie. As in the case of most modern Hollywood films, its 'message' is bland pap, tainted by big business interests (see how long it takes you to spot the windows logo). "Our species should not be destroyed. We ARE nearing a crisis moment, we have almost destroyed the Earth, but it is only in moments of crisis that intelligent species truly change and grow", says the big honcho Nobel price doctor. So what, change will just happen by itself, as if it were a simple force of nature? Who will tell us when the crisis is bad enough? What about intelligence, forethought? Aren't we supposed to be capable of planning and preventing? Isn't that what reasoning is for?

The only concession the movie makes to answering these questions is to casually mention that the big honcho doctor got his Nobel price for his work on the biological advantages of altruism. Some poor writer probably managed to sneak that in.

That we cannot change but in moments of crisis implies that we should wait for crises in order to change. As Naomi Klein says in her book "The Shock Doctrine", governments and powerful individuals have largely been using this idea to impose their own views on society, particularly in the last decade or two... The fact that they've been able to use this 'theory', however, goes to show that there is another side to it, because they had to plan and think ahead to achieve their goals. They PREDICTED what would happen, and even though they were not 100% sure as to what would happen if they tried this or that, they could guess.

So can we, when it comes to evaluating the effects our actions are having on the environment. We're in trouble now, and we're headed for even more. Species and ecosystems are disappearing as a direct consequence of certain of our actions and lifestyles. We must change those now! If we wait, it may be too late! There's too many examples of civilizations that carried on for too long with certain behaviors, as well as cases in which forethought and planning and a willingness to compromise saved the day. Take a look at Collapse, by Jared Diamond, for instance.

Maybe i'm exaggerating in taking this movie as an indicator of the mind frame of Hollywood movie makers. After all, this is not the first story, particularly in SF, where change is only brought on by the moment of crisis... I don't remember the author, but there was this one about a scientist who somehow, having access to a lot of resources, contrived to make it seem like Earth was being attacked by aliens. He sustained the illusion for decades, and in order to fight back the aliens all governments had to unite... By the time the lie was discovered, Earth had become united.

I have no patience with this stuff. It stinks of the "Deus ex machina" syndrome, the mark of really bad Science Fiction. Rather than characters failing or succeeding to solve problems thanks to or in spite of their travails, in the poopy section of the SF world problems get solved by themselves through some silly invention or device... In this case, the theory that we will somehow find a way to save Earth when we come to the edge of having totally trashed it.

It's real sad, though. I think many times people don't get involved in changing the world because they give themselves just this excuse: "things are not that bad after all". I know I've done it. Getting involved in change means giving up things, whether it be time, or goods, or convenience, or money, or power... How much are we willing to give up?

For Don M. - Banned

This is a poem by Mongane Wally Serote, a black South African author writing (mostly from outside his country) during the apartheid years. Poignant, and subtly rythmic, these few verses really caught my attention:

it is a dry white season
dark leaves don't last, their brief lives dry out
and with a broken heart they dive down gently headed for the earth,
not even bleeding.
it is a dry white season brother,
only the trees know the pain as they still stand erect
dry like steel, their branches dry like wire
indeed is it a dry white season
but seasons come to pass.

The pertinent coda seems, thankfully, to be: It did, indeed.

Monday, December 1st, 00:17

Does it signify anything?

Looking back

Look at these expressions, these facial traits. Did they exist only on the artists' mind, or are they an attempt to represent real people, two who once lived and breathed in this planet of ours? Why were they portrayed? What questions did they ask themselves, and what were their everyday concerns?

According to radio-carbon dating techniques, these two miniature human heads were carved on mammoth ivory around twenty seven thousand years ago. They were found at a site in the Czech Republic called Dolni Věstonice, also famous for being the place of origin of the oldest known ceramic in the world. A good example of the latter is the Věstonická Venuše or Venus of Dolni Věstonice. These rests of our deepest past move me deeply. I think of the hands that gave shape to these objects and the hands that may have touched them later. I know I'll never know those lives, but I like to wonder about them and the events that led to these figurines ending up buried in the ground for over 25 millennia.

In 2004 a tomograph scan of the Věstonická Venuše allowed researchers to reconstruct the fingerprint of a child between 7 and 15 years of age who had handled the statuette before the clay hardened and was fired.

The Rape of Children's Minds

That is what most religions must do in order to survive: force themselves on the vulnerable and defenseless minds of children.

A Question of Duration

Apparently senseless parallel lines within an oval of compressed silicate dust, almost like the fossil of an impossibly bloated protozoan. But no, we know better: it is the print a booted foot left on the pocked surface of the moon.

Only 40 years have passed and already we wonder, is this footprint still up there? Has it changed much?

We often read how in the absence of an atmosphere, and without neither weather nor tectonic activity, man made marks on the moon should last eons. Yet, apart from micrometeorites, there are all kind of atomic and subatomic particles colliding against the moon all the time. How long will it take those processes to erase even that tiny mark?

Who will know in ten thousand years the name of the man wearing the boot that made the print?

If it endures a million years, will anyone know the shape of the foot that filled the boot, or what species it belonged to?

Will anybody ever go back up there to see these prints again, or is this picture all we'll ever have? Are they ever to be anything else than the human equivalent of a dog pissing against a tree-trunk? A mere "we were here" sign?

Will they be engulfed by the sun when it goes nova?

Will they survive us, the last sign of our ever having existed, and then at the moment of truth be wiped out by the rocket exhaust of the next species that lands on the moon?

Will they be covered and preserved by a molecule-thick diamond film, on an inhabited moon seeded with sweeping seas of grasses and incredibly tall and limber forests?

Do the men who made them long for those few hours on another world, almost 40 years ago?

Records of Progress

Records of Progress, or RoPs, as we affectionately call them, are an expression of our innermost sadomasochistic drives. We might as well refer to them as RoPes and be done with it, for they tie us up and hopelessly bind us in a cycle of punishment and reward.

Rather than write a 600 character review of each of my students, it'd be great to just sit with each but for half of 600 seconds and tell them face to face how I feel about their performance, their behavior in class and towards their classmates, and what are the areas they can work on.

Lista de nombres

Ana Akari Åse Adrienne Anett Amelie Airiin Ailani
Andrés Amir August Aqqalukkuluk Atta Attila Alejandro Akamu
Bethania Benedetta Beatriz Bianka Borana Basha Buhle Bhudevi
Bogdan Banteaymolu Boris Bagdat Bhakta Bassiri Bunsuke Bane
Celeste Cecilia Camilla Chloé Carolina Cynthia Claudia Charumati
Charles Craig Carl Collin Cirilo César Cuauhtémoc Chandra
Daniela Deolinda Dandago Dubie Dawa Dinali Delisile Dhakshina
Doriyush Diego Dominik David Dick Dimuth Dlamini Deven
Eunice Ellie Elaheh Eva Emmi Enka Endora Eshe
Emiliano Esteban Erik Ezequiel Emmanuel Erlet Edin Ekon
Fabiola Fanele Filipa Fiorella Fátima Fumiko Fatoumata Falala
Facundo Francesco Ferenz Faaez Farhan Forrest Félix Fabumi
Gabriela Gjertrud Gili Guillermina Gro Gorreti Galilea Ghariza
Gerardo Gustav Giovanni Grzegorz George Göran Göksan Gamba
Hilda Hanna Herborg Harriet Heather HuiLing Haily Habika
Hans Håvard Hernán Horacio HaiDo Humberto Haden Hondo
Ingvill Ingrid Isilda Ingunn Irenea Itzel Iesha Isabis
Iván Ilias Isaac Ignacio Igor Itay Iain Issa
Jahnvi Jarmila Jodi-Ann Jacqueline Jariya Jigna Jacey Jendayi
Jorge Juan Jens Justice Jonathan Jim Jabari Jabulani
Kerstin Kaisa Katerina Kelli Klara Kübra Kadence Kainda
Klaus Kwasi Karamo Kaoru Kai Koketso Kadeem Kofi
Lucía Laura Linnéa Leila Liv Lorela Ladonna Lea
Leonardo Luis Lukas Lauge Luciano Lorne Lachlan Latif
Marina Margherita Mina Mette Mirza Monika Maeve Molara
Mads Mithat Marcelo Mahmoud Malthe Morten Magen Mikel
Nélida Nana Nuria Negar Nina Noelia Nakia Nekane
Natalino Neo Nareg Niko Nagi Noah Najee Naalnish
Olga Ortal Oumou Outi Octavia Otilia Oceana Oddveig
Omar Øyvind Osvaldo Oscar Oliver Otto Oakley Odakota
Pilar Palevi Paula Pia Pirita Phumzile Paloma Padraigin
Pedro Palden Philipp Per Pavel Pujan Paris Parounag
Qunchao Qin Qian Qingzhen QueThanh Qenehelo Quiana Qetura
Quentin Quinn Qiamuddin Qais Qwei Qaf Quillan Qabic
Razan Ruth Ragnhild Rochelle Rabia Rikke Rae Raysel
Raphaël Radigan Reginald Rudy Roman Rida Rahul Raimundo
Sonela Sabrina Saara Sandra SiJie Sumaya Sakura Sadaf
Sergio Shasanka Savant Seng Sebastian Søren Sameer Sachi
Tiina Taman Tania ThiQui Tamara Tekber Tabatha Taimi
Tsering Talha Tamim Tiziano Tien Tenzin Tad Taavetti
Upange Unity Umman Urška Ursula Uzma Ulyssa Upala
Umur Uldis Uros Ulrich Ugo Uzair Uriel Ulfmaerr
Volha Vera Vanessa Vaida Vivian Verónica Valencia Valechka
Valeri Vichetrath Ville Vedran Vítor Volkan Vaughn Vaclav
Wenao Wanwisa Wincy Wipawan Winda WunMin Wanda Wachiwi
Walter William Wonder Wendell Weston Wola Wade Wafiyy
Xiaohang Xilonem Xóchitl Xaina Xi Xuelan Xiomara Xuxa
Xiaolong Xianming Xiaochen Xavier Xan Xabiso Xander Ximun
Yara Yukiko Yaru Yfat YatMan Yenhy Yahaira Yaletha
Yilikal Yunior Youssef Yauheni Yiannis Yerzhan Yaakov Yahya
Zainatou Zeynep Zhenia Zaza Zuzana Zimasa Zaylee Zagiri
Zacharia Zweli Zmicer Zoran Zaid Ziv Zaire Zabdiel

Not necessary, but still

I love to be alive, even with headaches and fears and uncertainties and muscle aches, and awkwardnesses and whatever may come my way. I love to be alive.

Marked

Here at the college students continue with their midnight birthday celebrations. Not the happiest of traditions (nor the healthiest), but at least they now make a point of doing their baking before 22:30, which means that the number of fire alarms has really gone down.

In any case, tonight's celebrant, Amira, has a sister staying at my place for the weekend, and she herself happened to be here when the clock struck twelve... Students then came in, threw a coat over her head, and carried her out.

My mind flashed back to the argentinean dictatorship, instantly. I never experienced it myself, but from the Nunca Jamás reports i know that's the way the military did it, too: something to cover your eyes, and you didn't know where you were being taken.

I know nothing will happen to Amira, and that her friends probably had a very nice surprise waiting for her somewhere, but still, there was an instant when i wanted to yell at them, to ask roaringly how they dare play with actions that call back such horrors.

But then i thought, there's no action in our collective repertoire that isn't evocative of some tragedy or violation. Amira was smiling when they covered her face, she wanted to be floated away in her friends' arms. I should be smiling, too. They've managed to recast past actions in a new light. There's still hope of redemption for us all.

A poem by Sheikh Saadi (1184-1283)

بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند
که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند

چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار
دگر عضوها را نماند قرار

تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you have no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain.

This poem used to adorn the entrance of the Hall of Nations at the UN building, in New York. What happened to it?

Frederick Douglass & Helen Pitts

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in the early 1800s, the son of a black slave and her white owner. Separated from his mother, he was raised by a grandmother until the age of six, when she died and he was sold away. He taught himself to read, taught other slaves, was persecuted, escaped to the north, became free.

He believed that "Right is of no Sex — Truth is of no Color — God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

In 1872, he was the first African American candidate to the vicepresidency. His presidential running mate was Victoria Woodhull, a suffragist. Their party was called "The Equal Rights Party". What happened to it?

In 1837 he met his future wife, Anna Murray, a free African American with whom he fathered 5 children. Anna died in 1882 and, after a year of depression, he became close to Helen Pitts, a white abolotionist and suffragist. Against the wishes of his children and her family, they married and lived together for 11 years, until his death in 1895.

"Love came to me, and I was not afraid to marry the man I loved because of his color", said Helen of their wedding. Frederick's words on the subject were: "This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father."

Douglass had willed his house to Pitts, but because there were not enough witness signatures on the deed, it was declared invalid. She then suggested to his children that the house be set apart as a memorial to their father, but they refused, wanting to sell it and then divide the money among themselves. With borrowed funds, she bought it herself and the memorial was started, and is alive still today.

Questions

Isn't sleep the irrefutable proof that life after death is a myth? I mean, how can anybody believe that we continue to exist as conscious entities after our brain stops functioning, if we lose our consciousness when our brain simply slows down a bit, as it does when we sleep?

Victor Cúnsolo: Vuelta de Rocha (1931)

Más Guttero: Cargadores ligures (1926)

This is the year

According to that fortune teller in Guangzhou, this is the year i will die. The guy was nice. I was begging for money to get to Hong Kong, and he lent me some and read my palm on the train. That i didn't ask him for, but thought it'd be a fun, silly thing to try. I still do.

Now, if i actually do die, will it be because he was right, because i believed him, or because like Laius in Oedipus Rex, Basilio in La vida es sueño and finally Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, my trying to avoid the prophecy will be the means by which it is accomplished?

To prevent this last, at least, i should strive not do anything different from what i would otherwise do. But then, how can i be sure of what i would really have done if the prediction hadn't been made? Plus, what an irony if, after having made an effort to live life as usual, i ended up dying of something that could have been easily avoided with just a little deviation...

Maybe the answer is to copy that character of Borges, who tried to imagine all the possible manners his death could take in the hope that, simply because he had imagined them, they could now not happen.

Of course, if i do die, it could all simply mean that he made a lucky guess, and me an unlucky choice.

Finally, if come march 3rd 2009 i'm still alive, then it'll mean that, once more, i'll have paid enough attention to another silly piece of religious baloney to have it occupy some of my neurons for decades on end. Obviously, if some part of my mind didn't still keep a measure of forbearance for "the occult", i would simply have forgotten the episode. It makes me angry and sad to think i have such little control over my brain that it may still casually focus on any kind of hocus pocus.

I can imagine the following scene, too: somehow, somewhere, a few years from now, i run across this guy and, obviously, he sees i'm still alive. When confronted with his failed prediction, he may very well say that fortune telling is no exact science (although, at the time of his prediction, and upon my asking whether any of what he said was avoidable, his answer was something about it being pretty much not so, and that destiny was destiny).

More creatively, he might say: "Ah, yes! I remember you! Of course, i knew back then you wouldn't die, but telling you you would set in motion a chain of events that meant that your life today is much better than it would otherwise have been".

If he came up with something like that, i might even consider giving him some money for sheer chutzpah. What would need no consideration at all is the well-centered and quite mighty kick that would soon meet his ass, of course.

"Composición" (Alfredo Guttero, 1928)

Messed Up Dream

It was as if i was watching a movie. Produced by me, obviously, and i was one of the actors as well. The writers and directors should be fired (probably me, too). Action quite fragmentary, but i don't know if that's because i tend not to remember whole dreams, or because it was one of those crazy independent films.

Brad Pitt and Michelle Pfeiffer were in it. In the first scene, they're a couple that's breaking up in front of a doctor. The doctor explains how break-ups work.

Then later i'm with my boyfriend. He wants to get pregnant. The aforementioned doctor manages it, explains how he did it. Something to do with a hose.

Next, my boyfriend and me are in our backyard. He's giving birth on a blue blanket on the grass. Our friends are around. I recognize only a few. My boyfriend seems calm and happy, but he has turned into a woman.

The spectator is not to know what the result of this birth is. At the beginning of the next scene, a caption at the bottom of the screen reads "Years Later". The image zooms in on a map, until you can see the outline of South Africa, except that in the dream i know it as Zambia. The camera finally stops on a dot that's a village called Respekt.

Michelle Pfeiffer and me are in a forest outside this village. It's a forest that used to be under her stewardship, but now it looks withered and sickly. We hear the noise of engines. We move cautiously through the trees. I think she may have been my boyfriend all along, but i'm just now realizing it. Our child's nowhere to be seen.

Brad Pitt has taken over the forest and is cutting it down. Among the yellow-helmeted men that are doing this job for him i recognize one of the students from my Spanish ab initio class, except in this dream he has hair that's long and blond instead of short and brown. I yell at him "How can you be doing this after i taught you!", but he smiles at me in his very friendly manner and keeps doing his job. He's cutting a tree with a chainsaw.

Pfeiffer and me try to stop all this, but someone produces a nail gun and they shot her in the leg. As my character runs towards her, the spectator that i am wonders why these men would have a nail gun when they're trying to cut wood, not put it together. Next moment, a nail is shot through my head.

The scene goes black just as it does in movies to symbolize someone's lose of consciousness, and for a moment i'm afraid i won't wake up again, but then the character played by me opens his eyes at the doctor's office, who is explaining how lucky i was. From among the public (of which i'm now dimly aware) i notice there's a gaping, bleeding hole in the middle of his\my forehead. The doctor, however, insists that "the nail slid around your skull and went out the other side, luckily".

I'm flailing on a stretcher, asking to please make my brain slow down. I'm thinking too many things at once, feel as if my mind is going to start smoking soon, so high is its speed. The nail has changed me, somehow, and the doctor confirms it by saying that yes, this is a side effect of the whole experience, and i'll have to live with it for the rest of my life. I continue to flail, arms holding me down to the stretcher, but i know my character is strangely happy. Somehow one knows he's actually pretending; in reality, he's real happy to have been so altered.

The Little House Not On The Prairie

Case studies

One of the workshops in today's Global Concerns session was on Religion and AIDS. The students who organised it made a short presentation of the topic and then divided us into groups and presented us with different hypothetical cases for us to discuss. The groups were as diverse as possible, the idea being that we would be coming to these issues from different religious and cultural backgrounds.

The first case was as follows: You're about to get married with a girl. Before you do, however, she's raped by her uncle, who infects her with HIV. What do you do?

The first to speak was Allen, from S., who said he'd quit her immediately, as the rape showed that her family was not a good one. Then Albert, from N., said that this was a topic the answer for which much depended on where one was in the world. In countries with some resources, for instance, the HIV medicines available are so good at diminishing the virus' count in the blood that one may have sex and conceive children with an infected person, without the virus being transmitted to neither the fetus nor the partner. Safar, from P., said she would not shove the woman aside, but would continue to be a close friend and support her, but that the health situation would mean that marriage was out of the question.

In the second case the situation was similar: a committed couple, with one of its members having infective sex with someone else. This time the action had been voluntary, an incidental fling with an unknown person who turned out to be a carrier.

In this instance everybody in the group was very quick to point out that HIV wasn't nearly as central an issue as betrayal. Most agreed that they would break up the romantic aspect of the relationship, but that they would try to get over disappointment and whatever other difficult emotions the incident might have brought up and continue to be of support to this person. Some openly admitted that they wouldn't be able to help breaking off all contact.

Later we got a little bit off-track and went back to the first comment of the whole session, Allen's idea that the crimes of one person cast shadows on all their family. Some of us admitted that we had encountered similar attitudes in our own societies, but pointed out that we considered it quite old-fashioned and inhuman (or irreligious) in its lack of compassion... Allen admitted to this, but also made it very clear that his original reaction reflected the general view in his society. I then privately remembered the accounts of a couple of acquaintances of mine from that country, people who referred to the "good families" of possible romantic interests of theirs.

The unfairness of this view is the strongest impression i've been left with from this workshop.

Anyway, someone else finally took us back to the issue of AIDS, drawing a parallel between "dishonorable" actions of individuals tainting whole families and the social stigma usually attached to people sick with AIDS resulting in the shunning not only of themselves, but of their relations.

Although the consideration of these cases made for interesting ethical exercises, i'm still not sure how they tied to religion. Much more interesting were the arguments about the duplicity of certain religious groups, which with their "Hate-the-sin-and-not-the-sinner" philosophies are happy to set up aid centers to care for infected people, but oppose the use of protection such as condoms, which would help prevent infection in the first place. Most everybody agreed that avoiding promiscuity was better protection yet, but that denying condoms to those who could or would not live by such a rule was equivalent to condemning the supposedly beloved sinners.

At one point in our discussion, Phumi from S. mentioned how in her country the problem was more cultural than religious, as people believed that using condoms was simply a denial of their national identity.

We truly are a mixed (up) species, aren't we?

Revolutions

I don't believe in revolutions. It's just that they have too much of that: they tend to make things revolve, go in cycles. Look at the French and American revolutions, past lunges at freedom and equality in countries whose governments today rule primarily for the benefit of rich corporations; look at the Cuban revolution, already stumbling and being worked against by the exiled outside and the disillusioned inside.

If you have a revolution, it's very likely that in 30, 50 or a 100 years you will have a counter-revolution (except that the counter-revolutionaries would call it a revolution, too). The part of society that you stomped on during your revolution will grow in the dark, under the grooves in your soles, and no matter how heavy your feet are, they'll eventually shoot up branches and destabilize you till you topple. Even if you killed the last one of "them", even if their views were indeed responsible for a lot of unhappiness in your society, the violence you used legitimizes any future violence against you.

This is not to say that I don't see the need for change. In the particular case of our modern global society, where the greed for profit takes advantage of such obsolete ideas as national identity and local pride to blindside people into supporting policies that devastate their neighbors and, ultimately, ruin their own future, change is imperative.

But there are alternatives to violence. There have to be. A change of regime is not enough. We need to change the mode of historical change.

The Story of Stuff

Check this out:
En español: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGlNspyXDc
Or in English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8

On bloggin and facebooking

I feel almost furtive writing here again. Most of the bloggers in my contact list have abandoned the blogging arena, their latest entries dating back to sometime in 2007. They are happily facebooking around, now. There's even a blog application over there, and i've indeed tried it, but there's too much traffic, too many buttons and links... Not to deny the merits of facebook nor anything (i mean, it's almost replaced e-mail for me) but as far as blogging goes, facebook seems like the easy way out. Instead of making an effort to knead your thoughts together, you can simply get away with a one-liner answer to the "what are you doing right now?" question on top of the main page. It's quite distracting.
Here, instead, the cybernetic air is purer, one has more space to breathe. Been thinking of taking my blog up again for a while now, and yesterday i posted my first entry.

Almost a lynching

I watched the saddest video today.

One can basically see this thief, or rather, the crowd that surrounds him when they catch him red handed, apparently trying to pick the pockets of an elderly man in my hometown in Argentina. They're talking to the thief and among themselves as they wait for the police to arrive, everything caught on camera by someone who gets there running, obviously desperate to capture the action. It's a summer day, short sleeves and bermuda shorts all around.

The thief is kneeling in a corner (you see him later), but at first you can only hear his voice: "I haven't done anything. Nothing happened." There's fear in it, and his Spanish is quite different from that of his captors, all from a different class, quite united against him. One of them, a guy younger than me, probably another regular passer by on his way somewhere when detoured by the fracas, says: "Let's kill him. Let's hang him from a tree and burn him. It's your fault that in this country we are in the situation we are." Literally.

The old man wants at him, too, but a couple of guys nearest the thief luckily make sure nobody touches him til the police arrives. When two officers finally do, they're greeted by general applause, and some irony. "Los bicivoladores", someone mutters, as they dismount from their bikes. Finally we see the thief, a slight, dark haired man on his knees. One of the policemen pulls the guy's hands back and cuffs them; his face is shoved against the wall. The crowd begins to disperse, and the video ends here.

This was wednesday...

...from 7:00 am till 5:30 pm. 560 damajuanas.

Uncle Oscar & sodium metabisulblahblah, cousin Caro
carrying damajuanas, cousin Alberto corking, and aunt
Nilda filling them up.




Aunt Nilda & her labels.


LA ÍRIDE, Malbec Roble (proud we are, yes)

And, tomorrow... harvest & new wine making!

Bottle washing and family reunion

An intense weekend. First, on saturday, my dad and i got up at 7:00, filled a thermos with hot water for mate, bought some hot "tortitas" and drove to the winery. We joined my uncle Oscar and cousin Osvaldo there, who were already washing bottles. The bottles in question are special ones; their equivalent in Norway would be the 3 liter wine boxes, except that these bottles have capacity for 5 liters instead. They look just like this one on the left, little plastic basket and all. In my translation i've called them "bottles", but they look more like jugs, don't they? Anyways, the spanish word for them is "damajuanas", which would literally translate as "ladyjanes". This isn't an english word at all, but it's more fun to say i spent saturday washing lady Janes (lady Jane's what?) than to say i spent it washing bottles.

Thing is, each time you sell a lady Jane filled with wine, you get back an empty one from the customer. That way, wineries don't need to be buying new lady Janes all the time. You simply remove the old labels, wash it inside and out, fill it with wine, stick a new label, and voilá! Lady Jane is again ready to pour.

Sounds simple, but it has its method. First you fill many vats with warm water and soak the lady Janes in them, bottoms up, so that the labels soften up and become easier to remove. You move from one vat to the next, with a scouring pad for the recalcitrant bit of paper and a penknife to get rid of the plastic capsules. You also need a special tool to remove the occasional piece of cork from lady Jane's insides.

After that, each lady Jane gets its insides washed by a special machine (operated by hand) that shoots high pressure jets of a solution of water and caustic soda. Then they go through another vat in which they are rinsed inside and out and their baskets are checked and replaced, if necessary. Finally, they go through the special machine once more, except this time they get only water, in order to make sure that all the caustic soda is completely removed. Finally you pile them up, and they are (almost) ready to be filled.

On saturday we managed to prepare thus 600 lady Janes, which we'll fill this wednesday. We'll use the special washing machine once more, this time with a solution of water and sodium metabisulphite (a sanitizer). By means of a pump, this solution will also be made to run through the pipes that will be used to transfer the wine from the tanks to the dossifier, also operated by hand. We'll cork them with another machine, put plastic capsules on top, seal them with heat, hand glue the labels, and stack them. It'll be another long day, but it's fun: everybody jokes and chats, we pause around noon, drink mate, eat some sandwiches...

Sunday was lighter, but very "familiar", too. Got together for lunch with a few uncles and cousins... Here's some pics:

Vendimia

Vendimia is the spanish word for grape harvest. It signifies the action, but it is also applied to the time of year in which grapes are picked. In Mendoza, that time is now, and for the few weeks that vendimia lasts, it dominates everything. Each district has its own vendimia celebration through january and february, and then finally in early march there are parades with floats in the capital city. There's a traditional pageant in which a "vendimia queen" is chosen, a gay pageant that mimics it, fireworks, an artsy show in an amphitheater, wine parties everywhere...

Paralell to all this, local news talk about disagreements between grape growers and wine makers about what the fair price of grapes should be. The weather can play foul, too: sometimes you're about to begin harvesting, and your grapes are hit by hail, which may knock off as much as 90% of your production...

Right after the 2001 crisis my dad and his brothers pooled together the savings left from the disappearance act managed by the Argentinean banking system at that time and started a tiny winery. Years before they'd bought a couple of hectares of near desert land in Maipú; now they put it to use by building a shed to house the fermentation tanks and other equipment made by one of my uncles at the metalurgical workshop he works at. On the rest of the land they planted some vines (Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and even a little Chardonnay) that are cared for, on a rotational basis, by each of the associates. A cousin made a website to publicize the business and voilá... they had a vacuum cleaner that's been sucking in money since then. Since the production capacity of the place is so small, their strategy has been to make real good wines, but still, our enologist says that time is needed, that creating a market for a wine is a slow process... This year it seems they might in fact break even...

Anyway, the nice thing about this little winery is that the whole family gets together during vendimia. We pick our own grapes and, assessed by an enologist, we even make our own wines. Of course, i say "we", yet living abroad, this will be the first year i'm part of all this. I'm really excited about it, and i'll keep you updated.

At last!

Been in Argentina for a bit over a month now, and it's taken me this long to get a connection at home, even though i ordered it the day after i arrived. Petulant as i may sound, things do move at a totally different pace in here. I'd forgotten about that, and for that reason among others, i've been feeling a bit out of place. This feeling, rather than internetlessness, has been the real cause of my blogging silence... That and a summer flu, a trip to the countryside... and a sense of being speechless in the face of tragedy.

Anyway, i'll start light, with some pictures from my trip to Malargüe, in southern Mendoza. First, though, a little tableau i witnessed today in the city center:

A toy store on a corner, a man dressed as Barney the dinosaur in front of it. He's chatting with a pretty, young woman who holds a baby in her arms. Barney's mouth is open, and through a slit at the back of it the man inside looks out into the world. What he doesn't see is the 7-or-8 year old boy who comes running from behind him, grabs the tail of his screen hero, and begins to pull it around heedless of his mother's calls. Barney is in shock. He tries to look back, but his thick plushy body has no neck to speak of. Finally the man thinks of pulling Barney's head off of his own, glares at the boy and says: "Qué te pasa, culeau?" (literally: "What is it, you ass-fucked one?"). Maybe it was too hot inside that suit.

So, here's the pics:

These formations are near the Atuel canyon, in San Rafael. We decided not to carve any presidents' faces here, for obvious reasons.


Agua del Toro Dam, with mom & dad.


Valle Hermoso, Malargüe.


Laguna de Llancanelo.


Flamingos at Llancanelo.

Sigh! I did miss all of this, after all...

Fra Bergen...

First entry of the new year...

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why the formula is "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" but not "Happy Christmas and Merry New Year"? Not that finding an answer to this would be very relevant, but still, one wonders... Perhaps what people are really saying when they exchange this words is simply "Hey, I'm thinking of you at this time" (for whatever reason that may be).

Anyway, am in Bergen right now. These last 20 or so days have definitely included some variety. On my way to Valencia from Tromsø, stopped in London and met with Gerardo, a friend from my own years as a UWC student. Since i practically wheezed through the city, we didn't have time for more than one afternoon together, but we did have a couple of beers and a nice chat. Weird thing, the way it goes with old UWC friends when they meet again. We hadn't talked in quite a while and we have both obviously changed very much since our highschool days, yet it was easy to reconnect. Cheesy as it may sound, i still believe that what we shared in those two years was so fundamental that it will always form a kind of link with my mates from that time, no matter how long the intervening months or years stretch (roll your eyes all you want).

The Gerardo i remembered was very carefree and somewhat cynical... The one i met now said he was worried about the time he had "wasted", but a little less pessimistic, less guarded with his emotions (and he's living in England! go figure...). Physically, he hasn't changed much, and he still has the same quirky sense of humour i remember. It is good to know he's out there, you know? Do you ever get that feeling about distant friends? That you don't need to talk to them all the time -- not even so often, but that it makes you happy just to know that they are alive.

And then, Valencia. Spent almost two weeks with my brother Leandro and his wife, Celia. I love those two. They're really in love with each other.

Brain

Brain seems to have gone into hybernation. Didn't think the lack of light would affect me in any way, but apparently it has. Not that am depressed nor anything, but my sleeping pattern's become... well, patternless. Was never very solid to begin with, you'll say; totally agree, but it's never happened that i go to bed at 11:00 am and wake up at 4:00 in the afternoon, then take a nap from midnight till 1:30. That was today. Put the hours of the day in a shaker glass and then spill them on the table, and you have my waking cycle over the last three or four weeks.

Brain's very silent, too. Probably snowing a lot in there as well. Got to shake it up a little.

Got to finish packing first, though. Then take a shower. Cab's coming to pick me up in a few hours and then it's ha det bra til Tromsø. Will be in London till the 23rd, and then on to Valencia.

Ooh! Brain just woke up. Thinking of the seventh commandment. Just looked it up on wiki, and it says "Do not commit adultery". When i went through catholic catechism as a child, though, it was "Do not covet the woman of your neighbor".

Catechism classes were mixed. Boys and girls from 6th and 7th grade had them after school, every wednesday. Two years, and then you were ready to take the first communion. Must have been strange for the girls. For them the seventh commandment was not an admonition against adultery, but against lesbianism with married women. Gay boys like me, on the other hand, were scot free: it sounded like that commandment in particular had no bearing on us. Not that coveting a married man is much fun, anyways.

At any rate, the message is clear: whatever your sex and sexual orientation, adultery is a no-no. That's to say, if you're married, do not sleep with married people other than your own spouse. Any other sex partner must be unmarried.

Isn't semantics an amazing thing?

"Panic"

Just read the script of this amazing play by Mika Myllyaho. My first encounter with finnish literature (in translation, of course) and have definitely NOT been disappointed. A bit like "Women on the edge of a nervous breakdown", but with men instead of women. Would really love to seen this acted...