July 13, 2008

JonFen begins where Paz ends

I was reading this evening "Conjunciones y disyunciones", by Octavio Paz, and this passus remind me immediately of JonFen's "Everything Is Illuminated".

"No quiero decir, naturalmente, que el lenguaje alegórico de los Tantra consiste únicamente en atribuir significados sexuales a las palabras que designan conceptos espirituales. El lenguaje tántrico es un lenguaje poético y de ahí que sus significados sean siempre plurales. Además, tienen la propiedad de emitir significados que son, diría, irreversibles. La reversibilidad implica que cada palabra o cosa pueda convertirse en su contrario y después, o simultáneamente, volver a ser ella misma. El supuesto básico del tantrismo es la abolición de los contrarios -- sin suprimirlos; ese postulado lo lleva a otro: la movilidad de los significados, el continuo vaivén de los signos y sus sentidos. la carne es efectivamente concentración mental; (...) el semen y la iluminación son uno y lo mismo (...)".

Conjunciones y disyunciones (Obras completas 10), p.153


"From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light --a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.

In about one and a half centuries --after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs-- metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Sthetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.

The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out or butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.

Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukahs' eight nights. Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukranian skies electric. We're here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive".

Everything Is Illuminated, pp.95-96

2 comments:

Roberto Rivadeneyra said...

Me gusta esta idea de que cada pareja que practica el acto sexual se convierte en un punto luminoso. Porque de hecho, la energía sexual, me parece, es de una intensidad brutal.

JoséManuel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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