A glance: André Kertész, Manuel Álvarez Bravo

André Kertész, Circus in Budapest (1920)

Manuel Álvarez Bravo, La hija de los danzantes (1933)

Voilà my personal hommage to these pics:

Enrique G de la G, Cuba entre andamios (2009)

Enjoy the summer!

Two old bike pics I like a lot: the whole world has already seen Einstein's, but Winogrand's girl riding a bike is rather unknown and I just couldn't find it online, so I had to use my own strategy to upload it for the first time... Enjoy them and enjoy the summer!

From Dostoevsky to Megan Fox

I tried to read Los detectives salvajes some years ago, and didn't succeed, I just didn't like it.

A friend of mine recommended me Estrella distante, which I read yesterday in the plane. The last pages of the first chapter are a masterpiece (!) which I would compare to the seventh chapter of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I cannot remember such an adrenaline and perfect guidance through the mind and feelings of a person about to commit a crime as when I read Dostoevsky, except yesterday, thanks to Bolaño.

Only a Lithuanian girl sitting next to me managed to distract me from the book when she started scratching herself and showed me a tattoo, sort of three Adidas-lines, which reminded me of Megan Fox' Brian-tattoo... A distant star!

"Stufen", by Hermann Hesse

I left Berlin this morning. I was touched by all my friends and our farewell.

This morning, I got into the plane and decided not to turn off my cell before being flying. Just a few moments (2 minutes?) before taking off, I got an sms from MR, who sent me this extraordinary poem by Hermann Hesse. Just perfect for the moment and occasion.

Cheers from New York!

Stufen

Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.

Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf' um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.

Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden...
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!

4.5.1941

Evolution of concentric circles

Petrus Apianus, Aristotle's cosmological system (1539)

UK, Royal Air Force (1921)

Burgess Model (1924)

Ben Sherman (1963)

 Bionade (1999)

Thievery Corporation, The Richest Man in Babylon (2002)

How this blog works

I still cannot know how I should understand "trends" in the cyberspace. Suddenly I started getting thousands of clicks from India, then nothing at all. People bump into my blog when they Google "Dionisio Pulido", and then I feel honored, or "teen no bra", and then I just do not get it, since this is absolutely the wrong place for pedophiles.

There are also freaks who have fun every single day searching on Google for stuff like this:

Just don't get it. The mysterious of the cyberspace, I guess, which are the arcane deeps of boredom and non sense...

Entrevista con Kurt Westergaard

Entrevisté a Kurt Westergaard hace unas semanas en Dinamarca. "Letras Libres" acaba de publicarla, junto con una entrevista a Ayaan Hirsi Ali, en su número de junio.

Portrait: Mark Brein, Ytringsfrihed (2010) | Cartoon: Kurt Westergaard, Muhammed (2005)

Post 1000

I wanted to re-post a very funny post from Christoph Niemann about the Venice Biennale, when I realized that this is going to be post 1000 on this blog.

This is his post, enjoy it.

9:37 a.m., Piazza San Marco
During the opening days of the Art Biennale,
it is especially busy.

Doctor degree at the Humbold University

In 2001, I was invited to give a lecture on Borges in Leipzig. It was my first time in Germany. There I met my friend G, who had been the day before in Berlin: "You must go to Berlin, it is your city!". I was reluctant, but he insisted, and so I came to Berlin for the first time.

It was a Monday, October 11, 2001. It was rainy and chilly, I had a big jacket and no umbrella. And the city was as if sleeping. I walked from Zoologischer Garten to Brandenburger Tor, and then down Unter den Linden.

When I entered the Humbold University, I was struck by the Marx quotation in golden letters:

Then I went upstairs and saw a hall with portraits of the professors who had been awarded with the Nobel Prize: Max Planck, Einstein, Hertz, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Mommsen. Then I went to the wing, where the Philosophy Department is, and my impression just got bigger when I saw the collection of portraits of former professors: Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Fichte, Schopenhauer... (Later I learned that Kierkegaard, Marx, the Grimm brothers, Heine, Feuerbach, von Bismarck had been some of the most famous students.)

Where the heck am I? That very moment, I decided that I wanted to pursue a degree in that very building.

Yesterday, Friday June 3, 2011, after almost ten years, I got it after successfully defending my Dissertation: "Die Rezeption des Buches Lambda der 'Metaphysik' des Aristoteles und dessen Prinzipienlehre".

It's done.

It is an honor to belong to this tradition of scholars and thinkers who shaped the world.

I am taking the month off, and relocating to Mexico City.

Cheers!

Taxifahrrad :: R.I.P.

Some jerk stole my Taxifahrrad!

2006 - 2011

Metaphysical death

When I woke up this morning, the whole Metaphysics of Aristotle flashed me a jiffy, as if I were in a movie. Good that there was no white light at the end of any tunnel...

This is how an Aristotelian-metaphysical death looks like:

Anja Rubik by Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin

Pensé que el Siglo de Oro estaba superado

¿Cómo queremos que funcionen nuestras leyes si los encargados se quedaron estancados en el Siglo de Oro, por decir lo menos, pues dudo que la palabra "quevedo" no evoque en ellos más que unos anteojos, entre los más ancianos?

Me han pedido que firme una Carta Poder de la que rescato esta 'albeante joyita' digna de Góngora. Se trata de la versión ya corregida y editada por mí porque, ¡oh paradojas!, tenía errores de ortografía:

"Y, así mismo, para que conteste las demandas y reconvenciones que se entablen en mi contra, oponga acepciones dilatorias y perentorias, rinda toda clase de pruebas, reconozca firmas y documentos, redarguya de falsos a los que se presenten por la parte contraria, presente testigos, vea protestas a los de la parte contraria, los repregunte y tache, articule y absuelva posiciones, recuse jueces superiores o inferiores con causa o bajo la protesta de la ley, oiga autos interlocutorios y definitivos, consienta de los favorables y pida revocación por contrario imperio, apele, suplique e interponga el recurso de causación de los adversos, pida aclaraciones de las sentencias, ejecute, embargue y me represente en los embargos que contra mí se decreten, pida el remate de bienes embargados, en fin para que promueva todos los recursos que favorezcan mis derechos, ratificando desde hoy lo que usted haga en este particular".

Amén.