On drugs' uncoolness

Like always in September, these days Berlin is celebrating the Jüdische Kulturtage. This evening I went to Idan Raichel's great gig. I've listened to Idan Raichel's Project obsessively since S gave me a copy of it 13 months ago. (Actually I would prefer to be posting about Idan, but drugs are now priority.)

I was remembering last September's concert while coming back home. There I met N, a nice and pretty girl who worked (works?) as a model.

One day she told me she was on marijuana. "Why?", I asked her. "I mean: you don't need it, you care as much as Germans care about healthy food, you don't have big stress-troubles, you are doing well in college, and marijuana harms, or at least might harm, your brain". "Well, not at all, since I'm not an addict, I just smoke a little every now and then. And it's cool". (As a flashback I remembered myself the year before calling W "unjoint-cool girl", and her amazed reply: "you're the very first guy who calls me cool because of not being on joint.) I tried to explain to her that being on drugs is more stupid than cool. Impossible. "Is the drug of the intelectuals: as a philosopher you should know it".

When I think about how "cool" (sic) Europeans or US-Americans feel because of being on joint or whatever drugs they prefer, I feel totally sick. I can't even patronize them. Because of all this "coolness" flowing from Latin America to northern societies, my country has been devastated by violence and corruption.

What a week! O Bože!

This week:

0. Hand grenades exploded in a crowded square and street in Morelia while celebrating Mexico's Independence. Eight people died and 101 people were injured. Reaction from the authorities was all but effective.

1. I learned that after some months of marriage, a befriended couple of mine split.

2. A friend had an accident playing football, and he aaaalmost gets paralyzed for the rest of his days.

3. A friend of mine came out.

Just to get distressed:
4. Der Spiegel informs that in Sydney there are 1.61 women for every man.

Srpski!

Today I had my first Serbian language class! Jebekevu!

This is my first approximation to a Slavic language, so let's see if later it opens to me the doors to Russian (not in order to talk to Putin, but to read their literature)...

Some other guys have learned this language as well:

* Engels
* Tolstoi
* Goethe
* Tolkien
* Ronsard
* Mérimée
* J. Grimm
* Lamartine
* F. von Suppe
* Peter Handke
* Sir Walter Scott

How I read

I've noticed that my lecture habits have changed lately whilst reading newspapers, magazines and e-mails. I start reading the least interesting part (Finance) or letter (mail by someone I don't know), and peau à peau I move towards the most interesting (Feuilleton, Politics, mails of my girl or my fam).

Thomas Aquinas defines "hope" as the happiness /expectation of a good you're trying to attain. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out: "Hope, in its widest acceptation, is described as the desire of something together with the expectation of obtaining it. The Scholastics say that it is a movement of the appetite towards a future good, which though hard to attain is possible of attainment".

So I guess this is kind of a unconscious mechanism to expand the joy of what I'm about to read, instead of, impatiently, starting reading that in the first place.

Photo: Nikka Melt

Corintio, Ginebra

Cuentan que Nerón detuvo el proyecto de construir un canal en el istmo de Corintio, la parte más estrecha de la península del Peloponeso, porque los científicos de la época habrían pensado que, al dividirla, se hundiría, como se había hundido ya, por ejemplo, la Atlántida.

En realidad eso es un mito. Nerón mismo dio el primero palazo, antes de que 6,000 judíos se pusieran a excarvar. Lo que los científicos de la época habían observado era un desnivel entre los golfos de Corintio y Sarónico, una dificultad técnica entonces insalvable. (Curiosamente, los técnidos dieron a Napoleón muchos siglos más tarde el mismo dictamen cuando pidió que se investigara la posibilidad de construir un canal en Suez. Tardaron 50 años en descubrir el error.)

Esta semana, un alemán interpuso una demanda contra el CERN porque, aducía, el Colisionador de Hadrones originaría un agujero negro por donde todos seríamos succionados irremisible, irremediablemente. Otro paranoico, aún más pasional, amenazó de muerte a los responsables (sic) en caso de que los experimentos generaran el susodicho hoyo negro.

"Vocalise" (Rachmaninoff: Op. 34, #14)

Last December I decided that 2008 would be my personal "year of the music". After some months of going every week to the Philharmonic or the Opéra or some concerts, I had to quit due to Aristotle. Frau Dissertation is such a jealous girl!

Anyways... The most listened composition of the year is Vocalise, by Rachmaninoff. (It is a composition to be sung with just one vowel.) Here is a great arrangement for violin recorded in 1929, and directed by himself. "Rachmaninoff conducts his own arrangement of Vocalise for orchestra, in a recording from 1929. Rachmaninoff demonstrates the lyricism he expected from a performance of this piece, with the violins of the Philadelphia Orchestra using portamento to add expressiveness to the main line", quotes Wikipedia.

My favorite version is the one by Carlos Prieto on the cello, and a piano, allegedly arranged by Rostropovich and Heifetz. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find it on the web, and my internet skills are really limited, so I don't know either how to upload it. But here you will find it.

Stephanie or Jeanne?

Two great Frech-pop songs of the 80's which I like a lot. And now for the first time I saw the videos. Obviously I prefer Stephanie's (who looks a little bit like T, or somehow reminds me of her), but as a song still prefer Rouge et noir. Coincidentally, Ouragan was offered to Jeanne, but she wasn't interested in it, so it was given to Stephanie.

Voilà!

The trendiest gadget today

If Google Maps really changed our sight, eye, or however you want to put it, I just found out (perhaps I'm old fashioned, like when I posted this, drowned in amazement) the coolest sub-gadget: Google Maps' Street View.

Here is Audrey Hepburn, for instance:


Cool, yes. But of course! This opens a lot of questions about privacy. Still have to think about it...

¡Ya párenle!

Tres fragmentos de Aristóteles a propósito de la situación de inseguridad en México.

* De Diógenes Laercio o Sobre la impunidad:

Periandro fue el primero en tener guardaespaldas y en cambiar su poder por una tiranía. Y no dejaba que nadie viviera en la ciudad sin su voluntad, según lo dicen Éuforo y Aristóteles.

* De unos escolios al Andrómaca de Eurípides o Sobre el narcotráfico:

En las siguientes líneas, él [Eurípides] los zahiere [a los espartanos] por su devoción a las riquezas. Aristóteles igualmente relata esto en su Constitución de los espartanos, y añade los versos pronunciados por el dios: "El amor al dinero, y ninguna otra cosa, arruinará a Esparta".

* De Diógenes Laercio o Sobre el vil asesinato:

Cuenta Diógenes Laercio que Aristóteles tuvo que huir a Calcis porque o Eurimedonte o Demófilo lo acusaron de impiedad. Al parecer, la razones de la acusación fueron un himno compuesto a Hermias y un epigrama colocado en Delfos al pie de la estatua de Hermias. Dicho epigrama reza así:

Dedicado al hombre que nunca mancillara la inmaculada justicia
divina, asesinado por el Rey de los Persas arqueros,
no en sangriento combate a campo abierto con lanza
sino por medio de un traidor que supo engañarlo.

Foto: Paty Lu

Be careful: Books!

Checking Adriana's blog, I saw this image of Mladen Penev (check other nice variations, as well as other cool projects)...


...which made me think immediately of Nathan Coley's advice: Give up the good book | Pick up a good gun (2008)...

... which I saw in the most controversial art gallery Haunch of Venison.

In spring I went to their newest venue in the (of course!) Heidestraße with T, who took this cool pic. Notice that the card covering my face is a sample of Nathan Coley's Palace.

(And talking about guns, I posted some time ago two guys shooting their glasses like Warhol's Elvis.)

Tristram Shandy (1, I)

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;--that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;--and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;--Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,--I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.--Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;--you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c.--and a great deal to that purpose:--Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a half- penny matter,--away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it.

Blue Brain Project, Jackson Pollock

Blue Brain Project is one of the most ambitious projects of neuroscience: "the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations".

Detail of Jackson Pollock's #8 (1949)
Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas
Neuberger Museum, State University of New York

Spaziergang in Zehlendorf

Last evening I walked to my videoclub. These are the spots I saw.

A crane, of course! And next to it an erotized fountain.


Kafka's last place in Berlin.


The museum which conserves the car of Eisernen Gustav (Time's article of 1928).


The first railway in nowadays Germany connecting Berlin and Potsdam (1828).


The place where Friedrich Wilhelm I (the heroe of Hegel's father) received the protestants who had to leave Salzburg because of the catholic bishop in 1731.


The only octogonal church I know (1768), and the small cementery attached to it.


A milestone on the road constructed by Friedrich The Great to connect his Berlin Palace with Sanssouci, his summer palace in Potsdam (one Prussian mile = 5,325 m) .


A bizarre Japanese fight training center.


One of the last fixed public telephones (this year 10,000 are being taken away, because mobiles make them useless).


West Berlin Ampelmännchen | East Berlin Ampelmännchen (stamp)


The little forest where a fox lives, and where I once saw a boar.

I feel like attending a real university

I was checking the Language Center of the Humboldt University for the next term, and the offer impressed me. Take a look:

12 alte Sprachen

Altarmenisch | Altirisch | Altgriechisch | Altkirchenslawisch | Altpersisch | Avestisch | Gotisch | Ivrith | Koptisch | Latein | Sanskrit | Vedisch

41 moderne Sprachen

Amharisch | Arabisch | Bahasa Indonesia | Bulgarisch | Chinesisch | Dänisch | Dari/Persisch | Deutsch | Englisch | Französisch | Georgisch | Hausa | Hindi | Irisch | Italienisch | Japanisch | Katalanisch | Ladinisch | Lettisch | Litauisch | Mongolisch | Norwegisch | Okzitanisch | Paschto | Polnisch | Portugiesisch | Rumänisch | Russisch | Schwedisch | Serbisch/Kroatisch | Slowakisch | Sotho | Spanisch | Swahili | Tadschikisch | Tibetisch | Tschechisch | Ungarisch | Uzbekisch | Vietnamesisch | Weißrussisch

Julee Holcombe, Babel Revisited (2004) | Bruegel The Elder, Tower of Babel (1525-1530)

Beijing 0

Since Los Angeles 1984 I recall watching a lot of Olympic Games every fourth summer (my oldest Olympic impression is the pole vault, not the rocketeers). My record was Sydney 2000: I watched an average of 8 hours per day, perhaps even more.

But this time I watched ZERO seconds of the Olympic Games. Nothing, absolute nothing, not even in YouTube or any other online videos. I just kept reading the usual newspapers which I always read.

I talked about boycotting the Games, and I did it. Because I don't either like the repressive government of China nor the attitude of Occident towards China: being "ecnonomically affraid" of them, but supporting them, and making them stronger. It's nonsense, a contradiction. Absurd. For example: compare these numbers: 14,901 residents were relocated to make way for Olympic venues, according to a Beijing municipal official. But a human-rights group says that 1,500,000 people evicted to make way for Olympic venues and infrastructure. (Yes, unfortunately I don't know the source: I read it here, where you can read some other interesting numbers.)

It's stupid to get impressed because they are "so successful". At what cost? Athletes are preselected very soon, trained for years at the governement's expenses, so that they can achieve the most gold medals in order to impress us. And people do get impressed.

But suicide is top-5 in the death causes in that country. There are for instance one suicide and eight failed suicide attempts every two minutes in China. Obviously there are many reasons to attempt suicide, not only government's role.

Liu Xiang's story is a good hint to understand how things work. Or Cao Lei's (I really think that the Party put pressure on the father's decision of not telling her that her mother had passed away).

C'est ça!

Notes for a "History of the scepter"

In many cultures, staffs with a curved upper end were used to catch animals by their legs or horns; they are still used so today.

In Egypt, two scepters developed from them: the Heqat, an emblem of authority, and the Was-Scepter, which had a religious aspect as well. In the Near East, curved staffs primarily had a ritual function: a loosy curved staff (Gamlum) in the hand of the rulers, priests and gods was used in incantations. A strongly curved staff (Kalmus) is, in the case of Hittite rulers, also an allusion to ritual functions. The Etruscans adopted the strongly curved staff from the East. It seems to have been primarily a staff of command, including --as in Orient-- priestly functions. A point at the upper end could have served as a help for dividing up the sky of the earth.


For this purpose, the augurs in Rome used a staff very similar in shape, the Lituus. It was used to distinguish the various regions of the sky while foretelling the future from the flight of birds. Its introduction was attributed to the first mythical Roman kings, Romulus and Numa Pompilius. The augur's staff indirectly became an emblem of authority on a coin of Sulla; it shows that Sulla was in possession of the command of the army and was thus entitled to do the reading of signs (auspicia) himself at the start of a campaign. As a member of the four highest orders of priests, the Emperor Augustus used their emblems in order to underline his supreme authority in questions of cult. Later emperors followed his example: the augur's staff remained associated with the emblems of rule.


In this form, the Christians adopted the curved staff. Together with the mitra and the ring, it is part of official insignia of bishops and abbots in the Roman Catholic Church. It therefore combines a leadership function with a priestly one. So, in a figurative sense, it has become a shepherd's staff again.

More interesting information here, hier, ici.

Two conversations with Germans

We are at the Station Schlachtensee and want to get back home. It seems that soon it will begin to rain:

- A: So, we can walk back home, or we could wait here, take the train just one stop, and then walk home.
- Me: Good. Let's wait for the train.
-A: But I think that it takes exactly the same amount of time to walk than to wait+train+walk.
- Me: Good. Let's wait then.
- A: But... Haha... I got it: "Mexican lazyness".
-Me: Whatever...

* * *

I take out the old newspapers, go to the corner, and put them in their paper-container. Bad luck! The neighbors who live there are just coming back home, they stop the car, and he looks really angry. She even stops the engine in the middle of street instead of parking. It seems to me that he comes from East Europe. She has stepped already out of the car and waits there. She looks calmer.

We discuss, I apologize, and then I promisse to never ever again do such criminal acts like taking advantage of their paper-container. He calms down and goes. But she is not that calm, and still has something to say:

She: So, let me guess: you come every now and then to put all your garbage in our containers, no?
Me: Not at all. Just sometimes [like 3 times per year] I bring old newspapers, and that's it.
She: You know that no German would ever dare to do something like that?
Me: ...
She: So don't get surprised if people complain about you, foreigners living here.
Me: Sure, all of us, all foreigners, are terrible people.
She: We are not enemies of foreigners, but just don't get surprised if people complain.
Me: Whatever...

Foto: Diane Kruger by Brian Adams (Hear the world campaign)

Hipograph: Aristotle, Hegel

Both the Book Lambda of the Metaphysics and the Phänomenologie des Geistes end with two literary quotations:

ouk agathòn polukoiraníe: eîs koíranos éstw
(the rule of many is not good: let one be the ruler)

Homer, Iliad 2, 204

aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches
schäumt ihm seine Unendlichkeit
(Hegel modified it: aus dem Kelch des ganzen Seelenreiches | schäumt ihm - die Unendlichkeit)

Friedrich Schiller, Die Freundschaft, 1782.

BTW: if you attend a Ph.D. Kolloquium in Berlin's Humboldt Universität you'll see Hegel's desk.

Tenochtitlan 487

Hace 487 años terminó el sitio de la ciudad-isla de Tenochtitlan. 13 de agosto de 1521. El santoral indicaba a san Hipólito, y esa misma tarde Hernán Cortés mandó poner la primera piedra de la primera iglesia, y celebraron allí mismo una misa sobre un altar improvisado. Luego, la iglesia se llamó San Hipólito. He aquí dos fotos tomadas por Guillermo Kahlo.


A San Hipólito lo torturaron y mataron amarrándolo a unos caballos. Por eso, y también por su nombre (si es verdad la historia de los caballos y no un mero artificio etimológico) es el patrono de los caballos. Huelga decir que es también el patrono de México-Tenochtitlan.


Hipólito estuvo eventualmente en desacuerdo con dos Papas y encabezó a un grupo contrario. Quienes gustan de exagerar un poco lo llaman el primer Antipapa. La verdad es que luego se retractó. Fue también un escritor de la talla de Orígenes, aunque en nuestros tiempos menos conocido porque la mayor parte de su obra no nos alcanzó. Acaso su proyecto más ambicioso haya sido esa historia narrativa del mundo, desde la Creación hasta sus días (234 a.D.), un proyecto que siglos más tarde intentaría también Victor Hugo.

Behlín's car art, my Belef (aka Tinnitus) T-shirt

For the BMW car art collection here.

For the Belef festival here.

100 páginas de "100 años"

Pasé ya la centésima página de "Cien años de soledad", que no había leído antes. El balance: negativo. Esperaba más, no un cúmulo de aventuritas superficialmente narradas y una multiplicación de personajes. Cantidad a costa de profundidad.

1. Lo óptimo es el inicio, qué duda cabe: "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo." Esta frase es inmejorable y es la promesa de una gran novela. Denota simultáneamente el presente, el pasado y el futuro. No soy especialista, pero no es arduo conjeturar que se han escrito muchos ensayos y acaso algunos libros sobre estas dos líneas y media.

23. Una frase perfecta, que es, como dice M, "una pequeña antropología": "Todavía no tenemos un muerto, dijo él. Uno no es de ninguna parte mientras no tenga un muerto bajo la tierra". De alguna manera me ha dado elementos para comprender mejor las festividades en torno a la muerte de México. Y párale de contar. A partir de aquí, todo va empeorando...

30. "Eran primos entre sí". Pleonasmo, redundancia innecesaria porque nada aporta. Sobra "entre sí".

73. No sé si sea una frase que tomó prestada a Borges (el último verso de El amenazado es perpetuamente glorioso: "me duele una mujer en todo el cuerpo") o si es una frase (relativamente) común o frecuente en Sudamérica: "La imagen de Remedios, la hija menor del corregidor, que por su edad hubiera podido ser hija suya, le quedó doliendo en alguna parte del cuerpo". Y como si esa frase no fuera suficientemente clara, la destruye acto seguido: "Era una sensación física que casi le molestaba para caminar, como una piedrecita en el zapato".

Un poco más adelante, pasando ya la centésima página:

112. Una contradicción, y también una imposibilidad: "Había naufragado y permanecido dos semanas a la deriva en el mar del Japón, alimentándose con el cuerpo de un compañero que sucumbió a la insolación, cuya carne salada y vuelta a salar y cocinada al sol tenía un sabor granuloso y dulce". Espero que esto mejore, porque ando impaciente por acometer ya la novela de Ivo Andric que tengo aquí esperando...

(Tomo las referencias de la edición conmemorativa a cargo de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española).

Fish market impressions

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