Thursday 31 May 2012

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Celui qui ne revient pas


"Je partis ainsi de toutes les langues,
je répétai les au revoir comme une vieille porte
je changeai de cinéma, de raison, de tombe,
je partis de partout pour autre part,
je fus ce que j'étais jusqu'à présent :
à demi dématé dans l'allégresse,
nuptial dans la tristesse,
ne sachant jamais ni comment ni quand
j'étais prêt au retour, mais on ne revient pas.

On sait que celui qui revient n'est pas parti :
ainsi toute ma vie je suis allé, venu,
changeants de vêtements et de planète,
m'habituant à la compagnie
et à la multitude de l'exil
sous la solitude des cloches."

Adieux (extrait), in Mémorial de l'Ile Noire, Pablo Neruda (1970 pour la traduction française, 1964 pour l'édition originale)

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Tours, hier.



Pont de pierre (pont Wilson) et la Loire gonflée. 

Sterne à l'instant de pêche. 

Détails de la statue trônant au milieu de la fontaine du monument américain (érigée par le gouvernement américain pour rendre hommage aux "Services of Supply" pendant la première Guerre Mondiale).
Vue des quais.

Soleil s'émoussant sur les quais, côté sud. 

Sterne en vol 

Reflets sur la loire I 

Reflets sur la Loire II 

Détail du frontispice de la Cathédrale St-Gatien.

Spin +1


"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."


Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)

Monday 28 May 2012

The Passenger (Iggy Pop)

Hubris


"The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge."


Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

Sunday 27 May 2012

La force des choses



Être libre, envers et encontre tous.
Ne baisser ni les bras, ni les yeux.
Faire comprendre que l'on ne fuit rien,
Que la peur ne guide ni ne contraint.
La sensation de liberté seule en proue.
Partir, nous y sommes poussés par la force des choses.
Nous résistons un temps, puis le sel corrode.
Les nuages perdent leur peau de sagesse.
La pluie et l'herbe glissent en trombe.
L'hélice des minutes hypnotise, cajole, trompe.
L'ankylose pyrolyse l'instinct séfarade.
On ne sait plus où donner de la tête.
Les choses sont ainsi faites.
Il faut bien respirer entre deux apnées de solitude.
Alors il devient nécessaire de prendre de l'altitude.
De voir les choses d'une autre station.
Voler un cheval et rosser les steppes.
Éperonner les lames de l'océan.
Tanner notre cuir en usant celui de nos chaussures.
Chanter aux quatre vents l'épuisement de nos trépointes.
Car le chemin que nous prenons est pavé d'obsidienne.
Nous résistons autant que nos chevilles tiennent.
Nous allons de l'avant parce qu'il le faut.
Il n'y a pas d'autre alternative.
Le mot arrière n'offre plus de sens.
L'horizon devient une orbite.
Nous cherchons le porte-à-faux,
L'endroit du globe en soi où l'on vive.
Tout se perd si l'on n'y prend garde.
Les Gallus et les Érinyes veillent au grain
Parce qu'ils savent le cours des choses.
Que la fumée de nos bûchers s'élève en doux fils de soie.
Et nous psalmodions, donnant des ailes aux morts,
Des fibules, des pièces, parce qu'on ne sait jamais.
L'on souhaite qu'il y ait autre chose, ailleurs.
Pas plus tard qu'hier je me suis aperçu
Qu'il y a un trou dans le mur de lierre.
C'est par là que passe l'éclair.
La sterne parfois y niche,
Parce que la bourrasque l'a perdue.
Pourquoi là, maintenant. Question pour la Pythie.
Il faut prendre les choses en main
Et garder une poigne d'acier dans un gant d'airain.
Ne pas se laisser entraîner par la force des choses.
Ne pas se laisser enchaîner par la force des choses.
Tenir les rênes, le cap, bon.
Et aller.

Les gardeurs de mémoire



              "Le temps est venu où tous les poètes ont le droit et le devoir de soutenir qu'ils sont profondément enfoncés dans la vie des autres hommes, dans la vie commune.
              Au sommet de tout, oui, je sais, ils ont toujours été quelques-uns à nous conter cette baliverne, mais, comme ils n'y étaient pas, ils n'ont pas su nous dire qu'il y pleut, qu'il y fait nuit, qu'on y grelotte, et qu'on y garde la mémoire de l'infâme bêtise, qu'on y entend des rires de boue, des paroles de mort. Au sommet de tout, comme ailleurs, plus qu'ailleurs peut-être, pour qui voit, le malheur défait et refait sans cesse un monde banal, vulgaire, insupportable, impossible.
              Il n'y a pas de grandeur pour qui veut grandir. Il n'y a pas de modèle pour qui cherche ce qu'il n'a jamais vu. Nous sommes tous sur le même rang. Rayons les autres."

Paul Eluard, extrait de « Fragments d'une conférence prononcée à Londres, le 24 juin 1936, à l'occasion de l'Exposition surréaliste, organisé par Roland Penrose », in La Vie immédiate (1951)

McLeod Ganj, 22.10.11, evening


Silent, cold oasis
The moonlit dog barks itself hoarse
At a shadowless silhouette

Wednesday 23 May 2012

People change


"People change and forget to tell each other."


Lillian Hellman, playwright (1905-1984)

Monday 21 May 2012

Poussières de soie (extrait)


          "Voici un voyage éprouvant, heurté, qui épuise l'âme plus que le corps. À quelques écarts près, nulle merveille à attendre, nulle langueur à espérer.
          Si fastueux soient-ils, les mirages tissent des voiles d'agonie qui ne sont ni d'or ni de soie.
          Jadis, du Pamir au Lob Nor, on abandonnait les bêtes exténuées le long des pistes sans même l'illusion que leurs os puissent servir de repères.
          Désormais les camions versent sur l'asphalte liquéfié, et leurs carcasses n'inspirent plus que les vents de poussières.
          La route est tracée. On ne peut plus se perdre qu'au dedans de soi."

André Velter, L'Arbre-Seul (1990)

Star-grazing


"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."


in Leaves of Grass (1892), Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

Friday 18 May 2012

Terra incognita


"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."


Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Saturday 12 May 2012

a hell of a season (work in progress)


I remember it was a hell of a season,
the Spring of that year.
The magnolias had bloomed earlier
and had faded before April was done.
The riverbanks were extinct
because of two consecutive floods.
Never before had it rained like it did then.

My days of wandering were over
and I had unpacked my burden
in a small studio apartment
overlooking the tumid river.
From thence I could behold the island
on which the two bridges meet.
Against all odds, I had come back home.

Of course the oracle had yet to be fulfilled:
the old Indian fortune-teller, with his parchment skin
and cracked lips the sight of money widened to a grin,
had augured too many occurrences.
Hindsight would be acquired years from now.
The first of his predictions happened a day earlier,
a day before the full moon. I was hit by a car.

My sister had cried: “God, leave him alone!”
as I lay humiliated a second time by Fate;
yet it turned a blind, unblinking eye and walked out on me,
once it had ascertained the deed performed and sealed.
I was misunderstood, forsaken and covered in dust.
Nursing my wounds like an animal,
my instinct bound my steps homewards.

Since then the Shadow has followed me,
and I have grown accustomed to its presence,
its outline sketched half an inch off my natural shadow.
I had come back home and nothing had changed.
I, the only nomad, was different.
The people had stayed where the stones lay.
Even the old man I had known in my youth was still there.

We had seen him sitting here since we were born.
Our fathers and forefathers had known him
in much the same way we came to know him in turn.
That same old man who rolled the r's
and who had an incredibly youthful voice.
His dungarees smelt of papier d'Arménie,
and were worn out at the groin and knees.

He always leaned back in his chair against the outer wall
of the bar because the front legs had been broken
in a donnybrook a long time ago, so he claimed.
Levitating and rocking his decrepit, lank body,
watching the passers-by strut away, he would tut
and shake his head, either puzzled or embarrassed,
muttering to himself what sounded like imprecations.

Chewing on the same liquorice root for days on end,
until all that was left was a soggy mesh of fibres
at the perlèched commissures of his mouth.
Chewing, chewing, chewing,
as if waiting for God with relish.
Chewing, chewing, chewing,
grinding his teeth like an ax.

He would mumble that it is all about settling scores.
Even-steven. An eye for an eye. Eye to eye.
To every and no one in particular,
sitting in a remote corner of the bar,
leaning on a four-legged chair.
He would also say that there are five stages in a man's life:
the walk, the burden, the desert, the ennui and wrath.

He would look down at the bottom of his mucky glass of cheap wine and answer the question everyone in the bar had forgotten who it was that asked it: “Cantankerous ye’re all right, choleric you aren't. Are ye bored out of yer wits, old man?” In all probabilities the questioner had since been anointed and buried in a hurry.
The very minute you start walking, there's no stopping you,” he would respond. “Have you ever noticed how little kids who can barely walk like breaking into a staggering run?” He would scrutinise his thoughts and then add: “Then comes a point when you burden your shoulders with kin and work. Losing this burden of yours, forever and ineluctably, leaves you coasting through a nameless desert. Reaching port means you get to sit down, but all you're left with is ennui, the terrible, deleterious, gut-gripping ennui.” He would pause again, solemnly lifting his glass as if in a toast. “This is by far the longest period in a man's life. Wrath comes when every word is said and done, when you finally reach the end of the sitting.”

One would always ponder on those words watching him wait,
his back against the outside wall of the bar.
No one knew his name, all called him ‘Old man’,
for he was intrinsically this to us.
He seemed to have no other life than that which was walled against the bar.
I remember wondering often where his house was,
if he had ever owned or needed one.

His mangy dog who always lay beside him
would only rose to its feet and trot to the ditch opposite
to sniff a moribund pigeon or some carcass.
The old man would get up in turn, walk behind the bar,
and piss noisily against the back wall.
Both would be back once they were done,
usually in unison, both having bad teeth and a bad bladder.

Often he said that he was hidden and visible.
None understood the cryptic words.
We saluted him in awe.
We stopped our conversations if he spoke.
We made ample way for him to pass by us,
going from his amputated chair outside to the one inside.
Allowing more space than was actually necessary.

This old man claimed scars acquired after
an entire season spent in Hell, yet it had not been enough
— to kill or to subdue him — he had come back.
He was perhaps older than the chair,
perhaps older than God himself, yet subject to both.
We never spoke of him lest he heard us, lest he detected it.
He was in our minds, weightless like a shadow.

Once he said that God was in the palm of his hand.
He outstretched it, and we looked into it, intent and dreading.
Amidst the decussations of the lines and the scars
we distinguished an obscured blotch, like a scab,
and his sardonic smile and the glint in his eyes
scared the bravest of us.
For eyes like his had seen the horror.

Thereupon he bent down and scooped a handful of dust.
He showed it to us, his hand held out in front of him.
Then he let it trickle down from his clenched fist.
Few of us had the sense to feel fear.

He would play the funambulist on his chair,
rain or shine, from winter to winter,
from before dawn to long after dusk,
long after the last one of us had headed home.
One morning, I was running errands. He hailed me.
“Listen, son, why don’t you come over here
listen to the ramblings of an old man?”

He made me squat beside him.

“People say I’m mad. Half-mad. Half-baked.
Whatever. People blab and have a worm’s wits.
Truth is, I’m way better than, say, Hammurabi,
yet the man was revered and feared.
His hand was both stern and righteous.
He knew the Euphrates was treacherous.
He had right and wrong decided at a man’s stroke,
at man’s instinct of survival,
at the hand of discharge and Fate.
Pray, what is more maddening than this?”

There was little I could say or add, so he pursued.
“Syntagmas are set in stone now, but words shift.
Paradigms shift. Our actions do too.” He paused.
“Curst be he that makes me move my bones!
I’m wedged right in the caesura —
I have the right to be left there alone.

He riposted — as if in response to something I never said —
that he would not — ever — demean himself
like the Cumaean Sibyl had done.
“Look at her now. She is but a heap of rattling bones
and rasping breaths,
full of spite and regrets.
One feels only pity at what has been one of the grandest Seers of the ancient world.
I shall not become an aporia.”
He spat a chunk of liquorice fiber on the ground.
The dog lifted its head, sniffed at it,
then put its head back on its paws and slumbered
almost immediately. Its master resumed its monologue.

“Ici reposent dans l’attente de la résurrection such-and-such — nonsense!
Even dust has a shadow, and no one cares as much. We are walking dreams.
I have seen men hollowed out with a jeweller's loupe,
both their sentiments and their tendons raked out with an ass's jawbone.
They now roam the streets without aim. They now dwell in dreamless nights.
They are us! — and by ‘us’ I never meant me.
Never! Always remember this, son.”

He began fidgeting on his chair.
He seemed to remember something.

“When the day came to an end, the last of the dawn-breakers was dead.
I was left alone to carry the torch. So I gave it to them.
You should have seen the fascination in their sparkling eyes.”

“Serendipity is like seeing the ground where the shadow of the tree lay.
We seek clarity in light and darkness whilst the world is shapeless and ashen.
Let’s take a walk!” So on we went, his chair askance, the dog fast asleep.
He folded his hands behind his slouched back, munching. Yet he was not walking idly.

“Look at me! I was once the very heart of the fray. I was the weathervane and the thaumaturge of the world. I brought kings and emperors to their knees or to glory, according either to a grand scheme or on a whim. I put dictators onto gilded thrones. I saved a widow and an orphan from a certain death. I gave alms and I burnt cities down. I have spared and slaughtered the innocents, butchered the Centaurs and abducted Lapith women. I have hewn down the Cedar Forest to build a raft and a city gate. I singlehandedly diverted the course of the Euphrates to bury my companion in its riverbed. I defeated Qin with a single arrow shot with my Holmegård bow a thousand yards distant. I remember painting cave walls and living in the wild with nought but animals’ pelts girdling my loins. I have lived unaccounted lives of men, probably thousands. I have seen civilizations rise and fall. I have built some, destroyed others. I have never looked back. Now look where I stand. These exploits today are regarded as hurried snippets scribbled in the canvas of human history; they are shelved in dusty bookshops and relegated to equally dusty museums. Bookshops and museums! Some deem it a memorable place to endure. Time has proven them wrong. The places to endure are in men’s memory and songs, the rest is a handful of dust in the wind. Half the things we do don’t make any sense and are done in a state of stupor. The other half we spend on debating what we’ll have for dinner or which TV program we’ll watch. Doesn’t make any more sense. And equally dazed we are. We’re imbecilic, emotionally retarded fools. Our desires are tied to the rope of a windlass. Don’t you ever forget what I said.”

Whilst he was speaking to me, we were crossing the first bridge and walking down the island. His pace was slow, but not because of old age, but because he simply was unhurried and determined. In time, we reached the tip of the island and faced the river downstream. Once in a while he would pick up some rock, balance it from hand to hand, and put it in his pockets. Out of the blue, he broke off mid-sentence and said: “Detrás de yo está la muerte,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder. I turned my head at once, but didn’t see anything. When I turned it back, it was pitch-dark and all the city lights were gone. Night had replaced day in the blink of an eye, as it usually does when miracles are about to take place. The coal-black mass of the river dragged sluggishly in every direction and the crescent of the moon hung high up in the shrouded sky of ash and lit a single pine tree set in the midst of the current. The reflection of the tree was no less ominous. I could still see our old man quite clearly. His silhouette seemed bulkier and more majestic. His eyes glinted with an inner flare which I deemed blazing with enough rage to combust the entire universe.

Turn your back on everything you once held dear: those people whom you followed, that which you wore, this place which birthed you. Those whom you followed now tread paths of their own, and their own only! – thence you cannot go. Wrath deforms their features before they can walk, for they want to be left alone. That which you wore is burdensome. It encumbers your stride and weighs you down. The place which spawned you casts iron chains on your ankles. Wait for your Shamhat, and then leave! Leave this abominable place!” He had shot his index straight under my nose. “Do you hear me, son? You no longer have business here. One day, even I will lie down on a couch of sighs, never to rise again. However fiercely we fight Death — Death snapping off mankind like a reed in a canebrake! — dragonflies and dead bodies will never stop drifting down the river.” He picked up one last stone which clinked in his pocket with the rest of them, and casually stepped in the current. He was still talking. “You should leave as soon as you can, my lad! Here is no safe place for someone like you or me. We get attached to the land and before we know it decades have passed. We have all the time in the world to remain rooted to one place when we’re buried under six feet of dirt and as many planks, mark my words!” His dungarees were splashed, thus revealing their original blue colour. His voice didn’t falter, nor his step. He was waist-high in the river, about ten feet from the riverbank. He trudged on. His voice trailed off. He didn’t look back. Not even once. I could see him struggling forward with the aid of his arms. Suddenly his thick mane of grey hair disappeared.

I was not stunned, nor was I angry. I had been listening and waiting, now both seemed trivial.

When I walked in the bar a while later.
the others asked me jokingly,
poking each other in the ribs,
if there was a storm outside,
or if it was so hot that I had taken a dip in the river.
I was drenched to the bones.
And in the chiaroscuro bathing the bar,
directly in the shaft of light from the open door,
I could distinctly make out my wet footprints.
I realised I hadn’t noticed the dog on my way in.
No one ever saw it again, nor claimed to.
No one ever touched the tilted chair.
In due course it rotted into dust and splinters.

It had been, by all accounts,
a hell of a season.

Friday 11 May 2012

Optic fiber/liber


"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."


Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Thursday 10 May 2012

Cimetière de la Salle à St Symphorien, Tours

Il y a plusieurs madones tenant une couronne, mais celle-ci est la seule à ma connaissance, mais je n'ai pas parcouru l'ensemble du cimetière, à être accroupie, ce qui lui donne une humilité singulière.

Les noms suivent, inscrits sur la dalle.


J'aime beaucoup cette tombe-ci. Le rappel à Prométhée, l'hubris face à la mort - tous deux des références païennes - le "Ni fleurs, ni couronnes", la mosaïque rouge qui tranche avec les tombes alentours...ces gens-là avaient une vision bien particulière de la vie et de la mort.

Cette statue, avec son uniforme d'aviateur, me rappelle une photo d'Antoine de St Exupéry.

Une cétoine dorée (Cetonia aurata), si je ne m'abuse.

Today, I went running again


After 10 months off the tracks, a motorbike accident and its subsequent, 6-month long convalescence, I went running again.

First observation: I shouldn't have waited this long. I realised the last time I had been running was in Malaysia...*smiley alert* (yes, I decided to warn you beforehand, as I rarely use them here) -___-' My shoes were tight, yes, tight, for lack of use.

Second observation: my ankles and knees need strengthening, and every time my feet touch the ground, I hear a clicking noise in my left ear. I should consult an osteopath, as clearly the accident has upset my entire frame. *smiley alert* >_<

Third observation: man, it's so good to run. I had to wake up early, but it definitely made my day.

First stretch: 3.5 km in a little under 20 min. I thought I was doing a fairly good speed. The timing indicates I'm 25% off my usual time. *smiley alert* O_O

Second stretch: 3.3 km in 22 min. Now that was expected. Doesn't soften the blow though. I knew I had slowed down, but the aim of this run was to get back on tracks.

Conclusion: I should consider myself lucky, considering I was in a wheelchair not so long ago. Now all I have to do is to set my mind to it and don't stop. Regularity is the key.



The Cast (in order of appearance)

The Hives (Veni Vidi Vicious) Thanks for setting the pace!
The Loire, whose shimmery surface in the morning sun was covered in white tufts from the poplar trees
The chorus of frogs (mating, that is, day in, night out)
The light breeze, the sun and the absence of rain (nice balance)
The ducks (for putting their butts up as soon as I came)
My legs (which kept going)
My lungs (glad I ain't smoking)
My Self (someone must do the driving)
Me (basically, I was lagging behind my entire self +_+)

Tuesday 8 May 2012

That's a lot of time


Duration calculation results

From and including: Tuesday, 8 May 1979
To and including: Tuesday, 8 May 2012
It is 12,055 days from the start date to the end date, end date included
Or 33 years, 1 day including the end date

Alternative time units

12,055 days can be converted to one of these units:
  • 1,041,552,000 seconds
  • 17,359,200 minutes
  • 289,320 hours
  • 1722 weeks (rounded down)
(source: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html)

Monday 7 May 2012

in professori veritas


"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."


Japanese proverb

Thursday 3 May 2012

Joke in the midst of the fray


"Don't worry, for $99m, I've got all the time in the world."


Auctioneer and Sotheby's head of modern art Tobias Meyer, at the auction of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream", which was bought for a swooping $119,922,500 (£74m) and which lasted 12 minutes. Most expensive work of art ever sold, dethroning Pablo Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" (which went for $106.5 m or £65.6 m) two years ago at Christie's.


Link to Sotheby's.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Snakes and Spiders

On my way to work, on one of the old stairways going down to the Loire (the one nearer the St Symphorien bridge), I came across this baby viper (about 20cm long) nestled in the corner of the tread and the riser. It's a common viper (vipera aspis aspis), but it really does look like a zinnikeri (vipera aspis zinnikeri), even though those can't be found under my latitude. It must have been basking all afternoon long in the sun, as the steps were still tepid. 

 
On my way back from work. On the handrails, left and right, of the St Symphorien Bridge (a.k.a Pont de fil "Rope Bridge") are dozens of spiderwebs. These spiders only come out at night. The picture above is a rookie blunder made possible because of the blue lighting peculiar to this bridge, the flash and the long exposure (which I had left on...). Below is a clearer version.

My guess is that it is the walnut orb-weaver spider (Nuctenea umbratica - 'umbratica' means 'living in the shadow' in Latin), a female judging by the size (approximately 1.5 cm). It can flatten its belly and crawl in very narrow crevices, leaving only one leg out, to which is hooked a signal thread in case a moth, a sandfly or a midge gets stuck in the web.

Quite a lively area, the bridge is at night.

Lichen

The blind woman next to me fidgeting in her seat visibly uneasy brushed my arm as if in need of help with her train ticket but she tricked ...