No other choice

"We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us."

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-100)

Snow din

The snow is falling

falling falling

and I wish I had the guts to stop it

stop it and lashing, lashing

at'em with a French double bass bow

from the bottom of my pit.

Record-low

in the tank

in the bank

yet there is snow

falling

in peace peace peace

yet I hate the

coming from their mouth

for it means nothing

nothing nothing

comefroms the stage where actors

aren't actors playing actors but actors

playing playing pretending

being snowflakes on the swaying grass

embracing a bonnie lass

yet it's too late

too late

to dance.

What if we fell like snow?

Snowliness is the worst state of the mind –

shantih shantih shantih where art thee –

“I never meant to hurt them snowflakes, Officer, I swear!”

yet I lashed at'em relentlessly

the bow showed no dent, no wear and tear,

and the drysmeared blood on it most unkind

as it is of the irremovable sort

and the wind, the wind!

comes howling

reaches me there

at the bottom of my cistern

where we take turn

every century or so.

Mines comes now.

Mines comes now.

Mines comes now.

I have forgiven what it was I had to say

to the next reservoir-bound fey.

Perhaps the snowflakes will say.

Look up at the hollow shaft

watch the hollow specks

listen to the hollow voice

yet some would argue nothing's hollow.

How wrong they are. How wrong!

No throng, no raft, no decks, no choice,

but what dreams conceive

but what dreams allow.

For years I mistook die for dream

in we live as we die, alone

seemed to me a better line,

a better scream,

befitting the moans,

the whining,

the tears

we shed.

I was misled

waylaid

by the lure of the snow

damn the snow!

May it burn and drown

in the see o' darkness!

Pack the world in a nice urn

watch it burn, burn, burn

and the flare of the sun

has that effect upon the snow

chars the tea in my glazed flagon

blackens the base bow

ashens my brow

darkens my sweat

“I swear, I swear!”

Be hanged with'em!

Be hanged with'em!

The snowflakes gather

and chant, and dance.

and the world seems more hollow then it ever used to be.

More hollow, more hollow.

Aye, we can fall like snow.

From the floor of my underground tower

I can see but few hours

yet I feel them all, them all,

and sour is the frail

hurt in the small

of his offal.

Fingernails broke yesteryear

trying to dislodge the fray

I failed, I failed

dim is the snow, lightless is the day

they all fell like snow

down a hollow.

The hour is now.

Contentuous

"Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings."

Alice Miller, psychologist and author (1923-2010)

One in a million

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."

Linus Pauling, chemist, peace activist, author, educator; Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize (1901-1994)

Movements of translation

"Translating is writing"

Marguerite Yourcenar, writer (1903-1987)

Big up to my friend Seb who posted this on Facebook to mark what could be a big step in my life as a writer, and not only as a translator.

Translating a novel is an arduous job, and like writing it requires a healthy lifestyle, diligence and, more often than not, having to force oneself to settle to the desk and down to the task. About one fifth of the book is done so far, but the amount of work has been tenfold as I had to research a part of history and of the world I had only dim knowledge about: Persia in the eleventh century. I read roughly a hundred articles on different topics, people, regions, battles, events. It connected with what I already knew and this is perhaps what I like best in my job: connecting things. Because everything is connected. Even picking up a German-made map of Persia in the fourteenth century (in order to find the old names of the cities, burgs and rivers, which change through the centuries, of course) can make you connect what you know with what you learn. Knowledge is like a multi-layered spider's web, only way more intricately woven, and not plane, but three-dimensional, for the webs criss-cross. So is history, and the world.

Chi va piano va sano

"To read fast is as bad as to eat in a hurry."

Vilhelm Ekelund, Swedish poet (1880-1949)

Pluie de météorites en Russie : les images

Pluie de météorites en Russie : les images par lemondefr

Asteroid?

Atoms For Peace - Judge Jury and Executioner

Podium

"It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last."

Francois De La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)