The long goodbye

I whish it would have been done in one shot...

Milonga de Manuel Flores

Morir es una costumbre que sabe tener la gente

_

Giancarlo Giannini

"But, it doesn't matter : you can yell"

Giannini 70's :


Giannini 2000 :

Dimitri Chostakovitch

Дмитрий Дмитриевич

the 29th of December 1957

Dear Isaak Davidovich,

I arrived in Odessa on the day of the All-Peoples celebration of the 40th anniversary of Soviet Ukraine. This morning, I went out into the street. You, of course, understand that one cannot stay indoors on such a day. Despite wet and foggy weather, the whole of Odessa was out of doors. Everywhere are portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and also of comrades A. I. Belyaev, L. I. Brezhnev, N. A. Bulganin, K. E. Voroshilov, N. G. Ignatov, A. I. Kirilenko, F. R. Kozlov, O. V. Kuussinen, A. I. Mikoyan, N. A. Mukhitdinov, M. A. Suslov, E. A. Furtseva, N. S. Khrushchev, N. M. Shvernik, A. A. Aristov, P. A. Pospelov, Ya. E. Kalnberzin, A. P. Kirichenko, A. N. Kosygin, K. T. Mazyrov, V. P. Mzhevanadze, M. G. Pervukhin, N. T. Kalchenko.

Everywhere are banners, slogans, posters. All around are happy, beaming Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish faces. Here and there one hears eulogies in honour of the great banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and also in honour of comrades A. I. Belyaev, L. I. Brezhnev, N. A. Bulganin, K. E. Voroshilov, N. G. Ignatov, A. I. Kirichenko, F. R. Kozlov, O. V. Kuussinen, A. I. Mikoyan, N. A. Mukhitdinov, M. A. Suslov, E. A. Furtseva, N. S. Khrushchev, N. M. Shvernik, A. A. Aristov, P. A. Pospelov, Ya. E. Kalnberzin, A. P. Kirilenko, A. N. Kosygin, K. T. Mazyrov, V. P. Mzhevanadze, M. G. Pervukhin, N. T. Kalchenko, D. S. Korotchenko. Everywhere one hears Russian and Ukrainian speech. Sometimes one hears the foreign speech of the representatives of progressive humanity who have come to Odessa to congratulate its residents on the occasion of their glorious holiday. I too wandered around and, unable to restrain my joy, returned to my hotel where I resolved to describe, so far as I can, the All-Peoples celebration in Odessa.

Do not judge me harshly.

All the best,

D. Shostakovich

Links & Dates :
Some French Documents
Video of an "arte-like" documentary...

Thus spoke zarathoustra 2/2

The Friend / Vom Freunde

Dionysos and Icarios

"One, is always too many about me"--thinketh the anchorite. "Always once one--that maketh two in the long run!"

I and me are always too earnestly in conversation: how could it be endured, if there were not a friend?

The friend of the anchorite is always the third one: the third one is the cork which preventeth the conversation of the two sinking into the depth.

Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites. Therefore, do they long so much for a friend, and for his elevation.

Our faith in others betrayeth wherein we would fain have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer.

And often with our love we want merely to overleap envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.

"Be at least mine enemy!"--thus speaketh the true reverence, which doth not venture to solicit friendship.

If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing to wage war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be CAPABLE of being an enemy.

One ought still to honour the enemy in one's friend. Canst thou go nigh unto thy friend, and not go over to him?

In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy. Thou shalt be closest unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him.

Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in honour of thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he wisheth thee to the devil on that account!

He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of clothing!

Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt be unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.

Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep--to know how he looketh? What is usually the countenance of thy friend? It is thine own countenance, in a coarse and imperfect mirror.

Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou not dismayed at thy friend looking so? O my friend, man is something that hath to be surpassed.

In divining and keeping silence shall the friend be a master: not everything must thou wish to see. Thy dream shall disclose unto thee what thy friend doeth when awake.

Let thy pity be a divining: to know first if thy friend wanteth pity. Perhaps he loveth in thee the unmoved eye, and the look of eternity.

Let thy pity for thy friend be hid under a hard shell; thou shalt bite out a tooth upon it. Thus will it have delicacy and sweetness.

Art thou pure air and solitude and bread and medicine to thy friend? Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant? Then thou canst not have friends.

Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth only love.

In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth not love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always surprise and lightning and night, along with the light.

As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.

As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?

Oh! your poverty, ye men, and your sordidness of soul! As much as ye give to your friend, will I give even to my foe, and will not have become poorer thereby.

There is comradeship: may there be friendship!

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Thus spoke zarathoustra 1/2

Reading and Writing / Vom Lesen und Schreiben

Cabirian mouse 450 BC - Louvre Museum in Paris

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his
blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.

It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers.

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers--and spirit itself will stink.

Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace.

He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart.

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to should be big and tall.

The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of a joyful wickedness: thus are things well matched.

I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins--it wanteth to laugh.

I no longer feel in common with you; the very cloud which I see beneath me, the blackness and heaviness at which I laugh--that is your thunder-cloud.

Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because I am exalted.

Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities.

Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive--so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.

Ye tell me, "Life is hard to bear." But for what purpose should ye have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?

Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are all of us fine sumpter asses and assesses.

What have we in common with the rose-bud, which trembleth because a drop of dew hath formed upon it?

It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but because we are wont to love.

There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness.

And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.

To see these light, foolish, pretty, lively little sprites flit about--that moveth Zarathustra to tears and songs.

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity--through him all things fall.

Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot.

Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there danceth a God in me.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Jazz lesson by Han Bennink

Geriatric park

I was first thinking of writing about a new axiomatic way of understanding Time but then I figured out that the only interesting question was to polemicize about Time relatively to human being. As said Jacque Prévert,

there is a good God for flies
a good God for mites
for swallow there is no good God
they don't need one.

So, we don't need to understand anything that would sleep in the bed of absoluteness, it's more interesting to make the most of our freedom and to observe how Nature and Life spin around ourself. What is an old person ? Let's take randomly a domain where the occidental culture is said to grow older : Jazz. Jazz is often seen as being a dead music as Latin and correctly orthographied French are said to be dead languages. Look at those grand-daddies of the Jazz who are finishing their life persevering in dusty 50's swinging styles, rhythmed by a so called evil drummer, who's braking the tempo, each day slower, slower. You're getting too old buddy, you're slowing down.

In Jazz, where are the vital forces, the élan of the youthfulness ? There ? No this is just a stupid trick for teenagers, the undertaker's assistant playing on his strange coffin is just there to emphasize the contrast and the old baby to amuse the public... This old fool mimics a kid but he's physically 65, it's emulation, nothing more than a clown. It's not dealing with The Breath we are looking for. Han Bennink, hushed up ?

Drug use in some case, like hashish, could also affect the perception of time by slowing it down. Old person might just have a metabolism which is degrading itself into something near junkie's one. Take Jacques Chirac, all informed citizen knows that he might be using amphetamines to put up with his big mount of failures and to help it growing still higher. All the former French presidents are dead, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's wrapping is still exposed at the European Parliament but since the french referendum on the European constitution of march 2005, he's dead inside. In the meantime, when they were president, they were all abusing of all kind of drugs, nationalism being the most efficient one in France. They were old, they were drugged and they were living in a slow-motioned world. So they had the feeling that each very minute was everlasting and enjoyed their presidential life subjectively more than a septennial mandate. It's nothing more than a relativistic effect, a proof that old persons are curving the space-time more than healthy middle-aged adults. Which is a good mean of convincing you to live near your grand-parents to take advantage of their dilative effect on time.

Extra on Han Bennink : Biblio1 Biblio2 Audio Video

Plate tectonics 2/2

Hawaï sur Seine

Cité Debergue behind the "rue du rendez-vous" 11e arr. Paris (demolition permit obtained in 2004...)

Plate tectonics : Stanley Miller, Claude Alègre, haroun tazieff 1/2

Binary weapons

- I'll give you ten pounds. - Is that true ? - You know, ducks don't speek english correctly.

It's no longer an edged origami paper tiger, but it suddenly sounds like what we are all facing in our lives. When there are no longer clear solutions, feelings are twisting around your logic and you no longer know how it works. You need to put on your empathy gloves and to scour in the belly of someone else…

For a scientist, logic + feelings = soup. No more distance, the impossibility of being phlegmatic and convincing at the same time… Add mysticism to it and I’ll finish my article describing how the beer barrel should be choosen for the “Walpurgis Nacht” in Bayern.

Geologists used to call the first form of the Earth the primitive Soup. From it, immerged the first proteins. Some fools like Claude Alègre believe their components (amino acids) came from asteroids at the same times as skinny mammoths. The other part of the Polish geologists (in fact it's Stanley J. Miller in 53...) demonstrate it was perfectly possible to create these components using the primitive soup under some contingent conditions : very high pressure, a very low pH and a consequent number of electric discharges of some millions of Volts. The anaerobic mammoths are the only ones who know what part of these Astro-geologists is personifying the primitive soup. A complement in french

Following the assessment of the polished Miller, I would propose a protocol to bolt scientists suffering from feelings aggressions. It could have tremendous effects on their decision process : they would learn, not the "how" some humanbeings dare taking decisions, but simply that a "why" is existing and it's not purely logic. But please, try to disuade them from finding the "why" which would be the first thing they would do, like a 2 years old child which would systematically grab the stick you hang at 30 cm of his eyes.

The end of the world in kit

This is the end, the only end my friend and all the children are insane, the end

1. During the XVII th century, a monk said that the world was created the 23rd October 4004 BC at 9 AM
   
   
2. At the following URL you will find a selection of advertising of Grumly
   
   
3. Watch these videos, then combine point 1. and 2. and you'd be able to determine the day of the end of the world.

Bukovski was not drunk a single time after the end of his life

French condom v.s. Capote anglaise

Truman Capote.
Chronologically :
homosexual,
egocentric,
depressive,
extravagant,
famous writer,
alcoholism.

Actually, Charles Bukowski was just a simpler Truman Capote. His path through life was one step shorter.

To waste is productive

My bunny habit

I've taken the habit to think about writing something every day. Every day I did think about it.

The problem is to find a keyboard and ten minutes at this very time... I mean “this one”; not the following one which is now “this one”. That's one of the reason why the output of this sum of thought words is quasi null : there is not way out… It's like a book read with too much haste. On one hand there is a instantaneous output whose quality depends on the quality of the book : this one is called pleasure. The words responsible for it stay in memory because these point at feelings. On the other hand there is what stays between all these small islands of pleasure : what is left, most of the sweat of the author ; just for nothing ?

It's a kind of mount of waste upon which the moving thought can stand, still. The same analogy appears between the scientific publications and the effective progress of researches. The former being the mountain, the latter the chap upon it.

This is one way of conceiving the use of the needlessness productions when one steers toward a useful goal.

Mithridatization ???

Mithridate VI and Socrates aka "Σωκράτης οκνηρά πόδια"

Mithridate VI

Fr (very complete)
De (nothing on his death...see Fr for more amusement)
En (nothing on his death...see Fr for more amusement)


Socrates and its feet
En