Summer reading

Quote GO

"Freedom means strangement from all those ideological nodes, myths, religious rites, cultural prejudice, traditional interpretations, lodged in language without any criticism and inertially passed on through paideía and social practice."

Emilio Lledó

  "Epicureanism"

History of clothing

 

History of clothing on the analogical Larousse Encyclopedia

I'm not a poetry person

but just for once....this is an emergency

Viens-tu du ciel profond ou sors-tu de l'abîme,
O beauté? Ton regard, infernal et divin,
Verse confusément le bienfait et le crime,
Et l'on peut pour cela te comparer au vin.




Tu contiens dans ton oeil le couchant et l'aurore;
Tu répands des parfums comme un soir orageux;
Tes baisers sont un philtre et ta bouche une amphore
Qui font le héros lâche et l'enfant courageux.


Sors-tu du gouffre noir ou descends-tu des astres?
Le Destin charmé suit tes jupons comme un chien;
Tu sèmes au hasard la joie et les désastres,
Et tu gouvernes tout et ne réponds de rien.


Tu marches sur des morts, Beauté, dont tu te moques;
De tes bijoux l'Horreur n'est pas le moins charmant,
Et le Meurtre, parmi tes plus chères breloques,
Sur ton ventre orgueilleux danse amoureusement.


L'éphémère ébloui vole vers toi, chandelle,
Crépite, flambe et dit: Bénissons ce flambeau!
L'amoureux pantelant incliné sur sa belle
A l'air d'un moribond caressant son tombeau.


Que tu viennes du ciel ou de l'enfer, qu'importe,
Ô Beauté! monstre énorme, effrayant, ingénu!
Si ton oeil, ton souris, ton pied, m'ouvrent la porte
D'un Infini que j'aime et n'ai jamais connu?


De Satan ou de Dieu, qu'importe? Ange ou Sirène,
Qu'importe, si tu rends, — fée aux yeux de velours,
Rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! —
L'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?

Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen,
dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.
Und lass dir jeden Tag geschehen
so wie ein Kind im Weitergehen von jedem Wehen
sich viele Blüten schenken lässt.

Sie aufzusammeln und zu sparen,
das kommt dem Kind nicht in den Sinn.
Es löst sie leise aus den Haaren,
drin sie so gern gefangen waren,
und hält den lieben jungen Jahren
nach neuen seine Hände hin.
 



Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera
Sombra que me llevare el blanco día,
Y podrá desatar esta alma mía
Hora, a su afán ansioso lisonjera; 

Mas no de esotra parte en la ribera
Dejará la memoria, en donde ardía:
Nadar sabe mi llama el agua fría,
Y perder el respeto a ley severa. 

Alma, a quien todo un Dios prisión ha sido,
Venas, que humor a tanto fuego han dado,
Médulas, que han gloriosamente ardido, 

Su cuerpo dejará, no su cuidado;
Serán ceniza, mas tendrá sentido;
Polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado.

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,  

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;
e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio;
et volo sopra 'l cielo, et giaccio in terra;
et nulla stringo, et tutto 'l mondo abbraccio.

Tal m'à in pregion, che non m'apre né serra,
né per suo mi riten né scioglie il laccio;
et non m'ancide Amore, et non mi sferra,
né mi vuol vivo, né mi trae d'impaccio.

Veggio senza occhi, et non ò lingua et grido;
et bramo di perir, et cheggio aita;
et ò in odio me stesso, et amo altrui.

Pascomi di dolor, piangendo rido;
egualmente mi spiace morte et vita:
in questo stato son, donna, per voi.

Baudelaire, Rilke, Quevedo, Kipling & Petrach

Questions without answers

Does there exist, running parallel to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, a yet unacknowledged theory of multiple stupidities?

I was going to supply examples but I've considered that if you can come up with your own examples the hypotheses may be more easily confirmed.

If no-one has ever done it yet, I hereby put forward the Theory of Multiple Stupidities. Its basic assumption is that you can be brilliant in some area of your life and complete disaster in another. It basically works in binary relationships, but it is possible to be a disaster in more than one area. As I said, I have a few examples in mind but you'd better search for your own examples.

Culture fix

Spas and meditation not that indispensable

The candle concerts in Pedraza

Pedraza, a lovely village in the Segovia region in Spain, holds very special open air concerts at the beginning of July. I invite you to take a walk.

 

 

and definitely worth a visit by day anyway

 

London

Art news from Spain

Fra Angelico's Virgin of the Pomegranate:  from a private collection to The Prado museum, its due home, thanks to the present day duke of Alba (yes, it is a real person). (I was so surprised to hear this piece of news, I had been lucky to see this painting and after initial speechlessness followed by some ohs, ahhs, wows, OMGs... I could not stop repeating to myself "this should be in The Prado")

 The Hug, by Juan Genovés to the Congress building

                       (I would like to conduct a world survey: Does this painting inspire any feelings to you?

 If so, what kind? )

 Ceiling frescoes of Saint Nicholas Church in Valencia restored. Judge for yourself if they deserve the nomination as "Spain's Sixtine Chapel")

Making Africa, A Continent of Contemporary Design

23 March - 28 August 2016 at CCCB, Barcelona

The exhibition showcases the work of over 120 African artists and creators and illustrates how design fuels economic and political changes. Making Africa speaks, from Africa, of a new continent “under construction” and places emphasis on its possibilities over its problems.

“Thinking about the future means thinking about our possibilities in the world. The future belongs to Africa, because it seems to have happened everywhere else already.” 
Okwui Enwezor, Consulting Curator of Making Africa

annnnndddd:

Bosch. The 5th Centenary Exhibition

El Prado Museum, 31.05.2016 - 11.09.2016

Contrast reveals essence

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumours. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

opening lines of "The red badge of courage", by Stephen Crane

Happy Valentine's day

This is what happens immediately after you fall in love:

-

 

Quote

 

 

Postcard from Madrid

Chanel

 

 

Original Chanel

From the exhibition Modern Taste, Art Deco in Paris, 1910-1935

( 26 March – 28 June 2015)