binaries.

la bandera (pablo neruda).

Levántate conmigo.

Nadie quisiera
como yo quedarse
sobre la almohada en que tus párpados
quieren cerrar el mundo para mí.
Allí también quisiera
dejar dormir mi sangre
rodeando tu dulzura.

Pero levántate,
tú, levántate,
pero conmigo levántate
y salgamos reunidos
a luchar cuerpo a cuerpo
contra las telarañas del malvado,
contra el sistema que reparte el hambre,
contra la organización de la miseria.

Vamos,
y tú, mi estrella, junto a mí,
recién nacida de mi propia arcilla,
ya habrás hallado el manantial que ocultas
y en medio del fuego estarás
junto a mí,
con tus ojos bravíos,
alzando mi bandera.

fieldwork-dream.

i am revisiting my fieldnotes seriously. at last, i have mastered my anxiety about them so i can start dealing with them without constant pangs of inadequacy. i conveniently forget a lot of what i learnt in the field, but pele tells me in hindu ‘amaanat’ – the concept of learning includes that of forgetting, which i find very relevant and timely as a remark. fieldwork also appears very dream-like now. i have been back for 10 months now… a lifetime, really.

here then an excerpt of a dream i had when i was ill around this time last year. it is a symptomatic dream, i think: full of vivid imagery (i don’t quite dream like that here), full of grief, ambivalence, longing and absence. don’t judge me on it … some names have been changed.

Father had died, he somehow looked like paper, and mum and paul were with the family, off in the village. I was at home with some people, including tio who I kissed. I didn’t know these people for the greater part. We were waiting for them to arrive and I was nervous that I would be late for the ceremony. I explained that I was a shy person and that this was the worst thing, to be late for church. The landscape kept changing, and we could see really far. We were swinging off some metal fence, and this is when I kissed him. It was a bit as if he got into my way, and I kept thinking. Yes, so he feels the same. We were in our garden and it was winter, because not a lot was growing there. I am not sure whether father was to be buried right here. Something was strange with the neighbour’s house. There was also the sea or something in the distance. I was very fond of tio but could not show it because I was also so full of grief. An English person came and hugged me, and I asked, and so ‘how are you’. There was a huge snake that was travelling kind of semi-underground, it was shiny black with yellow spots, like a salamander. I kicked it and it went to the neighbour’s field, but then reappeared on our property again (outside mum and dad’s bedroom window) as a yellow dog. The funeral was arranged like an army confronting the enemy. There were little, relatively fat warrior kids with bright yellow shorts and they wore little else. They were quite fierce. We could see the black folk in the distance, who were the family. Then I woke up, in sweat, and having slept over three hours.

fruitfully sidetracked by ‘creative destruction’…

‘Was ist Liebe?

Was ist Schöpfung?

Was ist Sehnsucht?

Was ist Stern?’

– so fragt der letzte Mensch und blinzelt

(friedrich nietzsche)

time. time and again. time and again.

If not now then when
If not today then
Why make your promises
A love declared for days to come
Is as good as none

(t chapman)

I tossed and turned and pulled my sheets apart in my sleep. I woke up before the dawn, and could not sleep the hour that was given to me. I will go for a walk, and hopefully find a different song.

friendship (k gibran)

And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Khalil Gibran

georges perec.

a brief introduction by paul auster.

he was a friend of raymond queneau’s

more on the knight’s path.

the drunken boat.

[filed under: people it would have been nice to have known - who would you have liked to hang out with?]

soundtrack of the day. i miss you.

aus hohen bergen (f. nietzsche)

Aus hohen Bergen.
Nachgesang.
Oh Lebens Mittag! Feierliche Zeit!
Oh Sommergarten!
Unruhig Glück im Stehn und Spähn und Warten: -
Der Freunde harr’ ich, Tag und Nacht bereit,
Wo bleibt ihr Freunde? Kommt! ’s ist Zeit! ’s ist Zeit!

War’s nicht für euch, dass sich des Gletschers Grau
Heut schmückt mit Rosen?
Euch sucht der Bach, sehnsüchtig drängen, stossen
Sich Wind und Wolke höher heut in’s Blau,
Nach euch zu spähn aus fernster Vogel-Schau.

Im Höchsten ward für euch mein Tisch gedeckt -
Wer wohnt den Sternen
So nahe, wer des Abgrunds grausten Fernen?
Mein Reich – welch Reich hat weiter sich gereckt?
Und meinen Honig – wer hat ihn geschmeckt? ….

- Da seid ihr, Freunde! – Weh, doch ich bins’ nicht,
Zu dem ihr wolltet?
Ihr zögert, staunt – ach, dass ihr lieber grolltet!
Ich – bin’s nicht mehr? Vertauscht Hand, Schritt, Gesicht?
Und was ich bin, euch Freunden – bin ich’s nicht?

Ein Andrer ward ich? Und mir selber fremd?
Mir selbst entsprungen?
Ein Ringer, der zu oft sich selbst bezwungen?
Zu oft sich gegen eigne Kraft gestemmt,
Durch eignen Sieg verwundet und gehemmt?

Ich suchte, wo der Wind am schärfsten weht?
Ich lernte wohnen,
Wo Niemand wohnt, in öden Eisbär-Zonen,
Verlernte Mensch und Gott, Fluch und Gebet?
Ward zum Gespenst, das über Gletscher geht?

- Ihr alten Freunde! Seht! Nun blickt ihr bleich,
Voll Lieb’ und Grausen!
Nein, geht! Zürnt nicht! Hier – könntet ihr nicht hausen:
Hier zwischen fernstem Eis- und Felsenreich -
Hier muss man Jäger sein und gemsengleich.

Ein schlimmer Jäger ward ich! – Seht, wie steil
Gespannt mein Bogen!
Der Stärkste war’s, der solchen Zug gezogen–:
Doch wehe nun! Gefährlich ist der Pfeil,
Wie kein Pfeil, – fort von hier! Zu eurem Heil!…..

Ihr wendet euch? – Oh Herz, du trugst genung,
Stark blieb dein Hoffen:
Halt neuen Freunden deine Thüren offen!
Die alten lass! Lass die Erinnerung!
Warst einst du jung, jetzt – bist du besser jung!

Was je uns knüpfte, Einer Hoffnung Band, -
Wer liest die Zeichen,
Die Liebe einst hineinschrieb, noch, die bleichen?
Dem Pergament vergleich ich’s, das die Hand
zu fassen scheut, – ihm gleich verbräunt, verbrannt.

Nicht Freunde mehr, das sind – wie nenn’ ich’s doch? -
Nur Freunds-Gespenster!
Das klopft mir wohl noch Nachts an Herz und Fenster,
Das sieht mich an und spricht: “wir waren’s doch?”–
Oh welkes Wort, das einst wie Rosen roch!

Oh Jugend-Sehnen, das sich missverstand!
Die ich ersehnte,
Die ich mir selbst verwandt-verwandelt wähnte,
Dass alt sie wurden, hat sie weggebannt:
Nur wer sich wandelt, bleibt mit mir verwandt.
Oh Lebens Mittag! Zweite Jugendzeit!
Oh Sommergarten!
Unruhig Glück im Stehn und Spähn und Warten!
Der Freunde harr’ ich, Tag und Nacht bereit,
Der neuen Freunde! Kommt! ’s ist Zeit! ’s ist Zeit!

Dies Lied ist aus, – der Sehnsucht süsser Schrei
Erstarb im Munde:
Ein Zaubrer that’s, der Freund zur rechten Stunde,
Der Mittags-Freund – nein! fragt nicht, wer es sei -
Um Mittag war’s, da wurde Eins zu Zwei…

Nun feiern wir, vereinten Siegs gewiss,
Das Fest der Feste:
Freund Zarathustra kam, der Gast der Gäste!
Nun lacht die Welt, der grause Vorhang riss,
Die Hochzeit kam für Licht und Finsterniss…

thinking allowed.

if you have some time to spare for radio broadcasts, can i recommend BBC4’s thinking allowed? laurie taylor (a little irritating but generally nae too bad) interviews researchers on their work and concerns. this week there was a left-wing economist on the air and an ethnographer of bike messenging.

the bumblebee.

talking to her about love was not exactly easy. she liked to play games with words as she walked along the sand, grimacing and screaming, at times. she was a little high strung and could be flippant. there was a definite disjuncture between how she felt, at times, and how she chose to act. she did a lot of walking away, in that year because she felt like she could not make happen all the stuff-in-between it takes to go towards all at ease friendship. she also knew that the number of people she would let into that space was restricted.

she could be very much caught up in her work-thought-space, and in dream-space, too – to the point it became her favourite place to be, along with the beach at dawn. playfulness was important to her and she laughed at propositional logic a lot. she enjoyed people’s company and tried to make enough space to remain open to them and for her to catch a glimpse of their spirit.

one day, so the story goes, though, she realised what a recent feeling of doubt had been all about. one morning at the beach a bumblebee as large as a pig came buzzing with a lot of noise and landed in front of her stunned body. It shook its legs, revealing a purple substance that enveloped her almost instantaneously. only after a while could she feel the heat and the panic in her belly.

suddenly all molecules and constituents of matter in motion around her were revealed to her and while she had always thought she knew all about transience, she only really got it now. she could feel the past and the present pressing into her being, and she knew that she would be, actually, fine.

she suddenly realised quite how much, in love, she had felt like fixing everything so she would not lose it. she had liked transience as an aesthetic, stylised away and exteriorised so it would not hurt her. instead of hiding in bursts of avoidance or performances of denial, she took the fear seriously asked it where it came from. and it told her everything.

that pretty much changed everything. yes, reader, everything. ask the bumblebee.