phew.

my yearning today is at least as great as when i was fifteen. it takes no effort at all, but my head is wobbly and i cannot make decisions or work properly. i am accompanied by that song ‘desireless’ by eagle-eye cherry that i once categorised as the sexiest song ever. i’m not so sure about that now, but it’s an awesome song.

i want to laugh about it all.

deliverance. now. yes. please

progress.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863 – 1952, Madrid) Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense (1905)

image: alexander cozens

grace.

Woke up to a milky white Bucharest bloc view. My headache was gone. Reason for rejoicing. This means I will actually get some work done today. Slightly comatose because of the splitting migraine, I watched a film last night. It did keep my interest and I must recommend it. The Soloist. I went into it not knowing the first thing about it, and was pleased that it appeared to be about Beethoven, whose work I adore. However, it was much more than that. A brilliant tale about contemporary America:  an allegory of intervention and containment on one level, a moving story of friendship on the other. It was based on a book and so appears to be a ‘true story’ even though, as you probably know if you read this weblog, all stories are true somehow, if only to themselves (and to me, hehe). The man who wrote it and who is the narrator of the film, is Steve Lopez, a journalist at the Los Angeles Times who is chasing stories dispassionately. His idea of consent is rather limited and he is a self-righteous self-labelled do-gooder, although as the spectator you find him rather mediocre and very un-godlike. He is the typical journalist out for a thrill, turning off when he senses that in journalistic terms the story doesn’t flow. So when he gets interested in this person Nathaniel Ayers at first, he is in the same mode. He just wants a story, and he rings up Julliard School to see whether Nathaniel is deluded or not, and whether he had been telling the truth to him in order to judge this man. But then, of course, amid some truly spectacular visions of music, grace and madness and ranting and flags in curious contexts, amid how people live next to each other without ever engaging, things get more complicated. The cinematography is stunning, and I think I’d have to watch it again to make sense of all of Nathaniel’s rants and visionary talk and of all the subtleties of the script. So if you just watch one film this week, make it this one. And surrender.

knowledge.

Do we, as anthropologists, have anything specific to offer to help humankind understand the varieties of its experience of the world? Can the style of knowledge that we have developed over time be transposed beyond the particular circumstances that have presided over its birth and the culturespecific concepts that we have inherited from this historical genesis? Are we reluctant imperialists riding the waves of globalisation and trying to peddle half-heartedly our used wares to people who have no real need for them, or do we still have a contribution to make to a non-ethnocentric understanding of the human condition? I think we do.

Philippe Descola 2005. On anthropological knowledge.

it is quite early and i woke up much before the dawn, quite unable to get back to sleep. i like the quiet of the night and the way in which it makes my heart beat less wildly.

anish kapoor.

traveltime, timetravel.

so much to tell about the last three weeks, but most of all this:

Ich brach in solcher Eile auf, dass ich nicht richtig Abschied nehmen konnte und dass das Gefuhl mich auf der Heimreise begleitete, ich haette mich nur unzureichend bedankt.

we reveled in the colours of the dunes and the warmth of the air. we met many people that were kind and taught us various things. such as the viscosity of pap, the microscopic brain of chickens, the perfection of zebra stripes, the unexpected elephant in the area, plants and woods of the bush to live and eat, the way a baobab does not bend its twigs, the sweet heaviness of papaya, the memories of childhood.

how can so much beauty and sadness coexist?

namibia. back in three weeks.

i’ll be off the grid for the next three weeks.

yay.

this is what the forecast is. bring it on.

Let’s say you’re listening to your favorite band on a stereo system. There is a place between the two speakers where you will hear the two streams of music blend perfectly, exactly as the sound engineer intended. This place is called the sweet spot. If you play tennis or baseball, you know about another version of the term “sweet spot.” It’s the area on the racquet or the bat where you get best results when striking the ball. According to my astrological analysis, Taurus, this will be your ruling metaphor for the next three weeks. You have arrived at your very own sweet spot — the embodiment of all that is melodious, graceful, delicious, aromatic, and effective.

rob breszny says…

Talk to yourself more and better. Not just with streams of chatter that meander aimlessly. Not with darts of self-deprecation mixed in with grandiose fantasies. No, Taurus. When I urge you to talk to yourself more and better, I mean that you should address your self with focused tenderness. I mean that you should be driven by the bold intention to lift up your mood, praise your skills, shower blessings on your vulnerabilities, and love yourself down to the core. You will attract cosmic assistance if you do this playful work. You will bathe your subconscious intelligence with healing luminosity.

i like his horoscopes

here

age and surprise.

question for you dear reader…

do you think that as our lives move along and we get older that there is less reason for surprise? for instance, do you find yourself less inclined to say ‘wow, never seen this thing before’ or ‘wow i’ve really learnt something from this’ or something along those lines anyway?

what keeps you interested in being surprised? if not, why not? what would you do if you found yourself not surprised enough at the world and the things and relationships in it?

i’m spending sunday  in the office. trying to get my new and much improved draft done before i leave to namibia in a week and two days. definitely feeling the pressure.

[photo: hms surprise]

little did they know.

in my vanity, i had a look at my blog stats, and discovered that these are the ’search engine terms of all time’ that led to my blog.

here you go – it summarises my interests precisely… muhahaha… ‘tribal alphabet’ in particular, and diamonds… ;o)

paul klee	1,323
gloria swanson	862
edward steichen	574
diamonds	404
tiananmen square	364
calvin	308
pablo neruda	235
howl’s moving castle	215
feminism	204
goldilocks	160
tiananmen	121
steichen	100
blaue blume	71
sinaia	66
iceland	63
howls moving castle	57
edward steichen gloria swanson	54
sign language	49
paul klee red balloon	48
paulklee	42
steichen gloria swanson	35
zu arel op der knippchen	33
gloria swanson steichen	32
robin evans	26
eduard steichen	26
german sign language	26
hermes	26
neruda	25
tiananmen square photo	25
borges happiness	24
judith park	23
gloria swanson edward steichen	22
paul klee the red balloon	22
steichen swanson	20
katilifox	20
hope sandoval	18
georges perec	17
klee red balloon	16
benares	16
sea gypsies	15
raymond queneau	14
\”gloria swanson\”	14
tribal alphabet	14
casa 11 mujeres	13
alphabet sign language	13
howl moving castle	12
\”paul klee\”	12
gloria swanson by edward steichen	12
english sign language alphabet	11
happiness borges	11