I am a woman – quite real – to myself
and all that is most virtual to others
accessible to myself
inaccessible to all the others
what is it that separates me from the others?
the veil of Maya, say some
the unbearable lightness of being, say others
illusions and allusions
there you have it, what protects us, the one and the others
what separates us, the ones from the others
to a friend who insisted on seeing me, I said, “not even in your dreams”
she took it badly and eclipsed herself from my mind
i was mistaken, badly mistaken, I should have told her
in dreams, why not, but not in real life
some hidden meaning… some secret meaning… some sacred meaning…
there you have it, what comprises Mystery
my life and I, we will always be out of reach
intimate intimity
Chimène* or Chimera
since ancient times the emphasis was always on the duplicity of all living things
am I a person or a personality?
real or virtual?
existence or excellence?
that I am Nobody makes my character more enigmatic but at the same time more consistent
it is paradoxical, but all who are tempted by infinity will know what I am saying
will push themselves to question Orpheus anew. He descended into hell to save Eurydice. Imagine the pain he put himself through. No, you can’t imagine, because it is unimaginable. And at the moment of returning to the surface, when he was in front and she behind him, the gods forbade him to turn around until they were both together at the other side of the barrier, on the human side, but Orpheus couldn’t restrain himself; he turned around, and lost Eurydice forever
* literary character signifying obsessive passion
(Thanks to Martin Jacklin for help with this translation. Original text HERE.)
Everyone knows the terrible communities, whether because they’ve spent some time in them or because they’re still there. Or simply because they’re still stronger than the others, and so some of us have still partly remained in them – while at the same time being outside of them. The family, the school, work, prison – these are the classical faces of this contemporary form of hell, but they are the least interesting because they belong to a bygone depiction of commodity evolution, and are at present merely surviving on. There are some terrible communities, however, that fight against the existing state of things, and that are simultaneously quite attractive and much better than “this world.” And at the same time their way of approximating truth – and thus joy – distances them more than anything else from freedom.
The question that arises for us, in a final manner, is more of an ethical than a political nature, because the classical forms of politics are at the low water-mark, and their categories are leaving us, like the habits of childhood. The question is whether we prefer the possibility of unknown dangers to the certainty of the present misery. That is, whether we want to go on living and talking in accord (in a dissident manner, of course, but always in accord) with what has been done up to now – and thus with the terrible communities – or whether we want to really put to the test that little part of our desires that culture has still not managed to infest with its cumbersome quagmire and try to start out on a different path – in the name of a totally new kind of happiness.
This text was born as a contribution to that new journey.
Read the whole of this publication, translated from the original French, HERE.
I’m not scared of the road
We’ll have to see, have to taste
The weakness in our loins
And everything will be ok
The wind will carry us
Your message to Ursa Major
And the trajectory of your course
An instant of valour
Even if it’s for nothing
The wind will take it away
Everything will disappear but
The wind will carry us
The caress and the gunshot
That wound that tears us apart
The palace of the everyday
From yesterday and tomorrow
The wind will carry them
Genetics carried on the back
Chromosomes in the atmosphere
Taxis for the galaxies
And my flying carpet says
The wind will carry it off
Everything will disappear but
The wind will carry us
This perfume of our dead years
That can knock at your door
Infinity of destinies
We put some down but what do we retain?
The wind will take it away
While the tide comes in
And everyone is doing their accounts
I bring to the hollow of my shadow
A few bits of your dust
The wind will carry them
Everything will disappear but
The wind will carry us
“Yes, but what is man, what are men, what are they? I do not say that they haven’t kind hearts, if I fall down in a faint, they will rush to pick me up, if my house is on fire, they will rush in to put the fire out and help me, yes they have kind hearts but they are afraid, afraid, they are afraid, they are afraid. They fear women, they fear each other, they fear their neighbor, they fear other countries and then they hearten themselves in their fear by crowding together and following each other, and when they crowd together and follow each other they are brutes, like animals who stampede, and so they have written in the name male into the United States constitution, because they are afraid of black men because they are afraid of women, because they are afraid afraid. Men are afraid.”
“And women.”
“Ah women often have not any sense of danger, after all a hen screams pitifully when she sees an eagle but she is only afraid for her children, men are afraid for themselves, that is the real difference between men and women.”
“But Susan B, why do you not say these things out loud?”
“I say they are afraid, but if I were to tell them so their kindness would turn to hate. Yes the Quakers are right, they are not afraid because they do not fight, they do not fight.”
“But Susan B. you fight and you are not afraid.”
“I fight and I am not afraid, I fight but I am not afraid.”
Live 1972 cover of the Donovan song, based on a poem by Christopher Logue.
Be not too hard for life is short
And nothing is given to man
Be not too hard when he is sold or bought
For he must manage as best he can
Be not too hard when he blindly dies
Fighting for things he does not own
Be not too hard when he tells lies
Or if his heart is sometimes like a stone
Be not too hard for soon he’ll die
Often no wiser than he began
Be not too hard for life is short
And nothing is given to man
My name is Nobody
Listen carefully to what I say
because I pick my words on the fly
And I never repeat myself
I told you what I call myself; this settles the question of WHO
The WHERE meanwhile could easily be described as the wall of a cell of a post entitled: “Inside woman”
But there is a clear difference between ending up trapped in a narrow cell and ending up trapped in one’s own desire to settle all accounts.
WHAT is easy too: Lately I have designed and begun to implement a mechanism to take over the Internet. The most perfect break in on the planet!
but WHEN? today or maybe tomorrow.
Regarding WHY… besides the obvious motivation of exacting justice, the reason is very simple: Because I decided to.
… Which leaves us with the HOW to resolve:
To be true to myself, I would say: No comment!
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
~ from Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Joyful Science)
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.
This is one of a series of eight videos made by Ulricke Lourens for a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. It is a focused look at the body being corsetted and the tension that occurs. The series documents the practice of waist training, exploring the notion of culture imprinted onto the body and reflected through the skin. Watch more on Ulricke’s Youtube channel.
My earliest childhood memory is of my second birthday.
It’s a sunny winter afternoon. The dry grass smells stubbly and brown. The pelargoniums smell interesting too. I know what they are called because Nana always shouts at me when I pick the glowing red flowers. The slasto paving is warm and there are stripy lizards that scuttle away.
Mommy has made me a Hickory Dickory Dock cake, and set it on the outside table (which is white moulded asbestos/concrete in the shape of a faux slice through a tree trunk…I remember this well because it was around for several years). Standing next to the table, I am only able to see the side of the cake. Pink and white marshmallows encircle it, magically turned into mice with little cardboard ears and liquorice bootlace tails, and when I am picked up to blow out the candles, the clock’s face on top of the cake is made from liquorice too, and glacé cherries. The liquorice doesn’t taste very nice. I like the cherries.
Yes please, thank you very much, Nana. I say it after her because if I don’t she won’t give me what I want. Don’t put your feet on the table. No. That’s very naughty. If you do it again Nana will smack you. The threat makes me dissolve into tears. The frustration! I’m learning about manners. Manners are annoying.
I feel very big. I have a brand new baby sister, a month and a bit old. She is in a navy blue vinyl pram nearby. If I pull myself up on the side of it, I can juuust see over into her tiny, swaddled world.
“Pear Drops were exciting because they had a dangerous taste. All of us were warned against eating them, and the result was that we ate them more than ever.”
Eucharius!
you walked blithely when you stayed
with the Son of God,
touching him, watching
his miracle-working.
You loved him with a perfect love
when terror fell on your friends —
who being human had no
strength to bear the brightness
of the good.
But you — in the blaze of utmost love —
drew him to your heart
when you gathered the sheaves
of his precepts.
Eucharius!
when the Word of God possessed you
in the blaze of the dove,
when the sun rose in your spirit,
you founded a church in your bliss.
Daylight shimmers in your heart
where three tabernacles stand
on a marble pillar
in the city of God.
In your preaching Ecclesia
savors old wine with new —
a chalice twice hallowed.
And in your teaching Ecclesia
argued with such force
that her shout rang over the mountains,
that the hills and the woods might bow
to suck her breasts.
Pray for this company now,
pray with resounding voice
that we forsake not Christ
in his sacred rites,
but become before his altar
a living sacrifice.
Translated by Barbara Newman
Comment from the maker of the video: “This piece was influenced by cubist works of circus and theatrical subjects in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Art in Madrid. It is also influenced by stained glass work I saw at the Theatre of Glass in Bath. The original piece is much more beautiful because of the larger file size.
The kinetic version of this piece is set against Hildegard von Bingens O Euchari (1161) sung by Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices.”
INTO:
“expressing movement or action with the result that someone or something becomes enclosed or surrounded by something else” (Oxford Dictionary of English) is a collaboration between three artists – two sonic, one visual. Randomly morphing field recordings are the inspiration for the sonic duo’s improvisations while the visual artist’s work is manipulated by software which responds to what is played on the two instruments.”
Tomorrow evening my talented visual artist friend, Zara-Moon Arthur, performs at Unyazi 3, the festival of experimental electronica happening in Durban from 12 – 15 September 2012, along with her husband, bassist and field recordist Brydon Bolton, and Frank Mallows on vibraphone as the trio, “into”. Here are a few stills from Moon’s blog – check out this link for more. Look out for into’s performance if you are attending Unyazi 3 – it promises to be mesmerising.
A conversation about recorded music and nostalgia that arose on another blog with which I was involved for over half a decade. It’s no longer there now, but the discussion is interesting enough to deserve a repost, I feel.
aryan kaganof says:
i notice that many people of my age just give up listening to new music and go back to what they know (what they knew)
but it’s wonderful to keep on discovering
perhaps people who stop listening to new music don’t love the music but merely love their youth
so they want to keep on being reminded of their youth
the youth that for them is already over
and that the music now symbolizes
and this of course makes them very old!
helgé janssen says:
and again you have given that totally insightful take on why people listen to music from their youth
this has perplexed me for sooooo long….
i have known that they are obviously stuck (i’ve seen it happen before my very eyes and as young as 19!)
but i had never thought of it this way
this throws enormous light on the entire process!!
for quite obviously there comes a cut-off point
from which their youth no longer ‘happened’
so they pay for their compartmentalizing, categorizing and (worse) their lack of imagination!!!
eva spook says:
ah so what is it then when you listen to music from times before you’re born? i’m now listening to blind blake…i’m beyond old, i’m digging into previous lives to feel alive again
cherry bomb says:
ha! that’s where i’m at too, eva… i’m listening a lot to wax cylinder recordings, caruso, world war one torch songs… that are hardly even a record of what happened in those three minutes that somebody sang into that funnel. drowned in scratches and static, devoid of bass timbre, they sound nothing like what the actual performance must have. i think the palpable ephemerality is what attracts me. it *is* about feeling alive. the voracious desire to live lives i am not living comes into it too, i think. only listening to contemporary stuff is terribly restrictive!
music does have a fetishistic quality: part of this lies in its power to transport you temporarily outside of the confines of spacetime. while it is playing, music gives you the immediate abiity to alter present-tense context radically; whether to propel yourself into the future, or zoom back into a dark and sordid or halcyon past, back into the arms of an ex-lover, or be transported out of your body and into a vacuum beyond everything. you just close your eyes and press play.
we all love nostalgia: saudades, real or imagined – one of the most easily accessible sources of a sense of meaningful connection, paradoxically because it’s in the absence of the original context and referent, which intensifies the desire for that inaccessible experience, real or imagined.
i reckon people who listen to the ‘same old music’ simply lack a vivid enough imagination to meaningfully access worlds of possibility not tied securely by memory to their previous experiences, to repetition. the “same old songs” are invariably hits that they heard a billion times on the radio, that they kissed girls to, that played at rugby matches, that their dad played in the car on road trips (hands up those who were kids in the south african ’80s that don’t have a special place in their hearts for paul simon’s graceland album?)…
i am forever trying to understand what makes the few handfuls of songs that really stick in those jukebox playlists stick. songs from the likes of creedence clearwater revival, iggy pop, counting crows, bowie, the clash, green day, soft cell… what is the lowest common denominator? they are not all well-written songs with catchy riffs. they are not all from the same era. there are songs with very weird content for the average homophobic barfly to groove on. “holly came from miami, f.l.a… shaved her legs, then he was a she…” there are songs which really, truly suck (e.g. any of the bombast by nickelback!). are they there due to an inane feedback loop: there because they have been there for years, and they have been there for years because they happened always to be there? or is it something innate about the content? i don’t know.
here’s a good example of a song that has been an instant ‘classic’ from the day it came out: “mr jones” by the counting crows:
i have always hated this whiny song, yet it has never stopped playing in pool bars and at supermarkets and weddings. why??? listening to it now – and actually listening, rather than blocking it out, as i always have done – i am struck by how eloquently the lyrics fake meaning in a non-threatening way… a warm, fuzzy yearning with no uncomfortable aftertaste. the simply strummed guitar lends a soothing, ersatz familiarity. “have you ever seen the rain?” by creedence clearwater revival (another one of those jukebox standards) is remarkably similar.
i don’t think people given to listening to “the same old music” necessarily think about how old they are at all, or how life was better back when that song came out (though that is undoubtedly a common dronkverdriet thought). yes, they do feel connected to the past through it. but i don’t reckon this is necessarily examined. i reckon the familiarity mostly just makes them feel warm and comfy and vaguely meaningful. it makes them feel like they belong when everyone is singing along with them in unison. it goes down well with the beer. and that’s what the main function of music is for them. it’s pretty simple. “ah yay! i love this song! this place is cool. want another jagerbomb? let’s go dance!”
“i was down at the new amsterdam staring at this yellow-haired girl
mr. jones strikes up a conversation with this black-haired flamenco dancer
she dances while his father plays guitar
she’s suddenly beautiful
we all want something beautiful
i wish i was beautiful
so come dance this silence down through the morning
cut maria! show me some of them spanish dances
pass me a bottle, mr. jones
believe in me
help me believe in anything
i want to be someone who believes
mr. jones and me tell each other fairy tales
stare at the beautiful women
“she’s looking at you. ah, no, no, she’s looking at me.”
smiling in the bright lights
coming through in stereo
when everybody loves you, you can never be lonely
i will paint my picture
paint myself in blue and red and black and gray
all of the beautiful colors are very very meaningful
grey is my favorite color
i felt so symbolic yesterday
if i knew picasso
i would buy myself a gray guitar and play
mr. jones and me look into the future
stare at the beautiful women
“she’s looking at you.
uh, i don’t think so. she’s looking at me.”
standing in the spotlight
i bought myself a gray guitar
when everybody loves me, i will never be lonely
i want to be a lion
everybody wants to pass as cats
we all want to be big big stars, but we got different reasons for that
believe in me because i don’t believe in anything
and i want to be someone to believe
mr. jones and me stumbling through the barrio
yeah we stare at the beautiful women
“she’s perfect for you, man, there’s got to be somebody for me.”
i want to be bob dylan
mr. jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky
when everybody loves you, son, that’s just about as funky as you can be
mr. jones and me staring at the video
when i look at the television, i want to see me staring right back at me
we all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why and we don’t know how
but when everybody loves me, i’m going to be just about as happy as can be
mr. jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars…”
“yesterday, and days before, sun is cold and rain is hard,
i know; been that way for all my time.
til forever, on it goes through the circle, fast and slow,
i know; it can’t stop, i wonder.”
mick says:
ah mz bomb – your opinions on this and that are both eloquent and exciting, which is a purdy rare combo, purdy, and rare. chi in.
eva spook says:
thanks to the internet and the loss of my cd collection many years ago ( all of them stolen)… not only can’t i listen to the music of my youth, but addictive myspace (among others) make it pretty much impossible not to find and hear new music on a daily basis… i hear new and exciting music every single day…
for this entry i did a little search to the music that warps me back in time and because i lack imagination i will just post the link:
Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let your sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards—they will win
they will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror
repeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendour of the sky
they don’t need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
~ Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Bogdana and John Carpenter, from Selected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert. Source: Mr Cogito (1993). Oxford University Press, Ltd.
Thanks to poet and journalist Fiona Zerbst for sharing this on her Facebook page today. You can check out Fiona’s blog HERE.
Amália Rodrigues sings the fado “Barco Negro” in a scene from Henri Verneuil’s 1955 film LES AMANTS DU TAGE.
Translation of the French conversation in the scene (which paraphrases the Portuguese lyrics of the song being performed by Amália behind it):
Child — Do you like it?
Woman — Very much. I’m sorry I don’t understand Portuguese. It must be beautiful.
Child — It’s the wife of a fisherman who died at sea. She goes down to the beach every night and talks to him as if he were alive. She tells him… She tells him… love things.
Man — [paraphrasing the singer] “I woke up this morning trembling next to you, afraid that I was less beautiful than yesterday. But your eyes told me, ‘No.’
“When you opened the door, the sun was gliding along the sea and your black boat was dancing in the light. Standing on the rocks, I saw you hoist sail and turn towards the open sea, while waving happily.
“The women praying at night along the shore say that you never returned. Madwomen, my love, madwomen! You never left. You’re everywhere around me, as always… In the wind, throwing sand against the windowpanes; in the water, singing on the fire; in the empty chair, staring at me; in the dark of the hearth; in the warmth of the bed; in the crook of my shoulder… You are there always. Always there. Always.”
We have left the land and have embarked. We have burned our bridges behind us—indeed, we have gone farther and destroyed the land behind us. Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it had offered more freedom—and there is no longer any “land”.
~ From Friedrich Nietzsche’s Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Joyful Science) (1882/1887); translation by Walter Kaufmann.
“I knew Steve Biko,” I say again, thinking no one has heard me.
“We heard you the first time,” you reply. “So you knew Steve Biko – who is dead. We are looking for someone who knows Julius Malema – who is alive. The dead are of no use to budding entrepreneurs – except if you are inheriting from them.”
“Malema thinks only of himself,” I say. “Steve Biko thought of everyone except himself.”
“That’s why he is dead – and you are poor,” you reply. “The good disciple mirrors the master. So before you become a disciple, choose the right master.”
“What about the master?” I ask. “Can the master be good, if his disciples are poor?”
“Ah!” you say. “That’s a trick-question. If you give me some silver coins I might answer that.”
“Where will a poor man find silver coins to pay to learn whether his master is poor if he is poor?” I ask.
“Why does a poor man ask such a question when he cannot afford to know the answer?” you say.
“On reflection, I may be able to help you,” I say. “I may already be Malema’s disciple. The Imam at my mosque says we are all corrupt if we do not fight corruption.”
“I don’t have time to help you resolve your confusion,” you say.
“I prefer to confuse my enemies; not my friends.”
~ Shabbir Banoobhai
(thanks to Mphutlane wa Bofelo for sharing this on Facebook)
“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
~ Bantu Steven Biko
It’s 35 years today since Biko was murdered by apartheid security police. The cause for which he died has been sold out by the very leaders who should have been at the vanguard of change he speaks about in this interview from German TV:
Simphiwe Dana sings about the tragedy of the lack of material change for the majority of South Africa’s poor since the transition to “democracy” in 2004:
fleurmach 