Saturday, November 08, 2025

I don't want to hear another song ...

Seni düşünmek güzel şey,
                     ümitli şey, 
dünyanın en güzel sesinden en güzel şarkıyı dinlemek gibi bir şey. 
Fakat artık ümit yetmiyor bana,
ben artık şarkı dinlemek değil,
                   şarkı söylemek istiyorum.

[30 Eylül 1945]

*

Thinking of you is something beautiful,
                              something hopeful,
like hearing the most beautiful song from the most beautiful voice in the world.
But hope isn't enough for me anymore,
I don't want to hear another song,
                               I want to sing...

[30 September 1945]

*

An dich zu denken, ist etwas Schönes,
                    etwas Hoffnungsvolles,
als hörte man das schönste Lied der schönsten Stimme der Welt.
Aber die Hoffnung reicht mir nicht mehr,
ich will kein Lied mehr hören,
                             ich will singen...

*

Pensar en tu és quelcom bonic,
          quelcom esperançador,
com escoltar la cançó més bonica de la veu més bonica del món.
Però l'esperança ja no és suficient per a mi,
no vull escoltar cap altra cançó,
                                 vull cantar... 

Nâzım Hikmet (17 January 1902 – 3 June 1963) 

Friday, November 07, 2025

Sunday, November 02, 2025

Joan Maragall: The blinded cow

As so often happens,
I spontaneously opened this new book
to 'a random' page and... read this poem several times.
Pages 36/37: La vaca sega / Die erblindete Kuh.

Saturday, November 01, 2025

Saturday, October 25, 2025

Beers & Books (432) – Book of Absences

Buch der Abwesenheiten
& Die schönen Wege
*
Llibre d'absències
& Els bells camins

Miquel Martí i Pol
(19 March 1929 – 11 November 2003)

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Sometimes I regret

Sometimes I regret 
having wasted so much time thinking, 
re-thinking again and again and pondering 
instead of ... writing.

Friday, October 17, 2025

Relats conjunts

 «Costa abstracta» (Anònim, creat per Gallery Today)
*
Relats conjunts

Arnold Schönberg once stated:
"If it is art it is not for all
and if it is for all it is not art."
...
Well, this is ... for all. ;-)

Friday is Skyday

Wherever I look:
It's autumn.

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Laughing Lhursday* – "Reading sucks!"**

"Books?
No, thanks!
 
Just no books!

* [For first time visitors]: 
Typo in the title? Nah. It's just that 
I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.
 

** I know a little boy who after all has started to love reading! ;-) 

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Beers&Books (430) – Jaume Cabré: Jo confesso

Das Schweigen des Sammlers = The Collector's Silence*
*
Jo confesso (2011)
*
Confessions
 

 Jaume Cabré * 30 April 1947

*Apparently, the original title was not considered conducive to sales.

Monday, October 13, 2025

Farewell to a wonderful human being

Sometimes words do not come easy to me. Today is one of those days.

As long as dementia does not overtake me, I will not forget today's birthday of mine. Because at 3.00 am (12:00 in Canberra), a service was held for Sue.

Arundhati Roy once wrote about the ‘god of small things’. Sue had an eye for ‘small things’ – in her garden, out and about in her beloved Canberra, close to ‘her’ kangaroos, etc. ...

An admirable woman, intelligent, humorous, warm-hearted, down-to-earth, not a chatterbox.
A woman who would listen to people in need and try to show desperate seekers a way ... Out of the Shadows into the Light.

Glad and thankful I once stumbled’ across her on my friend Andrew's blog, I shall remember Sue as a wonderful human being.

... And I like the idea of her revelling among flowers, cats, kangaroos, and smiling at us. ;-)

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Today 533 years ago

The American who was the first to discover Columbus 
made a terrible discovery.

Der Amerikaner, der den Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte,
machte eine böse Entdeckung. [G 183]


Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

Saturday, October 11, 2025

Final apple harvest

The pears have by now mutated into juice and jam.
And lots of apples have already become juice and jelly.

Yesterday, the picking of the last tree began.

Enough for more jelly,
in winter one apple a day for the humans,
two or three for the birds,
and now and then an apple cake.

Tuesday, October 07, 2025

Fuck you, Singapore & Co.

Fuck you, Tencent Cloud Computing (43.173.xxx.yyy)
Chrome 126.0
Win7
1280x1200

You may choose to make your miserable lives by stealing intellectual property. 
What you don't realise is that in the end, you will die a miserable death.

Monday, October 06, 2025

Sunday, October 05, 2025

Happy 114th, Flanny!

It's all a matter of Omnium, eh? ;-)
*
[...] people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles [...] 
get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle
as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them 
and you would be surprised at the number of people [...]
who are nearly half people and half bicycles...
(from "The Third Policeman")


Flann O'Brien *5 October 1911

Before anyone erroneously claims he is dead: Those few people still taking for granted Flann O'Brien died 1 April 1966: Flann fooled you all.

Monday, September 29, 2025

Saturday, September 27, 2025

Using the wind

Ideal day for drying laundry

   
here and ...

there.
Up the wind! ;-)

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Her Voice His Eyes

On the other side I had seen a little girl,
her right hand holding a man's left,
leading him towards the night,
her voice being his eyes.
The sun is red, she said, and soon
she will dive into the glistening sea.

Having eyes only for the man at her side
she had not taken notice of me,
and still I felt like an intruder.
Suddenly I sensed myself walking away,
and only the sun could see
my eyes burning with sorrow and joy.

Could you see through walls,
there's a girl holding a man's hand
her voice being his eyes.
© 2009 Sean Jeating

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Relats conjunts: Treason

«Ballarina amb ram de flors»
*
Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers
«Star of the Ballet»
(Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas – 1878)
*
Relats conjunts
 

 [To continue "TRAïCiÓ "/Treason, the story of Paula]

Still breathless after enjoying the standing ovation, Núria is greeted behind the curtain by her favourite colleague with two glasses of champagne. But she does not take the glass offered by Helena.
‘Give me your glass,’ she demands.
‘How suspicious you are,’ Helena smilingly pouts, but takes back the rejected glass, hands Núria hers, takes the one Núria rejected and drinks it in one gulp.
‘Forgive me! How stupid of me to mistrust you.’ Núria laughs, drinks her glass in one gulp... stares at Helena with wide eyes ... the bouquet gliding from her hand ... and collapses ... dead ... 

Friday, September 19, 2025

Friday is Skyday

Mostly a cloudy week it was, filling the rain barrels.

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Laughing Lhursday*

The loveliest of all daughters and booksellers allowed me
 to 'make' a Laughing Lhursday of her mishap.
As title, she suggested two and a half weeks ago:
Tanzen ist doch schädlich. / Dancing is harmful after all.

Now, while sitting in Hogwarts
with her torn ligament, 
the cook's name is Sean,
for a couple of weeks
carrying pots and pans across the road
for four hungry mouths.

* [For first time visitors]: 
Typo in the title? Nah. It's just that 
I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Monday, September 15, 2025

Beers & Books (426) – Catalan narrators

Catalan storytellers
*
Recently purchased second-hand: 19 stories by 
Jacint Verdaguer, Carles Bosch de la Trinxeria, Narcís Oller,
Joaquim Ruyra, Victor Català, Ernesto Martínez Ferrando,
Miquel LlorLorenç Villalonga, Mercè Rodoreda, Pere Calders,
Salvador Espriu (2), Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Manuel de Pedrolo,
Jordi Sarsanedas (2), Joaquim Carbó, Terenci Moix, Josep Albanell.

Sunday, September 07, 2025

Balcony views with red moon

Whilst this afternoon sitting with Antonio Molina Muñoz
I enjoyed this view.
Five and a half hours later
I took a shot of today's lunar eclipse...
Thirty-one minutes later, Ms Luna
had reappeared from the Earth's shadow.

Saturday, September 06, 2025

Balcony view

This afternoon, whilst sitting with Mercé Rodoreda
and a cup of coffee on the balcony,
when looking up, once again I felt privileged.

Friday, September 05, 2025