Rational free spirits ...

... are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

C'est ça!

:)

"When vanity is not prompting us, we have little to say."
La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

Tonight I can write ...

PUEDO escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: " La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

English:

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Candlelight music

High noon (not only) for photographers

The two previous posts with quotations by Lichtenberg (re prejudices) and Franklin (re liberty) may be taken as an intro to this one.

They were also a reminder for me before putting my head on the pillow last night, in case I'd happen to wake up again not to forget reminding of what fellow blogger and -flannophil, Jams O'Donnell , on December 14th announced for January 23, thus tomorrow:

A gathering of photographers, professionals and amateurs,
at Trafalgar Square at noon,
organised to defend (y)our rights and
stop the abuse of the terror laws.

More about the organisers and the(ir) very serious reasons to speak out you will find here.

So, if you, unlike myself, are living in or near London: Lift your backside and do it: Show those who are still not your leaders but nothing else but your representatives that you are fed up with their understanding of democracy, and that you are not willing to give in. Defend (y)our rights!
Cure your elected - and (still) diselectable (!) - representants from their prejudice that each photographer, each human being has to be treated as a potential criminal or even terrorist.
Defend your (essential) liberty!

Don't you deserve them?

Those who would give up essential liberty
to purchase a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Well, so to speak

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

Yes!

As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

Brendel plays Beethoven

Of course, it's much more comfortable listening to Beethoven's sonata No 29 in five parts less than six, the more while sitting with a mug of coffee in one's chair and enjoying Scottish normality, but anyway:

Here's - especially to you, Andrew :) - the virtuosic Alfred Brendel.
Enjoy.

Another hypocritical idiot

From Mrs. Robinson to Pat Robertson. What an utter stupid scum. May all his teeth fall out, except of one ... for permanent toothache!

Oh, and what do you think when watching the lady's mimic?

Hey, Mrs. Robinson

Ha ha ha ha ha ...

Winter in Seanhenge

Different a view from sping, summer and autumn, hm?

One of our five rain barrels (water butts).

Blackbird through the window of the green house; ...

... and waiting for me to leave after re-filling fodder.

Snow relaxing (on chair).

Remember the roses of Seanhenge?

Sno(w)ivy

Icycles

Blackbird entering restaurant.

Hedgehog's hotel.

Seanhenge at night.

Shovelling new energy

Well, what did I do while being extremely busy with not blogging?

First of all: For a couple of days this newsholic did follow the advice of Mr Thoreau and ignore any news. No TV; no radio, no PC - ha ha, no! No laptop, either. - And: he did not smoke. Neither he consumed any alcohol. He drank and ate well, though, both of which gave him power to shovel snow.

What (else) did he do then?

Reading (details will / might follow), shovelling snow, writing, feeding the birds, reading, pondering, writing, listening, talking, watching black birds and sparrows, bull-, green- and gold finchs, blue- and great tits, a pair of spotted woodpeckers, a nuthatch, robins and, of course, Mr & Mrs Crow who do accept us to being their neighbours for the past 33 years, reading, writing, shovelling snow - by the way, shovelling with one 'l' or with two, Stan? :) - learning Blackbirdish, oh! and enjoying Fidelio, Carmen, La Traviata, Aida, Don Giovanni, Tosca, La Bohème, The Magic Flute.

Did I mention I was shovelling snow?