Just a thought

Knowledge is not an abstract homogeneous good, of which there cannot be enough. Beyond the last flutter of actual or possible significance, pedantry begins.
Jacques Barzun

Encore

[Mr. O'Donnell's wish was my command]

Mediterranean Sundance

Just too hot

This morning: bright sunshine, blue sky, no wind, at 9 o'clock already 26°C; watering the flowers on the graveyard.

A voice behind me:

- Good morning, Mr. J.

- Ah, good morning, Mrs. D.  The dear dead are thirsty these days, aren't they?

- Indeed, it's awful hot.

- Well, up here it's certainly a bit warmer than down there. Want to move six feet under? I did not ask.

- A bit warmer? Hot it is! Awful hot. I am sweltering. [laughing]

- Oh well. Take it easy. It's summer. In six months you'll complain about how cold it is, and the oil-price, I did not say. 

- I have nothing against summer. But that's just too much.

- 26°C? Too much? 

- The heat came too fast. And the day has just begun. Don't you feel it?

 ...

 I felt ... indeed ... reminded of different kinds of heat:

In case you wish to dive a bit deeper into Harun Farocki's work, here's for a beginning.

Oh, and to the lady's question I (smilingly) replied: Yes, I do. What about just enjoying life?

And her answer: Soon I will. We'll spend our holiday in Tunesia.  

Tiny a tribute

Thus José Saramago began his Nobel lecture*:

The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife. My mother's parents lived on this scarcity, on the small breeding of pigs that after weaning were sold to the neighbours in our village of Azinhaga in the province of Ribatejo. Their names were Jerónimo Meirinho and Josefa Caixinha and they were both illiterate. In winter when the cold of the night grew to the point of freezing the water in the pots inside the house, they went to the sty and fetched the weaklings among the piglets, taking them to their bed. Under the coarse blankets, the warmth from the humans saved the little animals from freezing and rescued them from certain death. Although the two were kindly people, it was not a compassionate soul that prompted them to act in that way: what concerned them, without sentimentalism or rhetoric, was to protect their daily bread, as is natural for people who, to maintain their life, have not learnt to think more than is needful. 

And these were his last words:

I conclude. The voice that read these pages wished to be the echo of the conjoined voices of my characters. I don't have, as it were, more voice than the voices they had. Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all. 

Well, I do have nothing to forgive.
José Saramago's voice to me was and is not all - and sometimes his style would cause me a frown - but his Seeing of the Blindness in the Cave we call progressing civilisation means much for me.
So much, indeed, that in the cathedral of this agnostic's heart there's been lit a candle of thankfulness.

And yes! Amongst the wisest (wo)men I ever knew in my (so far not) whole life were quite a few who could hardly read or write.
 

* The complete English translation is to be found here.

Postscriptum:
Anticipating some non-permanent readers' thoughts and answering them:

Ah, a communist. - Nah.
Ah, an atheist. - Nah. Although, I do like Buñuel's aphorism: I am atheist, thanks to god.

Ah, ... - Nah!  Why not come back and try harder?

The Solution

After the uprising of the 17th of June*
The Secretary of the Writers Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.
Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

Bertold Brecht

* choose any date and location you wish

Bloom's Day in Seanhenge

... today means weeding weeding weeding

 instead of reading

or even making words words words

which, by the way, easily can become a sword.

Tonight I might open page 506 of Richard Ellman's Joyce biography, though.

Why page 506 (pp)?

The answer you could find by visiting Stan's dwelling, while its owner - so to speak - is celebrating Molly's Day. 

Enjoy.

Variatio delectat

Don't let disturb yourself by this blog's varying appearance. 

I might be a bit experimenting for a while.

After all, change is part of Omnium, too, hm?

Just a thought

The tinier one's brain, the less others need to wash.

Disability and the UN System

... ha ha ha, there was no need to invent this title. The UN - so far! - is a forum of the disabled. {Anyone to sue me? You're welcome!) Imagine: Libya f. e. amongst members of the Human Rights Council. Thankfully there's no need of a comment. Alfred E. Neuman years ago put it nicely.

"The U.N. is a place where governments opposed to free speech demand to be heard!"

And thus ends a day with Schumann

Es war, als hätt' der Himmel
Die Erde still geküsst
Dass sie im Blütenschimmer
Von ihm nun träumen müsst

Die Luft ging durch die Felder
Die Ähren wogten sacht
Es rauschten leis die Wälder
So sternklar war die Nacht

Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Flügel aus
Flog durch die stillen Lande
Als flöge sie nach Haus



It was as though the sky
had silently kissed the earth,
so that it now had to dream of sky
in shimmers of flowers.

The air went through the fields,
the corn-ears leaned heavy down
the woods swished softly—
so clear with stars was the night

And my soul stretched
its wings out wide,
flew through the silent lands
as though it were flying home.

[To esteemed visitors who might come to think 'this is/seems to be suboptimal a translation of Eichendorff's poem': You may even say: It's a lousy one! - However, such an admirer of Eichendorff I am not that I'd  ask McSeanagall to make it better. In other words: I don't like the poet, but this very piece of music.]

Poet(s) of Love

Schumann 'In foreign lands'