Toda clasificación es arbitraria

Releo El idioma analítico de John Wilkins, y transcribo parcialmente el párrafo decisivo:

"Ya definido el procedimiento de Wilkins, falta examinar un problema de imposible o difícil postergación: el valor de la tabla cuadragesimal que es base del idioma. Consideremos la octava categoría, la de las piedras. Wilkins las divide en comunes (pedernal, cascajo, pizarra), módicas (mármol, ámbar, coral), preciosas (perla, ópalo), transparentes (amatista, zafiro) e insolubles (hulla, greda y arsénico). Casi tan alarmante como la octava, es la novena categoría. Ésta nos revela que los metales pueden ser imperfectos (bermellón, azogue), artificiales (bronce, latón), recrementicios (limaduras, herrumbre) y naturales (oro, estaño, cobre). La ballena figura en la categoría décimosexta; es un pez vivíparo, oblongo. Esas ambigüedades, redundancias y deficiencias recuerdan las que el doctor Franz Kuhn atribuye a cierta enciclopedia china que se titula Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos. En sus remotas páginas está escrito que los animales se dividen en (a) pertenecientes al Emperador, (b) embalsamados, (c) amaestrados, (d) lechones, (e) sirenas, (f) fabulosos, (g) perros sueltos, (h) incluidos en esta clasificación, (i) que se agitan como locos, (j) innumerables, (k) dibujados con un pincel finísimo de pelo de camello, (l) etcétera, (m) que acaban de romper el jarrón, (n) que de lejos parecen moscas. [sigue...]"

"A l'Allemagne", par Victor Hugo

Aucune nation n'est plus grande que toi ;
Jadis, toute la terre étant un lieu d'effroi,
Parmi les peuples forts tu fus le peuple juste.
Une tiare d'ombre est sur ton front auguste ;
Et pourtant comme l'Inde, aux aspects fabuleux,
Tu brilles ; ô pays des hommes aux yeux bleus,
Clarté hautaine au fond ténébreux de l'Europe,
Une gloire âpre, informe, immense, t'enveloppe ;
Ton phare est allumé sur le mont des Géants ;
Comme l'aigle de mer qui change d'océans,
Tu passas tour à tour d'une grandeur à l'autre ;
Huss le sage a suivi Crescentius l'apôtre ;
Barberousse chez toi n'empêche pas Schiller ;
L'empereur, ce sommet, craint l'esprit, cet éclair.
Non, rien ici-bas, rien ne t'éclipse, Allemagne.
Ton Vitikind tient tête à notre Charlemagne,
Et Charlemagne même est un peu ton soldat.
Il semblait par moments qu'un astre te guidât ;
Et les peuples t'ont vue, ô guerrière féconde,
Rebelle au double joug qui pèse sur le monde,
Dresser, portant l'aurore entre tes poings de fer,
Contre César Hermann, contre Pierre Luther.
Longtemps, comme le chêne offrant ses bras au lierre,
Du vieux droit des vaincus tu fus la chevalière ;
Comme on mêle l'argent et le plomb dans l'airain,
Tu sus fondre en un peuple unique et souverain
Vingt peuplades, le Hun, le Dace, le Sicambre ;
Le Rhin te donne l'or et la Baltique l'ambre ;
La musique est ton souffle ; âme, harmonie, encens,
Elle fait alterner dans tes hymnes puissants
Le cri de l'aigle avec le chant de l'alouette ;
On croit voir sur tes burgs croulants la silhouette
De l'hydre et du guerrier vaguement aperçus
Dans la montagne, avec le tonnerre au-dessus ;
Rien n'est frais et charmant comme tes plaines vertes ;
Les brèches de la brume aux rayons sont ouvertes,
Le hameau dort, groupé sous l'aile du manoir,
Et la vierge, accoudée aux citernes le soir,
Blonde, a la ressemblance adorable des anges.
Comme un temple exhaussé sur des piliers étranges
L'Allemagne est debout sur vingt siècles hideux,
Et sa splendeur qui sort de leurs ombres, vient d'eux.
Elle a plus de héros que l'Athos n'a de cimes.
La Teutonie, au seuil des nuages sublimes
Où l'étoile est mêlée à la foudre, apparaît ;
Ses piques dans la nuit sont comme une forêt ;
Au-dessus de sa tête un clairon de victoire
S'allonge, et sa légende égale son histoire ;
Dans la Thuringe, où Thor tient sa lance en arrêt,
Ganna, la druidesse échevelée, errait ;
Sous les fleuves, dont l'eau roulait de vagues flammes,
Les sirènes chantaient, monstres aux seins de femmes,
Et le Harz que hantait Velléda, le Taunus
Où Spillyre essuyait dans l'herbe ses pieds nus,
Ont encor toute l'âpre et divine tristesse
Que laisse dans les bois profonds la prophétesse ;
La nuit, la Forêt-Noire est un sinistre éden ;
Le clair de lune, aux bords du Neckar, fait soudain
Sonores et vivants les arbres pleins de fées.
O Teutons, vos tombeaux ont des airs de trophées ;
Vos aïeux n'ont semé que de grands ossements ;
Vos lauriers sont partout ; soyez fiers, Allemands.
Le seul pied des titans chausse votre sandale.
Tatouage éclatant, la gloire féodale
Dore vos morions, blasonne vos écus ;
Comme Rome Coclès vous avez Galgacus,
Vous avez Beethoven comme la Grèce Homère ;
L'Allemagne est puissante et superbe.

De "L'année terrible"

Berlin Wall 20|09

Cartier-Bresson shot the Wall, and today (Wall 20|09) I went to the Bernauer Strasse to try to recreate his pictures. But it is completely impossible.

The phone-register-box is now on the opposite side of the street, and there is a new building under construction. The first two buildings of the Wolliner Strasse were destroyed. Now the streets are paved with asphalt.

Instead of after-war-cripples and French policemen with machine guns, tourists have to wait for the green light carrying on their shoulders a camera or a backpack. Some famous pics of Bernauer Strasse (and good ones):

Today it is being partially refurbished, new lofts are under construction, and the former Wall is now a tiny rocky path shivering the memory of the pedestrians:

So looked the corner of Bernauer Strasse and Schwedter Strasse years ago, and today the building's wall depicts a "Joga Bonito" grafitti called Welcome to Berlin.

The Bernauer Strasse is particularly important, among other reasons, because it was perhaps the most dramatic spot where the Wall was risen, and perhaps even the first one. On the other hand, the Böse Bridge, on the Bornholmer Strasse, was the first spot where the Wall was broken, and so, people started crossing on the night of November 9th, 1989.

Today there was a ceremony with Walesa, Gorbachov, Merkel and Wowereit.

I was particularly interested by a nearby garden-colony which still exists behind a long piece of the Wall. The very first persons who crossed got a stamp on their passports, since they were "visiting" another country.

These figures are famous images of the East Side Gallery, which were reproduced by some schoolboys in the big domino pieces which fall down today simulating the fall of the Wall.

Now let's tear down many other diving walls we have!

Red barriers: Maradona, Tank Man

Maradona vs. Belgium (June 13, 1982)


Unknown Man vs. Red China (June 5, 1989)

Maradona 2 - Inglaterra 0

Mario Benedetti: "Aquel gol que le hizo Maradona a los ingleses con la ayuda de la mano divina es, por ahora, la única prueba fiable de la existencia de Dios".

Víctor Hugo Morales: "Balón para Diego, ahí la tiene Maradona. Le marcan dos. Pisa la pelota. Maradona (...) arranca por la derecha el Genio del Fútbol Mundial. Inicia el contraataque e intenta contactar con Burruchaga... Siempre Maradona. ¡Genio, genio, genio ! Ta, ta, ta, ta... ¡Gooooool, gooooool y goooool! ¡Qué golazo! Dios Santo, viva el fútbol. Golaaazo. Diegoool Maradona. Es para llorar, perdonénme. Maradona en recorrida memorable, en la jugada de todos los tiempos. Barrilete cósmico, ¿de qué planeta viniste para dejar en el camino a tanto inglé,s para que el país sea un puño apretado gritando por Argentina? Argentina 2, Inglaterra 0. Diegoool, Diegoool, Diego Armando Maradona. Gracias, Dios, por el fútbol, por estas lágrimas y por este Argentina 2, Inglaterra 0".

Fra Angelico's parrot-angels

(Click on the images to see them in a bigger size. All fotos from Web Gallery & Olga's Gallery)

Two weeks ago, we went to see a little church in San Domenico, close to Firenze, where Fra Angelico painted his first work. While I was wondering about the blond hair of Mary and Jesus, as it seemed to me that it was an ideal of beauty at that time, T pointed out the colorful wings of the angels. America's and Australia's parrots were still unknown in Europe, so it all was Angelico's imagination.

Fiesole Triptych (detail), 1424-1430

This triptych was "adapted" in 1501 by a certain Lorenzo di Credi, i.e. dismantled and preserved the central part as a work of its own.

There are many other parrot-angels in Fra Angelico's work:

Madonna and Child with Angels, c. 1425 (Hermitage, St. Petersburg)

Madonna Surrounded by Angels, c. 1429 (Frankfurt am Main)

First: Altarpiece of the Annunciation, c. 1430-1432 (Museo del Prado, Madrid)

Second: Altarpiece of the Annunciation, c. 1430-1432 (Museo del Prado, Madrid)

Annunciation, c.1432-1434 (Museo Diocesano, Cortona)

xxxxx
Linaioli Tabernacle (details), 1433 (Museo di San Marco, Firenze)

Perugia Triptych: Angel of the Annunciation, 1437 (Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia)

Annunciation, c. 1441 (Museo di San Marco, Cell 3)

Annunciation, c.1450 (Museo di San Marco, Corridor)

Armadio degli Argenti (detail), c.1450 (Museo di San Marco)

Thomas Jefferson on Not Traveling

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson sent from Paris this letter to his nephew:

Dear Peter,

Traveling makes men wiser, but less happy. When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret—their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men who travel are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite, by repeated and just observations at home. The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood—it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile and condemnation. Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, and its recollection poisons the residue of their lives. Their first and most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, and they carry home the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this that a habit of idleness—an inability to apply themselves to business—is acquired and renders them useless to themselves and their country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little obstructed by foreign objects, as in your own country, nor any, wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be learned, and be industrious, and you will not want the aid of traveling, to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself. I repeat my advice to take a great deal of exercise, and on foot. Health is the first requisite after morality. Write to me often, and be assured of the interest I take in your success, as well as the warmth of those sentiments of attachment with which I am, dear Peter, your affectionate friend.

(Source)

José Clemente Orozco, Peter Eisenman, Metropolis

Tato's sosias should be completed with this poster of "Metropolis".

Tato suggests this sosias, and this quotation.

Le Corbusier: "Les architects ont aujourd'hui peur de la géométrie des surfaces. L'architecture est le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des volumes assemblés sous la lumière".

Central Park, Parque Nacional

The Gates, by Christo & Jean Claude, in New York (2005)


Massacre in El Salado, in Colombia, Department of Bolívar in February 2000
Memorial (2009)

Last hours

 

Today in Duitama, Colombia, department of Bocayá

 

4.00 :: Allergic reaction on the left eye. No phone available, nobody in the lobby, doors to the street locked, no internet.

4.45 :: Finally get some guard on the phone. Calls a doctor, she says there is no way to help before 6 or 6.30.

5.00 :: Allergic reaction on the lips.

5.15 :: Cannot breath properly. Still no solution.

7.00 :: Hotel is full of people, nobody is able to give me a phone.

7.05 :: S has a cell, and gives it to me. Call my doctor in Spain.

7.10 :: Want to take the prescribed medicament, but these people invent the theory that I won't get it without a prescription. None of the 7 doctors there can give me one.

7.20 :: They take me to the stupid hospital. Most important thing: the money, the insurance, the credit card. I hate this!

7.25 :: They call me in, and the stupid nurse asks me about the insurance and payment instead of asking what is my problem. Take off the stupid thing around my arm and leave the hospital.

7.27 :: Across the street I see a pharmacy and ask for the medicament. They will bring it in 10 minutes. No prescription required.

7.40 :: A public minibus (buseta) blinks the light and a plastic bag comes out of the window. My salvation!

7.45 :: Take that, pay, and leave for the hotel.

8.15 :: In the restaurant, feeling much better. Seems that 4 people have "complained" because of my attitude, and this will be a big, big problem, they tell me.

11.15 :: Off to Bogotá on my own. End of a four-day-nonsense-nightmare. Beginning of a great trip in Colombia.

18.05 :: Posting this in the airport El Dorado, in Bogotá.

19.21 :: Will be flying to Cali.

20.30 :: Will meet AB in Cali.  

 

Açores, Eiserman, cot

And talking about Eiserman, his Wexner Center for the Arts looks like those childish, cot-like graves I saw on the Açores Islands (in Pico).

Pantano de Vargas, Puente de la Mujer

This weekend I am flying to Colombia with Simón Bolívar's biography and a novel sent to me by J from St. Louis. I will visit Vargas' Swamp in Boyacá, since I want to understand better the independence movements of Latin America and today's Bolivarianism. The monument there is the ugly version of Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer in BsAs.

Mark Twain on Sarkozy

I was checking Sarko's and Carla's Facebooks to write a piece, and I found this pic, which remained me of a very ironic and terrible account of Mark Twain 's days in Paris, when he saw Emperor Napoleon III and Sultan Abdul Aziz.

Twain is describing things he sees in his trip as the common US-American would find things, not as he "should" see them. To understand this better I suggest you to check an academic study on this story by Mark Twain, and a very interesting project on The Innocents Abroad.

Foto from Sarkozy's Facebook album

"We drove away and took up a position in an open space opposite the American minister's house. A speculator bridged a couple of barrels with a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was a sound of distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came moving slowly toward us; a moment more and then, with colors flying and a grand crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust and came down the street on a gentle trot. After them came a long line of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid uniforms; and then their imperial majesties Napoleon III and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of people swung their hats and shouted -- the windows and housetops in the wide vicinity burst into a snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers of the same mingled their cheers with those of the masses below. It was a stirring spectacle.

But the two central figures claimed all my attention. Was ever such a contrast set up before a multitude till then? Napoleon in military uniform -- a long-bodied, short-legged man, fiercely moustached, old, wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and such a deep, crafty, scheming expression about them! -- Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the loud plaudits, and watching everything and everybody with his cat eyes from under his depressed hat brim, as if to discover any sign that those cheers were not heartfelt and cordial.

Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire -- clad in dark green European clothes, almost without ornament or insignia of rank; a red Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing -- a man whose whole appearance somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton roast today, or will you have a nice porterhouse steak?"

Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious -- and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, the First Century greets the Nineteenth!"

Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad", ch. xiii

Sun, caiman

In "Sens-plastique", Malcolm de Chazal wrote: "Too much white of the eye fattens the face". Better a little bit of red, then.

Recently, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado published the first image of a sunspot's structure. The black part is a hole, the red is plasma being vacuumed by the immense magnetic force. All this measures rough two billion square miles.

There is just one word to describe the feeling of being in the middle of the Amazonian night, less than half a meter from the incredibly red eye of a caiman observing you: adrenalin! Till it suddenly attacks you or dives away. Really, really scary. That one in front of me was three meters long, the Indian natives calculated.


This one here is just a little turtle.


And this an even smaller frog.

Box turtle by PhotoFreak

"El celibato sacerdotal", de Jean Meyer

Otro buen libro de Jean Meyer sobre historia de la religión, que reseñé para Letras Libres.

Best book I got this year

I mentioned some weeks ago the best book I have bought this year. This is the best book I got as a present this year. I am so delighted with it, that I review it for the FAZ a couple of months ago.

Le Point 339 (19 mars 1979)

I still wasn't born when this add of Pakistan Airlines was published. Spooky, to say the least.

Marianne, Rénert

In 1830, Delacroix used the figure of Marianne and transformed her into a symbol of Liberty in his best-known painting. It is said that she inspired the design of Statue of Liberty, but I rather think that inspired MIchel Rodange to draw his iconic Rénert (or Reynard).

La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830)


Reynard the Fox, by Michel Rodange (1869)

Long before Delacroix, around 1150 began the legend of Rénert the Fox in Alsace-Lorraine, and it spread in today's France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and England quite fast. Reynard is an anthropomorphic fox, kind of a peasant, who is mocking the clergy and aristocracy. Many authors have refer or written about him: Chaucer, Goethe, Ralph Waldo Ellison and Nietzsche. Stravinsky also wrote an opera-ballet about him.

Cavallini, Völler

"Gold, red, black". Those are the colors of the German flag. The same colors (tones) used by Pietro Cavallini in the wings of the two upper angels depicted in the frescoes of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.

*ope: Bush, Obama

Obama's chronology:
2008 :: President of USA
2009 :: Nobel Prize
2010 :: Pope?

(Anybody going to Australia? I want the Obama-Pope t-shirt!)

Consolation Prize: Al Gore, Obama

Our modern saints are the Nobel laureates, since we worship the Swedish Academy. But, oh, the Swedish Academy is really spoiling these American politicians.

I haven't watch An Inconvenient Truth, and I really have no opinion about Al Gore since I am ignorant about his work. But coincidentally I was thinking about Obama this morning, when we got stuck in a tram. Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize is a very early recognition of some promises he has been doing, I think, as half of the world is also thinking right now. The fact is that he, as President of USA, still is leading some wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, involved in Somalia...). A Peace Award for someone who is currently fighting wars? He was actually in the "Situation Room" when he was informed about the Prize.

Hmm... I understand the underlining idea, but still seems to be too much, or at least too early.

Al Gore lost the Presidential Campaigne (2000), but got the Nobel Peace Price (2007)


Barack Obama lost the Olympic Games Candidacy for Chicago (2009),
but got the Nobel Peace Price a couple of hours ago

Uschi Obermeier, Coralie Clément

Uschi Obermeier was one of the most important icons of the '68 revolution, whose example was followed by John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Allegedly, like Carla, she also had an affair with Mick Jagger. It seems that she "exposed frontal nudity for the first time on a magazine cover".

I was amazed when I saw this portrait of hers by famous '68 photgrapher Werner Bokelberg. It remained me immediately of Coralie Clément: the hair, the eyes, the nose and, above all, the lips (those French lips... there is an interesting theory about the thickness of the lips and the mother tongue).

Foto: Werner Bokelberg

Coralie is a cute French girl, the sister of great musician Benjamin Biolay. She had a concert in Berlin, and it was sad not to be there early this year. Ah, c'est la vie...

Carla Bruni eclipsada

Fotos: Letizia y Carla

Ayer se inauguró el nuevo sitio web de Carla Bruni, la Première Dame. A las pocas horas se había ya colapsado.

Algunas reflexiones al respecto en el blog de LsLs.

A propósito, mi video favorito de Carla:

Y ya puestos, mi video favorito de Sarko (& Bar Refaeli):

.

Malgré un très grand nombre de visites, le site enriquegdelag.blogspot.com reste toujours accessible.
Merci de revenir dans quelques heures une autre fois.

* * *

En raison d'un trop grand nombre de visites, le site carlabrunisarkozy.org est provisoirement inaccessible.
Merci de revenir dans quelques heures.

RIP :: William Safire (1929-2009)

Foto: AP

Unfortunately and sadly, William Safire died one week ago, but I just learned that today. He wrote for 30 years "On Language", which became the most influential column about language trends in North America: "a Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars".

He was also a speechwriter and politics analyst, who became famous because of his picture of the "Kitchen Debate". Earlier this year he published an account of what happened that day: Krushchev felt pissed off because of Nixon's strong-willingness, that he wanted to show to the new "weak" President who he was. That is why he build the Wall around East Berlin and set missiles in Cuba.

Foto: William Safire