Olha,
você é tão bonita quanto o Rio de Janeiro
em maio
e quase tão bonita
quanto a Revolução Cubana

Look,
you're as beautiful as the city of Rio de Janeiro
in May
and almost as beautiful
as the Cuban Revolution

From Cantadas by Ferreira Gullar

Great Expectations

After a conversation about meditation and Buddhism, a very dear friend of mine lent me a book called Going Buddhist by Peter J. Conradi as a kind of a Buddhism For Dummies-kind of introduction to the faith. I remember studying Buddhism in Religious Education class in school, so I didn't consider myself a complete beginner. Still, I thought a personal account of Buddhism, subtitled "Panic and emptiness, the Buddha and me", would be an appropriate way to learn to understand the philosophy in simple terms, and to find out more about meditation, something that I have been interested in for a while.

Now, I'm not one for self-help books. Or maybe secretly I am, but in practice I usually shun away from the overly cheerful paperbacks that scream quick fix. Still, I am half intrigued by them and was open to the one that was lent to me (although I was warned it was far from perfect). Going Buddhist is described as a "self-help book for cynics", and this too helped me in approach the book with an open mind.

Unfortunately, Conradi did not want to write a book about Buddhism, but about himself, about his friendship with Iris Murdoch, about the chip that he carries on his shoulder because of bad experiences with what they call "religion", i.e. some form of Christianity. It made me quite angry to first see the potential of the book and then be disappointed. It somehow justified my scepticism and left me feeling a bit bitter about it all.

Of course, it's not the book's fault. I'm sure my expectations were far too high as usual. I am often told that my expectations for various things are too high, so I'm sure books are no different.

So I decided to go for an author that I had a bad attitude towards: the Dalai Lama. Call me irreverent if you will, but I am wary of these saint-like 20th/21st century characters that pop up every once in a while: the Dalai Lama, Princess Diana, Barack Obama...I don't mean to say that I am against them as such. But I can't help but treat these figures with a bit of suspicion. So when I decided to buy a book by the Dalai Lama, I was taking a big step. I later told about this step to two acquaintances, and they didn't seem to understand why it was such a big step. In any case, I have got off to a promising start - I have cast away my negative expectations and my suspicions. I am in a sense back to having great expectations, in a good way, but somehow in reverse...if that makes sense.

Will I become one of the herd who hails the Dalai Lama to the heavens? I don't really like the idea, but half of me hopes it will be the case. Even if it's just because I don't want to be disappointed with a book two times in a row.

And, you know, it would be kind of nice to learn a bit about inner peace and all that once I'm at it.

Some Words of Wisdom

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself..."-D.H. Lawrence

"We are the ones we have been waiting for."-June Jordan

A pleasant re-encounter with myself

February has never been my favourite month of the year. I'd quite happily leave out November and February from the calendar and have 2 Junes and 2 Julys instead. The further up north in the world you go, the darker and more miserable these months get. You go to work in the morning in the dark and come back from work in the dark. November is miserable because you're exhausted by work/study and the Christmas holidays seem too distant. February is dreary because it's the month between the festitivites and spring. When T.S. Eliot claimed that "April is the cruellest month" (The Waste Land, 1922) he was horribly wrong. The only good things about November and February are candles, hot drinks and if you are lucky, cuddling by the fireside with someone lovely or a good book.

February 2010 was a tough one for me for various reasons, but I'm sure the mere fact that it was February didn't help. But the real reason I had the longest shortest month of the year this time around was because somewhere between my Christmas holidays and spring, I had lost myself.

I had lost my essence a little and one February evening I found myself again, or the part of me that had gone missing for a while. How did it happen? I was with some friends for an evening of sushi and singing. We made sushi rolls, had some wine, some ice-cream, some potent black liquid I had brought back with me from my brief visit to Finland, and we sang, played the guitar and all sorts of percussions. We sang beautifully, we played badly, we sang so loud that the neighbours came to knock on the door, we played more quietly. Or, as my French teacher used to say, we made a joyful noise.

And in that joyful noise I re-encountered myself - I felt much more normal again, much less anxious. I remembered what my priorities were, what I enjoyed doing, what I wanted to experience and try out in the near future. And after that evening I went and did those things.

That evening has been followed by a couple of other similar evenings that have reminded me of some of the things that are important for me in life: good food, good music, the company of friends, absolute relaxation, laughter, forgetting yourself and remembering who you are at the same time.

Loved up

I don't remember a time anytime in the recent past that I've read as much love-related literature as I am this week: on love as a philosophy and a way of life (Erich Fromm), Colombian love poetry (Dario Jaramillo Agudelo), and today I received a book of Finnish erotic (!) love poetry in the post (Tommy Tabermann).

What cosmic force brought these three authors to me this week I won't even try and attempt to guess, but I am truly grateful for their company. Especially since the year is only 3 weeks old January is a good month to cuddle up in bed with a book or something to write with and reflect on your own life philosophy and attitudes.

So...I'll reflect and get back to you.:)

Discovering Mario Benedetti

Following my previous post, I thought the following haiku by Mario Benedetti was appropriate:


Hay pocas cosas
tan ensordecedoras
como el silencio


Mario Benedetti: Rincón de Haikus,1999

On Running and Writing

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you're running and you start to think Man this hurts, I can't take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running." (Foreword)

"In the novelist's profession...there is no winning or losing...What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you have set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away...In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible." (Chapter 1)

"I'm struck by how...you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don't get that sort of system set by a certain age, you'll lack focus and your life will be out of balance." (Chapter 2)

"Most of what I know about writing I have learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate - and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself?" (Chapter 4)

"Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life - and for me, for writing as well." (Chapter 4)

-What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn
>From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

A Far Cry From Africa by Derek Walcott (1962)

Introducing...El Otro

I hope to get working on a blog on ID and postcolonialisms and "the other", with emphasis on literary/"cultural" topics...Nothing posted on it yet but hopefully in a few months' time it'll be buzzing with good stuff.

www.elotroproject.blogspot.com

Doctor, doctor...

Hernando led Schultes into the park where they stopped en route to the pensión to have their shoes shined by an old man who had set up his station beneath the shade of an enormous ficus tree. Just behind them the steeple o the San Francisco church rose above the red-tiled roofs of the city. Four stories high, it was as tall as any building in Bogotá.
"Orange peels?" the bootblack asked as Schultes placed his oxfords on the small wooden step.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you want me to use orange peels, Doctor?"
"For the leather," Hernando explained.
"Sure, why not?" Schultes said. "But how did you know I was a doctor?"
"In this country," the man said casually as he rubbed the fruit along the instep of the shoe, "every son of a bitch with a tie and a pair of bifocals is a doctor."
"I see." He turned to Hernando. "Ten years of training, and all I really needed was a pair of glasses and a proper suit coat."

From One River by Wade Davis (1996)

2009

The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant...

Kate Chopin: The Awakening (1899)

Tunteellinen Siili

Oi, sanoi siili,
olen tunteellinen siili,
olen hyvä, kiltti, hellä.
Ja kelläpä, kellä
on vastaansanomista?

Se vain on surullista,
että piikkikuoren alla
siilin hellyys piili.

Oi, sanoi siili,
olen surullinen siili,
niin yksinäinen jotta!

Ja se on aivan totta:
Se yksinänsä eli
ja piikein piikitteli,
ja piikkikuoren alla
sitten itkeskeli.

-Kirsi Kunnas-

Instrucciones para llorar

Instrucciones para llorar. Dejando de lado los motivos, atengámonos a la manera correcta de llorar, entendiendo por esto un llanto que no ingrese en el escándalo, ni que insulte a la sonrisa con su paralela y torpe semejanza. El llanto medio u ordinario consiste en una contracción general del rostro y un sonido espasmódico acompañado de lágrimas y mocos, estos últimos al final, pues el llanto se acaba en el momento en que uno se suena enérgicamente. Para llorar, dirija la imaginación hacia usted mismo, y si esto le resulta imposible por haber contraído el hábito de creer en el mundo exterior, piense en un pato cubierto de hormigas o en esos golfos del estrecho de Magallanes en los que no entra nadie, nunca. Llegado el llanto, se tapará con decoro el rostro usando ambas manos con la palma hacia adentro. Los niños llorarán con la manga del saco contra la cara, y de preferencia en un rincón del cuarto. Duración media del llanto, tres minutos.

Julio Cortázar - Historias de cronopios y famas

From "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett

We are all born mad. Some remain so.

Variations on the Word Love

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

-Margaret Atwood

Maa, jota ei ole (Edith Södergran)

Ikävöin maahan jota ei ole,
sillä kaikkea mikä on olen väsynyt himoamaan.
Kuu kertoo minulle hopeaisin kirjaimin
maasta jota ei ole.

Maasta, jossa kaikki toiveemme täyttyvät ihmeellisesti,
maasta, jossa kaikki kahleemme kirvoittuvat,
maasta, jossa vilvoitamme raadeltuja otsiamme
kuun kasteessa.

Elämäni oli kuuma harha.
Mutta yhden olen löytänyt
ja yhden olen totisesti voittanut -
tien maahan jota ei ole.

Maassa jota ei ole
kulkee rakastettuni, otsallansa sädehtivä kruunu.

Ken on rakastettuni? Yö on pimeä
ja tähdet vapisevat vastaukseksi.

Ken on rakastettuni? Mikä hänen nimensä?
Taivaat kaartuvat korkeammiksi,
ja ihmislapsi vajoaa äärettömiin usviin
vastausta tietämättä.

Mutta ihmislapsi ei ole mitään muuta kuin varmuus.
Ja se kohottaa kätensä kaikkia taivaita korkeammalle.
Ja vastaus tulee: Minä olen se, jota rakastat
ja aina olet rakastava.

And some more Doris...

'What use are men?' asks Lessing
Doris Lessing
Men are a 'haphazard species' says Doris Lessing

Veteran author Doris Lessing asked her Hay festival audience what use they thought men were - in an ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek way.

Lessing's latest work The Cleft is a sci-fi fiction which imagines what happens to a mythical world of only women, when men are introduced.

In her eyes men had been introduced to "pep up" a slothful, lazy world of women," said the 87-year-old.

"This is what I think men were for. The Y chromosome.. to pep up everything".

She said men were a "haphazard species" who always have to be looked after and died "much too easy".

But she admitted she would not want to live in an all-female world.

The novelist and essayist, on the final weekend of the book town's 20th festival, spoke of how her latest work had attracted criticism because of its inclusion of the mutilation of baby boys.

But she said it contained much nastier scenes - including a gang rape of a girl who escaped from her all-female world.


We like to think we are motherly and kind and that we are not going to go to war, but it's not true, is it?
Doris Lessing

And she asked why that should be?

"Obviously because its a female's lot to be raped," she said, and then referred meaningfully to some of the current strife in Zimbabwe - she was brought up in Rhodesia.

"Believe me, if you're a woman wandering carelessly in Darfur... rape is the least of it."

But asked by a member of the audience if it was men who waged war, she replied: "I have not noticed that women, when they get to be prime ministers are particularly peaceful."

On the contrary she said some of the worst crimes had been committed by women.

She said: "We like to think we are motherly and kind and that we are not going to go to war, but it's not true, is it?"

'Something abrasive'

Lessing described how her latest writing had been partly "inspired" by her own experience of giving birth at 19 and the woman in the next bed, already a mother of two girls, harshly rejecting the son she had just had.

She said the woman's reaction to her new-born was "primitive " and "shocking" and added that often these supressed ideas resurfaced to colour her writing when "without you even knowing you're doing it".

Lessing lamented the lack of modern science fiction writing and spoke of her own love of writing for the sheer surprise of what happens next.

She said she was often surprised by criticical reaction to her writing - the early reviews to her 1962 masterpiece The Golden Notebook were "horrible", she said.

Lessing said "There's something abrasive in me because I have often made people very cross".

But she said as a writer it was important not to care what other people think and that the profession must honour that.

"We are free... here I can say what I think. We are lucky, privileged, so why not make use of it?"

(BBC News 2 June 2007)

Doris Lessing

Speaking about her writing, she said: "It has stopped, I don't have any energy any more.

"This is why I keep telling anyone younger than me, don't imagine you'll have it forever.

"Use it while you've got it because it'll go, it's sliding away like water down a plughole."

(BBC News 11.05.2008)

I recently finished reading "The Kite Runner" by Kholed Hosseini. A novel set in Afghanistan, it starts out promising, but ends up somewhat predictable and with little depth. The story is a tragic one, perfect material for a film with its clear storyline of violence, love, friendship, history and mistaken identities. A book that brought Pakistan back to my dreams, I wouldn´t think twice about recommending it, but at the same time it failed to satisfy me in the literary sense.

One thing that disturbed me about the novel, was the use of Dari quotes in the novel. For quite some time now, I have questioned the use of a language other than that of the original work of fiction. To me it seems superfluous and pretentious to drop in the "other" language and then immediately proceed to translate it. Above all, the fact that the "other" language is always written in italics infuriates me. The English language is very rarely seen written in italics.

Why the italics? Why is English never the "other"?

Why am I writing this in English?

Why English?