Πρέπει κανείς να είναι πάντα τύφλα. Αυτό είν' όλο: το μόνο ζήτημα. Για να μη νιώθετε τ' απαίσιο βάρος του Χρόνου που λιώνει τους ώμους σας και σας λυγίζει προς το χώμα, πρέπει να είστε τύφλα χωρίς διακοπή.
Μα από τι; Απ' το κρασί, την ποίηση, την αρετή, όπως επιθυμείτε. Αλλά μεθύστε.
Κι αν καμιά φορά στα σκαλιά κάποιου παλατιού, σε κάποιο χορταριασμένο χαντάκι, στο πένθιμο δωμάτιό σας ξυπνάτε κι η μέθη έχει υποχωρήσει ή εξαφανιστεί, ρωτήστε τον άνεμο, το κύμα, τ' αστέρι, το πουλί, το ρολόι, ρωτήστε όσα φεύγουν, όσα βογγούν, όσα κυλούν, όσα τραγουδούν, όσα μιλούν, ρωτήστε τα τι ώρα είναι. Κι ο άνεμος, το κύμα, τ'αστέρι, το πουλί, το ρολόι, θα σας απαντήσουν: "Ειν' ώρα να μεθύσετε! Για να μην είστε οι μαρτυρικοί σκλάβοι του Χρόνου, μεθύστε! Μεθύστε χωρίς σταματημό! Με κρασί, με ποίηση ή με αρετή, όπως επιθυμείτε!".
Spoiler
Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: «Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise!»
06-10-2009, 19:46
run4rum
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing.[...]How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise--the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream--be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.
Ο Δρόμος με τις Φάμπρικες στο Μοντερέυ, της Καλιφόρνια, είν' ένα ποίημα, μια βρωμισιά, έχει δικό του φως, έντονο χρώμα, είναι κάτι πολυ συνηθισμένο μα κι όνειρο μαζί, νοσταλγία. Κάτι το σκόρπιο και το συγκεντρωμένο, σίδερα, ντενεκέδες, σκουριά και πελεκούδια, το στρώσιμο του δρόμου όλο γούβες, παντού κουλούρες τα σχοινιά, κόφες λαχανικά, φάμπρικες για σαρδέλες του κουτιού, καταγώγια, ταβέρνες και μπορντέλα, μικρομάγαζα, εργαστήρια χημικά, παλιοξενοδοχεία. Κάποιος είπε πως στο δρόμο τούτο κατοικούνε "πόρνες, ρουφιάνοι, χαρτοπαίχτες, μπάσταρδοι". Αν τους κοίταζεν όμως από μιαν άλλη χαραμάδα, ίσως τότε να 'χε πει πως κατοικούνε "άγγελοι, άγιοι κι οσιομάρτυρες". Και πάλι θα εννοούσε το ίδιο.[...]Πως μπορεί κανείς να περιγράψει ολοζώντανα το ποίημα, τη βρώμα και τη δυσωδία, το βουητό ή το ξεχωριστό κείνο φως, το έντονο χρώμα, τ' όνειρο -και κάτι το πολύ συνηθισμένο; Όσοι έτυχε να κάμουνε συλλογή από ζούδια του νερού ξέρουνε κάτι μικρά πλατιά σκουλίκια, τόσο λεπτά που 'ν' αδύνατο να τα πιάσεις ολάκερα, γιατί μόλις τ' αγγίξεις, συστρέφουνται και σπάζουνε. Πρέπει να τ' αφήσεις να σουρθούνε και να γλιστρήσουνε μοναχά τους ως τη λεπίδα που κρατάς, να τα σηκώσεις τότε με προφύλαξη και να τα ρίξεις μες στη γυάλα με το θαλασσινό νερό. Ίσως και τούτο το βιβλίο να πρέπει να γραφτεί μ' ένα παρόμοιο τρόπο -ν' αφήσεις τη διήγηση να ξεγλιστρήσει μονάχη της μες στις σελίδες του.
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row Ο Δρόμος με τις Φάμπρικες, μτφ. Κοσμάς Πολίτης
13-10-2009, 01:33
Snàporaz
A Sonnet by Daniil Kharms
A surprising thing happened to me: I suddenly forgot which comes first -- 7 or 8.
I went off to the neighbours and asked them what they thought on the subject.
Just imagine their and my surprise when they suddenly discovered that they too couldn't recall how to count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 they remembered, but they'd forgotten what followed.
We all went to the overpriced food shop, the Gastronom on the corner of Znamenskaya and Basseynaya street, and put our quandary to the cashier. The cashier smiled sadly, pulled a small hammer out of her mouth and, twitching her nose a bit, said -- I should think seven comes after eight whenever eight comes after seven.
We thanked the cashier and joyfully ran out of the shop. But then, having thought about the cashier's words, we got depressed again, since her words seemed to us to be devoid of any sense.
What were we to do? We went to the Summer Garden and started counting the trees there. But, getting as far as 6, we stopped and began to argue: in the opinion of some, 7 came next, and in the opinion of others -- 8.
We would have argued for ages, but fortunately then some child fell off a park bench and broke both his jaw-bones. This distracted us from our argument.
And then we dispersed homewards.
13-10-2009, 14:16
LokiTricksterGod
τι είναι αυτό, εσύ αποπάνε; πολύ μαρέσει.
His tie had 18's stiched in the weave.
[...]
"You had 16's last time."
"Two male Negroes robbed a liquor store at 74th and Avalon. I just happened to be in the back, holding a Remington pump shotgun."
Crutch laughed. "It's the record, right? Fatal shootings in the line of duty?"
"That's correct. I'm six up on my closest competitor."
"What happened to him?"
"He was shot and killed by two male Negroes."
"What happened to them?"
"They robbed a liquor store at Normandie and Slauson. I just happened to be in the back, holding a Remington pump shotgun."
13-10-2009, 15:31
comma.divine
gia osous kseroun ispanika.dustuxws den katafera na vrw metafrash sta eglezika
Qué vanidad imaginar
que puedo darte todo, el amor y la dicha,
itinerarios, música, juguetes.
Es cierto que es así:
todo lo mío te lo doy, es cierto,
pero todo lo mío no te basta
como a mí no me basta que me des
todo lo tuyo.
Por eso no seremos nunca
la pareja perfecta, la tarjeta postal,
si no somos capaces de aceptar
que sólo en la aritmética
el dos nace del uno más el uno.
Por ahí un papelito que
solamente dice:
Siempre fuiste mi espejo,
quiero decir que para verme tenía que mirarte.
Δανιήλ Χάρμς(1905-1942) εκπρόσωπος της (περίφημης) ρώσικης αβανγκάρντ, θεωρείται καρακάλτ συγγραφέας της λογοτεχνίας του παραλόγου και του μαύρου χιούμορ. Στη διάρκεια της ζωής του έγινε γνωστός κυρίως με τα βιβλία του για παιδιά. Το υπόλοιπο έργο του παρέμεινε -μέχρι το 1980- σε διάφορα αρχεία φίλων του. Γνωστός για τις αντι-σταλινικές του απόψεις, δημιούργησε μαζί με τον συνοδοιπόρο Alexander Vvedensky την καλλιτεχνική ομάδα OBERIU [Ένωση Πραγματικής Τέχνης] οι δημόσιες εκδηλώσεις της οποίας χαρακτηρίστηκαν από τον τότε Τύπο ως «καλλιτεχνικός χουλιγκανισμός». Σταδιακά άρχισαν να τον κατατρέχουν ώσπου και που του απαγόρευσαν κάθε δημοσίευση. Παρόλα αυτά, δεν έπαψε να γράφει. Ο τρόπος γραφής του κυμαίνεται μεταξύ πρόζας και ποίησης, ο ίδιος, παραξενιάρης τύπος(κυκλοφορούσε στους δρόμους της Πετρούπολης με παντελόνι γκολφ και γκέτες) προσπαθώντας να δημιουργήσει νέες ποιητικές σημασίες αποκλειστικά μέσω των ήχων κατάφερε ένα χαρακτηριστικό αντισυμβατικό ύφος με διαρκείς επαναλήψεις, χρονική ανακολουθία....Τα κείμενα, ενώ ξεκινούν μάλλον λογικά, παίρνουν εξωφρενικές διαστάσεις, οι οποίες οφείλονται στην προσπάθεια των ηρώων να εφαρμόσουν με αυστηρό τρόπο την τυπική λογική στην καθημερινή ζωή τους. Ο Χάρμς πέθανε από την πείνα το 1942 στην ψυχιατρική πτέρυγα των φυλακών Κρεστύ του Λένινγκραντ.
Spoiler
Falling old ladies
Because of her excessive curiosity, an old lady fell out of the window and smashed into the ground.
Another old lady looked out of the window, staring down at the one who was smashed, but out of her excessive curiosity she also fell out of the window and smashed into the ground.
Then the third old lady fell out of the window, then the fourth did, then the fifth.
When the sixth old lady fell out of the window, I got bored watching them and went to Maltsev market where, they say, someone gave a woven shawl to a blind.
Spoiler
Στην Ελλάδα πρόσφατα μεταφράστηκε η μοναδική συλλογή κειμένων επιλεγμένη απο τον ίδιο τον συγγραφέα "Περιστατικά" εκδόσεις Νεφέλη.
Συμβάντα
Μια μέρα ο Ορλώφ καταβρόχθισε έναν σωρό πουρέ από μπιζέλια και πέθανε. Κι ο Κρυλώφ, όταν το έμαθε, πέθανε κι αυτός. Κι ο Σπυριδώνοφ πέθανε μαζί τους. Κι η γυναίκα τού Σπυριδώνοφ έπεσε από τον μπουφέ και πέθανε επίσης. Και τα παιδιά του Σπυριδώνοφ πνιγήκανε στη λιμνούλα. Κι η γιαγιά του Σπυριδώνοφ άρπαξε το μπουκάλι και πήρε τους δρόμους. Κι ο Μιχαήλοβιτς σταμάτησε να χτενίζεται και τον έφαγαν οι ψείρες˙ πάει. Κι ο Γκρούγλοφ ζωγράφισε μια γυναίκα με μαστίγιο στο χέρι και παλάβωσε. Κι ο Περεχρέστοφ πήρε τετρακόσια ρούβλια με τον τηλέγραφο, και πήραν τα μυαλά του αέρα και τον διώξανε με τις κλωτσιές από την δουλειά.
Ηταν καλοί άνθρωποι όλοι, μα δεν πατούσαν τα πόδια τους γερά στη γη.
They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off in strict precedence, mounted the carriages.
The hearse started at a foot's pace; the carriages moved slowly after. In the first went old Jolyon with Nicholas; in the second, the twins, Swithin and James; in the third, Roger and young Roger; Soames, young Nicholas, George, and Bosinney followed in the fourth. Each of the other carriages, eight in all, held three or four of the family; behind them came the doctor's brougham; then, at a decent interval, cabs containing family clerks and servants; and at the very end, one containing nobody at all, but bringing the total cortege up to the number of thirteen. [...]
"The poor foreign dey-vil that made it," went on Swithin, "asked me five hundred—I gave him four. It's worth eight. Looked half-starved, poor dey-vil!" "Ah!" chimed in Nicholas suddenly, "poor, seedy-lookin' chaps, these artists; it's a wonder to me how they live. Now, there's young Flageoletti, that Fanny and the girls are always hav'in' in, to play the fiddle; if he makes a hundred a year it's as much as ever he does!" James shook his head. "Ah!" he said, "I don't know how they live!" [...]
Soft as a tom-cat, he crossed the room to press the bell. His orders were 'dinner at seven.' What if his master were asleep; he would soon have him out of that; there was the night to sleep in! He had himself to think of, for he was due at his Club at half-past eight! [...]
"Certainly," replied young Jolyon. "The great majority of architects, painters, or writers have no principles, like any other Forsytes. Art, literature, religion, survive by virtue of the few cranks who really believe in such things, and the many Forsytes who make a commercial use of them. At a low estimate, three-fourths of our Royal Academicians are Forsytes, seven-eighths of our novelists, a large proportion of the press. Of science I can't speak; they are magnificently represented in religion; in the House of Commons perhaps more numerous than anywhere; the aristocracy speaks for itself. But I'm not laughing. It is dangerous to go against the majority and what a majority!" He fixed his eyes on Bosinney: "It's dangerous to let anything carry you away—a house, a picture, a—woman!"
They looked at each other.—And, as though he had done that which no Forsyte did—given himself away, young Jolyon drew into his shell. Bosinney broke the silence.
"Why do you take your own people as the type?" said he.
"My people," replied young Jolyon, "are not very extreme, and they have their own private peculiarities, like every other family, but they possess in a remarkable degree those two qualities which are the real tests of a Forsyte—the power of never being able to give yourself up to anything soul and body, and the 'sense of property'." [...]
He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts. Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at his age not improbable, he would not see her. From this it was but a step to realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son and June returned from Spain. How could he justify desire for the company of one who had stolen—early morning does not mince words—June's lover? That lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and—quite true—not one who forgot! By the middle of next month they would be back. He had barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come into what remained of his life. Darkness showed up to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration for beauty—a craving to see that which delighted his eyes. [...]
Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. [...]
Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!
The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once apparent to him remembering the threadbare refinement in that tiny flat eight years ago when he announced her good fortune. Everything was now fresh, dainty, and smelled of flowers. [...]
And Val was unconsciously forming himself on a set whose motto was: 'We defy you to interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we haven't, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything. All is cigarette smoke. Bismillah!' Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals; and at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy had already in the main adopted the 'jumping-Jesus' principle; though here and there one like Crum—who was an 'honourable'—stood starkly languid for that gambler's Nirvana which had been the summum bonum of the old 'dandies' and of 'the mashers' in the eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following. [...]
Slight in build—for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were beefy—Jolly was rowing 'Two' in a trial eight. He looked very earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows lush, the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace clung around the old city; Jolyon promised himself a day's sketching if the weather held. The Eight passed a second time, spurting home along the Barges—Jolly's face was very set, so as not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and waited for him.
In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see the people of the world exactly at the moment when they first attained the title of ‘suffering humanity’ They writhe upon the page in a veritable rage of adversity Heaped up groaning with babies and bayonets under cement skies in an abstract landscape of blasted trees bent statues bats wings and beaks slippery gibbets cadavers and carnivorous cocks and all the final hollering monsters of the ‘imagination of disaster’ they are so bloody real it is as if they really still existed
And they do
Only the landscape is changed
They still are ranged along the roads plagued by legionnaires false windmills and demented roosters They are the same people only further from home on freeways fifty lanes wide on a concrete continent spaced with bland billboards illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
The scene shows fewer tumbrils but more strung-out citizens in painted cars and they have strange license plates and engines that devour America
Prête-moi ton grand bruit, ta grande allure si douce,
Ton glissement nocturne à travers l’Europe illuminée,
Ô train de luxe ! et l’angoissante musique
Qui bruit le long de tes couloirs de cuir doré,
Tandis que derrière les portes laquées, aux loquets de cuivre lourd,
Dorment les millionnaires.
Je parcours en chantonnant tes couloirs
Et je suis ta course vers Vienne et Budapesth,
Mêlant ma voix à tes cent mille voix,
Ô Harmonika-Zug !
J’ai senti pour la première fois toute la douceur de vivre,
Dans une cabine du Nord-Express, entre Wirballen et Pskow.
On glissait à travers des prairies où des bergers,
Au pied de groupes de grands arbres pareils à des collines,
Étaient vêtus de peaux de moutons crues et sales…
(Huit heures du matin en automne, et la belle cantatrice
Aux yeux violets chantait dans la cabine à côté.)
Et vous, grandes places à travers lesquelles j’ai vu passer la Sibérie et les monts du Samnium,
La Castille âpre et sans fleurs, et la mer de Marmara sous une pluie tiède !
Prêtez-moi, ô Orient-Express, Sud-Brenner-Bahn , prêtez-moi
Vos miraculeux bruits sourds et
Vos vibrantes voix de chanterelle ;
Prêtez-moi la respiration légère et facile
Des locomotives hautes et minces, aux mouvements
Si aisés, les locomotives des rapides,
Précédant sans effort quatre wagons jaunes à lettres d’or
Dans les solitudes montagnardes de la Serbie,
Et, plus loin, à travers la Bulgarie pleine de roses…
Ah ! il faut que ces bruits et que ce mouvement
Entrent dans mes poèmes et disent
Pour moi ma vie indicible, ma vie
D’enfant qui ne veut rien savoir, sinon
Espérer éternellement des choses vagues.
Valery Larbaud, Les Poésies d'A.O. Barnabooth, 1913
Spoiler
Lend me your great sound, your great and gentle motion,
Your nighttime glide across illuminated Europe,
O deluxe train! and the heartbreaking music
Sounding along your gilt leather corridors,
While behind lacquered doors with latches of heavy brass
Sleep the millionaires.
I go humming down your corridors
And I follow your run to Vienna and Budapest,
Mixing my voice with your hundred thousand voices,
O Harmonika-Zug!
For the first time I felt all the sweetness of living
In a Northern Express compartment, between Wirballen and Pskov.
We slipped across meadows where shepherds
Under clumps of big trees that looked like hills
Were dressed in uncured, dirty sheepskins . . . .
(Eight o’clock of an autumn morning, and the beautiful soprano
With violet eyes was singing in the next compartment.)
And you, big windows through which I’ve seen Siberia and the peaks of Samnium go by,
Harsh Castile where no flowers grow, and the sea of Marmara under a tepid rain!
Lend me, O Orient Express, South-Brenner-Bahn, lend me
Your miraculous and muffled sounds and
Your vibrant trilling voices,
Lend me the light and easy breathing
Of tall slim locomotives, with motions
So free, express locomotives,
Effortlessly leading four yellow cars lettered in gold
Into the mountainous solitudes of Serbia,
And further, across a Bulgaria full of roses . . . .
Ah! these sounds and this motion
Must enter my poems and say
For me the unsayable in my life,
My stubborn childish life that moves only
Toward an eternal aspiration for vague things.
Originally Posted by Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone
I stared across the pool table at Bubba as some heathen chose a Smiths song on the jukebox. I hate the Smiths. I’d rather be tied to a chair and forced to listen to a medley of Suzanne Vega and Natalie Merchant songs while performance artists hammered nails through their genitalia in front of me than listen to thirty seconds of Morrissey and the Smiths whine their art-school angst about how they are human and need to be loved. Maybe I’m a cynic, but if you want to be loved, stop whining about it and you just might get laid, which could be a promising first step.
Bubba turned his head back toward the bar and shouted, “What pussy played this shit?”
“Bubba,” I said.
He held up a finger. “One sec.” He turned back toward the bar. “Who played this song. Huh?”
“Bubba,” the bartender said, “now calm down.”
“I just want to know who played this song.”
Gigi Varon, a thirty-year-old alkie who looked a shriveled forty-five, raised her meek hand from the corner of the bar. “I didn’t know, Mr. Rogowski. I’m sorry. I’ll pull the plug.”
“Oh, Gigi!” Bubba gave her a big wave. “Hi! No, never mind.”
“I will, really.”
“No, no, hon.” Bubba shook his head. “Paulie, give Gigi two drinks on me.”
