Cronograf

Dismayed

2012-02-16T19:21:00.004+02:00

'Strange thoughts are bred in passing through crowded streets should the passenger, by chance, have no exact destination in front of him, much as the mind shapes all kinds of forms, solutions, images when listening inattentively to music.

...With a brain working and a body working one could keep step with the  crowd and never be found out for the hollow machine, lacking the  essential thing, that one was conscious of being.'

Dopamine

2012-02-15T22:41:00.001+02:00

Défaillance

2012-02-12T22:04:00.005+02:00

'Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée; car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont. En quoi il n'est pas vraisemblable que tous se trompent: mais plutôt cela témoigne que la puissance de bien juger et distinguer le vrai d'avec le faux, qui est proprement ce qu'on nomme le bon sens ou la raison, est naturellement égale en tous les hommes; et ainsi que la diversité de nos opinions ne vient pas de ce que les uns sont plus raisonnables que les autres, mais seulement de ce que nous conduisons nos pensées par diverses voies, et ne considérons pas les mêmes choses. Car ce n'est pas assez d'avoir l'esprit bon, mais le principal est de l'appliquer bien. Les plus grandes âmes sont capables des plus grands vices aussi bien que des plus grandes vertus; et ceux qui ne marchent que fort lentement peuvent avancer beaucoup davantage, s'ils suivent toujours le droit chemin, que ne font ceux qui courent et qui s'en éloignent.'

à la lettre

2012-02-09T20:17:00.001+02:00

Life’s everlasting mixture

2012-02-08T00:16:00.003+02:00

'So many of Dickens’ fictions start by dividing the world in two, with separate zones of goodness and badness. Then the engine of generosity starts to whirr. Villains often soften; hypocrites relent; misers melt. The more Dickens dwells on any character, the more likely it is to turn toward the light. The deepest urge in his imagination was to invite everyone to the feast of life (“you come too, Mr. Scrooge”), which is why the books conjure an immensity of food: so that there will always be more than enough of everything for everyone, especially enough laughter and ham and happy tears. At the end of the abundance that is Little Dorrit (1857), the newlywed protagonists (Arthur Clennam and Amy Dorrit) descend the steps of the church: “They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.” '

Convincing

2012-02-06T16:56:00.002+02:00

' The human mind is unique in its ability to recall the past, plan for the future, reason abstractly and navigate complex social relationships. But why has the physical evolution of Homo sapiens resulted in such convincing mental superiority? To summarize, human beings have "suites of genes that probably cause their brains to be 'plastic' and thus receptive to change far longer (to the age of about five) than is true for chimps or monkeys (whose brains are plastic for less than a year after birth)."'

point of view

2012-01-29T18:02:00.003+02:00

'When every poet has no other goal than to create a formal language which  would be only his or hers, the result can not be other than the  alienation of poetry from its audience. How many different languages and  personal techniques could a reader digest, no matter how welcoming and  adequate he or she is? Nonetheless, poetry is not fashion; it does not  need to reinvent itself every five or ten years in order to comply with  the standards of consumption. Poetry is not a good to consume, poetic  forms neither; we don’t really need to throw them to the waste every now  and then or recycle them constantly from the very beginning.'

Incongruențe

2012-01-24T23:18:00.007+02:00

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.

  
(Ivan Illich) 

Still remains

2012-01-22T21:53:00.000+02:00

opposing forces

2012-01-15T21:38:00.002+02:00

'While memory has been portrayed as an automatic system of recall, considering how it serves us in an evolutionary sense gives a more accurate picture. Memory, much like everything at its base, is adapted to help us survive. "There is only a limited evolutionary advantage in being able to reminisce about what happened to you, but there is a huge payoff in being able to use that information to work out what is going to happen next. ... Memory is endlessly creative, and at one level it functions just as imagination does."'

Images

2012-01-10T18:28:00.004+02:00

'Je ne me représentais pas alors les villes, les paysages, les monuments, comme des tableaux plus ou moins agréables, découpés çà et là dans une même matière, mais chacun d’eux comme un inconnu, essentiellement différent des autres, dont mon âme avait soif et qu’elle aurait profit à connaître. Combien ils prirent quelque chose de plus individuel encore, d’être désignés par des noms, des noms qui n’étaient que pour eux, des noms comme en ont les personnes. Les mots nous présentent des choses une petite image claire et usuelle comme celles que l’on suspend aux murs des écoles pour donner aux enfants l’exemple de ce qu’est un établi, un oiseau, une fourmilière, choses conçues comme pareilles à toutes celles de même sorte. Mais les noms présentent des personnes –et des villes qu’ils nous habituent à croire individuelles, uniques comme des personnes– une image confuse qui tire d’eux, de leur sonorité éclatante ou sombre, la couleur dont elle est peinte uniformément comme une de ces affiches, entièrement bleues ou entièrement rouges, dans lesquelles, à cause des limites du procédé employé ou par un caprice du décorateur, sont bleus ou rouges, non seulement le ciel et la mer, mais les barques, l’église, les passants.'

Larger Hope

2012-01-07T08:13:00.005+02:00

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.

Style, science and nonsense

2012-01-02T09:16:00.003+02:00

'Thus managing cause and effect to discriminate,
The student must fruitlessly try to eliminate,
And painfully learn, that in order to do it, he
Must find the Equation of Continuity.
The reason is this, that the tough little element,
Which the force of impulsion to beat to a jelly meant,
Was endowed with a property incomprehensible,
And was "given," in the language of Shop, "inexten-sible."
It therefore with such pertinacity odd defied
The force which the length of the chain should have modified,
That its stubborn example may possibly yet recall
These overgrown rhymes to their prosody metrical.
The condition is got by resolving again,
According to axes assumed in the plane.
If then you reduce to the tangent and normal,
You will find the equation more neat tho' less formal.'

Beale Street Blues

2011-12-28T19:14:00.005+02:00

...'And he picked up a saxophone, grunting and rasping,
The red-hot horn in his hot hands clasping,
And he played a typical radio jazz;
He started an earthquake, he knew what for,
And at last he started the late World War.
Our nerves all razzed, and our thoughts all jazzed,
Booth and his saxophone started the war!'...

Carol of The Bells

2011-12-25T18:37:00.000+02:00

Always on the Mark

2011-12-17T21:04:00.005+02:00

His journalism, in which he championed the victims of tyranny and stupidity and “Islamofascism” (his coinage), takes its rightful place on the shelf along with that of his paradigm, Orwell. As for the wit … one day we were talking about Stalin. I observed that Stalin, eventual murderer of twenty, thirty—forty?—million, had trained as a priest. Not skipping a beat, Christopher remarked, “Indeed, was he not among the more promising of the Tbilisi ordinands?” I thought—as I did perhaps one thousand times over the course of our three-decade long tutorial—Wow. A few days later, at a dinner, the subject of Stalin having come up, I ventured to my dinner partner, “Indeed, was he not among the more promising of the Tbilisi ordinands?” The lady to whom I had proferred this thieved aperçu stopped chewing her salmon, repeated the line I had so casually tossed off, and said with frank admiration, “That’s brilliant.” I was tempted, but couldn’t quite bear to continue the imposture, and told her that the author of this nacreous witticism was in fact none other than Christopher. She laughed and said, “Well, everything he says is brilliant.” Yes, everything he said was brilliant. It was a feast of reason and a flow of soul, and, if the author of “God Is Not Great” did not himself believe in the concept of soul, he sure had one, and it was a great soul.

Chrysostom of unbelievers

2011-12-16T18:56:00.009+02:00

...Hitchens made his living as an impolite but often persuasive contrarian whose amusing performances, in person and in writing, were designed to reduce even the most ancient and imaginative hopes and dreams to the size of a pragmatically hopeless six-foot man who proclaimed proudly God Is Not Great–and Mother Teresa wasn’t much better. After all, what could an angry so-called Deity do? Strike him dead at 62?

Of course: The word “Eeyorish” comes from “Eeyor,” the eternally pessimistic donkey in Winnie the Pooh.  Only Hitchens would have used this neologism in casual conversation, and only Hitchens would have put it in the context of Balkan conflict. And that was his genius. He had a profound knowledge of English literature, from A.A. Milne to Virginia Woolf.

And what was extraordinary about his late work, given the circumstances, was not so much its content (illuminating as that was) but its quality of consistency, as well as the consistency of its quality. Throughout his ordeal his prose remained lucid, his self-pity absent, and his deadlines met. He never abandoned his convictions or lost his sense of humor, which in its ironic restraint was nearly worthy of the masters (Jane Austen, Dorothy Parker, Grace Paley, et al.).

Declaring

2011-12-11T23:10:00.005+02:00

Find them a conscience declared in
an absolute casual
sun, find them a feat
declared by the happy
things
Absolute windows, absolute little lives
Always tell a wall, letter throne
stone desk-life, as it may
That which through
a cautious power dwells, accidental and passing

ça passe ou ça casse

2011-12-08T00:34:00.008+02:00

Face aux rumeurs de mésentente qui courent, stigmatisant leur  antagonisme ­supposé, elle a riposté : « Seuls lui et moi savons la  qualité de notre relation. Ce qui est écrit ne reflète absolument pas la  réalité. Nous travaillons harmonieusement ensemble. » Après des  débuts houleux, en 2007, l’énergique et volubile Français semble avoir  trouvé un registre commun avec cette Allemande calme et sérieuse. « Il  suffit de les voir dans l’intimité d’une réunion pour ne pas douter une  seconde de leur complicité », soulignent deux proches du président. Au  G20 de Cannes, réduit à un champ de ruines pour cause de psychodrame  grec, le couple joue de cette connaissance ­mutuelle : « C’est Angela  qui va vous expliquer comment je fonctionne », sourit Nicolas Sarkozy  devant des chefs d’Etat non européens. Elle, amusée, commence : « Voilà  ce qu’il faut savoir de Nicolas… »

shade of reflections

2011-12-05T10:50:00.016+02:00

The fish in the fishbowl and the bird in the cage.
You refuse to invent them in the sea or the air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen
their small, agile bodies with your honest eyes.

You love a matter definite and exact,
where the toadstool cannot pitch its camp.
You love the architecture that builds on the absent
and admit the flag simply as a joke. 

The steel compass tells its short, elastic verse.
Unknown clouds rise to deny the sphere exists.
The straight line tells of its upward struggle

and the learned crystals sing their geometries.

notwithstanding

2011-12-03T17:38:00.002+02:00

The duty lies on us to choose the idea which seems truest, or rather the  only one which seems true; for I decline to believe that we can  sincerely hesitate between the truth that is only apparent and the one  that is real. The moment must always come when we feel that one of these  two is possessed of more truth than the other. And to this truth we  should cling: in our actions, our words, and our thoughts; in our art,  in our science, in the life of our feelings and intellect. Its  definition, perhaps, may elude us. It may possibly bring not one grain  of reassuring conviction. Nay, essentially, perhaps, it may be but the  merest impression, though profounder and more sincere than any previous  impression.<

Risk Perception

2011-12-01T18:40:00.002+02:00

Seemingly smart people can make patently dumb choices because the brain is only the organ with which we think we think. Most of our risk perception decision making happens subconsciously, and relies on instinctive psychological cues and subconscious mental shortcuts we have evolved to help us quickly turn the few facts we have into a judgment about what feels safe and what feels dangerous. This instinctive system works wonderfully in many cases. It has, after all, gotten us this far through evolution’s challenging gantlet.

everyday life

2011-11-27T22:26:00.002+02:00

“                                                  Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent  the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can  this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday  life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it  is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak  fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some  unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.                                                      ”                                                

Le long duquel

2011-11-27T14:13:00.001+02:00

The study of past times and uncivilized races makes it clear beyond question that the customary beliefs of tribes or nations are almost invariably false.   It is difficult to divest ourselves completely of the customary beliefs of our own age and nation, but it is not very difficult to achieve a certain degree of doubt in regard to them.   The Inquisitor who burnt men at the stake was acting with true humanity if all his beliefs were correct; but if they were in error at any point, he was inflicting a wholly unnecessary cruelty.   A good working maxim in such matters is this -  Do not trust customary beliefs so far as to perform actions which must be disastrous unless the beliefs in question are wholly true.   The world would be utterly bad, in the opinion of the average Englishman, unless he could say “Britannia rules the waves”; in the opinion of the average German, unless he could say “Deutschland ueber alles.”  For the sake of these beliefs, they are willing to destroy European civilization.   If the beliefs should happen to be false, their action is regrettable.

Competition.

2011-11-23T23:56:00.002+02:00

'Liberty is associated, in the minds of reformers, with laissez-faire, the Manchester School, and the exploitation of women and children which resulted from what was euphemistically called “free competition.” All these things were evil, and required state interference; in fact, there is need of an immense increase of state action in regard to cognate evils which still exist. In everything that concerns the economic life of the community, as regards both distribution and conditions of production, what is required is more public control, not less how much more, I do not profess to know. Another direction in which there is urgent need of the substitution of law and order for anarchy is international relations. At present, each sovereign state has complete individual freedom, subject only to the sanction of war. This individual freedom will have to be curtailed in regard to external relations if wars are ever to cease. But when we pass outside the sphere of material possessions, we find that the arguments in favor of public control almost entirely disappear.'

Leadership

2011-11-18T11:09:00.002+02:00

Getting people to follow you is not about charisma. It’s about total commitment to your mission. People are infinitely more complicated than lemmings, but we share a tendency to follow leaders who are completely devoted to a cause greater than themselves. They may or may not be naturally charismatic, but their passion is magnetic – it draws us in and inspires us to pick up hammer, saw, or pen, roll up our sleeves and get to work alongside them.

half-formed

2011-11-01T15:16:00.001+02:00

Courage is a virtue that actualizes in a crisis,  that actualizes –or  fails to actualize–when a person realizes that courage is called for,  summoned by the state of the world. A courageous person is able to call   forth courage from within herself, from within her inner world, where, I  think she must feel the courage of others, internalized  in herself by  identification.  A courageous person must have, in herself, both the  latent virtue and the inner company and companionship of courageous  individuals. If she is lucky, she will have these companions as comrades  in the present as well. To say the same thing in cultural terms: a  person being courageous must have the virtue of courage ready and must  have examples of courage in others to draw upon  as part of her culture,  existing in her memory and in the legacy she has internally.   Otherwise, there is only fear in a frightening situation. There is only  fright or flight.

emphasise

2011-10-31T14:55:00.003+02:00

"...consider two theories of economic destruction, which can be labeled the domino theory and the popcorn theory. Everyone knows the domino theory; it is the analogy that is commonly used to denote contagion. If one domino falls, it will topple the others, and conversely, if the first domino remains upright, the others will not fall. It is this logic that underlies most bailout strategies. The popcorn theory emphasizes a different mechanism. When popcorn is made (the old fashioned way), oil and corn kernels are placed in the bottom of a pan, heat is applied and the kernels pop. Were the first kernel to pop removed from the pan, there would be no noticeable difference. The other kernels would pop anyway because of the heat. The fundamental structural cause is the heat, not the fact that one kernel popped, triggering others to follow."

Suspáns

2011-10-30T20:53:00.003+02:00

"Oricât i se dădea, mult, puțin, omul lua. De la bacșișul mizer de 125 de  lei, la 4.000 de lei, jumătate de costul unui voiaj în vest. I-au fost  decontate chiar și fleacurile artizanale dăruite celor vizitați și  turnați. A fost primit, la cererea lui, de Vlad Georgescu, directorul al  secției românești de la Europa Liberă. Vizita s-a soldat cu o schița  detaliată a apartamentului gazdei, îndosariată în arhivele securității.  În schimbul serviciilor făcute securității a cerut avansare profesională  și științifică. Nu din arivism, ci pentru a-și spori credibilitatea în  străinătate. Cot la cot cu securitatea, a combinat datoria patriotică cu  plăcerea turnătoriei."

En voyage

2011-10-27T11:25:00.003+03:00

"Il est difficile en effet à chacun de nous de calculer exactement à quelle échelle ses paroles ou ses mouvements apparaissent à autrui; par peur de nous exagérer notre importance et en grandissant dans des proportions énormes le champ sur lequel sont obligés de s’étendre les souvenirs des autres au cours de leur vie, nous nous imaginons que les parties accessoires de notre discours, de nos attitudes, pénètrent à peine dans la conscience, à plus forte raison ne demeurent pas dans la mémoire de ceux avec qui nous causons."

Predicat pragmatic

2011-10-26T19:04:00.005+03:00

"Cele mai importante lucruri de dobândit, după libertate și democrație, sunt identitatea și demnitatea. Elita românească are aici o mare răspundere. Democrația trebuie să îmbogățească arta cârmuirii, nu să o sărăcească. România, ca și toate țările din Europa, are nevoie de cârmuitori respectați și pricepuți."

Analytical solution

2011-10-24T21:35:00.002+03:00

Those attempting a mathematical pilgrimage to Kaliningrad’s Seven Bridges will be sorely disappointed. Two bridges were destroyed by bombing at the end of the Second World War, two more were demolished and replaced by a Soviet highway. Of the other three originals, one other had been rebuilt in 1935. So of the remaining five, only two date from Euler’s time. Ironically, this reduced number of bridges now does make an Eulerian path possible…

Meanings packed up

2011-10-23T19:27:00.010+03:00

There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.(James Joyce)

Puzzled air

2011-10-21T22:39:00.006+03:00

Alice didn't want to begin another argument, so she said nothing. `Seven years and six months!' Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. `An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked my advice, I'd have said "Leave off at seven" -- but it's too late now.' `I never ask advice about growing,' Alice said Indignantly. `Too proud?' the other inquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. `I mean,' she said, `that one can't help growing older.' `One can't, perhaps,' said Humpty Dumpty, `but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.' `What a beautiful belt you've got on!' Alice suddenly remarked. (They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and if they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her turn now.) `At least,' she corrected herself on second thoughts, `a beautiful cravat, I should have said -- no, a belt, I mean -- I beg your pardon!' she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly offended, and she began to wish she hadn't chosen that subject. `If I only knew,' the thought to herself, 'which was neck and which was waist!'

Ed’s dilemma

2011-10-15T19:37:00.003+03:00

Yet graduate programs have been achingly reluctant to see the world as it is. For all the innovation in the subjects and methods of history, the goal of the training remains the same: to produce more professors. The unchanged language of supervisors and students reflects that. We tell students that there are “alternatives” to academic careers. We warn them to develop a “Plan B” in case they do not find a teaching post. And the very words in which we couch this useful advice make clear how much we hope they will not have to follow it—and suggest, to many of them, that if they do have to settle for employment outside of academe, they should crawl off home and gnaw their arms off.

Latest Development

2011-10-09T21:00:00.001+03:00

The question remains, however, whether such extensive damage can be reversed after abstaining from alcohol. Researchers have studied the effects of abstinence on the brains of alcohol-dependent individuals by comparing subjects recovering from years of alcohol abuse with those who do not drink or drink minimally. Scientists have also investigated changes in brain volume in initial versus sustained abstinence in one set of subjects. Although the effects of abstinence on the alcohol-abused brain vary, it appears that we display at least some ability to recover from the effects of excessive drinking. Future neuroimaging studies should clarify the full extent and potential for recuperation.

baladeur numérique

2011-10-06T20:37:00.001+03:00

3 Pommes ont changé le Monde, la première a séduit Eve, la 2e est  tombée sur Newton et la 3e a été offerte à la moitié du monde mordue par  Steve Jobs…

tourism & fashion

2011-10-05T09:34:00.002+03:00

Hindsight suggests that the best characterization  of Germany's approach to occupied France was "Give me your watch and  I'll tell you the time." But if the Germans looted with all the  enthusiasm once shown by Napoleon's armies, they also struck deals that  could serve both sides. The new order was European. With French  and German bankers, industrialists, and other businessmen meeting  regularly, the idea of a United States of Europe was making its way,  along with visions of a single customs zone and a single European  currency. The European Union, its attendant bureaucracy, even the euro,  all appear to stem from the Berlin-Vichy collaboration. Bureaucratic  controls proliferated, administrative and business elites  interpenetrated, postwar economic planning took shape—as did that  greater Europe in which France's Hitler-allotted role would be one of a  bigger Switzerland, "a country of tourism ... and fashion." 

Spleen

2011-10-03T23:19:00.015+03:00

Rien n'égale en longueur les boiteuses journées,

Quand sous les lourds flocons des neigeuses années
L'ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité
Prend les proportions de l'immortalité.
-Désormais tu n'es plus, ô matière vivante!
Qu'un granit entouré d'une vague épouvante,
Assoupi dans le fond d'un Sahara brumeux
Un vieux sphinx ignoré du monde insoucieux,
Oublié sur la carte, et dont l'humeur farouche
Ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.

Correspondances

2011-10-02T09:12:00.002+03:00

'En cause, les molécules présentes dans les médicaments très couramment vendus en France, que sont le valium, le Lexomil, le Xanax, le Tenesta, le Stylnox, le Mogadon, le Myolastan, l’Imovane ou le Tranxène. Elles augmenteraient de 50% le risque de contracter la maladie neuro-dégénérative, toujours incurable. Or, près d’un Français sur dix; soit 6 millions de personnes: consomme ces produits, vendus sur ordonnance, de manière régulière.'

Státic

2011-09-30T13:38:00.010+03:00

'Europe’s deepest problem is bad ideas. Unpleasant price movements represent “illiquidity", ”speculators" ,”market manipulation", ”lack of confidence” and “contagion,” not the hard reality of looming default. The point of policy is to “calm markets” and “provide confidence”, not to solve financial problems. When the price of bread rose in their revolution, the French took bakers to the guillotine. They got more inflation, and less bread. When their descendants saw bond prices falling, they passed restrictions on short sales. They got lower prices, and less liquidity. This is not a temporary market dislocation. This debt will not be paid back. Greece and the others might well rather default.'...

Par-delà

2011-09-29T19:26:00.003+03:00

'L’autodestruction –la capacité des cellules à se « sacrifier » au profit de la collectivité du corps –a été considérée à la fois comme un prix payé par le vivant à l’émergence de cette complexité et comme une réponse apportée aux problèmes posés par cette complexité. C’est une vision naïve, mais fréquente de l’évolution du vivant, qui consiste à penser que la « solution » à un problème nouveau apparaît au moment même où surgit le problème. Au début des années 1990, il fut découvert que l’autodestruction cellulaire était à l’œuvre non seulement dans la sculpture des corps des animaux, mais aussi des plantes. Et c’est la mort des cellules qui constituent une partie de leur tige qui provoque, à l’automne, la chute des feuilles. Ainsi, de manière inattendue, la métaphore choisie vingt ans plus tôt pour décrire le suicide cellulaire – l’apoptose –rejoignait la réalité : c’est l’apoptose des cellules végétales qui cause « la chute des feuilles des arbres en automne ». Mais, parce que les premières plantes étaient aussi apparues il y a environ un milliard d’années, cela ne changea rien à ce dogme qui évoquait implicitement les mythes anciens d’un « âge d’or originel » : au début, pendant les trois premiers milliards d’années de la vie, durant lesquelles le vivant s’était uniquement propagé sous la forme d’organismes unicellulaires, régnaient la simplicité et une immortalité potentielle.'

Contemplatív

2011-09-28T22:03:00.003+03:00

'Tot aşa, o societate sau istoria unei culturi pare a fi separată de alte societăţi sau de alte culturi; putem să considerăm aşadar că avem a face cu organisme distincte. Dar la fel ca şi indivizii, aceste organisme ale culturii sînt înglobate într-o unitate superioară din care fac parte: Istoria universală, comună tuturor „culturilor", unifică civilizaţiile, sau societăţile, aşa după cum fiecare societate este comună indivizilor care o compun. Nu se pot nega particularismele. Nu se poate nega nici Istoria generală a umanităţii, universalitatea. Nenumărate note aparţin aceleiaşi simfonii. Două stări de conştiinţă, sau două vîrste diferite sînt constitutive aceluiaşi om. Civilizaţiile se unifică în Istoria universală care ne dă identitatea.'

Controvérse

2011-09-28T01:02:00.004+03:00

'O epocă se caracterizează prin unitatea stilului ei —sinteză a diversităţilor— care face să existe corespondenţe evidente, între arhitectură şi poezie, matematici şi muzică. O unitate esenţială există între castelul de la Versailles şi gîndirea carteziană, de exemplu. Literatura şi teatrul, de la Andre Breton la Maiakovski, de la Marinetti la Tristan Tzara sau Apollinaire, de la teatrul expresionist la suprarealism, pînă la romanele recente ale lui Faulkner şi Dos Passos şi, foarte recent, la cele ale Nathaliei Sarraute şi ale lui Michel Butor, au participat la această înnoire. Dar nu toată literatura a urmat mişcarea şi, pentru teatru, ea pare să se fi oprit la 1930. Teatrul este cel .mai întîrziat. Avangarda a fost stopată în teatru, dacă nu în literatură. Războaiele, revoluţiile, nazismul şi celelalte forme ale tiraniei, dogmatismul, scleroza burgheză de asemenea în alte ţări, l-au împiedicat să se dezvolte, pentru moment. '

Innocents Abroad

2011-09-25T18:44:00.003+03:00

'But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity!'

utterly

2011-09-25T09:57:00.003+03:00

'The complexity really lies in the fact that there are hundreds or maybe even thousands of different types of neurons, which are arranged in highly-organised patterns, and which connect to each other in very specific ways. Now, a new technique is emerging that enables neuroscientists to trace these kinds of connections by enlisting help from an unlikely source – viruses. To understand why this approach is so exciting, we need to consider the scope of the problem it can help solve. This begins with individual neurons themselves. Neurons are polarised – they have an end for inputs and an end for outputs. Each of these may be branched to give thousands of independent sites of input and output. For any given neuron, there are other neurons that connect to it (information flows from all those neurons into our subject neuron) and other neurons that it connects to (information flows from our subject neuron out to all these neurons). But neurons are not all the same...'

disheartened

2011-09-22T21:32:00.004+03:00

'All was bustle and confusion. [I have seen that remark before somewhere.] The pier was crowded with carriages and men; passengers were arriving and hurrying on board; the vessel's decks were encumbered with trunks and valises; groups of excursionists, arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as droopy and woebegone as so many molting chickens. The gallant flag was up, but it was under the spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle! It was a pleasure excursion -- there was no gainsaying that, because the program said so -- it was so nominated in the bond -- but it surely hadn't the general aspect of one. Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting, and hissing of steam rang the order to "cast off!" -- a sudden rush to the gangways -- a scampering ashore of visitors-a revolution of the wheels, and we were off -- the pic-nic was begun! Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping crowd on the pier; we answered them gently from the slippery decks; the flag made an effort to wave, and failed; the "battery of guns" spake not -- the ammunition was out. We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and came to anchor. It was still raining. And not only raining, but storming. "Outside" we could see, ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We must lie still, in the calm harbor, till the storm should abate. Our passengers hailed from fifteen states; only a few of them had ever been to sea before; manifestly it would not do to pit them against a full-blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on. Toward evening the two steam tugs that had accompanied us with a rollicking champagne-party of young New Yorkers on board who wished to bid farewell to one of our number in due and ancient form departed, and we were alone on the deep. On deep five fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And out in the solemn rain, at that.'

Time Cloaking

2011-09-04T21:22:00.003+03:00

They've even designed illusion cloaks that can make one object look like another.

Time cloaking is possible because of a kind of duality between space and time in electromagnetic theory. In particular, the diffraction of a beam of light in space is mathematically equivalent to the temporal propagation of light through a dispersive medium. In other words, diffraction and dispersion are symmetric in spacetime. That immediately leads to an interesting idea. Just as its easy to make a lens that focuses light in space using diffraction, so it is possible to use dispersion to make a lens that focuses in time. Such a time-lens can be made using an electro-optic modulator, for example, and has a variety of familiar properties. "This time-lens can, for example, magnify or compress in time,"

à l'égard

2011-09-01T18:11:00.002+03:00

Une mesure d’éloignement « prise localement et dans une situation  d’urgence » afin de « minimiser le trouble et le retard pour les  voyageurs », souligne la RATP qui précise avec insistance que « la  décision n’a pas été prise en amont » par la Régie. « Il n’y a pas eu de  réquisition par le préfet, confirme la préfecture. Il a fallu gérer un  trouble à l’ordre public comme lorsque l’on prend en charge des  supporteurs turbulents. »

«Cette opération, faite hors de tout cadre juridique, constitue une voie de fait»

Euripides may not have been surprised

2011-08-30T21:58:00.001+03:00

 Once unleashed, almost any pretext can serve as cover (so the  observation that the people we saw trying on and looting trainers and HD  televisions may not have been personally inconvenienced by the  curtailment of public library hours or the raising of student fees,  while amusing, is slightly beside the point). We are not all responsible for the English riots (sorry, criminality)  of August 2011. But their roots are in us all, as Euripides showed us  long ago, deny it as we will. And in The Bacchae it was  precisely when right-thinking and enlightened people tried to deny the  destructive aspects of our nature that havoc and murder ensued. Broken  society, perhaps, but underlying that, a broken nature we find so hard  to come to terms with. And in reflecting on what it needs to keep our  broken nature in check, we might also ask ourselves about a striking  difference between riots in American cities and those in Britain.

Nonetheless significant

2011-08-29T15:52:00.003+03:00

Were not Marx's ideas responsible for despotism, mass murder, labor  camps, economic catastrophe, and the loss of liberty for millions of men  and women? Was not one of his devoted disciples a paranoid Georgian  peasant by the name of Stalin, and another a brutal Chinese dictator who  may well have had the blood of some 30 million of his people on his  hands? The truth is that Marx was no more responsible for the monstrous  oppression of the communist world than Jesus was responsible for the  Inquisition. For one thing, Marx would have scorned the idea that  socialism could take root in desperately impoverished, chronically  backward societies like Russia and China. If it did, then the result  would simply be what he called "generalized scarcity," by which he means  that everyone would now be deprived, not just the poor. It would mean a  recycling of "the old filthy business". 

Transfinít

2011-08-24T13:11:00.008+03:00

”Despre ce vor vorbi azi? Nu ştiu, poate că aş putea sugera vreo temă. Totuşi, ei vorbesc deja, fără să mai aştepte. Gravă şi sonoră, vocea lui Sábato. Stinsă şi slabă, vocea lui Borges. Închid ochii fără ca ei să-şi dea seama şi-mi închipui un teatru unde sînt singur în faţa scenei. În fund sînt un oraş şi alte multe oraşe, iar Sábato şi Borges le privesc. (Borges, în realitate, şi le aminteşte).”

“Barone: Şi ce crezi Domnia Ta despre Dumnezeu, Borges? Borges: (cu ironie solemnă) El e creaţia maximă a literaturii fantastice! Ce-au imaginat Wells, Kafka sau Poe e zero faţă de ce-a imaginat teologia. Ideea unei fiinţe perfecte, omnipotente, atotputernice e cu adevărat fantastică.

Sábato: Da, dar ar putea fi vorba şi de un Dumnezeu imperfect. Unul care să nu poată manevra bine afacerea sau împiedica seismele. Sau de unul care doarme şi are coşmaruri sau accese de nebunie: cum ar fi ciumele sau catastrofele… Borges: Sau noi doi. (Rîd.) Nu ştiu dacă Bernard Shaw e cel care a spus: <>

Sun's Wooing

2011-08-13T00:38:00.001+03:00

The morning fluttered, staggered,
Felt feebly for her crown, --
Her unanointed forehead

 Henceforth her only one.

Hypertext

2011-08-11T11:07:00.010+03:00

A power of butterfly must be

 The aptitude to fly,

 Meadows of majesty concedes

 And easy sweeps of sky.

Antigéni

2011-08-07T10:22:00.004+03:00

'Neuroscience and psychology have identified willpower, largely a  co-production of genetics and early childhood training, as essential to  success in school and beyond. And while overall levels of willpower vary  from person to person, there’s only so much of it any of us can expend  over a given time period; like a battery, willpower gets depleted, and  needs time to recharge.  We tend to think of willpower as the drive to achieve. The more willpower you have, the more productive you can be...Willpower, as neuroscience understands it, is mainly a matter of self-restraint, or effortful self-control. At  the most basic level, it’s the ability to resist a slice of quadruple  chocolate mousse cake with buttercream frosting, or to avoid quittingin  the middle of a tiring workout. The better able you are to resist your  own natural impulses, the more effectively you can focus your mental  energy on the task at hand, however pleasant or irritating it may be.  The net result: getting more things done, and doing each thing better.  Because no matter how cool your job is, no matter how much fun your  friends are, no matter how cushy your financial reserves, life demands  discipline.
Willpower is Like a Muscle . . . it can be  developed through exercise, and exhausted through overwork. The  preschool years, up to about age 6, are a crucial period for developing  willpower. While Tiger Mothering may actually cause counterproductive stress in developing brains, structured play, second language learning, and music lessons have all been shown to help children build this essential habit of mind.  So what if you’re an adult whose parents allowed you to run amok, feasting on ice cream sundaes at will? 

Another way

2011-08-05T09:56:00.003+03:00

'There were many cataclysmic failures along their roads to success. After the struggles of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom ushered in a period of relative stability in the United States, which lasted for about half a century. Now, the ground is once again shifting under our feet. Economic uncertainty and the globalization of industry have made short work of traditional career pathways – the large, stable corporation, the 9 to 5 job, the reliable pension waiting (along with the gold watch) at the end of several decades of tireless service. Recent grads find themselves entering a job market driven by small, fast-moving companies that reward employees who can think on their feet. These volatile times call for a heroic mindset, one that recognizes risk and takes bold action anyway. One that embraces failure, learns from mistakes, and starts over again.'

Hardly a mystic

2011-07-31T22:01:00.003+03:00

He came to despise the idea that literature is a criticism of life in  the sense that the literary faculty occupies a high place apart, from  which it can sit in judgment upon the life that produced it. His  distrust of the conscious intelligence as infallible guide to truth had  the same base. The thing produced could not be the judge of its  producer. Instead, he came to see literature and all art as the  interpreter of meaning, as the translator of the truth about existence  and purpose: a revelation. And he thought that this revelation came from  another and deeper activity of the psyche than the rational  intelligence, which continually missed the point, the reality.

Saturn’s modern melancholy

2011-07-30T23:26:00.002+03:00

'In an article Verlaine wrote at the same time as the publication of Poèmes Saturniens he attacked the Romantic idea of inspiration and of “life” and “human nature” and came out in favour of a poetry completely mastered, controlled and formal. Nor did he in his best work present “themes” that preceded and were external to the actual poems; as we read we feel that we are watching those poems materialize under his pen, just as Chopin’s Nocturnes come to life under his improvising fingers. Nevertheless, since this first book brought together some very early poems written in his collège days as well as his most up-to-date experiments, it is something of a grab-bag, and anything but consistent or programmatic.'

Segregáție

2011-07-28T19:43:00.004+03:00

'...the actions of every human agent in history are simply a part of the universe-wide pattern of events that determines what the laws are for this world. It is then hard to see how the most elegant summary of this pattern, the BSA laws, can be thought of as determiners of human actions. The determination or constraint relations, it would seem, can go one way or the other, not both!  '

Crisis of Legitimacy

2011-07-27T00:38:00.004+03:00

'This particular form of obsession is not new. Nor is it confined to  blond, white, racist Norwegians. Raskolnikov, the hero of Fyodor  Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment,  brutally murdered a pawnbroker in the name of a vaguely defined  "freedom" that was not available in decadent, czarist St. Petersburg.  Since then, revolutionaries and madmen of all kinds, from the Russian  anarchists to the Irish Republican Army, have justified the murder of  innocent people on the grounds that it would hasten the end of an  illegitimate government and bring to power some theoretically more  authentic regime... In the past, left-wing illegitimists were quite common, and in fact  Marxism is a classic, paranoid version of this creed. The illegitimist  Marxist argument goes like this: Bourgeois democracy is a sham;  bourgeois politicians and the bourgeois newspapers are tools of shadowy  financial interests. The entire system deserves to be overthrown—and if a  few people die in the course of the revolution, it's all for a good  cause. Though not every Western Marxist advocated violence, this is  certainly the kind of argument that motivated the Weathermen, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and other far-left American and European terrorists of the past.'

the way Socrates questioned

2011-07-25T22:22:00.004+03:00

Now a new study, recently reported in Scientific American, has found that excessive online time can literally rewire our brains, causing mental health problems as well as shrinkage of surface-level brain matter. While the study focused on genuine Internet addiction, it joins a growing body of evidence suggesting that frequent computer use may impair students’ academic performance...The Times review alludes specifically to a passage from Plato’s Phaedrus, in which Socrates approvingly quotes an Egyptian king’s skepticism about writing:' This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves…you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing. (Phaedrus, Benjamin Jowett trans.)'

"useless" knowledge

2011-07-24T13:27:00.003+03:00

  In the first phase of the two-phase program, performers will develop  automated tools and techniques for recognizing, defining and  categorizing linguistic metaphors associated with target concepts and  found in large amounts of native-language text.  The resulting  conceptual metaphors will be validated using empirical social science  methods.  In the second phase, the program will characterize differing  cultural perspectives associated with case studies of the types of  interest to the Intelligence Community. 

Istorísm

2011-07-23T11:27:00.002+03:00

For all the accumulated wisdom of philosophers, political scientist, historians, politicians, journalists, respected commentators and ‘experts’, the most striking aspect of all this is its unpredictability. Recently there has been a lot of talk of something called the ‘Arab Spring’, as if that is something which we all understood and which could be neatly parcelled up and pigeon-holed under a categorial heading like ‘emerging democracy that isn’t Al-Qaeda’ or something of the sort. But this time last year – as with the USSR in 1987 – who, of all our experts, actually predicted significant threats to the regimes of Gadaffi and Assad, for example? Even now we have little idea about how big a role the Muslim Brotherhood will play in the new Egypt, or indeed how that role might sit with our ideas of liberal democracy. But perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on the experts, except in one respect.

Stárea de dispérsie

2011-07-22T08:57:00.005+03:00

'Ce n'est pas là un symbole. Nous ne gagnerons pas notre bonheur avec des symboles. Il y faut plus de sérieux. Je veux dire seulement que parfois, quand le poids de la vie devient trop lourd dans cette Europe encore toute pleine de son malheur, je me retourne vers ces pays éclatants où tant de forces sont encore intactes. Je les connais trop pour ne pas savoir qu'ils sont la terre d'élection où la contemplation et le courage peuvent s'équilibrer. La méditation de leur exemple m'enseigne alors que si l'on veut sauver l'esprit, il faut ignorer ses vertus gémissantes et exalter sa force et ses prestiges. Ce monde est empoisonné de malheurs et semble s'y complaire. Il est tout entier livré à ce mal que Nietzsche appelait l'esprit de lourdeur. N'y prêtons pas la main. Il est vain de pleurer sur l'esprit, il suffit de travailler pour lui. Mais où sont les vertus conquérantes de l'esprit ? Nietzsche les a énumérées comme les ennemis mortels de l'esprit de lourdeur. Pour lui, ce sont la force de caractère, le goût, le «monde », le bonheur classique, la dure fierté, la froide frugalité du sage. Ces vertus, plus que jamais, sont nécessaires et chacun peut choisir celle qui lui convient.'

L’inconnu

2011-07-21T11:50:00.002+03:00

« … Ce qu’il y a au fond de nous, ce ne sont pas les obsessions, ni les désirs contrariés, ni tout ce qu’on a inventé pour expliquer le mécanisme de l’esprit. Fausse science, cette science du langage par le langage, qui invente ses propres monstres. Mensongère, cette science qui interprète, qui divise, qui juge. La faillite de la psychologie est tout entière dans son intelligence. Car enfin, de quoi parlons-nous ? Parlons-nous des problèmes de la société, de la pluie et du beau temps, des jeux de société et des histoires drôles ? Si oui, la psychologie répond parfaitement. Mais si nous parlons de l’âme, des émotions, de l’intérieur brûlant et remuant au fond de notre corps, comment imaginer que ces règles et ces associations d’idées vont réussir à en rendre compte ? Mais plus encore que la naïveté et le mensonge, plus encore que l’orgueil, ce qui condamne les prétendues sciences humaines, c’est leur esprit de domination.

Unparalleled

2011-07-19T10:05:00.004+03:00

The meeting was generally felt to be a pleasant one, being composed in a good proportion of those who would talk and those who would listen; and the dinner itself was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual style of the Grants, and too much according to the usual habits of all to raise any emotion except in Mrs. Norris, who could never behold either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience, and who did always contrive to experience some evil from the passing of the servants behind her chair, and to bring away some fresh conviction of its being impossible among so many dishes but that some must be cold. In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs. Grant and her sister, that after making up the whist-table there would remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly complying and without a choice as on such occasions they always are, speculation was decided on almost as soon as whist; and Lady Bertram soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for her own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a card for whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand. “What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse me most?”

Théâtre

2011-07-17T00:08:00.002+03:00

'Nous nous sommes élevés souvent contre le réalisme pour la simple raison que la réalité n'est pas réaliste et que le réalisme est une école, un style, une convention comme tant d'autres et qu'il est devenu académisme, c'est-à-dire mort. Nous nous sommes élevés également contre le théâtre idéologique parce que le théâtre idéologique est lui-même contraire, prison, prisonnier de thèses, doctrines, postulats que l'auteur de théâtre est empêché de remettre en question. La vérité est dans l'imaginaire. Le théâtre d'imagination est un théâtre de la vérité authentique, authentiquement documentaire. Le document n'est jamais libre pour la simple raison qu'il est aprioriquement orienté. L'imagination ne peut mentir. Elle est révélatrice de notre psychologie, de nos angoisses permanentes ou actuelles, des préoccupations de l'homme de toujours et d'aujourd'hui, des profondeurs de l'âme. Un homme qui ne rêve pas est un homme malade. La fonction du rêve est indispensable, la fonction imaginative est également indispensable. Un artiste à qui l'on veut enlever la liberté imaginative, c'est-à-dire la liberté de l'esprit, est un homme aliéné. Les grands révolutionnaires ou leurs précurseurs ont été des rêveurs - je veux dire des utopistes. Mais lorsque l'utopie devient Etat, obligation, loi, elle est cauchemar. Le rêve, disait un grand psychologue, est un drame dont nous sommes à la fois l'auteur, l'acteur et le spectateur. Le théâtre est une construction de l'imagination en liberté. Chacun de nous a besoin d'inventer. C'est pour la joie d'inventer que moi-même j'ai écrit des pièces de théâtre. Imaginer, inventer n'est pas une activité aristocratique. Nous sommes tous des artistes en puissance. Le théâtre populaire engagé, orienté, dirigé, dicté par les représentants de l'Etat, par les politiciens, n'est pas un théâtre populaire, mais un théâtre concentrationnaire, impopulaire. Le théâtre populaire, c'est le théâtre d'imagination, le véritable théâtre libre. Les idéologues de la politique ont voulu faire main basse sur le théâtre et l'utiliser à leur profit comme un instrument. Mais l'art n'est pas ou ne doit pas être l'affaire de l'Etat. C'est un péché contre l'esprit que d'entraver la spontanéité créatrice. L'Etat n'est qu'une superstructure artificielle de la société. L'Etat n'est pas la société, mais les hommes politiques veulent utiliser, contrôler la création dramatique pour leur propagande. Le théâtre peut en effet être un des instruments rêvés de toute propagande, de ce que l'on appelle " éducation politique ", c'est-à-dire de détournements et de bourrage de crâne. Les hommes politiques ne doivent être que les serviteurs de l'art et de l'art dramatique tout particulièrement. Ils ne doivent pas en être les dirigeants, et surtout pas les censeurs. Tout leur travail doit consister à permettre le libre développement de l'art et de l'art dramatique tout spécialement. Mais l'imagination leur fait peur.'

value-added modeling

2011-07-12T09:16:00.003+03:00

Like religion and politics,  public education may soon be one of those subjects banned from the  dinner table for the sake of family harmony. Few issues can boast so  many deeply committed stakeholders with so many intensely opposing  points of view.

People recognize that tests are an imperfect measure of educational success, but when sophisticated mathematics is applied, they believe the imperfections go away by some mathematical magic. But this is not magic. What really happens is that the mathematics is used to disguise the problems and intimidate people into ignoring them—a modern, mathematical version of the Emperor’s New Clothes....

Magic Gadgets

2011-07-10T09:57:00.002+03:00

Wands: Personalized sticks for performing magic
Broomsticks: Primary means of transportation, also used in the game of Quidditch
Invisibility cloak: A rare and expensive item that makes the wearer invisible. Harry inherits one from his father
Remembrall: Clear orb that turns red if a wizard or witch has forgotten something
Sorting Hat: Magically determines which house (Gryffindor,  Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin) a new student is assigned to. The hat  originally belonged to Godric Gryffindor, one of the four founders of  Hogwarts
Owls: Serve as mail messengers for wizards and witches

Roving thoughts

2011-07-07T22:09:00.004+03:00

'It was a hot and suffocating day. The windows were all flung open, but there wasn’t even the hint of a breeze, not even the slightest wind coming in from outside. Chekhov sat at his writing desk, immersed in his thoughts. I gazed at his tired, mournful eyes, trying to make a sketch of his head tilting to one side. His mind was on his work, but his face looked drawn, and his features—it seemed to me— were dissolving into the air. He had a kind of curve in his spine, and his entire posture indicated that he was exhausted. He had lost a lot of weight, and he looked gaunt. His posture, including his tilted head, his tired face, the tense movements of his thick hands – all this asserted that this was a person listening to his inner voice, to a voice which a strong, healthy man would never hear, due to the process of the illness going on inside of him. It was very difficult for me to look upon the features of a person so very sick. Yet, at the same time, the experience was invaluable for the entire country. “Have you found anything worth painting?” he asked me about his portrait. I looked at his somber face and replied, “No. It does not look anything like what I wanted to depict. You seem too sad and tired in this portrait.” “Then let us leave it as it is. Please, do not change anything. The first impression is always the most truthful.”'

Droite à gauche

2011-07-06T20:17:00.025+03:00

À gauche et tout droit

subiécte

2011-06-29T13:43:00.001+03:00

Un sunet prelung şi jalnic de aramă sunătoare, lovită în răstimpuri   deopotrivă de depărtate, înfioră şi făcu să tremure umbrele singuratice   ale văzduhului; şi valea largă se umplu, până la marginile de deasupra   ale munţilor săi, de glasul sfânt al rugăciunii şi al păcii… Era   clopotul schitului, care vestea închinătorilor pustiului ceasul slujbei   de seară…

Metafriending

2011-06-26T10:03:00.002+03:00

 'But we tend to forget about  the link between friendship and virtue  which forms the basis of  Aristotle’s entire discussion. He begins by  stating that “friendship is a  virtue, or involves virtue.” The first  formulation—”friendship is a  virtue”—points to the social virtue of  amicability (a generalized  friendliness without special attachment that  avoids the opposing vices  of fawning and cantankerousness). The second  formulation—that friendship  involves virtue—is more interesting (and  Aristotle spends the next 26  chapters elaborating its meaning). Since  the Greek preposition is meta, a more literal translation would read: “friendship is with virtue.” Aristotle’s curious definition implies that friendship and virtue are themselves friends, for like friends, they are with one another. So, if you want to find friendship, look for virtue, and vice versa. Because  friendship is linked to virtue, not every relation commonly  called  friendship is, in truth, friendship. Aristotle engages in a  philosophic  version of “unfriending”: gently, he sets out to correct  his readers—a  correction necessary in every era, but especially ours.  Friendships  premised on mutual utility, an exceedingly prevalent form  of human  connection, turn out to be seriously deficient—limited both in  scope and  duration.'

Expúnere

2011-06-23T21:35:00.007+03:00

'Nu numai, sînt marotele unei întregi clase de intelectuali români consideraţi elită. Numai asta auzim de 40 de ani. În unele tematici momentul 1989 nici nu pare să fi existat – recuperarea unei anumite părţi a interbelicului, cea naţionalistă sau chiar extremistă a funcţionat neabătut, fiind cam singura linie pe care liderii de opinie par să deţină idei şi inspiraţie.

Judecarea istoriei printr-un anticomunsim extremist, dus la limitele absurdului uneori, poate duce la filtre aberante ale istoriei. '

certain circumstances

2011-06-21T21:26:00.002+03:00

'The old gentleman at the tea-table, who had come from America thirty years before, had brought with him, at the top of his baggage, his American physiognomy; and he had not only brought it with him, but he had kept it in the best order, so that, if necessary, he might have taken it back to his own country with perfect confidence.  At present, obviously, nevertheless, he was not likely to displace himself; his journeys were over and he was taking the rest that precedes the great rest.  He had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with features evenly distributed and an expression of placid acuteness.  It was evidently a face in which the range of representation was not large, so that the air of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit.  It seemed to tell that he had been successful in life, yet it seemed to tell also that his success had not been exclusive and invidious, but had had much of the inoffensiveness of failure.  He had certainly had a great experience of men, but there was an almost rustic simplicity in the faint smile that played upon his lean, spacious cheek and lighted up his humorous eye as he at last slowly and carefully deposited his big tea-cup upon the table.  He was neatly dressed, in well-brushed black; but a shawl was folded upon his knees, and his feet were encased in thick, embroidered slippers.  A beautiful collie dog lay upon the grass near his chair, watching the master’s face almost as tenderly as the master took in the still more magisterial physiognomy of the house; and a little bristling, bustling terrier bestowed a desultory attendance upon the other gentlemen.'

oxymoron

2011-06-20T07:56:00.005+03:00

'Gradually, the phone came to lose its terrors, but one day toward the end of October it rang, and Carlos Argentino was on the line. He was deeply disturbed, so much so that at the outset I did not recognise his voice. Sadly but angrily he stammered that the now unrestrainable Zunino and Zungri, under the pretext of enlarging their already outsized "salon-bar," were about to take over and tear down this house. "My home, my ancestral home, my old and inveterate Garay Street home!" he kept repeating, seeming to forget his woe in the music of his words. It was not hard for me to share his distress.

After the age of fifty, all change becomes a hateful symbol of the passing of time.'

Beaucoup

2011-06-19T20:33:00.001+03:00

 But in Paris, it is being openly said that Strauss-Kahn was the victim of some kind of setup. Much hypocrisy is, of course, involved in both reactions. But of the two, the display of the Gallic "shocked—shocked" reflex is by far the least "adult."

tweedledum

2011-06-17T09:29:00.002+03:00

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.'

`I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum: `but it isn't so, nohow.'

`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

`I was thinking,' Alice said very politely, `which is the best way out of this wood: it's getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?'

Specialized knowledge

2011-06-15T20:29:00.005+03:00

 Few people realize how many books are now translated by more than  one translator (often this is not made clear on the credits), nor how  quickly translators are expected to work.  But the success of  translation very largely depends on the levels of complexity in the  original text. It might be argued that the literary world is merely following the  cinema with its international distribution circuits. But books are not  films. While most films can survive subtitling or dubbing, the success  of translation very largely depends on the levels of complexity in the  original text. Above all there is a problem with a kind of writing that  is, as it were, inward turning, about the language itself, about what it  means to live under the spell of this or that vernacular.  Of course one can translate Joyce’s Ulysses, but one loses  the book’s reveling in its own linguistic medium, its tireless  exploration of the possibilities of English. The same is true of a lot  of the experimental writing of the 1960s and 1970s. 

Pré-textes

2011-06-14T20:29:00.003+03:00

Finalement, qu’est-ce qui est le propre de l’homme : le langage ? Le rire ?
C’est tout ça à la fois, à un autre degré. Tous ces traits, on les  partage un petit peu avec un certain nombre d’animaux supérieurs – les  singes, les baleines, les éléphants peuvent communiquer. On n’a plus  beaucoup de caractères qui nous soient propres. Mais à ceux qui disent  que la conscience est partagée avec certains animaux, je réponds qu’on  n’a jamais vu des chimpanzés se réunir en forêt pour discuter de leurs  origines ! Notre geste fondamental, c’est d’avoir eu le culot de changer  la forme des objets à notre profit.
Pourquoi Neandertal a-t-il traîné pendant longtemps une aussi mauvaise réputation ?
Les  premiers paléontologues ne doutaient pas de trouver des ancêtres beaux.  Et ils sont tombés sur Neandertal, qu’ils ont trouvé abominable, avec  ses grosses arcades, son menton qui fuit… Ils ont essayé de l’écarter.  Or Neandertal est un homme comme les autres, il est né des mêmes  grands-parents que l’homme moderne. Il y a eu même, pendant un temps  court, interfécondité avec Sapiens. Mais Neandertal a souffert de sa  croissance plus rapide que la nôtre et donc de son temps d’apprentissage  plus court. Disons que le premier allait au collège et le second au  lycée !  

Luarea obiceiului

2011-06-10T23:33:00.008+03:00

"În ceea ce mă priveşte, eu mi-am luat obiceiurile după o ghindă, pe care am încercat să o muşc şi am rămas fără doi dinţi din această pricină.
-Obiceiuri ca obiceiuri, mi-a zis mătuşa mea ursoaica, dar tu nu crezi că ar trebui să faci şi un pic de omor pe la albine ca să te înfrupţi din fagurele de miere?
Pe mine mă dureau încă dinţii rupţi în ghindă, aşa că puţin îmi păsa de fagurele de miere, aşa că gemând, ridicându-mi botul în sus, am zărit un stejar, şi pe o ramură a lui, o pasăre cu şapte capete, cu cinci aripi, cu un singur picior, şi pe deasupra, am zărit şi pe cer o cometă al cărei cap semăna întocmai cu chipul verişoarei mele Safta şi care avea o coadă atât de lungă, încât de multă vreme s-a terminat această poveste, iar coada ei, încă este, încă este, încă este."

Consequentialisms

2011-06-03T22:00:00.004+03:00

'If no objection reveals any need for anything beyond consequences, then consequences alone seem to determine what is morally right or wrong, just as consequentialists claim. This line of reasoning will not convince opponents who remain unsatisfied by consequentialist responses to objections. Moreover, even if consequentialists do respond adequately to every proposed objection, that would not show that consequentialism is correct or even defensible. It might face new problems that nobody has yet recognized. Even if every possible objection is refuted, we might have no reason to reject consequentialism but still no reason to accept it. In case a positive reason is needed, consequentialists present a wide variety of arguments. One common move attacks opponents. If the only plausible options in moral theory lie on a certain list (say, Kantianism, contractarianism, virtue theory, pluralistic intuitionism, and consequentialism), then consequentialists can argue for their own theory by criticizing the others. This disjunctive syllogism or process of elimination will be only as strong as the objections to the alternatives, and the argument fails if even one competitor survives. Moreover, the argument assumes that the original list is complete. It is hard to see how that assumption could be justified. Consequentialism also might be supported by an inference to the best explanation of our moral intuitions. This argument might surprise those who think of consequentialism as counterintuitive, but in fact consequentialists can explain many moral intutions that trouble deontological theories.'

Orwell's 1984

2011-06-03T10:07:00.001+03:00

In a startling u-turn from the habits of our ancestors, we’ve somehow lost the guts, the stamina, and above all the will to persist in the defense of such rights, those irreplaceable building blocks of individual autonomy.

Sartre's No Exit

2011-06-01T23:07:00.001+03:00

Brave New World

2011-06-01T10:01:00.003+03:00

'Mass production    demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning;    truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political    power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered.    Still, in spite of everytung, unrestricted scientific research was still    permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they    were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War.    That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth    or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That    was when science first began to be controlled–after the Nine Years' War.    People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a    quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for    truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have    something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it,    Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I    was too much interested in truth; I paid too."'

Standardise

2011-05-30T18:21:00.017+03:00

"Meta-patterns"

Pythagoras  :Not only do all things possess numbers, all things are numbers.  Peter Russell  :The Internet is the central nervous system, and each user a discrete neuron, of a newly evolved global brain. Johann Sebastian Bach  :The art of fugue. Bach’s use of counterpoint to  organize thematic variations into intricately detailed works called  fugues is unequaled in Western music. While he didn’t invent the form,  Bach’s fugues have been credited by scientists as a source of insight  about nature and the cosmos. Charles Darwin  :Evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s theory  offers a complete explanation of the complexity and diversity of life,  connecting all organisms alive today to all organisms that have ever  lived. Leonardo Fibonacci  :The  Fibonacci sequence, a set of numbers intimately  connected to a  mathematical proportion that yields beauty in nature,  art, and the  human form. Albert Einstein  :Relativity.  Einstein revolutionized modern physics  by demonstrating that time and  space are not fixed and that mass and  energy are manifestations of the  same thing.  Benoît Mandelbrot  :The fractal geometry of nature. Mandelbrot  discovered what is now called the Mandelbrot set and coined the  term fractal to describe its structure. Fractals, when magnified,  display infinitely repeating self-similarity; they describe the  complexity of the natural world in a way Euclidean geometry could not.  

Constelaţii răsturnate

2011-05-25T19:07:00.008+03:00

"Dropia magică, de o-nălţime amară şi o supleţe noptatică, întâlnită numai la seminţiile nomade, desfăcu larg aripile şi înaintă cu paşi siguri spre fântâna cu mir răsărită şi ea pe neaşteptate în micul vad al bălţii. O trupă de arici cu ţepii ascuţiţi făcu roată în jurul fântânii, gata să răspundă oricărui atac. Din surpări de timp, poate din constelaţii răsturnate, se auzi din nou glasul doamnei cu mantilă violet şi mănuşi albe: -E vremea ca puii de zeu egiptean să se arate. O privighetoare roşie începu un cântec fermecat în cuibul ei dintre trestii. Întrupaţi parcă din trilurile vrăjite sau răsăriţi din fântâna de mir, puii de zeu egiptean se înfăţişară în poiană: închipuiri de abur şi de lună. "

Conversations

2011-05-20T00:07:00.003+03:00

Yet the American culture, which regards Kennedy as a virtual Galahad, is the supposedly shockable one, while in France—ah, la France—a much more broad-minded and adult attitude prevails.

Determinísm

2011-05-18T18:07:00.003+03:00

`Let's pretend that you're the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try, there's a dear!' And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was -- `and if you're not good directly,' she added, `I'll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like that?' 

Metaphor

2011-05-05T21:59:00.002+03:00

Liniştea şi vertijul. Tăcerea şi strigătul. Privighetoarea şi vulturul. Vioara şi orga. Golful şi reciful Curcubeul şi fulgerul. Borges şi Sabato.

Imuábili

2011-05-03T21:36:00.004+03:00

The argument for tenure has always been a combination of academic freedom and job security.  And increasingly we believe that claim for freedom is really an excuse for self-indulgence, and that sort of security is incompatible with the requirements of the increasingly competitive or productivity-oriented global marketplace. The academic world is hardly exempt from the general pressure to become a meritocracy based on productivity.  Productivity, of course, has to be measured.  And so profesors, like everyone else, have to be held accountable.  Tenured professors, the thought is, can't be held accountable.  They can do what they please and not be fired.

Abbottābad

2011-05-02T22:08:00.005+03:00

Read the Times obituary to find descriptions of how Bin Laden was seen by the West (“elevated to the realm of evil in the American imagination once reserved for dictators like Hitler and Stalin”) as opposed to how he was seen by “much of the Islamic world” (“a hero … as much a myth as a man”). Yet, according to an article on Bin Laden’s legacy, although “Osama bin Laden was hero, sheikh, even leader to some” in the Arab world a decade ago, he has now been “reduced to a footnote in the revolutions and uprisings remaking a region that he and his men had struggled to understand.”

Those Hats!

2011-04-29T19:42:00.005+03:00

'The only individual I feel any affection for is the  frowzy-but-admirable Queen Elizabeth II, aka Brenda. Her Maj is known as  Brenda to the generations of Brits who read Private Eye magazine, wherein she has been pseudonym'd, to avoid legal action, since the 1960s. Regarding  Brenda, and her legendary anti-fashion: Years ago I interviewed Sir  Hardy Amies, the hilarious and tart-tongued old poof who created Queen  Elizabeth's iconic "look." I refer to those brightly hued outfits with  the matching dress, coat and hat—like the yellow number she had on  today. When I asked Sir Hardy if he had ever tried to squeeze Brenda  into anything more stylish, he admonished me sternly. "Young man! Her  Majesty must never appear to be chic. That would be disastrous,  for there is an unkindness to chic [paging Wallace Simpson!] and her  Majesty must never appear to be unkind. She must always appear friendly  and approachable."'

cutting out

2011-04-28T20:16:00.003+03:00

"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His virtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage has gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion-these are the two things that govern us.  And yet-" 

arpégiu

2011-04-28T09:31:00.006+03:00

Tat Tvam Asi

2011-04-25T09:06:00.004+03:00

L’attitude héroïque est le privilège et la damnation  des désintégrés,  des suspendus, des laissés-pour-compte du bonheur et de la   satisfaction. Être un héros,  dans le sens le plus universel du mot,   signifie  désirer un triomphe absolu, qui ne peut s’obtenir que par la  mort. Tout  héroïsme transcende la vie, impliquant fatalement un saut  dans le néant. Tout  héroïsme est donc un héroïsme du néant, même si le  héros ne se rend pas compte  que son élan procède d’une vie privée de  ses ressorts habituels. (Sur les  cimes du désespoir)

Q&A

2011-04-22T00:45:00.001+03:00

quête de sens

2011-04-20T21:44:00.002+03:00

Régis Jauffret et Amandine Pudlovska : "N’attendez pas que Régis Jauffret soit mort pour le lire." from La Quinzaine littéraire on Vimeo.

New Travels

2011-04-18T21:59:00.004+03:00

As it turned out, he never did settle down, exactly. Instead, he spent his last years planning on “speaking from the grave”—his phrase for the memoir that has now appeared upon the centenary of his death. With the excusable vanity of genius, he had high expectations for its reception. It will “live a couple of thousand years without any effort,” he told Howells, and will “then take a fresh start and live the rest of the time.” In one way or another, he worked at it for much of his life. “The truth is,” he told a friend, “my books are simply autobiographies” in the sense that they are stocked with fictional versions of people he had known, including himself. But starting around age forty, he made some tentative attempts at a memoir of a more conventional kind.

The Question is

2011-04-17T20:03:00.005+03:00

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all