Begegnung in der Wüste (1)

Ein Gottsuchender in sommerlich-modischer Kleidung wandert frohen Mutes, aber auch mit jener Art guten Willens, welcher von einer nicht zu übersehenden Einfalt zeugt, durch die flimmernde Hitze einer Wüste. Nach langem Herumstapfen im tiefen Sand begegnet er schließlich, schon arg verschwitzt, inmitten der hohen, gleißenden Dünen endlich einem menschlichen Wesen, einem gut aussehenden Unbekannten im besten Alter. Dieser trägt einen dunklen Anzug aus teurem Tuch. Verwundert, aber auch erfreut darüber, jemanden in dieser Ödnis anzutreffen, hebt der Gottsuchende die Hand zum Gruß und geht auf den Fremden zu. Daraufhin ergibt sich folgender Dialog:

Gottsuchender (grüßt freundlich, fast erleichtert): “Ich ahnte doch, dass ich hier jemanden finden könnte.”
Unbekannter (reserviert aber höflich): “Das haben Sie ja nun. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?”
Gottsuchender (überrumpelt von der Frage): “Ja, nein … vielleicht. Wer sind Sie?”
Unbekannter (sieht dem Gottsuchenden offen und bestimmt an) : “Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft ….”
Gottsuchender (winkt ab, unterbricht ihn leicht amüsiert und ein wenig hochmütig): “Verschonen sie mich, ich kenne den Faust ziemlich gut. Worauf wollen Sie hinaus?”
Unbekannter (blinzelt): “Soso, Sie kennen Goethe. Gut für Sie, das kann nie schaden! Was Ihre Frage angeht, gefällt Ihnen meine Antwort nicht?”
Gottsuchender (zögert, platzt dann heraus): “Wollen Sie mir etwa weismachen, dass Sie … ?”
Unbekannter (unterbricht ihn freundlich aber bestimmt): “Guter Mann, Sie scheinen mir jemand zu sein, der nicht auf den Kopf gefallen ist. Von daher dürften Sie wissen, dass ich viele Namen habe.”
Gottsuchender (plötzlich gar nicht mehr spontan, sondern zurückhaltend, fast schüchtern): “Wie dem auch sei. Warten Sie auf jemanden?”
Unbekannter (hört auf zu lächeln, bleibt aber freundlich und scheint redseliger zu werden): “Nicht unbedingt. Es ist eher so, dass Leute wie Sie zu mir kommen, plötzlich hier auftauchen. Ganz von selbst. Ich habe es nicht nötig, zu warten. Ich bin einfach nur hier. Und durch den tiefen Sand bin ich, so wie Sie und all die Anderen vor Ihnen, schon lange nicht mehr gelaufen. Gut, was?”

(Fortsetzung folgt)

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Mar Revolto

Bill Soares, “Mar Revolto”, acrílica sobre tela, 260 x150cm – All rights reserved.


Bill Soares on Flickr

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Predictions for Privacy in the Age of Facebook (from 1985!)

Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even a year old when a graduate student foresaw the emergence of online personal profiles:

The ubiquity and power of the computer blur the distinction between public and private information. Our revolution will not be in gathering data — don’t look for TV cameras in your bedroom — but in analyzing information that is already willingly shared.
[...]
Without any conspiratorial snooping or Big Brother antics, we may find our actions, our lifestyles, and even our beliefs under increasing public scrutiny as we move into the information age.
[...]
Soon celebrities and politicians will not be the only ones who have public images but no private lives — it will be all of us. We must take control of the information about ourselves. We should own our personal profiles, not be bought and sold by them.

Lawrence Hunter, 1985

Quotes found in Matt Novak’s article on Smithsonian Magazine. Worth reading.

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Music And Politics

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics

I would tell you that sometimes it’s easier to desire
And pursue the attention and admiration of a 100 strangers
Than it is to accept the love and loyalty
Of those closest to me
And I would tell you that sometimes
I prefer to look at myself
Through someone else’s eyes
Eyes that aren’t clouded with the tears of knowing
What an asshole I can be, as yours are

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics

I might be able to listen in silence to your concerns
Rather than hearing everything as an accusation
Or an indictment against me
And I would tell you that sometimes
I use sex to avoid communication
It’s the best escape when we’re down on our luck
But I can express more emotions than laughter, anger, and let’s fuck

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics

I would tell you that I pooped in my own dog dish
And sometimes I would rather face not eating
Than face licking it clean
And admitting when I’m selfish
And I’d tell you that I’m suffering
From the worst type of loneliness
The loneliness of being misunderstood
Or more poignantly
The loneliness of being afraid
To allow myself to be understood

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics

I would tell you that the personal revolution
Is far more difficult
Than the first step in any revolution

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics

I would tell you that music is the expression of emotion
And that politics is merely the decoy of perception

Music And Politics Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Graphisch-hypnotische Sinnentleerung

figurenbrut.blogger.de

figurenbrut.blogger.de

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No Better Way To Say It

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Albert Camus

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A Aura Das Palavras

A palavra possui uma aura que consiste em sua imagem escrita,
em sua sonoridade, e nas associações que ela cria dentro de nós.
Quanto mais importante e mais usual esta palavra é,
mais intensa e marcante se torna a sua aura.
Quem a destrói, está destruindo algo dentro de nós,
está tocando nos recônditos do nosso inconsciente.

Reiner Kunze, Die Aura der Wörter, Radius Verlag Stuttgart (2004)
Tradução: Peter Hilgeland

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Datenstroh

Ausgedroschene Wörter und Sätze, frisch geerntet, digitales Geschwätzfutter, verbaler Dünger für Server, Bodenbelag und Heizmaterial für Medienställe.

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Steeped In Violence

We are steeped in violence.

This past week was of course a searing reminder: Monday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon and the ensuing manhunt that ended on Friday with the death of one suspect and the capture of another, his brother, dominated the news. But there were other troubling, if less traumatic reminders, too. On Tuesday, a 577-page report by the Constitution Project concluded that the United States had engaged in torture after the Sept. 11 attacks. On Wednesday, a turning point in the heated national debate on gun control was reached when the United States Senate dropped consideration of some minimal restrictions on the sale and distribution of guns. Looming above all this is the painful memory of the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Now is as good a time as any to reflect on our responses to the many recent horrors that seem to have engulfed us, and to consider whether we can hope to move from an ethos of violence to one nonviolence. Facing ourselves squarely at this difficult moment might provide a better lesson for the future than allowing ourselves to once again give in to blind fury.

We might begin by asking the question, Who are we now?

Clearly, we are a violent country. Our murder rate is three to five timest hat of most other industrialized countries. The massacres that regularly take place here are predictable in their occurrence, if not in their time and place. Moreover, and more telling, our response to violence is typically more violence. We display our might — or what is left of it — abroad in order to address perceived injustices or a threat to our interests. We still have not rid ourselves of the death penalty, a fact that fills those in other countries with disbelief. Many of us, in response to the mindless gun violence around us, prescribe more guns as the solution, as the Republicans sought to do during the gun debate. And we torture people. It is as though, in thinking that the world responds only to violence, we reveal ourselves rather than the world.

Why is this? How has the United States become so saturated in slaughter?

There are, of course, many reasons, but three stand out …
read more

By Todd May, The New York Times Opinionator

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Revelação Noturna

Fica cada vez mais difícil imaginar a divisão de Berlim durante a Guerra Fria. Restaram poucos vestígios, trechos do muro; diante do olhar do pedestre atento, sobraram linhas no chão da cidade para termos uma ideia diluída do passado. Ou, como embaixo, podemos enfeitar a foto de um satélite com uma linha amarela:

Berlin_satellite_image_with_Berlin_wall

Fonte: NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team


Aliás, a divisão continua bem viva, caso você é astronauta em orbita terrestre, tendo uma visão noturna da cidade:
BIFZHoWCIAEJrfA.jpg:large

Fonte: Chris Hadfield / Twitter

Berlin at night. Amazingly, I think the light bulbs still show the East/West division from orbit.

Yes, they certainly do. Pelo simples fato que, antes da queda do muro, a prefeitura de Berlim Oriental preferiu o uso de lâmpadas de vapor de sódio, invés de lâmpadas fluorescentes e a vapor de mercúrio, como foi o caso na parte ocidental. Afinal, o que é a queda de um regime, comparado à política de iluminação pública?

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