28 October 2011

20 octubre 2011

«Yo creo que algún día se producirá y lo reconoceremos porque la gente, en vez de andar por el suelo, andará como a veinte centímetros... un poco... levitará, levemente, ¿no?, para no escandalizar, pero levitará del peso que nos quitaremos de encima», Bernardo Atxaga, La pelota vasca (de Julio Medem).

12 August 2010

Do writers turn into foxes?

Here we go again... with just enough strength to type in someone else's writing. Compare the following:

"[...] Through the window I see no star: / Something more near / Though deeper within darkness / Is entering the loneliness: // Cold, delicately as the dark snow, / A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; / Two eyes serve a movement, that now / And again now, and now, and now // Sets neat prints into the snow / Between trees, and wearily a lame / Shadow lags by stump and in hollow / Of a body that is bold to come // Across clearings, an eye, / A widening, deepening greenness, / Brilliantly, concentratedly, / Coming about is own business // Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox / It enters the dark hole of the head. / The window is starless still; the clock ticks, / The page is printed" (yes, it's Ted Hughes' "The Thought Fox")

now from Saul Bellow's novel "Herzog":
"He was at his letter writing again in the morning. The little desk at the window was black, rivaling the blackness of his fire escape, those rails dipped in asphalt, a heavy cosmetic coat of black, rails equidistant but appearing according to the laws of perspective. He had letters to write. He was busy, busy, in pursuit of objects he was only now, and dimly, beginning to understand. His first message today, begun half-consciously as he was waking up, was to Monsignor Hilton, the priest who had brought Madeleine into the Church. Sipping his black coffee, Herzog in his cotton paisley robe narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat, already aware of the anger, the pervasive indignation he felt."

16 August 2005

The Age of Insubstantiality

This morning I received an e-mail with an interesting offer: Bachelor Degrees, MAs, PhDs, diplomas... Call this number, and you will get all the prestige, advantages and salary that goes with going through higher education, WITHOUT going through higher education. Getting a degree without tests, without classes, without all the good things you get from it, but paying for fees is the ultimate trickster sell.
The paradox of modern times: paying fees without getting education. Soon we will be paying in restaurants and not getting food, paying for trips that we don't do, and all to show the receipts and be able to say: yes, I went to this restaurant the other day, you see?, I have the receipt.

In the new world order, people won't wear clothes, but prize tags, the shopping trip will be the end product, and any buys will be dumped once you get home, people will make sure their garbage shows how prestigious and rich they are by paying for empty cardboard boxes with pictures of the latest DVD, Playstation, hi-fi equipment, and the rest. Bottles of champange without content, mansions without furniture, club memberships without club, mobiles wihtout phone in them, books covers without a story.

er... most of those happen already.
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