tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758496625856587932024-03-05T11:06:23.030-06:00...Impeded By His Enormous WingsMarcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-50811454020544130682009-01-03T11:12:00.003-06:002009-01-03T11:15:53.275-06:00"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett<object width="340" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LFE2CCfAP1o&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LFE2CCfAP1o&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="285"></embed></object>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-81551374428740621932009-01-02T21:49:00.003-06:002009-01-02T22:00:05.478-06:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJyi9-zgqfbvxgvocUlHSaIXpnn_XN_j-WmfVcoxJ91OF5aDm-YGSXF-UKuUZZzX51cACI5Tkg1hs4aOfD8poQ-_jX_4SQeo9vhb4XTy9ygY7DRz6lRI3AkL5aLFUb3RJb6lRjEAZUCw/s1600-h/Brocquy_Image_of_Joyce.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 275px; height: 331px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJyi9-zgqfbvxgvocUlHSaIXpnn_XN_j-WmfVcoxJ91OF5aDm-YGSXF-UKuUZZzX51cACI5Tkg1hs4aOfD8poQ-_jX_4SQeo9vhb4XTy9ygY7DRz6lRI3AkL5aLFUb3RJb6lRjEAZUCw/s320/Brocquy_Image_of_Joyce.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286911160000786178" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I Hear an Army</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">By James Joyce</span><br /><br />I hear an army charging upon the land, <br />And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees: <br />Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand, <br />Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers <br /><br />They cry unto the night their battle-name:<br />I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. <br />They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, <br />Clanging, clanging upon my heart as upon an anvil. <br /><br />They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair: <br />They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore. <br />My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair? <br />My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-53032417075375061842008-12-07T02:22:00.001-06:002008-12-07T02:23:57.436-06:00<p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><b>Song of Childhood<br /> By Peter Handke</b></span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child<br /> It walked with its arms swinging,<br /> wanted the brook to be a river,<br /> the river to be a torrent,<br /> and this puddle to be the sea. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> it didn’t know that it was a child,<br /> everything was soulful,<br /> and all souls were one. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> it had no opinion about anything,<br /> had no habits,<br /> it often sat cross-legged,<br /> took off running,<br /> had a cowlick in its hair,<br /> and made no faces when photographed. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> It was the time for these questions:<br /> Why am I me, and why not you?<br /> Why am I here, and why not there?<br /> When did time begin, and where does space end?<br /> Is life under the sun not just a dream?<br /> Is what I see and hear and smell<br /> not just an illusion of a world before the world?<br /> Given the facts of evil and people.<br /> does evil really exist?<br /> How can it be that I, who I am,<br /> didn’t exist before I came to be,<br /> and that, someday, I, who I am,<br /> will no longer be who I am? </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,<br /> and on steamed cauliflower,<br /> and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> it awoke once in a strange bed,<br /> and now does so again and again.<br /> Many people, then, seemed beautiful,<br /> and now only a few do, by sheer luck. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,<br /> and now can at most guess,<br /> could not conceive of nothingness,<br /> and shudders today at the thought. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> It played with enthusiasm,<br /> and, now, has just as much excitement as then,<br /> but only when it concerns its work. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,<br /> And so it is even now. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> Berries filled its hand as only berries do,<br /> and do even now,<br /> Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,<br /> and do even now,<br /> it had, on every mountaintop,<br /> the longing for a higher mountain yet,<br /> and in every city,<br /> the longing for an even greater city,<br /> and that is still so,<br /> It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees<br /> with an elation it still has today,<br /> has a shyness in front of strangers,<br /> and has that even now.<br /> It awaited the first snow,<br /> And waits that way even now. </span></p> <p align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,san-serif;font-size:85%;" >When the child was a child,<br /> It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,<br /> And it quivers there still today. </span></p>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-36362848328988411142008-11-06T19:39:00.003-06:002008-11-06T19:43:00.481-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">"The Emperor of Ice-Cream"</span><br /> Call the roller of big cigars,<br />The muscular one, and bid him whip<br />In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.<br />Let the wenches dawdle in such dress<br />As they are used to wear, and let the boys<br />Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.<br />Let be be finale of seem.<br />The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.<br /><br />Take from the dresser of deal,<br />Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet<br />On which she embroidered fantails once<br />And spread it so as to cover her face.<br />If her horny feet protrude, they come<br />To show how cold she is, and dumb.<br />Let the lamp affix its beam.<br />The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.<br /><br />- Wallace Stevens (1922)<br /></span>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-4086528146369069072008-10-20T13:34:00.004-05:002008-10-20T13:43:47.153-05:00The Good Gray Poet<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMKqosdchWBcPX49g3r0vUPy7uocNMQGjQGmR8No3pFlgP4gs9JnfjTGioLK4yodqal34aKehAZTgb8mGcMJdFfINkSTJYi3X0mQVRc937AhwnUt08DvJdfLpd1uibKOsrhQP9P_k0AWs/s1600-h/1985px-Walt_Whitman_edit_2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 330px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMKqosdchWBcPX49g3r0vUPy7uocNMQGjQGmR8No3pFlgP4gs9JnfjTGioLK4yodqal34aKehAZTgb8mGcMJdFfINkSTJYi3X0mQVRc937AhwnUt08DvJdfLpd1uibKOsrhQP9P_k0AWs/s320/1985px-Walt_Whitman_edit_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259307944425436402" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Song of Myself<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">6 </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;</span><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more<br /> than he. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green<br /> stuff woven. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,<br />A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,<br />Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see<br /> and remark, and say Whose? </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the<br /> vegetation. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,<br />And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,<br />Growing among black folks as among white,<br />Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I<br /> receive them the same. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Tenderly will I use you curling grass,<br />It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,<br />It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,<br />It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out<br /> of their mothers' laps,<br />And here you are the mothers' laps. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,<br />Darker than the colorless beards of old men,<br />Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,<br />And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for<br /> nothing. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and<br /> women,<br />And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken<br /> soon out of their laps. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> What do you think has become of the young and old men?<br /></span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"> And what do you think has become of the women and children? </span><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> They are alive and well somewhere,<br />The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,<br />And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the<br /> end to arrest it,<br />And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,<br />And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. </span></p>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-37021871752256612972008-10-20T13:31:00.001-05:002008-10-20T13:33:45.735-05:00<h2>The Blue Bouquet</h2> <p>by Octavio Paz (1949), translated by Eliot Weinberger<br /></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><b> I</b></span><span style=""> WOKE COVERED </span> with sweat. Hot steam rose from the newly sprayed, red-brick pavement. A gray-winged butterfly, dazzled, circled the yellow light. I jumped from my hammock and crossed the room barefoot, careful not to step on some scorpion leaving his hideout for a bit of fresh air. I went to the little window and inhaled the country air. One could hear the breathing of the night, feminine, enormous. I returned to the center of the room, emptied water from a jar into a pewter basin, and wet my towel. I rubbed my chest and legs with the soaked cloth, dried myself a little, and, making sure that no bugs were hidden in the folds of my clothes, got dressed. I ran down the green stairway. At the door of the boardinghouse I bumped into the owner, a one-eyed taciturn fellow. Sitting on a wicker stool, he smoked, his eye half closed. In a hoarse voice, he asked:<br /> “Where are you going?” <br /> “To take a walk. It’s too hot.” <br /> “Hmmm—everything’s closed. And no streetlights around here. You’d better stay put.” <br /> I shrugged my shoulders, muttered “back soon,” and plunged into the darkness. At first I couldn’t see anything. I fumbled along the cobblestone street. I lit a cigarette. Suddenly the moon appeared from behind a black cloud, lighting a white wall that was crumbled in places. I stopped, blinded by such whiteness. Wind whistled slightly. I breathed the air of the tamarinds. The night hummed, full of leaves and insects. Crickets bivouacked in the tall grass. I raised my head: up there the stars too had set up camp. I thought that the universe was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket’s saw, the star’s blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken? I threw my cigarette down on the sidewalk. Falling, it drew a shining curve, shooting out brief sparks like a tiny comet.<br /> I walked a long time, slowly. I felt free, secure between the lips that were at that moment speaking me with such happiness. The night was a garden of eyes. As I crossed the street, I heard someone come out of a doorway. I turned around, but could not distinguish anything. I hurried on. A few moments later I heard the dull shuffle of sandals on the hot stone. I didn’t want to turn around, although I felt the shadow getting closer with every step. I tried to run. I couldn’t. Suddenly I stopped short. Before I could defend myself, I felt the point of a knife in my back, and a sweet voice:<br /> “Don’t move, mister, or I’ll stick it in.” <br /> Without turning, I asked: <br /> “What do you want?” <br /> “Your eyes, mister,” answered the soft, almost painful voice. <br /> “My eyes? What do you want with my eyes? Look, I’ve got some money. Not much, but it’s something. I’ll give you everything I have if you let me go. Don’t kill me.”<br /> “Don’t be afraid, mister. I won’t kill you. I’m only going to take your eyes.” <br /> “But why do you want my eyes?” I asked again. <br /> “My girlfriend has this whim. She wants a bouquet of blue eyes. And around here they’re hard to find.” <br /> “My eyes won’t help you. They’re brown, not blue.” <br /> “Don’t try to fool me, mister. I know very well that yours are blue.” <br /> “Don’t take the eyes of a fellow man. I’ll give you something else.” <br /> “Don’t play saint with me,” he said harshly. “Turn around.” <br /> I turned. He was small and fragile. His palm sombrero covered half his face. In his right hand he held a country machete that shone in the moonlight.<br /> “Let me see your face.” <br /> I struck a match and put it close to my face. The brightness made me squint. He opened my eyelids with a firm hand. He couldn’t see very well. Standing on tiptoe, he stared at me intensely. The flame burned my fingers. I dropped it. A silent moment passed.<br /> “Are you convinced now? They’re not blue.” <br /> “Pretty clever, aren’t you?” he answered. “Let’s see. Light another one.” <br /> I struck another match, and put it near my eyes. Grabbing my sleeve, he ordered: <br /> “Kneel down.” <br /> I knelt. With one hand he grabbed me by the hair, pulling my head back. He bent over me, curious and tense, while his matchete slowly dropped until it grazed my eyelids. I closed my eyes.<br /> “Keep them open,” he ordered. <br /> I opened my eyes. The flame burned my lashes. All or a sudden he let me go. <br /> “All right, they’re not blue. Beat it.” <br /> He vanished. I leaned against the wall, my head in my hands. I pulled myself together. Stumbling, falling, trying to get up again. I ran for an hour through the deserted town. When I got to the plaza, I saw the owner of the boardinghouse, still sitting in the front of the door. I went in without saying a word. The next day I left town.</p>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-68584970988881622112008-10-20T13:25:00.002-05:002008-10-20T13:29:20.275-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ndpublishing.com/briefhistory.html">New Directions Publishing Corp.<br /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.ndpublishing.com/briefhistory.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLx1Q9EGGqAc7bTDMBUg0Ia486RiDi7D5voFKcxyXAr9hQ4rMH_Z5GCZCL8CgvX4Mw7dorjNiDjSN_lQZBw8Q4p-mv6njB2O36KzYOEZ0c8A5T1NnZ7tNDpMqjrkwV_bzoPhDSYWTbRI/s320/colophonbig.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5259304577993443410" border="0" /></a>Established 1936<br /></div>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-24198910628833587382008-10-16T22:54:00.005-05:002010-06-18T19:47:22.911-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World: A Tale For Children</span><br />Gabriel García Márquez (1968)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"> The first children who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man.<br /><br /> They had been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again, when someone chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones. When they laid him on the floor they said he'd been taller than all other men because there was barely enough room for him in the house, but they thought that maybe the ability to keep on growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of the sea about him and only his shape gave one to suppose that it was the corpse of a human being, because the skin was covered with a crust of mud and scales.<br /><br /> They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a stranger. The village was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desert like cape. There was so little land that mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would carry off their children and the few dead that the years had caused among them had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful and all the men fitted into seven boats. So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at one another to see that they were all there.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a> That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone was missing in neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud off with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust off with tools used for scaling fish. As they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came from faraway oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed through labyrinths of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination.<br /><br /> They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on nor was there a table solid enough to use for his wake. The tallest men's holiday pants would not fit him, nor the fattest ones' Sunday shirts, nor the shoes of the one with the biggest feet. Fascinated by his huge size and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal linen so that he could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed, sitting in a circle and gazing at the corpse between stitches, it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would have been the happiest woman. They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names and that he would have put so much work into his land that springs would have burst forth from among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth. They were wandering through that maze of fantasy when the oldest woman, who as the oldest had looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than passion, sighed: 'He has the face of someone called Esteban.'<br /><br /> It was true. Most of them had only to take another look at him to see that he could not have any other name. The more stubborn among them, who were the youngest, still lived for a few hours with the illusion that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the flowers in patent leather shoes his name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illusion. There had not been enough canvas, the poorly cut and worse sewn pants were too tight, and the hidden strength of his heart popped the buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind died down and the sea fell into its Wednesday drowsiness. The silence put an end to any last doubts: he was Esteban. The women who had dressed him, who had combed his hair, had cut his nails and shaved him were unable to hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves to his being dragged along the ground. It was then that they understood how unhappy he must have been with that huge body since it bothered him even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please, and he, leaning against the wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, his heels raw and his back roasted from having done the same thing so many times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine where I am, just to avoid the embarrassment of breaking up the chair, and never knowing perhaps that the ones who said don't go, Esteban, at least wait till the coffee's ready, were the ones who later on would whisper the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome fool has gone. That was what the women were thinking beside the body a little before dawn. Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief so that the light would not bother him, he looked so forever dead, so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in their hearts. It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others, coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming all the more Esteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was the more destitute, most peaceful, and most obliging man on earth, poor Esteban. So when the men returned with the news that the drowned man was not from the neighboring villages either, the women felt an opening of jubilation in the midst of their tears. 'Praise the Lord,' they sighed, 'he's ours!'<br /><br /> The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity. Fatigued because of the difficult night-time inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the newcomer once and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter with the remains of foremasts and gaffs, tying it together with rigging so that it would bear the weight of the body until they reached the cliffs. They wanted to tie the anchor from a cargo ship to him so that he would sink easily into the deepest waves, where fish are blind and divers die of nostalgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore, as had happened with other bodies. But the more they hurried, the more the women thought of ways to waste time. They walked about like startled hens, pecking with the sea charms on their breasts, some interfering on one side to put a scapular of the good wind on the drowned man, some on the other side to put a wrist compass on him , and after a great deal of get away from there, woman, stay out of the way, look, you almost made me fall on top of the dead man, the men began to feel mistrust in their livers and started grumbling about why so many main-altar decorations for a stranger, because no matter how many nails and holy-water jars he had on him, the sharks would chew him all the same, but the women kept piling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling, while they released in sighs what they did not in tears, so that the men finally exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat. One of the women, mortified by so much lack of care, then removed the handkerchief from the dead man's face and the men were left breathless too.<br /><br /> He was Esteban. It was not necessary to repeat it for them to recognize him. If they had been told Sir Walter Raleigh, even they might have been impressed with his gringo accent, the macaw on his shoulder, his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, but there could be only one Esteban in the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperm whale, shoeless, wearing the pants of an undersized child, and with those stony nails that had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to drown in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a galleon around my neck and staggered off a cliff like someone who doesn't like things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday dead body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with me. There was so much truth in his manner that even the most mistrustful men, the ones who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea fearing that their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men, even they and others who were harder still shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Esteban's sincerity.<br /><br /> That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who had gone to get flowers in the neighboring villages returned with other women who could not believe what they had been told, and those women went back for more flowers when they saw the dead man, and they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so many people that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment it pained them to return him to the waters as an orphan and they chose a father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen. Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens. While they fought for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man. They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they would never be. But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's village.</span>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-78465445835046582772008-10-06T14:33:00.005-05:002008-10-06T14:40:04.429-05:00La Cité des Enfants Perdus<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLWDr7Oz3Wfa9yHDa_3Z8AhdVLIKiFGW4ya9PZ5HTWVkRSSr1OijD3ym8lGkc0v5mg87_g1cKoMsjMVgJQBLhUzvHpiLYHRYNcb2QzLIraI8xdc4XZm37OJQxF3GjUdbANln2Y5EntwI/s1600-h/La+Cit%C3%A9+des+Enfants+Perdus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLWDr7Oz3Wfa9yHDa_3Z8AhdVLIKiFGW4ya9PZ5HTWVkRSSr1OijD3ym8lGkc0v5mg87_g1cKoMsjMVgJQBLhUzvHpiLYHRYNcb2QzLIraI8xdc4XZm37OJQxF3GjUdbANln2Y5EntwI/s320/La+Cit%C3%A9+des+Enfants+Perdus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254127319203342354" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">My poor baby.<br /><br />Who has stolen the child's dream?<br /><br />The mad genius Krank<br />in his evil scheme.<br /><br />To what vicious depths<br />will he not descend?<br /><br />Will the tale turn to tragedy...<br /><br />or have a happy end?</div>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-87205421556978424302008-09-17T01:11:00.002-05:002008-09-25T22:35:20.932-05:00TV On the Radio - "Golden Age" & "Dancing Choose"<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ztoQALeDiLk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ztoQALeDiLk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n7mMoc-x_v0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n7mMoc-x_v0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-165636559146990092008-09-04T00:58:00.006-05:002008-09-04T01:19:05.595-05:00<p style="text-align: center;" class="poetry"><span style="font-size:130%;">Ulysses<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="poetry"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1833)</span><br /></p> <p class="poetry"><span style="font-size:85%;"> It little profits that an idle king,<br />By this still hearth, among these barren crags,<br />Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole<br />Unequal laws unto a savage race,<br />That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.<br /></span></p><p class="poetry"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I cannot rest from travel; I will drink<br />Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed<br />Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those<br />That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when<br />Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades<br />Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;<br />For always roaming with a hungry heart<br />Much have I seen and known-cities of men<br />And manners, climates, councils, governments,<br />Myself not least, but honored of them all-<br />And drunk delight of battle with my peers,<br />Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.<br />I am a part of all that I have met;<br />Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough<br />Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades<br />For ever and for ever when I move.<br />How dull it is to pause, to make an end,<br />To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!<br />As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life<br />Were all too little, and of one to me<br />Little remains; but every hour is saved<br />From that eternal silence, something more,<br />A bringer of new things; and vile it were<br />For some three suns to store and hoard myself,<br />And this gray spirit yearning in desire<br />To follow knowledge like a sinking star,<br />Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.<br /></span></p><p class="poetry"><span style="font-size:85%;"> This is my son, mine own Telemachus,<br />To whom I leave the scepter and the isle —<br />Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill<br />This labor, by slow prudence to make mild<br />A rugged people, and through soft degrees<br />Subdue them to the useful and the good.<br />Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere<br />Of common duties, decent not to fail<br />In offices of tenderness, and pay<br />Meet adoration to my household gods,<br />When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.<br /></span></p><p class="poetry"><span style="font-size:85%;"> There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:<br />There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,<br />Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me —<br />That ever with a frolic welcome took<br />The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed<br />Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;<br />Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;<br />Death closes all; but something ere the end,<br />Some work of noble note, may yet be done,<br />Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.<br />The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;<br />The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep<br />Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.<br />'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.<br />Push off, and sitting well in order smite<br />The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<br />To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<br />Of all the western stars, until I die.<br />It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;<br />It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<br />And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.<br />Though much is taken, much abides; and though<br />We are not now that strength which in old days<br />Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:<br />One equal temper of heroic hearts,<br />Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<br />To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.</span></p>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-69575471514656649622008-08-19T14:08:00.005-05:002008-08-19T14:16:51.245-05:00Dragons of Zynth<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6BFzkt3KJ97l1tm3-uUuFSs6AaBsZRr67lhLl87_9Iknelb8z-FIzOItP5yatlIpNKhTyCjYFZfY0TIQYWE-Abqut4yK7U4FRqMewKcMQht1cjh6zxebjW5NIdQBLveaXe65aOPmfXQ/s1600-h/doz2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6BFzkt3KJ97l1tm3-uUuFSs6AaBsZRr67lhLl87_9Iknelb8z-FIzOItP5yatlIpNKhTyCjYFZfY0TIQYWE-Abqut4yK7U4FRqMewKcMQht1cjh6zxebjW5NIdQBLveaXe65aOPmfXQ/s320/doz2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236308104983478594" /></a>Dragons of Zynth:<br /><a href="http://www.daytrotter.com/article/759/free-songs-dragons-of-zynth">Live on Daytrotter</a><a href="http://dublab.com/content/?p=1132"><br />Live on Dublab</a>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-19576040567071729922008-08-17T18:02:00.000-05:002008-08-17T18:03:06.578-05:00TV On The Radio RaritiesIn anticipation of the Sept. 23 release of <a href="http://drownedinsound.com/articles/3811437?gclid=CO6hnMH4lZUCFQopIgodmR1UhQ"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dear Science</span></a><span>,</span> I've gathered together a collection of links to rare, live, and promotional materials that <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_on_the_Radio">TV On The Radio</a> have left in their wake over the past few years. With bold defiance of genre, rampant experimentation and a healthy mix of lyrical depth and humor, TVOTR have proven themselves to be one of the most interesting and entertaining bands of the new millennium. The links provided here collect material that frequently reveals the craftsmanship that underlies the layered soundscapes that they create in the studio.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Official Releases</span><br /><a href="http://www.touchandgorecords.com/bands/album.php?id=367">"Dry Drunk Emperor" (2005)</a> - free download offered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina<br /><a href="http://www.touchandgorecords.com/bands/album.php?id=105">"You Could Be Love" and a vocal demo of "Staring at the Sun" (2004)</a> - available from Touch & Go Records<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Early Demos</span><br /><a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VDJ9K4HE">OK Calculator (2002)</a><br /><a href="http://www.uglymusic.org/2007/09/24/tunde-adebimpe-of-tv-on-the-radio-colophon-ep/">Tunde Adebimpe - The Colophone EP</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Promotional Downloads</span><br /><a href="http://bootlog.wordpress.com/2006/10/19/tv-on-the-radio-the-current-mpr-8-october-2006/">Live on The Current, MPR: 10/8/2006</a> - great take of "Dry Drunk Emperor"<br /><a href="http://www.new-mp3s.com/search/TV%20On%20the%20Radio/KEXP">Live on KEXP: 10/24/2006</a> - "Blues From Down Here" from this session is a personal favorite<br /><a href="http://spinner.aol.com/artists/the-interface/tv-on-the-radio">Live on The Interface, Spinner: 11/2006</a> - great versions of "Wash the Day" and "Province"<br /><a href="http://mafama.blogspot.com/search?q=Kyp+Malone">Kyp Malone, Live on Má Fama: 7/24/2007</a> - fascinating solo cuts by Kyp with a revealing take on "Playhouses"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other Promotional Material</span><span><br /><a href="http://www.xfmmanchester.co.uk/Article.asp?id=33416">Xfm, X-posure Live: 2/6/2004</a><br /></span><a href="http://kexp.org/aspnet_client/KEXPViewMediaGroup.aspx?rID=2312&pID=528&fID=539&artist=SZ">Live on KEXP: 11/6/2004</a><br /><a href="http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb/mb060922tv_on_the_radio">Live on KCRW: 9/22/2006</a> - nice session; audio or video<br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6659205">Live on World Cafe, NPR: 12/21/2006</a> - superlative session and interview<br /><a href="http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=12315174">NapsterLive</a><br /><br />Because pretension is the worst quality in artists, a healthy dose of humor in the form of the<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>Return To Cookie Mountain Advertising Campaign:</span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhODQZFfDQ">Pass It On</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS_pCmODMic">Lyrics</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phODrCapX2Y">Mr. President</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=272sJXyPYj0">Breakdown City</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzRPaMezijw">Street Account</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcHsV8D9tBE">Dance Off</a><br /><br />And while I'm at it, a collection of music videos thus far:<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uo2WLQ2LVA">Staring at the Sun</a> - from Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAXDTjQBXas">Dreams</a> - from Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes<br /><a href="http://www.uvphactory.com/Portfolio/tvor/">Dreams</a> - from Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (<span style="font-style: italic;">unofficial</span> video)<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pSqxMW5mtA&feature=related">Modern Romance</a> - from New Health Rock EP (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUB1xSAAADk">Wolf Like Me</a> - from Return To Cookie Mountain<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqI0FYN-r5c">Province</a> - from Return Cookie MountainMarcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-73324018258749056522008-08-05T09:20:00.006-05:002008-08-08T14:50:46.402-05:00Summer Reading List<span style="font-size:78%;">Read in Honors HUM-105, The History of Great Ideas:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Leo Tolstoy - "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Plato - "Allegory of the Cave" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Republic</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (≈ 360 B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Aristotle - "Aristotle on Slavery" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Politics</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (≈ 330 B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Selections from the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Rig-Veda</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (≈ 15th-10th Century B.C.), </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Upanishads</span><span style="font-size:78%;">, & the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Bhagavad Gita</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (≈ 8th Century B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Asvaghosa - "The Enlightenment of the Buddha: Buddhacarita" (2nd Century A.D.)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Confucius - Selections from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Analects</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (5th Century B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">"Moses and the Ten Commandments: Israel at Mount Sinai" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Torah</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (Events ≈ 13th Century B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">"The Night Journey" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Koran</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (650)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">The Dalai Lama - "The Ethic of Compassion" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Ethics for the New Millennium</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1999)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Lao-tzu - Selections from the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Tao-te Ching</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (6th Century B.C.)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Alan Watts - "Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen" (1958)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">C. S. Lewis - "Meditation in a Toolshed" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >God In the Dock</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1979)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Niccolò Machiavelli - "The Qualities of the Prince" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Prince</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1513)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Francis Bacon - "The Four Idols" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Novum Organum</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1620)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Voltaire - </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Candide: Or, Optimism </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(1759)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Jonathan Swift - </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Gulliver's Travels</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1726)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Jonathan Swift - "A Modest Proposal" (1729)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Margaret Killjoy & Colin Foran - Selections from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(2007)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Jean-Jacques Rousseau - "Origin of Civil Society" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Social Contract</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1762)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Thomas Jefferson - "The Declaration of Independence" (1776)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Elizabeth Cady Stanton - "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" (1848)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Communist Manifesto</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1848)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Charles Darwin - "Natural Selection" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1859)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Stephen Jay Gould - "Nonmoral Nature" (1982)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">William Paley - Selection from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Natural Theology</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1802)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Sigmund Freud - "The Oedipus Complex" from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >The Interpretation of Dreams</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1899)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Howard Gardner - "A Rounded Version: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences" (1993)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Frederick Douglass - Selection from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1845)</span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Jamaica Kincaid - Selections from </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" >A Small Place</span><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1988)</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:78%;">Currently reading for fun:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Robert Louis Stevenson - <span style="font-style: italic;">Treasure Island</span> (1883)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:78%;">Herman Melville - <span style="font-style: italic;">Moby-Dick; or, The Whale</span> (1851)<br /></span></li></ul>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-69188427111077956482008-06-17T00:27:00.010-05:002008-09-04T01:19:52.348-05:00<div align="center"><span class="Helvetica14" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:130%;" >A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children </span></div><div align="center"><i><b><span class="Helvetica12" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:100%;" >Gabriel García Márquez (1968)<br /><br /></span></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>"He's an angel," she told them. "He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down."</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>On the following day everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo's house. Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a spiritual conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff's club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and Elisenda were still killing crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat. Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas. But when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o'clock, alarmed at the strange news. By that time onlookers less frivolous than those at dawn had already arrived and they were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the captive's future. The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge of the universe. But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. Standing by the wire, he reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to open the door so that he could take a close look at that pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying in the corner drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast leftovers that the early risers had thrown him. Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin. The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers. Then he noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels. The he came out of the chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary. He argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the mob that was about to knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowd several times, but no one paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth came in search of health: a poor woman who since childhood has been counting her heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn't sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done while awake; and many others with less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the earth tremble, Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a her taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>Father Gonzaga held back the crowd's frivolity with formulas of maidservant inspiration while awaiting the arrival of a final judgment on the nature of the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency. They spent their time finding out in the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how many times he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn't just a Norwegian with wings. Those meager letters might have come and gone until the end of time if a providential event had not put and end to the priest's tribulations.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town the traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The admission to see her was not only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her all manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and down so that no one would ever doubt the truth of her horror. She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What was most heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with which she recounted the details of her misfortune. While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents' house to go to a dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in tow and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider. Her only nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose to toss into her mouth. A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers. Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the angel's reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely. That was how Father Gonzaga was cured forever of his insomnia and Pelayo's courtyard went back to being as empty as during the time it had rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn't get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and have up his job as a bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk, the kind worn on Sunday by the most desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing that didn't receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so often, it was not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost and was turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to walk, they were careful that he not get too close to the chicken coop. But then they began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and before they child got his second teeth he'd gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires were falling apart. The angel was no less standoffish with him than with the other mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious infamies with the patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came down with the chicken pox at the same time. The doctor who took care of the child couldn't resist the temptation to listen to the angel's heart, and he found so much whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for him to be alive. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn't understand why other men didn't have them too.</span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span>When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the chicken coop. The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. They would drive him out of the bedroom with a broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he'd be duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house, and the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels. He could scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night, and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one of the few times they became alarmed, for they thought he was going to die and not even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them what to do with dead angels.</span></div><span class="Helvetica10" style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Times10"> </span><br />And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.<br /></span>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775849662585658793.post-20647127786038793692008-06-16T23:54:00.002-05:002008-08-08T14:50:29.148-05:00Antonio Hernandez: 12/23/85 - 9/8/07<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwx6tuZreNR7Xz9FC623TtdD3TQNFZygfeImgyBkr0XOVc6G4EEiLAWct4ZTH6Fhaq04wrYEf47cS4SXualWvocA8LWHo_MpR5PuidedvnCC1JE_lgsgo76pxsIPgauH905f_dr0Rcv70/s1600-h/04.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwx6tuZreNR7Xz9FC623TtdD3TQNFZygfeImgyBkr0XOVc6G4EEiLAWct4ZTH6Fhaq04wrYEf47cS4SXualWvocA8LWHo_MpR5PuidedvnCC1JE_lgsgo76pxsIPgauH905f_dr0Rcv70/s320/04.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212711045029355954" border="0" /></a>Marcoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10538126223184316568noreply@blogger.com