Bridges, Troubled Waters,...

To Brooklyn Bridge
by Hart Crane


How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

Urban Wolves

HOWL

For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix,

angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly

connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-

ery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat

up smoking in the supernatural darkness of

cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities

contemplating jazz, ...

In case you are not familiar with this long poem enjoy the full version at

http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm

Now browse this website on the beat movement. Curious enough.

http://www.hotelboheme.com/beat/index.html

And if you want to know more about probably the best Spanish photographer, still alive, Alberto García-Alix, a real urban wolf, who could have figured at Howl, had Ginsberg known about him, just enjoy this video:

Don't Pray in My School. I Won't Think in Your Church

Down by the River

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it(anywhere i

go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings

For some strange reason, there seems to be no official site on Cummings I could recommend. Nonetheless, I suggest you browse this one below as it seems to me it is a remarkable one

http://members.tripod.com/~DWipf/cummings.html

On Pre-raphaelites painters, aesthetes, etc. visit

http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/1.html

This may do.

So why on earth should I mingle Ophelia and Cummings? Well, think about the desperate and profound love Ophelia felt for her dear Prince Hamlet and the echoes in some of Cumming's lines. In my humble opinion, Ophelia would have read Cummings, had she had the chance,...

Salmanized

What is Freedom From Religion?

From Austin Cline.

Conservatives insist that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, and argue against strict separation of church and state. Too often, though, conservatives seem to have a flawed understanding of what freedom from religion really entails and fail to realize that freedom from religion is crucial to religious liberty in general.

It is evident that a person misunderstands the concept of freedom from religion when they say that promotion of the idea is part of an effort to eliminate religion from the public square, to secularize America, or to deny religious believers a voice in politics. None of this follows from a belief that people have a right to be free from religion.
Freedom from religion is not a demand that one never encounter religion, religious believers, or religious ideas at all.

Freedom from religion is not freedom from seeing churches, encountering people handing out religious tracts on the street corner, seeing preachers on television, or listening to people discuss religion at work. Freedom from religion is not a demand that religious beliefs never be expressed, that religious believers never voice an opinion, or that religiously-inspired values never have any impact on laws, customs, or public policies.
Freedom from religion is thus not a social right to never encounter religion in public spaces.

Freedom from religion has two relevant aspects: personal and political. On the personal level, a right to be free from religion means that a person has the freedom not to belong to any religion or religious organization. The right to be religious and to join religious organizations would meaningless if there did not exist a parallel right not to join any at all. Religious liberty must simultaneously protect both the right to be religious and the right not to be religious at all — it cannot protect a right to be religious, just so long as you pick some religion.
When it comes to politics, the freedom from religion means being "free from" any government imposition of religion. Freedom from religion does not mean being free from seeing churches, but it does mean being free from churches getting governing financing; it doesn't mean being free from encountering people handing out religious tracts on a street corner, but it does mean being free from government-sponsored religious tracts; it doesn't mean being free from hearing religious discussions at work, but it does mean being free from religion being a condition of employment, hiring, firing, or one's status in the political community.

Freedom from religion isn't a demand that religious beliefs never be expressed, but rather that they not be endorsed by the government; it's not a demand that religious believers never voice an opinion, but rather that they not have a privileged status in public debates; it's not a demand that religious values never have any public impact, but rather that no laws be based on religious doctrines without the existence of a secular purpose and basis.
The political and the personal are closely related. A person cannot be "free from" religion in the personal sense of not having to belong to any religion if religion is made a factor in one's status in the political community. Government agencies should not endorse, promote, or encourage religion in any way. Doing so suggests that those who accept the religious beliefs favored by the government will, by extension, be favored by the government — and thus a person's political status becomes conditioned on their personal religious commitments.
The claim that the Constitution only protects "freedom of religion" and not "freedom from religion" thus misses an important point. Religious liberty, if it is to mean anything, cannot merely mean that the state won't use the police to stop or harass adherents of certain religious ideas. It must also mean that the state won't use more subtle powers, like those of the pocketbook and the bully pulpit, to favor some religions over others, to endorse certain religious doctrines rather than others, or to take sides in theological disputes.
It would be wrong for the police to close synagogues; it is also wrong for police officers to tell Jewish drivers during a traffic stop that they should convert to Christianity. It would be wrong for politicians to pass a law banning Hinduism; it is also wrong for them to pass a law proclaiming that monotheism is preferable to polytheism. It would be wrong for a president to say that Catholicism is a cult and not really Christian; it is also wrong for a president to endorse theism and religion generally.

This is why freedom of religion and freedom from religion are two sides of the same coin. Attacks on one ultimately serve to undermine the other. The preservation of religious liberty requires that we ensure that the government not be handed any authority over religious matters.

Quoted from

http://atheism.about.com/od/churchstate/a/FreedomFrom.htm

If you want to know more about Salman Rushdie, the Anglo-Indian writer prosecuted worldwide by Orthodox Islamists on the accusation of heresy, blaspheme and other ridiculous charges, click at

https://edit.britannica.com/getEditableToc?tocId=9064456

Apparently, there is no official, updated website I could quote and suggest you visit, but take some time to read any of Rushdie's novels and you will soon find out why freedom is so dangerous to some believers.

By the way, on the same topic, you may want to read an old post of mine on 19th May 07.

Gay Pride

"The Wanderer"

(...)And so he knows it, he who must
forgo for a long time
the counsels
of his beloved lord:
Then sorrow and sleep
both together
often tie up
the wretched solitary one.
on mode He thinks in his mind
that he embraces and kisses
his lord,
on his knees lays
his hands and his head,
at times, before,
in days gone by,
he enjoyed the gift-seat.
Then the friendless man
wakes up again,
He sees before him
fallow waves
Sea birds bathe,
preening their feathers,
Frost and snow fall,
mixed with hail. (...)

Anonymous

Springfield Revisited

This was intended to be a tribute to the best band in the 20th century. However, something came up and... Bloody liaisons¡ Anyhow, timeless as they and the bard were, here you have them. Enjoy¡

I like my body when it is with your body

I like my body when it is with your body.

It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

I like your body.

I like what it does, I like its hows.

I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones, and the trembling-firm-smoothness and

which I will

again and again and again kiss,

I like kissing this and that of you,

I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric fur,

and what-is-it comesover parting flesh . . .

And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly I like the thrill of under me you so quite new.

E.E.Cummings

Get Out of Irak

T.S.Elliot "The Hollow Men" We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glassIn our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men ...

Election Day

No words, on a day like this...

Rainbow Warriors

"How I long to retire so I can devote myself to intercultural dialogue and sustainable development"

(My translation)


From the Spanish cartoonist and philosopher El Roto browse


http://www.ivys.es/babilonia/elroto.html

Just in Spanish, I'm afraid. But don't miss him¡ He is a regular at http://www.elpais.com/

Visit one of the most hilarious and incisive humourous magazines from Britain at

http://www.punch.co.uk/

Unfortunately, Punch ceased to be published in 2002.

Refusing to Mourn

http://www.cuttysark.org.uk/


"A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London", by Dylan Thomas

Beaucoup de travail ¡

Et maintenant, un petit peu de musique

veuillez cliquer ici

Animation réalisée sur le site http://www.komcitiz.com

Veuillez cliquer ici pour Yuri Buenaventura, le chanteur de salsa

http://yuribuenaventura.artistes.universalmusic.fr/

Creationism, Lies and Media Files

The "Sheer Facts"

Creationists are Christians who believe that the account of the creation of the universe as presented in Genesis is literally true in its basic claims about Adam and Eve, the six days of creation, making day and night on the first day even though He didn’t make the sun and moon until the fourth day, making whales and other animals that live in the water or have feathers and fly on the fifth day, and making cattle and things that creep on the earth on the sixth day, etc.

Almost half of Americans believe that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so, results from a new Gallup Poll revealed.
In a May 8-11 survey of American beliefs on evolution, 46 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.
In comparison, only 13 percent chose the answer: “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.”

For a visit to the "God Made It " Theme Park click at

http://www.creationmuseum.org/

Now, the truth:

For a much more realistic and comforting view on how the hell we got here

just take a look at this

http://www.mediamax.com/epcvmj/Hosted/Evolution.wmv

Paperless?

The hazardous charm of non-digital era, I would say...

“You know, I'm gonna miss this when we go paperless.”

Caption by Christopher Farber Brooklyn, N.Y. Drawing by Tom Cheney

For more cartoons and other good stuff visit http://www.newyorker.com/

Variations on the Same Theme

IF...




IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

http://www.kipling.org.uk/

Still Nature

Is this to be considered "still nature" or just plain art?

http://www.chemamadoz.com/

Escherfera

"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing"

Macbeth, Act V, scene V

Learning English is so funny¡

Now it's your turn,...repeat this sentence one hundred times after each meal.Just click at

audrey.wav

"A Song of Myself"

What is a blog but a song of oneself?



"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,

Nature without check with original energy. "

http://www.whitmanarchive.org/

Vintecinco de avril

PEDRA FILOSOFAL

Eles não sabem que o sonho

e' uma constante da vida

tão concreta e definida

como outra coisa qualquer,

como esta pedra cinzenta

em que me sento e descanso,

como este ribeiro manso

em serenos sobressaltos,

como estes pinheiros altos

que em verde e oiro se agitam,

como estas aves que gritam

em bebedeiras de azul.

Eles não sabem que o sonho

e' vinho, e' espuma, e' fermento,

bichinho a'lacre e sedento,

de focinho pontiagudo,

que fossa através de tudo

num perpetuo movimento.

Eles não sabem que o sonho

e' tela, e' cor, e' pincel,

base, fuste, capitel,

arco em ogiva, vitral,

pina'culo de catedral,

contraponto, sinfonia,

mascara grega, magia,

que e' retorta de alquimista,

mapa do mundo distante,

rosa-dos-ventos, Infante,

caravela quinhentista,

que e' Cabo da Boa Esperanca,

ouro, canela, marfim,

florete de espadachim,

bastidor, passo de danca,

Colombina e Arlequim,

passarola voadora,para-raios,

locomotiva,barco de proa festiva,

alto-forno, geradora,

cisão do atomo, radar,

ultra-som, televisao,

desembarque em foguetão

na superficie lunar.

Eles não sabem, nem sonham,

que o sonho comanda a vida.

Que sempre que um homem sonha

o mundo pula e avança

como bola colorida

entre as mãos duma criança.

ANTONIO GEDEÃO

The Fool on the Hill

The Hand That Signed the Paper

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.
The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.
The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.
The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
-- Dylan Thomas

Poetry is just another name for reality...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329789179-110878,00.html

April is the cruellest month

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering
5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,

My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.

In the mountains, there you feel free.

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter

Wishful Thinking

For the moment being, this is an aimless blog. It was meant to be a virtual meeting point for us teachers of English as well as English teachers, 8-) Anyhow, as the bard said, "we are the same stuff dreams are made of" and this is but a dream: trying to make heads or tails of all this.

Down on Me!

"Down on Me"

Down on me, down on me,
Looks like everybody in this whole round world

They’re down on me.
Love in this world is so hard to find

When you’ve got yours and I got mine.
That’s why it looks like everybody in this whole round world

They’re down on me.
Saying they’re down on me, down on me.

Looks like everybody in this whole round world
Down on me.

When you see a hand that’s held out toward you,
Give it some love, some day it may be you.
That’s why it looks like everybody in this whole round world
They’re down on me, yeah.

Lord, they’re down on me, down on me, oh!
Looks like everybody in this whole round worldIs down on me.

Believe in your brother, have faith in man,Help each other, honey, if you can
Because it looks like everybody in this whole round worldIs down on me.
I’m saying down on me, oh, down on me, oh!
It looks like everybody in this whole round world
Down on me!!