literature

Just to entise you into watching the interview, here is one of Allen Ginsberg best poems. Like all the classics, it never looses its contemporary feeling.

Enjoy.

M.

I don´t know how to post this with a screen right from google video (maybe if Ulan stops srufing the break in Baja California he can give me a hand). I found this candid, beautiful and powerful interview with beat poet Allen Ginsberg as a way to liberate my mind from the shackles of the thesis -very close to poilce brutality, let me add. Hope some of you mught enjoy. Is not that long and is brilliant.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2571170106187552265

Hello all,

It has been great meeting you folks in the class ! I have not had a single boring day.

I work at the Department of Information Technology at the Council of Europe (www.coe.int) in Strasbourg. In fact, for the time being, I do return on Thursday evenings to Strasbourg so that I can work on Fridays... Tiring to say the least...

The Council of Europe is a massive document factory and we are realising the need to deploy proper storage and search methodologies in order to be able to retrieve information from our enormous store of data. One of the projects that I am involved in is devising better search solutions and understanding how search works.

I wish
I could be whishing the whishes that I whished before,
because whishing is not hushing.
Hushing is the silence that has the license of whishing.
Like I did before,
when hushing was the pleasure of wishing,
wishing the pleasure had just one measure:
Giving as much as I could when I hushed my pleasure,
screaming the pleasure of silence,
mother of hushing, sister of wishing,
I did not have the license of pleasure that
hushes my pleasures while hushing my pains
in a measure of silence.
The silence of those who look at the sun
when the sea bites it, the silence of the doubt,
the silence of the fear,

I am the astronaut that drifts route less and aimless in the infinite darkness of space.

I am the parasite that clings to life using others, not being able to live on my one.

I am the disappointment of the child who was and stares at me with intrepid eyes.

I am the warrior beaten by the first arrow, defenseless.

I am the first leaf claimed by all mighty autumn, red as anger, yellow as bitterness.

I am the out of control genius that can’t find balance, the wasted talent.

I am the misunderstood that knows everything but resolves nothing.

I am the fantastic loony of the common exterior and the extravagant interior.

Each morning, accompanied by the vapor of my frozen breath, I saw her resting against the dirty wall of the house in front of mine. Although her face was not visible, underneath those abraded clothes, I was able to distinguish the silhouette of a person. There was a body hidden by the red wool “chompa”; the legs pressed against the chest underneath a great old skirt and the feet, hibernating in bored blue slippers, allowed occasional or habitual travelers to know that was a person and not only a pile of sweepings bags crowded together by some neglecting citizen.

When I walked past her, at the beginning of the day, I stared waiting for some kind of answer; but there was never one. When I returned home, exhausted and doubtful about my vocation, the only invariable constant was its presence. Camouflaged between the shades that a solitary light pole provided, there she was, perennial, eternal; a mummy without burial of an antediluvian culture. The light looked maliciously trying to show one strip of skin, a corner of a lip, a grimace at least; only to face immobility, stillness and the murderous shade that ends it.

(Sonnet)

The spider swings on silky strings,
wrapping my soul on devilish sins.
Whispers wise words that burn my wings,
Icarus fall while the sun wins.

Fight ocean and current in rings,
now I am a fish with twig fins.
Dedalus escaped all the kings,
while my heart crumbles into mince.

My only dream was fly away,
with the gift my old father made.
Sees my error too late to say,
already my vision has fade,
I raise high in my head I pray,
against the light only a shade.

Symbolic Number of Syllables

Mondays I hide myself

Tuesdays I regret it,

Wednesdays I weep

and Thursdays I smile;

only for a moment.

Fridays I escape myself,

Saturdays I look for me,

to find me on Sundays

and at the freight of what I see,

Mondays I hide again.

My fly fell in love with me one day while I was shopping at the corner market. Our eyes, mine gentle and hazel, hers dark and metallic, found each other over some Brazilian mangos. Since that day, she’s been next to me. Usually she buzzes erratically over my head, almost like some heavenly halo with an uncertain reputation. When she gets tired she sits on my shoulder as careful as possible; it ok by me. Please, don’t misunderstand me, of course at first I fought a bloody combat against this repulsive insect that stigmatized me socially, but with time I’ve become used to her and learned to appreciate her; maybe even loved her a little.