Hang up the chick habit! - Laisse tomber les filles

For George K., a word of caution...


Hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

I'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

You're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

Hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
a girl's not a tonic or a pill

Hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
you're just jonesing for a spill

Oh, how your bubble's gonna burst
when you meet another nurse
she'll be driving in a hearse

You're gonna need a heap of glue
when they all catch up with you
and they cut you up in two

Now your ears are ringing
the birds have stopped their singing
everything is turning grey

No candy in your till
no cutie left to thrill
you're alone on a Tuesday

Hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

I'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

You're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

PS Original song "Laisse tomber les filles" by Serge Gainsbourg. "Chick Habit" sung by April March with English lyrics by her, featured in the Quentin Tarantino movie OST "Deathproof".

The Flock is mourning - Baaaaah said the sheep..

Now that His Worshipfulness, The Padishah Ayatollah Lord Protector and CEO of the Greek Church-in-State Inc. lies embalmed for all his flock to pay their respects, voices of mournful indignation arise with patriotic/religious fervour that it is leaders of this calibre that our nation needs.

Εσεις κυριε με την περικεφαλαία, προσκυνήσατε; Φιλε οδηγέ, έβαλες ΦΛΑΣ στη μπαταρία;

Besides the obvious, i.e. the Makarios farce and the tragedy it led to, I think it is time to reflect on the nature of such sentiments. Pure politics, gentlemen. Pure politics.What better opportunity for politicians to divert the attention from embarassing scandals and ingratiate themselves to the flock with public displays of mourning?

From the analytical wisdom of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood that has spent millennia manipulating politics to guide humanity to maturity, from Frank Herbert's Dune Universe:

"Almost any subject had political elements....As emotions were whipped up, political forces came more and more innto the foreground. This put lie! to that old nonsense about "separation of church and state". Nothing more susceptible to emotional heat than religion.
No wonder we distrust emotions"

" 'Democracy is a stupid idea anyway!'
' We agree. It's demagogue prone. That's a disease to which electoral systems are vulnerable' "

" 'Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
' Wrong, Dama. Something more subtle but far more pervasive is at work. We've said it often enough but few hear us. Power attracts the corruptible.' "

"But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they know of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes. And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.
Lemming behaviour."

(Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune, italics from the original, bold by me)

The Tragedy of the MS "Wilhelm Gustloff" - ...and Congratulations, Herr Paulus...

The Wilhelm Gustloff was a cruise liner, built and launched specifically for this purpose in 1937 by the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Germany.

As a cruise ship, she served the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) program of the Nazis, where working-class people were offered luxurious holidays at affordable prices, provided they sit through Nazi propaganda and indoctrination.

However, she was to remain in history as the greatest naval disaster EVER.

Just before the final collapse of the Eastern front in 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating civilians and military personnel.

She left the harbour of Gotenhafen, near Danzig, in East Prussia in the afternoon of January 30 1945. She carried about 1500 military personnel and as many as 9000 civilians (estimates vary between ~5000 and 8900+ ).

Because of traffic in the area, it was decided that she leave some navigation lights on.

This proved disastrous. She was spotted later in the evening by S-13 , a Stalinets-class Soviet submarine, commanded by Captain Alexandr Marinesko, without anyone being able to identify the ship by name.

Stalinets-class Submarine

About 21:00 as the submarine log records, the S-13 fired four torpedoes, each marked: FOR THE MOTHERLAND, FOR STALIN, FOR THE SOVIET PEOPLE, FOR LENINGRAD.
The torpedo marked FOR STALIN jammed in the tube but the other 3 were launched and scored direct hits on the Wilhelm Gustloff.

Only about 1230 people were rescued. It was a disaster that claimed at least twice the number of people that died aboard the Titanic and the Lusitania combined.

Interpretation of the Gustloff's final moments by Irwin J. Kappes

Was it a war crime?

Technically, no. The Wilhelm Gustloff did not have the insignia of a hospital-ship, no red cross and she carried military personnel.

In fact IT WAS a war crime, for which the Nazi regime were to blame, since they stubbornly refused to evacuate civilians in time to save them from the unspeakable vengeance that the Red Army soldiers were sure to exact to avenge the brutality of the Germans during Barbarossa.

For this bloody achievement, Captain Marinesko was awarded the order of the Hero of the Soviet Union only posthumously, since at the time he was not a good example of an officer to receive such a decoration...

Marinesko monument at Kaliningrad (Königsberg)

PS: But at night when the waves are near / they whisper and I hear.... (Savatage, The Wake of Magellan)

PS 2: The Third Reich has 2 other important anniversaries this day.

On January 30 1933, Franz von Papen and Paul von Hindenburg, in their good judgement and far-seeing cunning, appoint Adolf Hitler as Reichskanzler in order to tame him...

On January 30 1943, Adolf Hitler promotes the fidgety Generaloberst Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall, expecting that, since no German Field Marshall was taken alive by the enemy, Paulus would commit suicide when the last remains of the German 6th Army would be crushed by the Soviets. Paulus failed him even in that. He was captured alive.

Congratulations on your promotion, Herr General. And congratulations on the whole outcome of the war and the fates of millions of Germans, Herr Hitler....

Friedrich Paulus

The Raven

On the 29th of January 1845, the New York Evening Mirror published for the first time Edgar Alan Poe's poem "The Raven".

It is by far my favourite poem written in the English language (sorry Alfred, sorry Tom, sorry William...)

ΑΝΑΓΚΗ -plate 3

I would like to share it with you, along with some of its illustration plates made by the great Gustave Doré.

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December

THE RAVEN

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

vainly I had sought to borrow, from my books surcease of sorrow

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

`Other friends have flown before - On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Nepenthe

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Is there, IS THERE balm in Gilead?

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/Shall be lifted - nevermore!

PS: "But in the Cosmos there is balm as there is bitterness and that balm is nepenthe" H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

Ja, så hvitt som det hvite er sneen !

First snow for this season in the northern suburbs of Athens. About motherf****ng time if you ask me...

Hopefully, we will be snowed in by morning. (Fat chance...)

Failure - The Show must go on (does it?)

Empty spaces - what are we living for?
Abandoned places - I guess we know the score..
On and on!
Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Another hero - another mindless crime.
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime.
Hold the line!
Does anybody want to take it anymore?
The Show must go on!
The Show must go on!
Inside my heart is breaking,
My make-up may be flaking,
But my smile, still, stays on!

Whatever happens, I'll leave it all to chance.
Another heartache - another failed romance.
On and on!
Does anybody know what we are living for?
I guess I'm learning
I must be warmer now..
I'll soon be turning round the corner now.
Outside the dawn is breaking,
But inside in the dark I'm aching to be free!

The Show must go on!
The Show must go on!
Inside my heart is breaking!
My make-up may be flaking!
But my smile, still, stays on!

My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies,
Fairy tales of yesterday, will grow but never die,
I can fly, my friends!

The Show must go on! Yeah!
The Show must go on!
I'll face it with a grin!
I'm never giving in!
On with the show!

I'll top the bill!
I'll overkill!
I have to find the will to carry on!
On with the,
On with the show!

The Show must go on.

(?)

(Gone forever...)

Sometimes, Freddie, it is too painful to go on. You were fortunate to leave us early....

PS: Today is the 22nd anniversary of the SpaceShuttle Challenger disaster. We all remember it. We will never forget those men and women, the true pioneers of our age.

The President, Ronald Reagan, gave a speech that quoted from the poem "High Flight" by Jonh Gillespie Magee Jr., an aviator who died during WW II:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God

(Once you have reached out to touch the face of God, even for a fleeting moment, you simply cannot just let go....)

The disaster effectively ended, for a long period of time, our dreams that everyman could reach space and come in touch with the Great Infinite. Shattered hopes, shattered dreams. An apt coincidence, don't you think...?

The South will Rise again!

Oh, I'm a good ol' Rebel
Now that's just what I am.
And for this Yankee nation
I do not give a damn.

I'm glad I fought agin'st her,
I only wish we'd won.
I ain't asked any pardon
For anything I've done.

I hates the Constitution
This great Republic too.
I hates the Freedmen's Bureau
In uniforms of blue.

I hates the nasty eagle
With all his brag and fuss.
But the lyin', thievin' Yankees
I hates' em wuss and wuss.




I hates the Yankee nation
And everything they do.
I hates the Declaration
Of Independence too.
I hates the glorious Union --
'Tis dripping with our blood --
I hates their striped banner,
And I fit it all I could.

I rode with Robert E. Lee,
For three years, thereabouts.
Got wounded in four places
And starved at Point Lookout.
I caughts the rheumatism
A-camping in the snow.
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I'd like to kill some mo'.



Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot.
I wish we'd killed three million
Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em now no more,
But I ain't going to love 'em,
Now that is sa'rten sure;
I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am,
I won't be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn.

PS: "I honestly believe that in certain parts of America now, people have started to mate with vegetables." Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear Ep. 3 , Season 9.

Discussions on Science - Life Sciences and the (unfortunate) Fall of Authority pt. II

As I was saying in the previous discussion on Science, modern societies and the scientific community in particular, failed to educate people.

Where the Church told people WHAT to think, Science should have told them HOW to think.

This is the part where education failed. It was none less than Albert Einstein who repeatedly stressed the value of awakening the imagination and sparking the interest of children in the workings of the Universe.

Instead, schools and universities clutter the minds of students with redundant factual knowledge that teaches nothing about the epistemological process by which it was acquired or the paradigm that the science being taught is currently following.

The result is that universities produce scientists with minds bogged by endless details but with very little love or understanding for the essence and the ways of science and the acquisition of knowledge itself.

The situation reminds me of the scene in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, when Casaubon stands enraptured before Foucault's Pendulum, transfixed by the philosophical implications that, at least for a certain frame of reference, the point of suspension of the Pendulum is the only stable point in the Universe and the Pendulum helps to visualise that. At that moment, a young couple walks by. The girl does not understand what this is all about and the young man, though he knows the details about the motion of the pendulum, he FAILS to convey the beauty, the importance and the implication of what they watch because he has been "educated by some textbook that had blinded him to the possibility of amazement". (From Umberto Eco's Il Pendolo di Foucault, ed. Tascabili Bompiani, trnsl. by me).

(Foucault's Pendulum now resides in the Pantheon)

This failure of the educational system to convey proper scientific thought to the younger scientists lies at the base of the whole inability of Science to convince the public once and for all to abandon heresy, superstition, mysticism and all those manifestations of "occult" thought. They are no longer necessary. There is more than enough to wonder and be amazed at within the nucleus of an atom...

However, it is also a sad truth that scientists even fail to convince each other. Interdisciplinary quarrels are commonplace and each field distrusts all others.

I have the feeling that this distrust is directed more towards the life sciences than any other field. What are our failings? To be explored in the very near future...

Marie Antoinette ROCKS! : Nevermind the bollocks, here's Sofia Coppola!

I had a mind to write about Marie Antoinette at some point or the other in the women series, because I feel that she is one of the most wronged figures in World History. However this is something for the distant future, since there are so many other much more important women to cover.

Today I am addressing another major injustice, the one done to the film "Marie Antoinette" by Sofia Coppola.






Sofia Coppola is my favourite film director of the new generation. I agreed to watch "Lost in Translation" half-heartedly, mainly out of fanatical devotion to Bill Murray and it turned out to be probably the most innovative, romantic and dreamy film released in the past five years.

When I heard that Sony Pictures would not release "Marie Antoinette" to theaters in Greece due to bad reviews I was apoplectic!



Later I got the chance to see the movie on DVD and it was brilliant! Not a cinematic Masterpiece, not a Begman anatomy of the human soul but a brilliant movie nonetheless, a rollercoaster of wonderful costumes, fantastic colours and a fast-paced direction along the lines of modern disco and punk music, which by itself is a very bold, laudable and in the end VERY SUCCESSFUL artistic move.



I am writing all this because if this artistic experiment by a talented director is condemned by the critics to oblivion, then what should happen to all the total nonsense that is being shamelessly released as action or horror movies, like "Shoot'em Up" (starring, unfortunately for him, Clive Owen) that I spent last night trying to watch?

A pity.

Nevermind the idiots. Nevermind the bollocks. Go Sofia!!!



(along the lines of "Aphrodisiac" by Bow Wow Wow from the "Marie Antoinette" OST) :

Take an a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do no-no-nothing, just relax
Your ha-ha-heart goes piddle-pat, take an a-a-aphrodisiac

If you want to fall in love with somebody
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

With an a-a-a-aphrodisiac, your ha-ha-heart goes piddle-pat
Don't do nothing, just relax with an a-a-aphrodisiac

If you want to fall in love with somebody - hey
Somebody that you're not in love with at all
Exciting you, just make you love me too
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

I'm your a-a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do nothing, just relax
Gives you a a a heartattack, just take your clothes off, this is overjack

If you want to fall in love with somebody
Somebody that you're not in love with at all

Take an a-a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do no-no-nothing, just relax
Elephants is unagreed, wo-wo-wo-word to succeed!

A-a-aphrodisiac, gives you a a a heartattack
Don't do nothing, just relax, I'll be your aphrodisiac

Don't do nothing, just relax, with an a-a-aphrodisiac!!!

Discussions on Science - Life Sciences and the (unfortunate) Fall of Authority (pt. I)

I have only recently made the most decisive step in my career, and that consisted of the realisation that, finally, I was happy with my choices, i.e. that I was happy that I became a doctor and happy that I decided to become a Neurologist.

It was a slow realisation, based mainly on the fact that medical knowledge has many aspects that are quite inaccessible to other scientific fields. That is not to say that physics or mathematics are free playgrounds for just about anyone but life sciences have to do with the emergent abilities of biological systems, something which for the moment is far beyond any attempt at mathematical formulation (whereas all other scientific fields are solely based on mathematics and thus totally dependent on them).

There however is where the problems start, and I will choose the Theory of Evolution to illustrate my point.





I think, though I can find no definitive source for that, that it was Jacques Monod who said "The problem with Evolution is that everybody thinks they understand it".

At some point or the other almost everyone must have heard an opinion on evolution and most likely that opinion came from a person that had nothing to do with biological sciences.

Why is it that people do not freely offer their strong opinion on other scientific fields as well, like the Bloch equations for electron movement in a metal lattice or stress distribution along the hull of a ship?

Why do they not stage rallies and protests against the General Theory of Relativity?

One might say that it is because of the lack of solid mathematical grounding.
Indeed, since even the simplest biological systems are so complex that they cannot be described mathematically, biological sciences lose the intimidation of mathematical formulae that keep morons away from the rest of the "hard" sciences. Given a relatively "neutral" subject - like Pauli's exclusion principle, morons will keep their mouths shut (as long as they have never heard of non-Euclidian geometry).

However, should any issue veer towards philosophical-moral-social matters (say, if the General Theory of Relativity ventures towards the Big Bang), then anyone feels free to say "Naw... I don't believe that was how it happened". PATHETIC!. Sadly, intimidating mathematics alone cannot guarantee peace of mind. It is impossible for people to keep their mouth shut, even before the space-time continuum, if abstraction is involved.

The discussion about Evolution falls along these lines. It is as valid as ANY other scientific theory as it has a solid mathematical groundwork (largely thanks to the great statistician and geneticist Ronald Fisher) and the fact that a single controversial find (such as a rabbit fossil in a Triassic period rock formation) can negate it. Such a find is yet to be discovered. However since there isn't a sufficient number of observations that can prove a theory but a single conntradicting one IS sufficient to disprove it, it remains a theory.

Since its very conception, however, it has been the object of much controversy, slander and misinterpretation. Famous among these is the sociobiological notion of the "survival of the fittest" coined by a particularly narrow-minded man of limited abilities, Herbert Spencer.

From that time onward, the greatest leap in biological thinking and the third greatest in ALL science after Newton's and Einstein's work is by word-of-mouth corrupted, distorted and vulgarized and all of this because people THINK they understand it.

THERE lies the difference. Our body, and terrestrial life in general, is not the Cosmos. It is readily observable. When Science dethroned Aristotelian and, by extension, Ecclesiastical authority, it made the mistake of not asserting its own Authority in the form of proper education. And though the rest of the sciences have fear of mathematics as a mighty citadel to protect their prestige most of the time, life sciences are wide open to ignoramus' attacks that are many times as harmful for they hamper the development of research that would ultimately turn its weapons against human disease and pain.

(to be continued...)

La jolie rousse - The pretty redhead

About a month ago I came across a book by Umberto Eco: Opera Aperta : Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee. Although the phonological experiments on Joyce's Ulysses translations being read concurrently (or rather, consecutively in fugue) are not my bag, I knew that I would be fascinated once more by Eco's ability to put names to faces (i.e. to be able to illustrate a point with definitive and authoritative examples). Plus it had excited my interest by an extensive reference to Norbert Wiener's Information Theory.

These are points, however, that I would like to explore in future posts.

The introduction to the First Edition (Bompiani, Milano, 1962) had a few lines by Guillaume Apollinaire as a header. These were from the poem "La Jolie Rousse" (The Pretty Redhead), written for his beloved Jacqueline Kolb. I can find no better day to post this excellent and wonderfully fitting poem that I found by pure chance (or just by looking at the right places...)



LA JOLIE ROUSSE (1918, Calligrammes)

Me voici devant tous un homme plein de sens
Connaissant la vie et de la mort ce qu’un vivant peut connaître
Ayant éprouvé les douleurs et les joies de l’amour
Ayant su quelquefois imposer ses idées
Connaissant plusieurs langages
Ayant pas mal voyagé
Ayant vu la guerre dans l’Artillerie et l’Infanterie
Blessé à la tête trépané sous le chloroforme
Ayant perdu ses meilleurs amis dans l’effroyable lutte
Je sais d’ancien et de nouveau autant qu’un homme seul pourrait des deux savoir
Et sans m’inquiéter aujourd’hui de cette guerre
Entre nous et pour nous mes amis
Je juge cette longue querelle de la tradition et de l’invention
De l’Ordre et de l’Aventure

Vous dont la bouche est faite à l’image de celle de Dieu
Bouche qui est l’ordre même
Soyez indulgents quand vous nous comparez
À ceux qui furent la perfection de l’ordre
Nous qui quêtons partout l’aventure

Nous ne sommes pas vos ennemis
Nous voulons vous donner de vastes et d’étranges domaines
Où le mystère en fleurs s’offre à qui veut le cueillir
Il y a là des feux nouveaux des couleurs jamais vues
Mille phantasmes impondérables
Auxquels il faut donner de la réalité

Nous voulons explorer la bonté contrée énorme où tout se tait
Il y a aussi le temps qu’on peut chasser ou faire revenir
Pitié pour nous qui combattons toujours aux frontières
De l’illimité et de l’avenir
Pitié pour nos erreurs pitié pour nos péchés

Voici que vient l’été la saison violente
Et ma jeunesse est morte ainsi que le printemps
Ô Soleil c’est le temps de la Raison ardente
Et j’attends
Pour la suivre toujours la forme noble et douce
Qu’elle prend afin que je l’aime seulement
Elle vient et m’attire ainsi qu’un fer l’aimant
Elle a l’aspect charmant
D’une adorable rousse

Ses cheveux sont d’or on dirait
Un bel éclair qui durerait
Ou ces flammes qui se pavanent
Dans les roses-thé qui se fanent

Mais riez riez de moi
Hommes de partout surtout gens d’ici
Car il y a tant de choses que je n’ose vous dire
Tant de choses que vous ne me laisseriez pas dire
Ayez pitié de moi

THE PRETTY REDHEAD

Here I am before all, a man full of meaning
Learned on life and death about anything a living man could know
Having tried the pains and the joys of love
Having at some point or the other imposed his ideas
Learned on many languages
Having travelled not a little
Having seen the war through both Artillery and Infantry
Wounded in the head, trephined under chloroforme
Having lost his best friends in that fearful struggle
I know of the old and the new as much as any man by himself can know of these two
And without worrying myself much about that war today
Between you and for you my friends
I arbitrate that long quarrel between tradition and innovation
Between Order and the Adventure

You whose mouth has been made in the image of God's
Mouth which is order itself
Be indulgent when you compare us
To those who were the perfection of order
Us who go questing for the adventure in all places

We are not your enemies
We want to give you vast and strange domains
Where the blossoming mystery offers itself to those who would pluck it
There they are New fires Colours unseen before
A thousand unimaginable phantoms
Which must be given reality

We want to explore the bounty enormous country where everything is hushed
There is also time, which can be driven away or made to return
Pity for us who continually fight at the frontiers
Of infinity and of the future
Pity for our errors pity for our sins

Here comes summer the violent season
And my youth is dead along with springtime
O Sun it is the time of blazing Reason
And I wait

To always follow the noble and gentle form
That she dons to make me love her solely
She comes and she attracts me like a magnet does to iron
She has the charming aspect
Of an adorable redhead

Her hair are made of gold one would say
A beautiful shining that stays
Or those flames that prance about
In the fading tea-rose

But laugh at me laugh
Men from everywhere but above all people from here
Because there are many things that I dare not tell you
Many things that you would not let me say
Have pity on me

(Awkward literal translation by me, highlights by me as well)

It was a year ago, and five years ago... Exactly.

Lessons from the past : Love

I do not exactly welcome hardship but sometimes it is necessary if we are to develop the skills and stamina needed to face the world and live a full life. A cushy life will breed an idle mind.

To quote from Frank Herbert's masterpiece, Dune: " 'There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscle' -from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'dib" by the Princess Irulan"

However, the blows of the year 2007 were particularly hard in a very nasty way. Anathema to the year 2007. Its memory shall live in infamy. Anathema sit, anathema, anathema.

I will not mention the disastrous fires of the summer which destroyed a good portion of our forestland, caused a deplorable number of casualties and left us so numb that we did not even have the good sense of coming out to the streets with tar, feather and a hefty length of rope for each member of the parliament (and each candidate of the September elections as well).

The worst of that year for my family came in springtime when we lost two people who were very close to us.

The first was an uncle,a cousin of my mother's, who worked with my father's business for more than 40 years. Besides humoristic squabbles about football, politics and regionalistic joking (my father is from the Peloponnese and my mother - and her relatives - are Cretan) they never exchanged (in all that time) an angry word. It was he who brought my mother there to work as a secretary and that is how she met my father.

He died of lower respiratory tract infection, caused by multi-resistant nosocomial bacteria, as a result of a two-month long hospitalisation because of a massive cerebral infarction.

The second was a distant cousin of my father's. He was a farmer, a rock of a man who could make a cow ( A COW ! ) kneel with his bare hands, with thunderous laughter and continuous good humour. His house was like the halls of the kings of Olde, always open, with food always on the table and beer and wine continuously flowing for any man that should chance to pass by.

For him I have these lines from a very old poem:

Hwǽr cwóm mearh, hwǽr cwóm mago? Hwér cwóm máððumgyfa?
Hwǽr cwóm symbla gesetu? Hwǽr sindon seledréamas?
Éalá, beorht bune! Éalá, byrnwiga!
Éalá, þéodnes þrym! Hú seo þrág gewát,
genáp under niht-helm, swá heo nó wǽre!

( Where is the horse gone, where the young rider? Where now the giver of gifts?
Where are the seats at the feasting gone? Where are the merry sounds in the hall?
Alas, the bright goblet! Alas, the knight and his hauberk!
Alas, the glory of the king! How that hour has departed,
dark under the shadow of night, as had it never been!

Lines from the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Wanderer", translated by Professor JRR Tolkien).

He died of lower respiratory tract infection caused by multi-resistant nosocomial fungi and bacteria, as a result of a three-weeks long hospitalisation because of worsening chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caused by non-small cell lung cancer.

The relatively long course of these two deaths, along with the prolonged suffering that comes with such cases served to illustrate to me the meaning of a much abused and misused word.

Love.

You were not there. You may have seen similar cases. But you were not there (except for you Dennis - the family holds great gratitude) to witness with your own eyes.

Not for one minute were they alone. And not just make-believe concern. Their neighborhoods were silent for weeks before they died.

But what you should have seen were their wives. It was not despair. It was not histrionics.

It was the WILL to fight. To help them live. I tell you, if Death had to come to get them in a physical form, black robes, sceletal fingers, scythe and all, he would get a right-royal kick up his buttside. This is not Sweden where one might think to settle these matters in a game of chess.

You should have heard their words. Spoken because they knew they would never get another chance to tell them how they feel. They were the only times in my life that I cmae close to witness an Ideal. No speeches, no paeans, no flags, no ceremonies have ever come close to that.

Still, their lives together were ending. But, the certainty of that was not a cause of despair for them. If anything, it was an embarassment to the great entity that is supposed to watch over our lives and rule wisely, in an omniscient and omnipotent way...

I have seen Love transcend the concepts of Death and of Universe. And that, in the face of two aged, uneducated and bewildered women.

What a mighty lesson that was.

PS.

Today is the birthday of Professor JRR Tolkien. If he were alive, today he would be 116 years old. Details about him and his works are widely known.

I will only say that his undying legacy comes from his unwillingness to compromise in anything that had to do with his views on language, art and morality. He faced everything with the stature of someone who holds the moral high ground and has genuine love for what he does.In this manner, he created the last true epic of our civilization and helped turn our scholarly eyes to an age which we thought barbarous and obscure simply because the Glory of the Roman Legions had faded.

And speaking of love, Tolkien was buried with his wife. The stone reads:

Edith Mary Tolkien
Lúthien
1889 – 1971


John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beren
1892 – 1973

Prosit Neujahr!

Let there be joy and celebration, let jubilation rain!

The accursed year 2007 has spent its last fetid breath. I happily signed the death certificate and consigned its rotting carcass to the incinerators of memory.



To celebrate the coming of each New Year and of new hopes and beginnings along with it I always watch the broadcast of the Neujahrskonzert, live from the Großer Saal of the Wien Musikverein.


No matter how late (or how early in the morning...) I sleep after New Year's Eve partying, I always wake up on time to hear the Music of the Strauß family played by one of the World's finest orchestras.

You may object and say that the music is not exactly cutting - edge scholarly. It does not carry the weight of Beethoven, the flashing talent of Mozart or the thunder of Tchaikovsky.

It is however like the jolly sparkling of champagne in a proper flute glass. It IS the embodiment of New Year's Day and all it stands for.



This year's concert will be conducted by Georges Prêtre, so tune in to the Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF!!!), toast the maestro with flutes of champagne, wish the very best for him and all musicians and artists for this year and enjoy!





For my part, I would like to extend, with myself interposed, the wish:

Die Wiener Philharmoniker, der Dirigent (σαφώς) und Ich ( τρομάρα μου!) möchten wünschen Ihnen und Ihren Familien:

PROSIT NEUJAHR!!!

(Αρχίζει..με το καλό...!)