tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13822772215247587422024-03-13T18:25:49.948+02:00WaxtabletsΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-37215393417768128592010-04-25T15:56:00.000+03:002010-04-25T15:56:40.923+03:00Falling in love: The Νightingale’s tale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLs2RHUCFxGTT17awliq7VhLa0sAvoXVpu4rfhM42lvRO84CJh9faCjWEOeaUFQ0r4lcvLt6F-yuGXmYMzXm13hkmBPOPEnRtPXcn-WDtNvKDMG2CiJvKe21s_UsYUf8wlai35U4g4FAPr/s1600/nightingale_rose.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLs2RHUCFxGTT17awliq7VhLa0sAvoXVpu4rfhM42lvRO84CJh9faCjWEOeaUFQ0r4lcvLt6F-yuGXmYMzXm13hkmBPOPEnRtPXcn-WDtNvKDMG2CiJvKe21s_UsYUf8wlai35U4g4FAPr/s400/nightingale_rose.gif" width="288" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
Once upon a time, a Nightingale, Oscar Wilde wrote, overheard a student that had fallen in love with a young girl. He was seeking a red rose for his beloved, in order to win her affections. That was very difficult, because it was winter and there were very few roses and even those were not red. The Nightingale trieδ very hard to find a red rose. Ιt managed for this purpose to bring to resurrection a dead rose bush. It did so by singing all night long, in order to give life to the half-dead plant, .while a thorn pierced its heart deeply. At the end, a pale rose blossomed, which turned red with the help of the Nightingale’s blood. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwg15Fel0VKa6CQqosiH4Nq14klZHl4FgyGzu_SwgPS6NmecZmDB2mTuoSOopkI8gZTXQ1gv-d4jIg_D8IEdJOq1uYY2sd3uYDiALy5QtoSdDpdvjdn-S0XCyBjoF4YecLm4le0HAaNVh8/s1600/oscar_wilde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwg15Fel0VKa6CQqosiH4Nq14klZHl4FgyGzu_SwgPS6NmecZmDB2mTuoSOopkI8gZTXQ1gv-d4jIg_D8IEdJOq1uYY2sd3uYDiALy5QtoSdDpdvjdn-S0XCyBjoF4YecLm4le0HAaNVh8/s400/oscar_wilde.jpg" width="282" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
The red rose is born due to this mysterious transfusion and the union of the plant with the bird. Oscar Wilde makes us believe that it was the devotion of the Nightingale to the student that gave the strength to the bird to endure the martyrdom of death and to construct with its song an entire rose. This is the miracle that is accomplished with the beauty and the esthetic pleasure derived from music; the way one makes poems from metaphors and names from roses. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3s_AB2DV9agrvjJi2mqezdCtD-aUlQ66JwQ3jVGGrxPIAiAtn9XXseUXrOPy7ohFT5PTCi7_xVlWZ-69tWTNHIgkpAei22hKuG7hw6N9zdYeaFPa-_GoEtHAKZ3UGjlnEzi8nFVqU3NOL/s1600/b+and+w+brighton+_Nightingale+to+Post.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3s_AB2DV9agrvjJi2mqezdCtD-aUlQ66JwQ3jVGGrxPIAiAtn9XXseUXrOPy7ohFT5PTCi7_xVlWZ-69tWTNHIgkpAei22hKuG7hw6N9zdYeaFPa-_GoEtHAKZ3UGjlnEzi8nFVqU3NOL/s400/b+and+w+brighton+_Nightingale+to+Post.jpg" width="282" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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Actually, the story is told from the humans’ point of view, who think that birds and flowers and the Nature in its entirety have been created so that they can contemplate at will or show no interest eventually, at will.<br />
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What else would be the meaning of “The Nightingale and the Rose” since at the end of the story the girl rejects the student’s love and so he throws away the rose made of blood, which is eventually crushed under the wheels of a passing chariot? At the end of the story, we read with disgust, that the student, disappointed, abandons love and turns to the study of metaphysics and philosophy. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jk9EDdvQDAaCmGx-0Sp9Q62_-dijvYiwWGSm08VhkHS8eJr4xRM9SyRV-RIcQHI6av9iGICvfbD_1UfdoNGDaZLdw7wAiMbz28227xp2lHWVJ0ue8Ia8dB03myQUpF8H8Na6n6N2E-sX/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jk9EDdvQDAaCmGx-0Sp9Q62_-dijvYiwWGSm08VhkHS8eJr4xRM9SyRV-RIcQHI6av9iGICvfbD_1UfdoNGDaZLdw7wAiMbz28227xp2lHWVJ0ue8Ia8dB03myQUpF8H8Na6n6N2E-sX/s400/untitled.bmp" width="308" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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We mourn the poor Nightingale, an extra to a ridiculous love, since the student was ridiculous as well as his beloved, and we all think deep inside, even unadmittedly, reading Oscar Wilde’s the pompous phrases on love, that the Nightingale sacrificed itself for nothing, that it died in vain. It died for the ideal of Love in general. Even the unfulfilled, even the ridiculous. <br />
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Nevertheless, things are different if seen from the birds’ aspect. Love is not unfulfilled there, and the Nightingale plays a leading role. <br />
The Nightingale did not care so much for the student, as we initially thought when we read the story. It was secretly in love with the Rose – this is why it became interested in this case when it heard that someone was looking for roses. Its death was the way that bird and plant have invented so that they should be united in love. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zZlYDz7YLpwcUPzUPnsCbN1vk18bmzGR8V6wMz7M_aggwO7Mcd1bn0tBL5zyeDBhSVNhw0ZXLgzbSagKCZ22UQQJQwIlao-i2fpe7VeGsCvGJJM1KydxZttPlnkDBogX3j89mdpN0kLq/s1600/tropinin-pushkin-compressed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zZlYDz7YLpwcUPzUPnsCbN1vk18bmzGR8V6wMz7M_aggwO7Mcd1bn0tBL5zyeDBhSVNhw0ZXLgzbSagKCZ22UQQJQwIlao-i2fpe7VeGsCvGJJM1KydxZttPlnkDBogX3j89mdpN0kLq/s400/tropinin-pushkin-compressed.jpg" width="313" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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The Nightingale is a lover <br />
<blockquote>“…Where the nightingale, spring’s lover,<br />
Sings all night, wild roses cover…” </blockquote>according to Poushkin in Eugene Onegin…<br />
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Poets do recognise that strange love of the Nightingale for the Rose. It was this love that Oscar Wilde tried to cover and to present as a self – sacrifice, due to the love of the Nightingale for the student and the love of the student for the girl. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_tmSNttMdqy6B6_-XzkDUE9PIRhG4LS-dMj8dLtW_Ptog_bmtiFroTXQTePR1hl-cV-P9X2G9rjTiovVMrt-xpy1P9DlNbKcB-6K55NPVAC-fKb7St5Qb_MV1VhpJxESDW_O5PHYTYyXl/s1600/The_Nightingale_and_the_Rose_by_thenumber42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_tmSNttMdqy6B6_-XzkDUE9PIRhG4LS-dMj8dLtW_Ptog_bmtiFroTXQTePR1hl-cV-P9X2G9rjTiovVMrt-xpy1P9DlNbKcB-6K55NPVAC-fKb7St5Qb_MV1VhpJxESDW_O5PHYTYyXl/s400/The_Nightingale_and_the_Rose_by_thenumber42.jpg" width="258" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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Whoever heard its song, which is so different from that of the other birds, understands how with one tone, a repeated took – took – took (that’s how Boris Pasternak has transcribed it) it can make every form of vegetation chill from happiness as it succumbs to a languor, as if covered by a magic, paralysing net, in deep recollection. In there, the breath of the leaves, the rustling and the sound of small twigs that break, articulate movements, gestures and feelings that stir the vegetal memory as they are fumbled about by the song that penetrates these depths. <br />
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When, during this magic ritual of the sound, the Nightingale turns its song to the other tone, the one composed of two syllables, calling Nature to wake up, those who know say that this is a supplication, a call for everything to wake up. Then, the vegetation responds and returns the images. Its language is awakened and its memory blossoms.<br />
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That’s how the rose of the story was born: It is the fruit of love of the Nightingale and the Rose. Every Nightingale dreams of a love such as this with its Rose. A love that is fulfilled by that painful piercing in the heart. <br />
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It is not only Poushkin: <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JKg38CSbI_NsNdwJCqwCbRQiFKnhiiSpCFMDqpDsEMQNK5FDHpmkYsGD6e-b1F3mw0nonvaeMSCeg-AUUU2gUa3w5QMp9gdovZRv7SB3E9nSzHEvhiYCzhgGnaTafwDlxcNCtGznIyRW/s1600/oneiro_sto_kyma_papad.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JKg38CSbI_NsNdwJCqwCbRQiFKnhiiSpCFMDqpDsEMQNK5FDHpmkYsGD6e-b1F3mw0nonvaeMSCeg-AUUU2gUa3w5QMp9gdovZRv7SB3E9nSzHEvhiYCzhgGnaTafwDlxcNCtGznIyRW/s400/oneiro_sto_kyma_papad.JPG" width="311" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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<blockquote>“Mati picked a white rose and decorated her virginal chest”, writes Alexandros Papadiamantis, a Greek novelist of the 19th century. “The Nightingale, the sweet voiced singer, noticing this beautiful flower planted on such a “pot”, would fall doubly in love with that charming rose…” </blockquote><br />
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<strong>Internet sources </strong>: <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.helpforenglish.cz/cetba/literarni-dila-v-originale/pics/nightingale_rose.gif">http://www.helpforenglish.cz/cetba/literarni-dila-v-originale/pics/nightingale_rose.gif</a> <br />
<a href="http://studentmag.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/oscar_wilde.jpg">http://studentmag.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/oscar_wilde.jpg</a><br />
<a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/21.png?t=20090916120644">http://www.feedbooks.com/book/21.png?t=20090916120644</a> <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDg-FZjxVXcKs4E6hl2bFVvOb4E72gm-zDNGr1xMdL6UCj9Yk9y0KTdvhkDpqft6qtGa_YqZgXKiXODs380aw5URF36LRedw5CrdL8VXt8hUBGnXPocq_AVywUL4VzfQh3aUmmhV5ZPhQ/s400/b+and+w+brighton+_Nightingale+to+Post.jpg">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDg-FZjxVXcKs4E6hl2bFVvOb4E72gm-zDNGr1xMdL6UCj9Yk9y0KTdvhkDpqft6qtGa_YqZgXKiXODs380aw5URF36LRedw5CrdL8VXt8hUBGnXPocq_AVywUL4VzfQh3aUmmhV5ZPhQ/s400/b+and+w+brighton+_Nightingale+to+Post.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://th06.deviantart.net/fs16/300W/i/2007/214/7/f/The_Nightingale_and_the_Rose_by_thenumber42.jpg">http://th06.deviantart.net/fs16/300W/i/2007/214/7/f/The_Nightingale_and_the_Rose_by_thenumber42.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/classics/russian/russianlinks/tropinin-pushkin-compressed.jpg">http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/classics/russian/russianlinks/tropinin-pushkin-compressed.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8c7c3mr8ITw/SSbJ83UdO7I/AAAAAAAAAeo/7SoVJ0Bph6M/s400/oneiro_sto_kyma_papad.JPG">http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8c7c3mr8ITw/SSbJ83UdO7I/AAAAAAAAAeo/7SoVJ0Bph6M/s400/oneiro_sto_kyma_papad.JPG</a><br />
<br />
Posted by Poly HatjimanolakiΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-41083733226651614182010-04-16T00:34:00.001+03:002011-05-01T13:18:33.844+03:00Hami and his falcon: facing the “other” Kabul<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: right;"><b>In the loving memory of Hami Najafi</b></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfBu1CGmDew-_Ycnl22JUCwEvhsq1Yo3M2rp8klWKWJs-NIgqbusH6HxCY-qhVH-AM94uYqPaN5WzSIEPdfABBkd787HHKS6E_RiYv97QRnrYPjNoLlvrTFTs4jnJY4JIA_qzHvd3DjKU/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfBu1CGmDew-_Ycnl22JUCwEvhsq1Yo3M2rp8klWKWJs-NIgqbusH6HxCY-qhVH-AM94uYqPaN5WzSIEPdfABBkd787HHKS6E_RiYv97QRnrYPjNoLlvrTFTs4jnJY4JIA_qzHvd3DjKU/s400/untitled.bmp" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
<div></div><br />
“Walk with me”, said the bird. Hami could not distinguish at a glance whether it was a North Gyrfalcon accompanying him or just an Asiatic Saker, like those that his father used to show him in the encyclopedia. <br />
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The bird flew low, along with him and kept talking to him. His voice sounded like a thirty – years - old man’s, chirping, in warm waves. The boy’s ears were full of monotonous mournings, recitations of Suras from the Koran and women’s weeping. Hence, he found relief in the indifferent, though reassuring , air of his companion. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_-1-8XLbbrn2_G1IqP_K-1p-O-KuUlimJDk5_7pMyrnO7cN76IXcdpO7caBp1AjVHu6JwH6KQwJqFXvcMqRvqg3nZMGipIwaNG95GLvISXQknNVx9S9AbTBygWhnf9PK1tRjTtEA3zrU/s1600/AZUR_ET_ASMAR_11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_-1-8XLbbrn2_G1IqP_K-1p-O-KuUlimJDk5_7pMyrnO7cN76IXcdpO7caBp1AjVHu6JwH6KQwJqFXvcMqRvqg3nZMGipIwaNG95GLvISXQknNVx9S9AbTBygWhnf9PK1tRjTtEA3zrU/s400/AZUR_ET_ASMAR_11.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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They were surrounded by trees. Planetrees, mulberries, willows, poplars and ash trees…A strange forest into the snow, that under his feet looked black and steaming…Trees of his country gathered together in a giant orchard where they had been walking for a week in order to cross it. The bird perched on his shoulder. Hami took a deep breath. What he really wanted now was to be seen by his sister…<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6vZkVGDK_l2SxdtAU_U6e5ZijTjIJQWpGCPvNnw7jTQRsENtdR53metrYJNbUqxnN0WXh5ejldtf8MIpL8mJkWRbpbVCwjhAujhlXOGXPj50hyphenhypheniWLezyqAxweI_2Zz4lhoTd5qpRepXN/s1600/525852893_003e1c3f3e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6vZkVGDK_l2SxdtAU_U6e5ZijTjIJQWpGCPvNnw7jTQRsENtdR53metrYJNbUqxnN0WXh5ejldtf8MIpL8mJkWRbpbVCwjhAujhlXOGXPj50hyphenhypheniWLezyqAxweI_2Zz4lhoTd5qpRepXN/s400/525852893_003e1c3f3e.jpg" width="242" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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The snow below was black. Puddles and mud were reflecting sunlight, sending back the image of the boy, dressed in traditional costume, wearing a green turban with a golden cameo on his head. The voices tried to draw his attention: <br />
<br />
“Hami stop day dreaming! You have to do your homework!”<br />
<br />
“Hami, can I borrow your bike?”<br />
<br />
“Mom, can I sleep over at Khaled’s?”<br />
<br />
“Look what I brought you today! A geography atlas!”<br />
<br />
“Mom, I’m scared in the dark. Why is this boat rocking like that?”<br />
<br />
“Again we did not make it to reach the city centre in order to get the political refugee papers”<br />
<br />
“Mr. Najafi is one of the best teachers. He also teaches young girls”<br />
<br />
“Good for you Hami! You are not any longer ashamed to look into the garbage!”<br />
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“Oh! I my son is gone!”<br />
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<br />
“We are going to see it soon”, said the bird. <br />
“What do you want me to call you?” Hami asked. His courage seemed strange to him. <br />
“Morya”, answered the bird shaking its wings but it did not leave the boy’s shoulder. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikPX_L-8TDWtbe5dvnXglp7wS8hpCw8iN4a72s0syYZgSQW91Lny-jgUzUutKMejx4aVRX7lKiWqYJ0Ng-F5fV160-faA_bdGPkz2r_bJAckZXB2oma4k2UPUc1-k8dxzOAAq-HC9h9hbh/s1600/h5city2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikPX_L-8TDWtbe5dvnXglp7wS8hpCw8iN4a72s0syYZgSQW91Lny-jgUzUutKMejx4aVRX7lKiWqYJ0Ng-F5fV160-faA_bdGPkz2r_bJAckZXB2oma4k2UPUc1-k8dxzOAAq-HC9h9hbh/s400/h5city2.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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The trees were now thinning out. In front of him, he could see, far in the horizon, the mountain and at the top, the Celestial City. From that distance the minarets and the walls of the city could be discerned clearly. A thousand reflections from the windows made the city look brighter and fairylike . A splendid city. <br />
<br />
“Are we going there?”, he asked, although he was certain that he would not get an answer. <br />
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“It is Kabul, the celestial City. She gets her name from the Farsi Ab (water) and gul (flower). The Ptolemy’s Kabura was the Celestial City of Indian hymns, a City of outstanding beauty, where all dreams come true…<br />
<br />
Hami, rubbed his eyes and looked around him puzzled. The light of the sun blurred his vision, now that they had crossed the orchard. <br />
The buzz from the voices in his ears was getting quitter. <br />
<br />
He started to forget. First he forgot Athens, the neighborhood, their small apartment. He even forgot his sister’s doll. He forgot his parents and his brothers and his sisters. Their remembrance all that time had brought him a painful sensation, a lump in the throat that would not let him find peace. <br />
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Then, he forgot what was the most precious. His neighborhood in Kabul. The school, his teacher, the dentist that he had visited to have his teeth checked, the waste ground where children played football. <br />
<br />
After that, the Kabul of his childhood was completely erased from his memory. The pandemonium in the streets, the hooting of the cars, women wearing burkas, walking in the streets. <br />
The war, bombs, exile…When they had sold their belongings in order to leave…<br />
<br />
To get away from all that...<br />
<br />
It was just this mountain. The Celestial City was waiting for him, a City whose beauty made her all the more desirable. It was his destination. He was going to reach it. This time the City would not let him down. He would not be in exile any longer exile….<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefDDZvnP9LkcfX6_mtBRcWVL0ALuBH2uR6VcqCU0ubepfryvZIrAUj9US6-r3BTJjzBnHAtmNrvbfb88ajAyPvrzz0M8XfO7u-Ah7rqdJBiOCQrP3eNElRyLq4BqSe_MGBUBvCuIVDMRC/s1600/3983433254_7f85b2e3e5_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefDDZvnP9LkcfX6_mtBRcWVL0ALuBH2uR6VcqCU0ubepfryvZIrAUj9US6-r3BTJjzBnHAtmNrvbfb88ajAyPvrzz0M8XfO7u-Ah7rqdJBiOCQrP3eNElRyLq4BqSe_MGBUBvCuIVDMRC/s400/3983433254_7f85b2e3e5_m.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Morya, the falcon with the human voice, was reciting a Sura from the Koran:<br />
<br />
“My beloved. <br />
You have been given Al – Khautar, the river of Paradise to walk along. Its banks are gold and its bed is of pearls. And milk flows in it, sweeter than the sweetest milk…”<br />
<br />
But Hami was not yet delivered from all human passions. It was his mother’s tender voice he was listening to. And he was not able to forget that… <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7mHm0lp67RbJLOPk_2NIJnxVN53zLX_SiI_NjgAPmjKa3hKAWW-ouDI1o6LvbyBs8_r8gTT6SH6OLUo8Jcyp1JmGgJGT-YXpFUeN8WE2-NIHzkPu2V4XWGaezRW-bInP85CMW7VgEg-U/s1600/kabuli-kid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7mHm0lp67RbJLOPk_2NIJnxVN53zLX_SiI_NjgAPmjKa3hKAWW-ouDI1o6LvbyBs8_r8gTT6SH6OLUo8Jcyp1JmGgJGT-YXpFUeN8WE2-NIHzkPu2V4XWGaezRW-bInP85CMW7VgEg-U/s400/kabuli-kid.jpg" width="278" wt="true" /></a></div><br />
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P. S. <br />
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On Sunday 28 March<a href="http://libcom.org/news/boy-dies-athens-mystery-bomb-30032010"> a bomb exploded in a rubbish bin in a neighborhood of Athens</a>: <br />
It had been placed by a relatively newly formed terrorist organization.<br />
Hami Najafi, a 15 year old Afghani immigrant boy had been rummaging in it and has been killed. His 11 year old sister is seriously injured and there are fears that she will lose her eyesight. <a href="http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/04/11/4144604-greece-evidence-found-on-us-embassy-attack">The terrorist organization has been now dismantled by the police and its members are brought to justice. </a><br />
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<b>Images from the internet:</b><br />
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<a href="http://xeniagreekmuslimah.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/al-kawthar-al-quran-surah-106/">http://xeniagreekmuslimah.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/al-kawthar-al-quran-surah-106/</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/247773/1/A-Falcon-Hunt-Near-Yerevan-Armenia.jpg">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/247773/1/A-Falcon-Hunt-Near-Yerevan-Armenia.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1024/525852893_003e1c3f3e.jpg">http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1024/525852893_003e1c3f3e.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://gallery.awn.com/data/800/AZUR_ET_ASMAR_11.jpg">http://gallery.awn.com/data/800/AZUR_ET_ASMAR_11.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.celestialheavens.com/images/screenshots/homm5/h5city2.jpg">http://www.celestialheavens.com/images/screenshots/homm5/h5city2.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://medias.unifrance.org/medias/255/144/37119/format_affiche/kabuli-kid.jpg">http://medias.unifrance.org/medias/255/144/37119/format_affiche/kabuli-kid.jpg</a></div>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-61570108016688080372010-03-27T02:43:00.000+02:002010-03-27T02:43:04.178+02:00Littlefeather<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJy7trpAj-nBv-8FhlxzwJpmcEmiccGbnWjNJIz7bP2fddLwkZHahW4R_M-LKT3UdCNeLvtCCGMEAAmBtWxPWDLhpla7dTgRBn5O_dNzg1iBjNTK-EzzZVj-OJ4uZjpm0c2rXAa78Jrk/s1600/Sacheen_Littlefeather_at_Oscars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJy7trpAj-nBv-8FhlxzwJpmcEmiccGbnWjNJIz7bP2fddLwkZHahW4R_M-LKT3UdCNeLvtCCGMEAAmBtWxPWDLhpla7dTgRBn5O_dNzg1iBjNTK-EzzZVj-OJ4uZjpm0c2rXAa78Jrk/s320/Sacheen_Littlefeather_at_Oscars.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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Thirty seven years today, the 27th March 1973, Sacheen Littlefeather, a young activist from the Apachi tribe, showed up at the Oscar ceremony, wearing the national costume of her people. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JvO_6njHQPqPIQIYHptjkk2tY8PGEe7czzHIFqLKAyPRzyp5WSBE5a3YErVjatdQsbmsA0CphTNBairb2kEgWNC87zOfP7vFXIJKcw9gpAPs4XWoqBofoHLUmqhthzFS62Y3z42sgOg/s1600/1oscars-gal-sacheen-littlefeather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JvO_6njHQPqPIQIYHptjkk2tY8PGEe7czzHIFqLKAyPRzyp5WSBE5a3YErVjatdQsbmsA0CphTNBairb2kEgWNC87zOfP7vFXIJKcw9gpAPs4XWoqBofoHLUmqhthzFS62Y3z42sgOg/s320/1oscars-gal-sacheen-littlefeather.jpg" /></a></div>She was holding a piece of paper with Marlon Brando’s statement to read out to the audience and inform the press (1) . In her 45 seconds’ speech, that was all the time she was allotted, it was said that the famous actor would not accept the “Best Actor” Oscar for the movie “The Godfather”. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3139CpH7gsCfqcnbBUZRhRSeSDMx0UDN-ra4UsiWAY1OQ-GvRN3K15ekjhtPX_FK9FPKvA_q_CBcaCx4Oja0o9Q1kCpiswc7S2WBABfyi4moM7-RRnJmnZqLgh_TpsgJjNnaw9WUziZ8/s1600/brando_godfather_shop_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3139CpH7gsCfqcnbBUZRhRSeSDMx0UDN-ra4UsiWAY1OQ-GvRN3K15ekjhtPX_FK9FPKvA_q_CBcaCx4Oja0o9Q1kCpiswc7S2WBABfyi4moM7-RRnJmnZqLgh_TpsgJjNnaw9WUziZ8/s320/brando_godfather_shop_poster.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The reasons given were the ill – treatment of Native Americans in the American Movie Industry and the massacre of the Sioux on 29 December 1890 at the battle of the Wounded Knee. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LXDL-zPWo8NrlHsiKEt_TBifmJwVmBqwldePOXheifhAimqeDqWyJH-jr_Q8Px7VWygFRyQUHa9ZhS2zMTAqMWU-hUVBK2wm8Q0msds-PcwCmUr673udM8TmfD_yhanS1j6d6qnGTgU/s1600/WoundedKneeMasacre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LXDL-zPWo8NrlHsiKEt_TBifmJwVmBqwldePOXheifhAimqeDqWyJH-jr_Q8Px7VWygFRyQUHa9ZhS2zMTAqMWU-hUVBK2wm8Q0msds-PcwCmUr673udM8TmfD_yhanS1j6d6qnGTgU/s320/WoundedKneeMasacre.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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I will not deal with the malicious comments made such as that she was not a real Indian – she is still refuting them nowadays (2) – or with the criticism against Marlon Brando for not having the courage of a confrontation and the ensuing booing, since his opinions in favour of the Native Americans were already known. <br />
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It is interesting though, that the Oscar podium, the brightest ceremony in show biz, became the scene where old scores with the past and the continued injustice of the present required settlement. <br />
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Doubtless, the theatrality of the gesture of Littlefeather, even as a show off, a small crescendo, relates, although different, to that of the Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull, when he took off his own person in the famous show “Wild West”. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxY0xSbb1o9iHkaM_4tcPD5mJM-JxsfQOtWy8Gn-qfCdn9LMhkVxOxlrRpZ_DbRuhCIE0Solb2P_waleaClVtJgP4xiUSEyVGJi420GrnK0am1j-dOWkYK7fRr_LHWXaPz3O3zu1ophgU/s1600/sitting_bull_buffalo_bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxY0xSbb1o9iHkaM_4tcPD5mJM-JxsfQOtWy8Gn-qfCdn9LMhkVxOxlrRpZ_DbRuhCIE0Solb2P_waleaClVtJgP4xiUSEyVGJi420GrnK0am1j-dOWkYK7fRr_LHWXaPz3O3zu1ophgU/s320/sitting_bull_buffalo_bill.jpg" /></a></div><br />
(1) http://www.newsoftheodd.com/content/view/217/<br />
(2) <a href="http://www.sacheenlittlefeather.net/pages/1/index.htm">http://www.sacheenlittlefeather.net/pages/1/index.htm</a><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><strong>Pictures from the internet</strong>: <br />
<a href="http://www.leninimports.com/brando_godfather_shop_poster.jpg">http://www.leninimports.com/brando_godfather_shop_poster.jpg</a> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.aaanativearts.com/sitting_bull_buffalo_bill.jpg">http://www.aaanativearts.com/sitting_bull_buffalo_bill.jpg</a><br />
http://images.dawgsports.com/images/admin/Sacheen_Littlefeather_at_Oscars.jpg<br />
<a href="http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1oscars-gal-sacheen-littlefeather.jpg">http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1oscars-gal-sacheen-littlefeather.jpg</a><br />
</div>http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nativeamerican/WoundedKneeMasacre.jpgΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-53974308679085637542010-03-04T19:15:00.001+02:002010-03-04T19:16:10.775+02:00«Dreams in a time of war: Memories of childhood» by Ngugi wa Thiong’o<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqalCdsWaBH_Qw6qEVkQdeBDaTiOAaBeR0MwJjqghVfMmcRMLT3nl1Rq7AsTWZoommJdRazS9lbW-_FWG3nKr_BqNgViCAQvVUfa4C1Cm4rNSXeIbjuAAugPl-T-Q6D5esqqJDKl5PD1I/s1600-h/6517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqalCdsWaBH_Qw6qEVkQdeBDaTiOAaBeR0MwJjqghVfMmcRMLT3nl1Rq7AsTWZoommJdRazS9lbW-_FWG3nKr_BqNgViCAQvVUfa4C1Cm4rNSXeIbjuAAugPl-T-Q6D5esqqJDKl5PD1I/s320/6517.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In 1938, in Kamirithu, a village in the area of Limuru in Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiongo was born, the fifth child of the third wife of his father, in a polygamous family of four wives. He considered all of them to be his mothers. <br />
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The first wife had been the narrator, the story – teller, the one who knew how to gather the children around the fire and how to tell stories, real or fictional. These stories lasted for exactly the time that was needed to prepare the meal. <br />
If it was green maize, it took half an hour, confirms Wangari Maathai (The founder of the Green Belt movement and Peace Nobel Prize in 2004) in her book “The Unbowed”. The same held for yam. But if they had to prepare something that would take more time, they had to invent new episodes for the story, new adventures for the hero to overcome, in order to keep the children awake. <br />
These were stories invented and stories remembered, because they had also sat listening to them when they were children. The modification and the weaving of the stories based on the archetypal myths of their tradition had been the first laboratory of writing for little Ngugi, even before school. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf19YeK5eqQAv6CUaB-tn27yfXAgezacGZjatcwAkdxh7P4CGsBCPG5pL1Dj6y_DfayKHrhlrIhBl-S0Q6dd3imKgMvJo36qKMThLaqLxTYh7jRJMsUDA6rrYEH1unRnif1rOi2sWJd0Fm/s1600-h/dvdc1808063189.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf19YeK5eqQAv6CUaB-tn27yfXAgezacGZjatcwAkdxh7P4CGsBCPG5pL1Dj6y_DfayKHrhlrIhBl-S0Q6dd3imKgMvJo36qKMThLaqLxTYh7jRJMsUDA6rrYEH1unRnif1rOi2sWJd0Fm/s320/dvdc1808063189.jpg" /></a></div>If he went to school, it was because his mother insisted. This woman did not know how to read or write. Nevertheless, deep in her heart she knew that this child – every child – deserved an education. <br />
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It is wonderful, it is exciting to the same degree as the weaving of stories and narratives around the fire, that this decision, ie little James’s going to school, affected a life, his life, and affected the history of literature. Little James, who decided to take back his ancestral name Ngugi, received his first schooling near his village and then, after graduating from Makerere College in Uganda, he completed his studies at the university of Leeds. He now teaches Comparative Literature at the university of California at Irvine. The boy from Kamirithu was last year’s candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature (cf Waxtablets: <a href="http://wax-tablets.blogspot.com/2009/10/when-ngugi-wa-thiongo-was-awarded-nobel.html">When Ngugi wa Thiongo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2009, i.e. in a different world</a> ) He has been awarded this prize in our hearts. <br />
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It is wondrous how international history, the shadow of World War II, affects a country thousands of kilometers away, how the life of a family changes drastically. His family has sent two boys to the war… Everyone’s life has been affected. As if they are connected with an invisible thread, as Father Brown affirms in Chesterton novels. One son survived the war and returned. Kenyan soldiers fought during WWII with the British Army against the Germans. The same was true for Cypriots who enlisted with the British Army and helped the allies in Greece. They were told that they should fight for the Motherland and they did it readily, expecting that they would be rewarded with their country’s freedom. <br />
Many Cypriot women donated their jewelry and their wedding rings in order to collect money to help the allies during the war. <br />
Another brother of Ngugi was killed by a British soldier. He was deaf and mute and he could not hear the soldier ordering him to stop. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5bFgbwBvHKQLMI97xVksa9BPCjT_ZqEHZfN0E19qRUZmMVtKpMM_fMM3MFLswQ6y2seuz3a9MsfdBDEhRXWDi-fpdZkCEe9KHlY5BlcRu-q7zRNGarcp3c0z3KtIdixJR-75WcpNXWXY/s1600-h/51MzRAPpd7L__SS500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx5bFgbwBvHKQLMI97xVksa9BPCjT_ZqEHZfN0E19qRUZmMVtKpMM_fMM3MFLswQ6y2seuz3a9MsfdBDEhRXWDi-fpdZkCEe9KHlY5BlcRu-q7zRNGarcp3c0z3KtIdixJR-75WcpNXWXY/s320/51MzRAPpd7L__SS500_.jpg" /></a></div>The reason for this post is the presentation of Ngugi’s new book “Dreams in time of War: a childhood memoir”, that is being released on the 9th of March. It will take place in the 20th Century Theatre, ( 291, Westbourne Grove, London W11 2 QA) <br />
The event is organized by <a href="http://www.thetravelbookshop.com/news/_16/?-session=flcart:9432CDC76801207315C9F23AB1849815">The Travel Book shop</a>. <br />
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Many people believe that there is no need for book presentations since the writer can say all that he has to say in his book. There are writers that escape publicity so markedly that they create a new myth around them, the myth of their non – existence. <br />
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I, on the other hand, prefer the conversations and the exchanges around a text, I enjoy all the associations of ideas brought up when reading a book by all our previous lectures and experiences. I would like to meet the writer! <br />
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I would have liked to be in London to meet Ngugi. I would like, not only to listen to him, but to express to him my own impression on reading his books and how I understand the interconnection between Africa and Greece. How the decision of his mother, the war and its shadow, the oral traditions of his country, our Homer and the rhapsodist, and the descendants of the Griots of Africa are all linked together.. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfVRrcIOBQIOUs6Nqsk4seCfsW1ygCVqU_WrqR1qrvs0csw3cjx_UtnBJO9UjMIT-hdizx2UkNarnqRIP4hi4ggdy_IH9uZcG2g0fWA3hO1whPfb0fFgqxOxQrsQT0bD0uOgA3288p69r/s1600-h/Large+Detail+_AchillesShield01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfVRrcIOBQIOUs6Nqsk4seCfsW1ygCVqU_WrqR1qrvs0csw3cjx_UtnBJO9UjMIT-hdizx2UkNarnqRIP4hi4ggdy_IH9uZcG2g0fWA3hO1whPfb0fFgqxOxQrsQT0bD0uOgA3288p69r/s320/Large+Detail+_AchillesShield01.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The shield of Achilles (representation) </div><br />
Homer and his epic poems are related to Africa, not only because the epic poems were memorized and recited orally. Homer, in the first rhapsody of his Odyssey, mentions the African people with great respect. The are called Ethiopians (Αιθίοψ= the one with a black face) and with this he meant not only the people of Ethiopia, but all the people of Africa. <br />
These Ethiopians had received a visit from Poseidon (Neptune) and they were considered to be his friends. <br />
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“Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival”<br />
Translated by Samuel Butler, Odyssey Book I. 22-5<br />
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.1.i.html <br />
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Zeus spent 12 days with them and in the Iliad I, they were called divine. Divine Ethiopians have something to tell us. The Greeks of Homer recognized to them the privilege to eat with the Gods. <br />
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I would discuss with him the Gicandi, the oral epic poem of Kenya, the one with the 127 stanzas, made up of riddles and Kikuyu proverbs. Ngugi mentions the Gicandi in his novels. His “Devil on the Cross”, although prose, is based entirely on metaphors and proverbs. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7Y4wWXkNJc4ilcV5rHNdVrYVHmoJau2sLrH28uj6VJlQ8YKE1KtLghn9oVwqyqy_FAmh6s7kQGCz7oH2XkeG11gjmkD6_a6e28IfOdaZQ4kxqthny4ZCLFKL9xQdoMVMH_4NOPzifaWU/s1600-h/mu-et-22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7Y4wWXkNJc4ilcV5rHNdVrYVHmoJau2sLrH28uj6VJlQ8YKE1KtLghn9oVwqyqy_FAmh6s7kQGCz7oH2XkeG11gjmkD6_a6e28IfOdaZQ4kxqthny4ZCLFKL9xQdoMVMH_4NOPzifaWU/s320/mu-et-22.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Gicandi </div>This epic poem was engraved with mnemonotechnic symbols on a gourd, a writing similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphs and was recited by the minstrels. These sacred gourds were destroyed by the missionaries who wanted to eliminate idolatry, ie to separate a whole people from its tradition and its beliefs. They wanted to erase the people’s memory. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEDXevRgvnHFLJrzB_TAjvFgRyr8US3mFZ8KnAgjLsIyhlaxD5MwEsLjoHlQpqrzZmuEuu2txLsHjHRdrzVlFUj6ALDM7ubxrOdHDRpVSrW3XLbmATheZWHA8CSmmuYEZIS1fLWJemWwa/s1600-h/κολοκα.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEDXevRgvnHFLJrzB_TAjvFgRyr8US3mFZ8KnAgjLsIyhlaxD5MwEsLjoHlQpqrzZmuEuu2txLsHjHRdrzVlFUj6ALDM7ubxrOdHDRpVSrW3XLbmATheZWHA8CSmmuYEZIS1fLWJemWwa/s320/%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%BA%CE%B1.bmp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The Cypriot gourd (Koloka) </div>“Writing” the stories on the back of a gourd, I would also wanted to tell Ngugi, was a very common tradition in Cyprus. The story is told in the form of Painting and Decorating (Πλούμισμα) a gourd, as was done with Achilles shield in Iliad. <br />
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“…And the monk started painting on a gourd…”Georges Seferis (Nobel Prize in Literature 1963) writes in his poem “Details in Cyprus”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDRgmnEe1DEKYJ_5ngcuWbfyYFK-En-gHHBWiLetXskTkspuzi4fClGR3hyphenhyphenW-vpfjk9-dSVk4XWxBDyo0Btjiw46_fFSZ0JmtX1XIGzJlbRupkwFcjD1L5glcId_6h3_aIp6MZg94yDF-/s1600-h/1neb42a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDRgmnEe1DEKYJ_5ngcuWbfyYFK-En-gHHBWiLetXskTkspuzi4fClGR3hyphenhyphenW-vpfjk9-dSVk4XWxBDyo0Btjiw46_fFSZ0JmtX1XIGzJlbRupkwFcjD1L5glcId_6h3_aIp6MZg94yDF-/s320/1neb42a1.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>George Seferis, had a collection of gourds and he wanted to name his poetic collection for Cyprus KOLOKES (gourds in the Cypriot idiom). <br />
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Later on, it appeared that, apart from the gourds, our two peoples had more things in common: <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxmmA_X2A_KLa27clN7ciIbhyphenhyphenGrz53mXEwR916muQgRg6L9qbm8M-dtD2__noq3MdPdY_QNfsxKbMdCOYHn8fua8DYw2nVT0H0CeJIQElTmPuqK8dyE9yeO2qWJLpLoWIai5RGqGa_-MT/s1600-h/54582_maumau_suspects_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxmmA_X2A_KLa27clN7ciIbhyphenhyphenGrz53mXEwR916muQgRg6L9qbm8M-dtD2__noq3MdPdY_QNfsxKbMdCOYHn8fua8DYw2nVT0H0CeJIQElTmPuqK8dyE9yeO2qWJLpLoWIai5RGqGa_-MT/s320/54582_maumau_suspects_l.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Mau Mau suspects in Kenya (State of Emergency) </div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBA-755s_ygMTvrz2et-0k5S2CNH-Zag-k3P1dnSda1sjW9SoDAIcXI50aUMwA1KLUjIz5bW95czHqMSpb9ONwWca_pH51hNuitFSX1K1f6orefa3y1ZsJDAod7ihdlg5Iio9yMpsITVB/s1600-h/cyprus+children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBA-755s_ygMTvrz2et-0k5S2CNH-Zag-k3P1dnSda1sjW9SoDAIcXI50aUMwA1KLUjIz5bW95czHqMSpb9ONwWca_pH51hNuitFSX1K1f6orefa3y1ZsJDAod7ihdlg5Iio9yMpsITVB/s320/cyprus+children.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;">School children held as suspects in Cyprus (State of Emergency) </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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Two pictures taken at about the same time, at the end of the fifties: One in Cyprus, one in Kenya. <br />
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State of Emergency: to account for the reduction of political freedom in both countries by the British “occupation” forces. Both countries were colonies of the British Empire. In both countries the fight for liberation had just started and any participation of the population in it was considered a terrorist action. <br />
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In the case of Cyprus, the suspects are little pupils. <br />
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A reminder for the friends of Waxtablets: The event is on Sunday the 7th of March at 7 pm. <br />
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We will have more to say about Africa and its magic gourd, <br />
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<strong>Pictures from the Internet </strong><br />
<a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/422/54582_maumau_suspects_l.jpg">http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/422/54582_maumau_suspects_l.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT1Ita_l49FybHin9d2x1mLl-WZ9IKdnMCTlQ9LHyUzgzRaIVBFRzcSBQ-iEoBjYKHD-bPYWQuLu4SZAQ1zT9WAoo9GForibPDQdzfE-JHVUnzLX_ZEbX0l8ILvgpAEXSVJG6a9U8xIZM/s400/cyprus+children.jpg">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT1Ita_l49FybHin9d2x1mLl-WZ9IKdnMCTlQ9LHyUzgzRaIVBFRzcSBQ-iEoBjYKHD-bPYWQuLu4SZAQ1zT9WAoo9GForibPDQdzfE-JHVUnzLX_ZEbX0l8ILvgpAEXSVJG6a9U8xIZM/s400/cyprus+children.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.africaspeaks.com/kenya/02092006b.html">http://www.africaspeaks.com/kenya/02092006b.html</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.missionariconsolata.it/torino/mu-et-22.JPG">http://www.missionariconsolata.it/torino/mu-et-22.JPG</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0307378837/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0307378837/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/7234922/12011997-7">http://www.scribd.com/doc/7234922/12011997-7</a> <br />
<a href="http://www-tc.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/images/a/6517.jpg">http://www-tc.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/images/a/6517.jpg</a> <br />
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https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcStsLSg3audkCiVA1aDRj_SdXTKPh1XI8nbourtzwewUIlj_Y90WGhkAef7o90dE1BIhCJO3CZBTbTlsHH3yD3_qnqdSf2u8kaKYh6_iS1w5MTRZ1PQFGcFTa5njyB_TXnqmNSyyUHWx/s400/Large+Detail+.AchillesShield01.jpg <br />
<a href="http://logomnimon.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/1neb42a1.jpg">http://logomnimon.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/1neb42a1.jpg</a><br />
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Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, GreeceΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-23555393907843380772010-02-19T17:30:00.001+02:002010-02-19T17:31:33.514+02:00Travels in the scriptorium: when Fernando Pessoa met Paul Auster<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg78aBe0TY6tUXfhggmJq29fmHY3hs602tvX6YS9IX36sYA1DLrFa6naJZnsC7MGMNFihOQX-alryDDcKcSdoFHCdatvv1bHnDUVTdD4gSPsETEghzljhHDfwNRv3soR3cJEJa161_x1-n7/s1600-h/pe-+cortomaltese7rp.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313423559840511330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg78aBe0TY6tUXfhggmJq29fmHY3hs602tvX6YS9IX36sYA1DLrFa6naJZnsC7MGMNFihOQX-alryDDcKcSdoFHCdatvv1bHnDUVTdD4gSPsETEghzljhHDfwNRv3soR3cJEJa161_x1-n7/s400/pe-+cortomaltese7rp.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 303px;" /></a> <br />
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One night of March of 2011, Paul Benjamin Auster, the writer that has also been a poet, dreamt that he had woken up in a different room than that of his house in Vermont. In the beginning, it appeared to him like a hospital room, with its windows sealed and the sheets white. A small table with a stack of papers in the corner caught his eye. He knew that they were waiting for him to write his apologia. Then he realized that his bed was a bunk in a ship and from the porthole that was now open, because it was almost dawn, he could see the port outside. <br />
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<blockquote>“Over seven hills, which are as many points of observation whence the most magnificent panoramas may be enjoyed, the vast irregular and many-coloured mass of houses that constitute Lisbon is scattered…” </blockquote><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtqz5p2g4J2Tvw9gGKK-YK6mu_uAmu7vktZ_AZY5O_ozC6gOJIZMoJrKJ8Z3AAWyE6CQ5M0NRimfQHnabAVSYdoTt0_-jBJnrbpuofhFcQ22YQVd6KfEnTIwvztjdXDHahQMj2usYGrI7k/s1600-h/pe-+lisbonne2006-16.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313423763493835122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtqz5p2g4J2Tvw9gGKK-YK6mu_uAmu7vktZ_AZY5O_ozC6gOJIZMoJrKJ8Z3AAWyE6CQ5M0NRimfQHnabAVSYdoTt0_-jBJnrbpuofhFcQ22YQVd6KfEnTIwvztjdXDHahQMj2usYGrI7k/s400/pe-+lisbonne2006-16.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 302px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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He sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands. Hence, he did not see the Tower of Belem and the lighthouse as the ship was manoeuvring. He lagged behind a little bit. Then he got up and dressed as usual in his jeans and a RAF blue sweater. Only that now, he also wore over it a sailor’s jacket and a white cap.<br />
<blockquote>“I have been a sailor, indeed…” </blockquote>he said to himself and he collected his papers from the table. <br />
With the sailor’s travelling bag heavy on his shoulders, you see he always carried his typewriter with him, he noticed the tramway 29 rails that went as far as the port. He walked past some porters that were shouting coded words of command among them in order to lift – all three together – a big trunk. He got out of the ship unnoticed, and he got onto the tram, putting the travelling bag down between his legs. <br />
The bag was now the cardboard box that his uncle had given him thirty years ago. A box full of books, all of them read by now. Just as the door of the tram was shutting, a stray dog of the port jumped onto the tram. A woman in her fifties sitting in front of him was reading one of his books. He searched instinctively for a pencil – <br />
<blockquote>“she might ask for an autograph”. </blockquote>He fumbled for the instructions of the card game – he always carried it with him in order to sell it in hard times. After a while, as the tram was turning in order to take the steep ascending road, he thought that he was in Paris. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJEiHNJB0RCmUKQu9B4nz6KaVh5QDHiGrRNeIDolmSFoN2nogteK5-jOibHTJmFJUmZgUoBD2dNWqIUh2WAUAoC5ti0oEqq4XPAsK2Comm37ED0sxVX3W5kS5ymjXSWfPDa5woR5B3Hul/s1600-h/pe-+tram.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313424114429991682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJEiHNJB0RCmUKQu9B4nz6KaVh5QDHiGrRNeIDolmSFoN2nogteK5-jOibHTJmFJUmZgUoBD2dNWqIUh2WAUAoC5ti0oEqq4XPAsK2Comm37ED0sxVX3W5kS5ymjXSWfPDa5woR5B3Hul/s400/pe-+tram.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 266px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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The tram was travelling through Monmartre and it was night. It was the spitting image of the night when he actually had been there. He noticed the stairs in front of Sacre Coeur and he bent over the cardboard, awaiting something to happen. Nevertheless, the image of Paris dissolved, and the tram was now travelling in Rua do Arsenal past the Town Hall in order to head in the direction of Praça do Comércio, After that, he was sure, as sure you can be in a dream, that the rails went up at Rua de Ouro and from there came to an end at the Rua dos Durafores. <br />
<blockquote>“ The city of Lisbon wakes up later than the others. It wakes up in Rossio Square, in Rua de Oouro at the doors of its café, and among them the station that never sleeps, <br />
Like a heart that beats the same in its wakefulness and its sleep”.</blockquote><br />
The tram stopped just outside the spacious office of the Rua dos Duradores and Paul Auster stepped out. He knew that the boss there was called Vaskez, the cashier was called Borghes and the accountant Moreira. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjed-9WxVbuxWrC9Yt3KsEUnuoW_pA-SmZuv-UT5XJb_nBk9bjnQM__qXWeOdjl38ZnqTpmrmehaCe3U9De4vCOqbotqQEjZzT7OY4xZ6ZeWdbxnhMoGJcEFslOHpOh87QdAzC35rFPhAxC/s1600-h/pe-soares.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313424383233151970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjed-9WxVbuxWrC9Yt3KsEUnuoW_pA-SmZuv-UT5XJb_nBk9bjnQM__qXWeOdjl38ZnqTpmrmehaCe3U9De4vCOqbotqQEjZzT7OY4xZ6ZeWdbxnhMoGJcEFslOHpOh87QdAzC35rFPhAxC/s400/pe-soares.bmp" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 383px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 202px;" /></a> <br />
<blockquote><br />
<blockquote>« But suddenly, as I was creating my own dream in a café during my humble midday break, a feeling of sadness overwhelmed my imagination: I felt that I would feel sad about something”</blockquote><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALIc81aTuj-183-DmymCKr7LVxRkYxCefA_047A2_Uo8SsjcI6PwNXz7b6HIbEbUljqkS-Yldnd-dgOQDk8zkxWpmTaYJGs2XIoT6gP2C8JoHbFPGBIaAWOxyxs6R101BL3d8RvUGEFlS/s1600-h/pe-+pessoa1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313424657461477858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiALIc81aTuj-183-DmymCKr7LVxRkYxCefA_047A2_Uo8SsjcI6PwNXz7b6HIbEbUljqkS-Yldnd-dgOQDk8zkxWpmTaYJGs2XIoT6gP2C8JoHbFPGBIaAWOxyxs6R101BL3d8RvUGEFlS/s400/pe-+pessoa1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 369px;" /></a></blockquote><br />
Paul Auster went up to the second floor. The assistant bookkeeper Soares was expecting him in his office that was also a café. He invited him to sit at a small round table, like the ones at the café Brazileiro, and when he offered his hand for a handshake said: <br />
<blockquote><blockquote>“ Fernando Pessoa, en personnes(*)” </blockquote></blockquote>Paul Auster had been expecting him to be just like that, with his glasses, with his hat – that he wore even when in the office. He glanced out of the window as he was sitting down. The assistant bookkeeper Soares poured them coffee and said: <br />
“<br />
<blockquote>La tabacaria”, the tobacco shop. This is what I sit and watch all day long from my desk</blockquote>. <br />
<blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioux2ofFXBRMQrQj_hKIYI0oW-hRFCSmfD9-FxLPwAJrQofsPiGsflUDV-FccIChYvmQoGc_O_ntAR5Onj2ZoMzX53FO2JZkzpErSvHWD-F6pNe4j8p7Cuikhf9NEJMgjI5Y25jwSsYeq0/s1600-h/pe-tabacaria1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313424981266194322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioux2ofFXBRMQrQj_hKIYI0oW-hRFCSmfD9-FxLPwAJrQofsPiGsflUDV-FccIChYvmQoGc_O_ntAR5Onj2ZoMzX53FO2JZkzpErSvHWD-F6pNe4j8p7Cuikhf9NEJMgjI5Y25jwSsYeq0/s400/pe-tabacaria1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 354px;" /></a> “If the shop owner would appear at the door and stand on the doorstep…” </blockquote><br />
Paul Auster noticed Augy Wren (**) emerging from the tobacco shop and looking around him. It was five past seven in the morning. The time that he would always take his photo tripod outdoors in order to take a picture of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street. <br />
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<blockquote>“Rua dos Duratores is Brooklyn. He will leave his shop sign behind him, and I will leave my verses”</blockquote> He looked at assistant bookkeeper Soares in amazement. <br />
<blockquote><blockquote>"A man entered the tobacco shop in order to buy tobacco…” <br />
<blockquote>“Once, Pessoa was summoned by his teacher Caeiro”, </blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>said Soares. <br />
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<blockquote>“He had called on him to tell him that in him he would recognize the deeper part of himself. His darker part. After that, Pessoa keeps dividing himself forever, and creates around him a fraternity of heteronyms, in order to exist as a poet.”</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>“Fernando Pessoa”, en personnes</blockquote>. <br />
<blockquote>“ I know that”, </blockquote>answered Paul Auster. <br />
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"<br />
<blockquote>I also know that I have something to do with that. Your poem about the tobacco shop and my Christmas story with Augy Wren…” </blockquote><blockquote>“Alvaro de Campos’s poem and my own place in front of the tobacco shop, observing it until the death of the tobacco shop owner, who will leave his shop sign behind as I will leave my verses. This not the only thing that we have in common. I would like, if you don’t mind, to draw your attention to that.” </blockquote><br />
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<blockquote>“Let us light a cigarette”, </blockquote>said Paul Auster. <br />
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<blockquote>“and let us taste in the cigarette the liberation from all our thoughts… the liberation from every reasoning”, </blockquote>Pessoa added <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpfL4xmo0fyrP-j1NCiXItmq4hSYb5zaDALtrkMXv123citC3YYGgXwICOq-zxQwm0j-IgMcw_-on14u8tdB6-7c9m_QAVRL6sUtmVz_zMbRhuU_2gdqiME9tn0JYDlEx1ITJb8cT7RgK/s1600-h/pe-tabacaria2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313425324447081778" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpfL4xmo0fyrP-j1NCiXItmq4hSYb5zaDALtrkMXv123citC3YYGgXwICOq-zxQwm0j-IgMcw_-on14u8tdB6-7c9m_QAVRL6sUtmVz_zMbRhuU_2gdqiME9tn0JYDlEx1ITJb8cT7RgK/s400/pe-tabacaria2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>“You capture the flow of time with the camera of your friend, Augy Wren, who is a shop owner and observes the outside world. On the other hand, I myself, confined in the office of Rua dos Duratores, watch the sign of the tobacco shop and the discomfort of the soul of the shop owner… The real world is outside and the poet at the window…”</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>“An interesting coincidence", </blockquote><br />
Paul Auster remarked. <br />
<blockquote>“The camera of Augy Wren is a window to the outside world.” </blockquote>“You have lived the consecutive lives of the student, the adventurer, the sailor, the cook, the poet, the translator, the script – writer and the film director”, <br />
Pessoa said and he continued: <br />
<blockquote>“I divide myself in order for my heteronyms to exist in the life of the sensational engineer, the shepherd, the royalist surgeon and the riddle - maker…”</blockquote>Parts of me break away and sometimes they talk or exchange letters among them, because I am not able to exist as a poet in one person. I have already explained and you have already understood that the birth of my heteronyms is due to personalization and pretension as well as to the need that I had from an early age to be surrounded by imaginary people. A life divided into many lifes. On the other hand, you…<br />
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Paul Auster already knew. <br />
<blockquote>“You”, </blockquote>Fernando Pessoa continued, <br />
<blockquote>“not only have lived your lives, but you absorb your fictional characters into your person, you absorb all the lives, all their properties. You are the narrator Aesop in Vertigo, but you are Sir Walter Rayleigh as well, you are the deranged poet seeking for his master, you are the detective and the missing actor. You are your image of the future in Travels in the Scriptorium….<br />
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Even the chest…” </blockquote>Paul Auster bent over the cardboard box with the books that his uncle had given him when he was eighteen. <br />
<blockquote>“This chest of yours was given to you as a gift in the beginning of your literary career. You have opened it and you have read its content and you have created. It was the cause of your creation as a writer. For me, “The Chest” has been the end. It is a closed chest where all my works have ended, to stay there, in eternity, as works of other people.”</blockquote><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZvJdqlG9BTwGKzUlMt_vzRci8VDdYsiIOrkmtqugW0Vv7E4TQHz2p7h2VdKacxzgZDWbVQwJ8q7TzI2rIgshaLGQsDVzXcdIgFCY6d_loofar5PXIDPgd8AUkWeG2Ma8NZDnhCUye9Yq/s1600-h/pe-+auster_paul.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313425523661347058" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZvJdqlG9BTwGKzUlMt_vzRci8VDdYsiIOrkmtqugW0Vv7E4TQHz2p7h2VdKacxzgZDWbVQwJ8q7TzI2rIgshaLGQsDVzXcdIgFCY6d_loofar5PXIDPgd8AUkWeG2Ma8NZDnhCUye9Yq/s400/pe-+auster_paul.gif" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 254px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
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Paul Auster got up and looked out of the window. Augy Wren was smiling at him from the other side. The tram was waiting for him to take him from Rossio to Prasa de la Figueira. He wanted to wander around before he woke up. With his sailor’s jacket, he looked just like Corto Maltese. <br />
<blockquote><blockquote><br />
(*) Fernando Pessoa, in person(s). <br />
(**) Augy Wren is a character from Paul Auster’s “Auggie Wren's Christmas Story” http://www.christmasmagazine.com/en/spirit/story10.asp <br />
<strong></strong></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<blockquote><blockquote><strong>References:</strong> <br />
(1) Lisbon: What the tourist should see, <br />
http://lisbon.pessoa.free.fr/PrinterFriendly.php <br />
(2) Maritime ode, Alvaro de Campos (Translated in greek by Maria Papadima) <br />
<br />
(3) Fernando Pessoa, The book of disquiet (Tranlated in greek by Anny Spyrakou) <br />
(4) Antonio Tabucchi, Dreams of Dreams, (Translated in Greek by Antaios Chryssostomides) <br />
(5) Antonio Tabucchi, “Baule pieno di gente” (Translated in Greek by Antaios Chryssostomides) <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;"><strong>Pictures from the Internet</strong>:</span><a href="http://www.laulem.net/images/voyages/lisbonne2006/lisbonne2006-16.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://www.laulem.net/images/voyages/lisbonne2006/lisbonne2006-16.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3326/3237878488_890a183342.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3326/3237878488_890a183342.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://img127.exs.cx/img127/6338/b4-tabacaria.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://img127.exs.cx/img127/6338/b4-tabacaria.jpg</span></a><br />
<a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/358602380_7d6016e6c7.jpg?v=0"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/358602380_7d6016e6c7.jpg?v=0</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://lesxianagnosisfyodordostoyevsky.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/bernando_soares20.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://lesxianagnosisfyodordostoyevsky.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/bernando_soares20.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/2227/cortomaltese7rp.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/2227/cortomaltese7rp.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/graphics/auster_paul.gif"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/graphics/auster_paul.gif</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://www.shearsman.com/images/photos/pessoa1.jpg"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://www.shearsman.com/images/photos/pessoa1.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 78%;"></span><span style="font-size: 78%;"></span></blockquote></blockquote><br />
Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, GreeceΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-82317385726037037482009-12-10T23:42:00.002+02:002009-12-10T23:45:39.593+02:00Making paper hats: Sam Nechama tells his story and beats death for a second time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqpjRY1rubNGBI5vnl57Zo5EGxitXcX9yhOnSxHMt1DdFD6epDyYiKFBMJn-y8IEjC7nFeA1TRCl6fiw2uwzhrqgPlxgSha7Gc5O6D6hDzfdCNzkEonJDQ7m9DlUmmqTFoEF5ZYwpGEbg/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfqpjRY1rubNGBI5vnl57Zo5EGxitXcX9yhOnSxHMt1DdFD6epDyYiKFBMJn-y8IEjC7nFeA1TRCl6fiw2uwzhrqgPlxgSha7Gc5O6D6hDzfdCNzkEonJDQ7m9DlUmmqTFoEF5ZYwpGEbg/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B11.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div>Thirteen year old Sam entered the library with hesitation, taking special care not to be noticed by those who were already gathered there. He hid behind a pillar, waiting for them to sit around the tables to listen to their guest. Then, his gaze turned to the back of the room. He had noticed a child. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSeklXFxN6GNa-9DM754vWrlvuPaqiw9YsyMkV4R5MoQr_IFSeZRPGYEUMLAApEB_s2M_v_YpQPgmvdx30dK2ZACXQqcNEw6mKt20G8vjKlXpZk_fmF3y1B9cAi0xOvh8uaRYyVfmt4676/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSeklXFxN6GNa-9DM754vWrlvuPaqiw9YsyMkV4R5MoQr_IFSeZRPGYEUMLAApEB_s2M_v_YpQPgmvdx30dK2ZACXQqcNEw6mKt20G8vjKlXpZk_fmF3y1B9cAi0xOvh8uaRYyVfmt4676/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B12.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div>He refrained from shouting: <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>“Halt! Who is there?” <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>And then: <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>“This way, Norman! Cover me! Behind the pillar! Let’s hide in the Tower!”<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZjryQiJp-EUYsCy8zFGjqI9BZGyJ9MXdsOdoE4ibc9APoW8usJfkBiYS-VQ4p7UpobgGL1pg7voEqa4zUU47AmzcaKyqjBDYbb6sNZSTnmU6CWtQYfuyoV5y0CJn88vmiVCD96H9LcX2/s1600-h/mikrosseferisp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZjryQiJp-EUYsCy8zFGjqI9BZGyJ9MXdsOdoE4ibc9APoW8usJfkBiYS-VQ4p7UpobgGL1pg7voEqa4zUU47AmzcaKyqjBDYbb6sNZSTnmU6CWtQYfuyoV5y0CJn88vmiVCD96H9LcX2/s320/mikrosseferisp.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>Then, he took a seat on a library bench, behind the audience. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Despite his thirteen years, he had gone on playing cops and robbers with his little brother, their favourite game, ever since the time they had been hiding in a house in Halandri, in 1943 when Italy surrendered, Germany took over Greece and things got worse. <br />
<div align="center"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGxEguQP-oZkPMt-c5m1ZrikxOnn_N1LEt5wWe9HPwtwAVxv-28W9UMUaUeQR6GrAtlAvBQKl-SmiRQpPlsAiDwroIYKDgyg8ydKRFg1Ar6r4hxLIcRYGXzDSx5X5ON8dtMFXxOGTx-mFS/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGxEguQP-oZkPMt-c5m1ZrikxOnn_N1LEt5wWe9HPwtwAVxv-28W9UMUaUeQR6GrAtlAvBQKl-SmiRQpPlsAiDwroIYKDgyg8ydKRFg1Ar6r4hxLIcRYGXzDSx5X5ON8dtMFXxOGTx-mFS/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B13.jpg" /></a><br />
</div> It was then that his father came home with false identity cards and told him that from now on he was going to be called Aristotelis Karavokyris (Karavokyris: ship’s captain) <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>“Aristotelis, a gentile name, so that you won’t be confused when they ask you when your name day is”<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>This was a strange game indeed: Karavokyris - the one who leads the ship and travels in the open sea - had to be confined in a house at Halandri and then for eight months in a mud house without a toilet in the neighborhood of ROUF (in Athens, Greece), <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Sam used to travel with his head buried in a hole of the old couch, his nose pressed against the cold springs, listening to the conversations of the adults about the Jews of Thessaloniki hiding in Athens. Now, the time had come for the Jews of Athens to hide as well.<br />
Or had they better present themselves to the German authorities and get their families registered? <br />
There was no question about it; they had to hide. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrd8-FbEwpneq1RgiY5fEJE8uDWC0jmAiloqGlmGMO_JMXnScATk-yM0jX2Z6UUyE8acQEljHfE5YCSn-8Hl8yMLcnkaCPeFUlzpA2rDJX3-QYIeHWacPPuv54FYU2FShRAFKMnwE-hlg/s1600-h/34-35f2-3-thumb-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrd8-FbEwpneq1RgiY5fEJE8uDWC0jmAiloqGlmGMO_JMXnScATk-yM0jX2Z6UUyE8acQEljHfE5YCSn-8Hl8yMLcnkaCPeFUlzpA2rDJX3-QYIeHWacPPuv54FYU2FShRAFKMnwE-hlg/s320/34-35f2-3-thumb-large.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<div><br />
</div>And Artemis? The girl that he had met at the Karagiozis (Karagiozis: traditional shadow theater) performance? Her name, a gentile name like his, made him wonder: What was her real name? Hanna? Esther? Rachel? <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>And now this man down there giving a talk, insisting that being a prisoner at Auschwitz did not make him a better man…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>A prisoner? So he did not avoid being arrested by the cops! They got him too! <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMaSu2fEWLJZTKFtYkcjclL4-AeyAQneng4NryZOymNRbSIzj94MDirIQjkg-PMJzQ1pfgAFECK4eM1DPrZmKhcitzs53BwpW4uQHfvUPolT7KXBGExpvgMS5JXVqsHkBVYeGUjzVg9xu/s1600-h/nazi-propaganda-poster-ss-recruitment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMaSu2fEWLJZTKFtYkcjclL4-AeyAQneng4NryZOymNRbSIzj94MDirIQjkg-PMJzQ1pfgAFECK4eM1DPrZmKhcitzs53BwpW4uQHfvUPolT7KXBGExpvgMS5JXVqsHkBVYeGUjzVg9xu/s320/nazi-propaganda-poster-ss-recruitment.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<div><br />
</div>It was not a game any longer, when at four o’clock in the morning, a torch beam fell on their faces in the court yard of the mud house in the neighborhood of Rouf, and woke them up. It was hot and they had been sleeping outdoors when this had happened. It was not a game, when they took them to the building of Merlin Street (the headquarters of Gestapo). It was not a game when the German officer asked him to pull his pants down. <br />
For what reason? <br />
And then the slap. He was different and now they would know. The mark of the rite of passage, the trace that the circumcision had left on his body, the indelible engagement ring with his race was there, a stark reminder that he could not deny his people. He did not intend to. Sam was a man now. This is how he felt when he answered the SS officer who had questioned him and his mother. <br />
<div align="center"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu3NdGZCQj7BJ-g3ywKszwtpxFY140wqPq2tg4KJwbMymdbRq6L9p84BXPdDT-xSQXJQqEC9wG4wLUbZqzp_1PM6ECEZqwKV-VKsF7s0CzI4c_oH6GxBwSvFM7OhEKVXJxUQCkOzdyCj4o/s1600-h/225.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu3NdGZCQj7BJ-g3ywKszwtpxFY140wqPq2tg4KJwbMymdbRq6L9p84BXPdDT-xSQXJQqEC9wG4wLUbZqzp_1PM6ECEZqwKV-VKsF7s0CzI4c_oH6GxBwSvFM7OhEKVXJxUQCkOzdyCj4o/s320/225.gif" /></a><br />
</div>- Where is your father?<br />
- I don’t know. <br />
- Who does he send you money with?<br />
- With a different person each time. <br />
- Where is your brother hiding?<br />
- I do not know. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>And then, the whip in the hands of the SS officer wrapping around his feet and little Norman asking: <br />
- Did that hurt Sam?<br />
What would he answer?<br />
No?<br />
Yes?<br />
Do real men feel pain?<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Little Sam had become a real man when he had told his mother: <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>- Mother, don’t worry, I will do the talking. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5_3wiHDpiezKHY-4CbbLM6eNru8Sac979-_z6Ut6gBVRXcPLH_Gjybfj1Q0GMfbPCHVlWHpoNKJKw0jASLZx2wv7Jo3DGzI4pAyV04zQqlHaC2n8TDExtnok2SBViecpYi-xt9QFGhCu/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5_3wiHDpiezKHY-4CbbLM6eNru8Sac979-_z6Ut6gBVRXcPLH_Gjybfj1Q0GMfbPCHVlWHpoNKJKw0jASLZx2wv7Jo3DGzI4pAyV04zQqlHaC2n8TDExtnok2SBViecpYi-xt9QFGhCu/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B14.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div>“ At that moment, became the man of the house”, he thought. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Are my clothes alright? <br />
Who said I cannot wear a worn jacket?<br />
And my belt?<br />
His belt was an old leather belt which had been given to him by a prisoner at Auschwitz, in exchange for his bread ratio. He had exchanged his food for a belt. He would not wear his pair of trousers fastened with a string…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>“This helps me restore my humanity”, he replied to his protector who had told him: <br />
“I will cut off your feet if you will ever exchange your food for anything again! Anything!”<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>He had done this before. He had exchanged his food for a spoon! <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>And this man with the lively voice and tired body was speaking just like his protector. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>“In order to save yourself you have to stop hoping!”<br />
You have to forget bread, trees, flowers, colours, dogs, their barking. Women…<br />
You have to confine yourself in a cocoon that is called concentration camp and do not hope. Just fight…Just fight… Who said that hope is the last to die?<br />
Hope must die first!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cRbFEfogS21jQv_kXjYtlX3rU59Z7jedPn__ooYL2THJHCANIzcgG8Q0lTYVstFWt8f6SFXVuwfTKkRMa9MK4EseA-yfoYwGWqvPMEw0d1kdHVPIw5KgZCERpgHGgPLEzZidGhI0Bhj4/s1600-h/567j856785678567.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cRbFEfogS21jQv_kXjYtlX3rU59Z7jedPn__ooYL2THJHCANIzcgG8Q0lTYVstFWt8f6SFXVuwfTKkRMa9MK4EseA-yfoYwGWqvPMEw0d1kdHVPIw5KgZCERpgHGgPLEzZidGhI0Bhj4/s320/567j856785678567.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div>If you want to survive. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Why should I want to live?<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Sam needn’t ask himself why he should live. He ought to live for little Norman and for his mother who had been led into the gas chambers as soon as they arrived in Auschvitz. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>He cannot erase from his memory the prisoners with the inscrutinable gaze, the Jews of Thessaloniki who welcomed them as they arrived at Auschwitz. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>They say that at the end of the tunnel, when you have crossed the border between life and death, you arrive at “The light”, at the land of death and your people are there, to welcome you. Auschwitz was indeed the valley of death, wasn’t it?<br />
And these were his people, welcoming them, without big words, in a hurry, trying to separate young mothers from their kids before it was too late.<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>- Is there an old aunty to hold this child?<br />
- Is there a granny?<br />
The mothers, numbed, did not understand. <br />
These people did not explain. <br />
Nevertheless, there was a system and organization in the camp. The Germans wanted the vulnerable groups, mothers and children, had to die first. <br />
This is why the Jews of Thessaloniki were trying in a hurry to save as many young women as they could. The plan was simple. They separated them from their children. In that way, they sentenced to death the ones to whom they designated the guarding of the children. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Who can talk about this?<br />
How can one speak about the new executioners – saviors? <br />
How can one refer to the new role that the merciless mechanism of the camp had cast upon its victims…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Primo Levi had said, “I want to survive, in order to tell the story”.<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>This is exactly what the man with the tired body and the young voice was doing. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>In telling his story he keeps his audience, seventeen – year - old - students, captured, all ears to listen to him. <br />
The narrative…The way to beat death…Like Sechrazade of the fairy tale that would escape death every night, by telling her husband a new tale, like the Hassidim Rabbis with their stories and their parables, teaching their people the meaning of life and giving them strength to go on…<br />
<div align="center"><br />
<div><br />
</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ7V6hhg8U84Rj20E6B4gp-3WA5057MKr8AhlwzSP7XPOGW7ULDm0RR94LX-9xCWRwFazTcwdr0POyzhOQwJ2mH6FCVRkG_wsSOgsKCgvHrkjbQBV5AI9H9u7ms_Af6Nog4a77JioNuf46/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ7V6hhg8U84Rj20E6B4gp-3WA5057MKr8AhlwzSP7XPOGW7ULDm0RR94LX-9xCWRwFazTcwdr0POyzhOQwJ2mH6FCVRkG_wsSOgsKCgvHrkjbQBV5AI9H9u7ms_Af6Nog4a77JioNuf46/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B112.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>If you remember my story, he tells them, I will still be alive… <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Sam with the tired body, ios telling his story… <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>From Merlin street to Haidari camp and from there to Auschwitz on the trains of death. <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>He recounts his tribulations and those of his co – detainees, without breaking his voice… He describes the new structures that the system has created in order to entangle its victims. The prisoners – gaolers, the protectors, the degenerates that have given up on everything…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>The worst torture was the deprivation of their humanity… Of their self respect…The hysterical endeavour of making lists of items and people, the tattooed number identification system on the prisoners’ wrists…<br />
<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIer35NgAAmHI4AonkgUSRj4lu68vQ1FgUGgeIyJzpXnjYqpfxdZGdHdnpdzE9aUsH59c5nzkvmtIa64H1OH14K5EIXnT_dhkuSXbDWJSVf1qW2__BZxATjxyt5n6IkUSsEyXwMMkHpehI/s1600-h/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" er="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIer35NgAAmHI4AonkgUSRj4lu68vQ1FgUGgeIyJzpXnjYqpfxdZGdHdnpdzE9aUsH59c5nzkvmtIa64H1OH14K5EIXnT_dhkuSXbDWJSVf1qW2__BZxATjxyt5n6IkUSsEyXwMMkHpehI/s320/%CE%95%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B18.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div>The absurd rules of discipline that confuse you and excaust all the power from you. The daily call in the snow… Nevertheless, in his own words “in our effort to abide by these rules, we escaped fear…” <br />
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<div><br />
</div>“What is the meaning of my life? I have been deprived, from an early age, of the right of asking existential questions.”<br />
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</div>“I have seen death in such a quality and quantity that you cannot imagine…”<br />
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<div><br />
</div></div>“However, I have kept three good things for myself: Family, friendship and love…” <br />
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</div>Where is his lady? Where is his beloved? <br />
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</div>She dead… With a leap my lithe girl she went off…<br />
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</div></div>Love…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>Little Sam steps down slowly from the library bench. He feels that he is holding little Hanna - Artemis’s hand. “My love how beautiful she is…” (From the Song of Songs) <br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>The children gather around Sam while he is studying his family tree…<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div>His ears are filled with happy voices from the Song of Celebration. Hava Nagila. Time for dance he says. I will dance with you. <br />
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</div><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BFtv5qe5o3c&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BFtv5qe5o3c&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>\<br />
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</div><ul>• Artemis – Hanna and the Karagiozis show are mentioned in Lili Zografou’s book (in Modern Greek) “Jews once upon a time ” (The text can be found in: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/14582253/">http://www.scribd.com/doc/14582253/</a>) </ul><ul>PS.</ul><ul> Mr. Sam Nechama addressed the students of the International Baccalaureate of The Geitonas School in Athens, on Thursday the 26th of November. I feel honoured that I had the opportunity to meet with the eternally young Mr. Sam Nechama and listen to his story with the colleagues and students of the IB. I would like to thank with all my heart, Mrs Elisabeth Wahler – Athanassiadis, the Educator, in every meaning of the word, due to whom all this was made possible. </ul><ul>The above text is dedicated to “Aristotelis Karavokyris”, the captain of his childhood. </ul><ul>Poly Hatjimanolaki </ul><ul><strong>Pictures from the internet </strong>: </ul><ul>http://www.haidari.gr/Portals/1/files/Images/Synchronous%20Period/225.gif<a href="http://www.haidari.gr/Portals/1/files/Images/Synchronous%20Period/225.gif3">3</a> <a href="http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/107/mikrosseferisp.jpg">http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/107/mikrosseferisp.jpg</a> <a href="http://panosz.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/34-35f2-3-thumb-large.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LoPTdkHrjjk/SqukN_C9xUI/AAAAAAAAE_U/l04hMxHP_iY/s400/nazi-propaganda-poster-ss-recruitment.jpg">http://panosz.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/34-35f2-3-thumb-large.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LoPTdkHrjjk/SqukN_C9xUI/AAAAAAAAE_U/l04hMxHP_iY/s400/nazi-propaganda-poster-ss-recruitment.jpg</a> http://www.zougla.gr/uploads/archive/dimitra/567j856785678567.jpg
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</ul>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-7386157327904510862009-12-06T00:52:00.000+02:002009-12-06T00:52:51.303+02:00“ he hadn’t quite finished his tea…”: hot drinks and trials<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirW4akIeVm_EOFBLJpRy_NM8NRB50Fmj3ewAXYH6KH6AFez9Sj2EQf6n0u8GKLqEwrHSPTFD_6hOq-FwKAV4d4DNj3_4C2lhQQ1dFTFn3fpjHnWrC4eIAq4x1EbTFhotb0aNwK7kotN-eJ/s1600-h/a0+jurybox.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317636580810045954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirW4akIeVm_EOFBLJpRy_NM8NRB50Fmj3ewAXYH6KH6AFez9Sj2EQf6n0u8GKLqEwrHSPTFD_6hOq-FwKAV4d4DNj3_4C2lhQQ1dFTFn3fpjHnWrC4eIAq4x1EbTFhotb0aNwK7kotN-eJ/s400/a0+jurybox.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 281px;" /></a><br />
Nine years after their last boat trip with Alice, Lewis Carroll – Charles Dodgson – noticed a picture of her in the museum. She did not appear natural to him. <br />
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“Very pretty but not particularly natural”, he said. <br />
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He preferred to remember her the way she had been in the boat on the Thames, with the freshness of her childhood. It was then that she had posed for his photographic lens. <br />
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Let us leave Lewis Carroll in his melancholic thoughts and picture Alice the way Sir John Tenniel had sketched her, creating the illustration model for all the later editions of “Alice”. People say that the other illustrators had a hard time with Lewis Carroll’s obstinacy in counting the lines in the drawings they had made of Alice and comparing them with the ones by Sir Tenniel. <br />
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<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9uM2zk6iU-PO2tMSeMhoC5Q-i1UKpTI_ewEfogTucDrjBod9n9dqMQWZQegNV_-JzVS8FwFmnde8rPxh6y4-DF_3OFuwa9coaeu7Z1khAaXSHJjJePNQInmPASWOiGg3ty-h3Ret40Up/s1600-h/a12.1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317636713232964258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9uM2zk6iU-PO2tMSeMhoC5Q-i1UKpTI_ewEfogTucDrjBod9n9dqMQWZQegNV_-JzVS8FwFmnde8rPxh6y4-DF_3OFuwa9coaeu7Z1khAaXSHJjJePNQInmPASWOiGg3ty-h3Ret40Up/s400/a12.1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 329px;" /></a><br />
This is the picture of Alice, when she is about to testify in court, looking unfathomable and surprised, but less innocent than her other representations in the book. This is because she jumped up in such a hurry and has tipped over the jury – box – the jurymen and the Lizard onto the heads of the crowd, with the edge of her skirt. <br />
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The trial is the trial of the Knave, who is a accused of theft – “he stole the tarts” is the charge – and it is the scene of the last act, a landmark of the journey to Wonderland. We will linger here, because this trial, and the entire novel as well, is non –sense. This is not because the testimony of Alice makes no sense and causes the anger of the judges, that is of the King and the Queen who run after her demanding her decapitation. “Off with her head!” It is because in this trial a characteristic figure of the story reappears as a witness. Remember the Hatter, who shows up in court with a cup of tea in his hands. <br />
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Some chapters before that, at the Mad Tea Party, the March Hare, Dormouse, the Hatter and Alice were sitting around a table taking their tea, singing and solving weird riddles. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5HOgEHDj4BcsCLT829SdpPLadMV5qUqHNJH7yRshtUOvg8id_jU0KS28cQB3863e2gQv4Xu6VGWyse9G8C1CuoyPuTeFgxF7cDmiTS9yzLnJQ7RzMaeGThd3jB_0UEkMfZuTSU1ER5Rh/s1600-h/a16+alice_in_wonderland_2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317637567474668946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5HOgEHDj4BcsCLT829SdpPLadMV5qUqHNJH7yRshtUOvg8id_jU0KS28cQB3863e2gQv4Xu6VGWyse9G8C1CuoyPuTeFgxF7cDmiTS9yzLnJQ7RzMaeGThd3jB_0UEkMfZuTSU1ER5Rh/s400/a16+alice_in_wonderland_2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 297px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
The Hatter turns up at the trial with his cup of tea, his characteristic hat – “that is not his” – in order to confuse the judges even more. He is upset. In his hands he carries a piece of bread and butter. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KU_dwE4h_DVGY-pMra79ac2qA-cI9g_ldrrzDTNMo2SBjeWY5efiEC81Hm7R4qArZYzk9CrPg-DaA_9BACC6c0e14RlpWaGb0mfR2bJ8d5cSVw-Y_s5pyJ13W2H6UtpxS9JIK4nxhrhi/s1600-h/a4+Hatter.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317636957706543938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KU_dwE4h_DVGY-pMra79ac2qA-cI9g_ldrrzDTNMo2SBjeWY5efiEC81Hm7R4qArZYzk9CrPg-DaA_9BACC6c0e14RlpWaGb0mfR2bJ8d5cSVw-Y_s5pyJ13W2H6UtpxS9JIK4nxhrhi/s400/a4+Hatter.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 140px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 113px;" /></a><br />
The Hatter is confused by this trial that he cannot understand at all since the only thing that he has in mind is his attempt to start drinking his tea a week ago. Instead of biting on the bread, he bites the cup by accident.<br />
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“and he hadn’t quite finished his tea when he was sent for…”<br />
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The questions and the events are already irrelevant to the case, that is the trial of the Knave. Let us focus our attention on the figure of the Hatter and to the recall - weird repetition – of that tea scene in court. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJIjzsySN7ddxK6z3j9Fy3wOcwRRotlUie4g-bAYOISRCg2w9OjrmwqERecjOg9S48ODAGnhBsv_4z56Qj4M6BtjcO5ZEngmX8TQj7zJmApP-9wi2aDYOfs52J38tYELrILsAW-zbu50k/s1600-h/a2+alice-hatter.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317637285641679522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJIjzsySN7ddxK6z3j9Fy3wOcwRRotlUie4g-bAYOISRCg2w9OjrmwqERecjOg9S48ODAGnhBsv_4z56Qj4M6BtjcO5ZEngmX8TQj7zJmApP-9wi2aDYOfs52J38tYELrILsAW-zbu50k/s400/a2+alice-hatter.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
A weird figure interrupted from taking his tea and, complaining about not being allowed to drink it, who thinks and re- thinks about it, puzzled, quite different from all the other figures of the trial – lizards, guinea pigs, moles, jurymen, witnesses, soldiers and judges, in this coordinated dance of the absurd. <br />
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Suddenly, the trial is all about tea and whether you manage or you do not manage to drink it during a trial. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFfFL8OexZ9jMKUHWU96dPz51i4eGMu-cf8IPqEwrLNkvEaiwAjUM1r-ioDNWmUSR76Run4QPn0SaWMxxB7w6Jwmi199iObTE23X6IManXoIVYZUJAk9jSCfTUU0x8eCbwaJjF8V-NQqm/s1600-h/a14Silhouette-of-man-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee-pop-art-poster-print-5_wallpaper.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317638464898461778" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFfFL8OexZ9jMKUHWU96dPz51i4eGMu-cf8IPqEwrLNkvEaiwAjUM1r-ioDNWmUSR76Run4QPn0SaWMxxB7w6Jwmi199iObTE23X6IManXoIVYZUJAk9jSCfTUU0x8eCbwaJjF8V-NQqm/s400/a14Silhouette-of-man-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee-pop-art-poster-print-5_wallpaper.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 246px;" /></a><br />
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If instead of tea, the hot drink was coffee with milk…<br />
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If the hearing was about a coffee that someone had drunk while he was not supposed to…<br />
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If the trial had been about a murder committed by the defendant, but the hearing was veered to whether he had sufficiently mourned his mother – because among other things he had dared to drink some coffee the night before her funeral…<br />
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We should no longer be talking about the trial of the Knave but about the trial of Mersault in L’Etranger (the Stranger) of Albert Camus. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkq31cAG08zAVPFC_tWaR-bBr825pEOAfEQwH_Uw2hzsuLrT77t8IiZZpfBUDzyyXeFoLW1bEHG4BQSwk-eLXvro_DfLlylQWpkz5f5r_CWyaq7-fI13XDcWKmOmPcTs4lLyq7mSfYcPr9/s1600-h/a10+untitled.bmp" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317638744875480178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkq31cAG08zAVPFC_tWaR-bBr825pEOAfEQwH_Uw2hzsuLrT77t8IiZZpfBUDzyyXeFoLW1bEHG4BQSwk-eLXvro_DfLlylQWpkz5f5r_CWyaq7-fI13XDcWKmOmPcTs4lLyq7mSfYcPr9/s400/a10+untitled.bmp" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 264px;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHueh_oq097Y_K0sx4GD27RNM-xfvUhrTptXyO3R8jX9QADBMZnF9nW99z26pfFlxSiOhMwIAJyZiIghO8bCJww9DycFsiGup7DZ2DpysCcKgnXOFIdRfAaXNmTtsKRM4QmtgJEwC8AnO/s1600-h/a+11+camus_2.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317639008002270738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHueh_oq097Y_K0sx4GD27RNM-xfvUhrTptXyO3R8jX9QADBMZnF9nW99z26pfFlxSiOhMwIAJyZiIghO8bCJww9DycFsiGup7DZ2DpysCcKgnXOFIdRfAaXNmTtsKRM4QmtgJEwC8AnO/s400/a+11+camus_2.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 267px;" /></a><br />
<br />
In l’ Etranger, Mersault he stands for a murder that he has committed for no obvious reason. In fact, the charges change in a bizzarre way and he finds himself defending his meaningless life and lack of feelings. According to the indictment, the discussion about the hot drink that he has already drunk and has enjoyed, i.e. coffee with milk, is of central importance. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXps2QPIvwA6c3p8i2NLQpyjQRYW1y55weTMLNpuYeumolpxh5JgnrQiaR7XV7SNcxWOwWJL25-IPjiuTR2W74bPnH-W_oj9ZqSe5vlCyTEdKVQUbf17m1RqrOyhcOceBOlbpJJk6Hebq1/s1600-h/a+7+traduced.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317639435040171090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXps2QPIvwA6c3p8i2NLQpyjQRYW1y55weTMLNpuYeumolpxh5JgnrQiaR7XV7SNcxWOwWJL25-IPjiuTR2W74bPnH-W_oj9ZqSe5vlCyTEdKVQUbf17m1RqrOyhcOceBOlbpJJk6Hebq1/s400/a+7+traduced.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 285px;" /></a><br />
On the other hand, if he had not yet drunk the beverage causing its discussion during the trial, but he was about to drink it at the moment of his arrest – very hot coffee which he can barely touch with his lips – and the bread with marmalade that he had for breakfast is eaten by his prosecutors in his own home, than the defendant should be Joseph K. in Kafka’s “The Trial”. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg51u8R8JTx5sC6__n90mp-2v3e9IY0ho0_AtI1qATu8ZdKRUf7qLJcJ89es3xo9kLwDy_nDajqn9jNcrGY9vzgiV12UWdP3RJpezgxd89CMUxTNgrJgmm8fBk7n2-8hQxhYrEi4uGsuLiF/s1600-h/a9+franz-kafka-cp-1259121.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317639780527035586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg51u8R8JTx5sC6__n90mp-2v3e9IY0ho0_AtI1qATu8ZdKRUf7qLJcJ89es3xo9kLwDy_nDajqn9jNcrGY9vzgiV12UWdP3RJpezgxd89CMUxTNgrJgmm8fBk7n2-8hQxhYrEi4uGsuLiF/s400/a9+franz-kafka-cp-1259121.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 362px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 230px;" /></a><br />
These beverages – tea and coffee – that do not cause drunkenness but enforce the sobriety of the drinker, appear by coincidence (?) in three especially absurd trials, discreetly highlighting the non - comprehensible, non – conceivable, non – sense of the three before – mentioned procedures: Thoughts, philosophical meditations and riddles around the tea table, relief after a painful sleepless night, and bleak omens for the incomprehensible accusations without even having yet drunk a hot coffee. <br />
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Is it possible that the sobriety and the limpidity of the hot drink can be completely defeated by the absurdity of a trial that pretends to be striving for the truth, while actually it is attempting to weave a net in which to trap the defendant inside it?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5Iotfgo1WJkNIKjJ4zw6FNsBFS7Ug3WTCwYMcmxUnQH6ON3j6ihsQ6ePWqdMUv3dwvDNPEUaLVKfrS9qHJo973jBOxr9aCRFcnFbaepwz0skRs9xif14hMsg-eN3IVHr4rwG3-QevV-r/s1600-h/a20+proustVIIA30.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317640042687821346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5Iotfgo1WJkNIKjJ4zw6FNsBFS7Ug3WTCwYMcmxUnQH6ON3j6ihsQ6ePWqdMUv3dwvDNPEUaLVKfrS9qHJo973jBOxr9aCRFcnFbaepwz0skRs9xif14hMsg-eN3IVHr4rwG3-QevV-r/s400/a20+proustVIIA30.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 269px;" /></a><br />
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The hot drink that accompanied by country biscuits, the renowned madeleines, leads to a dreamy recreation of reality in search of the Lost Time, has its place also in the uncontrollable course of the dream, i.e. in the nightmarish version of a non reality. <br />
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It is the symbolic landmark of the entrance to another dimension of the flow of time and events: dreamy or nightmarish. Meditating over the steaming hot drink, a product of our civilization meant for pleasure and social gathering, away from the realm of necessity is the boundary between two worlds that overturns the balance, making a crossing between the world of ordinary logic and the world of miracles. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66CccPw19egEz8iqeY4ZvfvGFoIyhlYRVMKSkEqq8buwCyEMjlVDCu8d1fe5RECnC8LQBMvDOYUYKMGE297hFCTZKxYrB0xwKo99uLxRaHfUt_4P41OqTWpO88TOXW-J4FcRBx_rHdo-F/s1600-h/a6+trial.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317640477948686306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66CccPw19egEz8iqeY4ZvfvGFoIyhlYRVMKSkEqq8buwCyEMjlVDCu8d1fe5RECnC8LQBMvDOYUYKMGE297hFCTZKxYrB0xwKo99uLxRaHfUt_4P41OqTWpO88TOXW-J4FcRBx_rHdo-F/s400/a6+trial.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 294px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 283px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieeBSWkh3WiqGS4hgrQc6uUFHTjhTW0TfYzrDZmWKvY4xc6iLmUMior19_I2LF_47MQ50HCxnAabnlhAbuy2pd9nSWcbKXaN5N2VhCEKA5CWa6kcKc3UX1gnGrpiRVhrpp0Mp_oXRRhTiM/s1600-h/alice.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317641184071742354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieeBSWkh3WiqGS4hgrQc6uUFHTjhTW0TfYzrDZmWKvY4xc6iLmUMior19_I2LF_47MQ50HCxnAabnlhAbuy2pd9nSWcbKXaN5N2VhCEKA5CWa6kcKc3UX1gnGrpiRVhrpp0Mp_oXRRhTiM/s400/alice.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
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This works the other way around as well, since the hot drink and its ritual trigger the exit from the world of dreams into the world of reality: <br />
When Alice escapes persecution in Wonderland, chased by the sound of<strong> rattling tea cups</strong>, the sound is gradually transformed into <strong>tinkling sheep bells</strong>. <br />
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This is how she gets out of the dream. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Pictures:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;"><a href="http://aaronpanagos.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/alice-hatter.jpg">tp://aaronpanagos.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/alice-hatter.jpg</a><br />
<a href="http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/greavesandthomas/images-alice/Hatter.gif">http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/greavesandthomas/images-alice/Hatter.gif</a> <br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gkaKRmT76r0/R6oMcmW3h9I/AAAAAAAAAAU/gB-lbTFXnnQ/s1600-h/traduced.jpg">http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gkaKRmT76r0/R6oMcmW3h9I/AAAAAAAAAAU/gB-lbTFXnnQ/s1600-h/traduced.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2008/07/09/franz-kafka-cp-1259121.jpg">http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2008/07/09/franz-kafka-cp-1259121.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://abeonaforum.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/l_etranger_albert_camus.jpg">http://abeonaforum.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/l_etranger_albert_camus.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.agoravox.fr/IMG/camus_2.gif">http://www.agoravox.fr/IMG/camus_2.gif</a> <br />
<a href="http://popartmachine.com/machine/daily/120508/silhouette-compositions/Silhouette-of-man-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee-pop-art-poster-print-5_wallpaper.jpg">http://popartmachine.com/machine/daily/120508/silhouette-compositions/Silhouette-of-man-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee-pop-art-poster-print-5_wallpaper.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://images.broadwayworld.com/upload/37458/alice_in_wonderland_2.jpg">http://images.broadwayworld.com/upload/37458/alice_in_wonderland_2.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/breath/Faces_asthma/VIIA30.html">http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/breath/Faces_asthma/VIIA30.html</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/12.1.html">http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/12.1.html</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.z-amber.com/alice.jpg">http://www.z-amber.com/alice.jpg</a> </span>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-58973606517739903572009-11-26T12:57:00.003+02:002010-01-09T22:29:08.059+02:00The detective who dies, James Bond and birdwatching<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPEmBb-kb6g2HSI6jErnNeGDFTB7rjPHu5qPuD72pDJLlA6A-tcL6VKhLqC3ZW3tY9gTTg34mBwZ64BAEG7yqhX-e2uXm0LZzavppyxMdNNWV635D5fozgmk1cU3-Im4LTRP3iG3Or_4uo/s1600-h/james-bond-pan.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402939286550828626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPEmBb-kb6g2HSI6jErnNeGDFTB7rjPHu5qPuD72pDJLlA6A-tcL6VKhLqC3ZW3tY9gTTg34mBwZ64BAEG7yqhX-e2uXm0LZzavppyxMdNNWV635D5fozgmk1cU3-Im4LTRP3iG3Or_4uo/s400/james-bond-pan.jpg" style="display: block; height: 393px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
A good number of readers of Ian Fleming’s stories already know that the name of his hero, i.e. the name of the secret agent James Bond came up almost by chance, when in the process of writing his first story, his eye fell accidentally on a book by James Bond, the ornithologist, the one who wrote the “Birds of the West Indies”. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4z_2LD7VcVJruNhhVvym3sTI0TFt5IDKfap2Q3yJipO_eILPmNJZMwR4OsdrY5YfTmpq3juxLyUYDNj06iV5ASE_mEFrPLGVjD80ILMBandB_ZofKxLRp1_g1BWO-hfH3MnkWeAyjFmme/s1600-h/birds.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402939408968933794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4z_2LD7VcVJruNhhVvym3sTI0TFt5IDKfap2Q3yJipO_eILPmNJZMwR4OsdrY5YfTmpq3juxLyUYDNj06iV5ASE_mEFrPLGVjD80ILMBandB_ZofKxLRp1_g1BWO-hfH3MnkWeAyjFmme/s400/birds.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
The name appeared to him “masculine” enough and so he chose it for his hero. <br />
From that time on, a number of anecdotal stories have circulated on the confusion of the public about the identity of the “real” James Bond. Apart from the personal charm, the cosmopolitan air and the masculine name, they do not share any other characteristic. Ian Fleming’s hero hasn’t expressed any love for nature and its observation and it is not likely that he ever will. His many adventures have not brought about any significant changes to his personality. He does not become more mature from his experiences. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4U1aNTsQG9O4geeczsjQY7e1aZXUcK8-BzWx_Vv5iZrkj7mNLGvj8xFLxBY9X6WUBoufxJI3wwuKNeFGFd-zeot0u8A0N1wmEZLevjiJys71JhT1ctbthyphenhyphenLXKK5jerlxIwQGygdsNoLE/s1600-h/james-bond-ornitho_1403072c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402939591337587474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4U1aNTsQG9O4geeczsjQY7e1aZXUcK8-BzWx_Vv5iZrkj7mNLGvj8xFLxBY9X6WUBoufxJI3wwuKNeFGFd-zeot0u8A0N1wmEZLevjiJys71JhT1ctbthyphenhyphenLXKK5jerlxIwQGygdsNoLE/s400/james-bond-ornitho_1403072c.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 250px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjKXDDrvikonfg9Upuk1hIpYgSOAQsSybANzeJVM_bj2RX9YqbFtV-Y3LHYoeIGSPEMk8_G3e3jHa80wojXZSBx0FkBYwiIumEvffqOWkZS-Jvi44JeNjC1cgePMFDZ-yEOYRoN-CZ9jf/s1600-h/Fleming007impression.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402939782433319954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjKXDDrvikonfg9Upuk1hIpYgSOAQsSybANzeJVM_bj2RX9YqbFtV-Y3LHYoeIGSPEMk8_G3e3jHa80wojXZSBx0FkBYwiIumEvffqOWkZS-Jvi44JeNjC1cgePMFDZ-yEOYRoN-CZ9jf/s400/Fleming007impression.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 254px;" /></a><br />
He stays eternally young and virile. He is a great lover, exhausting of course the life span of the actors that impersonate him. As soon as the traces of getting on become evident on their looks, they give way to the next James Bond, who is constantly reborn from his ashes. <br />
.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjBr96iaVdQk00tkVIABQWYcYesMjKx0pfW19YU42_5BK3PzNVowCXN2q1a4gMeNJ_N-1POs65qIR9v8LpSzxsjsBjLdPuCJUHcAip96djCuCNh_DUzte7PWq6_xcrsZIFL4Ga7FbeH0q/s1600-h/James-Bond.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402939931645080354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjBr96iaVdQk00tkVIABQWYcYesMjKx0pfW19YU42_5BK3PzNVowCXN2q1a4gMeNJ_N-1POs65qIR9v8LpSzxsjsBjLdPuCJUHcAip96djCuCNh_DUzte7PWq6_xcrsZIFL4Ga7FbeH0q/s400/James-Bond.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 392px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5UsH_JZxc9VnKY0MbUlJ_9y1Kjp1SYQb9AJYc_xwI9Hrv8cKh_oSg1hRnLNnrhyphenhyphenc_18HKkyCrK8k20AQclgPxv80wps0CMcZGdzBPUvQ2mQIBbVf10X-aeyuvRDSiZY8IOkz18_REhHj/s1600-h/Roger-Moore-James-Bond-.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402940087626760290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5UsH_JZxc9VnKY0MbUlJ_9y1Kjp1SYQb9AJYc_xwI9Hrv8cKh_oSg1hRnLNnrhyphenhyphenc_18HKkyCrK8k20AQclgPxv80wps0CMcZGdzBPUvQ2mQIBbVf10X-aeyuvRDSiZY8IOkz18_REhHj/s400/Roger-Moore-James-Bond-.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 323px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wJ-4Bm3n2ry1OP_3eGRQoFK53gI3FLwyq1C7_1Xt61J5GTS10H5ltGu5XoenLrk7uAizUSYYPMceZ9YKxIDF3LcbppGCed1V_l3Gj8YNyViyZocJGAgURLABAH1VZ8a1i5ELzWNIQ1o4/s1600-h/untitled.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402940324042035186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wJ-4Bm3n2ry1OP_3eGRQoFK53gI3FLwyq1C7_1Xt61J5GTS10H5ltGu5XoenLrk7uAizUSYYPMceZ9YKxIDF3LcbppGCed1V_l3Gj8YNyViyZocJGAgURLABAH1VZ8a1i5ELzWNIQ1o4/s400/untitled.bmp" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 322px;" /></a><br />
Contrary to the “undead” James Bond, the hero of Colin Dexter, one of my favourite (British) authors of crime fiction is detective Morse, who, in the course of the successive stories, grows old, gets sick – he is affected by diabetes at the age of sixty – and before retirement, he dies as we read in the final Inspector Morse novel, “The Remorseful day”. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjljUqZt4zh2fDjLfECNMgGzwnFlXULpnryTP8y0FHvFlPzjAo0v1aOSNpF3gVOQRDx14wyNONuZIPDFWjHeU23GHdgh7S7oSSqOKlbL8ra9nvF7SF3Gi7j9OUiZOUUPjliTeV0wLTgGAg-/s1600-h/101544_The-Remorseful-Day_pbilimage1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402940858188902482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjljUqZt4zh2fDjLfECNMgGzwnFlXULpnryTP8y0FHvFlPzjAo0v1aOSNpF3gVOQRDx14wyNONuZIPDFWjHeU23GHdgh7S7oSSqOKlbL8ra9nvF7SF3Gi7j9OUiZOUUPjliTeV0wLTgGAg-/s400/101544_The-Remorseful-Day_pbilimage1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4g9hOLcOTEEZLG8l_nxiWDMbs_vDt7HCUStjzwx3mNszpaKC11z6x35_Z994WM_izHudbbxJwVNC8-eEyW1eAFS2lDgQfmAsuLPTIrR5_nwCqJYU0UCew7A725svpGW8mP_IPMijggSqh/s1600-h/n57144.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941017869244882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4g9hOLcOTEEZLG8l_nxiWDMbs_vDt7HCUStjzwx3mNszpaKC11z6x35_Z994WM_izHudbbxJwVNC8-eEyW1eAFS2lDgQfmAsuLPTIrR5_nwCqJYU0UCew7A725svpGW8mP_IPMijggSqh/s400/n57144.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 251px;" /></a><br />
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Morse, apart from his personal charm that also makes him a great lover, has nothing else in common with Ian Fleming’s hero. He does not exercise, he is a compulsive whiskey drinker, he is an excellent cryptic crossword solver – as his spiritual father, Colin Dexter who named him after his rival in crosswords, Sir Jeremy Morse.<br />
.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7Oi8PkIG5FxTlh01J4iLmkC18hDKrAkOAuEPEH-tv8aSFW8UN5T3WnO4vsyZ2OcZc_TcXIV5g0uskm791AD8tfvss78FghqbDk3u_BDftEqnUj6aYVY5wjft65b19BdjLGIDx_Hj7mlJ/s1600-h/250px-Inspector_Morse.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941172688264370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7Oi8PkIG5FxTlh01J4iLmkC18hDKrAkOAuEPEH-tv8aSFW8UN5T3WnO4vsyZ2OcZc_TcXIV5g0uskm791AD8tfvss78FghqbDk3u_BDftEqnUj6aYVY5wjft65b19BdjLGIDx_Hj7mlJ/s400/250px-Inspector_Morse.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 188px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 250px;" /></a><br />
Chief Inspector Morse is educated, highly cultured, and does not tolerate spelling mistakes in a letter not even in an informal note! Apart from these passions, he has also a soft spot for the music of Richard Wagner. What has this aesthete Detective, the creation of a Cambridge literature graduate that has quit teaching due to his loss of a hearing, to do with Fleming’s secret agent? <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSizDxdIY8jNJ1y0CfZt9oa1-Ww6T1VM29A4TxCTnh9-uCHIPk2Dv71AO90TMXxkpI-XeQQ8m1EawqCaYh5rdz7MBRgvUEaMuc2O-4WVtZ4ww34fPrt7L1k3Wj7AxvuNVB2fhn5qV7TV1Y/s1600-h/50_%2001%20Colin%20Dexter%20around%20time%20of%20diagnosis,%20with%20actor%20John%20Thaw,%20who%20played%20Inspector%20Morse.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941309797424978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSizDxdIY8jNJ1y0CfZt9oa1-Ww6T1VM29A4TxCTnh9-uCHIPk2Dv71AO90TMXxkpI-XeQQ8m1EawqCaYh5rdz7MBRgvUEaMuc2O-4WVtZ4ww34fPrt7L1k3Wj7AxvuNVB2fhn5qV7TV1Y/s400/50_%252001%2520Colin%2520Dexter%2520around%2520time%2520of%2520diagnosis,%2520with%2520actor%2520John%2520Thaw,%2520who%2520played%2520Inspector%2520Morse.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 240px;" /></a><br />
Nothing at all, we would say. On the contrary, his traits make up the picture of the extreme opposite of the secret agent. <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, there is something more, and this is what caused the previous bizarre associations and comparisons. It is the strange relation of Inspector Detective Morse with birdwatching and ornithology. <br />
The origin of his name comes definitely from Sir Jeremy Morse, the famous cryptic crossword solver, that had been the Chancellor of Bristol university before becoming the chairman of Lloyd Bank. (This excludes Samuel Morse, the American of the 18th century, who invented Morse code!) Although Inspector Detective Morse’s “biographers” do not make any allusion to her, there is also one other famous ornithologist, sharing the name Morse: Margaret Morse (1883 – 1974), renowned for her work on the observation of the Song sparrow. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWg8uk-YmzczGGkRERW90uio5pW2UldiMF7cVU02HZvlMYz79RXIC_bn3C2q870U0A3CXJEdqE5jd7ne1-1XHDYDuZQlWNIhihS5g1LrHsTU1zUaKSlYkhY-IBLcDSVHlidhQna84WgnQ/s1600-h/51SXADR2J1L__SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941512607178370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWg8uk-YmzczGGkRERW90uio5pW2UldiMF7cVU02HZvlMYz79RXIC_bn3C2q870U0A3CXJEdqE5jd7ne1-1XHDYDuZQlWNIhihS5g1LrHsTU1zUaKSlYkhY-IBLcDSVHlidhQna84WgnQ/s400/51SXADR2J1L__SL500_AA240_.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 240px;" /></a><br />
Is this a coincidence, or a conscious choice of the author that decided to proceed to an overdetermination, i.e. to name the Inspector after the crossword solver and the ornithologist as well. For this character, who is not a mere caricature and is subjected to changes and development, nothing can be ruled out. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, the case of a coincidence cannot be is not excluded, if we take into account the pterophobia (pteron: feather) of Chief Inspector Morse, in other words his refusal to travel by plane. The Chief Inspector will have nothing to do with flying, high or low, something that is representative of the world of birds. Perhaps by mentioning feathers and flying, even to negate them, the author manages to relate them with the hero even more. This could be a hint to something else, to a deeper connection between them. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0i-Y3znYcZUeAjhChq6JHDBtp_AoPFHDP9Gh7MDXPLgJkfTdeIZUsp2xt390vamoaVT8DriN9Hqz1ARCh5A27Q4Sz9ZFr8TXAKxUmjEd6wSwFbN1sN4F6s5u5r4o11kVlLwNLUe2K27G/s1600-h/ColinDexter.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941710638156114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0i-Y3znYcZUeAjhChq6JHDBtp_AoPFHDP9Gh7MDXPLgJkfTdeIZUsp2xt390vamoaVT8DriN9Hqz1ARCh5A27Q4Sz9ZFr8TXAKxUmjEd6wSwFbN1sN4F6s5u5r4o11kVlLwNLUe2K27G/s400/ColinDexter.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 180px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 150px;" /></a><br />
There is a scene in the first chapter of the final Inspector Morse novel, where the status quo of all the previous books is subverted. This scene depicts the swan song of Morse, when he contemplates from his window the flowers of his garden. We witness there, the radical changes in his character. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrjDrp-dekROJRqhh6AX_DKAOvmQqNmlKM7_EFOarJ8B2XFwTnASFX23KSLFmlaS7UMpudg0jQNYTpd9GYRvqKHCiudnOUt1g71q0QAKUFbzJEhcax9iosb58dYAZnWkulqnI2qafzGSJ/s1600-h/morse.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402941880767808002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrjDrp-dekROJRqhh6AX_DKAOvmQqNmlKM7_EFOarJ8B2XFwTnASFX23KSLFmlaS7UMpudg0jQNYTpd9GYRvqKHCiudnOUt1g71q0QAKUFbzJEhcax9iosb58dYAZnWkulqnI2qafzGSJ/s400/morse.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 323px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
The flowers first: <br />
<br />
The relation of Morse – a man of erudition – with flowers is ambiguous. It is determined by his “cultivated” character and embraces the knowledge of their names, as well as their position and their importance in the works of the great poets. This, together with their mythological symbolism, make “the violets that are easily fanned”, or the “globed peonies”, or the meadows with daffodils familiar to him But the relation ends here! Do not ask him to recognize real flowers in a garden. His flowers are the flowers of literature. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcSNIOT5EiCymL12ONCHvoDoDFhit-rN-Ihd7ZxaHnAyfVNEicVVArCeHKxX-z_m0xQtVthhp4IEMPOI9481p6FjCz03UEuHeaaW4OS4KXh17SOwvonXlwRZnWf6tnK4xQDTErVXskon6/s1600-h/1071%20Amherst.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402942141850190882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcSNIOT5EiCymL12ONCHvoDoDFhit-rN-Ihd7ZxaHnAyfVNEicVVArCeHKxX-z_m0xQtVthhp4IEMPOI9481p6FjCz03UEuHeaaW4OS4KXh17SOwvonXlwRZnWf6tnK4xQDTErVXskon6/s400/1071%2520Amherst.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
Morse in his maturity, becomes aware of this deficit in the contact with the real world and decides to fill in the gap. This will be done by attempting not to observe the world of flowers but the world of birds. <br />
<br />
Thus, at a mature age, he decides to engage in the observation of the world of birds. He even thinks that if he could be reborn, he would prefer to be an ornithologist. <br />
For him “life would be poorer if birds would cease to sing”. This is what the man who used to enjoy listening to Wagner, wholeheartedly admits. He makes a subscription to “Birdwatching” and borrows RSPB Birdwatcher’s Guide from Summertown Library. He buys the necessary equipment, binoculars and seeds in order to attract the birds in his yard. It goes without saying that this enlightenment and love for nature will not be able to get Chief Inspector Morse out of his house. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTctbrf92DpDAaZ4xGq_eAYOfn-SgGeHth4FLvXB3D34_BDSogcblgUgKYAlE_uVcJPnQiU7p-8VivLcGLzHD4n0zA70BbsKWEZg5zK6hxzS4xjI6MxDpzEeVoD_aKC0mUxDyURR2uTNCD/s1600-h/186707426_c017614e58.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402942331252296770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTctbrf92DpDAaZ4xGq_eAYOfn-SgGeHth4FLvXB3D34_BDSogcblgUgKYAlE_uVcJPnQiU7p-8VivLcGLzHD4n0zA70BbsKWEZg5zK6hxzS4xjI6MxDpzEeVoD_aKC0mUxDyURR2uTNCD/s400/186707426_c017614e58.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 302px;" /></a><br />
This is how the last novel with a living Chief Inspector Morse starts, in his new capacity as a birdwatcher, giving new meaning to his name and unexpected turns to the plot. The mention of the song of the birds is a tribute to the song sparrow and the renowned – although unknown to the general public - American ornithologist Margaret Morse, who was born in Amherst – Massachussets, where Emily Dickinson, confined to her gardens, had lived. Margaret Morse contributed in a unique way to the study of bird and child behaviour since she managed to extend her results from the observation of birds to the study of language acquisition of children. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7DK3AcfFsTqqdyfGrNd130fj2KpLspOuUJ6d8cQ74w6KV2AQUAQmhy0DTdpCS1edn6J7LRDS6mqsrRUWB5S5tSMlwNU5Y9-tQoUxI6VWVk27BY0RKvLcYVLT3a2ffK6QX2tsy0qOdIiI/s1600-h/f3c9c0eedef8a0b8_landing.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402942892269817586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7DK3AcfFsTqqdyfGrNd130fj2KpLspOuUJ6d8cQ74w6KV2AQUAQmhy0DTdpCS1edn6J7LRDS6mqsrRUWB5S5tSMlwNU5Y9-tQoUxI6VWVk27BY0RKvLcYVLT3a2ffK6QX2tsy0qOdIiI/s400/f3c9c0eedef8a0b8_landing.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 276px;" /></a><br />
If Colin Dexter, the writer, was not so much a man of letters, we would be absolutely certain that Morse’s naming is mere coincidence. We now think that it might rather be a literary construction, set up by the author of the book. Or is it not? <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, we can trace some clues in this case that are leading us beyond a witticism expressed just to parallel – even in retrospect – Morse’s naming with that of James Bond’s. As if detectives and secret agents were meant, to be named after famous ornithologists! <br />
<br />
What are these clues:<br />
<br />
In the first chapter, we witness a representation, a correspondence of the small gardens of Oxford with the gardens of Amherst made in a masterly manner. This is done by mentioning the famous verses of Oscar Wilde, “a little tent of blue/that prisoners call sky” from “The ballad of the Reading Gaol” in relation with the small gardens of Oxford, as seen by a person confined in his house. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWhyphenhyphenqj7fES73xIel3sRoRd8pnL7vu4B2pvdWpdAmXvXoUjoEu7qNKecLszvMmwQjasxwpL1oKSTo3Z9LTPTd0TW7fPwyUimsmphw6gWdwXqAKb099rqWfInrNE3DmN16TOhhyphenhyphenP9OFWpByA/s1600-h/oscar-wilde-pic.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402942498896341842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWhyphenhyphenqj7fES73xIel3sRoRd8pnL7vu4B2pvdWpdAmXvXoUjoEu7qNKecLszvMmwQjasxwpL1oKSTo3Z9LTPTd0TW7fPwyUimsmphw6gWdwXqAKb099rqWfInrNE3DmN16TOhhyphenhyphenP9OFWpByA/s400/oscar-wilde-pic.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 345px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 340px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6rPdXerDSEkYxkHnJGl_YAaLEzTikJI5pZEFrMHnz6V65hrYdOho4OQ3Z9E2mLiBNmSxeGwyGc95If3DmMZX5DOp6LuKM4axytZSPEBa3N1VomZmN9cqZcPKkdHOtvhgYGpPkzITLkrg5/s1600-h/Emily%20Dickinson.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402942721417141010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6rPdXerDSEkYxkHnJGl_YAaLEzTikJI5pZEFrMHnz6V65hrYdOho4OQ3Z9E2mLiBNmSxeGwyGc95If3DmMZX5DOp6LuKM4axytZSPEBa3N1VomZmN9cqZcPKkdHOtvhgYGpPkzITLkrg5/s400/Emily%2520Dickinson.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 285px;" /></a><br />
The confinement and the gardens of Oxford is an allusion to the confined poet in the gardens, but this poet is Emily Dickinson of Amherst and from there, the ground is prepared for the Amherst lady of the birds, ie Margaret Morse. <br />
From his garden of Oxford, the confined Inspector Detective – poet, realizes as he advances towards the end of his life that from now on, he will not only read but he will observe. In a way, he never used evidence for his detective work. He heard people’s stories and was drew conclusions – without direct participation - by exhausting the power of his mind, making random connections and analyzing what the witnesses testified and the narratives of his assistants as well. <br />
With this new need for a change, expressing his need for a second chance, to live as an ornithologist – a bird watcher – the mortal Morse recovers a new, a deeper relation with his name and with the core of his existence. <br />
<br />
PS<br />
I came across a reference to a book about Detective Morse, just before uploading the English version of this post. I have not yet read the book but I am sure that it must be very revealing, since … it is about Detective Morse. <br />
Nevertheless, I am writing about it right now, because of the name of its author. The title of the book is “The World of Inspector Morse: London, MacMillan, 1998” and the author is: Christopher Bird!!!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuG6LiUHOUw7DWDp3YeF6Py58vfPqwKtfJ0VSmCb_r9PnCA-JxkyjYqvqrMZTvgB_BFPoVXUsaBFaQpdipfoTZcwBAjSHwJKJ4DNHKe82D3cMX1XbgaDjbOUczcFm6k2go7toIcRZlVwvo/s1600-h/hpim0436.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402943487055195858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuG6LiUHOUw7DWDp3YeF6Py58vfPqwKtfJ0VSmCb_r9PnCA-JxkyjYqvqrMZTvgB_BFPoVXUsaBFaQpdipfoTZcwBAjSHwJKJ4DNHKe82D3cMX1XbgaDjbOUczcFm6k2go7toIcRZlVwvo/s400/hpim0436.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 299px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<strong>Sources</strong>: <br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/5320004/Bonds-unsung-heroes-the-original-James-Bond.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/5320004/Bonds-unsung-heroes-the-original-James-Bond.html</a> <br />
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<strong>Images </strong>:<br />
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<a href="http://fatfinch.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/birds.jpg">http://fatfinch.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/birds.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fleming007impression.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fleming007impression.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.ilike.org.uk/images/james-bond-pan.jpg">http://www.ilike.org.uk/images/james-bond-pan.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01403/james-bond-ornitho_1403072c.jpg">http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01403/james-bond-ornitho_1403072c.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.diabetes-stories.com/img/interview/50/50.%2001%20Colin%20Dexter%20around%20time%20of%20diagnosis,%20with%20actor%20John%20Thaw,%20who%20played%20Inspector%20Morse.jpg">http://www.diabetes-stories.com/img/interview/50/50.%2001%20Colin%20Dexter%20around%20time%20of%20diagnosis,%20with%20actor%20John%20Thaw,%20who%20played%20Inspector%20Morse.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.red-disability.org/famous-modem/ColinDexter.jpg">http://www.red-disability.org/famous-modem/ColinDexter.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.roksan.co.uk/images/morse.jpg">http://www.roksan.co.uk/images/morse.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/26/Inspector_Morse.jpg/250px-Inspector_Morse.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/26/Inspector_Morse.jpg/250px-Inspector_Morse.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n11/n57144.jpgm">http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n11/n57144.jpgm</a> <br />
<a href="http://images.shopping.indiatimes.com/images/product/101544_The-Remorseful-Day_pbilimage1.jpg">http://images.shopping.indiatimes.com/images/product/101544_The-Remorseful-Day_pbilimage1.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/british_poets/oscar_wilde/oscar-wilde-pic.jpg">http://www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/british_poets/oscar_wilde/oscar-wilde-pic.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.writespirit.net/authors/emily_dickinson/Emily%20Dickinson.JPG">http://www.writespirit.net/authors/emily_dickinson/Emily%20Dickinson.JPG</a> <br />
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/72/186707426_c017614e58.jpg?v=0 <a href="http://www.buffaloinbloom.com/Gardens09/1071%20Amherst.JPG">http://www.buffaloinbloom.com/Gardens09/1071%20Amherst.JPG</a> <br />
<a href="http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=f3c9c0eedef8a0b8&q=Margaret%20Morse%20Nice&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMargaret%2BMorse%2BNice%26hl%3Del%26lr%3D%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ELGR258%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1">http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=f3c9c0eedef8a0b8&q=Margaret%20Morse%20Nice&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMargaret%2BMorse%2BNice%26hl%3Del%26lr%3D%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ELGR258%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1</a> <br />
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SXADR2J1L._SL500_AA240_.jpg">http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SXADR2J1L._SL500_AA240_.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://iamnotamorningperson.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/hpim0436.jpg">http://iamnotamorningperson.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/hpim0436.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg01APst-m3SnyWHN57pmMUMl_lifXwSB16wrpNHJ8_4qaKZbed0tDuu8KaxWe6Jw8ERjQzC_WXAGVbsOXXN92bvnPupeU78zZhUyEFZyJAHZKqF4fIWVGYv8vrc8TtCxW_7AbJUOxc5JA/s400/James-Bond.jpg">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg01APst-m3SnyWHN57pmMUMl_lifXwSB16wrpNHJ8_4qaKZbed0tDuu8KaxWe6Jw8ERjQzC_WXAGVbsOXXN92bvnPupeU78zZhUyEFZyJAHZKqF4fIWVGYv8vrc8TtCxW_7AbJUOxc5JA/s400/James-Bond.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.topnews.in/light/files/James-Bond.jpg">http://www.topnews.in/light/files/James-Bond.jpg</a> <br />
<a href="http://sportsmansdaily.com/afterdark/wp-content/uploads/Roger-Moore-James-Bond-.jpg">http://sportsmansdaily.com/afterdark/wp-content/uploads/Roger-Moore-James-Bond-.jpg</a> <br />
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Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, GreeceΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-67506654309346716992009-11-13T00:19:00.004+02:002009-11-13T00:28:19.442+02:00The dead princess in the medieval castle of Limassol<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOoGiKkvw0biJDDYvZlyZq3dPL7AQRTVyz_kwmCpXY2s2FqN8kTZsWgpxmeO1QyrUI-ZI7Wl2UPlR2mcStZRb_N1pcJWMklXEQEafT8olt3rox1HddkXcCHnpzETpPOL8pcFMOpTnw1f3x/s1600-h/N13_5Hypnos.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254026979020431538" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOoGiKkvw0biJDDYvZlyZq3dPL7AQRTVyz_kwmCpXY2s2FqN8kTZsWgpxmeO1QyrUI-ZI7Wl2UPlR2mcStZRb_N1pcJWMklXEQEafT8olt3rox1HddkXcCHnpzETpPOL8pcFMOpTnw1f3x/s400/N13_5Hypnos.jpg" /></a><br />The story of Theseus and Ariadne is a double story of deception. She betrayed both her father and her brother because she has been blinded by her love for the Athenian ephebe. On the other hand, although on escaping the labyrinth he took her with him in his ship on the way back from Crete, he has irresponsibly abandoned her on the island of Naxos. There she met Dionysos, the one that had always loved her and was competing for her from the beginning. In another version of the story, Theseus abandoned Ariadne in Cyprus, although she was pregnant and carrying his child. She was left to the care of the women of Amathous, a city located on the southern coast of the island, twenty five kilometers to the east of contemporary Limassol. Ariadne waited for Theseus, she waited and waited in vain for him to come back. Tradition says that the women of Amathous, to comfort her, told her that her beloved was expected to come at any moment. They said that he had sent her a letter with a sailor whose boat got shipwrecked and thus the letter was lost in the waves…<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbImhihBlo18TdQBH7pLmMeHjzWyoz486Tuh0lGD3AmxR0oVzmMXUltgGZuVKyD57GRyLdiYoBwIDb-HVr1VRWpvjpAwgc-kWWoH_Vf8-6pVlNucKDgowKUpJ9bXiAGd5rE7jQq_uJULj/s1600-h/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+029.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254027403016934322" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbImhihBlo18TdQBH7pLmMeHjzWyoz486Tuh0lGD3AmxR0oVzmMXUltgGZuVKyD57GRyLdiYoBwIDb-HVr1VRWpvjpAwgc-kWWoH_Vf8-6pVlNucKDgowKUpJ9bXiAGd5rE7jQq_uJULj/s400/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+029.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />Ariadne waited until the time came to give birth to her child. Unfortunately she died during labour. For her death people say that “the arrows of Artemis found her”. Artemis’s arrows, according to Homer, bring a sudden death to women in labour.<br />The sad story of this Ariadne ends here. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Amathous, did not want to forget the princess from Knossos, cast by her fate on their island. They began to honour her with a strange ritual that was, nevertheless, not so unusual for the morals of antiquity. This ritual made Plato of classical Athens uncomfortable and for this reason he had forbidden it in his “Republic”.<br />In an Ideal City, according to Plato, men are not allowed to imitate women in labour. This is a ritual that some societies in Australia and Africa may still practice. It is called “couvade”, male – labour, where a man imitates the labour pains. This is what the inhabitants of Amathous decided to do, to remember Ariadne – Afrodite by, the Princess that had honoured them by going into labour and dying in their city. This is mentioned by Plutarch in his Theseus and this is how the information has reached our era.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaIluwrzVuuuyQz5Zwd0UUt0VJyDZIDc0Q-Znn0f6CJBqrJL5Z6ihhh49LlzY11uC0GmHoZH_KaxHgy3vsT_htyIJk5Q8CkL9IOYU3LrE0mq2kcQ17w6_mlgy33hDDTlshComipelwMyf/s1600-h/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+038.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254027801342374962" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaIluwrzVuuuyQz5Zwd0UUt0VJyDZIDc0Q-Znn0f6CJBqrJL5Z6ihhh49LlzY11uC0GmHoZH_KaxHgy3vsT_htyIJk5Q8CkL9IOYU3LrE0mq2kcQ17w6_mlgy33hDDTlshComipelwMyf/s400/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+038.jpg" /></a><br />The pregnant woman, a sacrosanct person in greek tradition, still figures in the poems of Oria castle. Oria (Orea: beautiful in Greek) castle is a labyrinthine castle – city, taken by treachery, according to the study of the Greek anthropologist Panagis Lekatsas. During the siege of an inexpugnable fortress the traitor appears: A pregnant woman asking for shelter, a young man in disguise.<br />The inhabitants of the besieged city – castle yield to his/her plea and open the castle gate. This is their destruction. We should not forget that the Troyan horse, the symbol of treachery that contributed to the capture of Troy, was in a way pregnant with the Achaeans, since they were hidden in his belly.<br /><br />I was in Limassol last year. I did not see the traces that the order of myth might have left in ancient Amathous.<br />The story of Ariadne’s death and the strange gesture of the inhabitants of Amathous was constantly in my mind. I have carried this story with me for many years, ever since I was engaged in a study of labyrinths and the strange dance – map of the labyrinth, the crane dance. The crane dance, taught by Dedalus to Theseus companions on the island of Delos, shows the way out, if you are in the labyrinth. It is a map – choreography.<br /><br />Ariadne’s death is dark, but always present. I cannot forget her.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmR_6GYSUlBmiYDLx_i34pdk4fSlsnlIvQLeSOwpQdI5ODHer1rWVWPTK0V-50j-cABlyYi3_4lIIIk8fF9COAvE6bjNU_4JXyjj1iZoBL1AUWyNx7aiH2iBweMtT7ke7ENskRSeLFFJe/s1600-h/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+036.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254028729928013842" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmR_6GYSUlBmiYDLx_i34pdk4fSlsnlIvQLeSOwpQdI5ODHer1rWVWPTK0V-50j-cABlyYi3_4lIIIk8fF9COAvE6bjNU_4JXyjj1iZoBL1AUWyNx7aiH2iBweMtT7ke7ENskRSeLFFJe/s400/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+036.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The visit to the Medieval castle of Limassol, reminded me unexpectedly of the Cretan Princess. Among the burial stones of the knights and monks exhibited in the museum, there is one dedicated to a woman. She must have been of noble descent, since she was buried in the castle yard. One cannot discern very well the engravings on the stone, but there is a framed drawing next to it to help the visitor that has not a “trained” eye to see the baby that she carries in her belly clearly. The dead princess is pregnant and she deserves a burial stone. Like the women in Kerameikos cemetery in Athens that had died in labour. Like Ariadne.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_MDjcu6At5sqNda-238EsnC_MOBEBFpTR0sTt50FJAWyNOSC3IRKjako9yYb3hXZE5Xm2WrY2hii0h12NWYoJQWPP7kzy3WFniFITegl7WRVEoJPet7OLw-gV8cqz3LiqCSTis8zJmEfV/s1600-h/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+037.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254029381603065730" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_MDjcu6At5sqNda-238EsnC_MOBEBFpTR0sTt50FJAWyNOSC3IRKjako9yYb3hXZE5Xm2WrY2hii0h12NWYoJQWPP7kzy3WFniFITegl7WRVEoJPet7OLw-gV8cqz3LiqCSTis8zJmEfV/s400/%CE%9B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%82+037.jpg" /></a> Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, Greece<br /><p></p><p></p>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-88569970798122542132009-10-30T11:29:00.005+02:002009-10-30T14:35:36.958+02:00Walt and Sir Walter, Paul Auster and Paul Benjamin: absorbing an invisible brother<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBix-9b4izx_4ukRUVOS2HPu1fTEAR0dbU9Ui_f3bJpWMtxDJeQq2i-liaTjbU_5MEkEYl1KoRMPSKa-koue-vmMpS3CkuCAp7dyimtxGcytAWx3pAFPmZrvrUUnHERDgcXBA0fyNRXKE8/s1600-h/mr+vertigo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296102861964021650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 258px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBix-9b4izx_4ukRUVOS2HPu1fTEAR0dbU9Ui_f3bJpWMtxDJeQq2i-liaTjbU_5MEkEYl1KoRMPSKa-koue-vmMpS3CkuCAp7dyimtxGcytAWx3pAFPmZrvrUUnHERDgcXBA0fyNRXKE8/s400/mr+vertigo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />That’s how Paul Auster was taken by the study of the figure of Sir Walter Raleigh, the British poet and adventurer that had charmed Queen Elisabeth and introduced – as people say – tobacco in England. His aim was to embody all the properties of Sir Walter into his person and he did so, by encasing the narratives for Sir Walter into his stories.<br /><br /><blockquote>“Sir Walter Raleigh was the most perfect man who ever lived ”<br /></blockquote><br />says Aesop, in Paul Auster’s novel “Vertigo”. Aesop, a little boy from Ethiopia, tells stories to Walter Rawley who is a nine year old boy, whose name is homophonic to that of the English noble man. In “Vertigo”, little Walt, taught by the mysterious teacher Master Yechudi, will practice the art of flying and will violate the laws of nature. This violation will be the result of a painful apprenticeship and a moulding of little Walt in Master Yechudi’s hands. This reshaping takes place from nothing, or in better words from the rough prima materia of his previous existence. This looks like the making of Pinocchio by the hands of Master Gepetto. The analogy of this book with the story of Pinocchio is stressed by Paul Auster himself in an interview for the Greek National Television (1). Little Walt corresponds to Pinochio, Master Yehuddi to Master Gepetto and Mrs Whitherspoon to the Blue Fairy.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzo38xMK5EmjgiEabVFfAhyvXf-0XoPa2FUbFqwRhYB195wJB4fus8vL-f1-WQv3y1JZdQKZY3khneL4Y8nw6he0Uj2d4eC-1DxtZ4WjZNand2tu2C_EDjHlDbRmgt8tmBdXFV6i-GPWA/s1600-h/435px-Pinocchio.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296102969059840818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 290px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzo38xMK5EmjgiEabVFfAhyvXf-0XoPa2FUbFqwRhYB195wJB4fus8vL-f1-WQv3y1JZdQKZY3khneL4Y8nw6he0Uj2d4eC-1DxtZ4WjZNand2tu2C_EDjHlDbRmgt8tmBdXFV6i-GPWA/s400/435px-Pinocchio.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />While Master Yechudi was modeling his body, Aesop, the little Ethiopian boy, was moulding his character towards perfection.<br />According to Aesop, Sir Walter Raleigh had been<br /><br /><blockquote>“The best poet of his day; he was a scholar, a scientist, and a free thinker; he<br />was the number one lover of women in all of England”<br /></blockquote>The above, are the qualities of the most perfect man, the model character.<br /><br />Little Walter, listened to the sweet voice of Aesop, taking a rest from the strenuous exercises he was being submitted, to master the ability to fly. Aesop’s voice unfolded the hundreds of stories that the boy had in his mind. Thus, Walt learned about Sinbad the Sailor, Jack the Giant Killer, Wandering Ulysses, Billy the Kid, Paul Bunyan, Lancelot and King Arthur. Most of all, he was captivated by the figure of the 16th century hero that had the same name as himself. Aesop, to prove that he wasn’t making it up, had shown him his picture:<br />Showing the picture of Sir Walter to Walt triggers a strange process of character moulding. Ever since, little Walt begins absorbing the image of Sir Walter. By observing it, he starts embodying all its properties, as if carrying an invisible brother inside him.<br />In his own words:<br /><br /><blockquote>“I remember how shocked I was when he told me I had a famous name, the name of a real-life adventurer and hero. To prove that he wasn’t making it up, Aesop went<br />to the bookshelf and pulled down a thick volume with Sir Walter’s picture in it.<br />I had never seen more elegant face, and I soon fell into the habit of studying<br />it for ten or fifteen minutes every day. I loved the pointy beard and razor<br />sharp eyes, the pearl earring fixed in his left lobe. It was the face of a<br />pirate, a genuine shashbuckling knight, and from that day forth, I carried Sir<br />Walter inside me as a second self, an invisible brother to stand with me through<br />thick and thin.” </blockquote><br /><br />The story of Sir Walter Raleigh is repeated in Paul Auster’s movie “Smoke”. In “Smoke”, Paul Benjamin - a writer - is a regular in Auggie Wren’s tobacco shop and both enjoy each other’s company.<br />Paul Benjamin’s name and surname come from Paul Auster’s name and middle name (Paul Benjamin Auster is the writer’s full name).<br />The story of Sir Walter Raleigh is recounted by Paul Benjamin: In this case, instead of Walt Rawley, it is Paul Benjamin - the writer’s alter ego – that feels the admitation towards Sir Walter Raleigh. Paul Benjamin says that Sir Walter has been the one who called Queen Elisabeth I “Bessie”. He would bet that the Queen had definitely smoked a couple of cigars with him in the royal court. A patron of the tobacco shop breaks in the conversation and mentions the incident with the cloak: It was Sir Walter’s cloak that he himself had laid on the ground, over a pothole full of mud, in a chivalrous gesture, to protect the Queen from soiling her dress.<br /><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ef718NTkzF8&hl=" width="425" height="344" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" fs="1" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed><br />The scene with the cloak and the puddle is shown in the movie “Elisabeth, the Golden Age” where we witness the strange attraction that Sir Walter (Clive Owen) exerted on the Queen, as well as his secret marriage with her Lady of Honour, who – incidentally - had the same name as the queen: Bessie. What a coincidence with the names this is! Or rather a merging of identities?<br /><br /><br />Walt – Walter<br />Paul Benjamin – Paul Benjamin Auster<br />Elisabeth – “Bessie”<br /><br />Nevertheless, it is not only the chivalrous behaviour of Sir Walter Raleigh that touches Paul Benjamin (Auster). It is his scientific curiosity and his effort to weigh the smoke – “It is as if you want to weigh the human soul” – he and Augy Wren, the owner of the tobacco shop, remark.<br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cs4InUkViYQ&hl=" width="425" height="344" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" fs="1" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed><br /><br /><br /><br />With a metaphysical boldness, Sir Walter attempts to weigh a cigar before and after smoking it, so that by subtracting the weight of the ashes from the initial weight of the cigar, he might measure the weight of this delicate substance, responsible for the “sober” exhilaration, “the liberation from all thoughts” as Alvaro de Campos(*) recounts in the Tobacco Shop (La Tabaccaria).<br /><br />The relation between Fernando Pessoa and Paul Auster will be the subject of another post. For the moment, our thoughts are solely with Sir Walter Raleigh, the adventurer, the explorer, the founder of the colony of Virginia, the favourite man of Queen Elisabeth, imprisoned for so many years in the Tower of London, the man who spoke so bravely to the executioner. (2)<br /><br />They say that in one of his expeditions to the mythical city of Eldorado, he had gotten lost, or he had lost the map of the colony of Roanake. This loss cost him his freedom again. In fact, he had been released from the Tower of London in order to take part in this expedition. Captain John Smith from Willoughby had also been involved in that expedition. Captain John Smith was the one with whom Pocahontas, the daughter of the Algonquin chief, in the area that was to become the colony of Virginia.<br /><blockquote></blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTbcn31CaaajeJgluJ5o6IciKYS3YSdzyVf3kALIf8Ia4ny0U62HlvYmOTf3ueSafNxJiRaHYfje5rlFBuGUmwyaX_EQm3-lMurPm3J4V5KCwCeXAMCEd7Rb8g7M8MOAKjCJuInEG2Mzd/s1600-h/pocahontas.jpg"><p></p></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTbcn31CaaajeJgluJ5o6IciKYS3YSdzyVf3kALIf8Ia4ny0U62HlvYmOTf3ueSafNxJiRaHYfje5rlFBuGUmwyaX_EQm3-lMurPm3J4V5KCwCeXAMCEd7Rb8g7M8MOAKjCJuInEG2Mzd/s1600-h/pocahontas.jpg"><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296103274388662290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 270px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTbcn31CaaajeJgluJ5o6IciKYS3YSdzyVf3kALIf8Ia4ny0U62HlvYmOTf3ueSafNxJiRaHYfje5rlFBuGUmwyaX_EQm3-lMurPm3J4V5KCwCeXAMCEd7Rb8g7M8MOAKjCJuInEG2Mzd/s400/pocahontas.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><em><br /></em><blockquote><em>“Aesop recounted the story of the cloak and the puddle, the search for Eldorado,<br />the lost colony at Roanoke, the thirteen years in the Tower of London, the brave<br />words he uttered at his beheading. He was the best poet of his day; He was a<br />scholar, a scientist, a free thinker, he was the number one lover od women in<br />all of England. “Think of you and me put together”, Aesop said, and you begin to<br />have an idea of who he was. A man with my brains and your guts, and tall<br />and handsome as well – that’s Sir Walter Raleigh, the most perfect man who ever<br />lived”<br /></em></blockquote><em><br /></em>The workshop of encasing makes a synthesis of all narrations, takes a little bit of you, a little bit of me, and creates a unique perrsona: Paul Benjamin Auster, the tall and handsome adventurer, the writer. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl1G4-FB76chdzKrP1k2YxMF83LkTSUJLz1PkjsisWhnanqMjha-E2yXKO5uh210Sgze-JlfNE1Gtf0mbl8YATxZxXF_r3FKJOWbvUmXjBuRz2C31V2XKNdfa-bF9rz8tQ84qWn04E_gSG/s1600-h/paul_auster_1.jpg"><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296103531546399170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 382px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl1G4-FB76chdzKrP1k2YxMF83LkTSUJLz1PkjsisWhnanqMjha-E2yXKO5uh210Sgze-JlfNE1Gtf0mbl8YATxZxXF_r3FKJOWbvUmXjBuRz2C31V2XKNdfa-bF9rz8tQ84qWn04E_gSG/s400/paul_auster_1.jpg" border="0" /></em></a><br /><em><br /><br />(*) Alvaro de Campos is one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms.<br /><br />(1) </em><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/me_verigo.html"><em>http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/me_verigo.html</em></a><em><br /><br />(2) He was decapitated despite having a high temperature. Since he was quivering from his fever they say that he told the executioner: “Let us start. I do not want people to believe that I am trembling from fear” He was allowed to see the cutting edge of the axe. He said: “This is indeed a strong medicine. It is sharp but efficient”<br /><br /><br /><br /></em><br /><br /><em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(1) </em><a href="http://www.greektube.org/content/view/49556/2/"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><em>Κεραίες της εποχής μας - Paul Auster</em></span></a><em>. </em><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><br /></span><br /><em>(2) He was decapitated despite having a high temperature. Since he was quivering from his fever they say that he told the executioner: “Let us start. I do not want people to believe that I am trembling from fear” He was allowed to see the cutting edge of the axe. He said: “This is indeed a strong medicine. It is sharp but efficient”<br /><br /><strong>Sources </strong>:<br /></em><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/mr_vertigo.html"><em>http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/mr_vertigo.html</em></a><em> </em><p></p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh"><em>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh</em></a><em><br /></em><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/raleigh_walter.shtml"><em>http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/raleigh_walter.shtml</em></a><em><br /></em><a href="http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/The%20Lost%20Colony.htm"><em>http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/The%20Lost%20Colony.htm</em></a><em><br /></em><a href="http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/88/83388-004-CCD928C2.jpg"><em>http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/88/83388-004-CCD928C2.jpg</em></a></p></div><p></p><p></p><p><em>Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, Greece<br /><br /></em></p>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-21551432349192862092009-10-15T20:41:00.003+03:002012-11-15T15:41:54.497+02:00When Ngugi wa Thiongo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2009, i.e. in a different world…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Ngugi wa Thiongo, the Kenyan novelist, the theorist of post – colonial literature, the one that in middle age abandoned his Christian name «James» in order to take back the traditional «Ngugi», lies in his bed in the presidential suite of the Grand Hotel Sheraton in Stockholm. His wife Njeeri is on the sightseeing tour organized by the ladies of the Public relations of the Academy, in the Old City, Gamla Stan.</div>
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The Public relations officer showed a lot of understanding when the distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature at the university of California, Irvine, declared that he would rather spend a quiet afternoon, alone in his hotel. The trip from across the Atlantic had worn him out, and these people showed that they honestly respected his frame of mind. He was in a mood for recollection.</div>
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He likes the Swedes. They are smiling, polite, discreet. He has spent a whole year in this country – when was that? – in 1986, in order to study film at the Dramatiska Institute of Stockholm. He remembers the smiling faces in the subway, the blond young men with the long coats and the caps on their heads helping him to lift his suitcase. They had in fact invited him to their club, where he had given a talk about his book. Twenty years had passed since his first novels “The river between”</div>
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and “A grain of wheat” had appeared. He was already known in Europe: A writer, a professor of literature – expelled nevertheless from the university of Nairobi for his political beliefs. His book “The devil on the cross”</div>
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published in the English language in 1982 had entirely been written in prison, on toilet paper. He had been imprisoned by the authoritarian regime of Arap Moi because he had decided to write and present in Gikuyu (the language of the Kikuyu ethnic group) his theatrical play “I will marry when I want”.</div>
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<em><em>“Why was I not detained before when I wrote in English?”(*),</em> he thought. “<em> It reminds me of my childhood, when the teacher had caught us not speaking English at school and forced us to stick a sign on our backs, saying “I am an ass”. As a result, many children, especially the girls, afraid that they might forget themselves and speak in heir mother tongue, started to speak English even outside school.</em></em></div>
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<em>Mau Mau history was always an inspiration to me. I am amazed at how a people who didn’t even have neighbouring bases could sustain a struggle for years. I have come to admire the courage (*)</em> </div>
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<em>I have written a theatrical play entitled “The trial of Dedan Kimathi” about the arrest, the trial and the execution of their leader, even though he was sick and with a high temperature.</em></div>
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<em><em>In my novels written shortly after the independence, I have described what happened in the concentration camps where the British occupation forces have enclosed, using barbed wire, entire villages. All these literary descriptions, are nothing compared to what Caroline Elkins</em></em></div>
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<em><em>from Harvard university discloses in her book “Imperial Reckoning” (or “Britain’s Gulag”). Perhaps it is the mention to Gulag that sensitized the Academy and they offered me the Nobel Prize. They are very sensitive to the persecution of dissidents and political refugees. It is not by accident that Solzhenitsyn, that talked about the Soviet Gulag also, received the Nobel prize in Literature.”</em></em></div>
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Anyway, Ngugi’s case is completely different. Who cares about the ex- socialist countries of Eastern Europe? It is said that even the bloodstained state of Ceauşescu collapsed due to the forged pictures of dead people circulated by the secret services of the West…</div>
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The prison book is one of his favourites.<br />
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He managed to achieve the delicate balance between political commitment and the search for a new literary form, using traditional means. This novel that was written like an epic poem, is an allegory built with Kikuyu proverbs and riddles.</div>
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And now, after twenty years, he finds himself in Stockholm again. He has missed the long walks in Skansen Zoo. He remembers walking there alone, deep in his thoughts, with his head bent towards the ground.</div>
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The gathering of the animals at Skansen come to his mind: the animals have arrived in order to watch the famous crane dance.</div>
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He had been a witness of this dance in his country, Kenya. The Dane Baroness Karen Blixen in her book “Out of Africa” had described this circular dance with admiration. It was the same dance that the Swedish teacher Selma Lagerlöf - also a Nobel Prize in Literature – saw through the eyes of her hero, in “The wonderful adventures of Nils Holgerson”.</div>
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Skansen with its cranes reminded him of Africa.<br />
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These birds travelled to the South, as far as his homeland, back to his childhood years at Kamandara, Manguu and Kinyogoro.</div>
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And now, the writer whose books are read aloud in the cafés, the villages and the matatus of Kenya, the writer who decided to write in his mother tongue, is here again, in his favourite city. Tomorrow, the Nobel prize in literature, the greatest literary distinction, will be awarded to him.</div>
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The text of his speech, translated in English, is already in the hands of the committee. He has decided to deliver his speech in the Concert Hall, in Gikuyu. The language of his tribe, the language spoken in the country of the <strong>“dispossessed</strong>”(**) will resound on its golden walls.</div>
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Ngugi wa Thiongo will speak on behalf of the entire continent. He will speak on behalf of his dead brother who was killed during the Emergency. He was deaf and mute and could not hear the English soldier ordering him to stop.</div>
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He will speak on behalf of his other brother who participated in the Mau Mau uprising and was killed in a clash with the colonial occupation forces. He will speak about the messages sent by this brother to little Ngugi, he was called James then, urging him not to drop school. “He was obsessed with my education”, he will tell the audience tomorrow.</div>
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His books are well known. They have been are translated into thirty languages. Since 2002, they are already being published in Penguin Classics.</div>
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The eighteen elders of the Academy– some of them might have been the blond Swedes with the long coats that he had met twenty years ago - made a wise decision with their choice. They did not lay emphasis on any influences from the Heart of Darkness and the generally agreed truth of the cruelty of a colonial occupation that might have inspired him. They did not lay emphasis on his Marxist – Fanonist beliefs and his unlimited optimism, as in Brecht’s poetry, that people can change the conditions of their lives. The wise people of the Academy have honoured in his person his language, the return to the mother tongue that made his work reach the reader.</div>
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“It is not worthwhile talking about” Ceauşescu and Waffen SS (**)</div>
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(*) The outsider, Maya Jaggi interviews Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jan/28/featuresreviews.guardianreview13/print">http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jan/28/featuresreviews.guardianreview13/print</a></div>
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(**) According to the Press release of the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009 is awarded to the German author Herta Müller,</div>
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<em>“who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”</em></div>
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(***) According to the Press release of the Swedish Academy, that decides to whom the Nobel Prizes should be awarded, the German author Herta Müller was dismissed from her job during Ceauşescu’s dictatorship and was harassed by the Securitate, while her mother, like many other German – Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II.</div>
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According to the wikipedia, Suaves, the German minority of Romania, that had been finally deported by the Soviets after the war, had founded during the war the infamous “7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banat_Swabians">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banat_Swabians</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_SS_Volunteer_Mountain_Division_Prinz_Eugen">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_SS_Volunteer_Mountain_Division_Prinz_Eugen</a> </div>
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<strong style="font-size: 78%;">Images:</strong></div>
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Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-13306930757150893392009-10-06T15:47:00.010+03:002009-10-06T20:14:22.227+03:00A case of identity: Sherlock Holmes, the worn typewriter and the hidden signature of the Persian poet Hafez.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc8fjM24RuYxnIWdh0-oXyt31Pu_4qU9PbSzulRISvyVqsHzeX-St_ZRtcFMkQIoWt89HCUFWLJ5vm3ipR0RNISdHcjXDiDDA03du8Z-YiRkd9LWuEaEkH01E_fwbfN2e6aKDIGhSx7_M/s1600-h/strand.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389467992134398898" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc8fjM24RuYxnIWdh0-oXyt31Pu_4qU9PbSzulRISvyVqsHzeX-St_ZRtcFMkQIoWt89HCUFWLJ5vm3ipR0RNISdHcjXDiDDA03du8Z-YiRkd9LWuEaEkH01E_fwbfN2e6aKDIGhSx7_M/s400/strand.jpg" /></a><br />The “Case of identity” by Arthur Conan Doyle first appeared in the Strand Magazine in 1891 and it is considered to be, despite its evasive and “dry” title, a corner stone in detective novel history. It is appreciated not only by the admirers of this unappreciated genre and Sherlock Holmes devotees, but by specialists of crime detection and forensic science as well. The latter pay tribute to the inductive way of thought and to the use of traces and imprints left by a criminal action initiated by this story. One can find references to it in Criminology and Police Science papers nowadays as well. (1)<br />The reader is amazed by the multiplicity of meaning and interpretations of “identities” revealed (or concealed) in a masterly manner in this story. One of them, I believe, is the Identity of the legendary hero himself, who is merged with its double, Hafez, the Persian lyric poet of the 14th century.<br /><br />But first things first.<br /><br />The “Case of Identity” appears to be a common Sherlock Holmes story. The client who pays Sherlock Holmes a visit, and whose identity as a person who is short sighted due to “so much typewriting” is revealed at a first glance by the detective, is Miss Mary Sunderland. Miss Sunderland is a woman, who despite the substantial income from the interest of a fund set up for her by her father, carries on earning a living by practising the profession of the typist.<br />In spite of the close supervision of her stepfather, she gets engaged to a quiet office clerk from London that has captivated her affections. Nevertheless, the fiancé disappears mysteriously before their wedding.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IogqyR0xloGo21UFhGmi1vCV60QcVtmnq7PBVE9g54Lo7aMnktMEk4H-PjpMtoDmYUu3x1LhzU7oo5L_NBMzjosajMm0q4DRJWx5Z5U1FrQ6ry0BZ9UuWSWsVET1Yed5CfAwvu3zLOo/s1600-h/Iden-01.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 285px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 351px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389468124956649522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IogqyR0xloGo21UFhGmi1vCV60QcVtmnq7PBVE9g54Lo7aMnktMEk4H-PjpMtoDmYUu3x1LhzU7oo5L_NBMzjosajMm0q4DRJWx5Z5U1FrQ6ry0BZ9UuWSWsVET1Yed5CfAwvu3zLOo/s400/Iden-01.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Miss Sunderland, full of anxiety turns for help to the brilliant detective, in order to find her fiancé.<br />At the end, it expires that the missing fiancé is the “double” of her stepfather, Mr. Windibank. Driven by the fervent desire to prevent his stepdaughter from marrying so that he can carry on exploiting her income, Mr. Windibank disguises himself into a bespectacled man with a moustache, and pretends to be Mr. Hosmer Angel, the would – be fiancé. The fact that Mr. Angel shows up when the stepfather is absent, the glasses and the moustache that cover his face and his strange voice make the discerning reader suspicious for a trap set by the author. The traces are clearly marked in order to highlight the gullibility of Dr. Watson, who cannot see through them.<br /><br />The metaphorical meaning of the “Case of Identity” is not exhausted in the Identification of the fiancé with the stepfather, but it extends to the Identification of the letters that the unfortunate Miss Sunderland receives from him.<br /><br /><blockquote>"they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clue in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once”<br /></blockquote>The absence of personal style and the typewritten signature conceal the identity of the author of the letters which is found in the identity of the prints of the typewriter: A revolutionary idea in forensic science<br /><br /><blockquote>“ In each case”, </blockquote>Sherlock Holmes proudly declares, <blockquote>“not only are the "e's" slurred and the "r's" tailless, but you will observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to which I have alluded, are there as well." </blockquote><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZhX0LVd3VNlKg4hoSq41iUEtHH8ZPDP6y_W5HgEh4pVv8KlOj2PXC5bdKgtykNLpIEUOW4HLfG0bdhCGeZ7oUQA3zNiH_9tSL0mNI7boFvYfthkD4SbLq1xonEd3T2djqjjTFi-ZvIQ/s1600-h/Typing-Woman.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 267px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389468252707002642" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZhX0LVd3VNlKg4hoSq41iUEtHH8ZPDP6y_W5HgEh4pVv8KlOj2PXC5bdKgtykNLpIEUOW4HLfG0bdhCGeZ7oUQA3zNiH_9tSL0mNI7boFvYfthkD4SbLq1xonEd3T2djqjjTFi-ZvIQ/s400/Typing-Woman.jpg" /></a> Tracing and identifying the typewriter on which the alleged suicide note is typed is a common element of the plot in subsequent detective novels. Nevertheless, in the “Case of Identity” it is introduced for the first time.<br /><br />There is one more reason for which the “Case of Identity” will go down in history. Although Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery, he chooses not to tell his client the truth about the “missing” fiancé, because he does not want to deprive her of her delusion.<br /><br /><blockquote>“You may remember the old Persian saying, "There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for who snatches a delusion from a woman." There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world."<br /></blockquote><br />The enigmatic reference to the Persian lyric poet of the 14th century Šamsu d-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī (2) at the end of the story is unexpected to those familiar with the prosaic nature of the detective. Nevertheless, Hafez is not a common poet. He is the one that knew the Qu’ran by heart. That is in fact the meaning of the name Hafez, and this was the name that the poet had chosen for himself. He had not only memorized the Qu’ran, but he also knew by heart the verses of his beloved poets Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Saadi.<br />The relation between Sherlock Holmes’ extraordinary capacity for memorizing and Hafez emerges. “Neither fascinating nor artistic” is the reference made to the police reports, in the beginning of the story, when the method of inquiry of the detective is mentionned: the search of the analogy of relevant elements of a case with corresponding aspects from other cases, that he has already solved and registered in his memory or can be found in police records. However his is a a meticulous job, done with style. A metaphor for poetry perhaps.<br /><br />If the allusion to poetry as mnemonics is not yet convincing for the identification of Hafez as the “double” Sherlock Holmes/Hafez, let us take one more step towards poetry. Let us remember how the story begins. There is an unusual poetic mood of the hero, when Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes are in a reverie and discuss the mysteries of life. That mood puts quoting Hafez quite in the spirit of the time. After all, it was at that time that Gertrude Bell had translated the poems of Hafez in English. These poems were well received in the literary circles of Great Britain and Europe. Carlyle used to read them as well as the friends of Virginia Woolf’s father, as she writes in her diary.<br /><br />This is how the Case of Identity starts, and it is in a poetic mood indeed:<br /><br /><blockquote>"…life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."<br /></blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw2PuTl4HmPM3Mql5UyPo5MsAmTghgOd-ZF4qjQOlGsAx56lKH1DtQ5ZkoXhgfPEN0E6dyGaIVpy52w5QGzTBE9g9egY44Cow1xSrSSuiMAU5d_jwavKwwjTQXCd7Ty4PqSVpNty1PRow/s1600-h/HAFEZ-1.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 287px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389468470846687858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw2PuTl4HmPM3Mql5UyPo5MsAmTghgOd-ZF4qjQOlGsAx56lKH1DtQ5ZkoXhgfPEN0E6dyGaIVpy52w5QGzTBE9g9egY44Cow1xSrSSuiMAU5d_jwavKwwjTQXCd7Ty4PqSVpNty1PRow/s400/HAFEZ-1.jpg" /></a><br />Nevertheless, there is more that in my opinion, points in the direction of a hidden signature, of a key that embraces all the identities/identifications in the story: The identification of Mrs. Sunderland as a typist, the identity of Mr. Windibank as Mr. Hosmer, the identity of his commonplace letters, and at the end the identity of the worn typewriter through the detailed examination of the imprints of the letters, the final imprint of the criminal, his real signature.<br /><br />The multiplicity of identities revealed with intellect and style is the core of the story. They are characteristic of the masterly manner in which Sherlock Holmes solves the case and the author weaves the plot.<br /><br />Similarly, Hafez, the poet, signs his poems with a nom de plume, in his priestly capacity. He has, as the poets of his era have, the habit of weaving his name into the last verses of the poems that he composes, like a unique signature. The identity of the poet is hidden in his verses, just like the slurred e's" and the tailless "r's" of a worn typewriter :<br /><br /><blockquote>Am I a sinner or a saint,<br />Which one shall it be?<br /><strong>Hafez </strong>holds the secret<br />of his own mystery...<br /></blockquote><br />Or<br /><br /><blockquote>I said, happiness and joy<br />Passing time will destroy.<br />Said, <strong>Hafez</strong>, silence employ<br />Sorrows too will end my friend. </blockquote><br />“Fascinating and artistic” I believe.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(1) Stanton O. Berg, Sherlock Holmes: Father of Scientific Crime Detection, Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, Vol. 61, No 3, p. 446 – 460<br />(2) http://www.hafizofshiraz.com/hafizinfluence2.html<br />(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez<br />(4) The excerpts were from the electronic edition: http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/a-case-of-identity<br /><br />http://cache1.bigcartel.com/product_images/3040394/strand.jpg </span>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-29039688914473171762009-09-24T23:08:00.009+03:002009-10-01T12:04:16.929+03:00The pensieve and the traps of memory<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkxQaUFjMRe4l_eanvFHqVMQph2xrY4Dw30HrBPGyiVyQLSjJQ4wwP4M5bbXVudbuegZVhu-wuptc914FQ9NoYGRLuJWfNDZ1D1teBkyWWKuD7nCq1SyLTDq8nj5TH8-zItvb2N7wJvI/s1600-h/pensieve31.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 344px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 361px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385128703427428530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkxQaUFjMRe4l_eanvFHqVMQph2xrY4Dw30HrBPGyiVyQLSjJQ4wwP4M5bbXVudbuegZVhu-wuptc914FQ9NoYGRLuJWfNDZ1D1teBkyWWKuD7nCq1SyLTDq8nj5TH8-zItvb2N7wJvI/s400/pensieve31.jpg" /></a><br />Can you picture a stone basin with strange engravings around the edges – runes and other mystic symbols? A silver light is emanating from inside. You cannot figure out whether its content is liquid or gas. It looks like liquefied light or solidified gas, bright and silvery white, continually whirling around, in an endless dance.<br />Its surface is agitated like feathers in the wind. It resembles the clouds swirling around, taking various shapes.<br />If you attempt to touch it, the silver surface starts rotating at a tremendous speed and becomes transparent like glass. You can see through its surface, as if you were an invisible observer, scenes from the previous life of the owner of the basin. The scenes appear like animated images in a crystal sphere, like a blurred projection on a screen.<br /><br />This basin is the magician’s pensieve and it has been invented by the author of Harry Potter’s adventures, Joan K. Rowling. At moments where the wizard feels that there is a great jostle of thoughts in his mind, he transfers, he “transfuses” some of his thoughts into the basin, in order to examine them later, taking his time. He touches the tip of his wand near his temple, and the wand extracts, as if hitched on it, a strand of silver threads. The strand is from the same bright silvery – white substance and takes its place in the basin.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7nRwatmgW-xqzWiYV-W2nwvyU1m_85bxy7aw5UPL2_6BlV0ziv-NV_O5DnB6HWxv56UKlluXZJalOQQgbSBhcDG6bElZy3XIeMnUDdltvqC6J0UYXwEgOSxaw1f5ftGWz0mw8Z-4TH4/s1600-h/dumbledore_pensieve.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 169px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385129385243163122" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7nRwatmgW-xqzWiYV-W2nwvyU1m_85bxy7aw5UPL2_6BlV0ziv-NV_O5DnB6HWxv56UKlluXZJalOQQgbSBhcDG6bElZy3XIeMnUDdltvqC6J0UYXwEgOSxaw1f5ftGWz0mw8Z-4TH4/s400/dumbledore_pensieve.jpg" /></a><br /><br />In order to recollect a particular thought, he sieves the bowl like a gold digger would, he stirs it and the thought he is looking for starts swirling, taking a particular shape.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3TMcUKidNtIvYQAVyEHJsMVgw0IYO2W41zwdU_-GqHtFLiiW0fw5ESTmRGOUcvzMHtJgqOsvAW0878MYTYIWa40KrTcJit8OELzPozYaT97_p7L1cPcsFQnJqgygVX80pmGJ3Pn0fnpc/s1600-h/TROP002.png"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385129106631131826" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3TMcUKidNtIvYQAVyEHJsMVgw0IYO2W41zwdU_-GqHtFLiiW0fw5ESTmRGOUcvzMHtJgqOsvAW0878MYTYIWa40KrTcJit8OELzPozYaT97_p7L1cPcsFQnJqgygVX80pmGJ3Pn0fnpc/s400/TROP002.png" /></a><br /><br /><br />A container to store thoughts, reminds me at first of the “brain – attic” metaphor for memory, used by Sherlock Holmes in the “Study in Scarlet” of Arthur Conan Doyle:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhN6bbMPVN3U69dd6Abo-dUAmwSC8AorW7gn-fBW-XHcmUKSHpLj4_gZqTTZ6lYJ8hyCmy3hrCcknw9lOEaTqumX-OQXf7cS6u1dbWjlNNmQahocAJAUPEOKfomat2taW3dL-pQVKbms/s1600-h/Jerry%2520Faces%252011_10_2005_nonames.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 311px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385129882741369858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhN6bbMPVN3U69dd6Abo-dUAmwSC8AorW7gn-fBW-XHcmUKSHpLj4_gZqTTZ6lYJ8hyCmy3hrCcknw9lOEaTqumX-OQXf7cS6u1dbWjlNNmQahocAJAUPEOKfomat2taW3dL-pQVKbms/s400/Jerry%2520Faces%252011_10_2005_nonames.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>“A man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it<br />with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort<br />that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets<br />crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has<br />a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very<br />careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic”<br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />The pensieve could have been a fascinating metaphor for memory and thought, if it did not intrinsically hide, as I will try to convince you in the following paragraphs, a disparagement of the faculty of memory. It is in fact a trick, by which the art of memory and recollection is transformed into a “time – machine”.<br />It is not the first time that Mrs. Joan K. Rowling uses magic objects in her books in order to account for events that have happened before the birth of her hero, Harry Potter. In the Chamber of Secrets it is the diary of Tom Riddle that allows whoever writes in its pages to “connect” with the memory of the trapped Tom Riddle, experiencing Tom’s memory as his own. (See also Magical objects in Harry Potter (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter</a> )<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6m4lwsgT1FwC8t1Y-DF_3uUC2Rd25EStVTf69y0gCPh6y7Wo6n_A4_3nTZYCDVmAqCv5tKu2Kn0nDH3cCAu9b3aWtd-clHeVCyWL1qzqKv6850pKyX5Efs1fGQIxmm2gD02GzjGRHyU/s1600-h/ajaxian-harry-potter.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 289px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385131879633969778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6m4lwsgT1FwC8t1Y-DF_3uUC2Rd25EStVTf69y0gCPh6y7Wo6n_A4_3nTZYCDVmAqCv5tKu2Kn0nDH3cCAu9b3aWtd-clHeVCyWL1qzqKv6850pKyX5Efs1fGQIxmm2gD02GzjGRHyU/s400/ajaxian-harry-potter.jpg" /></a><br />The same holds with the memory of Dumbledore. Harry Potter has access to somebody else’s memory without the integrity of the headmaster being at stake. The teacher is not forced to reveal an important secret to his pupil. Instead, his memory is stored in the pensieve – a kind of animated <a href="http://www.spiritmythos.org/TM/akashic/akashrec.html">akashic records http://www.spiritmythos.org/TM/akashic/akashrec.html</a> - - and is of an objective nature: Thoughts and memories are not processed, arranged or organized. They are stored “elsewhere” to avoid jostling in the inelastic walls of Dumbledore’s brain. When another person recollects them from the pensieve, it is as if he re - calls and re –vives the past. In doing so, he can sometimes notice events or aspects that the person who had stored them in the first place had not noticed.<br /><br />This has been confirmed by the author herself in an interview (cf:http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview3.shtml).<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENcNGsIpKOiSP9W7LAp7pVm0z0hVd6z-VOBGQtUjRgWfuBKaaYJXBDp7IxVJ9tOYC4CGuayWaioWycRP1Mmk-RpNcnlUwM300luGG3khhLSXjHuhwPE4yNpRP4fReZUEJHz6GvzchCsU/s1600-h/rowling.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 266px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385133290985228482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENcNGsIpKOiSP9W7LAp7pVm0z0hVd6z-VOBGQtUjRgWfuBKaaYJXBDp7IxVJ9tOYC4CGuayWaioWycRP1Mmk-RpNcnlUwM300luGG3khhLSXjHuhwPE4yNpRP4fReZUEJHz6GvzchCsU/s400/rowling.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">JKR: It's reality. It's important that I have got that across, because Slughorn gave Dumbledore this pathetic cut-and-paste memory. He didn't want to give the real thing, and he very obviously patched it up and cobbled it together. So, what you remember is accurate in the Pensieve.<br />[…]<br />“MA: So there are things in there that you haven't noticed personally, but you can go and see yourself?<br />JKR: Yes, and that's the magic of the Pensieve, that's what brings it alive.<br />ES: I want one of those!<br />JKR: Yeah. Otherwise it really would just be like a diary, wouldn't it? Confined to what you remember. But the Pensieve recreates a moment for you, so you could go into your own memory and relive things that you didn't notice at the time. It's somewhere in your head, which I'm sure it is, in all of our brains. I'm sure if you could access it, things that you don't know you remember are all in there somewhere” </span></p><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><p><br /></span></p>“Confined to what you remember”, means that human memory is imperfect, not only in the sense of its capacity to contain many events and thoughts, but in the sense of its subjectivity and selectivity. There are latent aspects of memory, hidden in the unconscious which - sometimes – through therapy can be revealed. The operation of the pensieve, abrogates the subjectivity of this selection. Selecting is not a flaw, since it reveals for the observer what has been concealed by the observed,<br /><br />Honestly, based on the above, I do not think that the “real thing” is indeed real. It is rather a clever invention of the narrative that created the manipulated receiver of a trapped soul hat deceives the receiver by transforming him into a reader over one’s shoulder. Nevertheless, the enchantment of eavesdropping is lost, since what you hear (or what you read) is not what the other person remembered, what impressed him, what he decided to recollect or how he reconstructed the past.<br />He could communicate this to you by telling you a story. The access to the pensieve is only offering an accurate record of past reality, a Deus ex machina that makes up for the needs of the narrative. In any case, it is not a way to reach out the Other.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Images:</strong><br /></span><a href="http://treesflowersbirds.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/pensieve31.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://treesflowersbirds.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/pensieve31.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://playstationlifestyle.net/trophies/data/NPWR00530_00/TROP002.PNG"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://playstationlifestyle.net/trophies/data/NPWR00530_00/TROP002.PNG</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://nando67.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dumbledore_pensieve.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://nando67.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dumbledore_pensieve.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />http://www.ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxian-harry-potter.jpg </span><a href="http://www.sherlock-holmes.com/Jerry%20Faces%2011_10_2005_nonames.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.sherlock-holmes.com/Jerry%20Faces%2011_10_2005_nonames.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://harrypotter.ugo.com/images/magical-items/pensieve.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://harrypotter.ugo.com/images/magical-items/pensieve.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><br /><p><a href="http://www.peterysussman.com/wp-content/uploads/rowling.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.peterysussman.com/wp-content/uploads/rowling.jpg</span></a></p><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br />Posted by Poly HatjimanolakiΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-40694573355393997712009-08-27T15:44:00.012+03:002009-09-24T18:18:05.194+03:00A cat "of" the British Museum<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLa4sN7ASnklWHLEpEcJ243IbftRXhV8IICf6A8B-lSBtvNJDM3tFCdEaz8dw183T6zcRfViOAi8hFEmh0LKFiP1awE63cukU-0mDfgFKZ1GCAqIpFKOAtj1xHih136nG5IuYiYNg4Jy51/s1600-h/21-22ιουλιου+071.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365322420816420338" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLa4sN7ASnklWHLEpEcJ243IbftRXhV8IICf6A8B-lSBtvNJDM3tFCdEaz8dw183T6zcRfViOAi8hFEmh0LKFiP1awE63cukU-0mDfgFKZ1GCAqIpFKOAtj1xHih136nG5IuYiYNg4Jy51/s400/21-22%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85+071.jpg" /></a><br />...and its name is: Gayer-Anderson cat.<br /><br />The cat with golden earrings on its nose and ears - "piercing!!!" - shouted a group of young tourists from Manchester who were taking photos - just as we were, during our visit in the Egyptian sculpture hall of the British Museum. This bronze statuette of 600BC honoured Bast, the ancient Egyptian goddess of cats.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWUDKn2zNiPFHP-yZkDvrzNatb8anB8yZWowKgGw5QZsoHNf_9YqNyUBwlgJojf7NWBHEDr5NUwnGVHdlkgR16P3qwiJ9OvOByhu8sMLG5TT3CU0wIWSGCj7egRo9FVE4yEyfQnELwwqi/s1600-h/21-22ιουλιου+082.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365324218122053586" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWUDKn2zNiPFHP-yZkDvrzNatb8anB8yZWowKgGw5QZsoHNf_9YqNyUBwlgJojf7NWBHEDr5NUwnGVHdlkgR16P3qwiJ9OvOByhu8sMLG5TT3CU0wIWSGCj7egRo9FVE4yEyfQnELwwqi/s400/21-22%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85+082.jpg" /></a><br />Nevertheless, the name Gayer-Anderson sounds strange.<br /><br />The naming reminds me of the Parthenon Marbles, which were once called Elgin Marbles. (cf. ‘<a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/w/what_are_the_elgin_marbles.aspx">What are the Elgin Marbles?</a>’)<br />After all, the Parthenon marbles were named Elgin marbles after Lord Elgin, the ambassador of the British Empire at the Ottoman court in Istanbul. “He acquired (sic) the sculptures in Athens between 1801 and 1805” (7) and sold them to the British Parliament, which in turn decided to offer them to the British Museum.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NSBRbBznQnnRROMXTIM2oA18UBf5SlWcJxPHFascxAy2xVJUXkWj9DvtV7kC6H6JXf0ewfRe3PPvAp8n8fhKm0pyZ2Dgru49YPsT0RvFIOodmQdT0WRUNkhm-56GcdUMqKqj4aiA7NZ_/s1600-h/21-22ιουλιου+100.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365325207009084498" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NSBRbBznQnnRROMXTIM2oA18UBf5SlWcJxPHFascxAy2xVJUXkWj9DvtV7kC6H6JXf0ewfRe3PPvAp8n8fhKm0pyZ2Dgru49YPsT0RvFIOodmQdT0WRUNkhm-56GcdUMqKqj4aiA7NZ_/s400/21-22%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85+100.jpg" /></a><br />Don’t worry, through this post, I am not attempting to request the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles in Greece. I agree with <a href="http://taskorpia.blogspot.com/">Helen Hontolidou when she writes in her blog</a>: “we did not come here to receive them like a parcel from the museum and carry them home. We do not even agree among us, if we actually want them back.”<br />I could nor agree more (with the disagreement). I believe that the Parthenon Marbles belong to the British Museum. This is what Museums do. They “acquire” objects and they give them names. This is an old habit from the past, when Great Britain was an empire.<br /><br />A common characteristic of empires is that they name things «new» to them. Take for example lake Ukerewe (or Nanubaale) in Africa that was named Victoria by the British explorers Speke and Burton, who «saw it first!». They “named” the lake, as Adam did in the first chapter of Genesis, when he saw for the first time the creatures of Eden and gave them names.<br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXdACmYfggc0_crgohZ_60dg0vgjiAzZHriE-G5M-YAsf1KOWjvutXm1xzBxEKhfszeoaXtPoOBBbdGoUnMXcGoBKURRG4skZJJU9EkSyEW7qlCFWgshk87oqx4nwIYwEC2ziPgTcuSE2F/s1600-h/al-idrisi%201533a.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 329px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 327px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365326845036100786" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXdACmYfggc0_crgohZ_60dg0vgjiAzZHriE-G5M-YAsf1KOWjvutXm1xzBxEKhfszeoaXtPoOBBbdGoUnMXcGoBKURRG4skZJJU9EkSyEW7qlCFWgshk87oqx4nwIYwEC2ziPgTcuSE2F/s400/al-idrisi%25201533a.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />Before them, Arabian explorers had already seen the lake - it has been recorded in the famous map of the artist Al Indrisi at 1160. Not to mention the obvious, that the lake had been «seen» and already «named» by the natives of the area long before the western world's argument about the sources of the Nile had started.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4YajVVLxOWqssJENeIjRY4r4KSvNsyCexvDQJGXSA8wxhf_SmQR4gQUC_jwj6WYAQi9X7_Rwqs19skfqnfZlReTqstsKEzFwPkkVah-hA3BoXsPMfRpQ963FVVBp9sev7HhKvvQ30A1p/s1600-h/336px-Egypte_louvre_028.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 224px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365328986373908866" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV4YajVVLxOWqssJENeIjRY4r4KSvNsyCexvDQJGXSA8wxhf_SmQR4gQUC_jwj6WYAQi9X7_Rwqs19skfqnfZlReTqstsKEzFwPkkVah-hA3BoXsPMfRpQ963FVVBp9sev7HhKvvQ30A1p/s400/336px-Egypte_louvre_028.jpg" /></a><br /><br />What’s in a name, then?<br /><br />Why has this beautiful bronze depiction of Bast been named Gayer-Anderson (cat)?<br /><br />That is the question.<br /><br />Given the traditional way of the empire and the habit of ruling even among objects that belong to other civilizations, we understand why the “acquired” objects are given new names.<br />Most of us admire the exhibits but do not ask ourselves howcome they are there in the first place. One does not wonder «why is the cat of Bast in London?», or «why is the Caryatid in London?».<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcAC71mnfSkFFm4h6rI3vrT0It-Z5FWb9nDDOQUIIa-i65OWmnVQM7Ervoxn1k3v5oSxUNNkZO9csZUC0Zgaf7uJn6Z9JWgNe0Hf56U2xkKjW8nqk5VfxXs-Sa0f31Bq6N5Mxj4IMqKSh/s1600-h/καÏυατιδα+Î’Ï+Îœ.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365350220408535682" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcAC71mnfSkFFm4h6rI3vrT0It-Z5FWb9nDDOQUIIa-i65OWmnVQM7Ervoxn1k3v5oSxUNNkZO9csZUC0Zgaf7uJn6Z9JWgNe0Hf56U2xkKjW8nqk5VfxXs-Sa0f31Bq6N5Mxj4IMqKSh/s400/%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%85%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%B4%CE%B1+%CE%92%CF%81+%CE%9C.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQuYMk94VVxiZ_rVXXE45n9lpKHEKKjPVvfcRTyVQYMEcB7vCF4HB-qSmK8uqjughIGrr30QEInO-m4jsejT3mxGV_b1bqNNnzU1GTvNp5p7zq6vsOt89eH6hxeG0VZ6T4QuH79IotPcy4/s1600-h/ΑσσυÏιακή+σφιγγα.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365353023306223666" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQuYMk94VVxiZ_rVXXE45n9lpKHEKKjPVvfcRTyVQYMEcB7vCF4HB-qSmK8uqjughIGrr30QEInO-m4jsejT3mxGV_b1bqNNnzU1GTvNp5p7zq6vsOt89eH6hxeG0VZ6T4QuH79IotPcy4/s400/%CE%91%CF%83%CF%83%CF%85%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AE+%CF%83%CF%86%CE%B9%CE%B3%CE%B3%CE%B1.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif09tvZQLnmh5CVJ5Uog0W6T4TjZ0TgFV324YStgoh1h_UcmQY54QKh4KclBmBAubLB2h5o49q_VaANV4EKRmoVs_auXW9oML6v0YWhocUdzqc6G1ebsYiIUk09OSRt4XKNrgVcQQCiv7v/s1600-h/Κεφαλή+από+ÎιγΕÏία.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365353354238793522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif09tvZQLnmh5CVJ5Uog0W6T4TjZ0TgFV324YStgoh1h_UcmQY54QKh4KclBmBAubLB2h5o49q_VaANV4EKRmoVs_auXW9oML6v0YWhocUdzqc6G1ebsYiIUk09OSRt4XKNrgVcQQCiv7v/s400/%CE%9A%CE%B5%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%AE+%CE%B1%CF%80%CF%8C+%CE%9D%CE%B9%CE%B3%CE%B7%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDe7hxDMfFjc_DxL7lLqOB8fX_r6KWbzybIwSV-_7zCH8QPzTM0faFaazTqf12yzRhZ1n-iA7JYIOwwrvXZBYut78PyBuL1fAQIsMLdHdlfL7_8ecVX3ZG95dzgFhyphenhyphenAugbIARQiKouD7W/s1600-h/ps084830_l.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365354284451542962" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDe7hxDMfFjc_DxL7lLqOB8fX_r6KWbzybIwSV-_7zCH8QPzTM0faFaazTqf12yzRhZ1n-iA7JYIOwwrvXZBYut78PyBuL1fAQIsMLdHdlfL7_8ecVX3ZG95dzgFhyphenhyphenAugbIARQiKouD7W/s400/ps084830_l.jpg" /></a><br />It so happens with the exhibits of museums. A nobleman or an official of the Empire, with an obvious «thirst for knowledge» “acquired” them at some point and brought them there. And then, from various areas of the world, the exhibits were collected in the same place so that , I quote: “the interactions can be studied” - the before and the after - and by then it is widely thought that this is where they have always belonged.These are the arguments expressed <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/ancient_greece_and_rome/room_18_greece_parthenon_scu.aspx">in the small video of the British Museum for the Parthenon Marbles</a>. The curator, Mrs Bonnie Geer, “feels” that “they belong there”. </p><p>I do not argue with her, I do not want them back, we cannot change the past, but I do not “feel” the same way.<br /><br />You cannot change the past. Even if you want to leave the memory of these “acquisitions” behind you, the names are always there. Like the name of this exhibit. The bronze cat is not called «Bast», Bastet or Nefar. It is provocatively called Gayer-Anderson, its name insisting on reminding us of the person who brought it to the museum.<br /><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV1fugV9c5bVBWu9s2ibwnjn-JNyF2_RzX3a4o7N3jEeGi6FvoLmYppnseK2ndWPrLklZQKj3eds6HJMgNgIOBId5hdWExMK0tzuhEUWdjCgfhZ1Ac8y26JNDUxAQbQMQpaOZRriT56YVc/s1600-h/gayeranderson8.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 323px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365327431544149858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV1fugV9c5bVBWu9s2ibwnjn-JNyF2_RzX3a4o7N3jEeGi6FvoLmYppnseK2ndWPrLklZQKj3eds6HJMgNgIOBId5hdWExMK0tzuhEUWdjCgfhZ1Ac8y26JNDUxAQbQMQpaOZRriT56YVc/s400/gayeranderson8.jpg" /></a>On the other hand, I ask myself, who is Gayer – Anderson behind the name? Perhaps my bitterness is doing him injustice. On the other hand, I do not think that the visitors of the Museum learn anything about him, except his name and that cat.<br /><br />Major Robert-Grenville Gayer-Anderson has abandoned a successful career as an orthopaedic surgeon at Harley Street after anwering the « inner call» to serve the empire - as a military doctor.<br /><br />After a short stay at Gibraltar, he ended up in Cairo, where he studied the Egyptian civilization upon which he called himself an «Orientalist».<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg5f3M8G5vvRQzxtixMHIdCPZAxWy48Yw5YV4VNGDyxR3ZXsVPRmVPV9N9F9dVsCCBFHN2Kn-mIoEA2z7RcZyc5QwyPGV0KNZ6O-XkCOjSaN03tohuW_beQ-HpxDZcYP_0PS81iBwDEBHo/s1600-h/gayeranderson7.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 397px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365329420298650722" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg5f3M8G5vvRQzxtixMHIdCPZAxWy48Yw5YV4VNGDyxR3ZXsVPRmVPV9N9F9dVsCCBFHN2Kn-mIoEA2z7RcZyc5QwyPGV0KNZ6O-XkCOjSaN03tohuW_beQ-HpxDZcYP_0PS81iBwDEBHo/s400/gayeranderson7.jpg" /></a>The Major became a poet, a collector of works of art and artefacts, a scholar. He often wrote in the ‘Sphinx’ and ‘Egyptian Gazette’ magazines.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDKtpobWNTbgUZPu-JI_kltjn0lz6yo3ANl8-JpMczY3BY11Kq6k1kV56ckI7mMqZFg_nrn311DS-17UUJgzDj-q8hTadSl444Z_fiQ25dD22H-ZyXML2KoucT11YAVJjRbzOWW7G6MC6/s1600-h/gayeranderson11.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 306px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365329913582712370" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDKtpobWNTbgUZPu-JI_kltjn0lz6yo3ANl8-JpMczY3BY11Kq6k1kV56ckI7mMqZFg_nrn311DS-17UUJgzDj-q8hTadSl444Z_fiQ25dD22H-ZyXML2KoucT11YAVJjRbzOWW7G6MC6/s400/gayeranderson11.jpg" /></a> I prefer to think of him in his study, in the Muslim Civilization Museum at the house of the Cretan Woman. This museum has been his life’s work.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeWrcwL7DXkcwCxXOwhU5Lf6MAWyxlaBPVaRr0ZVFChckVYRcc4Nv1bHTIPof9h2ld3nithjTCum3C3MDQfx9ktoGY53wC0S_u1Z3L5Sj5ftO8z4ZN4FOm7kVdCDRWW7MsjItfElT1Lft/s1600-h/gayeranderson24.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 358px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365329711038040978" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeWrcwL7DXkcwCxXOwhU5Lf6MAWyxlaBPVaRr0ZVFChckVYRcc4Nv1bHTIPof9h2ld3nithjTCum3C3MDQfx9ktoGY53wC0S_u1Z3L5Sj5ftO8z4ZN4FOm7kVdCDRWW7MsjItfElT1Lft/s400/gayeranderson24.jpg" /></a> The House of the Cretan woman - Bailt al Kretliya - was the legendary house of a Cretan woman - Muslim of course - where Major Robert-Grenville Gayer-Anderson lived his life’s happiest days, and which afterwards housed the museum.(1)<br /><br />A name full of symbolism. A Cretan woman’s house is the labyrinth, the house of Ariadne. </p><p>Simonidis, the hero of the Greek writer Strati Tsirkas in Akyvernites Politeies (Drifting Cities), also lived in Ariadne’s (Cretan woman ) house. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZg77s27ng9cm8Yh8LIuAERF2tZJiD4h-DE-a-UGyvdlvPK4dNU1zXYQ5poq5iMO24k1z-U7yKp5C6C15NztXLMHA3lngDBnscgRZSkNK_clOc7ypgErupvlCVCQzgzYFxLFqBZYXTb_f/s1600-h/assets_LARGE_t_1463_4615238_type11491.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 289px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365327099764274642" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZg77s27ng9cm8Yh8LIuAERF2tZJiD4h-DE-a-UGyvdlvPK4dNU1zXYQ5poq5iMO24k1z-U7yKp5C6C15NztXLMHA3lngDBnscgRZSkNK_clOc7ypgErupvlCVCQzgzYFxLFqBZYXTb_f/s400/assets_LARGE_t_1463_4615238_type11491.jpg" /></a><br />This house is a living legend in itself.<br />According to the area’s traditions collected by the Major’s nephew, Theo Gayer-Anderson, it was there that Noah's Ark landed.<br />It is also connected to the place where Abraham stood to sacrifice his son and it was there - and not on Mt.Sinai - that the burning bush was seen and where Moses heard the voice of God. The traditions about that house were recorded by the Major in his Memoirs "Fatal Attractions" which has been by the Major’s nephew for his book "House of the Cretan Woman" (extracts from Google books: (2)) .<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTeQygVd6xyIGax9PgGOIAJ5Lopj_db7stOA-TH5-70ku4fpL1gqJRd8H1xm7dbYQA23UT7R5QemcvrkWtB-TDUhSqwkoqRVqEZ0_ZVTJiAKLGc3K6fM-McOPs9LZu85LkKD9Rdv9AoWOa/s1600-h/gayeranderson5.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 391px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 369px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365330106962353298" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTeQygVd6xyIGax9PgGOIAJ5Lopj_db7stOA-TH5-70ku4fpL1gqJRd8H1xm7dbYQA23UT7R5QemcvrkWtB-TDUhSqwkoqRVqEZ0_ZVTJiAKLGc3K6fM-McOPs9LZu85LkKD9Rdv9AoWOa/s400/gayeranderson5.jpg" /></a>The house is literally legendary. A chamber of secrets, a lovers well, the snake of the house, the good spirit of Sheikh Hussein... it is the house of Sechrazade.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0ZRcY3vjwuw_4Y-3ckkpGDk5b438ODi-cDdadn_Nd-rYnxkkO1c1wqNQdNWs7izGBg8dEWJgfFSQ0wuZrrhuoEqSj7e6Nz0emJ5QPoX3lONn_y-kZX9tzm33iY40CiX3wM3J0a3b8hwE/s1600-h/gayeranderson13.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365330549425973586" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0ZRcY3vjwuw_4Y-3ckkpGDk5b438ODi-cDdadn_Nd-rYnxkkO1c1wqNQdNWs7izGBg8dEWJgfFSQ0wuZrrhuoEqSj7e6Nz0emJ5QPoX3lONn_y-kZX9tzm33iY40CiX3wM3J0a3b8hwE/s400/gayeranderson13.jpg" /></a><br />I imagine Bast, the cat, which was found in the area of Saqara, kept all these years near Gayer-Anderson’s desk, watching him writing his diary. He took her when he left Egypt, together with a few items from his collection, the greater part of which he left behind in Cairo, in the museum named after him.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE9y7lidZn9DHfHoaCtOlQHoe12UoIKc558qQsF_GXbxcWIrqINnQgzp8ApeLOozT_l6FD61UTI0r6joqXmwLpe646DgAhd-qaoMHVKZbhrEgqMhzt7HHbL6mDM3EHWSFfrPUOHYKZ2wPO/s1600-h/21-22ιουλιου+083.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365323339555951970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE9y7lidZn9DHfHoaCtOlQHoe12UoIKc558qQsF_GXbxcWIrqINnQgzp8ApeLOozT_l6FD61UTI0r6joqXmwLpe646DgAhd-qaoMHVKZbhrEgqMhzt7HHbL6mDM3EHWSFfrPUOHYKZ2wPO/s400/21-22%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%85+083.jpg" /></a><br />This is the cat we saw it yesterday (22/7/2009), in the Egyptian Hall of the British Museum.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Internet sources:</strong><br /><br />(1) </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayer-Anderson_Museum"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayer-Anderson_Museum</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />(2) </span><a href="http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/gayeranderson.htm"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/gayeranderson.htm</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />(3) </span><a href="http://media2.feed.gr/filesystem/images/20090723/engine/assets_LARGE_t_1463_4615238_type11491.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://media2.feed.gr/filesystem/images/20090723/engine/assets_LARGE_t_1463_4615238_type11491.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br />(4)http://books.google.gr/books?id=TI2RUcgA9YQC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq='John'+Gayer-Anderson&source=bl&ots=gv9hVRgTx4&sig=Hynu0AKPHH7a1WNFnR6spKgD9b0&hl=el&ei=nj5oStzHMZbSjAextPCyCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7<br />(5) </span><a href="http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/images/al-idrisi%201533a.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/Places/images/al-idrisi%201533a.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">(6) </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egypte_louvre_028.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egypte_louvre_028.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p>(7) <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps084830.jpg&retpage=16717">http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps084830.jpg&retpage=16717</a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">R.G. 'John' Gayer-Anderson Pasha. "Legends of the House of the Cretan Woman." Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2001. </span></p><br />Posted by Poly HatjimanolakiΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-32100917097437836652009-07-28T12:49:00.001+03:002009-07-28T12:53:11.112+03:00The Last Remorse of Ramon Lull (1232-1315)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TP-eXOn5yw_UI7PFiLq_YpvPqpJvLL22qrAMCWij8jIAHcpIhoI3Lqq-4uRFZ-roamxAYZyqlcNpIOn-rEOQuWhESrrXOv1zOqx3gmLaeQar8lqGCVY5QeyUdSG1SDu_eAE8xij_sCkB/s1600-h/%CF%87%CF%89%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%82+%CF%84%CE%AF%CF%84%CE%BB%CE%BF.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245947193436904962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TP-eXOn5yw_UI7PFiLq_YpvPqpJvLL22qrAMCWij8jIAHcpIhoI3Lqq-4uRFZ-roamxAYZyqlcNpIOn-rEOQuWhESrrXOv1zOqx3gmLaeQar8lqGCVY5QeyUdSG1SDu_eAE8xij_sCkB/s320/%CF%87%CF%89%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%82+%CF%84%CE%AF%CF%84%CE%BB%CE%BF.bmp" border="0" /></a>Ramon, Raimundo or Raymond, Raimundus or Raymundus Lull, Lully or Lullus or Lulio is forever melancholic in his present timeless existence. He is aware that his name is referred in eternity among those of great alchemists, philosophers and the pioneers of combinatorial science but, principally, among those that paved the way towards the dream of <strong>artificial intelligence</strong>.<br />Nevertheless, he is not forgiving himself for an act of negligence committed once by himself.<br /><br />References to his name can be found in the writings of renowned people.<br /><br /><strong>Arthur Schopenhauer</strong> (1), in his World as Will and Representation describes vividly the vision of death that was the reason of his religious conversion to the Franciscan order.<br /><strong>Louis Borges</strong> (2) gives a description of the rotating wheels Lull’s «thinking machine» in an essay. A detailed description of the structure and the function of the device can be found there, as well as the well known doubts raised by Louis Borges: Is it possible for the combinations and the permutations to generate something that is not a mere repetition of the meaning, i.e. a tautology? Can one proceed further that the statements «Goodness is lasting» or «duration is good»? It is almost certain that <strong>Jonathan Swift</strong> is in fact describing Lull’s device in Gulliver’s travels in the detailed description of a machine that produces words in a random way. <strong>Frances Yates</strong> (3) in her Art of Memory incorporates Lull’s famous Table, <strong>Ars Magna</strong> in the idea of <strong>«moving memory</strong>» or «versatile memory» and considers that assigning symbols – letters to the attributes of God is very close to <strong>Cicero’s «imagines agentes</strong>». A detailed description of the «thinking machine» is given in Dionysios Romas novel «Rebellion of the popolari» (4) . The noble Sior Bartolo attempts for «the billionth time to use the subtle technique of Ramon Lull’s Ars Magna as a divination tool».<br /><br />According to <strong>P. McCorduck</strong> (5), Ramon Lull is one of the pioneers of the perfect copy, the machine that is able to think by herself, despite the expressed order given to Moses on Mount Sinai:<br /><br /><blockquote>« Thou shalt<br />not make unto thee any graven image or<br />any likeness of any<br />thing that is in<br />heaven above or that is in the earth<br />beneath, or that<br />is in the water under the<br />earth. »<br /></blockquote><br />Lull has expressed his determination not only to preach the word of the Lord but to create a machine, that, with its unquestionable power, would be able to go beyond a mere proof of the existence of God: Since Muslims and Jews already believed in Him, he wanted to prove to them, beyond any refutation the superiority of His Triadic Form, i.e. to make them accept the superiority of the God of Christianity. For this reason he has thoroughly and patiently studied the Arab texts, the books of Arab philosophers, Mathematicians and Astrologers, in order to find their deeper foundations and that way, to formulate their perfect refutation. In fact these texts have had a profound effect on him: In his readings, he encountered with zairja, the Arabic Astrologic Table with the circle and the triangular interconnections between the ruler planets and zodiac signs. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9i4ZonUB8CCWwOWumzAFHZmmfuqO4y74W6bn5mno0jw8YVW2CpiaubwhNDAtNcl-bUCASZNucTHzk0eBa8Kpwex1YUH-sihjimniOiRnEj-jA59arSBfgRmUzAqr8_etno4j49Jqf0ns/s1600-h/Picture1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245950902217852706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9i4ZonUB8CCWwOWumzAFHZmmfuqO4y74W6bn5mno0jw8YVW2CpiaubwhNDAtNcl-bUCASZNucTHzk0eBa8Kpwex1YUH-sihjimniOiRnEj-jA59arSBfgRmUzAqr8_etno4j49Jqf0ns/s320/Picture1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />So, he conceived the idea of the application of this concept of combinations to a combination of the attributes of God. He was certain that the Arabs would feel the affinity if he used their own invention and they would consent to the consideration of his arguments – the arguments of an «objective» automaton, a thinking idol, a machine.<br />In a similar way he has resorted to the Cabbala, the secret science of the power of symbols and numbers of the Jews, and he assigned letters – symbols to the attributes of God. He has indulged in Cabbala’s wisdom and came up with a scientific loan: the idea of the sacred tree of Sephiroth was the prototype of his own Arbor scientiae. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2QtHI3LqmPD-_eXwWftHDDjJAIIs_XPXfMdpv0RSt6uGt7d8hz7ml7CDDcvdWAoIeaaEnTg2DC7xkZcHweTgchmAk8Mj7vma5GzQ2Vfqqt82CyMETjPb24lUkmd1NiH6yrOUWQGyqj4k/s1600-h/ar2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245948722456115506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2QtHI3LqmPD-_eXwWftHDDjJAIIs_XPXfMdpv0RSt6uGt7d8hz7ml7CDDcvdWAoIeaaEnTg2DC7xkZcHweTgchmAk8Mj7vma5GzQ2Vfqqt82CyMETjPb24lUkmd1NiH6yrOUWQGyqj4k/s320/ar2.bmp" border="0" /></a> However Lull, in his timeless existence, is not preoccupied with the failure of his machine to persuade the Arabs. Having himself borrowed their ideas, perhaps he is not so sure about the infallibility of his attempt. Allah of Islam, Jahve of the Jews and Our Father are perhaps the three aspects of the Trinity. These ideas, together with the alleged discovery of the Ether and his opposition to preaching God’s Word with the help of weapons in the Crusades, have worried the Pope Gregory XI who has banned some of his writings and has condemned him for heresy.<br />The condemnation was renewed by Pope Paul IV, and it was only Pius IX on 1958 that confirmed his beatification by the Church, He has not been canonized as a Saint but as Doctor Illuminatus, although not one of the Doctors of the Church, like Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine.<br />Ramon Lull has been a trovadour in his youth.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipuM7c_erUF6ehMIZg79MT2RFdSqLEhfddDB86gD2sPinY9G51OzIFXMeo5nOvc9BD6EEYmURN-zQwHQKbFmfLsgIL6jP1C85teUlA-Dgy6G5b4R3BbY04sliZOhpOgEDE7biUxNMMJ05L/s1600-h/Picture2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245951128869164290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipuM7c_erUF6ehMIZg79MT2RFdSqLEhfddDB86gD2sPinY9G51OzIFXMeo5nOvc9BD6EEYmURN-zQwHQKbFmfLsgIL6jP1C85teUlA-Dgy6G5b4R3BbY04sliZOhpOgEDE7biUxNMMJ05L/s320/Picture2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />He was the tutor of James II of Aragon and despite his appointment as the seneschal to the royal household, he was given to the composition of love songs. He was seducing women and was «doing other licentious things» according to his autobiography, Vita coaetanea. He did not stop his love affairs even after his marriage with Bianca Piccany, even after his two children Domingo and Magdalena were born. He never stopped admiring beautiful women and falling in love.<br /><br />Ramon Lull, from his present timeless existence contemplates his life melancholically. He recalls his conversion after a vision with a levitating Jesus Christ that appeared to him while he was singing in erotic ecstasy, and made him abandon his secular life and become a monk: A Franciscan monk. What happened to his wife and children? He misses them, although he does not regret for his choice, for the books he has written, for his missions in North Africa, his stoning by the angry Muslim crowd at the age of 82 and his death. He does not regret for his studies in Alchemy, Botany, the «thinking machine» and the Tree of Science. He is committing a sin by doubting Almighty’s Providence. Did the Angel of God was sent to his household to replace him in his care for his family, as it always happens with families that have offered their members to join the ranks of monastic life? Perhaps he should have taken care himself…He should have applied his Arts for the last time, sending home a copy of himself, his «thinking» idol, his double that should remain faithful to Bianca for the rest of their life…<br /><br /><br />(1)Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819), Vol. I, § 68, as translated by E.F.J.Payne (The Falcon's Wing Press 1958, reprint by Dover, New York, 1966) at 394-395.<br />(2)Borges J. L. (1999) 'Ramon Lull’s thinking Machine'<br />In, The total library: non-fiction 1922-1986 (Ed.)<br />Weinberger, E., trans. Allen, E. Levine, S. J., and<br />Weinberger, E. London, Penguin: 155-160.<br />(3) Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, Pimlico 1966<br />(4) «The rebellion of popolari» , by Dionysios Romas (in Greek). A saga of a family of Zante from 1589 till 1628 where a middle class revolution took place in that island, during the Venician domination.<br />(5) P. Mc Corduck, History of Artificial Intelligence στο http://dli.iiit.ac.in/ijcai/IJCAI-77-VOL2/PDF/083.pdf<br /><br />Pictures from:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull<br />http://www.nndb.com/people/031/000097737/lull-4-sized.jpg<br /><br /><br />Posted by Poly HatjimanolakiΠόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-1951970988817924962009-07-15T02:42:00.002+03:002009-07-20T20:11:15.500+03:00...while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eUTVQoYk3VQcOwWNt87EoQ_qsrOF4HwG0G34ze_zTkarOnYc3VSZWfhaSQR0NNI5gIPJDTYqETwdBqNkstN8C1415tG-KIZaigtlh1NqFd-6x5HZTn-FbYWJO-2j92rcDC076B1LNG3-/s1600-h/P11neverlandmap2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357294537926022418" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eUTVQoYk3VQcOwWNt87EoQ_qsrOF4HwG0G34ze_zTkarOnYc3VSZWfhaSQR0NNI5gIPJDTYqETwdBqNkstN8C1415tG-KIZaigtlh1NqFd-6x5HZTn-FbYWJO-2j92rcDC076B1LNG3-/s400/P11neverlandmap2.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX25tqxw8mmlVS_MQR-hZyZFnnJfq1Q6R8_98v6rAfQrdb13C__kUQ9gYEOWR-BH7zJyn2zIkUUH94DntNK2myC97_Q-WHr1346hBwAB4L4cu0RLoyTOxeqieSSmjOlNba5iaLThjRXmGw/s1600-h/P2+300_54948.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 385px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357291907191304882" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX25tqxw8mmlVS_MQR-hZyZFnnJfq1Q6R8_98v6rAfQrdb13C__kUQ9gYEOWR-BH7zJyn2zIkUUH94DntNK2myC97_Q-WHr1346hBwAB4L4cu0RLoyTOxeqieSSmjOlNba5iaLThjRXmGw/s400/P2+300_54948.jpg" /></a><br />I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhkE0BKj1302q5BUT07JWLbm_IaQd4sm_G0CP1CCZJZqpqE13kfG1wIOrVfKn0L8kI8SXhIaZjIquKD3fC7LFpREo3Lr3ujVP0gCtJyXhHPv2eKFofbZkzDAP9ghv2-0dqLk-8fxPK0-6/s1600-h/P3+untitled.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 385px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357292473882120242" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhkE0BKj1302q5BUT07JWLbm_IaQd4sm_G0CP1CCZJZqpqE13kfG1wIOrVfKn0L8kI8SXhIaZjIquKD3fC7LFpREo3Lr3ujVP0gCtJyXhHPv2eKFofbZkzDAP9ghv2-0dqLk-8fxPK0-6/s400/P3+untitled.bmp" /></a><br />There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island,<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8y_04qwK8aEHyEyasE1_-y2pvAXrgTKxL13AUlsj-DNNzuEIG443lWLs-D_z_MzbM88bTkY1WBsA8Ub_A3buF5qYnlfwlM83VxbDSzOmNDRfoeEUpaPuWpPtjn3HgJ9mXscT1Q-xrdS9/s1600-h/P9+Neverland_thumb.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 302px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357294194108951538" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8y_04qwK8aEHyEyasE1_-y2pvAXrgTKxL13AUlsj-DNNzuEIG443lWLs-D_z_MzbM88bTkY1WBsA8Ub_A3buF5qYnlfwlM83VxbDSzOmNDRfoeEUpaPuWpPtjn3HgJ9mXscT1Q-xrdS9/s400/P9+Neverland_thumb.jpg" /></a> for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.<br />It would be an easy map if that were all,<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNRcAhj0eWCPWa886AC7ggRohqRXeYHKzS9vEGby8sKzq7IQIEVPcSnH0timTAc0zKy2xV_BYWE54YJMWzCpMrq232cUlXakHH2BYi3xnSoOLMBmFUhfwgv5AOu5RP9-O0XUVotuUWmLQq/s1600-h/P7+019.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 278px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357293695036143970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNRcAhj0eWCPWa886AC7ggRohqRXeYHKzS9vEGby8sKzq7IQIEVPcSnH0timTAc0zKy2xV_BYWE54YJMWzCpMrq232cUlXakHH2BYi3xnSoOLMBmFUhfwgv5AOu5RP9-O0XUVotuUWmLQq/s400/P7+019.jpg" /></a><br /><br />but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself….<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRr_n5N0iuRdXxhw7Up5fPMDKOWgu-JkgwL2Z9kcr0dNCkKf54_SbQaC5o4zHKOR0jq3YM6FXvWptz4rnggVAU7lFstqRbePwdsPsgVJIWKfF7bT7ExiH_qXj8Fy1OdKL4HPTfI1k2TdEV/s1600-h/P8+topograhpy-of-never-land-sandra-woods.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357291696175694146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRr_n5N0iuRdXxhw7Up5fPMDKOWgu-JkgwL2Z9kcr0dNCkKf54_SbQaC5o4zHKOR0jq3YM6FXvWptz4rnggVAU7lFstqRbePwdsPsgVJIWKfF7bT7ExiH_qXj8Fy1OdKL4HPTfI1k2TdEV/s400/P8+topograhpy-of-never-land-sandra-woods.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh743B3GOgL_OW4czCybKVkFG2f2bMj1shanpWWIdKpBkjpQ8gdWKeDQxZ8C7zy0WEsZ8xeXktlGipJslXHnC8V36-V7EvgZseGBc3D7D5MGofF9bGw917Nggi3LpBiXpCACusKPFDlu76o/s1600-h/P1+ingpen2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 260px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 327px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357291504381587538" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh743B3GOgL_OW4czCybKVkFG2f2bMj1shanpWWIdKpBkjpQ8gdWKeDQxZ8C7zy0WEsZ8xeXktlGipJslXHnC8V36-V7EvgZseGBc3D7D5MGofF9bGw917Nggi3LpBiXpCACusKPFDlu76o/s400/P1+ingpen2.jpg" /></a> John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents,<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHb1Cm2RUoDBbeyMOm3z0MYpyCjkDsdU-MLt-oaDIwhpmHpi4n2D3EpnajKBQlkElA4yemnLVlhhIYlCnaXGGuIvddDYBkoM43l4SSmlUBS7QwUFde3zTKge1moWld2Y5-LPY_07GGdy2h/s1600-h/p13middle-earth.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 396px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357294817447428946" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHb1Cm2RUoDBbeyMOm3z0MYpyCjkDsdU-MLt-oaDIwhpmHpi4n2D3EpnajKBQlkElA4yemnLVlhhIYlCnaXGGuIvddDYBkoM43l4SSmlUBS7QwUFde3zTKge1moWld2Y5-LPY_07GGdy2h/s400/p13middle-earth.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjraKFfEagi25NiTYVK1nc1w2crqhlAMocsicaJDmu9mbvkrx4-oPcmzUsjj_yITR2y27RQsGlQsq-Bs_EA3hy9lEkcCeCL7VfDYs0oemOS5XWFMECtkcIEyV1LPvQj56tdHEECkovrIS9F/s1600-h/p14+narnia-map.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 283px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357295094782543058" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjraKFfEagi25NiTYVK1nc1w2crqhlAMocsicaJDmu9mbvkrx4-oPcmzUsjj_yITR2y27RQsGlQsq-Bs_EA3hy9lEkcCeCL7VfDYs0oemOS5XWFMECtkcIEyV1LPvQj56tdHEECkovrIS9F/s400/p14+narnia-map.jpg" /></a> but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance,<br />and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have<br />each other's nose, and so forth.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXD09U2_cUJWji4ufSXHOahjEJSpS32K61DsSuZyocGjftfAaP6Pmd23vL8UrdrFru1k4B-46I4tvMKb8mzDruLax1WXxIuA-Qez7DxRRstFWi_iQPAmCNnKm2MttL4WcNYkZoErWDgyAo/s1600-h/P4+untitled.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 372px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357292768927511890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXD09U2_cUJWji4ufSXHOahjEJSpS32K61DsSuZyocGjftfAaP6Pmd23vL8UrdrFru1k4B-46I4tvMKb8mzDruLax1WXxIuA-Qez7DxRRstFWi_iQPAmCNnKm2MttL4WcNYkZoErWDgyAo/s400/P4+untitled.bmp" /></a><br />Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most<br />compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real. That is why there are night-lights.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQSvcsk4r3l8hCgCM1oPnGJ4J8yJCEP3nyYFmSj-ZrkDT8UOGchIne6hYDQHzJnIeB0T4toQ2vVQt8oPZIosR_O6LsLlTkQQFynazZcsndauMSObI0_VI5DMp_9NFRGBIa9F3JVdoxjRSN/s1600-h/p5+untitled.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 252px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357293191915185218" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQSvcsk4r3l8hCgCM1oPnGJ4J8yJCEP3nyYFmSj-ZrkDT8UOGchIne6hYDQHzJnIeB0T4toQ2vVQt8oPZIosR_O6LsLlTkQQFynazZcsndauMSObI0_VI5DMp_9NFRGBIa9F3JVdoxjRSN/s400/p5+untitled.bmp" /></a> Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGlVxRk7TaXYTO87ksK3kfdcww1VLXqWOS9eM3pa-vynGuUWeQ15-tgbA8MsG1cftvSslZLaJR23EdbVrAwUd2ZhDIudZ8WXNCwT9MfauKW_FI9DP9O4QkfCmSjq2BPUOdpLL9ATWQS4a2/s1600-h/P7+untitled.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 301px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357293996449156018" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGlVxRk7TaXYTO87ksK3kfdcww1VLXqWOS9eM3pa-vynGuUWeQ15-tgbA8MsG1cftvSslZLaJR23EdbVrAwUd2ZhDIudZ8WXNCwT9MfauKW_FI9DP9O4QkfCmSjq2BPUOdpLL9ATWQS4a2/s400/P7+untitled.bmp" /></a> She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPpOGhTe7QkqDlspsDhDONOS3cjWJ02ufR6r88CT27bY-tYvZTYBIu9BcTJJXnB7-6s0IGzQ2EkyJwrIrOx9x_nMtTh3je80SwkKNzale5ssXwxmuHPSpVr9aKUIppV5T0VJvWIP1SPyU/s1600-h/P6+untitled.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 281px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357293474873395570" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPpOGhTe7QkqDlspsDhDONOS3cjWJ02ufR6r88CT27bY-tYvZTYBIu9BcTJJXnB7-6s0IGzQ2EkyJwrIrOx9x_nMtTh3je80SwkKNzale5ssXwxmuHPSpVr9aKUIppV5T0VJvWIP1SPyU/s400/P6+untitled.bmp" /></a><br />At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened….<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZs_axtvZ-qF-_FBuhd5IDYk_WHuC5bp4VA_JkVnYLn9mpZeRZZBrFlsajVXVJlp7Z2-CRNaGNAxWbKaLbsmEFxv54E64VrBjUHxHf7ZGQq09Bu5tesKNKRrl-lbp4BjyrWBXN8tDR7Td/s1600-h/p14+michael-jackson-life-and-career10.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 352px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357294375744531746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZs_axtvZ-qF-_FBuhd5IDYk_WHuC5bp4VA_JkVnYLn9mpZeRZZBrFlsajVXVJlp7Z2-CRNaGNAxWbKaLbsmEFxv54E64VrBjUHxHf7ZGQq09Bu5tesKNKRrl-lbp4BjyrWBXN8tDR7Td/s400/p14+michael-jackson-life-and-career10.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Excerpts from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Images: </strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.stillmanbooks.com/ingpen2.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.stillmanbooks.com/ingpen2.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://images-cdn01.associatedcontent.com/image/A5494/54948/300_54948.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://images-cdn01.associatedcontent.com/image/A5494/54948/300_54948.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202399/1/Daisy-Fairy,-Illustration-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens,-By-J.M.-Barrie,-Published-1912.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202399/1/Daisy-Fairy,-Illustration-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens,-By-J.M.-Barrie,-Published-1912.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202380/1/Illustration-To-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1912.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202380/1/Illustration-To-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1912.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202321/1/Talking-To-The-Crow-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1906.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202321/1/Talking-To-The-Crow-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1906.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202381/1/Kite-Flying-In-Kensington-Gardens-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1906.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202381/1/Kite-Flying-In-Kensington-Gardens-From-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M.-Barrie,-1906.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202269/1/The-Fairies-Are-Exquisite-Dancers,-Illustration-In-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M-Barrie-1860-1937-1906.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/202269/1/The-Fairies-Are-Exquisite-Dancers,-Illustration-In-Peter-Pan-In-Kensington-Gardens-By-J.M-Barrie-1860-1937-1906.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.jinglepaper.com/2008/english/blog/019.JPG"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.jinglepaper.com/2008/english/blog/019.JPG</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/topograhpy-of-never-land-sandra-woods.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/topograhpy-of-never-land-sandra-woods.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.elainehurst.com/images/artworks/special_series/Neverland/Neverland.thumb.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.elainehurst.com/images/artworks/special_series/Neverland/Neverland.thumb.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.gokamilot.com/images/products/neverland_invite_lg.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.gokamilot.com/images/products/neverland_invite_lg.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://walkingtochina.pbworks.com/f/neverlandmap2.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://walkingtochina.pbworks.com/f/neverlandmap2.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://land.allears.net/blogs/lauragilbreath/hook_ceiling.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://land.allears.net/blogs/lauragilbreath/hook_ceiling.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.tenko.ch/gallery/middle-earth.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.tenko.ch/gallery/middle-earth.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://allaboutcslewis.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/narnia-map.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://allaboutcslewis.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/narnia-map.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.fulldhamaal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/michael-jackson-life-and-career10.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.fulldhamaal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/michael-jackson-life-and-career10.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki </span>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1382277221524758742.post-20372892483392789152009-07-01T15:28:00.006+03:002009-10-05T11:16:04.927+03:00Little Omondi who wanted to be a pilot and Antoine de Saint- Exupéry<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuo6ZT9PVXQVxBKU9AcpTLOj762R5lCALxAYqfjRSa7cPnWYBitNwv-wvC41kWiNNfwnpokkcQjx_gfnOfsrFuReRDvexjHqb6AXUddSUVSUKDugSQDB35ZbT59c2KprXC_cPDnDJxoTlV/s1600-h/pilot1.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 290px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 286px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351242263827910882" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuo6ZT9PVXQVxBKU9AcpTLOj762R5lCALxAYqfjRSa7cPnWYBitNwv-wvC41kWiNNfwnpokkcQjx_gfnOfsrFuReRDvexjHqb6AXUddSUVSUKDugSQDB35ZbT59c2KprXC_cPDnDJxoTlV/s400/pilot1.bmp" /></a><br />Antoine de Saint- Exupéry was flying his plane – several years ago – over Africa, when – again - the engine failed. This time, he has left Sahara desert behind him and navigated all the way to the South.<br /><br />The downward currents gave him a sense of discomfort. Since the engine wasn't working, and despite his effort to steer the airplane upwards, to gainheight, Antoine felt that he was sinking. He turned to the left and then to the right, in order to avoid the slope that rose in front of him threatening to crush him. The plane was not able to go any higher.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHmZviRgjSOeQi1so8CZWS7OakJibs6Du8Z33LaF8MrsFD6LHtzIpkPo1LIeVeYZ_riCPbNjnIkg5gN4xmHkVShx58SSsubqL3vNveMi5Ew69hQ5DExDhqn9ap3dbGL8cvVdrVgn5Da3pN/s1600-h/PetitPrince1.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 288px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351242615964979474" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHmZviRgjSOeQi1so8CZWS7OakJibs6Du8Z33LaF8MrsFD6LHtzIpkPo1LIeVeYZ_riCPbNjnIkg5gN4xmHkVShx58SSsubqL3vNveMi5Ew69hQ5DExDhqn9ap3dbGL8cvVdrVgn5Da3pN/s400/PetitPrince1.jpg" /></a><br />The vibrations were very strong. He gripped his hands on his seat, plummeting – like a hat – from six thousand feet to three thousand feet, when he saw a dark even volume below him, allowing him to balance the plane.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlxAF8pbsZQ12phAO0AHvi7hwAnPKkr8ezArgLUeT662-7V7HRbrqbZVtlsiGCW3IhGpflSD6CWFpUSHVuPyqCVhzQo5AzhvujdcsXtMxFPiNn6gS-I81RF1Xh4IFmR5O2L1NSHyF-Hhf/s1600-h/kenya_ast_2008065.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351243135422877826" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlxAF8pbsZQ12phAO0AHvi7hwAnPKkr8ezArgLUeT662-7V7HRbrqbZVtlsiGCW3IhGpflSD6CWFpUSHVuPyqCVhzQo5AzhvujdcsXtMxFPiNn6gS-I81RF1Xh4IFmR5O2L1NSHyF-Hhf/s400/kenya_ast_2008065.jpg" /></a> It was lake Nakuru. He recognized it from the pink clouds of flamencos, which spent time on its shores.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0rdGqG1Pyw9lYHiqiUxG0i-z7Eu3O7Jr6tpoiaQ689B0teyhs5Uemw6mgn96MSPtF1WC7DXtffCiKJEutUsBEKjVJbcZBn_o5XmidTpbWkioygPNHShtk-t3QXUgBQTvls0rZ7ioXDguT/s1600-h/nakuru.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 271px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351242888808705778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0rdGqG1Pyw9lYHiqiUxG0i-z7Eu3O7Jr6tpoiaQ689B0teyhs5Uemw6mgn96MSPtF1WC7DXtffCiKJEutUsBEKjVJbcZBn_o5XmidTpbWkioygPNHShtk-t3QXUgBQTvls0rZ7ioXDguT/s400/nakuru.bmp" /></a><br />From this height, he could not discern anything more than clouds and frost. He continued his trip South East, passing over lake Naivasha. He knew that soon he was going to meet Mount Longonot and the dormant volcano, that reached a height of two thousand eight hundred meters.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdIP7iuUwgBNbu3oolA7drmOc24nUNDwb-0ibhw3fsIXa3qIdsYFYGdriOxRJ0hSqV6KaLNB5T7o9KnGlvz3qxrFhk3WYS2aDbChazauu4EIhiNAhN91ZKkqZSl0Rv4K35ClUsP-HAKIM/s1600-h/1152363350_5ce5c8e981.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351243392322423394" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdIP7iuUwgBNbu3oolA7drmOc24nUNDwb-0ibhw3fsIXa3qIdsYFYGdriOxRJ0hSqV6KaLNB5T7o9KnGlvz3qxrFhk3WYS2aDbChazauu4EIhiNAhN91ZKkqZSl0Rv4K35ClUsP-HAKIM/s400/1152363350_5ce5c8e981.jpg" /></a><br />He was now within the Great Rift Valley, that was splits the African plate with a deep enfolding of the ground between three continents: from Syria in the South Western Asia to Mozambique in Africa.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIaHFnCExKryq9Wifh7q5q68nNrg2axSA3JIGZBhpNC_0h2fGmIqpU-NZlvN3NAmAXgASM7EIqkyXm1ltcurlwe11Qi0_340XT-x4pG9Kuwp726lzaItQ1dJZWL-92COntI1OWAOJlERD4/s1600-h/kibera1.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351243616611142594" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIaHFnCExKryq9Wifh7q5q68nNrg2axSA3JIGZBhpNC_0h2fGmIqpU-NZlvN3NAmAXgASM7EIqkyXm1ltcurlwe11Qi0_340XT-x4pG9Kuwp726lzaItQ1dJZWL-92COntI1OWAOJlERD4/s400/kibera1.jpg" /></a><br />He was running out of fuel. After trying for one more hour, he finally got to land the plane further South, on a grey soft heap…<br /><br />According to the map, he was supposed to be in a residential area, but there was not a living soul in sight<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEi84-KHu6mhbWKJgQqemCQHgWEDefKw4x1IEsrHQSOpabdA1RG-nDUiQ2_4KeN4ZrmKjDGVUQdX83UwIb9ETin_3qW7RiEaApEmHjnEgwbUGV20Y16eJd0HpMwTQO7j0H7_-iy7rtRzfd/s1600-h/air1.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 281px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351243844315518578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEi84-KHu6mhbWKJgQqemCQHgWEDefKw4x1IEsrHQSOpabdA1RG-nDUiQ2_4KeN4ZrmKjDGVUQdX83UwIb9ETin_3qW7RiEaApEmHjnEgwbUGV20Y16eJd0HpMwTQO7j0H7_-iy7rtRzfd/s400/air1.bmp" /></a><br />The water was sufficient just for eight days. He thought – with relief – that after all, it was not the Sahara desert and that he could manage to renew his supplies. He slipped under the shaft looking for shelter, covered himself with the mail-bags and fell asleep. He dreamed that he was shipwrecked with a rescue board in the middle of the ocean, and that somebody was asking him to draw a sheep.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTERByhGGkXdT3ale4DlJRFBfvHiil1IUuD4Vf3zTy3T-BnRFcEXHfUi-HYHBGoj6BM1r63r4zCrnb4I6CmJ7Ge8xpEuem97pihI3ShQxqhyphenhyphenWuUU-tEhtHxploKK3d5lq6DBJhFWX06DGd/s1600-h/mouton.gif"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 179px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 155px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351247314714681458" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTERByhGGkXdT3ale4DlJRFBfvHiil1IUuD4Vf3zTy3T-BnRFcEXHfUi-HYHBGoj6BM1r63r4zCrnb4I6CmJ7Ge8xpEuem97pihI3ShQxqhyphenhyphenWuUU-tEhtHxploKK3d5lq6DBJhFWX06DGd/s400/mouton.gif" /></a><br />He opened his eyes and looked for the little person with the unusual uniform that was supposed to show him the drawing with the elephant inside the boa and that he was supposed agree with him: “this is not a hat”.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-RRJepe8fBV7QpAHJKrV8h5Xa244fxYOPjShh6wYXpvLO-HiCzdA5oaJ9TAoP8CVGxcoStoujlJCOhTnZ6hTWngdgxKcMnMARhCUT-gKStQQtq1uT2j6F83kJ-zY_xSc7CoqjjWLcSYZ/s1600-h/i_want_to_be_a_pilot_01.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351244244591779474" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-RRJepe8fBV7QpAHJKrV8h5Xa244fxYOPjShh6wYXpvLO-HiCzdA5oaJ9TAoP8CVGxcoStoujlJCOhTnZ6hTWngdgxKcMnMARhCUT-gKStQQtq1uT2j6F83kJ-zY_xSc7CoqjjWLcSYZ/s400/i_want_to_be_a_pilot_01.jpg" /></a><br />He saw two black eyes instead, staring at him with curiosity.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRILC_Lm2w1R-YjgiBwWYudOqw5B6qTZwaGfgDChXNTcFybISHtEXj-F5KPMT-0OTPGSNS0UpTj8rsQ6_Svb_542bALJnHruY3RvchV9NsK8v3z6-QnUYE3dta60I0gjRdVeACySlBAIOv/s1600-h/9782211088084.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 263px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351244459971209362" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRILC_Lm2w1R-YjgiBwWYudOqw5B6qTZwaGfgDChXNTcFybISHtEXj-F5KPMT-0OTPGSNS0UpTj8rsQ6_Svb_542bALJnHruY3RvchV9NsK8v3z6-QnUYE3dta60I0gjRdVeACySlBAIOv/s400/9782211088084.jpg" /></a><br />A twelve year old boy wearing a track suit was standing next to a goat. The goat was digging up the trash. The boy told him:<br /><blockquote>“I want to be a pilot” .<br /></blockquote><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq48og-prF4Sgy35iDr_DNKQaG2MDVmuOEP2yqcygRtvLzmfJzT7KdytJ9cs4hV05kvldG_5q51NTC-pblUbGue5v4bmvwlwMLS-BiUS2fxevQ6QVUXGKFM9ibU6H_N3Z19_4M0p9SYCRH/s1600-h/webiwanttobeapilot_filmstil.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 321px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 216px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351246085931718370" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq48og-prF4Sgy35iDr_DNKQaG2MDVmuOEP2yqcygRtvLzmfJzT7KdytJ9cs4hV05kvldG_5q51NTC-pblUbGue5v4bmvwlwMLS-BiUS2fxevQ6QVUXGKFM9ibU6H_N3Z19_4M0p9SYCRH/s400/webiwanttobeapilot_filmstil.jpg" /></a><br />Antoine de Saint Exupéry was not any more expecting that the boy would ask him questions like “Did you fall from the sky? ” or “What is that thing?”, meaning his airplane. The boy had already seen airplanes. After their first acquaintance, the pilot – writer had a vague feeling that his interlocutor was going to describe “his own planet that was not larger than a house”.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>“My name is Omondi”, </blockquote><br /><br />The kid said,<br /><br /><blockquote>“I woke up my mother<br />early in the morning.<br /><br />I am twelve years old.<br />I live in Kibera<br />the biggest slum in East Africa.”<br /><br /></blockquote><br />So, Omondi was not in the mood to talk about other planets, or for astronomers, or strange trees which occupy all the space of your planet when you leave them there, unattended. Also there was nothing to sweep, since the space was made of heaps of trash. He sneaked into the pile and collected some aluminium cans that he intended to sell later at the Recycling kiosk. The pilot wondered whether the child was hungry.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNLG8jabJ4XLx6Gl9SD1_0OnLDxsvCTw1Ac_Yv2yKNY4Rjp_3nKeuJikr2g0JAFOAuTv7Bbdw8rF8pXU9usXhZLjqR0YpZfhCuTAzIC7d9MhwIPbYmUovWDrCm7zGdz9yqJAthlhtZh9h6/s1600-h/kibera2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351244832001973138" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNLG8jabJ4XLx6Gl9SD1_0OnLDxsvCTw1Ac_Yv2yKNY4Rjp_3nKeuJikr2g0JAFOAuTv7Bbdw8rF8pXU9usXhZLjqR0YpZfhCuTAzIC7d9MhwIPbYmUovWDrCm7zGdz9yqJAthlhtZh9h6/s400/kibera2.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>“My last meal was on Sunday<br />today is Wednesday<br /><br />I want to be a pilot<br />to fly very high,<br />far away from the ghetto<br /><br />to a place<br />where kids have parents<br />that don't die of HIV<br />everyday<br /><br />to a place far away<br />where guardians of orphan kids<br />cannot abuse us<br />everyday<br /><br />to a place far away<br />where goats eat<br />things other than trash<br />to a place far away<br />where I am treated<br />as well as white people are.”<br /><br /></blockquote><br /><br />The writer – pilot felt as if someone has punched him in his stomach. He looked around and realized that his plane had landed on a heap of trash in the Kibera slum. There was not a single tree, or a flower that he could water and which later on would make a scene of jealousy at him. There were only hovels with tin roofs, children playing among the heaps of rubbish, and the railroad splitting the slum in two parts, engraved in some depth, as in a riverbed. People were standing higher observing these piles from there… He had not seen so much poverty before. “Who is responsible for that poverty?”, he asked himself. “And this kid that wants to become a pilot”…<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5t2POh8SPQ_zrgjNNGhhM5d92wv6F7RP8IzUngXRSXNDnh49Ruuv33abg5JyH3RngpFarEA-w1T03HV98UTdg5Z7ZOKsZ3DDU5jF-D3JBMTrhlo_y4fbmM3PrW2vyCXgujmas90PcM5_/s1600-h/kibera_train_tracks.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351245034780746290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5t2POh8SPQ_zrgjNNGhhM5d92wv6F7RP8IzUngXRSXNDnh49Ruuv33abg5JyH3RngpFarEA-w1T03HV98UTdg5Z7ZOKsZ3DDU5jF-D3JBMTrhlo_y4fbmM3PrW2vyCXgujmas90PcM5_/s400/kibera_train_tracks.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><em>“Look at this rail track”, he told the kid. “People have learned to use winding paths. They use roads that bypass the waste land, rocks, sand and are directed where people feel their needs will be satisfied, that will lead them from a source to another source. They connect one village to another, they tumble in the desert and they rest in an oasis. Look at this rail track. In order to connect Mombasa, the port in East Africa with Lake Victoria inlands, people thought that they would beat gravity and started building a railroad inclined at 45 degrees. A railroad that would climb up high grounds and plateaus.”<br /></em><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3p9BvgKq0llzuCQU_mRW4mW9Svs0l9bfTaCo5yQQI77pxx5Vd82HIIZTo6aT-iWIh11XJOneqzomN28gpmWq6AQ24205iCl8i4VOe_dRihqhCDw0s4EwJGfI7kKN6wHw6c8NpQPSceq4Z/s1600-h/58Limuru.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 288px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351245226957410466" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3p9BvgKq0llzuCQU_mRW4mW9Svs0l9bfTaCo5yQQI77pxx5Vd82HIIZTo6aT-iWIh11XJOneqzomN28gpmWq6AQ24205iCl8i4VOe_dRihqhCDw0s4EwJGfI7kKN6wHw6c8NpQPSceq4Z/s400/58Limuru.jpg" /></a><br />The boy doubled over his knees in order to listen to him.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgoUhvlt-X-qAPlhH8EdyRvazczuzyp0rKCl6fY6caQJywno1uYIDXU9QX9v5Hcyk2KidOYoeEwLxMXNRQWStSHQ_uDiQ238BLseRSaamVGwwVn07KFjbGwBg0AhX58toHmFGR-k1BS7k/s1600-h/Saint-ExuperyPilotePPrin.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 283px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351245837643365970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgoUhvlt-X-qAPlhH8EdyRvazczuzyp0rKCl6fY6caQJywno1uYIDXU9QX9v5Hcyk2KidOYoeEwLxMXNRQWStSHQ_uDiQ238BLseRSaamVGwwVn07KFjbGwBg0AhX58toHmFGR-k1BS7k/s400/Saint-ExuperyPilotePPrin.jpg" /></a><br /><em>“The plane is what beats gravity. We take off and leave the roads that converge to the drinking troughs and stables, and slither winding like snakes from place to place. From our height, away from any human need, we discover the beauty of the desert, the charm of the rocks, of the mold, the sand, the salt. At this level people are invisible”<br /></em><br /><br />Without rising from his position, the boy answered:<br /><blockquote>“I want to be a pilot<br />to fly very high,<br /><br />to a place far away<br />where there are lots of school books<br />so one day<br /><br />I can fly<br />far away.<br /><br />I want to be a pilot.<br />It must feel so good<br />to go places<br /><br />where I can walk barefoot<br />on the green grass<br /><br />where water is clean<br />with rivers and springs<br /><br />where I can feel the sun<br />shining on me.” </blockquote><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3hZIOhwGUoY3coeSSjbTS8ZZO-R_YDZiy85Gg6jmlAZhv0sVy2_UCEFYEXW2Ycutkd1HJhAzQ8CdgS430WCRcsc5y7MhkjLW3J3DtJDh4vpI1DXyK0ReEFPrrISqp9XnkxLqDHUqn2N9/s1600-h/IWanttoBeaPilot.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 282px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351245432188730338" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3hZIOhwGUoY3coeSSjbTS8ZZO-R_YDZiy85Gg6jmlAZhv0sVy2_UCEFYEXW2Ycutkd1HJhAzQ8CdgS430WCRcsc5y7MhkjLW3J3DtJDh4vpI1DXyK0ReEFPrrISqp9XnkxLqDHUqn2N9/s400/IWanttoBeaPilot.jpg" /></a><br />“Now the time has come that he will abandon me”, Antoine de Saint – Exupéry thought and began to worry. He decided to take the boy with him on the back seat of his plane. He was certain that he would be able to repair it so that they would leave together. The boy looked as if he was getting ready to dispose of his “heavy” earthly body. “He will ask me to take him to “the” place where he will meet the snake”, thought Antoine de Saint – Exupéry. I want to write his story : The little black prince that wanted to be a pilot”<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKH83s8BlYzDIFnB7-r8HwvX8hqrIkMblgDLNRe1Y5X7cCIfDblTvjs_Rc4H5tX3csf8xjhlY6Sn6_g43Lng56lHReQjQMf7bgcDG6CwJLu0eOPzI3b50-7vEny4hD8Iy_nbtwemV7P4RG/s1600-h/6h248wsw.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 313px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351245605151501298" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKH83s8BlYzDIFnB7-r8HwvX8hqrIkMblgDLNRe1Y5X7cCIfDblTvjs_Rc4H5tX3csf8xjhlY6Sn6_g43Lng56lHReQjQMf7bgcDG6CwJLu0eOPzI3b50-7vEny4hD8Iy_nbtwemV7P4RG/s400/6h248wsw.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>“My dream is to fly far away<br />to a place<br />where my suffering can end.<br /><br />I want to be a pilot<br />to wear a uniform<br />to go places<br /><br />where others are not afraid<br />to play with me<br />because I am HIV positive<br /><br />where I can lead a simple life<br />where I can eat at least once a day<br />where there is a future.<br /><br />I want to be a pilot<br />so I can fly<br />to a place far away<br />where my mum and dad are<br /><br />so they can hug me<br />so they can kiss me<br />so they can love me<br /><br />so I can hug them<br />so I can kiss them<br />so I can love them”<br /><br /></blockquote><p><br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnqhdg7QV4Gpbi9vrYMSmeRAOBPPa0ZRocA4Hpyiw5Wy9szR9Zp1zN2GuqFLjgohfelNQDY3tFLOW5lH7RC1WLujtPSCfnApoC2S3-7KzpGEmX9bRfvzLca6rPQzMMHVb9dfp8z7rSZSg/s1600-h/littleprince_color.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 246px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 251px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351247854816065538" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnqhdg7QV4Gpbi9vrYMSmeRAOBPPa0ZRocA4Hpyiw5Wy9szR9Zp1zN2GuqFLjgohfelNQDY3tFLOW5lH7RC1WLujtPSCfnApoC2S3-7KzpGEmX9bRfvzLca6rPQzMMHVb9dfp8z7rSZSg/s400/littleprince_color.jpg" /></a><br /><br />PS1<br /><br />Antoine de Saint – Exupéry did not write the story of Omondi. His plane disappeared the night of 31st July 1944 after the take off from the air base in Corsica. However, he had always in mind the grown ups and the children that were hungry and suffered during the war. For this reason, he dedicated his Little Prince to his friend Leon, that “has been a child” who was in France, hungry and cold.<br /><br />PS2.<br /><br />The story of Omondi was turned into a film – poem documentary by the Mexican film director Diego Quemada – Diez. Omondi is a twelve years old kid growing up in Kibera, the greatest slum in East Africa. His story, written by <a href="http://www.iwantobeapilot.com/">Diego Quemada – Diez</a>, is made from the stories of all the children of the slum.<br /><br />PS3<br /><br />The journey of Saint – Exupéry to Africa and the failure of the airplane motor over lake Nakuru is inspired from his flight over the Andean mountains in Chile and the lake Laguna Diamante as described in chapter “Colleagues” of his book “The Land of Men ” ( translated into Greek)<br /><br />In the same book (chapter airplane) lies the inspiration for the thoughts on terrestrial and aerial routes.<br /><br />The “previous” air crash in the Sahara desert is of course told in The Little Prince, which also is inspired from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince">real story</a>.<br /><br /><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:78%;">Images </span></strong><span style="font-size:78%;">: </span><br /><a href="http://gregorylarson.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/2008-09-antoine-de-saint-exupery.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://gregorylarson.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/2008-09-antoine-de-saint-exupery.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.bodhipaksa.com/images/saint-exupery.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.bodhipaksa.com/images/saint-exupery.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/fisherwy/Ruq-zkm1jLI/AAAAAAAAIfQ/cyCnpbYU_KY/1.5+Million+Flamingos+on+Kenya"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://lh6.ggpht.com/fisherwy/Ruq-zkm1jLI/AAAAAAAAIfQ/cyCnpbYU_KY/1.5+Million+Flamingos+on+Kenya%27s+Lake+Nakuru%5B2%5D.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/19000/19637/kenya_ast_2008065_lrg.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/19000/19637/kenya_ast_2008065_lrg.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1131/1152363350_5ce5c8e981.jpg?v=0"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1131/1152363350_5ce5c8e981.jpg?v=0</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.zoriah.net/.a/6a00e55188bf7a8834011570239e53970b-800wi"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.zoriah.net/.a/6a00e55188bf7a8834011570239e53970b-800wi</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2224/2087197694_6423ee55eb.jpg?v=1235595183"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2224/2087197694_6423ee55eb.jpg?v=1235595183</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.peakoil.net/images/PetitPrince.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.peakoil.net/images/PetitPrince.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://overchieve.com/littleprince/images/stories/littleprince_color.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://overchieve.com/littleprince/images/stories/littleprince_color.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.sundancechannel.com/UPLOADS/films/320x240/i/i_want_to_be_a_pilot_01.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.sundancechannel.com/UPLOADS/films/320x240/i/i_want_to_be_a_pilot_01.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.cucalorus.org/images/films/webiwanttobeapilot_filmstil.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.cucalorus.org/images/films/webiwanttobeapilot_filmstil.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/IWanttoBeaPilot.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/IWanttoBeaPilot.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://blogs.greenpeace.ca/wp-content/photos/kibera_train_tracks.JPG"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://blogs.greenpeace.ca/wp-content/photos/kibera_train_tracks.JPG</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.mccrow.org.uk/eastafrica/EAR&H/Kampala_Nrb/KLA_NRB.htm"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.mccrow.org.uk/eastafrica/EAR&H/Kampala_Nrb/KLA_NRB.htm</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://cigalemistralavande.c.i.pic.centerblog.net/6h248wsw.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://cigalemistralavande.c.i.pic.centerblog.net/6h248wsw.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.anossaescola.com/CR/AdvHTML_Upload/Saint-ExuperyPilotePPrin.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.anossaescola.com/CR/AdvHTML_Upload/Saint-ExuperyPilotePPrin.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.bodhipaksa.com/images/saint-exupery.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.bodhipaksa.com/images/saint-exupery.jpg</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><br /><p><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki, Athens, Greece</span> </span></p>Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκηhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01569886842775925862noreply@blogger.com0