Articles from ileanaa

sentimental story

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:51:23 +0000

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Sentimental story by Nichita Stãnescu

Then we met more often.

I stood at one side of the hour,

you at the other,

like two handles of an amphora.

Only the words flew between us,

back and forth.

You could almost see their swirling,

and suddenly,

I would lower a knee,

and touch my elbow to the ground

to look at the grass, bent

by the falling of some word,

as though by the paw of a lion in flight.

The words spun between us,

back and forth,

and the more I loved you, the more

they continued, this whirl almost seen,

the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.

From the book "Bas-Relief with Heroes"

english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.

Poveste sentimentală

Pe urma ne vedeam din ce în ce mai des.

Eu stateam la o margine-a orei,

tu - la cealalta,

ca doua toarte de amfora.

Numai cuvintele zburau intre noi,

inainte si inapoi.

Virtejul lor putea fi aproape zarit,

si deodata,

îmi lasam un genunchi,

iar cotul mi-infigeam în pământ,

numai ca să privesc iarba-nclinata

de caderea vreunui cuvint,

ca pe sub laba unui leu alergind.

Cuvintele se roteau, se roteau intre noi,

inainte si inapoi,

si cu cât te iubeam mai mult, cu atât

repetau, intr-un virtej aproape văzut,

structura materiei, de la-nceput.

*

trains and dreams

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 23:13:39 +0000

ileanaa has posted an article:

Prin gările cu firme-albastre

Ion Minulescu

Tristeţea trenului ce pleacă

Noi n-am trâit-o niciodată,

Căci – călători ades cu trenul -

În clipa când plecăm din gară,

Noi stăm pe loc -

Doar trenul pleacă!...

Doar trenul pleacă,

Trenul singur

Ne poartă nerăbdarea mută,

Bagajul visurilor noastre

Şi setea noilor senzaţii,

Pe infinite paralele,

De-a lungul verzilor plantaţii

De mătrăgună şi cucută,

Pe schela podurilor albe,

Prin noaptea negrelor tunele

Şi gările cu firme-albastre!…

Doar trenul pleacă,

Trenul singur

Respiră,

Cugetă,

Vorbeşte,

Şi-n forţa aburilor cântă

Viteza roţilor ce creşte…

Doar trenul singur se frământă,

El singur urcă

Şi coboară -

Reptilă neagră ce-mprumută

Aripi de liliac ce zboară

Şi glas de cobe ce-nspăimântă!…

Doar trenul singur se-nfioară

De-atâta veşnică povară.

El singur poartă mai departe

Pachetele-omeneşti, culcate

Ca-ntr-un muzeu de statui sparte,

Pe bănci de pluş capitonate!…

Doar trenul suferă ofensa

Sclaviei negrilor “ad-hoc”,

Ce poartă-n lectici mai departe

Pe cei născuţi să stea pe loc…

El singur,

El,

Şi numai trenul,

Creează-n urma lui distanţa

Monotonia

Şi refrenul

Din care ne-adăpăm speranţa

Toţi călătorii spre mai bine…

Şi numai el,

Doar trenul singur,

Doar trenul ştie-anume cine

Şi câţi din cei plecaţi aseară

Putea-vom mâine,-n zorii zilei,

Bagajul visurilor noastre

Să-l presărăm, din suflet iară,

Prin gările cu firme-albastre!…

after the winter solstice | boris vian: la valse jaune

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:43:20 +0000

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Il y a du soleil dans la rue

Moi j'aime le soleil mais j'aime pas les gens

Et je reste caché tout l'temps

A l'abri des volets d'acier noir

Il y a du soleil dans la rue

Moi j'aime bien la rue mais quand elle s'endort

Et j'attends que le jour soit mort

Et je vais rêver sur les trottoirs

Et l'soleil

De l'aut' côté du monde

Danse une valse blonde

Avec la terre ronde, ronde, ronde, ronde

Le soleil

Rayonnant comme un faune

Danse une valse jaune

Pour ceux de l'autre ciel

Mais moi j'ai la nuit dans ma poche

Et la lune qui accroche

De l'ombre au coin des toits

Je vois tous les songes qui volent

En lentes banderoles

Et se perdent là-bas

Et l'soleil

Fait le tour de la terre

Et revient sans s'en faire

Et la rue se remplit de travail et de bruit

Alors

C'est là que j'me méfie...

Car il y a du travail dans la vie

Moi j'aime pas l'travail mais j'aime bien la vie

Et j'vais voir de quoi elle a l'air

En f'sant gaffe de pas trop en faire

Y en a qui comprennent pas la vie

Six heures du matin, ils sont déjà l'vés

Ça fait vraiment un drôle d'effet

Ça dégoûte presque autant qu'la pluie

Et l'soleil

De l'aut' côté du monde

Danse une valse blonde

Avec la terre ronde, ronde, ronde, ronde

Le soleil

Rayonnant comme un faune

Danse une valse jaune

Pour ceux de l'autre ciel

Mais moi j'ai la nuit dans ma poche

Et la lune qui accroche

De l'ombre au coin des toits

Je vois tous les songes qui volent

En lentes banderoles

Et se perdent là-bas

Et l'soleil

Fait le tour de la terre

Et revient sans s'en faire

Et la rue se remplit de travail et de bruit

Alors

Moi je me mets au lit...

Rives on controlling the internet

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:33:01 +0000

ileanaa has posted an article:

If I controlled the internet?

You could auction your broken heart on Ebay

Take the money, go to Amazon,

Buy a phonebook for a country you’ve never been to

Call folks at random until you find someone

who flirts really well in a foreign language

If I were in charge of the internet

You could Mapquest your lover’s moodswings

Hang left at cranky

Right at preoccupied

U turn on silent treatment

All the way back to tongue kissing and good lovin’

You could navigate and understand every emotional intersection

Some days I’m as shallow as a baking pan

But I still stretch miles in all directions

If I own the internet

Napster Monster and Friendster-dot-com would be one big website

That way you could listen to cool music while you pretend to look for a job

and you’re really just chatting with your palls,

Heck if I ran the web

You could email dead people

They would not email you back

But you’d get an automated reply

Their name in your inbox

It’s all you wanted anyway

And a message saying: “Hey, it’s me. I miss you.

Listen you’ll see, being dead is dandy.

Now you go back to raising kids

And waging peace

And craving candy”

If I designed the internet

Childhood-dot-com would be a loop

Of a boy

In an orchard

With a ski pole for a sword

Trashcan lid for a shield, shouting

“I am the emperor of oranges”

Now follow me OK

Grandma-dot-com would be a recipe for biscuits and spit bath instructions 1-2-3

That links with hot-diggity-dog-dot-com, that is my grandfather

They take you to gruff-ex-cop-on-his-fourth-marriage-dot-dad

He forms an attachment to kind-a-ditsy-but-still-sends-ginger-snaps-for-Christmas-dot-mom who

Downloads the boy in the orchard, the emperor of oranges who grows up to be

Me,

The guy who usually goes too far, so

If I were the emperor of the internet

I guess I’d still be mortal, huh?

But at that point I would probably already have

The lowest possible mortgage and the most enlarged possible penis, so

I would outlaw spam on my first day in office

I wouldn’t need it.

I’d be like some kind of internet genius.

And me,

I’d like to upgrade to deity and maybe

Just like that

(p-o-p)

I’d go wireless.

Maybe google would hire this

So I could zip through your servers and firewalls like a virus

Until the world wide web is as wise as wild and as organised

As I think a modern day miracle-slash-oracle can get, but

Oooooooooo, you wanna bet just how whack and un-p.c. your Mac or PC's gonna be when I'm rockin'

hot-shit-hotshot-God-dot-net?

I guess it’s just like life

It’s not a question of if you can

Its, “Do ya?”

We can interfere with the interface

We can make you god hallelujah the national anthem of cyberspace every lucky time we logon

You don’t say a prayer

You don’t write a song

You don’t chant an ooooohm

You send one blessed email to

Whoever you’re thinking of

Dadeladatatatatatatadadeladedadeladedatatam-dot-com

- Rives

Crete

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:03:09 +0000

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"Ever since that day I have realized that man's soul is a terrible and dangerous coil spring. Without knowing it, we all carry a great explosive force wrapped in our flesh and lard. And what is worse, we do not want to know it, for the villainy, cowardice, and falsehood lose their justification; we can no longer hide behind man's supposed impotence and wretched incompetence; we ourselves must bear the blame if we are villains, cowards, or liars, for although we have an all-powerful force inside, we dare not use it for fear it might destroy us. But we take the easy, comfortable way out, and allow it to vent its strength little by little until it too has degenerated to flesh and lard.

How terrible not to know that we posses this force! If we did know, we would be proud of our souls. In all heaven and earth, nothing so closely resembles God as the soul of man."

Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 1961

Crete

"In mijlocul unui furnicar de invitati, printre care cautam zadarnic privirea in care zbucnesc pasiuni vaste, se ivi intr-o zi un om. Corpul sau de ascet pare in prada unei lupte, aci sagalnica, aci sangeroasa, cu ghearele tuturor dorintelor. Lumina care ii pluteste pe fata chinuita este aceea a omului, caruia credinta ii pustieste maruntaiele.

Ochii, mult deschisi, sunt jucausi ca argintul viu. Privirea strapunge, atrage si indeparteaza mii de lumini intr-un minut. Gura i-a muscat peste tot, scuipand tot ceea ce a muscat si continua sa muste. Narile nasului se deschid si se inchid, nenincetat, adulmecand toate mirosurile.

Omul vorbeste. Vrea sa fie banal, potrivit cu circumstanta care ne-a unit, dar el isi infige lancile privirii sale in fata mea si de indata cuvintele sale abordeaza universalitatea, in timp ce bratele-i descarnate se alungesc ca sa insface himerele.

... Cine esti tu? Eu sunt Cretanul"

Panait Istrati, 1929, Vers l'autre flamme [1990, Spre alta flacara, Romanian transl. Alexandru Talex].

Istanbul

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:04:41 +0000

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"Le Bosphore : une avenue liquide, une allée triomphale qui vous porte, l'Asie et l'Europe se confrontant pendant des lieux avec une inoubliable solennité...

Pour dire l'entrée de Constantinople a ceux qui n'ont pas vue, il faudrait leur parler comme on parle aux aveugles pour leur expliquer la lumière. Dire : c'est un chant qui monte, de plus en plus haut, c'est la chaleur irrésistible, et si vous avez jamais éprouve la joie, eh bien, c'est la joie !"

Princesse Bibesco, Les huits paradis, 1925

Bosporus: a liquid avenue, a triumphant path that leads you, Asia and Europe in places’ confrontations of unforgettable solemnity…

To tell the story of Constantinople’ entrance to those who have not seen it, it would be like explaining the unsighted what light is like. Let's say: it is a song that goes up, higher and higher, it is the unbearable heat, and if you have never felt bliss, well, it is bliss!

Istanbul

Lisboa & Pessoa

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:12:10 +0000

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Fernando Pessoa

Portuguese Sea / Mar Portugues

Horizon

Your fearfulness preceding us, O Sea, / O mar anterior a nos, teus medos

Was lodged in coral, shores, and masts. / Tinham coral e praias e arvoredos.

Once of night and fog, of bygone / Desvendadas a noite e a cerracao,

Tempests and the mystery, unveiled, / As tormentas passadas e o misterio,

Distance flowered, and the sideral South / Abria em flor o Longe, e o Sul siderio

Sparkled on initiated galleons. / Splendia sobre as naus da iniciacao.

That far-off rigid coastline - / Linha severa da longinqua costa -

When the ship approaches, the shore now rises / Quando a nau se aproxima ergue-se a encosta

With the trees, where the distance offered nothing; / Em arvores onde o Longe nada tinha;

Closer, land breaks into sounds and colors; / Mais perto, abre-se a terra em sons e cores;

As we disembark, come birds and flowers, / E, no desembarcar, ha aves, flores,

Where before was but a far-off abstract line. / Onde era so, de longe a abstracta linha.

To dream is to see from some vague distance / O sonho e ver as formas invisiveis

Shapes invisible, then with the quickened / Da distancia imprecisa, e, com sensiveis

Motion of one's hope and will, / Movimentos da espranca e da vontade,

To seek upon the cold horizon / Buscar na linha fria do horizonte

Tree and beach, flower, bird, and fountain - / A arvore, a praia, a flor, a ave, a fonte -

Those kisses Truth awards. / Os beijos merecidos da Verdade.

Lisboa

Napoli 1924: Benjamin's Flânerie

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:24:31 +0000

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After their 1924 summer in the Bay of Naples (Capri), Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis wrote the essay "Neapel", which appeared in Frankfurter Zeitung in 1926. It is Benjamin's first recording of his reflections on the modern city experience.

The ruins of Pompeii and Naples stimulated them to distinguish within the process of decay categories such as spatial porosity (suggested by Lacis) and temporal transition. In terms of architecture, "one can scarcely discern where building is still in progress and where dilapidation has already set in" (1924:417 in Howard Caygill 1998). Porosity appears as the central image of the everyday life experience that 'captures the fact that the structuring boundaries of modern capitalism - between public and private, labor and leisure, personal and communal - have not yet been established: "Just as the living room reappears on the street [...] so the street migrates into the living room"; "For the sleeping and eating there is no prescribed hour, sometimes no place" (p.314)' (in Susan Buck-Morss 1989:26).

According to Buck-Morss this essay is the methodological beginning of Benjamin's Passagen-Werk experiment, by using street images to interpret the city. 'The images are not subjective impressions, but objective expressions. The phenomena - buildings, human gestures, spatial arrangements - are "read" as a language in which a historically transient truth (and the truth of historical transiency) is expressed concretely, and the city's social formation becomes legible within perceived experience' (p.27).

Benjamin illustrates through an anecdote that 'in the south of Italy, on the hollow and crumbling shell of the precapitalist order, modern social relations have been shakily, unevenly erected' (Buck-Morss, p.26):

"In a bustling piazza a fat lady drops her fan. She looks about helplessly, too unshapely to pick it up herself. A cavalier appears and is prepared to perform this service for fifty lire. They negotiate and the lady receives her fan for ten" (p.313).

Marthe's (Love and Time) Letter

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:46:08 +0000

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May 23 (1923)*

My dear Emilian,

As I expect you have already guessed, every ship is going to depart without me, because I am not going to leave this country again. When I went away from you I thought it would be my last absence, as I promised to return, and believed I would be capable to do so. Please imagine that during our prolonged separation I happened to die. And actually that is what happens to me with regard to you.

Every death is involuntary, even the self-provoked death.

I am thinking of those lines of Alfred de Vigny over which we have had reflected together: “You cannot love an absent being. What does the one whom you love mean for you? A daily letter, a more or less cold advice. You don’t love an advice, you love a human being; and if that absent being stopped living, she wouldn’t become more absent than before and you’d stop crying for her…” I was away, now I am not at all. Don’t cry for me. The earth incorporated me, as it had to happen one day. I tried to be myself; I became one with the other things, I melted with nature.

In complete solitude I came to this deserted shore to examine my consciousness, in the rhythmic uproar of a sea without ebb and without flow, which always hits the same coasts.

I asked myself if my heart could submit to the rhythm of this incredibly beautiful sea, which never rises and never lowers its level. And right here, I found out that my perseverance had quitted me, and together with my perseverance quitted as well my force to concentrate on a sole human being that incomprehensible infinite love, that divine impetus that takes me away from you.

My conversion became reality; the transformation that occurred in me is a transformation of being, it is what revelation means for mystics. And I don’t know exactly how this happened to me… through the slow action of the climate, through the unanimous forces that surround me. It is like I took the veil, after I verified the strength and counted the ties created between things and me, between beings and me …

In your last letter you drew my attention to the disappointment that the love for a people would bring me, as sort of a sentimental generalization that brought only hopelessness and aversion to those who lived it. Do not worry! If I love the people of Izvor and those who are alike, it is because I consider them creatures gifted with the quality of being loved, as I love the tree bearing fruit on the side of the road; it is not mine, yet I wish it would bloom.

As for you, my dear Emilian, I know that you’ll stay loyal to the other love of yours, which is the main principle of your being. I do abdicate in favor of your new love, as an unwilling usurer, as every loved woman is a double usurer: first, prevailing over the woman who was before her, and then over the woman who would come after her and who is made inpatient by the state of waiting.

Soon you will see the rays of the past and the rays of the future combining, crossing, and raveling me out - like a meaningless ghost! As long as you would like to believe it though, remember that I love you and… it will be true.

*Letter included in the ethnography of the Izvor village in the Carpathian Mountains, Romania - Bibescu, Martha. 2000. Izvor, tara salciilor. Anca-Maria Christodorescu (Romanian transl.) Isvor, le pays des saules [Paris 1923]. Bucuresti: Compania. pp.334-335

Summer Solstice Dialogues

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:00:00 +0000

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Shunryu Suzuky 1970:

... everything comes out of emptiness. when we reach this understanding we find the true meaning of our life. when we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of human life ...

Zelda Fitzgerald 1929-30: every place has its hours:

there is Rome in the glassy sun of a winter noon and Paris under the blue gauze of spring twilight, and there's the red sun flowing through the chasms of a New York dawn.

Li Po 李白 (~750): the world around us:

Dread Lord, do not wave your scepter: it is bejeweled.

Dear Dancer, do not whirl your scarves: they are orchid-flowered.

Pale Poet, do not flaunt your heart: it is radiant with love.

Our world cares only for unenchanted things.

Fr Maximos 1997: By charity I don't mean only to offer alms to the poor and to donate money to various worthy causes. All these are external manifestations of charity. The charitable propensity, as the movement that characterizes God, is none other than absolute and unconditional Love. ... When we learn to generate only good logismoi and develop right judgment and clear vision, ... then we will realize that whatever comes our way is, in the final analysis, a blessing.

www.youtube.com/watch

Rumi on Silence

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:00:21 +0000

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The Unseen Power

We are the flute, our music is all Thine; 

We are the mountains echoing only Thee; 

Pieces of chess Thou marshallest in line

And movest to defeat or victory; 

Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled - 

Thy wind invisible sweeps us through the world.

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system.

I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all.

I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story.

My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.

There is a way between voice and presence

where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes.

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,

I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.

I don’t plan it.

When I’m outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

Trans. Coleman Barks

The Foreigner

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:18:19 +0000

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... Richard Sennett wrote an article on the foreigner that starts from Simmel's understanding of the stranger's role to expose "the sheer arbitrariness of society's script, which insiders follow thinking lines have been written by Right, Reason, or God" (2002) and goes on with the foreigner's knowledge about living a displaced life... To understand the meaning of these roles, Sennett reminds us of Sophocles' Oedipus: "The two wounds on Oedipus's body are thus a scar of origins that cannot be concealed [his ankles bear a scar that marks his origins] and the wanderer's self-inflicted scars that do not seem to heal" (192). The two scars represent the conflict between the truth claims of belonging and the truth discovered by wandering. And to come to present times, Sennett places this ancient conflict at the origin of the modern tendency to change societal arrangements at will, and to treat community, identity and roots as "borders to be sealed rather than boundaries to be crossed" (194).

Wandering around with a camera, we/our cameras play the foreigner's role... similar to the (outside) participant observer in field research in anthropology. In the city the story is a bit more complicated, as politics (life in the polis) manifest in speech and action (at least according to Aristotle). At present there is one talk on multiculturalism and more actions towards isolation and exclusion. But hopefully flânerie might help to bridge that gap...

The Stranger

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:21:39 +0000

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On the condition of being a stranger, I draw here on Georg Simmel's description of the stranger as a social type (1908). In order to determine typologies he focuses on forms of social interaction and contextualizes sets of observations within systems of meanings. If one considers opposed categories as constitutive of the social order, Simmel's central analytical interest is oriented toward sociological dualism in terms of conflicts and contrasts between the opposed categories. Levine explains in the introduction to Simmel's sociology (1971), "The conflict between established forms and vital needs produces a perpetual tension, a tension which is nevertheless the source of the dialectical development or replacement of social structures and cultural forms throughout history." Thus Simmel understanding of individuality in a dialectical manner applies also to the stranger, as a dynamic process directed toward the accomplishment of an ideal. This ideal is endogenously determined by the capabilities manifested in each individual existence.

Based on Simmel's theory of forms as synthesis of opposites, the stranger is at the same time in a state of detachment and attachment to a place. The sociological form of the stranger is similar to the position of the outside observer of places. The outside observer is detached from, but interested in the object of study, s/he is part of the present spatial experience, but is involved in the long-term life of the place only through recollection.

"The stranger will thus not be considered here in the usual sense of the term, as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the man who comes today and stays tomorrow – the potential wanderer, so to speak, who, although he has gone no further, has not quite got over the freedom of coming and going. He is fixed within a certain spatial circle – or within a group whose boundaries are analogous to spatial boundaries – but his position within it is fundamentally affected by the fact that he does not belong in it initially and that he brings qualities into it that are not, and cannot be, indigenous to it. … The state of being a stranger … is a specific form of interaction. … The stranger is an element of the group itself … whose membership within the group involves both being outside it and confronting it” (Simmel 1971, pp.143-144).

In context, the stranger embodies the foreigner (Sennett 2002), the outside observer (in anthropological field research), and the other... and this blog will continue on the similarities and differences of these social roles :o)

Flânerie

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:46:06 +0000

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Etymologically the word flânerie comes from the French verb flâner that means to stroll, to take a walk. The origins of the verb are dialectal. In the seventeenth century the verb ‘flanner’ was used in Normandy to mean ‘to waste time’ (CNRTL). The verb flâner [to stroll], and the nouns flâneur [stroller] and flânerie [the act of strolling] became part of the French language in the nineteenth century, in writings of Balzac (1837) for instance, to describe someone who likes to do nothing.

French nineteenth-century poet Charles Baudelaire, who experienced and also theorized flânerie, coined the concept of the flâneur. Initially the term flâneur referred to the reflective stroller in the streets of Paris. The flexibility of flânerie became a pleasure for anyone who could be a detached pedestrian observer of the modern metropolis. After the second half of the century though, flânerie in the capitalist city became mostly the pleasure of those who had the capacity to consume. The flâneur is the initial form of the modern intellectual whose interest was to explore modernity itself.

In Los Angeles, we could do windshield flânerie (from our cars), which is closer to the online flânerie through the computer screen (window). At ipernity we experiment with off-line and on-line flânerie and please join the group and contribute, as I would like to do too :o)

In the essay "Seen from the Window" included in the collection Rhythmanalysis, Lefebvre presents an intermediate position of the rhythmanalyst that is placed in between the nineteenth century flâneur and the contemporary e-flâneur. Protected from the tumult of street life, the rhythmanalyst analyses the rhythms of the public space from the window of his private space.

"From the window opening onto rue R. facing the famous P. Centre, there is no need to lean much to see into the distance. To the right, the palace-centre P., the Forum, up as far as the (central) Bank of France. To the left up as far as the Archives. Perpendicular to this direction, the Hôtel de Ville and, on the other side, the Arts et Métiers. The whole of Paris, ancient and modern, traditional and creative, active and lazy.

He who walks down the street, over there, is immersed in the multiplicity of noises, murmurs, rhythms (including those of the body, but does he pay attention, except at the moment of crossing the street, when he has to calculate roughly the number of his steps?). By contrast, from the window, the noises distinguish themselves, the flows separate out, the rhythms respond to one another. Towards the right, below, a traffic light. On red, cars at a standstill, the pedestrians cross, feeble murmurings, footsteps, confused voices. One does not chatter while crossing a dangerous junction under the threat of wild cats and elephants ready to charge forward, taxis, buses, lorries, various cars. Hence the relative silence in this crowd. A kind of soft murmuring, sometimes a cry, a call.

…. The harmony between what one sees and what one hears (from the window) is remarkable. Strict concordance.

…. The noise grows, grows in intensity and strength, at its peak becomes unbearable, though quite well borne by the stench of fumes. Then stop. Let’s do it again, with more pedestrians. Two-minute intervals. Amidst the fury of the cars, the pedestrians cluster together, a clot here, a clump over there; grey dominates, with multicoloured flecks, and these heaps break apart for the race ahead.

…. The noise that pierces the ear comes not from passers-by, but from engines pushed to the limit when starting up. No ear, no piece of apparatus could grasp this whole, this flux of metallic and carnal bodies. In order to grasp the rhythms, a bit of time, a sort of meditation on time, the city, people, is required.

Other, less lively, slower rhythms superimpose themselves on the inexorable rhythm, which hardly dies down at night: children leaving from school, some very noisy, even piercing screams of morning recognition. Then towards half past nine is the arrival of the shoppers, followed shortly by the tourists, in accordance, with exceptions (storms or advertising promotions), with a timetable that is almost always the same; the flows and conglomerations succeed one another: they get fatter or thinner but always agglomerate at the corners in order subsequently to clear a path, tangle and disentangle themselves amongst cars" (Lefebvre 2004, pp.28-30).

Rhythmanalysis

nobody@ipernity.com (ileanaa) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:34:29 +0000

ileanaa has posted an article:

Rhythmanalysis is the study of rhythms :o) Gaston Bachelard borrowed the term from the writer Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos (a 1931-piece in Portuguese) in The Psychoanalysis of Fire and in The Poetics of Space as “rhythmo-analysis”, and developed a chapter on “Rhythmanalysis” in Dialectic of Duration. Toward the end of his life Henri Lefebvre made an attempt to develop a theory of rhythms, in order to build an understanding of “the concrete modalities of social time” (Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, 2004 [1992]). Social time manifests as rhythms that pertain to either natural time (cosmic rhythms) or to linear time (historic rhythms) like in modern everyday life, which is modeled on the time of watches and clocks. Lefebvre argues for the regeneration of present social life by means of incorporating the natural rhythms into the modern consciousness.

“Without claiming to change life, but by fully reinstating the sensible in consciousness and in thought, [the rhythmanalyst] would accomplish a tiny part of the revolutionary transformation of this world and this society in decline. Without any declared political position” (Lefebvre 2004, p.26).

On sound (silence, music and laughter) John Cage

"[The rhythmanalyst] will listen to the world, and above all to what are disdainfully called noises, which are said without meaning, and to murmurs [rumeurs], full of meaning – and finally he will listen to silences.” … “The sensible? It is neither the apparent, nor the phenomenal, but the present. The rhythmanalyst calls on all his senses. … without privileging any one of these sensations … he does not neglect smell, scents, the impressions that are strong in the child and other living beings, which society atrophies, neutralizes in order to arrive at the colourless, the odourless and the insensible. … The rhythmanalyst will not be obliged to jump from the inside to the outside of observed bodies; he should come to listen to them as a whole and unify them by taking his own rhythms as a reference: by integrating the outside with the inside and vice versa" (Lefebvre 2004, pp.19-21).

On love and time www.ipernity.com/blog/ileanaa/73599