Here you won't find the pages of a pedantic journal, praises to fantastic places or accounts of memorable encounters. This is a collection of stories, thoughts, images, and most of all odd stuff, even though to someone else it might actually look ordinary. To discern its bizarre side, in fact, special filters are needed: cynicism, fussiness, stubbornness, isolation, impudence, nosiness and nerdiness. All flaws that, in different measure, this semi-nomadic being has got embedded in his genes.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
The Antichrist - Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Let's start by stating that this is not a book against Jesus Christ, meaning the historical person, the religious prophet or the revolutionary philosopher. This is definitely a very harsh criticism of Christianity, the Christian church and its founding fathers (the Apostles, Paul of Tarsus, the Popes, the priests), of its roots planted in a corrupt version of Judaism (corrupt when compared with the original form of it) and of the German Lutheran reformation.
One might not agree with Nietzsche's conclusions, judgments, opinions and some creative historical interpretations, which I do find extremely fascinating and often very convincing, at least much more convincing than most of the orthodox ones - the idea that the Greco-Roman tradition was bled by Christianity from inside (as opposed to destroyed by a natural catastrophe or a military invasion), that the middle age crusades did contribute to obliterate the advanced Moorish civilization in Spain and that the German Lutheran reformation did a similar thing to the Italian Renaissance cultural-revolutionary movement, is a brilliant historical intuition.
Labels:
books,
christianity,
church,
german,
germany,
jesus christ,
judaism,
literature,
lutheran,
martin luther,
philosophy
Monday, October 21, 2024
The Palazzina is safe - St. Julian's, Malta
A stroll down the promenade
by St. Julian's bay,
from Spinola to Balluta
on a warm autumn day.
The sky is clear,
the wind is strong,
people in swimsuits
read books or doze off.
At Paradise Exiles,
a hip bar by the sea,
locals and foreigners
have snacks and cold drinks.
A sailor from here,
tattoos on dark skin,
with longing reveals,
while sipping beers,
that in two or three weeks
high waves and big rain
will gradually sweep
the magic away.
Labels:
architecture,
art nouveau,
autumn,
buildings,
english,
literature,
malta,
modernism,
poetry,
sea,
st.julian's,
weather
Saturday, October 19, 2024
The wild iris - Louise Glück
What might at first seem a sequence
of conversations of a mad voice
with singular, plural, material
and imagined listeners,
suddenly becomes clear
and beautiful as well,
when you finally understand
the underlining pattern.
The book starts when spring begins
and ends when summer finishes.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Combustion - Bangkok, Thailand
At six in the evening
as hell replaced heaven,
a skyscraper was scraped,
by the clouds up in flames.
Labels:
bangkok,
chaophraya,
english,
literature,
photography,
photos,
poetry,
river,
skyscraper,
sunsets,
Thailand
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
In praise of sincerity - Montesquieu
In this little book, as the title suggests, Montesquieu praises sincerity as a virtue. This is done at two different levels.
In private life sincerity is advised as opposed to indulgence. A real and useful friendship should always be based on absolute honesty, even when this leads to conflicts with personal pride, or especially when that happens.
Labels:
books,
french,
friendship,
leadership,
literature,
philosophy,
politics,
sincerity
Monday, October 14, 2024
On the passion of love - Blaise Pascal
In this short treaty, Blaise Pascal - who for the most part of his life worked as a scientist - expounds his views about love and passion. He tries to point out the relation of these feelings with all the other aspects of life.
Labels:
books,
french,
literature,
love,
mathematics,
passion,
philosophy,
physics,
science
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Nobel prize for literature awarded to Han Kang
Han Kang, a female Korean writer, was just awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. This is what I wrote down after reading some of her works a couple of years ago.
Convalescence, Human acts, The vegetarian - Han Kang
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
The spice-box of the earth - Leonard Cohen
As in Let us compare mythologies, in this collection Cohen also alternates Garcia Lorca's style inspired poems - assemblies of images, sounds and loosely connected symbols - and other compositions that can be more clearly paraphrased and literally interpreted, with an explicit message. Those of the second type might be slightly more numerous, while the style of the first batch is even more mature and inspiring than in the previous book.
Monday, October 7, 2024
Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of smoke, Flood of fire) - Amitav Gosh
I first read a book by Amitav Gosh more than twenty years ago, during my first trip to Myanmar, when two Italian ladies on a boat ride along the Irrawaddy river gave me a copy of a short story collection by this Indian master. A few years later I got to admire his talent after reading "The glass palace" and since then I've read anything by him I've happened to come across.
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Taking (contradictory) sides
I’ve noticed that, save for an irrelevant minority, people tend to stick to either one of the following groups: 1) those who are against Israel invading Lebanon AND in favor of Russia invading Ukraine or else 2) those who are in favor of Israel invading Lebanon AND against Russia invading Ukraine. The bullshitting-pseudo-noble-reason they might claim they took those contradicting sides for doesn’t matter much, like any other bullshitting-pseudo-noble-reason for that matter. It’ll be something about imperialism, capitalism, communism, totalitarianism, nationalism, fascism, racism, terrorism, zionism, islamism or any other “-ism”. What’s sure is that they are taking sides against one invasion AND in favor of the other one. Either one.
Labels:
eastern europe,
geopolitics,
invasions,
israel,
lebanon,
media,
middle east,
opinions,
palestine,
politics,
russia ukraine,
social media,
Wars
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