svanire

Observations of a part of Amsterdam. Urban Studies.

2011-09-24T11:59:00.003+02:00

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Aikido O Sensei

2011-08-23T08:54:00.001+02:00

Aangereden door een auto / Hit by a car

2011-07-23T11:49:00.001+02:00

Aangereden door een auto / Hit by a car, a photo by Nationaal Archief on Flickr.

18,1 km

2011-04-11T16:42:00.000+02:00

Grotere kaart weergeven

Abel - Onderweg (Acoustisch bij TMF)

2011-02-13T09:41:00.000+01:00

Demonstratie studenten 21-01-2011 Den Haag

2011-01-23T09:39:00.001+01:00

Le théorème de la Femme

2010-03-16T23:19:00.000+01:00

Le théorème de la Femme

William Butler Yeats

2009-10-28T10:32:00.000+01:00

"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

養神館合気道、aikido Shioda Gozo demonstration part1 1978-1981

2009-10-17T19:42:00.000+02:00

France. !963.

2009-08-13T00:52:00.001+02:00

Op zoek naar de tango: Zwarte Ogen.

2009-05-09T09:21:00.002+02:00

Aikido - O Sensei in motion. 33:42 min.

2008-11-27T12:15:00.001+01:00

Yes, Prime Minister. Diplomacy.

2008-11-13T11:22:00.002+01:00

Yes Minister

2008-11-13T11:10:00.000+01:00

Speech Louk Tilanus

2008-10-17T22:34:00.003+02:00

Foto: Esther Herberts

Speech Leo Veldhuis

2008-10-17T20:37:00.002+02:00

Foto: Chiara Robbiano

Leiden, le 10 octobre 2008.

2008-10-17T20:16:00.007+02:00

Photo prise par Marcela Diaz.

"De Piekerpil" Zembla 21-09-2008

2008-09-22T21:56:00.002+02:00

Iraq war legal or illegal

2008-09-18T23:24:00.003+02:00

2008-09-11T23:21:00.000+02:00

Doshu Moriteru Uesiba Aikido demonstration

2008-08-24T20:20:00.002+02:00

E.B. White

2008-06-13T13:38:00.002+02:00

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
Be obscure clearly.
Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.
Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving he can outwit nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.
When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.

more quotes on brainyquotes

Quotation

2008-05-24T22:33:00.001+02:00

Stephen King - "French is the language that turns dirt into romance."

Oblivion and Marguerite Duras, 1914-96.

2008-03-15T09:58:00.021+01:00

My first (unconscious) contact with eastern philosophy happened reading the novels of Marguerite Duras. This French writer abandoned (in the fifties & sixties) the strict tradition and structure french novels had. Born in Gia Dinh, Indochina (now Vietnam) she introduced elements that were new to me: the concept of cyclicity (life and everything in it is cyclic, or very simply said: things come back), one should listen to silence and we just 'are'. So are all our impulses and feelings. Controlling them is ridiculous. So is the often absurd need for to much explicity.

Try to imagine how Flaubert or Proust would describe daylight coming to an end in a hotel as evening is starting. You would get two beautiful pages of twilight description. Now what does Duras give you? Five words at the most. Something like: "nine o'clock. Twilight in the hotel". So this "9 heures. Crépuscule dans l'hotel" gives you the freedom to imagine your own awesome crepuscule. Quite Zen isn't it? This way of writing also applied by other novelist of the 'nouveau roman' was ideal for film producers.

Being an adolescent and having the horrors of the second world war repeated to me, over and over in history class, literature class, on television and at home; I was absolutely astonished by Alain Resnais's "HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR". It was an old black and white movie (1959) but the screenplay was written by Mrs Duras herself. It expressed the full impact of pain without bloody images. A total opposite from Resnais's earlier poetic documentary on concentration camps "NUIT ET BROUILLARD" (32 min of piles of bones and people in terrible conditions). "HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR" is narrated to us through the diologue and the beauty of two young actors Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada (Japanese). The actors have no name in the movie, it is just 'he' and 'she'. Two souls who meet in a beautiful and lovingly one night stand. They share their war experiences. What happened during the second world war? What is real and what is the story we have, the one remaining in our memories? That is the theme of this movie/ screenplay. Which in a way does bring us back to the French tradition of analysing memory. But Duras's novels just start & end somewhere. Like everyday life we are confronted to fragments of events and memories. It is the human brain that internally structures everything. The story, the final structure happens in the viewers or readers mind.

So today I'll just end like this, no conclusion, just quoting Cecile Hanania (March 2007) on BNET: "Her [Marguerite Duras] novels usually mix themes of eroticism and death, often treating existential moments in people's lives. Avoiding the use of descriptive passages, she had her characters reveal themselves through what they say—and do not say."

More about Duras on the site called Marguerite Duras and for further reading: in 2006 two new biographies came out, both written by Jean Vallier on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Duras's death. The first one Marguerite Duras, La vie comme un roman (Paris: textuel, 2006, ISBN 2845971583) retraces Duras's life through photographic documentation. The second, C'etait Marguerite Duras, 1914-1945 (Paris: Fayard, 2006, ISBN 2-2136-2884-X) covers her early life in 700 pages. I cannot wait to read it, with a bit of luck, I have a gap in my agenda in May 2010.

Tao Te Ching

2008-03-09T20:33:00.001+01:00

Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow, whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.

osaka dadadadan tenko

2008-02-16T00:48:00.001+01:00

Thomas Cleary, Zen Antics, A Hundred Stories of Enlightenment, Shambhala Publications Inc, Boston & London, 1993 isbn 0-87773-944-7.

2008-02-15T20:05:00.005+01:00

Wil je, naast het beoefenen van een krijgskunst, iets meer weten over de achtergronden en de filosofie van budo dan kan dat op héél véél manieren: via internet, video, dvd, literatuur, lezingen, workshop’s. Het is lastig om uit zo’n groot aanbod, een goede keuze te maken. Maar na het kopen van een aantal foute vechtlustige tijdschriften, het zien van verkeerd beeldmateriaal met irritante geluidsbanden en het aanschouwen van veel te dure en te mooie fotoboeken met absurde informatie komt het altijd goed. Je begint als vanzelf de goede schrijvers, uitgeverijen en makers v beeldmateriaal te herkennen.

Thomas Cleary is een voorbeeld van zo’n schrijver. Werken van Cleary zijn producten van gedegen studie en kennis over Zen Boeddhisme en diens invloed op o.a. de Japanse cultuur. Door namen te onthouden van goede schrijvers en hun boeken te lezen hoop ik verder te komen in mijn ontwikkeling en onderzoek in budo. Hier volgt een samenvatting van de inleiding tot Zen Antics, A Hundred stories of Enlightenment.

In dit 99 pagina tellende boek verzamelt, vertaalt en geeft Thomas Cleary honderd antieke Zen verhalen uit. In zijn 5 pagina tellende inleiding (die hij simpelweg inleiding van de vertaler noemt) helpt Thomas Cleary de willende lezer om de verhalen in de geschiedenis of de japanse cultuur te plaatsen. Dat is, naar mijn mening, een hele troost want de lezer zal de verhalen toch niet begrijpen, althans niet meteen en niet altijd.

Waarom niet? Laten we kijken naar wat Cleary in zijn inleiding schrijft.

Zen boeddhisme is een wetenschap om tot verlichting te komen en werd ooit in heel Oost-Azie door vele beoefend. Zen is geen keuzepakket aan dogma’s maar een manier om het bewustzijn te verhelderen en te vergroten. Zen heeft zich verweven in het Boeddhistische leven- en overdrachts- cultuur, die diverse onderwijsmethodes heeft ontwikkeld om die beoogde verlichting ook daadwerkelijk te bereiken. Die onderrichts-vormen houden zich bezig met ten minste een of twee van de belangrijkste facetten van het Boeddhisme: jezelf en anderen helpen en wijsheid en mededogen ontwikkelen. Met behulp van praktisch toepasbare doestellingen, ook wel de zes en de tien voortreffelijkheden genoemd, wordt men in deze twee stadia geleid.
In het eerste stadium moet de leerling zes eigenschappen willen of hebben bereikt. Namelijk vrijgevigheid, discipline, geduld, energie, meditatie en inzicht.
In het tweede stadium moet de student de zes eerder genoemde eigenschappen stimuleren (overbrengen) en de volgende vier beheersen: bevoegdheid of vakmanschap, toewijding, kracht en kennis.

Cleary legt alle hierboven vermelde parameters afzonderlijk uit. Verder geeft hij aan dat genoemde parameters niet als serie gezien moeten worden maar als set, als een cirkel of nog beter als een bol. Ze worden immers niet afzonderlijk afgewerkt maar allemaal ter gelijke tijd ontwikkeld en behouden.

Vanwegen hun complexiteit zijn er tal van leer methodes ontwikkeld zodat studenten op de een of ander manier de tien parameters kunnen ervaren en herkennen. Termidden van de vele technieken is het vertellen van verhalen om de geest te vullen met impressies een geliefd (Zen) methode. De toegeweide luisteraar ontwikkelt dan een volledige kijk op het leven.

De antieke Zen verhalen zijn geen geschiedschrijving zoals we het traditioneel zouden zien. Zoals zo vaak met oude geschiedenis is Zen geschiedenis helemaal niet vastgelegd. Het echte doel van Zen verhalen is hun effect op de luisteraar. Wat de lezer of ontvanger ondergaat, daarvan onthoudt en begrijpt : dat is volgens Thomas Cleary hun echte geschiedenis of verhaal.
Verder fungeren de figuren uit die verhalen ook niet als rolmodel want ze komen uit werelden die niet meer bestaan: ze hebben in andere woorden geen voorbeeldfunctie als doel.

Cleary benadrukt dat de (tien) basisprincipes, die in de verhalen zijn verweven, ‘onsterfelijk’ zijn. Ze kunnen nog steeds worden toegepast. Dat kan hier en nu, in de toekomst, geheel ergens anders. Hoe dan ook, wanneer ze toegepast worden, gebeurt dat conform specifieke eisen van tijd, plaats en mensen maar het principe blijft intakt.

Het is me duidelijk: wil ik Zen verhalen echt in diepte begrijpen dan moet ik goed op weg zijn de tien voortreffelijkheden eigen te hebben gemaakt... Ik zal zelf iets van verandering moeten ondergaan en mijn karakter of mijn gewoontes moeten aanpassen. Een groot deel van antwoorden over budo liggen in jezelf en die zijn lastig te vinden op internet.

Dit is een verkorte versie van een eerder gepubliceerde artikel in het tijdschrift Aikido Nyumon, (nr 21; 2005) uitgebracht door Aikido vereniging Shi Zen Ryu, Leiden.

Gaudeamus, olie op doek, 1890.

2008-01-26T23:11:00.001+01:00

‘Gaudeamus’ is de titel van een schilderij van Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. Deze tekenaar, schilder en beeldhouwer vestigde zich in Parijs rond de vorige eeuwwisseling en werd zowel in Europa als in Noord-Amerika bewonderd voor zijn affiches en illustraties van boeken en tijdschriften. Zijn onderwerpen bestonden grotendeels uit mensen die hij op straat of in cafés trof: mijnwerkers, straatkinderen, bankeigenaren, verliefde stelletjes, prostituees, criminelen en wasvrouwen. Hij tekende ook dieren met een grote voorkeur voor katten. Wie zijn prenten goed kent weet hoe triest ze soms kunnen zijn. In een brief aan haar zus Hélène, van juni 1900, noemt kunstenares Sanne Bruinier de mensen die zij in levende lijven in Cafés zag ‘Steinlen-types: akelig verlopen ruines’.

Steinlen en zijn onderwerpen waren een begrip. Zijn roem had zich via tijdschriften geografisch weid verspreid maar drong ook door alle lagen van de bevolking door. Doordat Steinlen zowel aan de productie van kleine betaalbare tijdschriften werkte als aan luxe uitgaven, was hij bij arm en rijk bekend. In Le Chambard Socialiste, een anarchistische marxistisch krant die vanaf 1893 wekelijks uitkwam uitte hij met zijn illustraties scherpe kritiek op de staat, de kerk en het leger, instituten die het leed van de bevolking uit winstbejag in stand hielden. Arbeiders, studenten en politieke geïnteresseerden, lezers van dit tijdschrift, kwamen op deze manier in contact met het werk van Steinlen. Welgestelden bezatten Steinlens luxueuze illustraties zoals de boeken met leren omslag van zanger en schrijver Jean Richepin die in zijn jonge jaren een felle anarchistische woordvoeder was.

Maar om terug te komen op het schilderij 'Gaudeamus': wat bezielde Steinlen toen hij dit schilderde? ‘Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus’ zijn de eerste woorden van het oudst bekende studentenlied ‘Laten we genieten nu we nog jong zijn’. Maar wat betekenen deze woorden als ze op een rode vaandel staan, gedragen door een op zijn achterpoten staande zwarte kat? Want dat is wat er op het schilderij te zien is. Geen heldhaftige franse generaal op een steigerend paard, geen mooi vrouw met ontblote bovenlijf, maar een zwarte kat. Zou het ergens symbool voor staan? Voor wat? En waarom niet gewoon datgenen uitbeelden wat je uit wilt beelden? De kat staat op gesteente. Een bouwvallig huis of misschien een baricade?

(Illustratie: La Liberté guidant le peuple van Delacroix)

Na de Commune, had de Franse regering het niet zo op zelfstandige denkers. De Commune is een revolutie die voornamelijk in Parijs in 1871 had plaatsgevonden. Kunstenaars als Courbet en politici als Lamartine hadden zich hiervoor ingezet. Allen wilde een regering installeren die zonder autoriteit en in 'overleg' het land zou aansturen. Geen bewind maar een vrije organisatie. Een Anarchie. Terwijl alle slimme koppen in overleg grootscheepse (sociale) plannen redigeerde macheerde een Frans-Duitse Parijs binnen om een ieder die hen pad kruistte zonder overleg te doden. Zij wilde geen Anarchie. Tien jaar later stond dit nog vers in het geheugen van de Fransen. Een in 1881 aangenomen wet stond persvrijheid toe maar al te open kritiek kon toch een arrestatie tot gevolgen hebben.

Maar de kracht van kunst is nu juist dat zij gedachtegoed in symbolen kan uitdrukken. Naar mijn inziens is de eerder genoemde zwarte kat in het schilderij van Steinlen niet alleen een symbolische weergave van het cabaret, Le Chat Noir (de Zwarte Kat), waar arbeiders, studenten, kunstenaars, intellectuelen en bourgeois elkaar troffen. Dit is vaak de enige uitleg die gegeven wordt. Hier is bewust voor zwart en rood gekozen. Zwart stond symbool voor het anarchisme en verving bij anarchisten de rode vlag die tijdens de commune gebruikt was en hen te veel aan het gevloeide bloed deed denken (Louise Michel). Maar rood werd gebruikt door de beginnende socialistische beweging. Gasten werden uitgenodigd in het cabaret samen het glas te heffen maar vooral ook 'samen' op de barricade stand te houden tegen elke vorm van tirannie. Kritisch denken stond aan de grondslag van deze bewegingen aan het einde van de 19de eeuw in Parijs. Dit schilderij laat zien dat ondanks de bloedige onderdrukking van de Commune er nog steeds krachtige bewegingen waren die hoopten op een beter en vrijer toekomst. Via humor en het studentenlied ‘Gaudeamus’ waarvan de tekst duidelijk aangeeft dat de dood snel en onverwachts komt wordt de wetende kijker zich bewust hiervan. De drager van de vaandel is een kat en die heeft geen sociaal-maatschappelijk rang. Zo wordt hier niet allen een 'rijke' of een 'arme' weergegeven maar een mens. (Zoals de dieren uit les fables de la Fontaine). Het dier staat ook als een mens recht overeind en lijkt op de manier waarop eerder heldhaftige historische figuren door kunstenaars afgebeeld werden. Ik ben dus van mening dat Steinlen geheel in de traditie van karikaturisten hetgeen eerder door 'serieuse' schilders is geschilderd hergebruikt maar dan met een nieuwe boodschap en een grote scheut humoor. Hier rechts is een detail te zien van Napoleon I op zijn paard van de schilder Jacques-Louis David. Zelfde kleuren, zelfde ingetogen onrust, zelfde boodschap (volg mij). Ik bewee niet dat Steinlen dít schilderij kopieert. Wel dat hij de taal van schilderkunst voor dagelijkse gebeurtenissen hergebruikt. Hij kent zijn klassiekers en gaat niet hetgeen al bekend is heruitvinden.

Overigens, wie Steinlens' schilderij in levende lijven wil zien moet zijn best doen. Het ‘Gaudeamus’ behoort tot de collectie van Oscar Ghez. Deze collectie is ondergebracht in het Musée du Petit Palais in Genève, Zwitserland, Steinlens geboorteland. Het museum is momenteel in verbouwing en de collectie reist Europa rond. Tot 20 januari 2008 was het te zien in de Kunsthal te Rotterdam.

Deze 'post' is een bewerking van een eerder gepubliceerd artikel voor De Vereniging Vrienden Nieuwe Kunst 1900 (VVNK 1900) in de nieuwsbrief van december 2007.

Katie Melua - if you were a sailboat

2008-01-26T22:53:00.000+01:00

'Closer' and 'Breaking and Entering'

2008-01-20T16:11:00.000+01:00

Napoléon Bonaparte

2008-01-06T11:20:00.000+01:00

«Un homme, véritablement homme, ne hait point; sa colère et sa mauvaise humeur ne vont point au-delà de la minute.»

«Le soldat français est plus difficile à conduire qu'un autre. Ce n'est point une machine qu'il s'agit de mouvoir, c'est un être raisonnable qu'il faut diriger.»

«Il y a autant de vrai courage à souffrir avec constance les peines de l'âme qu'à rester fixe sous la mitraille d'une batterie.»

Steven Spielberg and Crime Prevention

2007-12-27T20:52:00.000+01:00

In 2002 Steven Spielberg made a science fiction movie that discusses the difficulties and eathical issues when a state prefers to prevent crime (and punishes those who wanted to do something bad) instead of persecuting crime (punishing only those who commited a crime, AFTER the crime). If I have a bit of time I'll write a bit more on this topic.

My Fair Lady. Why can't a woman?

2007-12-24T20:22:00.000+01:00

Our perception of food

2007-12-11T11:59:00.000+01:00

Most people I know like to eat in company and I think that experiences concerning food are often shared with others. Here is a funny one. In his short memoir about Giorgio Veneri sensei, Karl Friederich Leisinger sensei writes: In northern Germany and the Netherlands there is a type bread looking dark brown and lying heavy in the stomach. The name is “Pumpernickel”. Giorgio made acquaintance with it in den Haag. The next morning I met him in a supermarket. He was searching hardly for this bread: “I have to show this awfully bread to my friend in Mantova.”

Giorgio Veneri sensei was of Longobardian origine (Mantova, Italy) and a pioneer of Aikido in Europe.

Cape Town

2007-12-07T20:53:00.000+01:00

In 2001 Michael Mewshaw wrote an article about Cape Town, announcing a change in its touristic attractions and club scene. Changes that I thought to be the soul of the city when I visited Cape Town last November (2007) for an Aikido seminar. If you want to read Mewshaw's article that was published in the New York Times, click here.
For practical information (when, where, why) on Cape Town, click here.

visionary

2007-11-23T06:02:00.001+01:00

Princess Mononoke, The Lord of the Rings and The Last Samurai

2007-11-20T23:14:00.002+01:00

“Mononoke Hime” is the title of a Japanese animation movie released in 1997. Mononoke is one of the many Japanese words for spirit or monster. In the movie it refers to one of the two main female characters shown on this image. She’s a strange figure; her parents abandoned her in a forest when attacked by wolves. The wolf goddess Moro did not tear her apart but raised the human baby as her own whelp, which makes the girl 'princess of spirits and beasts'. In her attempt to protect the forest and her inhabitants this young woman engaged herself in a life and death battle with Lady Eboshi who leads the Tatara Mono (iron making people). Both women are courageous and both are slightly blinded in their effort to defend what is inevitably a right cause. It isn't possible to be hesitant in a fight for survival, is it?

Lady Eboshi has only one goal and that is to create as many rifles as possible. Her firearms will protect her people (or her desire to move forward) from whoever commits the error to stop them. She could be seen as a businesswoman, she certainly doesn’t have time and everything has to serve this obscure purpose of producing more. Living trees are seen as combustible and although she pities the loss of some human lives, lost for this cause, she seems to believe that humans are replaceable, like everything else is. San, the princess of spirits and beasts sees the environment is changing. As human extract natural resources from the mountains, the forest and its inhabitants vanish. The civilisation pace is continuous and fast and nature has no time to recover. A delicate harmony that lasted for centuries is disturbed and the gods of nature try to counter attacks this human invasion. Lady Eboshi's answer to this, are nasty bullets that force different gods of nature to accept a slow and painful death.

In the animated movie the images show the beauty of nature violently contrasting with a grey, noisy and fire spitting town.

To sum up, in my opinion two questions are being raised. First, how can humans with all their needs live in harmony with nature and second, how are old values based on century of knowledge to be combined with new values? New values raised in our society ever since the industrial revolution imposed a new rhythm and a completely different way of life. In the 19th century many countries replaced their spiritual knowledge or tradition by ownership and material progress. At what costs? At the same time this way of living gave most humans a better way of life. Not just any, as for example equal rights for individuals, including woman. Rights later defended by Human Rights laws. In “Mononoke Hime” this is clearly animated. It is a woman who protects common people, farmers, prostitutes and lepers and leads the town of the Tatara Mono. Common people, who had absolutely no rights in ancient Japan and medieval Europe as only the ones who knew how to handle a sword had some rights. It took years of training to know how to handle a sword or conduct a battle and one had to be in the position of following this expensive- time-consuming-harsh training. But with the invention of the rifle this changed. Manufactories rose who could produce firearms in greater amount and of reasonable quality and common men could be trained in less time and still be lethal. Note that Japan, who kept her doors closed to the 'western world' for many centuries opened it at the end of the 19th century and firing arms came to Japan along with western industry and commercial interest. In “Mononoke Hime” the town of Tatara Mono (iron making people) is located in the West. Is this a coincidence in the movie or simply a wanted message taken from history? [For the ones that do not wish or have not time to read about this but watched “The Last Samurai” this may sound familiar too].

Is this all, a discussion concerning traditions from the West or tradition from the Far East? I don’t think so. First we cannot always think in opposites (East/West, good/bad, black/white, life/death, men/women). This way of thinking may be necessary to categorise the world around us and at times, a handy educational tool but it limits us as we do not notice the non-categorised. Thus things that can’t be described in words or perceived by human eyes are forgotten and we risk to become men with limited knowledge and capacities. Yes we have great scientists and a lot of knowledge but is that the same as wisdom? For centuries man incorporated new values into older ones. There is no good or bad to it and no general rule that can be applied. Except maybe to have a profound respect for the intangible laws of nature and all what is hers. Living creatures (including our self) but also rocks, air, water and fire are part of it. Do we not all need fresh air and clean water for our survival? Rocks to stand upon? (The centre of the earth is hot and not solid enough to stand on). There must be more to it, what is it for example that gives energy to people? No matter how badly fed or treated? Should this life energy be seen as a fairy tale because it is difficult to grasp for science? Should we consider Tolkien’s work “The Lord of the Rings” to be a fairy tale as it talks of ‘the land of Mordor where the shadows lie’ and its characters are Elves & Hobbits? Or is it one of the best account we have concerning the drastic changes enhanced by the industrial revolution on our conception of life and a way to describe the segregated societies we live in where people do not and will not blend. Very simply summarised Tolkiens saga says, it's fine, we can all be proud of our roots as long as we also respect differences and when faced to problems; try to overcome them together as we need the combined knowledge of all creatures (also the knowledge of animals as for example their silence before a storm). Sometimes though you stand on your own and you alone will have to carry a load and make decisions. Be prepared. In short I’m grateful to the directors Hayao Miyazaki, Peter Jackson and Edward Zwick for creating movies that do not only entertain and please our senses (or shock them) but also give us material to think and rethink. In this current time we might all need it.

Joyce Brothers

2007-11-13T19:04:00.001+01:00

No matter how love-sick a woman is, she shouldn't take the first pill that comes along.

Habanera dans Carmen de Bizet

2007-11-11T23:55:00.001+01:00

(...) l'amour est un oiseau rebelle que nul ne peut apprivoiser (...)

Home

2007-11-04T18:29:00.000+01:00

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden. - Buddha

2007-11-01T22:45:00.001+01:00

Why, tell me why.

2007-10-23T11:04:00.000+02:00

Spiderweb silk explained
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184538968/bctid527528009

My hands are...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qH_-0fY_Y

Why we enjoy teasing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sshbHTDSwCk

Why are we afraid of sharks?
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1243698108/bctid176904499

(The last one is to calm down)

Jack Nicholson in the box

2007-10-22T10:13:00.000+02:00

My experience is that after having worked in sales, customer service and aid assistance for years one becomes kinder and kinder. One reaches this level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfu03gZ__8M&NR=1

PS: did you see the sheep at the back? Sheep = a domesticated ruminant mammal with a thick woolly coat (says Thesaurus)

De die in diem - From day to day

2007-10-21T01:26:00.000+02:00

Da mihi sis cerevisiam dilutam - I'll have a light beer
Da mihi sis crustum Etruscum cum omnibus in eo - I'll have a pizza with everything on it.
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Bis vivit qui bene vivit - He lives twice who lives well
Dum spiro, spero - While I breathe, I hope. (Cicero)
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Bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria - He conquers twice who in the hour of conquest conquers himself. (Syrus)
Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit - He is doubly destroyed who perishes by his own arms. (Syrus)

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)

2007-10-15T16:46:00.001+02:00

Mount Fuji (Fujisan) is with 3776 meters Japan's highest mountain. It is not surprising that the nearly perfectly shaped volcano has been worshipped as a sacred mountain and experienced big popularity among artists and common people.

EI

2007-10-12T00:00:00.001+02:00

An internet site says:

"What is Emotional Intelligence?
You’ve probably heard and read a fair bit about Emotional Intelligence. There’s a lot of information out there. But what is it and where has the idea come from? Emotional Intelligence is not a fad or a passing trend but the end result of years of research into what makes people tick. In the words of EI expert Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence is:
The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships."
In other words, Emotional Intelligence has nothing to do with IQ, or how clever you are, but everything to do with how self-aware you are and how you interact with others. Why bother with EI? Recent research has shown that EI is twice as important as IQ in determining future career success. And the really good news is that it can be developed."

Something in all this, suddenly makes many things clear to me.

shadow and battle

2007-10-08T12:05:00.000+02:00

When a battle takes place, it will most of the time be one big chaotic mess. Hasty decisions have to be taken and one can't always judge what's best. When humans fight, they're in the middle of it and can't see everything maybe because they also tend to carry along emotions.. This makes them human (inhuman in extreem situations). Fear, desire to protect, desire for protection, love towards the one, hate towards another, sometimes mixed, irritation, fatigue, ego's, unanswered questions, desires... And the horrors: death, thirst, hunger, pain, loss, gain.. The list is endless and the ones fighting the battle don't tend to talk about it, not while fighting it and not after, they might quote a detail but will quickly realise only the ones who fought similar battles will understand it. In that case explanations are not needed and so things again are not discussed. Shame and pride go hand in hand. One needs to be very brave to hold a mirror and remain in contact with oneself looking at it. Conscience from the latin word 'con' (with) and 'scire' (know) also means being privy to, sharing in the knowledge of usually something private or secret.

The ones at the side line not involved (not supporting, being able to support or wanting to support) make comments based on what they see from a distance or based on the knowledge of what happened after it all happened, thinking things were clear back then as well.

They even might consider the warrior to be a winner or a looser! How can you make them clear they are living their own reality as we all are?

Then comes a new battle with those who pretend to have a conscience. Unless... One does not want to start this new battle and accept winning is not fighting at all.
But how can one acquire this knowledge without having had to fight for it?

So the ones knowing it, fought it and lost it, to be able to understand it and the ones not knowing it, never fought it and don't know there is no winner. Just their judgement, these do not fear to speak out loud as they do not realise how silly it sounds. Should we forgive them? Who are we to forgive. So we just let it be.

Nulla dies sine linea

2007-09-23T19:41:00.000+02:00

Nulla dies sine linea (not a day without a line) was written on the wall of Émile Zola in his estate at Médan near Paris.

carpe diem (quam minimum credula postero)

2007-09-08T13:43:00.000+02:00

For the first time this year, on the last day of August I managed not to think of Grand Mothers departure to the other world. Time is a healer. But the first day of September did help me to remember we're here for a limited time. It started with a long traffic jam that confronted me with two car-crashes and a tour-bus driving backward to see if, the white-red spotted cat, it hit was still alive. Five days later I felt how a dear friend remembered her beloved one lost seven years ago. The same day, by accident I was informed of the funeral of a former colleague was taking place today. I took a break, could not eat. While forced by the work pressure to remain in the office, I could see how, at the opposite of the building, the police and different organisations gently forced their way into a house where a the end of the evening a forgotten body of a forgotten person was removed. I did not see the details, don't know the story but the amount of dead flies on the window edge after they had used insecticide was enough.
Many more events on these early Semptember days. Relax I will not sum them up anymore.
So today I try to take some distance of all this and am determine to figure out what Horace tells Leuconoe in Odes (1.11) by saying:

Dum loquimur fugerit invida aetis: carpe diem quam minimum credula postere. (Even as we speak envious time is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future)

If I understood the scholars well (I do not master Latin), it does not mean we should follow a hedonistic philosophy or life style, but that one should live in the present and seize the opportunities of the moment. This also involves discipline. It could be the reason why it is usually translated as seize the day instead of pluck the day (what is considered to be the real translation of carpe diem).

2007-09-08T12:46:00.000+02:00

(...) Lilly, though saddened by the tragedy that she caused her friends and lovers, is unable to imagine how her life could have been any different, given her obsessive live-for-today-for-tomorrow-we-die mood, common among besieged Berliners. (...)

Edgar Allan Poe's story: The Black Cat

2007-08-26T11:00:00.000+02:00

Excerpt: "But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! --by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman --a howl --a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation."
First published in the United States Saturday Post, August, 1843.

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

2007-08-17T21:31:00.000+02:00

John Locke "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions".

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1690. Locke defines the self as “that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends,” but Locke does not ignore the “substance.” He writes “the body too goes to the making the man." The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware, self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body. In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an “empty” mind—a tabula rasa—that is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas. (Wikipedia)

Which also gives us the responsability of being modest and regularly re-evaluate our reflections. Ideas are just ideas. Lets remain open to other bright ideas, adapt ideas to new conditions and knowledge. Lets be brave but not fanatical. Lets not defend ideas at all costs just for the sake of convincing ourselves that we're right and not lost in this world. This is what i try to tell myself every day. (me)

Did anyone read his Essay Concerning Toleration (1667)?

laisser-faire-laissez-passer

2007-08-17T09:19:00.000+02:00

"L’art de laisser aller les choses comme elles peuvent". Balthazar Gracián (1647)

Il y a des tempêtes et des ouragans dans la vie humaine ; c’est prudence de se retirer au port pour les laisser passer. Très souvent les remèdes font empirer les maux. Quand la mer des humeurs est agitée, laissez faire la nature ; si c’est la mer des mœurs, laissez faire la morale. Il faut autant d’habileté au médecin pour ne pas ordonner que pour ordonner ; et quelquefois la finesse de l’art consiste davantage à ne point appliquer de remède. (…) Une fontaine devient trouble pour peu qu’on la remue, et son eau ne redevient claire qu’en cessant d’y toucher. Il n’y a point de meilleur remède à de certains désordres que de les laisser passer, car à la fin ils s’arrêtent d’eux-mêmes.

L'homme de cour (chap. 138) ; trad. de l'espagnol par Amelot de la Houssaie, Paris, 1684 (Gallica, bnf)

Copied from:
http://antisophiste.blogspot.com/2005/09/laissez-faire-laissez-passer.html

kendo poem

2007-08-10T15:33:00.000+02:00

Not think:
Before and after,
In front, behind;
Only freedom
At the middle point.

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, 1859-1923.

2007-08-04T23:05:00.001+02:00

Symbolism of colors?

2007-08-02T15:53:00.000+02:00

I watched the colors of given bunch of flowers and thought of how confusing it used to be. These unspoken words, people used to connect to colors..

Yellow; light, lustre, glory, color of the sun, envy, treason (Easter, spring). White; joy, feast, truth, purity, liturgical color for the feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and the Easter period, used at baptisms, weddings and sometimes funerals. (joy, tenderness, love). Red; love, suffering, sacrifice (struggle, love, joy, passion, courage). Pink; light breaking through, liturgical color on the third Sunday of Advent (Caudate) and the fourth Sunday of Lent, (Laetare) (soft tender love, happiness).

Do I dislike an unclear situation by nature? Or is it because I had enough of it in the past? Vague under-cover ghosts? I used to fear spoken words and seek shelter in images. But nowadays I tend to like honest clear messages. A quest for the secure. Avoiding situations as mentioned below.

belle et sebastien

2007-07-25T20:36:00.000+02:00

the power of books or stories is immense, they will influence how we seize the world, indefinitely

if i would think of the people who trained me i would think of my mother, my grand-mother, chouky, her children, ineke, special friends, an army of teachers and a battalion of writers. i would not forget ex-partners nor my dog occident who co-operated with my cat bagheera. i would even quote the sky, the weather and the foreign woods of my childhood..

damp

2007-07-24T22:58:00.000+02:00

Diffusion; it is a natural effect. At least on earth, as far as I know, emptiness is always filled. By liquid, by gas, by air. A natural movement of particles is always on the move to find a new equilibrium. It is in constant move.
This natural effect can also be observed between people and their interactions. Example: if a person is passive and has a character that tends to evaporate a fellow human being will fill the gap. It is beautiful to observe, it can go back and forth and vary in time and place between all the individuals that are tied by this effect.

Human reactions are like gas. The definition of gas is: an airlike fluid substance which expands freely to fill any space available irrespective of its quantity. The question is: does it expand freely or is it a law of nature? Are humans acting or reacting. How free are they? Aren't their actions not, most of the time a natural effect within a much bigger space called Universe? And is it not a fact that they have very little influence on their choices and the constant movement?