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31 December (2021)
The better the sanitary situation will become, the worst will be censorship, coercion, policing, propaganda, etc. As pandemics naturally go away, but repression needs to be actively fought against, the new year won't be a happy one, but it will be interesting. Enjoy what you can.
23 December (2021)
So many unbelievable things up their beaks. I don't even know what looks more mysterious. Thanks Kirill for the great talk. I always feel like hearing it for the first time!
21 December (2021)
Entre notas - canción original de Elena del Valle youtu.be/67MEpB3HXBQ via @YouTube
20 December (2021)
Replying to @fabien_semat
Où peut-on la visionner autrement? Tout ce qui est censuré devient, de facto, un classique.
19 December (2021)
Me doing the wheather report with a black hole.
16 December (2021)
Replying to @DLViguier
Je n'ose pas demander qui c'est...
14 December (2021)
One of the best inventions in literature after Don Quijote and the Princesse de Clèves is Kilgore Trout.
If you don't know him, that's normal, as he's meant to represent, with success, the "widely published but mostly unknown".
He's featured in several works from Vonnegut but prominently in the one where he speaks a lot about penises.
There's a lot to say about the character, but the most important is Vonnegut's idea to write a micro-book, a short story, that Kilgore wrote in full although we only read about the short summary or rough description from the narrator, sometimes little more than the title itself.
That allows the genius Author, both Kurt and Kilgore (in many instances—not all of them—they are the same) to compose a considerably larger body of works than if he had to actually go through the full corpus.
That's such a story below, titled "The Dancing Fool." I picked it up randomly, they are hundreds of them. It fits entirely in two tweets.
A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.
Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in.
The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.
The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.
«Like so many Trout stories, it was about a tragic failure to communicate.» How could you best express the tragedy and farce of the human condition?
Imagine a Universe where Vonnegut wrote The Dancing Fool in full. Or Plague on Wheels. Or Now It Can Be Told. Or any of the stories he had Kilgore sketch for us where he shows us who and what we are.
I believe that all of humanity's past history and destiny, sophistication and fundamentals, hopes and sorrows, deeds and grace, crimes and blessings, are in this voluminous, imagined, but nonetheless real, saga of the human condition. Compiled mainly in pornography magazines.
Imagine, too, a Universe where the Sirens of Titans, or Slapstick, or Cat's Cradle would have been squeezed into a small paragraph.
One can in fact imagine that pretty well, since Vonnegut's work is intertwined to have layers of interpenetrating meanings and possibilities embrace each other. Mother night, for instance, is the full-book version of the infamous character sketched in Slaughterhouse Five.
One can, therefore, "contemplate" what he had in mind, what he was thinking, what he understood and what he wanted to "communicate" before it's too late and the house is on the ground. We sure are making a good job at braining the Zogs out there.
Tell me of a greater invention than this literary device since Don Quijote and La Princesse de Clèves.
Why I tell you this, is that Elena—who I'm pretty sure doesn't know about Kilgore Trout either, although I'm bound to have mentioned him countless times—came up with a fairly similar idea.
She writes songs, which I think are pretty good. See for instance Gorriones de Ciudad youtube.com/watch?v=vDuSVp…, a composition for parallel voices, or Desierto Tapial youtube.com/watch?v=im9Gxm…, a musicalisation of a dark poem by Álvaro Cuartero:
or No Puede Ser youtube.com/watch?v=N8pw5D…, on people's inner good nature, or Lastres youtube.com/watch?v=-LNcMN…, a tribute to womankind, or Hermanas youtube.com/watch?v=Xgq_zX…, a reflection on sisterhood, etc., etc.
I don't want to write about these "full-features" songs now. I want to write about her "Microcanciones", which are Kilgore's counterparts for music and songs: a short part of a composition, a glimpse, a tune with a few lyrics. Distilled just enough to give you the big idea.
It started with Suenan Amapolas youtube.com/watch?v=cO91B2…, which I believe was a project with Julia, that never materialized. So the idea for the song stayed in the back of her mind... until she realized she could give it a life of its own in this restricted capsule of creativity.
"Cogida con pinzas" is a great example of pure Troutian style. All of it is in the extract and in your imagination. youtube.com/watch?v=P8g0uA…
Sometimes she makes a Microcancion out of the full song, I'm not sure why, maybe to prepare for the main work, which could be difficult to apprehend in its original form. That is a tango microversion for a poem by Elvira Sastre youtube.com/watch?v=llE3yo… vs youtube.com/watch?v=0c3b9r…
Her last Microcancion is of this type, it is a sneak preview of something bigger, which is a collaboration with a great graphical artist, Malika. Hopefully, this will be ready for Christmas, if there will still be such a thing in the coming weeks.
youtube.com/watch?v=W3P90A…
youtube.com/watch?v=W3P90A…
12 December (2021)
Ça choque la première fois, ça estomaque, puis déstabilise, laisse incrédule, surprend, interpelle, et puis on s'habitue, et puis on fera tous pareil. C'est ça, la stratégie du choc. Ça résume tout en effet, après avoir vu ça on peut s'attendre à voir tout le reste.
10 December (2021)
"well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle"-and what a battle, shooting people from the comfort and safety of your sofa. On this day of Assange's extradition ordered, this is a video to see again. A perfect illustration of crime, cowardice and silent complicity.
Going back to Madrid hey? Nice talk!
3 December (2021)
Replying to @david__co
What a Champion! Only Alireza will be able to defeat him... and @ChessNetwork has to do the recap video now! :)
Replying to @david__co
Wow! It's a mate in 19 in the database...
@david__co Wow! Carlsen is a machine! under 20s several times. Longer game in world-championship history. Over 110 moves without his queen...
Dialogue from the 25th hour between Gheorghiu's mechanical slave and the human being: "It doesn't have to make sense. There has to be lines everywhere drawn, yeah?" t.co/b7lPYIC5ec
"When it makes no sense or doesn't seem right to you, that is the line, and that's what the law is". All has been said. There's nothing more to it. That is the line, the same line between one day to the next or the same day that never finishes and gets into its 25th hour.
1 December (2021)
Replying to @david__co
If they're somewhere, they're everywhere.
"Quarantine camps" will be the next universally loathed and decried abomination. Before that, lots of people to go there and lots of discussions to justify them.