today

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time,
far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees,
out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea,
circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Bob Dylan
Mr. Tambourine man

a bloomsday of one's own

June 16th, 1904 was probably a day like everyone else in the lives of those who did not have their first born child seeing its first light on that day, or did not lose a beloved one or got married to their love of their life. It was probably a day like everyone else in the lives of a lot of people. Fortunately for us, it was not an ordinary day in the life of James Joyce, who had his first date with Nora Barnacle, on that same afternoon. As Nora was to become his wife and lifetime companion, that 16th of June, 1904 assumed a special role in Joyce's life and this is how it ended being probably the most famous, ordinary day in the history of literature. Joyce's "Ulysses", acclaimed by many as the greatest novel of all time, takes place in Dublin during that day.

June 16th of June is nowadays celebrated by Joyce's fans all over the world and his Irish compatriots in particular. And since one of "Ulysses"' main characters is called Leopold Bloom, the term "Bloomsday" has been coined for this literary anniversary. The "real" Bloomsday, inside the novel, is a full day from dawn until early the following morning, a single 24-hour trip through the early 20th century Dublin, but is at the same time a long journey in the lives of many people evolving in parallel. An "Odyssey", as the title of the book suggests.
I still haven't manage to read "Ulysses", although I once started it. I hope I do it one day, but until then I happen to think about how one's day can turn into a full "Oddysey" in the way it happened to Leopold Bloom's on June 16th, 1904.

Last Tuesday, June 17th 2008, one day and 104 years after Bloomsday, I thought I had one of my own. The complete recollection of its events seems somewhat impossible right now, mostly because I feel more tired than what I felt a week ago. In any case, none of the occurrences of last Tuesday really deserves to be mentioned. It is mostly their unstoppable flow that makes me think back to it as my own "Bloomsday" and although there is no correspondence of any of the incidents with an episode from the Homeric epic, my whole 24 hour day could qualify as a minor ordeal. It more or less involved an early waking up, after having spent the previous night reading a PhD thesis, judging that exact same thesis as a member of a committee, socializing with unknown people after the thesis defense was over -probably the hardest part-, rushing back to the flat under the rain (on June 17th!), packing for a short trip that sounded nothing like fun, then straight to the lab only to spend 30 minutes looking for a lost package (a story whose weird literary connotations deserve a post of their own, soon to follow) and the rest couple of frenetic hours organizing work with Sonja to be done during my absence. Run to the train station, then to the airport, check-in, have a snack while watching Italy beat France on some big screen, board the plane, fly to Greece, arrive there in the middle of the night, bus, taxi, get to my parents' house around 4 a.m. and to bed around 5.30.

I know it doesn't sound a bit like an Odyssey and I can reassure you it wasn't. But neither would "Bloomsday" feel like one had it not been for the genious of Joyce. And in fact, it would have been one of "those ordinary days" for me as well had it not been on June 17th, one day after the "real" Bloomsday. Funny how a seemingly insignificant date of a young promising writer at the turn of the 20th century, ends up affecting my life 104 years later.

my grandma has a say

Another cloudy Sunday, with Greece already eliminated from the Euro and me instead of following my boss' advice ("work, work and then work some more"), am reading the Sunday papers in four different languages.

On the news since last Friday, the decision taken by the Irish government to refuse to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon (a slightly "made-up" version of the EU Constitutional Treaty), after the negative vote of the Irish people. It is somehow striking how this treaty (or its predecessor) fails to be ratified by any state which decides to leave it up to its people through a process of vote. It happened in France and the Netherlands back in 2005, it happened again in Ireland. On the other hand, the Treaty has been approved by most of the EU members, which chose to ratify it through the vote of the parliament, bypassing direct voting. However, -and somehow misleadingly- the press throughout this frustrated continent puts the blame on the Irish. For what? For simply letting the people decide.

On this "hot" subject, today on the news, I read "funny" articles (use of the term "funny" in order to avoid other, bitterer ones). Articles like this one in Greece's Kathimerini, or this in Spain's El Pais. Articles which suspiciously focus on an "interesting" (I hope you bear with me with these quoted terms) concept of "minorities" deciding over the majorities. It sounds pretty reasonable the way I summarized it (and carefully placed it carefully in between quotation marks) but is it? Is it really? What Europe's most distinguished columnists call a minority is the small margin of more or less 110.000 votes with which the Irish voted in favour of not ratifying the treaty. These 110.000 votes -they claim- stand between the fulfillment of the will of 500 million Europeans. This immense majority, which -always according to them- has been holding its breath with utter anxiety until the Lisbon Treaty is finally put forward.

I know most of the people don't care reading the papers that much, perhaps because the sun is brighter in Greece or in other parts of Spain or even in Poland and they prefer a Sunday afternoon walk instead of bothering to read this kind of crap (there you have it, no quotation marks any longer). But what these people are implying by talking about "minorities" is that we should no longer leave decisions like these to the people. Everyday people -they say- lack information, they vote on the grounds of personal discontent, they are too ignorant to realize what is good for them, too distracted by the fear of economic depression to reason the true advantages that this treaty will offer them. Instead we should be taking these decisions more "democratically". Through parliamentary vote, with less room for fuss on indymedia, preferentially on an evening session, if possible on a football night. You see, our representatives know more. After all it was us who voted for them so why shouldn't we trust them? I mean honestly, would you prefer that the future of our continent be decided by your poor grandmother or by your well esteemed "congressmen"?

We are entering dangerous ground here. I know democracy is supposed to be the "lesser bad" of our alternatives but once we chose it we might as well stick with it. My "representatives" will not be here in four years to explain what has been going wrong with Europe. The ones who chose to switch to the Euro six years ago (the period with the greatest increase in prices Greece has experienced since WW2) are all well off, pretending nothing happened. Morevoer, I have to admit I had little idea that the Treaty has been ratified already by the parliaments of 17 states. Could this be because I am not being "informed" enough so that I can have an opinion about my constitution? Or is it perhaps that it was something so insignificant our leaders -AND leading columnists- did not want to bore us with? How come such a big discussion, exchange of arguments (even as lame as the aforementioned ones) is being raised now, after the Irish "NO"? Isn't this a sign that democracy is still breathing, and that the debate starts when somebody has a different opinion?

The defenders of the "majorities" should have no fear. Now that the people are suddenly interested in the Treaty, they can try to "inform" them better. If they think they don't evaluate the Treaty's text on solid grounds, they can explain all the "benefits" that come with it. After all it is their job. I mean, the Irish "fools" screwed up with Europe's dream but there is still hope for the rest, isn't there? Please Sr. Carnero, Mr. Konstantaras, could you explain to me and my poor grandmother what is really the best for us instead of putting the blame on the Irish?

I promise to be very careful while listening to your solid arguments. But as regrading who should finally decide about my Constitution, I beg to differ and for once more I 'll choose to be the "radical" one, the "undemocratic", the "minority" supporter. And yes, if you ask me, I prefer my grandmother decides what's best for her. After all, if something goes wrong, she 'll need no one to be blame but herself.

apparently still not summer

I saw the president this morning
taking breaths of solid rain
as the economy was growing,
on its usual way down the drain.
He waved and smiled, so reassuring,
wearing his Sunday purple cape
as he jogged around in his helmet
for fear that his thoughts might escape.

Over there, there was a silver marmot
stuffed inside a flying saucer's exhaust pipe,
you would like to think about it
but the time may not be ripe.
It seemed to be dreadfully disgusted
and would prefer to go back to bed
as the Martians flew to warmer climates
through clouds that were painted lead.

By the rotten seashore the dizzy bees
are buzzing to find their way back home,
I meant to ask them for directions
but felt I' d better let them roam.
The professor watched them flying about
preparing his next Nobel-winning speech
as the slave ship had just run aground
and all hope was out of reach.

Now, there's an unemployed programmer
and he's sculpting pink balloons
with his square head uncovered
slightly exposed to the monsoons.
His subconscious is so structurally different
from most fellas you would meet
on a random Tuesday morning
at the side of this sweaty street.

And, me, I was only having breakfast,
meditating in the haze,
when I tried to invent a tragic scene
going on in some man's mind's maze.
Then the early fog got thicker
and the actors staged a balcony,
as the neighbours stood there with indifference
and pretending agony.

today

-Contáselo con todos los detalles -dijo Oliveira.

-Oh, una idea general es bastante -dijo Gregorovius.
-No hay ideas generales -dijo Oliveira.

Julio Cortázar
Rayuela

Intuition

Over the last few days, I have been getting fewer sleep, less rest and more stress than usual. The reason has to be attributed rather to a tight schedule of pre-determined activities, than actual work. Which can be quite frustrating especially when you realize it is 7 pm and you are still at the lab without having have done anything useful apart from making a slide look nicer for a presentation everyone will forget ten minutes after they enter the room. On the side of all this, the usual fanfare of meetings, talking to people about your work, more communicating than actually working. Over the years, I have slowly developed my own personal alerts for when this sort of situation becomes increasingly unbearable, the most alerting of which is an increasing frequency of tiny memory failures. I tend to think I -still- have quite a good memory, therefore being unable to recall the director of a film I saw two weeks ago or the name of a street in Barcelona becomes a sort of annoying if not warning that something has been cryptically occupying my precious neurons to an extent greater than what I should have allowed for. And it gets really disturbing when you combine it with a feeling that something does not really fit, that there is something there in front of your nose, the right result, nature winking at you and you simply cannot see it because you lack concentration.

During the past frustrating week, the only thing that kept me going through another attack of this fragmentary universe of demands was the thought that in the end of it all, at the end of this week, I could seek the tranquility I 've been longing for in the beauty of my favourite game. Euro 2008 starts in less than 6 hours and a month full of football sounds as reassuring for my tormented mind as his blanket was for Linus, or a teddy bear for a little child. In the case of the little child inside of me, my favourite toy is a football and my most subconscious urges lead me to connect it with practically everything. Therefore, upon facing a "sea of troubles", I could not help but remembering this beautiful photo, which used to hang from the wall of my student-years bedroom. Maradona controlling the ball with the interior of his supreme left foot, facing half of the Belgian national team in the semifinal of the World Cup in 1986. Against this "sea of defenders" he is calm. On the other hand, it is his aspiring "troubles" who look troubled, if not horrified. Needless to say, a bit after this shot was taken, Diego went through all six of them, or even more, scoring one of the greatest goals in the history of football. That was his way to get out of trouble back then. And even if he didn't manage that well with other sorts of trouble, (sneakier, less apparent and without the "fairytale"-like clarity of a football opponent) he still remains one of my greatest heroes.

I was thinking about that goal against Belgium, slightly under-rated, although in my humble opinion equally magnificent to the famous one against England in the quarter-final of the same tournament. Then, in one of my -frequent- breaks in front of my plots, I decided to look it up in youtube. I came up with this video.

Contrary to the usually sloppy, biased and unworthy goal compilations one may find in youtube, this one is probably the best I can think of. It goes on for 22 minutes with a selection of 50 legendary goals and although some are still missing I cannot but congratulate the compiler for making my Friday a bit more bearable. As the countdown from 50 to 1 was developing, my satisfaction was growing in a rather egocentric way, as I was realizing that simply by looking at the name of the player and before even the goal was broadcast, I could guess which would the goal be. So, I anticipated Dennis Bergkamp's sublime move round Dabizas in a match of Arsenal against Newcastle, I watched Maradona pierce the Belgian defense, Roberto Carlos swerving the ball to an unprecedented angle in "that free-kick" against France, I remembered a beautiful shot by Enter in the World Cup of 82 against the Soviet Union, which I have only seen on video. And then I saw once again what should be the simplest greatest goal of all time. Brazil's 4th in the final of the World Cup of 1970 against Italy.

It doesn't look like a great goal at first, the ball being passed around with the coolness and indifference of a friendly game. The score is 3-1 already and we are well into the final quarter. But as with great works of art, it takes sometime to appreciate the beauty of this one, as the whole team passes the ball around, the opponents retreating in fear of the calmness before the storm. Tostao wins the ball back on the left side line, passes to Piazza, Piazza to Clodoaldo. Clodoaldo makes fun of four Italians who commit the mistake to approach, passes to Rivelino, he stays on the left swerving the ball down the line to Jairzinho. Then a thunderous short run parallel to the box, passes to Pele and there you have it. The goal starts here. By the moment Pele receives the ball everything has been decided already. The Italian defense is out of balance, as the overload of Brazil's attack is forced on the left side. Pele has a space wide open to his right but doesn't make any move. He just stands there facing the goal with the ball at his feet. Carlos Alberto has started his run on the weak side, comes into the TV frame by the time the Italians can only stare at him, as he receives a seemingly meaningless pass by Pele. A perfect shot to the far post. 4-1.

A lot have been said about this goal, mostly having to do with Pele's blind pass. The great Brazilian, when repeatedly asked about it, always gave the same answer. "I did not seem him coming, I heard his footsteps." Arrogant by nature, Pele shares here a part of the truth. It's only natural that he could not have heard Carlos' footsteps in the tumult of 120.000 fans in the Azteka Stadium. However, he cannot but have thought that the natural course of things would be this. That the right back would make the run on the weak side to catch the defense off-guard. His pass is the simple proof that in football as in every human activity, there is a constant need for blending thought with intuition.

I was thinking about all this when I realized that perhaps this blending is what I have been lacking over this last frenetic weak. And that maybe I need to add a bit more of intuition in my thoughts, instead of simply weighing down my poor, limited memory with loads of information.

Or maybe I am doing it again, connecting football to practically everything.

today

A work of art does not exist without canceling what is functional and habitual, revealing the Other side, the one that deprives the common sides of every meaning. In this way it is creating a cleft, an opening, through which we can perceive the Abyss, on the verge of which we are constantly living and which we are constantly trying to forget. Art exists, equally and in a higher level and in a different way that thought does. It exists before and after it. Art spoke before thought and is still speaking when thought can do nothing more than remain silent.

Cornelius Castoriades
Devant la guerre

Vine a Comala...

...porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo."

This is the opening sentence from Juan Rulfo's masterpiece, "Pedro Paramo". It translates in English to something like this "I came to Comala, because I was told that my father lived here, some guy called Pedro Paramo". The story unfolds quite quickly as the main hero, in search of his father, meets the inhabitants of Comala and as a series of logical inconsistencies slowly accumulates the reader is left to discover the secret of the village of Comala. The fact that its inhabitants are all ghosts.

Last Saturday, in the company of Julien, Eleanna and Zeynep, somewhere between Baix Pallars and Vall Fosca, I came upon my own Comala. A village called Ancs. How we got there is not a very long story. Perhaps a bit of a long drive, as Julien was trying to avoid stony bumps, dangerous mud pits and lazy cows blocking the country road. When we finally arrived in Ancs, we did not know it was going to be finally. We were supposed to be driving through it, over the mountain and towards the other side of the valley, where the rest of the company, (safe and warm in the shelter thanks to an GPS navigator) were waiting for us. But it was there, when after a good hour of tedious and dangerous driving uphill we realized that the worst part of the road still lied ahead of us as the night was slowly falling.

Wisely enough, we put half the blame on the map, the other half on our daring initiative to pick an alternative route way back and started our descent, over the same bumps and sticky mud. With the slight fear of us getting stuck up there overnight slowly dissolving after every successful turn, we started talking about what it will be living up there, in the utter desolation of Ancs. On our way past the village, we only saw a car wrecked at the side of the road and no signs of life whatsoever apart from a light on in one of the silent houses, which only half of us (Julien and Zeynep) could testify. It was then that I remembered Comala, as I had molded it in my mind while reading "Pedro Paramo" some years ago. And, even if it really isn't, Ancs looked like a ghost city to me, standing up there at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a dark valley, whose sole inhabitants are cows, their calves and the old body of car, rotting at the side of the road.

As we were cruising towards Geri de la Sal, over tarmac for the first time after almost two hours, I remembered the sight of that car, up there at the entrance of Ancs, (or was it Comala?) and tried to think of how it might have ended up there and what happened to its passengers. Then I remembered the last sentence from "Pedro Paramo".

-Voy para allá, ya voy.
(I am going over there, I am going now.)

And I felt a bit relieved as we were doing exactly that.