A un gato - To a cat - Borges
Friday, September 23, 2016
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| i-Phone 3G |
A un
gato – Jorge Luís Borges
No son
más silenciosos los espejos
ni más
furtiva el alba aventurera;
eres,
bajo la luna, esa pantera
que nos
es dado divisar de lejos.
Por obra
indescifrable de un decreto
divino,
te buscamos vanamente;
más
remoto que el Ganges y el poniente,
tuya es
la soledad, tuyo el secreto.
Tu lomo
condesciende a la morosa
caricia
de mi mano. Has admitido,
desde
esa eternidad que ya es olvido,
el amor
de la mano recelosa.
En otro
tiempo estás. Eres el dueño
de un
ámbito cerrado como un sueño.
To a cat - Jorge Luís Borges
Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.
The Many Versions of Do This In Memory of Me
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
This blog, originally called
Do This in Memory of Me appeared in January, 2013 but was lost by a Blogger problem.
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| My parents and with me in Luján, Argentina |
Argentine Nostalgia
I thought I’d never miss: -
The wide expanse of pasture of the pampas,
The lead gray skies & stratus clouds
The whistling, whining, violent “pamperos”,
The wet moist cold,
The hot damp heat,
The monotonous landscape
Bare of trees & bushes 7 human beings
Populated by lazy, cattle.
But I do,
And remember,
The balmy breezes of early spring,
The mauve of jacarandá trees in early fall,
The crisp, white frost of midwinter,
The golden yellow of the aroma in late spring
The pungent, acrid odor of the figs in midsummer.
I thought I’d never miss:
The untidy
almacén at my corner
Overflowing with cellophane bags of capeletti & ravioli
And mounds of sacks of new potatoes,
Reeking of onions & “tipo Roquefort cheese”,
Of smoked ham & bacon hanging from hooks
Or:
The heated discussion of the Italian neighbours,
The chattering, singing & crying of their children,
The clatter of their plates & knives - they ate
In the patio & almost lived there,
Their plaintive singing of their summer land
And the merry quartets from Barbero & Rigoletto.
Or:
The austere grays & browns & blacks
That Porteños think proper to wear,
Their sober silence and quiet in public vehicles
The busy little sidewalk cafes under striped awnings,
The interminable wait for tram 35,
The long and never ending route it took,
But I do,
And remember:-
The exquisite taste and stark simplicity
That Porteños think proper for wear,
Their polite “permiso” as they sidled by you on
colectivos
The gracious old-fashioned cadence of the
“Cuando” danced in a café.
The beautiful church on Juramento and Cabildo
I always watched out for out of the window of Tram 35
The expectation of getting to Mother’s flat,
At the end of the line,
And the warmth I’d get there!
Filomena de Irureta Goyena de Hayward
Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, Mexico
Dec 5, 1956.
The above poem written by my mother in the northern Mexico mining town
of Nueva Rosita has haunted me ever since she read it out to me a few
years later. It has haunted me and also filled me with guilt that I
never made her as happy as I could or that I might have shown
disrespect. In fact I feel guilt because at age 15 I was not all that
less of a teenage problem than my 15 year old granddaughter Rebecca is
now. All I can say in my defence is that I was far less mature so my
offences were not as critical.
When I see my daughter Hilary (Rebecca’s mother) and notice her smile it
is the face of my mother that I gaze into and I have the idea that if I
am pleasant and kind to her I will somehow compensate for my actions in
the past with her grandmother, my mother.
Perhaps the most singularly beautiful sentence in the English language is this one:
“Do this in memory of me.”
It can be found in the New Testament, Luke 22:19 and also in 1
Corinthians 11:24-25. But it was only at the very bottom of the list
below that I found the quote with the word memory. In fact remembrance
is just as beautiful.
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| The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Salvador Dalí, 1955 |
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New International Version (©1984)
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
New Living Translation (©2007)
and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said,
"This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me."
English Standard Version (©2001)
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
gave thanks, broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me."
International Standard Version (©2012)
gave thanks for it, and broke it in pieces, saying, "This is my body that is for you. Keep doing this in memory of me."
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is
my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)
And he blessed and he broke and he said, “Take eat; this is my body,
which is broken for your persons; thus you shall do for my Memorial.
GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
and spoke a prayer of thanksgiving. He broke the bread and said, "This
is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me."
King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is
my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
American King James Version
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is
my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
American Standard Version
and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body,
which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.
Darby Bible Translation
and having given thanks broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.
English Revised Version
and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Webster's Bible Translation
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is
my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Weymouth New Testament
and after giving thanks He broke it and said, "This is my body which is about to be broken for you. Do this in memory of me."
World English Bible
When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me."
Young's Literal Translation
and having given thanks, he brake, and said, 'Take ye, eat ye, this is
my body, that for you is being broken; this do ye -- to the remembrance
of me.'
A monumental Vision Impure
Sunday, September 18, 2016
The
Grumman A-6 Intruder was an American, twin
jet-engine, mid-wing all-weather attack aircraft built by Grumman Aerospace. In
service with the United States Navy and Marine Corps between 1963 and 1997, the
Intruder was designed as an all-weather medium attack aircraft to replace the
piston-engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider. As the A-6E was slated for retirement,
its precision strike mission was taken over by the Grumman F-14 Tomcat equipped
with a LANTIRN pod. From the A-6, a specialized electronic warfare derivative,
the EA-6, was developed.
Wikipedia
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| Noam Gagnon, Dana Gingras - February 2005 |
It was only about a year ago that in a CNN newscast from
an American aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean that I noticed the impossible-to-confuse EA-6 Prowler. What this meant is that an airplane that came into
production in the earlier incarnation of the A-6 Intruder was in operation 53
years later. The airplane with renewed avionics was still an effective radar
blocker.
A few weeks ago I was telling my friend composer
John Oliver that I could no longer listen to any new version (either live or
recorded) of Bach’s
Concerto for 2
Violins in D minor, BWV 1043. Oliver said something close to this, “
Alex you are done with it.”
Part of the issue is that at age 74 all my fave Gerry
Mulligan records and CDs are firmly ensconced in my memory. I don’t need to
listen to them. They are in me, part of me. Only the visit of a friend who
might not know of the wonders of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto or of Gerry
Mulligan playing
My Funny Valentine would lead me to play the music on my
stereo.
I thought of all this when I read two reviews, on in my
NY Times and the other on
The Atlantic this week of
The Holy Body
Tattoo’s performance of
monumental (originally
labeled in lower case by Dana Gingras and Noam Gagnon at the Howard Gillman Opera
House part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.
The NY Times said, not a glowing review, of the performance
which was an original 2005 work:
“it’s a good looking production.
Yet “monumental” was first staged, without the live
music, in 2005 – when Blackberry was king, the iPhone was still a rumor, and
the economic crash was three years off.
The way we work [ monumental is about working in an office in the that
year and the loneliness and depersonalization of it], and worry about work, has
changed since then; if anything, we’re more disconnected now, more aware of the
ephemerality of employment. But with its army of miserable whit-collar drone, “monumental”
feels stuck in the past.”
The Atlantic review was kinder. But it all made me think
and think about that out-of context A-6 Intruder of 1963 and of the very title
of the NY Times review – Setting a Squadron of Joyless Worker Drones to Music.
Of drones even bees have been left behind by the new applications of drones to
kill from afar electronically.
It all made me think that I would be reluctant to attend
a performance of Giselle or Swan Lake. Yes, John Oliver would be right, “I have
done them.”
When I saw monumental in Vancouver back in 2005 I was
deeply affected by it and I recognized it as a wake-up call for the society of
the time. Perhaps like the NY Times says, times are now worse therefore
monumental is passé. And yet I believe that particularly in dance or in art, (imagine
the uproar in Paris of the first exhibitions of the Impressionists!) does that diminish
those Impressionists today in comparison with modern 21st century
art? I don’t think so.
In some way the expiration date of monumental is the very
explanation of its cutting edge of the time and its subsequent influence on
dance in our present time.
Because I could not stop for Death,
