Another Indian News Item

In what is one of the most horrible serial crimes ever, a man and his servant have abducted and killed more than 30 children in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi.

Blog from Kolkata

Not very far from here in the state of West Bengal there's warfare going on - villagers are tearing up roads to prevent the police from coming in. There was an exchange of fire two nights in a row. Supporters of the CPM (the Marxist Communist Party) and inhabitants of Nandigram and other villages were going at each other with rifles and home-made bombs.

What it's about - the government's intent to create an SEZ (special economic zone) on village land.

Wo blauhäutige Götter Jungfrauen zum Tanz verführen

Dies ist eine Ode,
die in spätester Nachtstunde
gesungen werden sollte,

wenn sich die Regenwolken
über schindelgedeckten Dächern
zusammengezogen haben

und blauhäutige Götter
mit Zauberflöten
die Jungfrauen zum Tanz verführen.

(Tishani Doshi, Deutsch von Johannes Beilharz)

Das ganze Gedicht ist Bestandteil der Anthologie Inspirierte Gedichte.

Emery Felix tells me I have a history

Thanks, Em!

Here's what he wrote:

Your history shows that your last order is ready for refilling.

That kind of history kind of surprised me ... but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised in this age of identity theft. I've probably got more histories than I will ever know apart from the various ones I know of or have actively created.

Generally speaking, though, I'm still surprised - even after years of receiving unsolicited mail, as this junk is called politically correctly - that anybody would get in touch with me, tell me a blatant lie right off the bat and then expect me to hurry to their store and leave money there even though they do their damndest to make sure that nobody can find out who they're doing business with.

Does spam make any sense?

I don't think anybody in his right mind thinks it does.

And yet there seem to be enough brazen shysters out there that believe they can make a buck by sending out millions of unwanted advertisements to millions of people who definitely do not want each and every one of those millions of unwanted advertisements.

This appears to be as great a conflict of interest as there has ever been.

Spammers, do you realize that you are collecting crushing wrath and millions of bad karma points every time you send out one of those spam mails? This has got to be bad for your health. I'd worry about it if I were you.

Cerebral agony

ALL AGONY IS CEREBRAL.

Huh?!? Where'd that come from? From:

Ora Odoura is photographer and specialises in outdoor and creative photography. Her storytelling shoe fiction was selected for Argo Spier’s 'Heaps of Cream' sequence because of both the contrast and complement it forms to the sequence . Her's is a story of peaceful meditation. 'Heaps of Cream' is cerebral agony.

To be seen at ArgoBoat.

Cosmic idyll disturbed

What happens when God picks up his little lab by its corners?

Belarussian poet Viktar Licvinau has the answer in A laboratory.

Poetry mail from Madelyn Conner

Madelyn Conner (scosmic@mbmusa.net) is an online drug peddler. Like many of her brothers and sisters with their lofty names - every bit as sonorous as those of the authors of trashy novels - she resorts to fragments that might qualify as "modern literature" to beat spam filters:

of girl. I should have liked to know her. Good night, young him not - drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It He bites. There was one boy - a certain J. Steerforth - who cut good deal though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing

Good-bye, Younghimnot! What sad fate to befall one.

No doubt we shall hear about that (un)certain J. Steerforth and Traddles and what became of him (her?) in future spam.

And who is the elusive "I" of the poem?

Poetry & abstraction

Some rudimentary muzangs on poetry, art and music.

Correct me if I'm wrong (in other words, comments invited). I've noticed that poetry magazines and e-zines that include art seem to prefer realistic or semi-realistic over abstract art. This seems to go hand in hand with the kind of poetry they tend to publish, which could also be termed to be more or less realistic. The kind that appears to be proud to be the opposite of Robert Bly's "leaping poetry" idea. At worst, I'd call it "clod-stuck poetry."

It is exemplified very well by the stuff Ted Kooser, ex-U.S. Poet Laureate, digs up for his weekly e-mails.

You can subscribe to it under http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/

Planeten stürzten aus ihren Bahnen,

alle Materie versammelte sich in einer Ecke –
Gott hatte das Labor genommen
und ihm einen anderen Raum verpasst.

So geschehen in dem Gedicht Ein Laboratorium des Weißrussen Viktar Licvinau.

2day & 2morrow

"What if there's no tomorrow? There wasn't one today."

- Bill Murray in Groundhog Day

When I watched this 1993 film again last night (after many years), it struck me how young and smooth Bill Murray looked in it compared to more recent movies like Broken Flowers and Lost in Translation.

By the way: Broken Flowers seems like an extension of Lost in Translation in making the actor play a persona that's even more silent and closed up in himself.

Those who haven't seen Lost in Translation: go see it. A marvelous portrayal of alienation. And hearing Bill Murray do a karaoke number on More than this by Roxy Music alone is worth it.

Roller, Urlaub, Sturz

Das wurde als "Labels" für diesen "Post" vorgeschlagen.

Na, an die Terminologie werde ich mich vielleicht bei meinem nächsten Roller-Urlaub auf Kreta und hoffentlich ohne Sturz gewöhnen.

Und nun ein Wort zum Garten literarischer Irrungen und Wirrungen ...

Im Prinzip ist alles Irrung oder Wirrung, und auch diese sind ja Amplituden der Wahrheit. Verknüpft mit Literatur ergibt sich daraus etwas noch weit Vageres.

Ein vages, nebliges, weites Feld. Wie schön, vor allem für einen nebligen Dezemberanfang 2006.

In einem Garten wächst etwas. Gewolltes, Gezüchtetes, Unkraut.

Así es. Genau das soll hier wachsen.