Solitude in Chaos

Old Man and Old Woman

2009-01-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

Old Man and Old Woman

Many years ago, there were only two people in the world; Old Man and Old Woman. One time while they were traveling around the earth, Old Woman said to Old Man, "Let's come to an agreement of some kind. Let's decide how the people should live when they come to this earth."

"Well," said Old Man, "I should have the first say in everything."

"I agree with you," said Old Woman. "That is, of course, if I may have the second say in everything."

Then Old Man began to make his plans. "The women will have the job of tanning hides. They will rub the brains of the animals on the hides to make them soft, and scrape them with the scraping tools. And they should do all of this very quickly, for it won't be hard work."

"No," said Old Woman, "I won't agree to this. They have to tan hides like you say, but it has to be hard work, so that the good workers can be found out and honored."

"Well," said Old Man, "we will let the people have eyes and mouths, set straight up and down in their faces in a nice, neat line."

"No," replied Old Woman. "Let's not do that that way. Let's put the eyes and mouths in the face like you said, but let's put them crosswise."

"Well," said Old Man, "the people will have ten fingers on each hand."

"No, no, no!" Old Woman cried. "That's way too many. They'd just get in the way. They should have four fingers and one thumb on each hand."

And so the two went on like this until they'd decided everything for how the people would live when they came to the earth.

"What should we do about life and death?" asked Old Woman. "Should the people live forever, or are they going to die sometime?"

Old Woman and Old Man had difficulty agreeing about this one. But finally, Old Man said, "I'll tell you what. I'll throw a buffalo chip in the water. If it floats, the people will die for four days and then come back to life again; if it sinks, they'll die and stay dead."

So, he threw a buffalo chip into the water, and it floated.

"No," said Old Woman, "We WON'T decide it that way, since the buffalo chips always float. I'll throw this rock into the water. If it floats, the people will die for four days and come back, and if it sinks, they will die forever."

So, she threw the rock in the water, and it sank quickly.

"There," said she. "It is better for the people to die forever. If they didn't, they wouldn't feel sorry for each other, and there'd be no sympathy in the world."

"Well," answered Old Man, "let it be that way, then."

After a while, Old Woman had a daughter, who soon became sick and then died. Old Woman was then very sorry that they'd agreed that people should die forever. "Let's talk this over again!" she pleaded.

"No." answered Old Man. "We're not changing what we agreed upon."

And so, to this day, when people die, they stay dead.

La Jetee

2009-01-09T00:50:00.000-08:00

La Jetee

This is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood. The violent scene, whose meaning he would not grasp until much later, took place on the great jetty at Orly, a few years before the start of the Third World War.

On Sundays, parents bring their children to watch the planes... Of this Sunday, the child of this story would remember the frozen sun, the scene at the end of the jetty. Moments to remember are just like other moments. They are only made memorable by the scars they leave. The face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had he invented the tender gesture to shield him from the madness to come? The sudden noise, the woman's gesture, the crumpling body, the cries of the crowd. Later, he knew he had seen a man die.

And sometime later, Paris was destroyed. Many died. Some thought they had won. Others were taken prisoner. The survivors settled underground. Above ground, Paris and no doubt most of the world was uninhabitable, riddled with radioactivity. The victors stood guard over an empire of rats. The prisoners were subjected to experiments apparently of great concern to the experimentors. Afterwards, the latter were disappointed--the others were dead, or went mad.

One day, from among the prisoners, they selected the man whose story this is. He had heard about the Director. He expected to meet the mad scientist, a Dr. Frankenstein. Instead, he found a gentle man who calmly explained that the human race was cut off from space, and the only hope for survival lay in time, a hole in time through which to send food, energy, supplies. The aim of the experiments was to send an emissary into time to summon the past and future to the aid of the present. But the mind balked at the idea. To awaken in another age was to be born again, fully grown. The shock was too great. So, having failed repeatedly, the experimentors began selecting subjects given to strong mental images. Having a memory of a certain time, they might be able to reinhabit it. This man was chosen because of his obsession with an image from the past.

At first he is simply ejected from the present and its certainties. They begin again. He does not die. He does not go mad. He suffers. They continue. On the tenth day, images begin to appear, like confessions. A morning in peacetime. A bedroom in peacetime--a real bedroom, real children, real birds, real cats, real graves.

On the sixteenth day, he is on the jetty. Empty. Sometimes he recaptures a happy day, but different; a happy face, but different; ruins; a girl who might be the one he seeks. He passes her on the jetty. She smiles at him from an automobile. Other images appear, merge, in that museum which is, perhaps, his memory.

On the thirtieth day, the meeting takes place. He is sure he recognizes her. It is the only thing he is sure of in this world whose richness amazes him. Fabulous materials everywhere--glass, plastic, velvet. When he recovers from his trance, the woman is gone.

The experimentors tighten their controls and send him back on the trail. Time flows by again, the moment returns. This time, he is close to her, speaks to her. She welcomes him without surprise. They are without plans, without memories. Time builds up around them, their only landmarks the flavor of the moment and the markings on the walls. Later, they are in a garden. He remembers that there once were gardens. She asks about his medallion--the dog tags he wore in the war which is yet to come. He invents an explanation. They stop at a tree trunk, covered with historic dates. She mentions an unknown name. As in a dream, he points beyond the tree and hears himself saying "that is where I come from," and he fall back, exhausted.

Another wave of time washes over him, the result of another injection perhaps. This time she is asleep in the sun. He thinks that, in the time it has taken him to return to her world, she may have died. She awakens, and again he talks to her. The truth being too fantastic to believe, he tells only the essentials--a distant contry, a long journey. She listens, not mocking him. Is it still the same day? He no longer knows. During endless walks they will take, a deep unspoken trust will grow between them, until he senses before them a wall.

This was the first of a series of experiments in which he would meet her at different times. Sometimes he finds her in front of their markings. She welcomes him happily. She calls him her ghost. One day she seems frightened. Another day she leans toward him. He is never sure whether he seeks her out or is sent, whether he invents or dreams.

On about the fiftieth day, they meet in a museum filled with eternal creatures. By now, the technique has been perfected. Aimed at a given moment in time, he can live there and move about freely. She too seems used to it. She accepts the behavior of this visitor who comes and goes, exists, speaks, laughs with her, is silent, listens, disappears.

Back once more in the laboratory, he sensed a change. The camp Director was there. From the conversation he gathered that after the success of his trips into the past they want him to go into the future. Excited by this idea, he did not realize that the meeting in the museum had been the last.

The future was better protected than the past. After even more exhausting efforts, he made contact with the world of the future--a world tranformed; Paris rebuilt; then thousand unknown avenues. Other men awaited him. Clearly they rejected his leftovers from another age. He recited his lesson: since mankind had survived, surely it could not deny assistance to its own past. This sophism was accepted as Destiny in disguise. He was given a power supply strong enough to start the world's industry, then again the doors to the future closed.

Soon after his return, he was sent to another part of the camp. He knew they would not spare him. He had been a tool in their hands. His childhood memory had been the bait. He had played his part, and now they would liquidate him, together with his memory of a time twice-lived. Then, deep within him, he received a message from the men of the future. They too travelled in time, more easily. They invite him into their world. But he asked for something else. Rejecting their tranquillized future, he asked that they return him to the world of his childhood, and the woman who perhaps awaited him.

Back on the jetty at orly, on this hot Sunday before the war, where he could now stay, he realized that the child he had once been must be there too, watching the planes. But first he looked for the woman's face, at the end of the jetty. He ran towards her. But when he saw the man from the underground camp he realized that one cannot escape time, and that this haunted moment, given him to see as a child, was the moment of his own death.

By Chris Marker

Interview with GOD

2009-01-08T14:57:00.000-08:00

Interview with GOD

I dreamed, I had an interview with GOD.

"So you would like to interview me?" GOD asked.

"If you have the time," I said.

GOD smiled.

"My time is eternity..."

"What questions do you have in mind for me?"

"What surprises you most about humankind?"

GOD answered…

"That they get bored with childhood.

They rush to grow up and then long to be children again."

"That they lose their health to make money…,

And then lose their money to restore their health."

"That by thinking anxiously about the future,

They forget the present

such that they live in neither the present nor the future."

"That they live as if they will

Never die,

And die as if they had never lived."

GOD`s hand took mine and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked…

as the creator of people, what are some of life lessons you want them to learn?"

GOD replied with a smile,

"to learn they cannot make any one love them.

All they can do is let themselves be loved."

"to learn that a rich person is not one who has the most,

but is one who needs the least."

"to learn that it takes only a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love,

And it takes many years to heal them."

“to learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.”

"to learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness."

"to learn that there are persons who love them dearly.

but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings."

"to learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently."

"To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive.

“Thank you for your time,” I said humbly.

“Is there anything else you`d like your children to know?”

God smiled & said…

“Just know that I`m here.”

Always ."

By: Reata Sharlene Smith Strickland

HEAVEN AND HELL

2009-01-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

HEAVEN AND HELL

Once upon a time, a man, his horse and his dog were travelling along a road. As they passed by a huge tree, it was struck by lightning and they all died. But the man didn't realize that he was dead so he continued walking with his two animal companions, just as before.

It was a long, uphill walk, the sun was beating down on them and they were all hot and thirsty. At a bend in the road they saw a magnificent marble gateway that led into a gold-paved square. And in the centre of the square was a fountain overflowing with crystal-clear water.

"Good morning. What is this place?"

"It's Heaven," the guard at the entrance replied.

"Well I'm very glad to see it, I can tell you, because we're extremely thirsty."

"You're welcome to come in and drink all the water you want."

"My horse and dog need water too."

"I'm terribly sorry," said the guard, "but animals are not allowed in here."

Although the man was really thirsty, he was not prepared to drink alone. So he thanked the guard and went on his way. Exhausted after more trudging uphill, they eventually reached an old gateway that opened on to a dirt road flanked by trees. A man, his hat pulled down over his face, was stretched out in the shade of one of the trees, apparently asleep.

"Good morning," said the traveler.

The other man greeted him with a nod.

"We're very thirsty - me, my horse and my dog."

"There's a spring over there amongst those rocks," said the man indicating the spot. You can drink as much as you want."

So they went to the spring, quenched their thirst and the traveler then returned to thank the man.

"By the way, what's this place called?"

"Heaven."

"Heaven. But the guard at the marble gateway told me that was Heaven!"

"That's not Heaven, that's Hell."

The traveler was puzzled. "You shouldn't let others take your name in vain, you know! False information can lead to all kinds of confusion!"

"On the contrary, they do us a great favor. The ones who stay there are those who have proved themselves capable of abandoning their dearest friends and have no place here anyway."

By Paulo Coelho(The Devil and Miss Prym)

THE Medallita

2009-01-08T14:23:00.000-08:00

THE Medallita

Ava was a good girl. Their only sin was to give birth to a child without a husband, in a town like Shiraz.
I met her when I was a teenager. Then it does not fix me, I was not anybody, nor deserved. Today things have changed: I am the mayor.
His family was in Khorasan Aires, had a great and a lot of money. Only child of bohemian mother and father "evil entertaining, traveling the world with no charges. When his parents came to the secondary pupil chose to let the nuns at school and my aunt Mehr-Bano, officiated tutor in exchange for occupying the old building had to face the plaza.
She was very pretty. Was distinguished by his way of walking, by his grace. The men, with its undulating walk, across the square. It was nice and pretended he knew but none got their favors. It was not a woman either, except for those, harass their way or were hiding behind the bushes to watch.
He returned to the village a few months ago. Neither their parents nor the camps exist. You do not have anything or anybody, only one son and fuzzy memories. Currently holds fourth in the pension of beans and my aunt was working through it in the bakery.
My aunt would have confidence, he has things the other day said she had been very hard to accept this child, but in fact he had always liked children, recalled that nearly drove the convent when they refused to surrender adoption.
According to her, man, man really was only one: Siyavash.
Siyavash worked as a laborer at the mill of the nuns, where she was sent to hide her pregnancy. With him escaped to Khorasan Aires full of dreams and projects that could not meet.
Mehr-Bano aunt wants me to marry her, I think possibilities. He tells me all night Jacinta prays in front of the image of the Virgin.
A few days ago I saw her again. the bakery is near the quartermaster and I could see from the car: it is still beautiful. I still remember that day of spring when along with other novices was swimming in the river and into the bush to change. She could not see us. There we became men, where I lost my.... Fortunately, her son is not like any of them.

By Tomas Juarez Beltran

Pax ...

2009-01-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

I suspect invades a happiness
As a bullet in his imagination,
Or waking up in Paradise,
But the truth of this smile
is the mysterious appearance of Pax ...

I look and you see ... While not know.

2009-01-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

I look and you see ... While not know.

When you get close, you can see perfectly. It's like at the beginning, when you sleep and could include, without haste, as the artist loves his model with just a look.

You can be quiet now that what happened will only be a mystery to the curious still listed suicide as the cause, that the known and unknown at this time around us, they can make without fear of error, that a decision like that would not be so outlandish ...

If you could repeat again that I never liked the cynicism or large cities, and that these events even further suffocate me that the mere fact of being back and watching the sky, having to receive the reasons for the guests, knowing that sooner or later we will see. And what good that you are still not very concerned that one day I'll be at my side again.

I admire your coolness result of your nervousness, because you know that any mistake would mean a life in prison, or perhaps in a clinic, where my last cries do not stop to sleep and not sleep yesterday, when the hysteria seized, Your hands and pointed at me.

If you could come back to say "I love you" ... If you could only get out of this box...

Who said it was easy?

2009-01-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Who said it was easy?

But once in the head, the most important step has already been given.

"I will be the ticket if you are my collector

I will got the fare if you are my inspector

I will be the luggage, if you will be the porter

I will be the parcel if you will be my sorter "

Excerpt from an issue of The Damned, a punk band from the old school ... About anything.

The picture?

Two of true young Iranian, and left us ... .

Well ... see...

The island of broken toys

2009-01-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

The island of broken toys

The days on the island passed peacefully, smoothly, until that fateful morning in the
Teresa found a black spot on the sea horizon, then another and another and annoying
itching for a black omen traveled throughout his body.
Teo, the incombustible hippy London, peering the horizon from the vantage point of an insecure
injured by the scourge of sea wind. The air degenerate the sheaves of dirty hair
that almost completely burned face, angular, man. With her the Castilian
Prairie launched a question that did not surprise either of these:
"Those guys, who will be hell?"
Teresa responded with just the words, neither more nor less, and all felt the sharp in his soul
bitterness of dreams ended in the hopes had barely begun when malogradas
germinate:
"They're the real world."
Not too much time had passed since the last time you felt this profound regret Teresa
inside. It was during the days of embarrassing retreat in his home town, a beautiful town on the coast
Cantabria. In contrast to his previous visit to the town, with the parade Cadillac
street, under a rain of paper and colored streamers, feeling the touch of thousands of
Hands feel anxious success, treading the soft carpet leading to the table gala
chaired by the mayor's pearly smile, the last and final (because it was to stay)
arrival occurred at night under a downpour Seat Panda provided.
A few days later the local paper published in a discreet corner of the page read less, a
short notice: "The withdrawal singer Teresa Lopez finally returned to their homeland." When reading
This Teresa not overlooked several details that reveal your current credit among its neighbors in
First, qualify as "singer withdrawal," a euphemism for no clear mention what
all thought:
"Singer failed," cried the woman in the solitude of the small room floor of his legacy
parents. Some tears his vision, which acknowledged it was just wanting to see anything.
Knelt on the floor, heads bowed, closed fists on the legs. She needed a breathing
but did not have at its disposal a shoulder on which mourn or a mouth that whispered some
warm words of hope, therefore, in a display of masochism, he sought to flee their anguish
deepening the cause of your pain. He returned to take the newspaper and continued reading: "The singer
Teresa Lopez withdrawal ...". Teresa Lopez, the concierge Teresa, Teresina. There was never again would
Tessa, the smile on a hot hair of pure gold, the favorite prey of the best photographers,
rifaban the lover is the most powerful men in the country. Took breath and finished the sentence:
"... finally returns to his homeland." Definitely, that is, to die, because the same thing
him to continue to die a miserable existence.
Their neighbors, both new as usual, received with polite indifference. Neither nor far.

There is, as the castle, the main street, the church, the harbor, the beaches, the estuary, which sharpener
returns each spring and the poor who took refuge in the arcade every winter. The
the first few months and some council - counted - fans really true
"old liners" of the song that kept their faith against the strident new wind
music, tried to revive something that detracted from the cold ashes of the once prestigious race
Teresa, or rather, Tessa. So, the house of culture screened several movies featuring
the above, preceded by a symposium at which all three attended nostalgic always on duty. Aquel
Technicolor Film veraneos with eternal, trouserpress sweater with a peak in girls and modesty
Vespa had gone very, very trendy, fortunately. Teresa believed invited a stone
presiding over an almost empty room (it in December!) and therefore declined to participate in
projections of the remaining cycle, a decision that was not too important because the cycle
fenecio itself pure starvation. The council, which had fans abound
not confessed to Tessa, offered to chair the jury of the "Song of Summer" which
eventually reached its eleventh edition of congratulations to the public and local authorities,
district and provincial levels. However, there also found your site: jurors
(young singers, composers, broadcasters) the tried and looked like a president

I had very little honorable to scratch at the show, the few contestants who had to
bold advice during the pre-selection Teresa received the sermon with the same
I found an enthusiastic hard cardboard in faltriquera. Disappointed, discouraged,
withdrew all advertising and are held in the four walls of the floor ajadas family overcrowded
photos and memories of the grandparents and some fishermen stamp forgotten the wedding of their parents,
when the humble yet betrothed bride dressed in black.
In this way, the daily routine has become customary in monotony, perhaps martyrdom:
awaken late at half past ten or eleven, go to the grocery store bakery and avoiding
agglomerations of housewives; return home regardless of rigor in the comments ( "look,
baby, you can remove pa stupidity of being a singer, "was all I wanted, and more ... And how
over! "," if the poor Ramiro lifted his head! "), through the portal and climb the ladder to avoid
the questioning of the widow of the mezzanine and repugnant insinuations bachelor's attic;
enter the house, throw the bags on the sitting area, falling to lead the armchair where the red grandfather
read the "ABC" stand with empty eyes, lost somewhere in between the paper and colored
plaster from the ceiling ... Sometimes, few would have to go to the pharmacy to buy
Nerve pills ...
One rainy afternoon in May, while some cursed bride at the altar instability
atmospheric and high school students in the calendar marked the fateful reviews, the
buzzer sounded repeatedly in the street. Teresa used to send the kids to hell
that enjoyed by disrupting its silence, left on the kitchen table filled with a glass
colored pills and fell determined to open the portal. To his surprise, did not appear any child
rebellious, but as a man of about fifty years old, thin face framed by a
guedejas greasy hair, shoes with sandals and dressed in rags putrefactas a
indescribable color. Smelled bad. Teresa had the temptation to close the door on the nose, but chose
to maintain a minimum of courtesy:

"If you come to beg, I am afraid you have chosen the site unless stated, my economy
is very buoyant and say that I do not want to chat with strangers, so if I
allows ... "The man stopped the movement of the door by hand. The woman felt a shiver
of terror, feeling that the man's intentions were not good: "Now I just need to
to violate a lousy fifty years. "However, the man released the door and stayed in the
Street, making gestures with his hand to calm Teresa, and began to speak in a
Castilian precarious:
"You do not know me, but you known each other for me. I call Teo, English I, me good, I
believe in universal love and do not harm anyone .. y.. "
"Well, well, well! But why you come to see me? Do not you see I have no desire to
talk with anyone? I was looking for my things y. .. ¡Zas! Now it is to become a melenudo
please! "
"No visit. I have a better place for you, with single people, unfortunately, hopeless. Company
not accidentally hurt society. They will be fine there, insurance, alone, no one bothered, no one hurt.
All happy in their own way. I want you to come with me, come to the beach Paloma twelve night.
No regret, be better than death. "
Still persisted penetrating odor when Teo Teresa woke caused by the embobamiento
word of it. Closed the site, he returned to the floor and grabbed the frantic decision of the glass
pills, but never catarlas.
At twelve o'clock met Teo at the beach, the scene of past trips and forgotten
snacks. He invited to drink from a bottle, liquor, or whatever, I had a taste
comforting and sweet. After English was stripped and invited Teresa to imitate, she hesitated for a
moment, thinking that it is not wanted to make love with a guy so Guarro, but shortly afterwards
got naked in the sea and noticed the cold touch of water in their meat, again the feeling of Tessa
yesteryear.

After several strokes reached a raft of logs and lay, exhausted, on her. A
Teresa is no longer repugnant aroma of Teo, but on the contrary, he smelled a male, why not
withstood the test skin purified by salt and I do love the Tramp. Tomorrow
Island reached a strange, puzzling, populated only by people whose lives had not
been a constant and exhausting flight. Dwelt there artists without talent, opponents
failed, divorced looted by their former spouses, rebellious misfits, eternal child
bodied adult, missing husbands or wives while they were going to buy snuff, individuals
profession known spoiled children without resources to survive, perpetual melancholy, mad
evicted and some silly auction. Formed a republic in which the only rule was unworkable
"Forget everything and everyone will forget," the company away from their traditional daily
recalled their miseries, there were equal because they all joined the complex, the evils, the
obsessions. So Teresa lived for a time with relative happiness at the island, along
with Teo and other stateless trasegando foreign liquors, singing (rather desafinando) in
around the campfire and then, occasionally, love.
Until the day I arrived everyone expected, but nobody recognized publicly, and
some black spots appeared on the horizon and the marine inhabitants of the island knew it was
and definitely the time to awaken their fleeting dream.
The authorities are not shaken when they decided to send a pulse to all those strange beings
their places of origin and, therefore, the cradle of their miseries. Teo embarked on its way to London
where he waited two daughters, a woman and a mechanical workshop in decline. A car of the
Teresa left police in front of his house, "until further notice." She repeated the withdrawal
hated routine open the portal, go up the stairs, into the desolate floor, turn on
TV, the fall in red chair, sitting next to bags filled with vegetables
rotten and expired yogurts, including the kitchen table and the glass full of striking
colored pills ...
Television news vomited vacuum that no one collect words.

Old Boy

2009-01-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

Old Boy ...
Shouts from 8:30.
Scream until 1:15.
Among his prayers and also welcomes the walls with striking object (could be their fists or his head ...).
His window has bars like his.
I promise that once you hear screaming "help."
In addition to confess that sometimes I try to speak as he understood to achieve ...
At the moment I am preparing to send a code with Thanatos, but my plans have been diminished by the few chances I have to reach him.
Perhaps a Old Boy, an alien, a political prisoner, a politician, Osama, Elvis, Lennon, the real Paul, or perhaps myself in my parallel universe...

Prospective little nihilistic

2009-01-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

Prospective little nihilistic

I like to read but do not really read.
I know that but I do not really know.
I understand that but do not really understand.
I like that but I really am not.
I like that river, but not really river.
I like drawing but not really picture.
I like that but not really like.
I like to watch but does not really look.
I like that but I realize I do not really mind.
I like to hear but not really listening.
I like to read but not actually read.
I do not know but that really know.
I do not understand that but actually understand.
I'm not like that but actually I am.
I do not like laughing but actually laughing.
I do not like drawing but actually drawing.
I do not like that but in reality.
I do not look like that but actually look.
I do not like but I realize I can actually.
I do not like to hear but really listen.

I do not smoke occasionally.
applaud….

2009-01-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

Truth

2009-01-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

The truth ...
It is no longer written ...
No longer singing ...
I`m truth ...”

Blow-Up by Julio Cortázar

2009-01-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

"Blow-Up" was first published in Argentina in 1964 in the collection Final del juego. It was translated into English and published in the United States in 1967. The story inspired Michelangelo Antonioni to co-write the screenplay for Blow-Up, which he also directed; the film is now considered a cult classic. It starred Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Verushka, Jane Birkin, and Peter Bowles, and featured a soundtrack by Herbie Hancock and the Yardbirds. When Blow-Up was released in 1967, it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was nominated for Academy Awards in Directing and Writing.

Roberto Michel, French-Chilean, translator and in his spare time an amateur photographer, left number 11, rue Monsieur-le-Prince Sunday, November 7 of the current year (now there're two small ones passing, with silver linings). He had spent three weeks working on the French version of a treatise on challenges and appeals by José Norberto Allende, professor at the University of Santiago. It's rare that there's wind in Paris, and even less seldom a wind like this that swirled around corners and rose up to whip at old wooden venetian blinds behind which astonished ladies commented variously on how unreliable the weather had been these last few years. But the sun was out also, riding the wind and friend of the cats, so there was nothing that would keep me from taking photos of the Conservatoire and Sainte-Chapelle. It was hardly ten o'clock, and I figured that by eleven the light would be good, the best you can get in the fall; to kill some time I detoured around by the Isle Saint-Louis and started to walk along the quai D'Anjou, I stared for a bit at the hôtel de Lauzun, I recited bits from Apollinaire which always get into my head whenever I pass in front of the hotel de Lauzun (and at that I ought to be remembering the other poet, but Michel is an obstinate beggar), and when the wind stopped all at once and the sun came out at least twice as hard (I mean warmer, but really it's the same thing), I sat down on the parapet and felt terribly happy in the Sunday morning.
One of the many ways of contesting level-zero, and one of the best, is to take photographs, an activity in which one should start becoming an adept very early in life, teach it to children since it requires discipline, aesthetic education, a good eye, and steady fingers. I'm not talking about waylaying the lie like any old reporter, snapping the stupid silhouette of the VIP leaving Number 10 Downing Street, but in all ways when one is walking about with a camera, one has almost a duty to be attentive, to not lose that abrupt and happy rebound of sun's rays off an old stone, or the pigtails-flying run of a small girl going home with a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk. Michel knew that the photographer always worked as a permutation of his personal way of seeing the world as other than the camera insidiously imposed upon it (now a large cloud is going by, almost black), but he lacked no confidence in himself, knowing that he had only to go out without the Contax to recover the keynote of distraction, the sight without a frame around it, light without the diaphragm aperture or 1/250 sec. Right now (what a word, now, what a dumb lie) I was able to sit quietly on the railing overlooking the river watching the red and black motorboats passing below without it occurring to me to think photographically of the scenes, nothing more than letting myself go in the letting go of objects, running immobile in the stream of time. And then the wind was not blowing.
After, I wandered down the quai de Bourbon until getting to the end of the isle where the intimate square was (intimate because it was small, not that it was hidden, it offered its whole breast to the river and the sky), I enjoyed it, a lot. Nothing there but a couple and, of course, pigeons; maybe even some of those which are flying past now so that I'm seeing them. A leap up and I settled on the wall, and let myself turn about and be caught and fixed by the sun, giving it my face and ears and hands (I kept my gloves in my pocket). I had no desire to shoot pictures, and lit a cigarette to be doing something; I think it was that moment when the match was about to touch the tobacco that I saw the young boy for the first time.
What I'd thought was a couple seemed much more now a boy with his mother, although at the same time I realized that it was not a kid and his mother, and that it was a couple in the sense that we always allegate to couples when we see them leaning up against the parapets or embracing on the benches in the squares. As I had nothing else to do, I had more than enough time to wonder why the boy was so nervous, like a young colt or a hare, sticking his hands into his pockets, taking them out immediately, one after the other, running his fingers through his hair, changing his stance, and especially why was he afraid, well, you could guess that from every gesture, a fear suffocated by his shyness, an impulse to step backwards which he telegraphed, his body standing as if it were on the edge of flight, holding itself back in a final, pitiful decorum.
All this was so clear, ten feet away--and we were alone against the parapet at the tip of the island--that at the beginning the boy's fright didn't let me see the blonde very well. Now, thinking back on it, I see her much better at that first second when I read her face (she'd turned around suddenly, swinging like a metal weathercock, and the eyes, the eyes were there), when I vaguely understood what might have been occurring to the boy and figured it would be worth the trouble to stay and watch (the wind was blowing their words away and they were speaking in a low murmur). I think that I know how to look, if it's something I know, and also that every looking oozes with mendacity, because it's that which expels us furthest outside ourselves, without the least guarantee, whereas to smell, or (but Michel rambles on to himself easily enough, there's no need to let him harangue on this way). In any case, if the likely inaccuracy can be seen beforehand, it becomes possible again to look; perhaps it suffices to choose between looking and the reality looked at, to strip things of all their unnecessary clothing. And surely all that is difficult besides.
As for the boy I remember the image before his actual body (that will clear itself up later), while now I am sure that I remember the woman's body much better than the image. She was thin and willowy, two unfair words to describe what she was, and was wearing an almost-black fur coat, almost long, almost handsome. All the morning's wind (now it was hardly a breeze and it wasn't cold) had blown through her blonde hair which pared away her white, bleak face--two unfair words--and put the world at her feet and horribly alone in front of her dark eyes, her eyes fell on things like two eagles, two leaps into nothingness, two puffs of green slime. I'm not describing it. And I said two puffs of green slime.
Let's be fair, the boy was well enough dressed and was sporting yellow gloves which I would have sworn belonged to his older brother, a student of law or sociology; it was pleasant to see the fingers of the gloves sticking out of his jacket pocket. For a long time I didn't see his face, barely a profile, not stupid--a terrified bird, a Fra Filippo angel, rice pudding with milk--and the back of an adolescent who wants to take up judo and has had a scuffle or two in defense of an idea or his sister. Turning fourteen, perhaps fifteen, one would guess that he was dressed and fed by his parents but without a nickel in his pocket, having to debate with his buddies before making up his mind to buy a coffee, a cognac, a pack of cigarettes. He'd walk through the streets thinking of the girls in his class, about how good it would be to go to the movies and see the latest film, or to buy novels or neckties or bottles of liquor with green and white labels on them. At home (it would be a respectable home, lunch at noon and romantic landscapes on the walls, with a dark entryway and a mahogany umbrella stand inside the door) there'd be the slow rain of time, for studying, for being mama's hope, for looking like dad, for writing to his aunt in Avignon. So that there was a lot of walking the streets, the whole of the river for him (but without a nickel) and the mysterious city of fifteen-year-olds with its signs in doorways, its terrifying cats, a paper of fried potatoes for thirty francs, the pornographic magazine folded four ways, a solitude like the emptiness of his pockets, the eagerness for so much that was incomprehensible but illumined by a total love, by the availability analogous to the wind and the streets.
This biography was of the boy and of any boy whatsoever, but this particular one now, you could see he was insular, surrounded solely by the blonde's presence as she continued talking with him. (I'm tired of insisting, but two long ragged ones just went by. That morning I don't think I looked at the sky once, because what was happening with the boy and the woman appeared so soon I could do nothing but look at them and wait, look at them and...) To cut it short, the boy was agitated and one could guess without too much trouble what had just occurred a few minutes before, at most half-an-hour. The boy had come onto the tip of the island, seen the woman and thought her marvelous. The woman was waiting for that because she was there waiting for that, or maybe the boy arrived before her and she saw him from one of the balconies or from a car and got out to meet him, starting the conversation with whatever, from the beginning she was sure that he was going to be afraid and want to run off, and that, naturally, he'd stay, stiff and sullen, pretending experience and the pleasure of the adventure. The rest was easy because it was happening ten feet away from me, and anyone could have gauged the stages of the game, the derisive, competitive fencing; its major attraction was not that it was happening but in foreseeing its denouement. The boy would try to end it by pretending a date, an obligation, whatever, and would go stumbling off disconcerted, wishing he were walking with some assurance, but naked under the mocking glance which would follow him until he was out of sight. Or rather, he would stay there, fascinated or simply incapable of taking the initiative, and the woman would begin to touch his face gently, muss his hair, still talking to him voicelessly, and soon would take him by the arm to lead him off, unless he, with an uneasiness beginning to tinge the edge of desire, even his stake in the adventure, would rouse himself to put his arm around her waist and to kiss her. Any of this could have happened, though it did not, and perversely Michel waited, sitting on the railing, making the settings almost without looking at the camera, ready to take a picturesque shot of a corner of the island with an uncommon couple talking and another looking at one another.
Strange how the scene (almost nothing: two figures there mismatched in their youth) was taking on a disquieting aura. I thought it was I imposing it, and that my photo, if I shot it, would reconstitute things in their true stupidity. I would have liked to know what he was thinking, a man in a grey hat sitting at the wheel of a car parked on the dock which led up to the footbridge, and whether he was reading the paper or asleep. I had just discovered him because people inside a parked car have a tendency to disappear, they get lost in that wretched, private cage stripped of the beauty that motion and danger give it. And nevertheless, the car had been there the whole time, forming part (or deforming that part) of the isle. A car: like saying a lighted streetlamp, a park bench. Never like saying wind, sunlight, those elements always new to the skin and the eyes, and also the boy and the woman, unique, put there to change the island, to show it to me in another way. Finally, it may have been that the man with the newspaper also because aware of what was happening and would, like me, feel that malicious sensation of waiting for everything to happen. Now the woman had swung around smoothly, putting the young boy between herself and the wall, I saw them almost in profile, and he was taller, though not much taller, and yet she dominated him, it seemed like she was hovering over him (her laugh, all at once, a whip of feathers), crushing him just by being there, smiling, one hand taking a stroll through the air. Why wait any longer? Aperture at sixteen, a sighting which would not include the horrible black car, but yes, that tree, necessary to break up too much grey space... .
I raised the camera, pretended to study a focus which did not include them, and waited and watched closely, sure that I would finally catch the revealing expression, one that would sum it all up, life that is rhythmed by movement but which a stiff image destroys, taking time in cross section, if we do not choose the essential imperceptible fraction of it. I did not have to wait long. The woman was getting on with the job of handcuffing the boy smoothly, stripping from him what was left of his freedom a hair at a time, in an incredibly slow an delicious torture. I imagined the possible endings (now a small fluffy cloud appears, almost alone in the sky), I saw their arrival at the house (a basement apartment probably, which she would have filled with large cushions and cats) and conjectured the boy's terror and his desperate decision to play it cool and to be led off pretending there was nothing new in it for him. Closing my eyes, if I did in fact close my eyes, I set the scene: the teasing kisses, the woman mildly repelling the hands which were trying to undress her, like in novels, on a bed that would have a lilac-colored comforter, on the other hand she taking off his clothes, plainly mother and son under a milky yellow light, and everything would end up as usual, perhaps, but maybe everything would go otherwise, and the initiation of the adolescent would not happen, she would not let it happen, after a long prologue wherein the awkwardnesses, the exasperating caresses, the running of hands over bodies would be resolved in who knows what, in a separate and solitary pleasure, in a petulant denial mixed with the art of tiring and disconcerting so much poor innocence. It might go like that, it might very well go like that; that woman was not looking for the boy as a lover, and at the same time she was dominating him toward some end impossible to understand if you do not imagine it as a cruel game, the desire to desire without satisfaction, to excite herself for someone else, someone who in no way could be that kid.
Michel is guilty of making literature, of indulging in fabricated unrealities. Nothing pleases him more than to imagine exceptions to the rule, individuals outside the species, not-always-repugnant monsters. But that woman invited speculation, perhaps giving clues enough for the fantasy to hit the bull's-eye. Before she left, and now that she would fill my imaginings for several days, for I'm given to ruminating, I decided not to lose a moment more. I got it all into the view-finder (with the tree, the railing, the eleven-o'clock sun) and took the shot. In time to realize that they both had noticed and stood there looking at me, the boy surprised and as though questioning, but she was irritated, her face and body flat-footedly hostile, feeling robbed, ignominiously recorded on a small chemical image.
I might be able to tell it in much greater detail but it's not worth the trouble. The woman said that no one had the right to take a picture without permission, and demanded that I hand over the film. All this in a dry, clear voice with a good Parisian accent, which rose in color and tone with every phrase. For my part, it hardly mattered whether she got the roll of film or not, but anyone who knows me will tell you, if you want anything from me, ask nicely. With the result that I restricted myself to formulating the opinion that not only was photography in public spaces not prohibited, but it was looked upon with decided favor, both private and official. And while that was getting said, I noticed on the sly how the boy was falling back, sort of actively backing up through without moving, and all at once (it seemed almost incredible) he turned and broke into a run, the poor kid, thinking that he was walking off and in fact in full flight, running past the side of the car, disappearing like a gossamer filament of angel-spit in the morning air.
But filaments of angel-spittle are also called devil-spit, and Michel had to endure rather particular curses, to hear himself called meddler and imbecile, taking great pains meanwhile to smile and to abate with simple movements of his head such a hard sell. As I was beginning to get tired, I heard the car door slam. The man in the grey hat was there, looking at us. It was only at that point that I realized he was playing a part in the comedy.
He began to walk toward us, carrying in his hand the paper he had been pretending to read. What I remember best is the grimace that twisted his mouth askew, it covered his face with wrinkles, changed somewhat both in location and shape because his lips trembled and the grimace went from one side of his mouth to the other as though it were on wheels, independent and involuntary. But the rest stayed fixed, a flour-powdered clown or bloodless man, dull dry skin, eyes deepset, the nostrils black and prominently visible, blacker than the eyebrows or hair or the black necktie. Walking cautiously as though the pavement hurt his feet; I saw patent-leather shoes with such thin soles that he must have felt every roughness in the pavement. I don't know why I got down off the railing, nor very well why I decided to not give them the photo, to refuse that demand in which I guessed at their fear and cowardice. The clown and the woman consulted one another in silence: we made a perfect and unbearable triangle, something I felt compelled to break with a crack of a whip. I laughed in their faces and began to walk off, a little more slowly, I imagine, than the boy. At the level of the first houses, beside the iron footbridge, I turned around to look at them. They were not moving, but the man had dropped his newspaper; it seemed to me that the woman, her back to the parapet, ran her hands over the stone with the classical and absurd gesture of someone pursued looking for a way out.
What happened after that happened here, almost just now, in a room on the fifth floor. Several days went by before Michel developed the photos he'd taken on Sunday; his shots of the Conservatoire and of Sainte-Chapelle were all they should be. Then he found two or three proof-shots he'd forgotten, a poor attempt to catch a cat perched astonishingly on the roof of a rambling public urinal, and also the shot of the blonde and the kid. The negative was so good that he made an enlargement; the enlargement was so good that he made one very much larger, almost the size of a poster. It did not occur to him (now one wonders and wonders) that only the shots of the Conservatoire were worth so much work. Of the whole series, the snapshot of the tip of the island was the only one which interested him; he tacked up the enlargement on one wall of the room, and the first day he spent some time looking at it and remembering, that gloomy operation of comparing the memory with the gone reality; a frozen memory, like any photo, where nothing is missing, not even, and especially, nothingness, the true solidifier of the scene. There was the woman, there was the boy, the tree rigid above their heads, the sky as sharp as the stone of the parapet, clouds and stones melded into a single substance and inseparable (now one with sharp edges is going by, like a thunderhead). The first two days I accepted what I had done, from the photo itself to the enlargement on the wall, and didn't even question that every once in a while I would interrupt my translation of José Norberto Allende's treatise to encounter once more the woman's face, the dark splotches on the railing. I'm such a jerk; it had never occurred to me that when we look at a photo from the front, the eyes reproduce exactly the position and the vision of the lens; it's these things that are taken for granted and it never occurs to anyone to think about them. From my chair, with the typewriter directly in front of me, I looked at the photo ten feet away, and then it occurred to me that I had hung it exactly at the point of view of the lens. It looked very good that way; no doubt, it was the best way to appreciate a photo, though the angle from the diagonal doubtless has its pleasures and might even divulge different aspects. Every few minutes, for example when I was unable to find the way to say in good French what Jose Norberto Allende was saying in very good Spanish, I raised my eyes and looked at the photo; sometimes the woman would catch my eye, sometimes the boy, sometimes the pavement where a dry leaf had fallen admirably situated to heighten a lateral section. Then I rested a bit from my labors, and I enclosed myself again happily in that morning in which the photo was drenched, I recalled ironically the angry picture of the woman demanding I give her the photograph, the boy's pathetic and ridiculous flight, the entrance on the scene of the man with the white face. Basically, I was satisfied with myself; my part had not been too brilliant, and since the French have been given the gift of the sharp response, I did not see very well why I'd chosen to leave without a complete demonstration of the rights, privileges and prerogatives of citizens. The important thing, the really important thing was having helped the kid to escape in time (this in case my theorizing was correct, which was not sufficiently proven, but the running away itself seemed to show it so). Out of plain meddling, I had given him the opportunity finally to take advantage of his fright to do something useful; now he would be regretting it, feeling his honor impaired, his manhood diminished. That was better than the attentions of a woman capable of looking as she had looked at him on that island. Michel is something of a puritan at times, he believes that one should not seduce someone from a position of strength. In the last analysis, taking that photo had been a good act.
Well, it wasn't because of the good act that I looked at it between paragraphs while I was working. At that moment I didn't know the reason, the reason I had tacked the enlargement onto the wall; maybe all fatal acts happen that way, and that is the condition of their fulfillment. I don't think the almost-furtive trembling of the leaves on the tree alarmed me, I was working on a sentence and rounded it out successfully. Habits are like immense herbariums, in the end an enlargement of 32 X 28 looks like a movie screen, where, on the tip of the island, a woman is speaking with a boy and a tree is shaking its dry leaves over their heads.
But her hands were just too much. I had just translated: "In that case, the second key resides in the intrinsic nature of difficulties which societies..."--when I saw the woman's hand beginning to stir slowly, finger by finger. There was nothing left of me, a phrase in French which I would never have to finish, typewriter on the floor, a chair that squeaked and shook, fog. The kid had ducked his head like boxers do when they've done all they can and are waiting for the final blow to fall; he had turned up the collar of his overcoat and seemed more a prisoner than ever, the perfect victim helping promote the catastrophe. Now the woman was talking into his ear, and her hand opened again to lay itself against his cheekbone, to caress and caress it, burning it, taking her time. The kid was less startled than he was suspicious, once or twice he poked his head over the woman's shoulder and she continued talking, saying something that made him look back every few minutes toward that area where Michel knew the car was parked and the man in the grey hat, carefully eliminated from the photo but present in the boy's eyes (how doubt that now) in the words of the woman, in the woman's hands, in the vicarious presence of the woman. When I saw the man come up, stop near them and look at them, his hands in his pockets and a stance somewhere between disgusted and demanding, the master who is about to whistle in his dog after a frolic in the square, I understood, if that was to understand, what had to happen now, what had to have happened then, what would have to happen at that moment, among these people, just where I had poked my nose in to upset an established order, interfering innocently in that which had not happened, but which was now going to happen, now was going to be fulfilled. And what I had imagined earlier was much less horrible than the reality, that woman, who was not there by herself, she was not caressing or propositioning or encouraging for her own pleasure, to lead the angel away with his tousled hair and play the tease with his terror and his eager grace. The real boss was waiting there, smiling petulantly, already certain of the business; he was not the first to send a woman in the vanguard, to bring him the prisoners manacled with flowers. The rest of it would be so simple, the car, some house or another, drinks, stimulating engravings, tardy tears, the awakening in hell. And there was nothing I could do, this time I could do absolutely nothing. My strength had been a photograph, that, there, where they were taking their revenge on me, demonstrating clearly what was going to happen. The photo had been taken, the time had run out, gone; we were so far from one another, the abusive act had certainly already taken place, the tears already shed, and the rest conjecture and sorrow. All at once the order was inverted, they were alive, moving, they were deciding and had decided, they were going to their future; and I on this side, prisoner of another time, in a room on the fifth floor, to not know who they were, that woman, that man, and that boy, to be only the lens of my camera, something fixed, rigid, incapable of intervention. It was horrible, their mocking me, deciding it before my impotent eye, mocking me, for the boy again was looking at the flour-faced clown and I had to accept the fact that he was going to say yes, that the proposition carried money with it or a gimmick, and I couldn't yell for him to run, or even open the road to him again with a new photo, a small and almost meek intervention which would ruin the framework of drool and perfume. Everything was going to resolve itself right there, at that moment; there was like an immense silence which had nothing to do with physical silence. It was stretching it out, setting itself up. I think I screamed, I screamed terribly, and that at the exact second I realized that I was beginning to move toward them, four inches, a step, another step, the tree swung its branches rhythmically in the foreground, a place where the railing was tarnished emerged from the frame, the woman's face turned toward me as though surprised, was enlarging, and then I turned a bit, I mean that the camera turned a little, and without losing sight of the woman, I began to close in on the man who was looking at me with the black holes he had in place of eyes, surprised and angered both, he looked, wanting to nail me onto the air, and at that instant I happened to see something like a large bird outside the focus that was flying in a single swoop in front of the picture, and I leaned up against the wall of my room and was happy because the boy had just managed to escape, I saw him running off, in focus again, sprinting with his hair flying in the wind, learning finally to fly across the island, to arrive at the footbridge, return to the city. For the second time he'd escaped them, for the second time I was helping him to escape, returning him to his precarious paradise. Out of breath, I stood in front of them; no need to step closer, the game was played out. Of the woman you could see just maybe a shoulder and a bit of hair, brutally cut off by the frame of the picture; but the man was directly center, his mouth half open, you could see a shaking black tongue, and he lifted his hands slowly, bringing them into the foreground, an instant still in perfect focus, and then all of him a lump that blotted out the island, the tree, and I shut my eyes, I didn't want to see any more, and I covered my face and broke into tears like an idiot.
Now there's a big white cloud, as on all these days, all this untellable time. What remains to be said is always a cloud, two clouds, or long hours of a sky perfectly clear, a very clean, clear rectangle tacked up with pins on the wall of my room. That was what I saw when I opened my eyes and dried them with my fingers: the clear sky, and then a cloud that drifted in from the left, passed gracefully and slowly across and disappeared on the right. And then another, and for a change sometimes, everything gets grey, all one enormous cloud, and suddenly the splotches of rain cracking down, for a long spell you can see it raining over the picture, like a spell of weeping reversed, and little by little, the frame becomes clear, perhaps the sun comes out, and again the clouds begin to come, two at a time, three at a time. And the pigeons once in a while, and a sparrow or two.

Journal to the Journal

2009-01-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

Journal to the Journal

"One man took a tram after buying the newspaper and putting it under his arm. Half an hour later with the same daily falls under one arm. But it is not the same newspaper, is now a pile of leaflets that Mr, abandoned in a bench seat. Is hardly alone in the bank, the pile of leaflets again become a daily until they found an elderly woman, reads it, and leaves into a pile of leaflets. Then he takes her home and the way it used to pack half a kilo of spinach, which is what the newspapers that serve these exciting metamorphosis.

By Julio Cortazar

the title gives us idea of everyday, in a figurative sense, as usual, literally, the newspaper. The text is short, applying his own theory to literary subgenre story, "he wins by knockout while the novel won on points." In its external structure, compared to the story "with a sphere because it is something that has a cycle perfect and flawless, something that begins and ends well as the areas that any molecule may be beyond their limits and that it should close. "

The protagonist of the story has it the newspaper, which is essential for each person listed as the first day, until they finished reading loses interest and becomes simply printed. Reaches this point the loss, the last reader (the elderly) is used to cover their daily needs: pack strapped to the Swiss. Include the grading operations. They pass as it makes the text and are pointing to the emergence of different people.

Often, as in this text, the rhythm of the narrative, its simplicity in the presentation of the issue is a significant show of anxiety, excitement or a disappointment. It is also frequent use of periphrasis, anaphora, repetition, "is hardly alone in the bank" that create a surround charm, and a growing spiritualization of objects.

Carlos Maggi says: "The writing is lively Julio Cortazar as a boy." Emphasizes colloquial and intimate settings that often are true statements or speeches interiors, deep thinking becoming narrator. Ricardo Pallares argues that the simplicity of language does not warn a rigorous architectural work with the word.

In conclusion, we can say that Julio Cortazar was a very accurate observer of such immediate reality that is composed of words and gestures banal, trivial acts without consistency, but was also an extremely vigilant spirit for all that the man in denouncing a wonderful dimension.