Smoke from an explosion
rises during fighting against Islamic State militants in the old city
of Mosul, Iraq, Friday, June 23, 2017. Formally launched in October, the
fight for Mosul has displaced more than 850,000 people.: photo by Felipe Dana/AP, 23 June 2017
#Iraq Iraqis fleeing Mosul after escaping the fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS). Photo Mohamed El-Shahed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
#Iraq
Iraqis arrive to the industrial district of Mosul as they flee the
fighting between Iraqi forces and IS. Photo Mohamed El-Shahed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
#Iraq Iraqi civilians injured in a suicide attack as people were
escaping Mosul, sit on an Iraqi forces vehicle. Photo Ahmad Al-Rubaye
#AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
Philippines says Islamist militants holed up in southern city have been cornered and their firepower is diminished: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 23 June 2017
#Afghanistan
A Muslim offers his prayers on the last Friday of the Ramadan ahead of
the Eid al-Fitr at a mosque in Jalalabad. Photo @Noorullah700: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
Among the crumbling buildings in the rebel-held Douma district, Syrians break fast during Ramadan Photo @BassamKhabieh: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 23 June 2017
An Indian police officer comforts a wailing relative of Mohammad Ayoub Pandit, a policeman who was beaten to death, during a wreath laying ceremony at the police headquarters in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, June 23, 2017. Police and witnesses say an officer in Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city has been beaten to death after he fired at a group of people who suspected him of spying on worshippers during the holiest night of the year for Muslims.: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 23 June 2017
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the home of a police officer who was beaten to death by angry mob in Srinagar Last night.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @BASIIPJ, 23 June 2017
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the home of a police officer who was beaten to death by angry mob in Srinagar Last night.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @BASIIPJ, 23 June 2017
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the home of a police officer who was beaten to death by angry mob in Srinagar Last night.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @BASIIPJ, 23 June 2017
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the home of a police officer who was beaten to death by angry mob in Srinagar Last night.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @BASIIPJ, 23 June 2017
Kashmiri Muslims offer prayers on the eve of Jumat-ul-vida, the last Friday of Ramadan at Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @BASIIPJ, 23 June 2017
Portraits of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a representation of the Israeli flag, burned by Iranian demonstrators lies on the ground in their annual pro-Palestinian rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 23, 2017. Iran held anti-Israel rallies across the country, with protesters condemning Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and chanting "Death to Israel.": photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 23 June 2017
GAZA - Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli security forces near Jabalia refugee camp yesterday. Photo @mohmdabed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
A demonstrator walks
near a burning truck during a protest on the Francisco Fajardo highway
outside La Carlota Air Base in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, June 23,
2017. More than 70 people have been killed during almost 90 days of
protests seeking President Nicolas Maduro's removal.: photo by Ariana
Cubillos/AP, 23 June 2017
#Venezuela A hooded demonstrator stands near a burning motorbike during
an anti-government protest in Caracas. Photo @federicoparra #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
#India
Muslim women visit the shrine of Maqbul E-Alam ahead of the Muslim
festival of Eid al-Fitr in Ahmedabad. Photo Sam Panthaky #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
A Somali woman walks past the scene of a
suicide car bomb attack on a police station in Mogadishu, Somalia
Thursday, June 22, 2017. A number of people are dead and several others
wounded in the blast in Somalia's capital, police said Thursday, adding
that the bomber was trying to drive into the police station's gate but
detonated against the wall instead.: photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP, 22 June 2017
Two men from Sudan talk on the deck of the
Golfo Azzurro rescue vessel, after being rescued from a rubber boat out
of control near the Libyan coast, on Thursday, June 22, 2017.: photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP, 22 June 2017
#France View of the sun setting over the refinery of Donges. @LoicVenance #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
#Russia A woman poses between columns of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Photo Yuri Kadobnov #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
Insha Allah Azadi (Winner Takes Kashmir)
Times of Denial.: image via Mirza Waheed @MirzaWaheed, 19 June 2017
Eid like celebrations in Kashmir . Pakistan won the #ChampionsTrophy2017Final. You made us proud. Love from #Kashmir. Stay safe Kashmiris.: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Insha Allah Azadi. #AikJeetAur #PakVsInd #Kashmir: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Unfortunate that Indian forces went on rampage in South #Kashmir after Pakistan's magnificent performance against India. #PakVsInd #Pakistan.: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Unfortunate that Indian forces went on rampage in South #Kashmir after Pakistan's magnificent performance against India. #PakVsInd #Pakistan.: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
#Kashmir right now #PakVsInd: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Love and respect Fakhar #PakvInd: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Meanwhile in #Kashmir #PakvInd: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 18 June 2017
Indian Army assaults Shopian village a second time in three nights. #Kashmir: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 17 June 2017
Indian Army assaults Shopian village a second time in three nights. #Kashmir: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 17 June 2017
Six cops were killed and NO minister turned up for wreath laying. In contrast,10 rebels appear in militant's funeral to pay homage. #Kashmir: image via Haziq Qadri @haziq_qadri, 17 June 2017
Kashmiri village women watch the body of a
local rebel Nasir Wani displayed during his funeral in Haf-Shirmal
village about 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian
controlled Kashmir, Saturday, June 17, 2017. Thousands attended funerals
of three rebels in Indian controlled Kashmir Saturday after they were
killed in a gunbattle with government forces in the disputed region,
police said.: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 17 June 2017
Days of Rage
Untitled. Day of Rage - London.: photo by Dan Redrup, 21 April 2017
GAZA - Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli security forces near Jabalia refugee camp yesterday. Photo @mohmdabed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2017
Demonstrators demand justice for the victims
of the recent deadly apartment block fire at Grenfell Tower, after
marching to parliament in central London Wednesday June 21, 2017. The
mass "Day of Rage" demonstration is timed to coincide with the state
opening of parliament Wednesday.: photo by Matt Dunham/AP, 21 June 2017
Untitled. Barcelona 2016.: photo by Dan Redrup, 15 June 2016
Rapa Nui 2015 (56 of123).jpg: photo by Zoltera, 21 June 2015
The Jolly Rioter. Roma 2015.: photo by Dan Redrup, 11 February 2015
Korce, Albania: photo by Mihai Ciama, 23 June 2017
George Seferis: Fires of St. John
Smoke from the High Park Fire fills the sky near Laporte, Colorado: photo by Marc Piscotty/Reuters, 10 June 2012
Our fate: spilled lead; our fate can’t change --
nothing’s to be done.
They spilled the lead in water under the stars, and may the fires burn.
If you stand naked before a mirror at midnight you see,
you see a man moving through the mirror’s depths
the man destined to rule your body
in loneliness and silence, the man
of loneliness and silence
and may the fires burn.
At the hour when one day ends and the next has not begun
at the hour when time is suspended
you must find the man who then and now, from the very beginning, ruled your body
you must look for him so that someone else at least
will find him, after you are dead.
It is the children who light the fires and cry out before the flames in the hot night
(Was there ever a fire that some child did not light, O Herostratus)
and throw salt on the flames to make them crackle
(How strangely the houses -- crucibles for men -- suddenly
stare at us when the flame’s reflection caresses them).
But you who knew the stone’s grace on the sea-whipped rock
the evening when stillness fell
heard from far off the human voice of loneliness and silence
inside your body
that night of St John
when all the fires went out
and you studied the ashes under the stars.
George Seferis (1900-1971): Fires of St. John, from Book of Exercises, 1940, in George Seferis: Collected Poems (Revised edition), translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, 1991
On the eve of the feast day of St John (24 June), it was
customary in Seferis’ childhood village of Skala near the town of Vourla
in Asia Minor – as in other Greek villages generally -- for the children
to light small fires in the streets after sunset and jump over them for
good luck. Among the various divinatory rituals practiced by unmarried
girls on this feast day are the two mentioned in the poem: 1) The girl
drops molten lead into a container filled with “silent” water (i.e.
water brought secretly from a spring by a young girl or boy who is
forbidden to speak to anyone on the way), and the shape the lead takes
on cooling indicates the trade or profession the girl’s future husband
will follow; 2) The girl undresses at midnight and stands naked before a
mirror, invoking St John and asking him to reveal the man she will
marry; the first name she hears on waking the next morning is that of
her future husband.
Herostratus, in 346 BC, burned down the famous Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in order to make his name immortal.
-- Keeley and Sherrard
nothing’s to be done.
They spilled the lead in water under the stars, and may the fires burn.
If you stand naked before a mirror at midnight you see,
you see a man moving through the mirror’s depths
the man destined to rule your body
in loneliness and silence, the man
of loneliness and silence
and may the fires burn.
At the hour when one day ends and the next has not begun
at the hour when time is suspended
you must find the man who then and now, from the very beginning, ruled your body
you must look for him so that someone else at least
will find him, after you are dead.
It is the children who light the fires and cry out before the flames in the hot night
(Was there ever a fire that some child did not light, O Herostratus)
and throw salt on the flames to make them crackle
(How strangely the houses -- crucibles for men -- suddenly
stare at us when the flame’s reflection caresses them).
But you who knew the stone’s grace on the sea-whipped rock
the evening when stillness fell
heard from far off the human voice of loneliness and silence
inside your body
that night of St John
when all the fires went out
and you studied the ashes under the stars.
George Seferis (1900-1971): Fires of St. John, from Book of Exercises, 1940, in George Seferis: Collected Poems (Revised edition), translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, 1991
Herostratus, in 346 BC, burned down the famous Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in order to make his name immortal.
-- Keeley and Sherrard
ANDREI RUBLEV I (Andrei Tarkovskiy) RUSSIAN SECTION: photo by ImagineIndiaFilmFestival, 13 May 2012
ANDREI RUBLEV I (Andrei Tarkovskiy) RUSSIAN SECTION: photo by ImagineIndiaFilmFestival, 13 May 2012
ANDREI RUBLEV I (Andrei Tarkovskiy) RUSSIAN SECTION: photo by ImagineIndiaFilmFestival, 13 May 2012
Andrei Rublev Artist and Icon [Tarkovsky: Andrei Rublev, 1966: Eve of St John "naked dissidents" scene]: photo by dou_ble_you, 30 November 2008
Andrei Rublev, 1966. by anti_cgi.: photo by Canary Black, 22 October 2015
People take part with
fire's torch during the San Juan night in the small Pyrenees village of
Sahun, northern Spain, Friday, June 23, 2017. The night of San Juan,
which welcomes the summer season, is an ancient tradition celebrated
every year in various towns in Spain.: photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP, 23 June 2017
lack of comments does not mean lack of amazement at the images you always find
ReplyDeletethank you
Thanks, Vincent. It helps to think that's what it means.
ReplyDeleteΑμίλητο νερό. . . . .two words, six syllables, five consonants, six vowels, two rhymes—rolling off the lips like liquid oh!
ReplyDeleteWho does not thirst for that silent water.
ReplyDeleteSafaris' Fires of St. John recalls Keats' Eve of St. Agnes, no? Distressing that it is impossible to find any coverage of Kashmir conflict by American press. If not for you work, I'd have no idea. And the recent Heptones Book of Rules post has filled my house with Rocksteady joy!
ReplyDeleteTom, The feast of St Johns Eve -- eve of the rites of St John The Baptist, said by St Luke to have been born six months before Jesus -- is still celebrated across much of Europe, as a sort of de facto midsummer festival. In the Iberian peninsula in particular the bonfires of San Juan still dance in the night. The Tarkovsky film Andrei Rublev (a few stills are seen here) remembers the "pagan" origins of all this. I believe the spirit of the festival still lives on in much of the continent. Keats was similarly attempting to engage an immemorial folk custom with the Eve of St Agnes, though by his time much if not all of the social meaning had been drained out of that ancient cache of lore. It had become a literary fancy, pretty much. Exactly the kind of thing JK, whose imagination was always operating several removes away from experienced reality, loved so much.
ReplyDeleteAbout Kashmir, quite simply, nobody wants to know or care... but, as with the Palestinians, the fate of the Kashmiris stands as a kind of historical index. Occupation, it seems, remains accepted practise, in certain places -- accepted as a necessity and a convenience, that is, by the big players in what's coming to look more and more like a rigged game.
Thank you, Tom.
ReplyDelete