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Monday 23 January 2017

So opaque (man and child in bunny costume, or the hollow opacity of a nationalist myth) / Borges: Martín Fierro

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Crowley's pic works because the #First Couple's relationship is so opaque. And, esp after Obamas, we want more cues. Photo @StCrow #inauguration
: image via Reading the Pictures @ReadingThe Pix, 22 January 2017
Loving devoted husband, happy wife.
Reading The Pictures Retweeted Randi Mayem Singer
Reading The Pictures added,
Well, devilish luncheon pic is more ambiguous ... but leaving @FLOTUS in driveway like that shoulda gotten him sent back to Blair House.
image via Reading the Pictures @ReadingThe Pix, 22 January 2017


Masterful photo for creation of emptiness, smallness and alignment w the fallen when there wasn't any #Trump #CIA #Langley Photo @olivierdoullery: image via Reading the Pictures @ReadingThe Pix, 22 January 2017


Jeff Mason of Reuters appears stunned by Sean Spicer's blast-and-bolt routine: image via ErikWemple @ErikWemple, 21 January 2017


@seanspicer @PressSec delivers blistering attack on the media from White House podium and leaves without taking questions: image via Jeff Mason @jeffmason1, 21 January 2017



Here is NYT page A1, telling the truth up high about Trump's falsehoods: image via ErikWemple @ErikWemple, 22 January 2017

Spicer, straight from the dictator's playbook: "These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.": tweet via ErikWemple @ErikWemple, 22 January 2017



Stanley Kubrick Rosemary Williams, show girl, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, 1949: image via aucharbon @aucharbon, 22 January 2017


What a difference a day makes. #inauguration #WomensMarch @realDonaldTrump: image via Stephen Crowley @StCrow, 22 January 2017


Next sundays cover #NewYorkTimesMagazine / Photo #DanWinters @NYTmag / designdirector @GailBichler: image via coverjunkie @coverjunkie, 20 January 2017


Some #trump #frontpages from all over the world... #1: image via coverjunkie @coverjunkie, 21 January 2017


Some #trump #frontpages from all over... #2: image via coverjunkie @coverjunkie, 21 January 2017

Jorge Luis Borges: Martín Fierro (The hollow opacity of a nationalist myth)



What a cover! #newyorktimesmagazine: image via Jazwiecki Maciej, 22 January 2017

Jorge Luis Borges: Martín Fierro

De esta ciudad salieron ejércitos que parecían grandes y que después lo fueron por la magnificación de la gloria. Al cabo de los años alguno de los soldados volvió y, con un dejo forastero, refirió historias que le habían ocurrido en lugares llamados Ituzaingó o Ayacucho. Estas cosas, ahora, son como si no hubieran sido.

Dos tiranías hubo aquí. Durante la primera, unos hombres desde el pescante de un carro que salía del mercado del Plata pregonaron duraznos blancos y amarillos; un chico levantó una punta de la lona que los cubría y vio cabezas unitarias con la barba sangrienta. La segunda fue para muchos cárcel y muerte; para todos un malestar, un sabor de oprobio en los actos de cada día, una humillación incesante. Estas cosas, ahora, son como si no hubieran sido.

Un hombre que sabía todas las palabras miró con minucioso amos las plantas y los pájaros de esta tierra y los definió, talvez para siempre, y escribió con metáforas de metales la vasta crónica de los tumultuosos ponientes y de las formas de la luna. Estas cosas, ahora, son como si no hubieran sido.

También aquí las generaciones han conocido esas vicisitudes comunes y de algún modo eternas que son la materia del arte. Estas cosas, ahora, son como si no hubieran sido, pero en una pieza de hotel, hacia mil ochocientos sesenta y tantos, un hombre soñó una pelea. Un gaucho alza a un moreno con el cuchillo, lo tira como un saco de huesos, le ve agonizar y morir, se agacha para limpiar el acero, desata su caballo y monta despacio, para que no piensen que huye. Esto que fue una vez, vuelve a ser, infinitamente; los visibles ejércitos se fueron y queda un pobre duelo a cuchillo; el sueño de uno es parte de la memoria de todos.

Martín Fierro

Out of this city marched armies that seemed to be great, and afterwards were, when glory had magnified them. As the years went by, an occasional soldier returned and, with a foreign trace in his speech, told tales of what had happened to him in places called Ituzaingo or Ayacucho. These things, now, are as if they had never been.

Two tyrannies had their day here. During the first some men coming from the Plata market hawked white and yellow peaches from the seat of a cart. A child lifted a corner of the canvas and saw unitario heads with bloody beards. The second, for many, meant imprisonment and death; for all it meant discomfort, a taste of disgrace in everyday acts, an incessant humiliation. These things, now, are as if they had never been.

A man who knew all words looked with minute love at the plants and birds of his land and described them, perhaps forever, and wrote in metaphors of metal the vast chronicle of the tumultuous sunsets and the shapes of the moon. These things, now, are as if they had never been.

Here too the generations have known those common and somehow eternal vicissitudes which are the stuff of art. These things now, are as if they had never been. But in a hotel room in the 1860’s, or thereabouts, a man dreamed about a fight. A gaucho lifts a Negro off his feet with his knife, throws him down like a sack of bones, sees him agonize and die, crouches down to clean his blade, unties his horse, and mounts slowly so he will not be thought to be running away. This, which once was, is again infinitely: the splendid armies are gone, and a lowly knife fight remains. The dream of one man is part of the memory of all.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): Martín Fierro, from El hacedor, 1960; English version by Mildred Boyer

  IRAQ - A woman and her child who are fleeing IS group controlled Rashidiyah neighbourhood arrive to the Arabi neighbourhood in Mosul. By @ahmedafp: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - Pharmaceutics student Abdesatar al-Hamdany carries his books in front of the destroyed buildings of Mosul's University. By @dilkoff: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - A man pushes a cart in a street near the University of Mosul after its liberation from the IS control. By @ahmedafp #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - A man walks outside Mosul's University a week after Iraqi counter-terrorism service retook it from the IS jihadists.. By @dilkoff: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - View of damaged walls of the Nineveh ruins in eastern Mosul, after it was destroyed by the Islamic State jihadists. By @dilkoff #AFP : image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - A boy walks down a street near Mosul's University a week after Iraqi army retook it from the IS jihadists. By @dilkoff #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - A boy with a bandaged head stands on a street in eastern Mosul during the ongoing military operation against jihadists. By @dilkoff #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - A street vendor lays out his vegetable produce near the University of Mosul after its liberation from the IS. By@ahmedafp #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

IRAQ - Members of the Iraqi counter-terrorism service take position inside a room in the Oberoi hotel in Mosul. By @ahmedafp #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

 
FGHANISTAN - an Afghan girl stands alongside a wall on the outskirts of Jalalabad. By @Noorullah700 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 January 2017

1 comment:

TC said...

The Chipmunks: Let's Go (ft/ Simon, Theodore & Alvin)

"...i made up a word, and then i used it wrong!"