Thanking the visitors

This blog was born on march 31, 2007, is an aries and for some unexpected reason we don't like each other. ;-) However. I will thank the visitors and commenters all through this year of blogging.

This is a simple blog to post my 2D visual arts created with interactive genetic algorithms (some 3D GA's intruded the blog too) and nothing more, however, the commenters and the ones I know about between the invisible visitors, many many times had made a difference in my mood, my state of mind, certain zones of my general behaviour, and my sense of decency too, why not :-) I've known excellent people only because of blogging, and some of them became friends who lend a hand even when I never asked that. Cheers.

I'm thanking every visitor during twelve agitated months, and that means everyone; it certainly includes all who I can't speak with anymore, because everyone who was related to me and this blog at the same time, became an important person to me, at least at one particular moment of this past year of blogging.I've responded every comment. Since some undetermined day I felt pushed to post everyday, any crappy image available, but everyday. This blog became cathartic during a crisis in my life last year, somehow changing its simple objective to a more human one (although I never liked to speak of myself in any public forum). Never thought I would surpass the limit of the three months of blogging: but did it. Never thought I would be able to create as many evolutionary art images and relate them to the art of another artist that I like, as my daily blog requires: but did it. Never thought that a person may thank me for making him/her know another artist: they did it. Never thought it would be possible to openly speak of myself, with my picture and real name: did it. Never thought I could know in person a faraway reader, did it. Never thought I would make a friend who could be with me in a moment of need (or viceversa) without even knowing that person's face, did it too. All because of this spare-time blog, so happy bloggiversary to a blog with two parenthesis too much. It is certainly a happy blog to the author, every day it's a happy event to come back here. Cheers.

I'm proud of this, although it may be common: I may bore you but (lucky me) never insulted your intelligence; never explained what I shouldn't during my everlasting chaotic behaviour and thinking.

Thank you for becoming a friend after visiting, you've let your mark in me. Will try to go for another year.

Here comes the sun (III):




And here comes the song:

Waterfall

As the poem is named, this is for C. A supposed view from behind a waterfall.

Behind a laughing waterfall
There lies a little fount of tears,
Deep, dark, and rarely seen at all
By those the sparkling torrent cheers.

Beneath a suit of armor bright,
Shaft-proof and burnished, hard and cold,
There beats, concealed from common sight,
A tender woman's heart of gold!

John Lawson Stoddard, "To C."

Seven variations on the "Chess" subject

These seven uninteresting images are the scrap remains of a work named "Chess", posted here.

This were different stages of the search for an appropriate image to make company to the dream that I had that time (days before I posted the image, the dream, and the Borges's poem).

So this are belated versions now named Chess II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII. Just scrap pieces right now, and my preferred between the scraps is the Nº8. I let them here mostly to document the search... or the simplicity I was chasing.
As you can notice, the final version of "Chess" posted before is composed by the

combination of Number II and Number V. This is how results in evolutionary art are achieved, you select, mutate, crossover, and evaluate sets of offspring until one work is finished and you can finally pick up a phenotype or individual (an image in this case).


Nº 2:


Nº 3:


Nº4:


Nº5:


Nº6:


Nº7:


Nº8:


Just in case, to not make you click, this was the final version of "Chess", that my dream needed:



And I add now this outstanding poem by Ezra Pound that I found relevant for the post:

DOGMATIC STATEMENT CONCERNING THE GAME OF CHESS:
THEME FOR A SERIES OF PICTURES

Red knights, brown bishops, bright queens,
Striking the board, falling in strong ‘L's of
colour.
Reaching and striking in angles,
holding lines in one colour.
This board is alive with light;
these pieces are living in form,
Their moves break and reform the pattern:
luminous green from the rooks,
Clashing with ‘X's of queens,
looped with the knight-leaps.

‘Y' pawns, cleaving, embanking!
Whirl ! Centripetal ! Mate ! King down in the
vortex,
Clash, leaping of bands, straight strips of hard
colour,
Blocked lights working in. Escapes. Renewal of
contest.

Ezra Pound, "The Game Of Chess".

Gems

Wanted to create a set of heart-shaped gems for the haiku, but whenever I modified the Z-Axis and the gems took the shape of a heart, the three connected into one, and I didn't wanted that, so I post this one even on its very "work-in-progress" state.

As in a clear glass
I want to see her, I feel;
I would meet my darling;

As a belt of jewels,
My enduring love
Grows lusher now.

Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro.

Structured floration

Just tried to illustrate this lovely poem.

Is made up of reservoirs,
Birds flying South, mailmen

Snow falling or rain falling,
Railmen, Howard Johnson and airmen

Birds of Paradise
Silk lined caskets

Prize poems and guitars,
Beatitudes and bestiaries,

Children taught contemporary manners,
Time taking time away

With a haymaker or a sleigh,
Hope always belaboring despair.

Form is a jostle, a throstle,
Life a slice of sleight,

Indians are looking out from the
Cheekbones of Connecticut Yankees,

Poltergeists deploy northward
To tinderboxes in cupboards in Maine,

The last chock knocked, the vessel
Would not go down the Damariscotta

Until the sick captain’s four-poster,
Moved to the window by four oldsters

Gave him a sight of her, and
He gave her a beautiful sign,

And there was the witch of Nobleboro
Who confounded the native farmers

Who, having lost the plow-bolt
Right at their feet, found it

Concealed in her apron: she laughed,
And made the earth fecund again.

The hard structure of the world,
The world structure of illusion.

From seeing too much of the world
We do not understand it.

There is something unknown in knowing.
Unfaith is what keeps faith going.

Richard Eberhart, "The hard structure of the World".

Abstract Nº53

Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should not have missed, or are about to say something; this imminence of a revelation which does not occur is, perhaps, the aesthetic phenomenon.

Jorge Luis Borges, from "The Wall and the books".

Abstract Nº52

To complete my expression of admiration for many works of Van Dyke, who was always at the shadow of Tennyson anyway, is that I post this poem from him, now that it coincides its subject with this stressed month of mine. And surely passionate workers will like the poem too.

Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market-place or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
"This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;
"Of all who live, I am the one by whom
"This work can best be done in the right way."

Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,
To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;
Then shall I cheerful greet the labouring hours,
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall
At eventide, to play and love and rest,
Because I know for me my work is best.

Henry Van Dyke, "Work"

Sunrise at the hive

This is the second part of the post and the poem from yesterday.
I admire how Van Dyke worked its way through the concept till the end of this poem. It is great how the author goes through the particular -greek myth- onto the general -meaning of life.

[...]

VI

Look how the landscape glitters wide and still,
Bright with a pure surprise!
The day begins with joy, and all past ill,
Buried in white oblivion, lies
Beneath the snowdrifts under crystal skies.
New hope, new love, new life, new cheer,
Flow in the sunrise beam,—
The gladness of Apollo when he sees,
Upon the bosom of the wintry year,
The honey-harvest of his wild white bees,
Forgetfulness and a dream!



III

Legend

Listen, my beloved, while the silver morning,
like a tranquil vision,
Fills the world around us and our hearts with peace;
Quiet is the close of Aristæus' legend, happy is
the ending —
Listen while I tell you how he found release.

Many months he wandered far away in sadness,
desolately thinking
Only of the vanished joys he could not find;
Till the great Apollo, pitying his shepherd, loosed
him from the burden
Of a dark, reluctant, backward-looking mind.

Then he saw around him all the changeful beauty
of the changing seasons,
In the world-wide regions where his journey lay;
Birds that sang to cheer him, flowers that bloomed
beside him, stars that shone to guide him, —
Traveller's joy was plenty all along the way!

Everywhere he journeyed strangers made him
welcome, listened while he taught them
Secret lore of field and forest he had learned:
How to train the vines and make the olives fruit-
ful; how to guard the sheepfolds;
How to stay the fever when the dog-star burned.

Friendliness and blessing followed in his foot-
steps; richer were the harvests,
Happier the dwellings, wheresoe'er he came;
Little children loved him, and he left behind him,
in the hour of parting,
Memories of kindness and a god-like name.

So he travelled onward, desolate no longer,
patient in his seeking,
Reaping all the wayside comfort of his quest;
Till at last in Thracia, high upon Mount Hæmus,
far from human dwelling,
Weary Aristæus laid him down to rest.

Then the honey-makers, clad in downy whiteness,
fluttered soft around him,
Wrapt him in a dreamful slumber pure and deep.
This is life, beloved: first a sheltered garden,
then a troubled journey,
Joy and pain of seeking, — and at last we sleep!

Henry Van Dyke, "The white bees".

Within the hive

I felt like making two images for two halves -one today, one tomorrow- of the poem The White Bees by Henry Van Dyke, just because I like the poem... a little long for posting in a blog... but I like the poem, I said... very much, specially how the writer find his way till the end of it. And it is pretty relevant for the end of winter and the beggining of spring.

I

Legend

Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus,
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees."
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.

Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free;
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure,
till the fated moment
When across his pathway came Eurydice.

Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him;
drove him wild with longing,
For the perfect sweetness of her flower-like face;
Eagerly he followed, while she fled before him,
over mead and mountain,
On through field and forest, in a breathless race.

But the nymph, in flying, trod upon a serpent;
like a dream she vanished;
Pluto's chariot bore her down among the dead;
Lonely Aristæus, sadly home returning, found his
garden empty,
All the hives deserted, all the music fled.

Mournfully bewailing, — "ah, my honey-makers,
where have you departed?" —
Far and wide he sought them, over sea and shore;
Foolish is the tale that says he ever found them,
brought them home in triumph,
Joys that once escape us fly for evermore.

Yet I dream that somewhere, clad in downy
whiteness, dwell the honey-makers,
In aerial gardens that no mortal sees:
And at times returning, lo, they flutter round us,
gathering mystic harvest,
So I weave the legend of the long-lost bees.


II

The Swarming Of The Bees

I

Who can tell the hiding of the white bees' nest?
Who can trace the guiding of their swift home flight?
Far would be his riding on a life-long quest:
Surely ere it ended would his beard grow white.

Never in the coming of the rose-red Spring,
Never in the passing of the wine-red Fall,
May you hear the humming of the white bee's wing
Murmur o'er the meadow, ere the night bells call.

Wait till winter hardens in the cold grey sky,
Wait till leaves are fallen and the brooks all freeze,
Then above the gardens where the dead flowers lie,
Swarm the merry millions of the wild white bees.


II

Out of the high-built airy hive,
Deep in the clouds that veil the sun,
Look how the first of the swarm arrive;
Timidly venturing, one by one,
Down through the tranquil air,
Wavering here and there,
Large, and lazy in flight, —
Caught by a lift of the breeze,
Tangled among the naked trees, —
Dropping then, without a sound,
Feather-white, feather-light,
To their rest on the ground.


III

Thus the swarming is begun.
Count the leaders, every one
Perfect as a perfect star
Till the slow descent is done.
Look beyond them, see how far
Down the vistas dim and grey,
Multitudes are on the way.
Now a sudden brightness
Dawns within the sombre day,
Over fields of whiteness;
And the sky is swiftly alive
With the flutter and the flight
Of the shimmering bees, that pour
From the hidden door of the hive
Till you can count no more.


IV

Now on the branches of hemlock and pine
Thickly they settle and cluster and swing,
Bending them low; and the trellised vine
And the dark elm-boughs are traced with a line
Of beauty wherever the white bees cling.
Now they are hiding the wrecks of the flowers,
Softly, softly, covering all,
Over the grave of the summer hours
Spreading a silver pall.
Now they are building the broad roof ledge,
Into a cornice smooth and fair,
Moulding the terrace, from edge to edge,
Into the sweep of a marble stair.
Wonderful workers, swift and dumb,
Numberless myriads, still they come,
Thronging ever faster, faster, faster!
Where is their queen? Who is their master?
The gardens are faded, the fields are frore,
How will they fare in a world so bleak?
Where is the hidden honey they seek?
What is the sweetness they toil to store
In the desolate day, where no blossoms gleam?
Forgetfulness and a dream!


V

But now the fretful wind awakes;
I hear him girding at the trees;
He strikes the bending boughs, and shakes
The quiet clusters of the bees
To powdery drift;
He tosses them away,
He drives them like spray;
He makes them veer and shift
Around his blustering path.
In clouds blindly whirling,
In rings madly swirling,
Full of crazy wrath,
So furious and fast they fly
They blur the earth and blot the sky
In wild, white mirk.
They fill the air with frozen wings
And tiny, angry, icy stings;
They blind the eyes, and choke the breath,
They dance a maddening dance of death
Around their work,
Sweeping the cover from the hill,
Heaping the hollows deeper still,
Effacing every line and mark,
And swarming, storming in the dark
Through the long night;
Until, at dawn, the wind lies down,
Weary of fight.
The last torn cloud, with trailing gown,
Passes the open gates of light;
And the white bees are lost in flight.

[...]

Henry Van Dyke, "The white bees".

Abstract Nº51

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

Jorge Luis Borges, from "Pascal’s Sphere".

Flower of glass

Lucky northerners, you have the spring now.
This is a flower made of glass to endure the three months of the season, so don't let it fall on the floor, kiddo. :-P

Now Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain,
And clothes him in the embroidery
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky.
With beast and bird the forest rings,
Each in his jargon cries or sings;
And Time throws off his cloak again.
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.

River, and fount, and tinkling brook
Wear in their dainty livery
Drops of silver jewelry;
In new-made suit they merry look;
And Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.

Charles I de Valois (Duke of Orleans), "The return of spring".

Cloak of clouds

For anyone passing through a bad time. Just another reminder that better times always comes by the hand of intelligence and sensibility. There in the north, today it ends the winter.

'What do you make so fair and bright?'

'I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight.'

'What do you build with sails for flight?'

'I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'

What do you weave with wool so white?'

'I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.'

William Butler Yeats, "The cloak, the boat and the shoes".

Clover

Happy hangover of the Ain't Patty's Day! You went through the most alcoholic day in the year and survived gallons of toxic delight, so you deserve a clover now (or you can revisit a Shamrock). Congratulations, this is the stuff the heroes are made of: endurance. This is your almost-irish clover:



We don't celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in Argentina, except some irish settled here, but I enjoy knowing that people survives severe tests in other zones of the world. In the end, being argentinian is, somehow, surviving a severe test of endurance too.
I not only like clover flowers a lot, but I also use this haiku in a very ironic way, and I mention this just in case your alcohol gaze do not allow you to notice :-P Hihi.

bush-clover flowers —
they sway but do not drop
their beads of dew

Matsuo Basho.

She's like a rainbow (I & II)

She comes in colors ev'rywhere;
when She combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colors

Have you seen her dressed in blue?
See the sky in front of you
And her face is like a sail
Speck of white so fair and pale
Have you seen a lady fairer?

Have you seen her all in gold?
Like a queen in days of old
She shoots colors all around
Like a sunset going down
Have you seen a lady fairer?

She comes in colors ev'rywhere;
when She combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colors

Mick Jagger / Keith Richards, "She's a rainbow". You can play the song down here:

The Ten

up through bamboo. leave the first stage:
pass illusion: go by lotus mountain:
through the pass, there’s the whole of ch’u:
beyond the woods see the distant plain:
cross-legged on a mat of grass:
hear scriptures in the high pine:
reach the void: through clouds of law:
meditate to achieve nirvana.

Wang Wei, "The ten stages of perception".

The Four

Four are the noble truths of Buddhism, four are the horsemen of the Apocalypse, four are the nucleobase in DNA, four is the valency of carbon (base of life in earth), four are the Aristotle's causes in nature, the greek's classical elements are four, four are the dimensions, the sphynx (superconscious) it is composed by four animals, four rivers in the garden of Eden, four are the letters of the name of the God of Israel.
Four is the number representing completion and stability (One is the male principle, Two is the feminine, Three is the synthesis of the previous -the idea and self-expression, and Four is the material manifestation, system and order of the idea; it is the dream come true of the represented by the three).
Art is revealed and related to the human spirit in four ways: beauty, truth, goodness, and love.

Abstract Nº50

In artistic sensuality, you get in artistic fiction what you never get in life: not just pleasure but satisfaction as well. Satisfaction may mean that Your good always gets rewarded and Your evil always gets punished, or, it may mean that the structure of this world where high standards of morality go hand in hand with dominating power, gets exposed in fiction, so that the triumph, finally, belongs to those who laugh last, and not to those who always win in practice.

Lev Kreft, "Mission(s) of Art".

Progression wheel

Yesterday was a hectic day, so I had a brake listening to some of my old punk records, the few I have left. Well, the image is not a worthy companion of the song, but neither the progress quoted in the song it's real progress though; so... :-/ wysiwyg

Down with history
Down with sense
Nothing makes much difference
I'll surrender to this tragic mess
Spinning ball of randomness
Where Logos is the finest blasphemy

Men's lives pass like strips of film
Recorded gesture, acts of will
I'd like to think that down through time
They'd compose a logical line
But chances are that's just a pile of shit

And I can't help but bow my head and cry
It took so long to finally realize
That all our hopes are based on such gross lies

Classroom lessons World War Two
Atrocities against the Jews
Never again our solemn vow
That's why we all share Cambodia
Isn't it great how far we've come since then?

And I can't help but bow my head and cry
It took so long to finally realize
That all our hopes are based on such gross lies

Dialectic's shit
Evolution's crap
Time and time again the masquerade is
Shown for what it really is:
Progress, progress it's a pleasant myth
Progress, progress it's a pleasant myth

Progress, progress
Pleasant myth
That makes my life worthwhile

Mission of Burma, "Progress" (You can listen to the legendary song down here -needs realplayer to):

<bgsound src="http://runnerfrog.googlepages.com/16-Progress.mp3" loop="false">

Abstract Nº49

As if this were words of my mother for me, I quote this, so close to her lifepath:

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!

William Shakespeare, "King Henry VIII" (Act III. Scene 2).

Abstract Nº48

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and rightful leader of Burma, has been forcefully and criminally interned under house arrest for too many years. It is time for Burma to be set free. It is time for justice and human rights to prevail.

Annie Lennox.



The Cult - "Wake up time for freedom", the song here:

Smoke on the water

The first rock song I ever liked; was just a child. Smoke on the water, fire in the sky. :-)



You can play the song down here:

Dawn in stone

Wanted to define a token for a painful morning that became a happy day, so this is the result, one dawn carved in stone... somehow.

Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die—
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee—since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.
To them be joy or rest—on me
Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief
Retards, but never counts the hour.
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to Woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee—not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk—and now thou art
A blank—a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform—
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.
And I can smile to think how weak
Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak
Must fall upon—a nameless stone.

Lord Byron, "To time" (Out of the seventh edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage).

Capitulum of light

Has been raining all day long, and how I miss the spring light we've had on this last two weeks of spring-like weather in summer...

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

Emily Dickinson, #812.

Abstract Nº47

We know the halls of the eye like welcome visitors, but we live in our mouth.

Malcolm de Chazal, "Sens Plastique".

Wild flower II

Some have won a wild delight,
By daring wilder sorrow;
Could I gain thy love to-night,
I'd hazard death to-morrow.

Could the battle-struggle earn
One kind glance from thine eye,
How this withering heart would burn,
The heady fight to try !

Welcome nights of broken sleep,
And days of carnage cold,
Could I deem that thou wouldst weep
To hear my perils told.

Tell me, if with wandering bands
I roam full far away,
Wilt thou, to those distant lands,
In spirit ever stray ?

Wild, long, a trumpet sounds afar;
Bid me­bid me go
Where Seik and Briton meet in war,
On Indian Sutlej's flow.

Blood has dyed the Sutlej's waves
With scarlet stain, I know;
Indus' borders yawn with graves,
Yet, command me go !

Though rank and high the holocaust
Of nations, steams to heaven,
Glad I'd join the death-doomed host,
Were but the mandate given.

Passion's strength should nerve my arm,
Its ardour stir my life,
Till human force to that dread charm
Should yield and sink in wild alarm,
Like trees to tempest-strife.

If, hot from war, I seek thy love,
Darest thou turn aside ?
Darest thou, then, my fire reprove,
By scorn, and maddening pride ?

No­my will shall yet control
Thy will, so high and free,
And love shall tame that haughty soul­
Yes­tenderest love for me.

I'll read my triumph in thine eyes,
Behold, and prove the change;
Then leave, perchance, my noble prize,
Once more in arms to range.

I'd die when all the foam is up,
The bright wine sparkling high;
Nor wait till in the exhausted cup
Life's dull dregs only lie.

Then Love thus crowned with sweet reward,
Hope blest with fulness large,
I'd mount the saddle, draw the sword,
And perish in the charge !

Charlotte Brönte, "Passion".

Wild flower

For CC.

This flower-like shape seems to belong to one sort of a wild environment (like the thousand surronding voices of Nature, in the poem), that turns it into a wild flower, I guess.

[...]
O bloom! all joy is thine,
All loves around thee shine;
The thousand hearts of Nature throb for thee,
Her thousand voices praise thee tenderly.

O bloom of purest glory,
Flower of love's gentlest story,
Forever keep thy petals fresh and fair,
Forever send thy sweetness down the air!
[...]

Maurice Thompson, "To a wild flower".

Abstract Nº46

Funny quotes to my mind:

We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers.

Mace Windu, character of the movie Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the clones.

Be mindful of your feelings.

Mace Windu, on Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace.

Abstract Nº45

One dream, from last night:

I was writing numbers on one accounting book, all them in red, I was dishevelled and writing with fury, and doing very ironic and aggressive remarks on the people responsable of the numbers in red. At some moment my boss called me to his office, I walked after him, making sarcastic remarks directly at him, and he introduced me to some other guy, who I insulted while doing normal stuff, like shaking his hand, but my right hand detached from my forearm, and it remained in his hand; I absolutely panicked, and walked back in horror, screaming, they didn't seemed surprised, and my boss catched my forearm when I was falling to the floor in panic, my forearm remained in his hand too, as I tried to scream and crawl away, but I kicked one of his foot and one of my legs detached from my body too, soon after, a person took it away with her, another woman took my left arm, some other my torso, everyone took something away, and my head remained on the floor, with my mouth in position of a scream, my boss took it under his arm, walked to his office, accidentally hitted my face against his door, and I woke up.

Abstract Nº44

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

Henry David Thoreau, "Walden" (Chapter 1-A).

Abstract Nº43

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

Umberto Eco, "Travels in Hyperreality".

The colourful pole

The north pole, colourful pole. Would like to see one aurora borealis once. Fortunately, it looks portentous, nothing like this.

Now have I grown a sharpness and an edge
Unto my future nights, and I will cut
Sheer through the ebon gates that yet will shut
On every set of day; or as a sledge
Drawn over snowy plains; where not a hedge
Breaks this Aurora's dancing, nothing but
The one cold Esquimaux' unlikely hut
That swims in the broad moonlight! Lo, a wedge
Of the clean meteor hath been brightly driven
Right home into the fastness of the north!
Anon it quickeneth up into the heaven!
And I with it have clomb and spreaded forth
Upon the crisp and cooling atmosphere!
My soul is all abroad: I cannot find it here!

George MacDonald, "The Aurora Borealis".