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April 26, 2005
antaŭ blogoj, antaŭ interneto, estis esperanto...
Mi apenaŭ kredas ĝin, sed estas blog skribi en esperanto kaj persa lingvo ĉi tie. Kaj ŝajnas ke estas multan alian esperanto-blogojn*! -" Mi neniam ĝi pripensis antaŭ. Mi estis sufiĉe bonan esperantiston kiam mi estis malgranda knabo, sed estas multajn jaroj depost mi parolis kun aliaj...Estas mia patro kiu instruis min; multajn tempojn ni vojaĝis en europo por renkonti aliajn esperantistojn, kaj ili visitis nin ankau.
Estas vere ke la lingvo ne estas, kaj ne estos, la 'internacia lingvo' kiu Zamenhof prirevis -" sed ĝi estis ĉiam tre bone metodo por renkonti homoj interesa (jes, mi voli diri ekscentra ;) de eksterlandojn -" ekzemple, ni renkontis nederlandano kiu tradukis spinoza en esperanto; hispanan romanisto kiu estis amiko por multan jaroj; kaj mia patro skribis al homo en ĉinujo kiu faras maskojn por la opero ĉinujo (tiam - 1980 - ne estas facila kommuniki kun ĉinoj). Por multaj personoj, ĝi estis ankaŭ, en landojn kiu eksistas sub registadojn subprema (kaj dum la jaroj 'cold-war') vere ilo de libereco -" la internacia lingvon, ĝi ne estas ŝerco...
Kiam mi venos al londonon eble mi vizitados la grupon tie, mian esperanton estas malbonega, ĉu ne?! Do, mi ekzercos....sed ne estas facile kun la klavaro -" ĉu eksistas Movable Type en esperanto? (Se alian esperantistojn legus ĉi tion, informi min, mi petas vin...)
*[karamudini (ankaŭ persa) havas multajn liguloj]
Posted by robin at 07:09 PM
April 25, 2005
N&N
yet more corrections -" I returned to the introduction, and was shocked at how much my french (or perhaps my conscientiousness) had improved since I started this...which is a good thing, of course.
Posted by robin at 10:38 AM
April 22, 2005
Two scenarios both horrifying and true
Light Heart of the Theoretical Vomitorium
If those wedding photos of a certain leering, bloated decadent ž-list celebrity theorist didn't have you heaving copiously (in which case you have a stronger stomach than I) then there's always this as a mild supplementary emetic (via hoonology central).
At times like this, dé-liaison seems like a mighty wise idea.
White Magic Mountain
And then...Nietzsche's vigil at Sils-Maria updated as a neverending philosophical cocktail party for the global élite. The furnishings are plush. The 'language of instruction' is ethico-textualist academic English (an only-apparently-opposed weird twin to venture-capitalist marketing-speak) -" but the wire transfers flooding in from well-off american families and wisdom-seeking burnt-out professionals are routed to swiss bank accounts. Apparently recondite philosophical theses appended by labyrinthine copyright notices and global exploitation clauses in tiny type. An old-world opulence, and yet everything is contemporary, by order of the management: It's something of a watchword, this place is 'of our time' or it is nothing; it captures the epoch comprehensively and exclusively, to the envy of all. Just like the décor, every one of the star turns is unimpeachably contemporary (and, of course, european -" this latter a declaration of political intent rather than natality). The list is in perfect taste, and complete -" none refuse (perhaps none dare), they are disgorged from bullet-proof limousine-electrovehicles (the canton operates a strict no-car policy in the heights) -" old, tired men feigning fusty bedazzlement in order to obscure from themselves their true predicament, occasionally a glamorous young wife in tow (all expenses paid) -" into the entrance hall, over which presides a twenty-foot wide fine wrought-iron coat of arms designed by the Presidential Board. Clutching their papers which will address the contemporary situation, they head for the bar. Meanwhile, at the top of a tower in the east wing, a figure sits, watching from his window the mists pouring down the mountain. Tubes and wires affix him to multiform devices that pump blood, breathe for him, shoot hormones, stimulants and sedatives into his worn-out veins. His yellowing, decaying hand, studded with gold sovereign rings, strokes a purring white cat named sophia. He growls to himself: ..."And if you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
Posted by robin at 05:17 PM
16 October 1981: Memoirs of a BASIC programmer
Posted by robin at 01:59 PM
April 20, 2005
"I can do mathematics in yellow underwear"
"...that doesn't make the theorem any more yellow."
Badiou on the french hijab prohibition in a translation from Le Monde that manages admirably to use the word 'vilipend'.
Posted by robin at 06:05 PM
April 08, 2005
MBK
Part of an interview with Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, from Ironie. An intriguing slice of Parisian philo-culture and the force of the 'Badiou effect' within it. MBK's Évenement et répétition is a possible candidate for undercurrent amateur translation next...
Interview Ironie / Mehdi Belhaj Kacem
Somewhere in a café, evening, 25 May 2003...
i . Literature, Depression and the Decline of the West
Rémy Bac : Depression and suicide. It-s a theme that returns in Évenement et répétition, as it frequently does in your work. The shadow of Artaud. At any given moment, you say that the streets of Paris and of Berlin are full of people who are depressive, stressed, etc-Whereas people in third-world countries are usually smiling. Very Houellebecqian, all that! This -suicide of western society in decline- thing.
Mehdi Belhaj Kacem : It depends which third-world country you-re talking about. Houellebecq? No, no. I know what you-re trying to say. I-m very much above such debasedness! (laughs) I-ve never been suicidal. If I had a really serious illness, which made me suffer terribly, maybe- I-ve always -" even in books that were really dark, like Society -" posed the question non-subjectively, even if that might be part of it, but interrogated depression and suicide in a different way.
R.B. : I ask you because you relate it to the political question.
M.B.K. : It-s political not to talk about it. -Suicided by society- is a pleonasm.
R.B. : It-s Chevènement-s famous phrase that you repeat at will to whoever will listen. Why does a minister of the interior never speak of depressives and suicides, so much more numerous than homicides-
M.B.K. : If one might dialecticise Badiou-s system, in Western systems one is far more on the side of representation, and where does murder come back in? In the mode of affects. It-s a philosophical question. There-s no depression in China, for example.
R.B. : Because it-s a collectivist society.
M.B.K. : Precisely. It-s really a question of breaching western condescension. If the westerners say: -Oh, the chadors in Iran,- well then, I say to them: -Look at a porno film over here.- I made a montage with Iranian women who are in the process of a divorce. You see the specialist judge in the quranic order who handles divorce cases. You say to yourself -Ah, oh, oh, this is going to be terrible,- but not at all! The girls defend themselves beak and claw. The guys are crushed, in general. Sometimes, they have nervous breakdowns, they-re on the verge of suicide. Care of the children is given to the mothers. So, I made a video montage. I put a porno film specializing in big tits, with these massive tits, where you see two girls under the shower touching each other and splashing water on each other with sponges. And there you go, that-s it! It-s breaching western condescension, the -it-s better over here.- It-s always like that. The Iranians, they-re a superior people, extremely complex. The Iranian revolution wasn-t just nothing, even if it was the islamists who came out on top. There have been revolutions elsewhere, it-s not necessarily the good guys who win, but it-s never entirely the other way around either. It-s what Deleuze said about the future of revolution and becoming-revolutionary. It-s not a question of moving towards a collectivism. For me, it-s a question of escaping the literary, artistic, hypernarcissistic, hypersubjectivist spirit.
Posted by robin at 02:34 PM