« To the past
Page 1 of 39
Apr 24, 2012
En la sombrita (de venividiclic)
Elaboración de sombreros en Montecristi, Ecuador: http://youtu.be/XT9DNwtyW1Q
Apr 24, 2012
A cigarette is a dangling particule in your lips and the pipe is all clenched teeth and no fury. But a good cigar is like a passion: first it is set alight, then it burns red, then scarlet, scary, scarry — then it glows amber, grows ember and becomes ashes: a passion spent. Kipling was wrong. A cigar is a woman and a woman is a smoke. A passion made of that primeval leaf to burn in a slow flame and then smoulder avidly. A cigar is woman, to smoke divine! A good cigar is like a medley. I am thus back to square one: the muzak is all around.GUILLERMO CABRERA INFANTE
Apr 24, 2012
Never chew your cigar’s head off to spit it out of frame, like Murray Hamilton did in The Graduate, where he played Mr Robinson, a man disgraced by Dustin Hoffman and his own ways with a cigar. If you do what Hamilton did you are bound to end up not only as an unhappy cuckold but also as the very, very worried mayor of Amity in Jaws, with a big white shark eating his job away the way he did with the tip of his Havana. Cigars can be a metaphor, you know.GUILLERMO CABRERA INFANTE
Apr 5, 2012
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Música de Pedro Riquet (1598-1640), en The Art of the Cigar (2011), Huelgas Ensemble, dir. Paul Van Nevel; texto de…
La guajirita de la Vuelta Abajo de la Isla de Cuba
FRANCISCO JAVIER BALMASEDA (1823-1907)
Conózcanme ustedes:
yo soy Flor del Campo,
yo soy la veguera
de la Vuelta Abajo.
Yo tejo un sombrero,
yo tuerzo un tabaco,
yo riego las flores,
yo cuido el canario;
yo leo de corrido,
mejor que un letrado;
yo deshilo y bordo,
yo coso, yo lavo;
yo armónicos sones
al tiple le arranco;
yo recito décimas,
yo bailo, yo canto.
…
Yo sé muchos cuentos
de hechizos y encantos;
de hadas, de muertos
que al mundo tornaron,
y de apariciones
de duendes y diablos,
disparates todos
de tiempos pasados,
cuando la ignorancia
tendía su manto;
pero que divierten
en noches de campo,
en días festivos
de dulce descanso,
cuando el tiple, el baile,
el cuento y el canto,
y el juego de prendas,
hacen todo el gasto.
Yo rezo a la Virgen
con pecho cristiano
y humilde le pido
por el bien del barrio.
De mis hermanitos
estoy hecha cargo,
y alivio a mi madre
de muchos cuidados;
y si ella se enferma
estoy a su lado,
allá en la cocina
haciéndole el caldo,
porque no tendría,
¿quién podrá dudarlo?,
la virtud que tiene
hecho por mi mano.
Yo juego a la brisca
con mi padre amado
con mi abuelito,
y siempre les gano.
Cuando de la aurora
brilla el primer rayo,
y dulces cantares
entonan los pájaros,
yo ordeño la vaca,
y al techo adorado
el licor suave
llevo a mis hermanos.
Entonces despiertan
de dicha colmados,
apuran el néctar
y ¡oh plácido encanto!,
a un tiempo me besan,
me dan mil abrazos;
y después ansiosos
del materno halago,
si mi buena madre
no se ha levantado,
invaden su lecho
con tan gran escándalo
que abuelito exclama:
«¡silencio, muchachos!»,
y ellos, silenciosos,
van hacia el anciano,
y él los arrulla
con tierno agasajo:
un segundo sueño
hallan a su lado,
y yo a mis quehaceres
me entrego entre tanto.
En breves palabras
les dejo el retrato
de la guajirita
de la Vuelta Abajo.
Me resta decirles,
que amo, que amo,
a un gallardo joven
de virtud dechado,
por pascua florida
le daré mi mano.
(texto via archive.org)
Apr 5, 2012
Holy Smoke (1985)
But what about a cigarette? Ah that! That, as the wag put it to differentiate fact from fiction, is a fag.GUILLERMO CABRERA INFANTE
Holy Smoke (1985)
Apr 5, 2012
The Betrothed
“You must choose between me and your cigar.” Breach of Promise Case, circa, 1885
Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o’er a good cheroot,
And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.
Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie’s a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There’s peace in a Laranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown—
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old—
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket—
With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila—there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,
This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee’s passion—to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent ‘em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew—
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!
RUDYARD KIPLING
Departmental ditties (1890)
Apr 5, 2012
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Alexander’s entry into Pskov”, Alexander Nevsky op. 78, SERGE PROKOFIEV - London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, CLAUDIO ABBADO (1980)
Apr 3, 2012
La sed se la mata a tamales
El título sale de aquí: «La sed se la matan a tamales de sal», que si partido y extendido, da como resultado el siguiente cuadrado de octavo orden:
«La sed se la mata, es esa red».
A ese, tés; edad da dese té;
sea de ras:
ese a tamales de sal.
☛✩
Mar 29, 2012
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Jasha Heifetz (violín) Gregor Piatigorsky (chelo) - «Suite italianne», Introduzione, de Stravinsky, The Heifetz Piatigorsky Concerts (Columbia, 1963)
«Se le acusa también de frío, pero esa es acusación de simples que olvidan que frío y caliente son escalas térmicas y no condicionales para valorar la expresión artística. Heifetz es de esos viajeros que La Habana siempre espera y si pasáramos un invierno sin verlo, creeríamos que la estación estaba incompleta, con menos propicias señales para esperar los nacimientos primaverales.»
—JOSÉ LEZAMA LIMA (5 de noviembre de 1949)
Mar 27, 2012
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
Mar 11, 2012
Scene from Visit to Picasso (Paul Haesaerts, 1949)
•
Picasso Paints a Bull
Over the course of the next two weeks Picasso will paint a bull.
A bull whose body seems possessed by a strange reality:
the more Picasso paints, the less there is.
“Can less”—the artist asks—”become more?”
“Right on,” Picasso replies.
The critic waits to see the painter’s more.
But Picasso’s bull just keeps getting scarcer.
The hooves are first to go—then the horns,
then the skin itself drops off like a retina,
revealing the joints between empty spaces.
“How less does it have to get before it becomes more?”
“That depends on the name you give to more.”
The critic is confused. “Would you say that in this work
you are committing moral violence on the bovine body,
shearing off every scrap of flesh with your Mediterranean wind?”
“Don’t blame the wind—look at that butcher shop
across the way. Every day I watch lovely young ladies
walk home with a few dozen pounds of his meat.”
“Whose meat? The meat of the bull on your canvas?”
“Now that depends on which knife you use.”
“Is this a contest between the ethics of aesthetics and the ethics of life?”
“All cut up, how’d he have energy for that?”
“And what’s left over? Anything?”
“No, no spirit remains. Praise waste.”
“Is your bull an act of subtraction upon the world?”
“Why not addition? I imagine that butcher is
counting his cash right now.” Sure enough, the next day,
the butcher’s wife comes with her life savings to buy Picasso’s bull.
But all she sees are a couple of lines.
“Where’s the bull?” she asks, indignant.
Over the course of the next two weeks Picasso will paint a bull.
A bull whose body seems possessed by a strange reality:
the more Picasso paints, the less there is.
“Can less”—the artist asks—”become more?”
“Right on,” Picasso replies.
The critic waits to see the painter’s more.
But Picasso’s bull just keeps getting scarcer.
The hooves are first to go—then the horns,
then the skin itself drops off like a retina,
revealing the joints between empty spaces.
“How less does it have to get before it becomes more?”
“That depends on the name you give to more.”
The critic is confused. “Would you say that in this work
you are committing moral violence on the bovine body,
shearing off every scrap of flesh with your Mediterranean wind?”
“Don’t blame the wind—look at that butcher shop
across the way. Every day I watch lovely young ladies
walk home with a few dozen pounds of his meat.”
“Whose meat? The meat of the bull on your canvas?”
“Now that depends on which knife you use.”
“Is this a contest between the ethics of aesthetics and the ethics of life?”
“All cut up, how’d he have energy for that?”
“And what’s left over? Anything?”
“No, no spirit remains. Praise waste.”
“Is your bull an act of subtraction upon the world?”
“Why not addition? I imagine that butcher is
counting his cash right now.” Sure enough, the next day,
the butcher’s wife comes with her life savings to buy Picasso’s bull.
But all she sees are a couple of lines.
“Where’s the bull?” she asks, indignant.
translated from the Chinese by Austin Woerner
Mar 9, 2012
LA JOYA
Hay una cueva en el aire cubierto por mi cuerpo
que nadie va a tocar:
es un claustro, un silencio
que se cierra sobre una flor de fuego.
Si estoy de pie en el viento
sombrías esmeraldas son mis huesos.
JAMES WRIGHT
en versión de Aurelio Asiain
via nadaquever
Mar 7, 2012
En la esquizofrenia novelística de nuestro tiempo, se diría que los novelistas se han repartido el trabajo: a los mejores les toca la tarea de crear, renovar, explorar y, a menudo, aburrir; y a los otros —los peores—, mantener vivo el viejo designio del género: hechizar, encantar, entretener. Se cuentan con los dedos de una mano los novelistas de nuestro tiempo que han sido capaces, como Faulkner o García Márquez, de reconstruir la unidad de la ficción en obras que sean a la vez grandes creaciones estilísticas y mundos hirvientes de vida y aventura, de pensamiento y de pasión.MARIO VARGAS LLOSA (1989)
Mar 5, 2012
MALAS COPIAS
La existencia de un gran escritor es un milagro, el resultado de tantas convergencias fortuitas como las que concurren a la eclosión de una de esas bellezas universales que hacen soñar a toda una generación. Por cada gran escritor, ¡cuántas malas copias tiene que ensayar la naturaleza! ¡Cuántos Joyces, Kafkas, Célines flous, velados o sobrexpuestos habrán existido! Unos murieron jóvenes, otros cambiaron de oficio, otros se dedicaron a la bebida, otros se volvieron locos, otros carecieron de uno o de dos de los requisitos que los grandes artistas reúnen para elevarse sobre el nivel de la subliteratura. Falta de formación, enfermedades, pereza, carencia de estímulos, impaciencia, angustias económicas, ausencia de ambición o de tenacidad o simplemente de suerte, son como el billete de lotería prometedor al cual solo le falta el número Terminal para obtener el premio en la rifa de la gloria. Y algunos han probablemente reunido todas esas cualidades, pero faltó la circunstancia azarosa, la aparentemente insignificante (la lectura de un libro, la relación con tal amigo) capaz de servir de reactivo al compuesto químicamente perfecto y darle su verdadera coloración. Así en el metro veo a veces a una mujer y me digo: “Podría ser Brigitte Bardot, pero lástima que le falten treinta centímetros de estatura” o “Esa rubia se parece a Marilyn Monroe, pero tiene las piernas corno dos estacas”. Ellas son también las malas pruebas del modelo original, la mercadería con fallas que se vende al por mayor.
en Prosas apátridas aumentadas
via nadaquever
*O como dijera G.C. LICHTENBERG:
«El único defecto de los escritores realmente buenos es que casi siempre ocasionan que haya muchos malos o regulares.»
(Source: bibliotecaignoria.blogspot.com)
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