Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Rome - Jack White & Norah Jones (2011) [F...

Vulcano's etiquette

Cuando te encuentras frente a un cráter, es necesario considerar que el lago de lava puede explotar en cualquier momento y empezar a lanzar rocas de fuego. Si esto sucede, es de vital importancia no darle la espalda, ni correr o tirarse al suelo. Para sobrevivir, tienes que mirarlo de frente y permanecer erguido; localizar aquellas bombas que se dirigen hacia donde tú estás y esquivarlas simplemente moviéndote unos pasos de manera horizontal al lado opuesto de donde estas caen.

What I share with [poets in my generation] is ambition; what I dispute is its definition. I do not think that more information always makes a richer poem. I am attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent, deliberate silence. The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem could be made in this vocabulary. It is analogous to the unseen for example, to the power of ruins, to works of art either damaged or incomplete. Such works inevitably allude to larger contexts; they haunt because they are not whole, though wholeness is implied: another time, a world in which they were whole, or were to have been whole, is implied. There is no moment in which their first home is felt to be the museum. … It seems to me that what is wanted, in art, is to harness the power of the unfinished. All earthly experience is partial. Not simply because it is subjective, but because that which we do not know, of the universe, of mortality, is so much more vast than that which we do know. What is unfinished or has been destroyed participates in these mysteries. The problem is to make a whole that does not forfeit this power. 

From Louise Glück, "Disruption, Hesitation, Silence," Proofs & Theories: Essays on Poetry (New York: Ecco, 1994) 74-75. Copyright 1994 by Louise Glück.

De los cerezos en flor

Un día, cuando ya había pasado un tiempo de desacostumbrado silencio por parte de la Emperatriz y yo estaba sentada en casa, sumida en tristes pensamientos, una criada me entregó una carta. "Su Majestad la Emperatriz ordena que esto le sea entregado a usted secretamente por Dama Sakyô", me dijo, aunque no había razón por tanto secreto, pues yo me encontraba en mi casa. Al examinar la carta, descubrí que era un mensaje personal de Su Majestad la Emperatriz y mi corazón comenzó a latir con fuerza cuando lo abría. No había nada escrito en el papel. Había sido usado para envolver un único pétalo de rosa silvestre, el el cual leí las palabras, "No dice su amor".

Sei Shônagon

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The zuihitsu is a classic genre of Japanese literature that emerged sometime in the Heian Period (794-1185 AD), first seen in Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book. The word zuihitsu, which is made up of the kanji for “to follow” and “brush,” is usually translated as “following the brush” or “random jottings” (Hahn “Compass”). As such, the zuihitsu generally consists of a series of loosely connected, fragmented essays, ideas, word pictures, and poems. And, while the first zuihitsu dealt with court life in Heian Period Japan, they could also focus on any number of traditional Japanese themes, including the appreciation of the changing of the seasons, and the Buddhist preoccupation with the impermanence of the material world (as seen in The Pillow Book, Chomei’s Hojoki, and others).

I have a ghost. He lives in my house, or as he would say, I live in his. When he was living a human life, he used to be a flamenco teacher. He died in this house and then I took this place and I also made it mine. 

At the beginning, I never imagined it was a shared place. My ghost helped me acknowledge it. Apparently, it is OK, in ghost's codes, to scare the hell out of people to make them know they are not alone. 

With time, we both have learned to admit the presence of the other. We also have tried to stay each one in his or her own dimension –this is harder for him to keep than it is for me–.

In November I build with flowers, food and candles, an altar de muertos for him. This has helped me to get to know him better.  (And I can say by now that I am sure that when I say that I have a ghost, he thinks it's the other way around, that he is the one who has me. )

#morningpersona

TURTLE feat Eliza Shaddad - Blood Type

Emily Wells - Take it Easy San Francisco

Sia - Soon We'll Be Found LIVE on David Letterman 11-13-08

Portishead - Roads

Björk - army of me (Live In Paris) HD

Björk - Human Behaviour (Live at Royal Opera House)

Time to close your ears and eyes and open your heart