Letras de Tango
05/03/2016
Cât de adânc alunecăm pe pâlnia gramofonului*
Am tot sustinut sus si tare ca nu inteleg cum un aficionado de tango poate sa nu stie spaniola, nu cat sa il citeasca pe Cervantes, ci cat sa isi faca o idee despre povestile melodiilor si sa comunice cu cei care il danseaza. Eu am invatat spaniola pe sarite si in cea mai mare parte interactionand cu lume din sfera tangoului sau ascultand versuri. Sunt de parere ca intr-un fel interpretezi o melodie cand o stii pasionala, amuzanta, evocativa etc si in altfel cand interpretezi exclusiv muzica (nu ca nu e si asta destul de provocator).
In acest sens mi-am confruntat mai multi prieteni si am primit fel de fel de raspunsuri. Unul dintre ele m-a surprins si anume “Nu vreau sa le inteleg pentru ca m-ar deprima”. Ma gandesc, mai tata, mai, pai daca nu iti insusesti faptul ca tangoul este o muzica eminamente nostalgica, ce duce dorul unor vremuri apuse, unor iubiri neimplinite, unor calatorii improbabile si in general o muzica si un dans ce exprima dorinta umplerii unui gol in suflet – ai ratat toata esenta.
Dar trebuie sa recunosc faptul ca de multe ori m-au lasat cu un gust amar povestile din spatele unor tango-uri. Iar alteori m-au infuriat de-a dreptul de-mi venea sa dau de pamant cu amaratul de obiect prin care iesea cantecul. Am trecut peste ele de o maniera sau alta. Insa, din cand in cand, mai dau de cate o poveste la care nu fusesem atenta (cum tocmai s-a intamplat zilele astea) si care ma scarbeste de-a dreptul. Melodii suave, minunate sau chiar unele mai “cu feeling asa” care au in spate niste povesti horror. Si atunci realizez ca telenovele siropoase sunt pe bune si ca, de fapt, sunt mici copii fata de realitatea locurilor si timpurile acelora. Discriminare, machism, violenta, abuzuri, crime, si astea dulci si minunate. O, Doamne, bine ca nu am fost acolo!
Atunci incep sa inteleg raspunsul “mai bine nu intelegi”. E cumva frumos sa traiesti intr-un bubble of happiness pe muzica de tango. Dupa mine, nu e suficient. Sap in continuare, curioasa fiind din fire, ma impresionez, ma incant si inevitabil mai dau si de lucruri putrede. Asa ca in momentele cand ma prind ca se ingroasa gluma, I think happy thoughts imi tin cu drag partenerul din acel moment, inchid ochii si ma fac ca nu pricep nimic. Nimic altceva decat muzica, dialogul tacut cu omul din bratele mele si cu oamenii din jur. Si asa imi aduc aminte de ce sunt eu aici, acum. Si e de bine.
*Referire la povestea cu micuța Acnili care a alunecat pe pâlnia gramofonului pentru că vroia să vadă de unde vin poveștile. Dacă nu o stiți, spuneți-mi și facem un live session.
Why Love Language?
01/10/2010
The reason why I started to speak German and like it – at the time when German teachers were the worst thing that could happen to you – were a boy (sic!) and “dasein”.
Learning a language because we like somebody and we want to be able to say stuff to each other is probably one of the most common and pleasant ways to start it up. It gives us grounds to connect and find links between us. It sets the common ground. At one point though, the common gives way to the special. What we come to love in some one is what sets them apart from others.
Just like people, languages have a general common basis which makes it more or less easy for one to learn them. But inevitably we get to a point when we leave what we already know and run into words we cannot trace back to our known grounds. There were entire books written on the German ‘dasein’, countless songs to sing the Portuguese ‘saudade’ and many Romanian fairy tale heroes were driven by their ‘dor’. These words make us see beyond the concepts that we are accustomed with. They make a language rich and ourselves more aware and more able to articulate our feelings and our thoughts.
A simple dictionary definition of these words may not be enough for us to understand what they actually mean. The Dictionnaire des termes intraduisibles sets out to work the linguist magic. By working with word networks it builds up different perspectives on a given word. By doing this it also shows how and where different languages chose to use a common word in different ways. So beyond our personal understanding of a word, we can also make up a small map of cultural identity around it.
You can find the book on Amazon.fr or here
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For more Language Food-for-Thought, beyond the realm of the Indoeuropeans, check out how language grammar and structure speaks of its Speaker’s Identity in this article of The Economist December 2009 issue
19 years ago on 1. December I was enjoying this wonderful sensation. I had been with my dad to see the parade for the Romanian National Day, and was pulling frantically my sled down my back street.
There are currently, 7 deg C in Bucharest, but there still was a small parade, and they did turn on the city Christmas lights.
more awsome things here
One happy night on the Naviglio Grande in Milan. We stepped into a tiny osetria with 4 dishes to chosose from and a story-telling owner. He told the story of every piece of delicious goat cheese we had and told us of this film.
“I do not like the word tolerance. If you need to tolerate someone – there is no sense of equality.”
If you think Pinocchio had a problem
06/25/2009
That which one does not see cannot be made visible by any amount of experience and reflection. Rather the essential point here is being aware of the possibilities of being deceived. Eduard Imhoff Swiss cartographer
What matters is whether we want to lie or to tell the truth, even though it never can be the truth and never is the truth. Thomas Reinhard, playwright
First we take Manhattan then we take Berlin
04/19/2009
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin Read the rest of this entry »
“Theater is a thousand-year-old-perversity that mankind enjoys madly. Therfore do they enjoy it madly: because they madly enjoy their own hypocrisy.”¹
Last night I saw a funny and bitter play acted out in a tiny underground theater in Bucharest. The 60 sqm basement is probably the safest part of the crumbling house above it. The leading actor played what could well be his self-portrait as if it were the first time, as if it were the 1000th time, as if he were giving lessons on acting (which he mostly is, for half of the play). What tickled me most was his laying out the same scene five (it might have been six) times one different one after the other.
Der Theatermacher (ro. Creatorul de Teatru) is a a sharp piece of the Dutch-born writer Thomas Bernhard. A critique on a post-war, post-revolutionary slain society and its actors that have come to a mellow acceptance of their little misery. In a postmodern fashion it takes one in and out of the aura of theatre. The most acute irony though is the fact that the actual situation (the undergound venue, the stage, the handful of spectators) and the play are similar to a point that they mirror one another. The grave monologue of an actor delusioned by the state of his art is carried out in a forgotten corner by an actor who has abandoned the formal theatrical system and plays in his own underground venue in front of a tiny audience.
¹Creatorul de Teatru. by Thomas Bernhard. direction Alexandru Dabija. cast Marcel Iures, Valeria Seciu, Constantin Draganescu, Afrodita Androne, Vitalie Bantas. Teatrul ACT
to skeptics, with admiration and question marks
I recently learned of an ancient Greek philosopher who questioned most certainties of others. Bernhard called Heidegger “carpet-slipper and night-cap philosopher” and took ridiculing very seriously. I think somehow they would have gotten along swell. When the latter was not busy being critical of music, theatre, and ancient master-painters (sic!), he was busy caricaturing. I give you one of my favourite very short stories.
Pisa and Venice |
| The mayors of Pisa and Venice had agreed to scandalize visitors to their cities, who had for centuries been equally charmed by Venice and Pisa, by secretly and overnight having the tower of Pisa moved to Venice and the campanile of Venice moved to Pisa and set up there. They could not, however, keep their plan a secret, and on the very night on which they were going to have the tower of Pisa moved to Venice and the campanile of Venice moved to Pisa they were committed to the lunatic asylum, the mayor of Pisa in the nature of things to the lunatic asylum in Venice and the mayor of Venice to the lunatic asylum in Pisa. The Italian authorities were able handle the affair in complete confidentiality. |
skin
04/12/2009
How can you get under some body’s skin? How can you shed your skin and become someone new? Lately I have come across various approaches on the subject of Skin. Several of them entice me.
In the design class lead at the AAM last week, Riccardo Blumer talked about the skin as limit-boundary. The skin is what we see of a human – their limit, that by which we can tell they exist.
If one thinks about the movie starring Kevin Bacon, “the Hollow man”, the character become invisible, can only be noticed when he wraps himself in an artificial synthetic skin – creating for his inside a new boundary. what I find interesting in this weird story is that once the skin is made invisible we do not see what we expect to lie underneath the skin – organs, muscles, blood vessel- but the whole inside disappears. It stops existing. When there is no boundary from the surroundings there is no more Inside and no Outside, but just one indefinable, imperceptible fudge.
Like a city without walls, or a piece of land without a property line, we cannot exist without our skin that delimits ourselves from what surrounds us.
But then, if the skin allows us to exist, does it define us as well? It is said beauty is not skin-deep. But more so we, as individuals, are not skin deep. As a city or a country is not defined by its limit we are not our skin. Still our wrapping is our physical expression.
So how can we make known our interior? The challenge of communication, of human interaction, is to manage to trespass our skin and reveal what lies beneath it, ourselves.
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