Sunday, January 19, 2014

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Friday, December 6, 2013

Monday, October 28, 2013

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Brattle Book Shop at 9 West Street in Boston, Massachusetts

Saturday, August 10, 2013

"Did you come to Pala by the airplane?"
"I came out of the sea."
"Out of the sea? Do you have a boat?"
"I did have one." With his mind's eye Will saw the waves breaking over the stranded hulk, heard with his inner ear the crash of their impact. Under her questioning he told her what had happened. The storm, the beaching of the boat, the long nightmare of the climb, the snakes, the horror of falling . . . He began to tremble again, more violently than ever.
Mary Sarojini listened attentively and without comment. Then, as his voice faltered and finally broke, she stepped forward and, the bird still perched on her shoulder, kneeled down beside him.
"Listen, Will," she said, laying a hand on his forehead. "We've got to get rid of this." Her tone was professional and calmly authoritative.
"I wish I knew how," he said between chattering teeth.
"How?" she repeated. "But in the usual way, of course. Tell me again about those snakes and how you fell down."
He shook his head. "I don't want to."
"Of course you don't want to," she said. "But you've got to. Listen to what the mynah's saying."
"Here and now, boys," the bird was still exhorting. "Here and now, boys."
"You can't be here and now," she went on, "until you've got rid of those snakes. Tell me."
"I don't want to, I don't want to." He was almost in tears.
"Then you'll never get rid of them. They'll be crawling about inside your head forever. And serve you right," Mary Sarojini added severely.
He tried to control the trembling; but his body had ceased to belong to him. Someone else was in charge, someone malevolently determined to humiliate him, to make him suffer.
"Remember what happened when you were a little boy," Mary Sarojini was saying. "What did your mother do when you hurt yourself?"
She had taken him in her arms, had said, "My poor baby, my poor little baby."
"She did that?" The child spoke in a tone of shocked amazement. "But that's awful! That's the way to rub it in. 'My poor baby,' " she repeated derisively, "it must have gone on hurting for hours. And you'd never forget it."
Will Farnaby made no comment, but lay there in silence, shaken by irrepressible shudderings.
"Well, if you won't do it yourself, I'll have to do it for you. Listen, Will: there was a snake, a big green snake, and you almost stepped on him. You almost stepped on him, and it gave you such a fright that you lost your balance, you fell. Now say it yourself—say it!"almost stepped on him, and it gave you such a fright that you lost your balance, you fell. Now say it yourself—say it!"
"I almost stepped on him," he whispered obediently. "And then I ..." He couldn't say it. "Then I fell," he brought out at last, almost inaudibly.
All the horror of it came back to him—the nausea of fear, the panic start that had made him lose his balance, and then worse fear and the ghastly certainty that it was the end.
"Say it again."
"I almost stepped on him. And then ..."
He heard himself whimpering.
"That's right, Will. Cry—cry!"
The whimpering became a moaning. Ashamed, he clenched his teeth, and the moaning stopped.
"No, don't do that," she cried. "Let it come out if it wants to. Remember that snake, Will. Remember how you fell."
The moaning broke out again and he began to shudder more violently than ever.
"Now tell me what happened."
"I could see its eyes, I could see its tongue going in and out."
"Yes, you could see his tongue. And what happened then?"
"I lost my balance, I fell."
"Say it again, Will." He was sobbing now. "Say it again," she insisted.
"I fell."
"Again."
It was tearing him to pieces, but he said it. "I fell."
"Again, Will." She was implacable. "Again."
"I fell, I fell. I fell . . ."
Gradually the sobbing died down. The words came more easily and the memories they aroused were less painful.
"I fell," he repeated for the hundredth time.
"But you didn't fall very far," Mary Sarojini now said.
"No, I didn't fall very far," he agreed.
"So what's all the fuss about?" the child inquired.
There was no malice or irony in her tone, not the slightest implication of blame. She was just asking a simple, straightforward question that called for a simple, straightforward answer. Yes, what was all the fuss about? The snake hadn't bitten him; he hadn't broken his neck. And anyhow it had all happened yesterday. Today there were these butterflies, this bird that called one to attention, this strange child who talked to one like a Dutch uncle, looked like an angel out of some unfamiliar mythology and within five degrees of the equator was called, believe it or not, MacPhail. Will Farnaby laughed aloud.


"...One of them was an atomic physicist, the other was a philosopher. Both extremely eminent. But one had a inental age, outside the laboratory, of about eleven and the other was a compulsive eater with a weight problem that he refused to lace. Two extreme examples of what happens when you take a clever boy, give him fifteen years of the most intensive formal education and totally neglect to do anything for the mindbody which has to do the learning and the living."
"And your system, I take it, doesn't produce that kind of academic monster?"
The Under-Secretary shook his head. "Until I went to Europe, I'd neverseen anything of the kind. They're grotesquely funny," he added. "But, goodness, how pathetic! And, poor things, how curiously repulsive!"
"Being pathetically and curiously repulsive—that's the price we pay for specialization."
"For specialization," Mr. Menon agreed, "but not in the sense you people ordinarily use the word. Specialization in that sense is necessary and inevitable. No specialization, no civilization. And if one educates the whole mind-body along with the symbol-using intellect, that kind of necessary specialization won't do much harm. But you people don't educate the mind-body. Your cure for too much scientific specialization is a few more courses in the humanities. Excellent! Every education ought to include courses in the humanities. But don't let's be fooled by the name. By themselves, the humanities don't humanize. They're simply another form of specialization on the symbolic level. Reading Plato or listening to a lecture on T. S. Eliot doesn't educate the whole human being; like courses in physics or chemistry, it merely educates the symbol manipulator and leaves the rest of the living mind-body in its pristine state of ignorance and ineptitude..."


"Well, as I was saying," Mr. Menon continued, "adolescents get both kinds of education concurrently. They're helped to experience their transcendental unity with all other sentient beings and at the same time they're learning, in their psychology and physiology classes, that each one of us has his own constitutional uniqueness, everybody's different from everybody else."
"When I was at school," said Will, "the pedagogues did their best to iron out those differences, or at least to plaster them over with the same Late Victorian ideal—the ideal of the scholarly but Anglican football-playing gentleman. But now tell me what you do about the fact that everybody's different from everybody else."
"We begin," said Mr. Menon, "by assessing the differences. Precisely who or what, anatomically, biochemically and psychologically, is this child? In the organic hierarchy, which takes precedence—his gut, his muscles, or his nervous system? How near does he stand to the three polar extremes? How harmonious or how disharmonious is the mixture of his component elements, physical and mental? How great is his inborn wish to dominate, or to be sociable, or to retreat into his inner world? And how does he do his thinking and perceiving and remembering? Is he a visualizer or a nonvisualizer? Does his mind work with images or with words, with both at once, or with neither? How close to the surface is his storytelling faculty? Does he see the world as Wordsworth and Traherne saw it when they were children? And, if so, what can be done to prevent the glory and the freshness from fading into the light of common day? Or, in more general terms, how can we educate children on the conceptual level without killing their capacity for intense nonverbal experience? How can we reconcile analysis with vision? And there are dozens of other questions that must be asked and answered. For example, does this child absorb all the vitamins in his food or is he subject to some chronic deficiency that, if it isn't recognized and treated, will lower his vitality, darken his mood, make him see ugliness, feel boredom and think foolishness or malice? And what about his blood sugar? What about his breathing? What about his posture and the way he uses his organism when he's working, playing, studying? And there are all the questions that have to do with special gifts. Does he show signs of having a talent for music, for mathematics, for handling words, for observing accurately and for thinking logically and imaginatively about what he has observed? And finally how suggestible is he going to be when he grows up?..."
Aldous Huxley

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Thursday, July 18, 2013

"Mr Casey took the glass, drank, and placed it near him on the mantelpiece. Then he said:
—Well, I can’t help thinking of our friend Christopher manufacturing...
He broke into a fit of laughter and coughing and added:
—… manufacturing that champagne for those fellows.
Mr Dedalus laughed loudly.
—Is it Christy? he said. There’s more cunning in one of those warts on his bald head than in a pack of jack foxes.
He inclined his head, closed his eyes, and, licking his lips profusely, began to speak with the voice of the hotel keeper.
—And he has such a soft mouth when he’s speaking to you, don’t you know. He’s very moist and watery about the dewlaps, God bless him.
Mr Casey was still struggling through his fit of coughing and laughter. Stephen, seeing and hearing the hotel keeper through his father’s face and voice, laughed.
Mr Dedalus put up his eyeglass and, staring down at him, said quietly and kindly:
—What are you laughing at, you little puppy, you?"

James Joyce
It was like the buttons on his mother’s blouse -- they were amber, he remembered, semitransparent, and golden. He just wanted to shove them in his mouth and suck on them, and every time he was disappointed terribly, and every time he forgot about the disappointment -- not forgot, just refused to accept what his memory told him.
(from Roadside Picnic, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky)

Saturday, July 6, 2013

"Gospodin Kejzi uze casu, ispi je i stavi pored sebe na policu nad kaminom. Onda rece:
-Nego, ne mogu a da ne mislim na naseg prijatelja Kristofera koji pravi...
Spopade ga smeh i kasalj, pa dodade:
-... pravi taj sampanj za one momke.
Gospodin Dedalus se glasno nasmeja.
-Je l' to Kristi? - rece. -Vise je prepredenosti u jednoj od onih bradavica na njegovoj celavoj glavi nego u copora lisaca.
On sagnu glavu, sklopi oci i, oblizavsi dobro usne, poce da govori glasom gostionicara.
-A tako je slatkoreciv kad s nekim razgovara, zar to ne znate. Podvaljak mu je vrlo vlazan i znojav, Bog ga blagoslovio.
Gospodin Kejzi se jos uvek borio sa svojim napadom kaslja i smeha. Stiven se smejao gledajuci i slusajuci gostionicara u licu i glasu svog oca.
Gospodin Dedalus stavi monokl na oko i zureci u njega rece mirno i prijazno:
-Zasto se ti smejes, ti stene jedno malo, a?"

Dz. Dz.

Friday, June 21, 2013


Steve McCurry, Summer Reading

India, Steve McCurry

Saturday, June 8, 2013

"Kao, sećao se, dugmad na majčinoj bluzi-ćilibarska, poluprozirna, zlatasta, prosto poželiš da ih uzmeš u usta i sisaš u očekivanju nekakve izvanredne slatkoće, i on ih je uzimao u usta i sisao, i svaki put bi se strašno razočarao, i svaki put bi zatim zaboravio na to razočaranje, čak ne da je zaboravljao, nego je odbijao da veruje sopstvenom pamćenju čim bi ih samo ponovo ugledao."
(A. i B. Strugacki, Piknik pored puta)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Monday, March 18, 2013

Thursday, March 7, 2013

(unknown photographer)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013


But that's the idea; you make your own pie

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Monday, February 25, 2013

"Elem, ušao sam u tu kancelariju, opterećen svim onim razmišljanjima i zaključcima koji su već dugo potajno sazrevali u meni i osećao sam ih kako tinjaju i komešaju se iznutra, a hteo sam da sačuvam prisebnost, trezvenu usredsređenost, gotovo nepomičnu hladnokrvnost, a možete zamisliti da sam bio na ivici da prasnem u grohotan smeh kad sam pred sobom video sirotog gospodina beležnika Stampu, onako mrtvog ozbiljnog, koji nije ni slutio da ja možda nisam onakav kakav se njemu činim, a bio je ubeđen i da je on za mene isti onakav kako on samog sebe vidi svakog jutra kad vezuje usku crnu kravatu pred ogledalom, a okružuju ga sve same prisne stvari.
Da li vam je sada jasno? Došlo mi je da i njemu namignem, da mu onako prepredeno preporučim:"Obrati pažnju! Ispod Mire..." Došlo mi je, Gospode Bože, i da mu iznebuha isplazim jezik, da se iskreveljim, da mu tek onako, šale radi i bez zlih namera, za tren oka izmenim predstavu o meni koja mu se čini istinitom. Ali morao sam da ostanem ozbiljan, je l' tako? Ostao sam ozbiljan. Morao sam da obavim taj eksperiment.
-Dakle, gospodine beležniče, došao sam kod vas. Ali, izvinite, zašto ste vi utonuli ovde u tišinu?
-Kakvu tišinu? Zar ovde?
Stvarno, u tom trenutku u ulici Kročefiso vladao je pravi metež od ljudi i kola.
-Ne, ne mislim na ulicu, razume se. Ali ovde, među svim tim hartijama, gospodine beležniče, na prašnjavim policama ovih zastakljenih ormara. Zar ne čujete?
-A šta to?
-Pa ovo struganje? Aha, to vaš kanarinac struže kandžicama, izvinite, izvinite. Ima oštre kandžice, a struže po cinkanom dnu kaveza...
-Tačno. Pa šta s tim?
-Molim? Ništa. Zar vam ne ide na živce kad cink tako škripi, gospodine beležniče?
-Cink? Uopšte ne obraćam pažnju. I ne čujem tu škripu...
-Ali ipak, zamislite cink koji škripi, u beležnikovoj kancelariji, zato što kanarinac struže kandžicama po dnu kaveza... Kladim se da i ne peva, taj vaš kanarinac.
-Ne, gospodine, ne peva.
I gospodin beležnik je počeo nekako čudno da me gleda, pa sam procenio da je bolje da se manem kanarinca da ne bih upropastio svoj eksperiment, jer barem na početku, bilo je važno da ni senka sumnje ne padne na moju sposobnost rasuđivanja. I zapitao sam gospodina beležnika da li mu je poznata izvesna kuća, u ulici toj i toj, broj taj i taj, u vlasništvu izvesnog gospodina Vitanđela Moskarde, sina pokojnog Frančeska Antonija Moskarde...
-Pa zar to niste vi?
-Jeste, ja. Kanda sam to ja...
Šteta! A toliko mi se dopadalo da tu, u toj beležnikovoj kancelariji, usred svih tih požutelih spisa na starim prašnjavim policama, kao sa vekovnog odstojanja, pričam tako o izvesnoj kući u vlasništvu izvesnog Vitanđela Moskarde... Naročito zato što, iako sam se ja nalazio baš tu, u toj beležnikovoj kancelariji, i to kao stranka, ko zna kako je on, gospodin beležnik, gledao na svoju kancelariju, kakav miris je osećao u njoj, svakako drugačiji od onog koji sam ja osećao i uopšte, u svetu gospodina beležnika, ko zna gde se nalazila ta kuća o kojoj sam govorio glasom koji je dopirao izdaleka, a ja, ko zna kako sam čudno izgledao u očima gospodina beležnika...
Ah, kakvo zadovoljstvo nam pruža pripovest, gospodo draga! Ništa nije tako umirujuće kao pripovest. U životu se sve neprestano menja pred našim očima, ništa nije sigurno, muči nas strepnja da saznamo kako će se okončati neka zbivanja, kako će se utvrditi činjenice koje nam zadaju toliko muke i bola! A u pripovesti je sve već okončano, sve utvrđeno. Ma koliko da su događaji bolni i zbivanja tužna, evo ih ovde, zaokruženih, u pravilnom redosledu, na tridesetak, četrdesetak stranica knjige. To su određeni događaji i neće se nikada promeniti, ili se barem neće promeniti dok nekom zlonamernom kritičaru ne padne na um da iz obesti sruši tu idealnu građevinu, čiji su svi delovi bili tako čvrsto međusobno povezani, a vi ste uživali u tome što svaka posledica tako poslušno i savršeno logično proističe iz svog uzroka, a svaki događaj se odvija precizno i dosledno u svakoj svojoj pojedinosti, pa tako "vojvoda Gonzaga iz Mantove, koji se dana tog i tog, godine te i te..."
Da ne bih sve upropastio, bio sam prinuđen da se vratim u neizvesnu, nepostojanu i namrgođenu stvarnost gospodina beležnika Stampe.
-Jeste, ja sam -brže-bolje sam mu odvratio. -Kanda sam to ja, gospodine beležniče. A kada je reč o kući, to vama sigurno nije problem, zar ne? Da potvrdite da je moja, kao i sve ostalo što sam nasledio od svog oca, Antonija Moskarde. Tako je! I da je ta kuća trenutno neizdata, gospodine beležniče. Ta kuća je mala, znate... Ima pet-šest odaja i dve prostorije u suterenu - je l' se tako zove? -Baš lepo, u suterenu... dakle, u kući nema stanara, gospodine beležniče, te mogu njome da raspolažem po svom nahođenju. E sada, vi ćete...
Tada sam se primakao gospodinu beležniku i krajnje ozbiljno, tiho mu saopštio kakav dokument nameravam da sačinim, ali to sada još ne mogu da vam saopštim jer, kao što sam rekao:
-Ovo mora da ostane među nama, gospodine beležniče, neka to bude službena tajna, dok vam ja ne kažem drugačije. Jesmo li se razumeli?
Razumeli smo se. Ali gospodin beležnik me je upozorio da su mu za sačinjavanje tog dokumenta neophodni još neki spisi i podaci zbog kojih moram da odem u banku, kod Kvantorca. To me je iznerviralo, ali ipak sam ustao. Čim sam krenuo, spopala me je neodoljiva želja da zapitam gospodina beležnika:
"Kako hodam? Izvinite, umete li barem da mi kažete kako vam izgleda moj hod?"
Jedva sam se uzdržao. Ali kada sam otvarao zastakljena vrata na izlasku, nisam mogao da odolim, osvrnuo sam se i rekao, sa sažaljivim smeškom:
-Jeste, svojim korakom, hvala!
-Šta kažete? -zabezeknuto je upitao gospodin beležnik.
-Ništa, ništa, kažem da hodam svojim korakom, gospodine beležniče. Znate li da sam jednom video konja kako se smeje? Jeste, smejao se u hodu. Vi biste da zagledate konju u gubicu da vidite kako se smeje, pa da mi onda kažete da se taj smeh ne vidi. Ali ostavite se gubice! Konji se uopšte ne smeju gubicom! Znate li čime se konji smeju, gospodine beležniče? Zadnjicom. Uveravam vas, konj kad hoda, smeje se zadnjicom, jeste, ponekad, smeje se nečemu što vidi usput ili što mu padne na pamet. Ako hoćete da vidite kako se konj smeje, pogledajte mu stražnjicu i ostajte mi zdravo!
Jasno mi je da nije trebalo tako da mu govorim. Sve je meni jasno. Ali ako se prisetim svog tadašnjeg duševnog stanja, kada mi je svaki pogled koji bi mi ljudi uputili izgledao kao jezivo nasilje, jer sam pomišljao kako sve te oči uprte u mene grade neki moj lik koji nije onakav kakav ja poznajem, već sasvim drugačiji, a ja ne mogu ni da ga spoznam, ni da ga sprečim. Spopadala me je neodoljiva želja ne samo da govorim budalaštine, nego i da ih činim, da se kotrljam po ulicama, ili da klizim plesnim korakom, čas namigujući, a čas plazeći jezik i bekeljeći se. Ali umesto toga koračao sam ulicom, smrtno ozbiljan, Milina jedna, vidim da i vi koračate ulicom, smrtno ozbiljni."
(Luiđi Pirandelo, iz Jedan, nijedan i sto hiljada)

Thursday, February 21, 2013

"Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality – it’s all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I’m attending here is a show with another set. And the show I’m attending is myself." Fernando Pessoa

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Saturday, February 2, 2013


Henri Cartier-Bresson Just Plain Love (2001)

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Jimmy Marz
Portrait of Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Mali neboder i ribica zvana Hemingvej
Andrei Osokin

Wednesday, January 2, 2013