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Les Culture Geeks' Journal [entries|friends|calendar]
Les Culture Geeks

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Hi [04 Apr 2005|08:05pm]

twilightviolet
I wandered into your little cyberland and thought it looked cool. I'm an anthro/poli sci major at Agnes Scott College in GA. I am always in need of something interesting to read to take my mind away from school work for a little while. I adore movies and such.
Enough for now.
1 comment|post comment

One of my favorite poets... [10 Feb 2005|12:08pm]

jpster
(Cross-posted to my own journal, original version Russian available if you're interested!)

 SOLITUDE

So many stones have been thrown at me,
That I'm not frightened of them any more,
And the pit has become a solid tower,
Tall among tall towers.
I thank the builders,
May care and sadness pass them by.
From here I'll see the sunrise earlier,
Here the sun's last ray rejoices.
And into the windows of my room
The northern breezes often fly.
And from my hand a dove eats grains of wheat...
As for my unfinished page,
The Muse's tawny hand, divinely calm
And delicate, will finish it.

June 6, 1914
Slepnyovo
ANNA AKHMATOVA
Translated by Judtih Hemschemeyer
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'The earth falls dreaming from the stars...' [26 Jan 2005|08:13pm]

ziggysinamerica
[ mood | touched ]

From Miguel Angel Asturias's Hombres de Maiz (Men of Maize):

( The beginning of an amazingly beautiful and poetic novel by a Nobel-Prize winning author, the father of magical realism and not given nearly as much credit as he should...Collapse )

(X-posted to my personal journal)

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a brief question [26 Jan 2005|04:59pm]

zepooka
[ mood | complacent ]

On a more "popular culture" note, a question to members/lurkers of the community...

What periodicals do you subscribe to?

Magazines, journals, etc... myself, I'm a lifelong reader of National Geographic and Smithsonian, but I'm just curious as to the variety of publications other people might read. How do they broaden your horizons? How do you decide which articles and collected articles to receive on a monthly (or weekly, or whatever-ly) basis?

Is please to respond. ^_^

2 comments|post comment

Translation - [26 Jan 2005|02:21pm]

jpster
OK somebody requested a translation of the poem of Mallarmé I posted yesterday... Mallarmé's language is extremely, beautifully metaphorical and he uses words of the French language in an almost musical way... I think some words don't even have a direct translation, so I'll do my best to give it the same meaning - and I'm no professional translator. You'll get an idea.

RENEWAL

The sickly spring sadly chased away
Winter, season of serene art, the lucid winter,
And, in my being over whom presides a dismal blood
Powerlessness stretches itself in a long yawn.

White dusks are are cooling down under my skull
That an iron circle is gripping like an old grave
And sad, I roam after a vague and beautiful dream,
By the fields where the immense sap is strutting              [phew that sounds awful, but I can't think of anything for now]

Then I fall down, worked up from the perfume of trees, tired,
And digging with my face a pit to my dream,
Biting the warm earth where the lilacs grow,

I wait, while wasting away that my boredom arises...
- However Heaven laughs on the the hedge and the awakening
About so many birds in full bloom chirping under the sun.

***
Well I tried. :-)
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Poetry [26 Jan 2005|02:01am]

ziggysinamerica
[ mood | contemplative ]

Hey y'all, I guess I should introduce myself, as I said I'd join this community a while ago, but didn't, but I had it on my friends list oddly enough. Regardless, my name's ZiggyDave, and I'm an aspiring art student at Montclair State University. I'm pretty creative and artsy-fartsy, as anyone who may know me will attest. I like to write poetry, and this is something I wrote a few days ago:
( It's a bit long, but I think it's pretty goodCollapse )

1 comment|post comment

RENOUVEAU [22 Jan 2005|10:34pm]

jpster
You must all learn French. ;-) Here's a beautiful French sonnet by a great impressionist poet... The words and images are music to my ears.

RENOUVEAU

Le printemps maladif a chassé tristement
L'hiver, saison de l'art serein, l'hiver lucide,
Et, dans mon être à qui le sang morne préside
L'impuissance s'étire en un long baillement.

Des crépuscules blancs tiédissent sous mon crâne
Qu'un cercle de fer serre ainsi qu'un vieux tombeau
Et triste, j'erre après un rêve vague et beau,
Par les champs où la sève immense se pavane.

Puis je tombe énervé de parfum d'arbres, las,
Et creusant de ma face une fosse à mon rêve,
Mordant la terre chaude où poussent les lilas,

J'attends, en m'abîmant que mon ennui s'élève...
- Cependant l'Azur rirt sur la haie et l'éveil
De tant d'oiseaux en fleur gazouillant au soleil.

- Stéphane Mallarmé
3 comments|post comment

Music [14 Jan 2005|03:31pm]

jpster
On the same line of thought as yesterday's post... Something I wrote.

Music spreads inexorably through the essence of your being. It is like the myriad of reflections dancing in the water of a rustling brook ultimately destined to reach the vastness of the ocean, where the sun seems to shine even brighter in the cloudless sky, the waves traveling miles and miles finally to crash and explode against a cliff, its foam dispersing in a fine, diaphanous mist of billions of microscopic droplets, gently wetting the observer who does not see it coming. Shivers run through him, yet he is warm under the summer sun. He closes his eyes. A smile is drawn by his lips. He his head is drooping, and tears are trickling down his cheeks.

Somewhere else at the same moment, after the last few bars, a cellist has put down his bow, and the pianist has released his hands from the keyboard.

Silence.

Such is the power of music.

(Montreal, November 2001)
3 comments|post comment

Emotional reactions [13 Jan 2005|03:18pm]

jpster
[ mood | curious ]

Community's been silent as a graveyard lately, so here's something to ponder about...

Is/are there any work(s) of art (and I mean art in the general sense - it can be visual, performance, musical, literature, theatre, or a mix of any thereof, etc...) that can elicit a very strong emotional reaction from you - as an individual? (i.e.: as opposed to the collective euphoria during a rock concert or in a dance club)

What is it that you feel? Goose bumps, a swelling feeling, tears?

***
I'm asking this because I was part of a medical study several years ago - it had to do to with strong emotional reactions of musicians from listening to music (and I mean LISTENING, ALONE - and NOT doing something else at the same time) and which parts of the brains were triggered. It  was kind of fun - I had to do CAT (PET?) scans, MRI, the whole deal like you see in the movies. :-)

For me it was the 2nd movement of Rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto. If I close my eyes and let go, I'll almost invariably end up crying, or at least feel this big swell in my chest, it's amazing... It was as if the music was telling me the story of my life, and I felt that I was completely understood. Hard to describe in words. It's a spiritual, mental, and physical experience...

"Isoldes Liebestod" from the Wagner opera "Tristan und Isolde" has the same effect.

More to list, but would be curious to hear your input/experiences beforehand!

5 comments|post comment

Another intro... [13 Jan 2005|12:18pm]

naidel
[ mood | chipper ]

hey all, I'm naidel.

I recon I'm probably gonna be the youngest member of this community, but hopefully this doesn't matter. If it does i apologise, let me know and i will assume a new age and personality, and probably some weird habbits and a tendency to end every sentence with an exclamation mark.
I'm currently in the middle of Britain's fabulous three solid years of exams policy, but then i plan to go on to study classical archaeology or something like it at Uni.

Poem that most influenced my childhood: Abou Ben Adhem -James Leigh Hunt.

Current philosophy: live life how you want, and if you can't take a beating, then try not to get hit.

Favourite band: Flaming Lips, Chicane, Placebo, Belle and Sebastian, Misty's big adventure.

Least favourite place: Scunthorpe, sorry if you =live there, but if you do, run away. now.

Now after a semi-pretentious introduction that i can't be bothered to change but hope i won't be judged for, i'm off to do an exam on Death of a Salesman. I'll be lurking.

7 comments|post comment

Vietnam [03 Nov 2004|05:57pm]

jpster
(Yeah, I love poetry...)

VIETNAM
"Woman, what's your name?"  "I don't know."
"How old are you?  Where are you from?"  "I don't know."
"Why did you dig that burrow?"  "I don't know."
"How long have you been hiding?"  "I don't know."
"Why did you bite my finger?"  "I don't know."
"Don't you know that we won't hurt you?"  "I don't know."
"Whose side are you on?"  "I don't know."
"This is war, you've got to choose."  "I don't know."
"Does your village still exist?"  "I don't know."
"Are those your children?"  "Yes."

By Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poet, Nobel Prize Literature 1996.
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.
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Jose Angel Buesa [01 Nov 2004|12:08am]

azuranena
Hi! My name’s Ashley and I’m a freshman at Mary Washington University. I stumbled into this community when I was avoiding my homework- a terrible habit that I have gotten down to an art. I won’t bore you all with a long drawn out introduction, if you want to know anything about my pathetically dull life just fire away. I’m posting you a beautiful poem by the poet Jose Angel Buesa and a not so beautiful attempt at a translation done by me. Buesa was a Cuban poet born in 1910 who seems to have gotten very little attention in the U.S. I found a book of his poetry at my local library but you can’t get it in bookstores or even on Amazon. This is my favorite of his poems, but I definitely suggest you look up his others because they are wonderful! Enjoy!

Poema de la Despedida

Te digo adiós, y acaso te quiero todavía.
Quizá no he de olvidarte, pero te digo adiós.
No sé si me quisiste... No sé si te quería...
O tal vez nos quisimos demasiado los dos.

Este cariño triste, y apasionado, y loco,
me lo sembré en el alma para quererte a ti.
No sé si te amé mucho... no sé si te amé poco;
pero sí sé que nunca volveré a amar así.

Me queda tu sonrisa dormida en mi recuerdo,
y el corazón me dice que no te olvidaré;
pero, al quedarme solo, sabiendo que te pierdo,
tal vez empiezo a amarte como jamás te amé.

Te digo adiós, y acaso, con esta despedida,
mi más hermoso sueño muere dentro de mí...
Pero te digo adiós, para toda la vida,
aunque toda la vida siga pensando en ti.

Poem of the Farewell

I tell you good-bye, though perhaps I want you still.
Maybe I should not forget you, but I tell you good-bye.
I do not know if you wanted me… I do not know if I wanted you…
Or maybe the both of us wanted too much.

This sad, and passionate, and crazy tenderness
I sowed into my soul so that I would love you.
I do not know if I loved you a lot... I do not know if I loved you a little;
but I do know that I will never love this way again.

I am left with your smile asleep in my memory,
and my heart tells me that I will not forget you ;
but, remaining all alone, knowing that I am losing you,
perhaps I begin to love you as I never loved you.

I tell you good-bye, and perhaps, with this farewell,
my most beautiful dream dies inside me…
But I tell you good-bye, for all my life,
although all my life I will continue thinking of you.
10 comments|post comment

A must see: The Motorcycle Diaries [26 Oct 2004|01:46pm]

jpster
Last night I went to see what was one of the best movies I've seen this year: "The Motorcycle Diaries", directed by Walter Salles. The last movie I saw of him was "Central Station", which was also amazing.

Here's the synopsis, taken from the official website:

In 1952, two young Argentines, Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado, set out on a road trip to discover the real Latin America. Ernesto is a 23-year-old medical student specializing in leprology, and Alberto, 29, is a biochemist. The film follows the young men as they unveil the rich and complex human and social topography of the Latin American continent.
(...)
Based on the journals of both Alberto Granado and the man who would later become “El Che,” The Motorcycle Diaries follows a journey of self-discovery, tracing the origins of a revolutionary heart.

I've nothing much to comment on really - you just got to see it. The scenery is simply breathtaking, including gorgeous footage of Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Peru. It will make you want to quit your job or school and just take off on a road trip! The acting is flawless and utterly convincing, for all the cast involved. Gael Garcia Bernal (who plays Guevara) is a superstar as far as I'm concerned. He's got the looks (trust me, well more than enough of it!), AND serious acting skills. It's probably a matter of time before he crosses over into the American market, but personally, I'd rather he not. It's so exciting to have these great foreign actors that do great movies without ever stepping into the Hollywood limelight. He is starring in the next Pedro Almodovar movie, which is coming out this year, and I can barely wait for it! I really loved how Gael interpreted his character: romantic, idealistic, altruistic, almost withdrawn, but always highly observant of the social conditions around him, and the people involved in it. There is a good chemistry between him and his partner Rodrigo de la Serna (Granado) and you don't doubt for an instant the sincerity of their emotions.

The movie left me with a very strong impression. It made me think about what I am currently doing in life right now and about the choices that I have made, and that I have yet to make. It make me think about my place in this world. About social-political conditions. About how we often forget how diverse the people on this earth are, ensconced as we are in the safety of our homes and daily routine...

Well, it really made me think.
And also left with me a impression of great beauty.

I don't know much about the Che, so perhaps those who know about him and his life will have a different view of this movie. I went to the bookstore and bought the actual diaries from which the movie was based.

This movie is a must-see!!!
10/10.
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excerpt from CONTACT (Carl Sagan) [20 Oct 2004|03:53pm]

jpster

Surrounding the blue-white star in its equatorial plane was a vast ring of orbiting debris – rocks and ice, metals and organics – reddish at the periphery and bluish closer to the star. The world-sized polyhedron plummeted through a gap in the rings and emerged out on the other side. In the ring plane, it had been intermittently shadowed by icy boulders and tumbling mountains. But now, carried along its trajectory toward a point above the opposite pole of the star, the sunlight gleamed off its millions of bowl-shaped appendages. If you looked very carefully you might have seen one of them make a slight pointing adjustment. You would not have seen the burst of radio waves washing out from it into the depths of space.

 

For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration. The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans.  This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it. Some people found in the skies an aperture to the religious sensibility. Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy.

At the very moment that humans discovered the scale of the universe and found that their most unconstrained fancies were in fact dwarfed by the true dimensions of even the Milky Way Galaxy, they took steps that ensured that their descendants would be unable to see the stars at all. For a million years humans had frown up with a personal daily knowledge of the vault of heaven. In the last few thousand years they began building and emigrating to the cities. In the last few decades, a major fraction of the human population had abandoned a rustic way of life. As technology developed and the cities were polluted, the nights became starless. New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology. Without even noticing, just as astronomy entered a golden age most people cut themselves off from the sky, a cosmic isolationism that ended only with the dawn of space exploration.

(Chapter 2: Coherent Light)
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La tzigane [19 Oct 2004|02:12pm]

jpster
[ mood | artistic ]

Another beautiful one for zepooka and poetry lovers/readers...

La tzigane

La Tzigane savait d'avance
Nos deux vies barrées par les nuits
Nous lui dîmes adieu et puis
De ce puits sortit l'Espérance
L'amour lourd comme un ours privé
Dansa debout quand nous voulûmes
Et l'oiseau bleu perdit ses plumes
Et les mendiants leurs Avé

On sait très bien que l'on se damne
Mais l'espoir d'aimer en chemin
Nous fait penser main dans la main
À ce qu'a prédit la tzigane

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

(VERY) loosely translated into English, it goes like this:

The Gypsy

The gypsy knew beforehand
Our two lives crossed out by the night
We bid her farewell, and well...
Out of that well came Hope
Love heavy like a bear deprived
Danced upright when we wanted to
And the blue bird lost its feathers
And the beggars their Ave

We know well that we're damned
But the hope of loving on the road
Makes us think, hand in hand
About what the gypsy predicted

Gahh... It sounds so much better in French!

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J'ai tant rêvé de toi [18 Oct 2004|05:28pm]

jpster
J'ai tant rêvé de toi

J'ai tant rêvé de toi que tu perds ta réalité.
Est-il encore temps d'atteindre ce corps vivant et de baiser sur cette bouche la naissance de la voix qui m'est chère?
J'ai tant rêvé de toi que mes bras habitués, en étreignant ton ombre, à se croiser sur ma poitrine ne se plieraient pas au contour de ton corps, peut-être.
Et que, devant l'apparence réelle de ce qui me hante et me gouverne depuis des jours et des années, je deviendrais une ombre sans doute. 

Ô balances sentimentales.
J'ai tant rêvé de toi qu'il n'est plus temps sans doute que je m'éveille. Je dors debout, le corps exposé à toutes les apparences de la vie et de l'amour et toi, la seule qui compte aujourd'hui pour moi, je pourrais moins toucher ton front et tes lèvres que les premières lèvres et le premier front venus.
J'ai tant rêvé de toi, tant marché, parlé, couché avec ton fantôme qu'il ne me reste plus peut-être, et pourtant, qu'à être fantôme parmi les fantômes et plus ombre cent fois que l'ombre qui se promène et se promènera allègrement sur le cadran solaire de ta vie.

Robert Desnos (1900-1945)


...sorry, but I really can't translate this to English!
1 comment|post comment

la basilique [24 Sep 2004|08:12pm]

zepooka
[ mood | crazy ]

If you ever go to Paris...



This is the Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre (photo from when I had my little Amélie pilgrimage in January ^_^). One of the most beautiful si(gh)tes in the city; it sits on top the hill of Montmartre, and you can see most of Paris from the plaza in front. Something about the light the day this photo was taken made it seem even more ethereal, I suppose... that's precisely how it looked, no editing to the shot or whatnot. Still one of my favorite photos that I've taken.

For more on Sacré-Cœur, go here.

1 comment|post comment

For the cyrillic readers out there... [24 Sep 2004|07:18pm]

jpster
[ mood | geeky ]

From one of my favorite poets: (English translation to follow)


Мне нравится, что Вы больны не мной,
Мне нравится, что я больна не Вами,
Что никогда тяжелый шар земной
Не уплывет под нашими ногами.
Мне нравится, что можно быть смешной
Распущенной-и не играть словами,
И не краснеть удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами.

Мне нравится еще, что Вы при мне
Спокойно обнимаете другую,
Не прочите мне в адовом огне
Гореть за то, что я не Вас целую.
Что имя нежное мое, мой нежный, не
Упоминаете ни днем ни ночью — всуе...
Что никогда в церковной тишине
Не пропоют над нами: аллилуйя!

Спасибо Вам и сердцем и рукой
За то, что Вы меня — не зная сами! —
Так любите: за мой ночной покой,
За редкость встреч закатными часами,
За наши не-гулянья под луной,
За солнце не у нас на головами,
За то, что Вы больны — увы! — не мной,
За то, что я больна — увы! — не Вами.

3 мая 1915
Марина Тцветаева

Beautiful poem... awkward translation, though (not by me!):

I like that you are obsessed, but not by me.
I like that I am sick, but not by you.
That never ever the heavy round Earth
Would sail itself away under our feet.
I like, it is permitted to be funny
And loose - and is not to play with words,
Is not to blush with stifling wave slightly
Have touched sleeves each other's, you and me.

And I like still that you can calmly
Embrace the others in my dear presence,
You don't predict me burning in the hell
Because I kiss not you, but someone else.
Again and again my tender name, my tender,
You haven't mentioned day or night - in vain...
That never in the church silence for forever
Would sing above us: halli -halleluya!

Thank you for that, from very heart and hand,
You do love me - and never knowing it! - so much,
For peace and rest allowed me at nights,
For rarity of seeing you at sunsets,
For walking not together under the moon
And for the sun is not above us all along,
For you are sick - alas! -but not by me,
For I am sick - alas! - but not by you.

May 3, 1915
Marina Tsvetaeva
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As an intro [24 Sep 2004|03:35pm]

jpster
[ mood | silly ]

I never know what to write for these things. Well, here goes...

My name's JP (Jean-Pierre) and I recently turned 30 (trust me, it's no big deal, I felt as if I was turning 20 all over again). I live in Montreal, Canada. Educational background: B.Sc. (Biochemistry '96, McGill University). B.Mus. (incomplete, '98-'00 - instrument: piano). For now, working as a receptionist in a physiotherapy clinic to bring food the the table.

Two big passions in life: 1. music (I'm a classical pianist). Love jazz and classical, but listen to everything if it's good (i.e.: no bland pop) 2. science - especially everything in relation to outer space and cosmology.

I love reading and writing (you can judge from the length of this and my journal entries).

Interested in all of the arts, anything piques my curiosity, almost.

Last great movie I saw: Donnie Darko (WOW WOW)
Last great documentary: Control Room
Last good book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)
Poets: Anna Akhmatova, Wislawa Szymborska, Marina Tsvetaeva, Stéphane Mallarmé, ...
Books: The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov), The Corrections (Franzen), "Ensemble, c'est tout" (Anna Gavalda - I love all of her books, actually), among MANY...
Current piece I'm working on: Prokofiev, Toccata in D minor
Next piece I'd like to work on: Beethoven, Concerto no. 5, "Emperor"; Scriabin: Sonata no.5 ?

One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday afternoon: lounge about under the sun and watch people. Or have a good conversation over a few drinks with a friend and letting ourselves slowly get inebriated.

Well that should do it for now...

Cheers!

4 comments|post comment

at the blue swan... [22 Aug 2004|05:26am]

krhazy



Nothing special. I really like how it managed to take a clear picture of the people in the background while putting them out of focus, and leaving the coffee beverage of goodness in full focus.(something like that is somewhat dificult to do with my current cammera)
5 comments|post comment

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