On how we consume information (I)

"I would argue that this semi-structured organisation through a network of quests and always available self-selected activities within set boundaries matches the way we read and experience the world today. These days we do things in fragments: we surf, channel flip and multitask. We write and read emails and blog posts rather than novels, we listen to 4-6 minute songs rather than symphonies, and we listen to the news in 30 second sound bites. We devour these fragments, flicking through hundreds each day, and we return to many, spending a few minutes at a time on one topic or blog or news story, maybe, but returning to it again and again. This fragmentation doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re more superficial. We return to things again and again, and the cumulation of fragmentary experience may be as deep or deeper as a single but lengthier exposure to something." (Jill Walker in "Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media", Cambridge, 2007).

We return again and again... to the same net pages, blogs, bits, topics, favorite fragments of this spinning, dizzying, alive multi-verse of a world. Which kind of makes it home. And family. New faces of alienation? Or is it the contrary, a tendency to soothe and tame the cold machine-created virtual wilderness? Aren't we all that insane man talking to a rock and pretending it's a lively pet?

Notes on the youthly rebellion(s)

One of the my most recent enjoyable lectures was The Poetry Lesson by Andrei Codrescu. A writer and a Romanian now living and developing his skills abroad, just like me (but I wouldn't take the comparison further than that), he actually teaches Poetry to university students and he recalls it in a most funny and dreamy fashion in the book. Which of course, makes one think about Dead Poet's Society. :)

I will not speak more on the whole matter here because I will do it elsewhere, but I would like to share a certain remark from the text for purposes to be revealed later:

What statues and culture have in common and abstract economy and politics have not

Marshall Sahlins, in "Culture and Practical Reason", Chicago University Press, 1976.

“Shortly before the events of May 1968, I had the opportunity to witness an informal debate between an American member of the Russell Tribunal – passing through Paris from Copenhagen, where he had learned of the structuralist vogue from French colleagues – and a Parisian anthropologist. After a long period of question and discussion, the American summed up his views in this way: “I have a friend”, he said, “who is doing a sociological study of the equestrian statues in Central Park. It’s a kind of structuralism. He finds a direct relation between the cultural status of the rider and the number of legs the horse has off the ground. One leg poised has a different historical and political connotation from a horse rearing on hind legs or another cast in flying gallop. Of course the size of the statue also makes a difference. The trouble is”, he concluded, “people don’t ride horses anymore. The things in a society that are obsolete, out of contention, those you can structure. But the real economic and political issues are undecided, and the decision will depend on real forces and resources.”
The Parisian anthropologist thought about that a moment. “It is true,” he finally said, “that people don’t ride horses anymore. But they still build statues.”
Something more was implied than that the past was not dead – because, as has been said of the American South, it is not even past. It was also intended that economics and politics have modalities other than the “real” competition for power. [..] The competition does not evolve absolutely, on an eternal and formal rationality of maximization; it develops according to a system of cultural relationships, including complex notions of authority and submission, hierarchy and legitimization. And among other means, it is by a literal concretization of this code into statues that history is made to act within the present, at once directly and through its dialectical reappropriation and revaluation.” (p 19-20)

A wonderful story-style assertion on why anthropology, discourse analysis and cultural theory may exist, must exist and do exist.

Cetatea Neamţului

Nu ştiu dacă v-a plăcut sau nu "Sobieski şi românii" când aţi studiat-o în şcoală, însă în mod cert lui George Coşbuc nu i-a plăcut prea mult. Sau, cel puţin, aşa lasă de înţeles o poezie-parodie pe care a scris-o despre celebra poveste a leşilor şi plăieşilor.
Poezia lui Coşbuc nu face parte, desigur, din categoria umorului care degradează conţinutul originar al întâmplării care parodiază, nu este menit să ofenseze nicio sensibilitate regională sau naţională. Este doar amuzantă (deşi Coşbuc nu şi-a dat mâna la parodii prea des, precum, bunăoară, Topârceanu). Mie îmi plăcea să o citesc când eram mică şi, amintidu-mi recent de ea, am căutat-o de-a lungul şi de-a latul internetului doar pentru a constata că nu se găseşte nicăieri. Ceea ce trebuie, desigur, remediat :).

The Golden Pot (Ulciorul de aur)

I've long looked for an e-book of my favorite fairytale since I was a child. I've talked about it before, here. I found several, but none of the translations was to my liking. The physical format of the book was also long gone from every shop I searched in. Eventually I ordered one from far far away, but in the meanwhile finally found an online English version of The Golden Pot which didn't hack away the story's feeling. I enjoy it quite a bit more than the paperback one I came to own.

To keep this short, here is the link where you can find this good and free rendition of a wonderful story. I recommend it heartily:
http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0355.pdf

On movies, sacred time and marriage

Reading some film interpretation theory, I came across "Pursuits of happiness: the Hollywood comedy of remarriage" by Stanley Cavell. It tells the tales of Hollywood's typical romantic comedy where the estranged couple is reborn from its ashes. Focusing on seven such films made between 1934 and 1949, this work is still quite actual.

Common sense samples from Romanian fairytales

The English version of the previous post:

Ioan Pop-Reteganul, Crăiasa Zânelor, poveşti ardeleneşti, Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House, 1970.

Ioan Pop-Reteganul is one of Romania's most notable folklorists. He gathered the stories in this book from the Occidental Carpathians for over three decades.

"The Lord of the Heavens is much more merciful than earthly lords" (Line belonging to the Fairy of the Waters, p 8)

About a beautiful girl: "Anyone would not have hungered anymore, and he wouldn't even remember hunger forevermore, just looking at her." (p 18)

"But so is the Romanian: he endures as much as he can; it is better for him to suffer than to lose his temper, for heaven have mercy on the one that makes the Romanian get angry." (p 37)

"man is only half man until he weds" (p 41)

"Fate has nevertheless fated otherwise." (p 66)

About a dead man: "her man, may he be forgiven and stay where he evening-ed" (p 70)

"Man of nothing is the one who dares spoil the ways of the country." (p 78)

"I notice than even a thief going stealing says God help." (p 81)

"Remember my son, said the old man, you'll walk and walk until you'll reach the longing field, and there you shall be struck by longing for mother, sister, brothers, friends and acquaintances; for if you will not play this fiddle, you will be forced to tun back for longing." (p 85)

The hero to the princess thanking him for delivering her from distress: "If I had not rescued you I would have perished myself, not being able to ever forget you." (p 106)

"And then, as you well know, as many countries as many kings, so it was from the old times, every country had its king and every village its priest and things went smoothly; today, of course, cannot be like that any more, for the world became evil and people became poor; one king needs more than one country and one priest more than one village and still they can't be seen content." (p 119)

"And with enemies the fight was to the death, for emperors fight not as sheepherders, to have a lil' fight or two and then sit together; no, they fight like bucks, head to head till one can't move anymore, his army to be more precise, for the emperors just sit and watch and then they make peace and are good friends." (p 120)

"No living man, may he even be a Lord, should set himself against fate." (p 147)

"I'm not a man to believe lies, especially about beautiful girls I want to hear no badmouthing, for even if I hear it I believe it not." (p 148)

"... lies will not get you far, you may reach dinner or lunch with them, but both very rarely." (p 153)

"... for I'm not since snails, I'm since tales." (p 206)

The thinnest horse in the group (the wonder-steed undercover): "Master, set a huge fire, to let gather a big pile of embers so I can soothe my hunger, and then you shall see what kind of a horse you chose." (p 235)

The finish of a story: "And he went and became king in his father in law's place, and he rules with wisdom and with justice; now he is no more, he died altogether with justice, may God rest them both!" (p 237)

"But none of them could come, one said hee and one said nay and the other so forth, you know how man is when he sets about not helping: he lies so much that the sun holds still and the moon hides behind a cloud for shame. He lies so much that you stand and listen and almost believe, nay, you even do believe him until you remember he's human." (p 238).