Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Pedicab Boatman

Row, row, row your boat
Harshly down the stream.
Painfully, blissfully, unfathomably-row!
Life’s not just a dream.
-Armmima Maclang

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Oedipus

FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty - the unhidden heart -
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks -
Which glistens then, and trembles -
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies -
His heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.
- E.A. Poe

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Verstehen?

The mind can only truly entertain a text that already contains its opposite.
"You hold the answers deep within your own mind.
Consciously, you've forgotten it.
That's the way the human mind works.
Whenever something is too unpleasant, to shameful for us
to entertain, we reject it.
We erase it from our memories.
But the imprint is always there."

Friday, October 12, 2012

La Gazza Ladra

To Calliope (The True Patroness of all Poetry)

It is a statute in deep wisdom's lore,
That for his lines none should a patron chuse
By wealth and poverty, by less or more,
But who the same is able to peruse:
Nor ought a man his labour dedicate,
Without a true and sensible desert,
To any power of such a mighty state
But such a wise defendress as thou art
Thou great and powerful Muse, then pardon me
That I presume thy maiden cheek to stain
In dedicating such a work to thee,
Sprung from the issue of an idle brain:
I use thee as a woman ought to be,
I consecrate my idle hours to thee.

- Francis Beaumont (1584 – 6 March 1616)
Enea Vico, "The Contest of the Pierides" (1553)

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Tribute to Foucault's "Clinic"

The clinic - constantly praised for its empiricism, the modesty of its attention, and the care with which it silently lets things surface to the observing gaze without disturbing them with discourse - owes its real importance to the fact that it is a reorganization in depth, not only of medical discourse, but of the very possibility of a discourse about disease
- Foucault, "The Birth of the Clinic"