Exile, borders and tango

I had to read this play for my Post-colonial theatre class, and was instantly attracted, compelled into this monodrama with two versions of a character played by a same performer. It talks about exile, borders, stereotypes, cultural clashes... it’s theatre that makes you think but that doesn’t make you nauseous with political propaganda.
I found it a beautiful, compelling piece and here are two extracts that particularly struck me.

from Guillermo Verdecchia’s Fronteras Americanas (American Borders)


VERDECCHIA:

The tango, however, has not been entirely domesticated. It is impossible to shop or aerobicize to tango… porque el tango es un sentimiento que se baila.
An what is it about the tango, this national treasure that some say was born of the gaucho’s crude attempt to waltz?

(Music: ‘Verano Porteño’, Astor Piazzola)

It is music for exile, for the preparations, the significations of departure, for the symptoms of migration. It is the languishing music of picking through your belongings and deciding what to take. It is the two a.m music of smelling and caressing books none of which you can carry – books you leave behind with friends who say they’ll always be here when you want them when you need them – music for a bowl of apples sitting on your table, apples you have not yet eaten, apples you cannot take – you know they have apples there in that other place but not apples like these – you eat your last native apple and stare at what your life is reduced to – all the things you can stick into a sack. It will be cold, you will need boots, you don’t own boots except these rubber ones – will they do? You pack them, you pack a letter from a friend so you will not feel too alone.
Music for final goodbyes, for one last drink and a quick hug as you cram your cigarettes into your pocket and run to the bus, you run, run, your chest heaves, like the bellows of the bandoneon. You try to watch intently to emblazon in your mind these streets, these corners, those houses, the people, the smells, even the lurching bus fills you with a kind of stupid happiness and regret – music for the things you left behind in that room: a dress, magazines, some drawings, two pairs of shoes and blouses too old to be worn any more… four perfect apples.
Music for cold nights under incomprehensible stars, for cups of coffee and cigarette smoke, for a long walk by the river where you might be alone or you might meet someone. It is music for encounters in shabby stairways, the music of lovemaking in a narrow bed, the tenderness, the caress, the pull of strong arms and legs.
Music for men and women thin as bones.
Music for your invisibility.
Music for a letter that arrives telling you that he is very sick. Music for your arms that ache from longing from wishing he might be standing at the top of the stairs waiting to take the bags and then lean over and kiss you and even his silly stubble scratching your cold face would be welcome and you only discover that you’re crying when you try to find your keys –
Music for a day in the fall when you buy a new coat and think perhaps you will live here for the rest of your life, perhaps it will be possible, you have changed so much, would they recognize you? Would you recognize your country? Would you recognize yourself?

WIDELOAD:

Basically, tango is music for fucked up people.

VERDECCHIA:

Other things cross borders easily. Diseases and disorders. Like amnesia. Amnesia crosses borders.



Second extract:

VERDECCHIA:
… And written on the package is a note, a quote I hadn’t noticed before. It says:
No estoy el crucero:
Elegir
Es equivocarse.

SLIDE
I am not at the cross roads.
to choose
is to go wrong.
- Octavio Paz

And then I remember, I remember what El Brujo said, he said ‘The Border is your Home’.
I’m not in Canada; I’m not in Argentina. I’m on the Border
I am Home.
Mais zoot alors, je comprends maintenant, mais oui, merde! Je suis Argentin-Canadien ! I am a post-Porteño neo-Latino Canadian ! I am the Pan-American Highway !

Death and procrastination

There they go, all the thoughts I was reveling in while playing mine sweeper. Gone, evaporated as I decide consciously to capture them, to pin them down on the virtual sheet of paper of my computer screen. Typing doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel like I’m doing the same kind of writing when I type than when I write in script. Maybe because I don’t type fast, but I think it has more to do with pain. The pain of scripting: your back aches, at least mine does, as if sitting straight would allow the ideas to evaporate into the surrounding air. And the hand hurts, too. The wrist and the finger. Computer writing is more comfortable, physically. I’m sitting straight and my fingers don’t ache. But the lack of physical pain brings a new anxiety that lodges about at the level of the heart in my chest. I’m not so much in the action, I’m distanced. There’s that screen, and I don’t feel the connection between the letters being punched and the result on the page. I intellectually know (kind of) that wires and complicated mathematical equations connect the two, but it’s a bit too complex to fully comprehend. Whereas the pain, the pen, the link between the mind, the pen and the paper, that all makes perfect sense. But maybe it felt as alien to the first human who figured out how to write. After all, it is a pretty alien action, alienating too. Inscribing a little bit of ourselves onto something outside. Odd.

And now I don’t have anything else to write, because I’ve been playing at catching up. Ages ago, about when I was writing about the wires and math equations of the computer, I was thinking of the printer, and usually how happy I am to snatch the page once it comes out of the plastic monster, and how I beam at seeing those shiny little signs, letters and sentences, finally, finally real and there. I also love taking notes on printed pages. On books, on photocopies… hell if this page ever gets printed out, I’ll probably take notes on it! I’m weird, don’t mind me.
I hate when I do that, when I cut myself out, when I censor myself saying ‘I’m stupid anyway, so what’s the use’.
God, you’re just lazy and you fucking know it. Lazy and afraid. Fear is very sly, and I’m starting to understand just how sly it is. I am an anxious person, and there are things that I think about, that are constantly on my mind, yet that I constantly try to hide, to keep out, just in order to remain sane. As sane as I can be. So these thoughts end up crammed in some subconscious spot, and also crammed in some not so subconscious spots. Wherever these ideas and these fears are stored, they of course reappear. Every once in a while, to nag me and to make me miserable. But also to make me think more, and perhaps more constructively.

So these ideas are mainly centered around the theme of death, yes I know, not very original. Death is present in my mind, often, and that’s not to say all the bloody time. But I suppose that’s the same for many people, even if they don’t actually say it. I mean, I don’t think to myself from morning to night ‘death death death death death’. Thank God for that. No, what I’m saying is that a lot of my thoughts and my actions tend to take into account the nagging idea and presence of death. In things like considering the future, for example. Actually, that’s the main example, if not the only one. Death and the future, my death and my future, are quite obviously intertwined, since my future ends with my death. But one might think that given that I’m 20, I could have kept the idea of death at bay by tucking it neatly in my subconscious, for it to reappear only in a few more years, when death becomes more tangible.
That would be forgetting my history, my ‘death heritage’ as it could cynically be called. Because unfortunately, many of my family members have died prematurely, and that has always bothered me. It bothered me when I was small, making me feel anxious in my bed at night because I didn’t understand why I didn’t have a father, and why in the world had he disappeared when I hadn’t actually met him? So rude. The fact that he had died prematurely especially bothered me. I would do the maths, and realize that all the other parents were alive, and not that old. And there’s something else. I wondered if I would have been more sad had my father died when I actually had known him, or if it was more sad not to have known him at all. I spent a lot of time thinking about that, and I decided, quite a few years after the question had initially arose, that I would be as sad, just in a different way. And now that I think about it, those two situations – loosing a parent when you’re a baby and loosing a parent when you’ve known the parent for a while- those two situations are quite different. In one you miss out on a figure, rather than loosing a person, and in the other you can remember the figure, you have learned from the parent’s role, but you sorely loose a person. I feel like I missed out on the experience of having a father, and of course on the experience of having Etienne Losq as a father.
There was something else I was getting at, and now I’m a bit confused.

Yes. Fear. Basically I’m insanely afraid of dying, and you guessed, of dying young, prematurely. I’m afraid of this for a number of reasons. Of course, because I know that it can happen. And I also know that it can happen to people that you thought wouldn’t die so stupidly, because ‘they had things to do in life’. My father had research to do; he had a family to take care of. Why does he die when clearly we still need him here? Questions that are painfully familiar to most people having gone through mourning. Knowing that you can die at any moment is paralyzing. It paralyzes me. Because there are two contrasting forces at work here. The knowledge that I can die at any moment prompts me to want to do as much as I can before I can no longer. But the fear of dying prevents me from doing it. And that’s where the slyness comes into play. Through laziness. The idea is that in a twisted twisted way, the act of not doing anything, of being lazy, of procrastinating, is in a sense a reenactment of death. It’s dying. And so, by reenacting death you keep it at bay, because if you don’t do that, you risk being surprised by it. I don’t know if this makes sense, but it doesn’t matter because the twisted slyness at work here is nonsensical.
The idea that we create art or if we think constructively, because we are afraid of our death is completely unrealistic. If everyone who was afraid of death created because of that fear, then the world would be full of creation, and of very urgent and important creation. But it is precisely because we are afraid of death, and because fear is paralyzing, that so many of us end up doing nothing. I think that the real redemption is in the knowledge, not the fear. Therefore, if we have the knowledge that we will die, but not the fear of death, then we can create, we can write, we can draw, we can figure out complicated equations.
I don’t care about typing or scripting anymore, since it all comes out being the same thing. Enough with stupid excuses like the pain of writing with a pen versus the distance of the computer. All that is nonsense. It just keeps me distracted from the urgent, pressing concern of acting my life instead of passively looking at it go away.

'Snakes on a Plane' review by Frank Curren

The award for Best Art Film clearly belongs to Snakes on a Plane. The film adopts and continues some of the most central religious meta-narratives of Western Civilization, imbuing the plot with deep symbolic richness and cogently commenting on the human condition.The early scene in which the amorous lovers suffer the invasion by an enraged serpent of their already cramped fecal bower, at the moment of their induction to the illustrious mile-high club, is a nod to the story of Adam and Eve. Just as the first couple at first enjoyed the favor of heaven (in modern airplane terms, the divine mile high-club) only to disobey the rules of the garden, the film's two lovers broke the airline commandment "Thou shalt despoil the bathroom with neither sex nor smoke."That the snake proceeded to gnaw upon a mammary of the unfortunate dame speaks to the difficulty of nurturing the children of lust. Literally, as her lust is enacted, her physical capacity to rear a child is destroyed. In another sense, by showing an oral interest in the nipple, the snake assumes the position of a child, hinting that the snake was born from the sin of the couple, an unnatural retribution to their most unnatural iniquity. In the next bathroom scene, we are treated to the most desired exhibition of a snake latching onto the member of an unfortunate man as he attempts to urinate. The camera focuses on the character's torso, as his painful writhing forces the attached snake to snap violently in all directions. In this shot, the snake usurps the phallus of the man, leading it willy-nilly in uncontrollable directions. Thus is a human's sexuality usurped and led astray by lust. The fact that the man suffers this painful misfortune while urinating is an obvious allusion to gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause a painful burning sensation during urination.Samuel Jackson's character is well developed and multifaceted. He is presented firstly in the tradition of the hero. As Beowulf descended the lake and slayed Grendal's mother with the sword he found at the bottom, Jackson must descend into the checked luggage compartment and slay his own serpentine opponent with the oversized harpoon-gun he fortunately discovers in a passenger's bag. The nautical nature of this weapon only strengthens the reference to Beowulf's watery exploits. However, like all well-constructed heroes, he is flawed; the Oedipal tensions of his psyche are revealed by his telling choice of curses that color that most well written of lines, "I've had it with the motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane." His subconscious desire to fuck his mother is mixed with the aggression he feels towards his father, symbolized by the phallicly shaped snake. Clearly, what Jackson has had it with is the despoliation of his mother—in this sense symbolized by the plane—by the seed of his father—symbolized by the multitudes of "motherfucking snakes" that have been released within. It is a testament to the complex nature of the film that Jackson's character can still be a Christ-symbol while harboring these Oedipal tendencies. Indeed, at the end of the film, Samuel L. Jackson shoots his ward, Sean Jones, in the chest—a clear allusion to Bernini's Ecstascy of St. Theresa. In both works the painful, piercing nature of saving grace is demonstrated. All that saves Jones is the bulletproof vest he has donned, itself an obvious symbol of the faith he has gained in his stalwart bodyguard. As Jackson constantly asserts to his fellow passengers, their only chance at survival lies in their faith of him, alluding to Jesus' similar exhortations to his followers concerning their faith in him.Although the trip depicted in Snakes on a Plane is literally from Honolulu to LA, what is really at issue is a spiritual journey occurring at the allegorical level. The nemesis, born of the passengers' sin, can only be defeated through their faith in Jackson (Jesus). In the process, a witness is delivered, shielded in the bullet-proof vest of his own faith and ready to testify against the iniquity that currently infests the modern world.

The hippo ho ho

I vote for the hippo because I like the sound of the word. That said, crocodile is kinda funky too. Mmmm... this controversy will not be resolved by me. It remains complete.

The blog has been quite sleepy these days, for various reasons. From my end, I have been spirited away in the forests of New Jersey in a very odd community also know as CAMP. I'm surviving, sometimes I wonder how, but I am. And as a proof, I'm writing on boboquiche during my precious hour off. So, I won't be able to translate into french because it'll take too long and I don't want to take my head doing it (literal translation of 'se prendre la tete').
Anyway, this message is also an appeal for all boboquichers to write about their travels on here, or any experience they want to share that is particular to the summer off from school.
Of course, other articles, poems, etc are welcome too. So write up people! I would love to have fun stuff to read during my hour off.

Poésies

Il semblerait que la tendance soit à la poésie ces jours-ci sur le blog, alors je me permets d'en poster quelques unes moi-même, retrouvées dans mes cahiers et papiers... et sur mon vieux site :p

It would seem that the theme of the week is poetry and so I have looked back into my diaries and papers and come up with the following.... from my old site :p

Cette première fut écrite je ne sais plus pourquoi, une tendance à vouloir écrire dans un registre plus sombre... Peut-être avais-je vu un film ou lu un poème du même genre...

I will not translate the poems, nor their related comments; some are in English, some are in French... read on...

Jeune fille quand tu dors

Mai 2002

Jeune fille quand tu dors
Tu me parais si belle
Beauté du sommeil éternel
Seras-tu belle dans la mort?

De la paix du sommeil
Le rêve nous parvient
Et jamais l'on n'en revient
Si la mort est pareille

Et si je me mourrais
Rêverais-je ta splendeur
Disparue avant ton heure
Lorsque tu somnolais

Vivre dans un rêve
Si l'on a bien vécu
Si l'on a toujours su
Lire sur tes lèvres

Vivre un cauchemer
Si de tes lèvres l'incandescence
A fui, fini sa danse
Et que l'on y a pris part

Mais toute beauté est éphémère
Dans la Vie ou dans la Mort
Mais dans la vie elle peut encore
Revenir et toujours plaire



Le suivant est une devinette, en anglais bien sûr.

This next piece is a riddle, and I ask whether you might be able to guess what it alludes to...

The Fourth Riddle

Ever is he dying
On a line we cannot reach
What seems to be his death
Could be his birth to thee
A life of endless circles
'Tis said that he is old
He's seen us all be born
And will see all of us go

Human tendency

M. I always want to start a poem with an M.
Maybe it's because it invites me to continue...
mmmm...well. Then maybe not.
Mystery, misery, malice, man. All very positive.
Ha.ha.ha.ha.ha...happiness, havoc, hat, hate.
Shit! Didn't work.
Had to end with hate. Anne, you suck.
Positive! Positive is what we need.
Is it? Yes! Of course!
Do you really want to end up mustering words like misery and hate for the rest of your life?
No you don't.
Well, maybe I'd rather sing about flowers, but frankly...
Frankly what?
Frankly, what's the point.
Flowers are pretty.
Pretty is petty.
Petty is pretty without an 'r'!
Yes. Thanks for that. Flowers are... dead.
In a vase they are. In the ground, they're very much alive.
But they don't hate.
How do you know?
I don't. I assume. Nasty human tendency.

Translation of 'Is Time Linear'?

Here is the translation of Ava's article 'Le temps est-il linéaire' - 'Is Time linear' and its two following comments will eventually be translated (but right now I'm going to bed). I thought the ideas quite interesting, and found it quite sad that half (or even more) of the people on this blog couldn't contribute due to lack of understanding. This is a bilingual blog after all.

Is Time linear?

We usually consider time as a a straight line: it appears as horizontal, linear, indefinitely stretching towards a goal- civilisation, progress, happiness, wisdom, the end of the world, etc. This is the way all our timelines are: an arrow, marked with a principle focus point (Jesus, the revolution, a key event); the important dates are positionned around this key point, and there are some dots towards the end of the line to signal the future, when the timeline draws towards the present day. The linearity in which we view history introduces a certain determinism. By placing events side by side on a line, it's possible to make links between them, and to build cause and effect relationships between these events. Basically,what we make of History is a logical sequence of events, that enables us to say, in retrospect, that this sequence was predictable.
The linear way in which time is most often considered presents two major problems. It is a unifying vision of time as well as a determinist one.

First of all, we think of Time as a linear, unifying and global diagram: history of Humanity, that englobes all civilisations past and present, participating in a same timeline. Therefore, all civilisations would belong to a same time frame that would participate in fulfilling a same ultimate goal.We consider humanity as an ensemble, and its history as a unified one, with a same arrow that points towards a same direction. All civilisations help humanity to advance in one way or another towards the same goal, for example, the ultimate one Civilisation.

However, it appears to me that it would be rather difficult to have civilisations as different as Antic China, the Sumerians, the Vikings, the Tutsis, the Wisigoths, the contemporary 'West', all participating in a same direction, aiming at the same ultimate goal. Different civilisations seem to me to be leading separate existences, with their own goals and their own stories/histories. But they are not elements of a global linear History. Apart from isolated exchanges between civilisations (commerce, wars, or influence through ideas) what link could we draw between, say Byzanthine Europe and China at the same period? Even more caracteristically, what link between the Japan of the time, and the Native Americans whose existence was of yet undiscovered by the other civilisations, altjough they very much existed? Even now, between Europe, China, the Arab world? The links have multiplied, civilisations intercommunicate more, globalisation brings the knowledge of other civilisations and their values. But, the diagram, the general gist appears to be the same: each civilisation lives its own History, simultaneously with others, where there some links between all of them, but there is no global history; no common goal, or inclusive objectives, or joined ideals.

We could then introduce the notion of another representation of time, a non-linear one. Each civilisation could be represented by a the arc of a circle (cyclical theory): birth, growth, peak, decline. This representation comes from Spengler, a German philosopher and theorist on historicism at the beginning of the 20th century, idea developped in The Decline of the West. These arcs link themselves to others of course, entertwine sometimes, follow each other when one civilisation takes another as a model. Sometimes these arcs fuse, or seperate. A civilisation can be born in the place where another dies. But they all participate in their own time frame. There is no one time (global and linear), there are multiple times. This model works for civilisations but it can also work for people in the midst of a group: each one lives his/her own life, where he/she will inevitably interact with many other people, but that doesn't mean that all these people live the same life. This leads to something else: what about the individual? One's relationship with time, is it individual or does one conceive time in relation to others since one lives in a society where interactions are necessary and inevitable?

It is undeniable that time moves forward. Day moves into night, and whatever happens there will always be an end to each life. But should we still consider our history as a line? I already mentionned that what I think the problem is, is that this vision of history suggest determinism.

This is where the second problem in this vision of history intervenes: the fact that it doesn't give its chance to choice. And yet, choices form our history. Therefore, history cannot be viewed as a determined and logical sequence, and time as we conceive it should give its place to choice. But how to represent the influence of choice on history? We could elaborate a diagram in the form of a tree with multiple ramifications. To each choice we have made, the line breaks into as many possibilities(each imporant choice is taken into consideration, not the breakfast dilemna between apple or yoghourt. Although...If the yoghourt had turned sour, and that the continuation of brakfeast, and by that of life, became completely different? But anyway). The choice we end up making is the one that makes us continue, taking into account the ramification. Therefore, time would no longer be linear, but a zigzag, that would leave us to see what could have happened, but that didn't because we chose for it not to happen.

We can't extract ourselves from time that moves on. But we can influence its course: we are the ones who determine time.

Peut-on penser au delà des mots?

J'ai entrepris hier l'acte de traduction de l'article Peut-on Penser sans les Mot, et cette action m'a permis de prendre conscience de certains problèmes, certaines questions qui surgissent dans la reflexion pensée/language.
Je suis tentée par cette affirmation: 'La pensée n'existe pas hors des mots'. Ca a le mérite d'être clair. C'est net, ça paraît évident, et c'est assez rassurant. Après tout, les mots sont là pour ça, ils sont là pour définir, énoncer la pensée. Mais jusqu'à quel point sont-ils (les mots) un reflet de la pensée originale? Le language, est-ce un système aussi transparent qu'on le voudrait?

Depuis Narcisse jusqu'à Lacan (et au delà), l'homme utilise l'image du miroir: on est à l'intérieur de nous-mêmes, mais on est aussi, en même temps, inscrits à l'exterieur. On se sent, et par l'intermédiaire du miroir et des autres, on se voit. Ainsi, par analogie, on pense (de l'intérieur) et on parle (de l'exterieur). Est-ce la même chose?
Comme Hypocrisy l'a clairement énoncé, mille et une idées nous trottent dans la tête et on en peut pas toutes les assimiler, ou les formuler. Mais une chose est sûre, pour moi en tout cas, toutes mes idées ne m viennent pas toutes sous la forme de mots. J'ai revu ce film vraiment nul avec Mel Gibson What Women Want. C'était franchement une perte de temps, je le reconnais. Mais... ce film m'a toujours étonnée parce qu'il assume que la pensée des gens (des femmes en l'occurence) peut-être comprise comme des phrases. En fait, l'histoire c'est que ce gars super macho s'éléctrocute mais au lieu de mourir reçoit le don de lire la pensée des femmes. Donc, il entend les phrases que les femmes se disent à elles-mêmes. C'est vrai que parfois je me pose des questions intélligibles comme par example 'est-ce que j'ai oublié mes clefs'. Mais la plupart du temps, ce que je pense, ce n'est pas intélligible, même à moi-même. C'est une combinaison de bribes de phrases, de mots, de couleurs, de sentiments, je ne sais pas exactement! C'est un marasme, et je ne pense pas que quiconque pourrait 'lire' et encore moins 'comprendre' ce que je pense.
Et une des raisons pour lesquelles quelqu'un ne pourrait pas comprendre ce que je pense, c'est parce que je n'ai pas encore traduit ma pensée. Ce n'est pas qu'elle n'existe pas, c'est qu'elle n'est pas encore énoncée. Peut-être que l'idée/pensée est empreinte d'une très forte émotion, qui m'empêche de complètement formuler rationnelement l'idée, mais qui ne cache pas le fait que je pense. Ou bien est-ce que je ressens quelquechose, et qu'une fois traduite dans un language cette sensation devient une pensée? Quoiqu'il en soit, les mots ne sont pas l'unique réceptacle de la pensée. D'autres languages permettent l'éclosion et la maturation d'une pensée qui- d'abord introspective- peut ensuite se projeter dans le monde. Peut-être que quelqu'un pensera musicalement, ou quelqu'un d'autre sous la forme d'images.
Mais ce n'est pas tellement ça qui est problématique puisque tous ces modes de traduction de pensée restent des languages: Ils projettent la pensée, l'idée vers l'exterieur. Ils sont tous des systèmes organisateurs. Ainsi, ils structurent l'essence d'idée pour la construire dans un système. Et ça, ça pose pas mal de problèmes. Je vais rester dans le domaine de la langue parlé et écrite de la parole et des mots (je ne parle pas ici en détail du language musical ou pictural bien que je les considère aussi comme des systèmes organisateurs).
Donc, les mots: On ne peut pas nier, surtout après Derrida, que les mots ont tous un baggage sociologique et culturel qui oblige la pensée soit à se conformer, soit à transcender le système linguistique ambiant. Les mots sont des fruits issus d'une culture spécifique qui a formé tout un système permettant de construire à la fois des pensées, mais aussi des hiérarchies, des limites et des contraintes. La syntaxe française me contraint à certaines choses: je ne peux pas placer le sujet en fin de phrase sans compromettre l'équilibre et la compréhension de la phrase. Et si je décide de le faire, je change le système et j'ajoute une nouvelle dimension à la structure de la langue. Donc, j'altère consciemment la structure pour qu'elle reflète plus précisément (mais pas complètement!) ma pensée. Ou bien je garde le sujet en début de phrase, et je compromet sans doute une partie de ce que je pense et de ce que je ressens au profit de la compréhension générale.
Comme le dit Derrida: 'La langue est quelquechose que je ne peux pas m'approprier, elle n'est jamais mienne. La langue est structurellement la langue de l'Autre'.
Parce que justement la langue est une structure, une organisation extèrieure qui est imposée sur l'individu qui pense. Alors bien sûr, puisque chaque individu est bercé depuis sa naissance dans ce système, il paraît naturel de se l'approprier et de s'y inscrire. Mais chaque individu meurt, et le système reste, même s'il évolue. Sous bien des aspects, le système linguistique nous dépasse. Mais sous d'autres, la pensée individuelle semble dépasser le contexte linguistique. Les mots, les phrases paraissent inadéquats. A ce moment là, si une pensée ne peut pas se traduire, est-ce parce que la pensée est inaboutie ou parce que les mots inadéquats?
Ce qui est le plus intéressant c'est justement cette bataille entre abstraction et exteriorisation/énonciation. Le 'gut feeling', la pensée brute, et sa traduction dans un language. Il est donc important, pour que la pensée puisse être partagée, qu'elle soit traduite dans un système, dans un language. Mais cette étape est compromettante. Elle met en péril l'idée individuelle et unique pour s'intégrer dans un réseau de réferences qui compromettent le sens initial de la pensée. Peut-être qu'une des solutions est de constemment interroger la structure et sa signification pour pouvoir transcender les systèmes existants et permettre aux mots et à la forme de continuer à voyager avec la pensée de l'individu et avec son contexte. Alors, la pensée est incarnée dans un tout, dans son propre système, à la fois compréhensible mais aussi radicalement différent, parce que transcendant le consensus structurel.

Comme Beckett le dit si bien de Joyce (et qui pourrait aussi être dit de Beckett):

'Here form is content, content is form. You complain that this stuff is not written in English. It is not written at all. It is not to be read- or rather it is not only to be read. It is to be looked at and listened to. His writing is not about something. It is that something itself.'

'Ici la forme est le contenu, le contenu la forme. Vous vous plaignez que ce n'est pas écrit en Anglais. Ce n'est pas écrit du tout. Ce n'est même pas fait pour être lu- ou plutôt, ce n'est pas seulement fait pour être lu. Ca devrait aussi être contemplé et écouté. Son écriture n'est pas à propos de quelquechose. Son écriture est la chose elle-même.'

Ainsi, je viens de gratter des pensées sur le language, mais je me suis toujours inscrite dans la structure de la langue française, avec ses possibilités et ses contraintes. Quand je vais traduire cet article en Anglais, je vais devoir m'inscrire dans un nouveau système qui me permettra sans doute de reformuler, et re-conceptualiser certaines de mes idées. Et si j'étais vraiment forte, comme Joyce ou Beckett, je pourrais jouer de la langue et la manier pour pouvoir profondément remettre en question l'universalité du language.
Mais pour l'instant, je m'arrête là.

Freedom of speech, part deux

In response to Frank Curren's post - and once again a serious note with some opinionated passages...

With all due respect (and I do thank your elgious words, 'Ster Curren) I do not quite agree with the precedent article, and I might veer this back to debate...?

What you are saying about Galileo, Jesus, et al. is that they were of those who unduly challenged the system in place - effectively partaking in those activities that were disruptive.

However, you seem to have passed over another term of the contract of free speech that I did mention in my own article: the fact that it was properly thought out prior to being (or attempted to be) flung into the masses.

I do not doubt that the Institutions of the time, and many citizens themselves, felt scandalized at the ideas and failed (in some sense quite understandably) to see where the arguments were right.

You yourself, Mr Curren, omit using hindsight to discourse on the matter (a device of comedy perhaps?) which is just as bad (and a form of) lack of reflexion (satire is another matter and I would urge any other people intending satire to flag it out, to be sure to differentiate from genuine reflexions that can also be found in this blog).

Also, we must always be wary of those brandishing the sword of censorship on works and words, short of barbarically burning these outright...

In the case of our modern world, many things may be said and done and we will know only after a period of time whether these were right or not - when we have hindsight on the matter (the abortion and stem cell debates to name only two). This is generally (and I would be loathe to state any rules here) the matter with educated research and ideas that have had not had enough time to age and mature.

My "attack" in the Freedom article was to point out that many un-productive rash statements have been made in the past that exarcebated the situations of the time. With reference once again to the cartoon affair, whether the people of Denmark had a disliking for the Islamic world or not is not the point - but in publishing the cartoons however the paper self-designated the country as an "enemy" to that world, and with its ties to Europe just shoved a fair deal of the hopes for intelligent discussion down the drainpipe for a while, whilst the media focused on the scandal and outrage that had been provoked.

I hear over the BBC that a debate is raging over whether the poor taste of some rapper in France is sanctionable under the idea that it is an abuse of freedom of speech. The defense argues that "it is art", which is another sour pill to swallow - that anything undefendable may be defended as "artistic expression". I would cuss and curse at this point, but this blog should remain repectable to an extent so I won't. Whether the rapper should be sanctioned is another matter and I do not wish to express my opinion at this point as I think this entry is possibly long enough already...

So no, Mr Curren, my opinion is not shared with you I am quite afraid. I myself would like not to be so frequently accosted by Jehova's Witensses, but I will take no steps in chasing them off the street other than myself avoiding them, along with many others, in the hope that they will, by themselves, see that they are wasting their own time in attempting to convince and convert us.

Response to 'From Welfare to Warfare'

As initiator of this blog, and as a feminist, I must say this essay comes as a shock, although I was aware of its arrival on Boboquiche, and accepted to it. But reading it once more, and reading the previous post as a reflection on the use of freedom (individualy and collectively-sometimes opposed), I feel that there are some interesting problems linked to posting satirical essays on firy topics, such as women and warfare.

This essay is, first of all, a satire, and I believe the authors wrote it as a response to vocabulary often found in feminist essays which consist in using battle-related vocabulary to talk about the emancipation of women in a male dominated world. In this sense, it is a very smart response, one that takes into account the 'battle of the sexes' and that brings to an absurd logical conclusion the wish of women to rule over the world in a particular 'feminine' way.
But, in many respects it urks my sensibility (purposefully) as it bases its assumptions on the fact that war is a necessity, and that women have the desire to fully be a part of it. Both assumptions which I do not agree with.

Therefore, my warning to anyone who is going to read this post is simply to take it with a grain of salt, and take it for what it is: a satirical response to a certain branch of feminism, written by two smart, yet perhaps a little bit sex deprived male students...

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En tant qu'initiatrice de ce blog, et en tant que feministe, je dois dire que l'article qui vient d'être posté me choque, bien que j'étais consciente de son imminente arrivée sur le blog. Mais en le relisant, et en relisant l'article précedant sur l'utilisation de sa liberté de manière responsable, il me semble que certaines problématiques intéressantes apparaissent concernant l'écriture et la publication d'articles sur des thèmes aussi brûlants que la relation entre la guerre et les femmes.
Il faut clairement assurer, tout d'abord, que cet article est une satire.
Les auteurs ont écrit cet article satirique en réponse à certains essais féministes qui tendent à utiliser un vocabulaire guerrier pour parler de l'émancipation des femmes dans un monde dominé par les hommes. En ce sens, l'article est une réponse futée, qui prend l'expression 'guerre des sexes' au sens littéral et qui poursuit, dans une logique absurde, la métaphore guerrière de l'émancipation et de la libération des femmes.
Cependant, cet article, malgré son intelligence coquine, touche à ma sensibilité.
Il se base en effet sur des réalités que je dénie et que je rejette: que le monde doit inévitablement être en guerre, et que les femmes veulent en faire activement partie.

Donc, je veux juste clairement assurer que les personnes lisant cet article devraient le prendre au second degré, et le prendre pour ce que c'est: un article satirique en réponse à un certain courant féministe, écrit par deux étudiants intelligents, ayant peu-être besoin d'un petit peu plus de relations sexuelles dans leurs vies...

Note: Je ne suis pas sûre d'être en mesure, ou même d'avoir l'envie de traduire cet article, donc il se pourrait bien qu'il reste en langue originale.

Freedom: the other end of the deal

I would like to forwarn any reader of this article that it is by no means a study, or text of any authority, but simply a reflexion on a topic that I am adamant about. Some sections may involve a bit of sarcasm and subjectivity on my behalf but I do hope the essential content remains fairly objective.

Every time I hear on the radio or on TV, or read on the internet, the word "freedom", my ears and eyes stand alert, and I stop whatever I am doing; for each time, I feel something akin to shivers of anger crawling in my limbs as I listen to, or read the words of, the discourse promoting "my freedom to" and "we do it for freedom" et caetera et caetera.

It seems that the noble word has fallen into profound misuse, and as a justification of anything one may do, whether lawful, marginally so, or not at all. A quote that spreads like wildfire around internet profiles runs thus:

"Je désapprouve ce que vous dites, mais je défendrai jusqu'à la mort votre droit de le dire."

Translated, it gives

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

(The quote itself is attributed to Voltaire, but I find no sources on the internet citing the source of the quote itself...)

Granted, without freedom of speech, we would probably end up in a fairly ignorant state (or State for that matter, however you wish to read it) and not be as advanced as we pertain to be.

However, I single it out as a potentially damaging quote when not examined carefully enough - as is indeed often the case.

If by freedom of speech we mean the right to make reasonable statements, with as much due care as applicable to the situation (I would not expect a fully thought out phrase from an interviewee for example, but a speech or an article of authority should certainly not go unchecked), fair enough. But if by freedom of speech we mean the right to also indulge in stupidities passed on as truths, slander, lies and outright insult - to persons or a community, regardless - then I would want it not.

It seems however that, in many a mind, such is how the expression is understood.

A far less quoted text, possibly and sadly due to its verbosity, is that of Rousseau, in his essay on the Social Contract:

En effet, chaque individu peut, comme homme, avoir une volonté particulière contraire ou dissemblable à la volonté générale qu'il a comme citoyen; son intérêt particulier peut lui parler tout autrement que l'intérêt commun; son existence absolue, et naturellement indépendante, peut lui faire envisager ce qu'il doit à la cause commune comme une contribution gratuite, dont la perte sera moins nuisible aux autres que le payement ne sera onéreux pour lui; et regardant la personne morale qui constitue l'État comme un être de raison, parce que ce n'est pas un homme, il jouirait des droits du citoyen sans vouloir remplir les devoirs du sujet; injustice dont le progrès causerait la ruine du corps politique.

You won't find that in profile "favorite quotes"...

If I were to translate by snippets, I could (I think!) propose that it boils down to the following:

Each individual [...] may have a particular wish, contrary or dissimilar to the general wish that he has as a citizen; [...] and seeing the moral person that is the State as a being of reason, because it is not a man, he would be granted the rights of the citizen, without wishing to fulfill his duties as a subject; [...]

Or, in layman's terms, each individual could consider that between choosing to fulfill his own desires because he has the right to do so, or accomplishing his duties as a responsible citizen, and would choose the former option as it is easier and more pleasing (pardon the translations/interpretations, but French philosophers do not always write for the common man to understand at a glance).

In essence, the quote is pinpointing the two crucial aspects of being a citizen in a free country (a.k.a. "being free"): whilst we have our rights, which we may enjoy at full leisure, we also have our duties, which are not to be disregarded, and are in place not to hinder our pleasure for the sole sake of doing so, but to prevent us from hindering, through selfishness, each others pleasures. The text continues:

[...] quiconque refusera d'obéir à la volonté générale, y sera contraint par tout le corps; ce qui ne signifie autre chose sinon qu'on le forcera à être libre [...]

this being, to the best of my abilities:

[...] whomever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to by the entire body [of society]; which means none else than that he will be forced to be free [...]

introducing an old schoolkid's literery gem of an oxymoron... What it means is that if one cannot act responsibly, they will be contrived to do so willy-nilly.

It disheartens me somewhat, to hear contemporaries of mine to be spreading the words of one quote around the world whilst ignoring the other, but it especially pains me to see it come from the pens and mouths of supposedly educated persons.

For example, in the matter of the cartoons published in the Danish newspaper (and later in the French one), depicting the Prophet Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, it was not until we were fully into the second week of debate that I heard, for the first time, the word "reponsability". Everything else was revolving around (and I do imply going round in circles getting nowhere) the right of the papers on one hand to publish the cartoons, and the right of the Muslims on the other to be respected. All about the rights, the rights, the rights, but scant hint towards any idea of responsibility or consequence, as was demonstrated by the French editor's propmt dismissal from his paper - someone forgot to tip him off the fact that France was supposed to be trying to integrate its Muslim community, not alienate it.

This is not to say that censorship should have systematically been applied - it is a tool to be wielded with great care and not the main subject of this essay, however closely linked - but to illustrate the fact that even after the action was done, and on postulations either side of the debate, and considering further that the whole business undeniably provided a beatiful catalyst to the shattering of an already fragile relation with the Muslim world, the paper's representatives did not even offer a hint of a squeak of a "maybe it could be said that we did a boo boo", and instead stubbornly invoked the Holy Right to Insult in the name of Freedom of Speech. We then received reports of Muslims burning Danish flags. Nemo me impune lacessit and you reap what you sow, as the sayings go.

Examples of this shunning of Responsability in the name of Right are rife, and it would be long-winded and redundant to go into the subject here, but ultimately we are only as free as we are respectful of one another, lest we allow our personal interests and egocentricity undermine our relationships with the outer world, as individuals, communities, nations and so forth.

And so, as a parallel to the first quote of the present discourse, I will simply say: Respect may only be only be gained once given. I forget where it came from.

Quelques petites indications... le but de ce blog est précisément qu"il est bilingue, donc l'idéal serait que tout le blog puisse être lu dans les deux langues. Bien sûr, si les écrivains se sentent plus comfortables dans une langue, ils écrivent dans leur langue originale, et si ils ne se sentent pas comfortable pour traduire, toute une équipe de traducteurs se fera un plaisir de traduire l'article;)
Voilà, j'éspère que je réponds à la demande!
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A few indications... the point of this blog is precisely that it is bilingual, so the ideal would be that the whole blog can be read both in English and French. Of course, if the writers are more comfortable writing in one language, they write in the language that suits them. If they don't feel comfortable translating their thoughts, a whole group of people will be happily obliging in the act of translation.
I hope this answers your query!

Language/Langage

I would like to know whether people are more inclined to seeing subsequent posts in French or in English, so as to guide mine own self through this maze and sink as many souls as I may with me.......!!!

So yeah: English or French?? [please use the comments to reply1!]

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Je souhaiterais savoir si la populace populaire voudrait voir les messages en anglais ou en francais... Je suis sur un clavier anglais, les accents ne sont pas faciles a produire............ Qui les aime les suivent....!

Bonjour / Hello, introduction

Bonjour,

Le blog Bobo Quiche voit enfin le jour!
Ais-je des explications à donner à propos du titre 'Bobo Quiche'? Non, pas vraiment. A chacun de contribuer à la définition de ce titre. Quel est l'avenir de Bobo Quiche? C'est chaque contribution qui le dira. Peut-être que ce blog n'aura rien de Bourgeois Bohême, et qu'il ne parlera pas de quiches, même si l'expression (certes insultante) qui consiste à traiter quelqu'un de quiche est hilarante, je trouve. Enfin.

Tout ce que l'on peut dire de ce blog pour l'instant c'est qu'il crée un espace de discussion en anglais et en français, pour des gens qui ont envie de partager des idées sur lesquelles ils travaillent, qu'ils ont envie d'explorer, et qu'ils sont prêts à partager. Ce blog pourra être polémique, drôle, triste, avec des points de vue radicalement opposés... tout ce qui compte c'est que le blog soit vivant! Parce que les idées vivent, et tout le monde en a de bonnes de temps en temps, d'où des blogs comme celui-ci pour les receuillir.
Sur ce, longue vie au Bobo Quiche Blog!

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Hello!

This first post is to officially announce the birth of the Bobo Quiche blog!
Should I give explanations about the title 'Bobo Quiche'? Not really. Each one who will be contributing to the blog will contribute in defining its title. What is the future of Bobo Quiche? Each post will help figure it out. Maybe this blog will have nothing to do with Bourgeois Bohemians ( that is what the term 'Bobo' in French means, referring to a hipster branch of cocktail liberals), and maybe it won't talk about quiches, even though the french expression, although highly offensive of calling someone a quiche, is hilarious in my opinion. Anyway.

Right now, all we can say about this blog is that it is a space for discussion in English and in French, for people who want to share ideas that they are working on, that they want to explore, and that they are willing to share. This blog could become polemic, funny, sad, with radically differing points of view... all that really counts is that the blog stays alive! Because ideas live, and everyone has good ones every once in a while, and that's why blogs like this one exist.
So, no more to say except Long life to the Bobo Quiche Blog!