Daily Archives: March 16, 2011

Democracy: Leonard Cohen



Democracy, by Leonard Cohen

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the decay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on …

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_(song)

The Future: Leonard Cohen


The Future, by Leonard Cohen

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every other living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant.

You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I was the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s RIDING crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide …

There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and a white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’.

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide …

When they said REPENT REPENT …

Mircea Eliade: Born March 13, 1907: The Eternal Return


Mircea Eliade (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a eliˈade]; March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.[1] One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them. In academia, the Eternal Return has become one of the most widely accepted ways of understanding the purpose of myth and ritual.[1]

His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi (“La Nuit Bengali” or “Bengal Nights”), Noaptea de Sânziene (“The Forbidden Forest”), Isabel şi apele diavolului (“Isabel and the Devil’s Waters”) and the Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent, the novellas Domnişoara Christina (“Miss Christina”) and Tinereţe fără tinereţe (“Youth Without Youth“), and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger (“The Secret of Dr. Honigberger”) and La Ţigănci (“With the Gypsy Girls”).

Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society Criterion. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization. His political involvement at the time, as well as his other far right connections, were the frequent topic of criticism after World War II.

Remarked for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy. Read More About Mircea Eliade from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mircea+Eliade

Comment:

Comment: Humans live our life in a memorable state, from the duration. It is no wonder that we have inherited so many “things”, from the past, that we value symbols, that have become part of the common mind and civilization. From the beginning of time we realized that things are meant to change, that some change is good, that other change is not. For sure one change that we consider always, man and woman, is the change of time, and the marks that the change of seasons leave upon our beings. There comes a time in everyone’s life to try and understand the place they have evolved from, the ancestry, to better understand toward which future we’re moving. The variety of sounds and signs, gestures, that define us, while in such variety, had to be very simple when our life began, the interjection before it became any word at all. From those early times, to the ever flowing growth and change in the numerous languages we have been indulging now, we’re still trying to keep track of communalities, of a mainstream, of the music and the few gestures that say it all. When we read something, we are face to face with a ocean of ideas: the brain start working on its own experiences, and may be fill voids, or build bridges toward personal past experiences, thoughts, yet still…ideas. Now, even if one knows a language very well, there is so much more meaning to words, than the interface, and so much is lost in translation, but we continue the quest for truth, because I think that above all finding the truth is the ultimate goal of our journey: the Philosophical Stone polished by truth, into perfection, made of the essence of our being, the volatile stone of existence, the Rock, the fundament of All there is.

Today’s Birthday: Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas (1925)


Co-inventor Luis E. Miramontes's signed labora...

Image via Wikipedia

Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas (1925)

Miramontes was a Mexican chemist whose extensive scientific contributions include numerous publications and nearly 40 national and international patents in different areas, including organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, petrochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, and polluting agents. However, Miramontes is best remembered for his synthesis, in 1951, of norethindrone, a progestational hormone.  
More…  
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Luis+E.+Miramontes