Quand Elle Surgit

 

P.S. Song 'La Lune' from L'Impératrice: here.

P.P.S. Source picture from Miguel Claro: here.

Imagine

The story is neither from Bill Gates nor from Elon Musk according to fact checkers: here. Nevertheless, the thoughts make me contemplate. What kind of children do we want? What do we expect from them? What is the storytelling (source)?

“In conclusion, when I say my daughter is not going to marry a poor man, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about this man’s ability to create wealth.”
“Example, someone who wins the lottery or gambling. Even winning 100 million is not a rich man: he’s a poor man with a lot of money, that’s why 90 per cent of lottery millionaires go back to being poor after five years.
“If you see a young man who thinks the problem is the state, and thinks the rich are all thieves and constantly criticize, know that he is a poor man.
“Wealth is first a state of mind my friend.”

So it's a story (one of many) about having money, being rich, being poor, constantly criticize everyone and everything and the ability to create wealth. 

It's an echo of the metaphor in the Bible (Matthew 25: 14-30) of the man who gave talents to three of his servants and what they did with it. The "good" ones would become "ruler over many things" and "enter the joy of thy lord". And the "bad" one? He would be "cast into outer darkness" and weep and gnash his teeth.

Imagine there is no God. Imagine that we are only accountable to all other 'homo sapiens'.

P.S. More background and other sources in the Bible about the 'Parable of the Talents': wikipedia. 

P.S.S. Drawing: Rembrandt, 'The Parable of the Talents' (around 1652).

Follow

 But I didn't ... - you know all too well.

P.S. Poem 'Whale-watching' from Constantinos Papageorgiou: here.

Romantic Bubble

For me this is a perfect picture. A beautiful and smart woman #sophia #1964 at work. Reading and writing with a cup of tea and a cigarette. The smells and sounds of the garden through the open window. Toy cars. Windows in need of painting. Perfect. What else?

And then suddenly I see a hand at the bottom right. It's a captured photo! A composition! Constructed romantic and not a writer, poet or translator casually at work. A romantic dream on a beautiful summer's day ... burst like a soap bubble.

La Casa del Tempo Ritrovato

I could live in a restored barn like this. Spacious but not too much. Windows with a view! A big table. Light ... a lot of light. A nice retreat to read and write in. What else when you are there with me?

P.S. This barn is from La Casa del Tempo Ritrovato, lake Garda, Italy. Tripadvisor: here.

P.P.S All pictures are from La Case, except the last one that is from artist Gi Bernulia.

Oh how we have longed #InBetween

 In between (1)

In between (2)

In between (3) "Somewhere in between, What the song and silence say."

Celery Salt

 A joy for the eye, the nose and our tongues.

Disfruto Acariciarte y Ponerte a Dormir

 Song 'Disfruto' from Carla Morrison: here. Beautiful and sentimental for me.

P.S. Source lyrics: musixmatch. Translation into English made by Google Translate.

2.P.S. Church with a view:

Orange Cars in The Netherlands

How the West was won and you nevertheless end up (temporarily?) with Trump? We'd better ask: how did we visualize data the past 500 years? Michael Friendly distinguishes the following eight milestones:

'High-D Vis'? This is 1975–present: High-D data visualization. Friendly about this milestone (quote page 34-35; bold by JD):

"It is harder to provide a succinct overview of the most recent developments in data visualization, because they are so varied, have occurred at an accelerated pace, and across a wider range of disciplines. It is also more difficult to highlight the most significant developments (and because we have focused on the earlier history), so there are presently areas and events unrepresented here.
With this disclaimer, a few major themes stand out:
• the development of a variety of highly interactive computer systems and more importantly,
• new paradigms of direct manipulation for visual data analysis (linking, brushing, selection, focusing, etc.)
• new methods for visualizing high-dimensional data (grand tour, scatterplot matrix, parallel coordinates plot, etc.);
• the invention of new graphical techniques for discrete and categorical data (four-fold display, sieve diagram, mosaic plot, etc.), and analogous extensions of older ones (diagnostic plots for generalized linear models, mosaic matrices, etc.) and,
• the application of visualization methods to an ever-expanding array of substantive problems and data structures.
These developments in visualization methods and techniques arguably depended on advances in theoretical and technological infrastructure. Some of these are: (a) large-scale software engineering; (b) extensions of classical linear statistical modeling to wider domains; (c) vastly increased computer processing speed and capacity, allowing computationally intensive methods and access to massive data problems.
In turn, the combination of these themes and advances now provides some solutions for earlier problems."

I've no idea in which category this visualization (What colour do cars have in The Netherlands in year 2022) falls - it was already used by the CBS in 1961 - but I think it is very strong:

Source 1: Michael Friendly, 'Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization'  (2009). Here 

Source 2: Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 'The Netherlands in numbers: infographics inspired by 36 questions'. Year 2022. Here

In Between

Probably Lonely

Answers from smartass students on test questions:

 P.S. Source: here.

Symphony in Blue

 Art from Pol Ledent (Belgian, born 1952):

 

When I Least Expect

 Two Brooke Hampton quotes I like very much (source: here; I added the color 'blue'):

P.S. Picture on the background is not from Brooke. I added the ancient Egyptian goddess Nut because she is the mother of the sky (I wrote about her before in 7-2017 in post 'Stars That Know No Rest'). Image: an individual homo sapiens on planet Earth looking at the sky on a clear night. Everything on planet Earth takes place under her wings and body of stars. She makes the sun rise every day by giving birth to it. And she makes the sun go down by swallowing it in the evening. And at night? Then the sun travels through her body. She is the mother of everything in the sky.

Linger Into Dawn

 

P.S. Song 'You Dream' (2022) by Isobel Waller-Bridge and Tara Nome Doyle: here.

Black Fly in Your Chardonnay

Sometimes - only sometimes - I receive a response to one of my Wedneyday blogposts.  A thank you for something well written or an angle (s)he had never thought of before. But mostly a reply because my post brought up a good memory.

You are gone. Now that you are gone. Isn't it ironic that no one will ever read the most beautiful, most honest, most revealing, most horney, most close, most … - there must be more - letters that I wrote to you? Isn't it ironic ... don't you think?

P.S. Song 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette: here.

Comprehensive

For the next five (5) weeks no letter from me. Summer holiday!

My reading list for this summer:

• Kahn (revised and updated 1996) #history #cryptology
• Tavares (2012). Original title 'Aprender a rezar na Era da Técnica' (2007). #culturalcritic
• Purcell (2017) #countryhouses #books
• Fresco (2022) #history #russia

 

Something else. I loved watching these Going Dutch videos with a mix of shame, being proud, and recognition. Does your country have videos like these too?

• DUTCH humour: FUNNY or NOT? The last still is pointing at "Was sich liebt, das neckt sich." It's a saying in German. Freely translated: when you love each other then you tease each other.
  
• HOW to DEAL with the DUTCH?
  
• Culture SHOCK: a DUTCH PARTNER !?

Simplicity

  

 

P.S. Art from Julian Merrow-Smith from Bédoin (Vaucluse), France. His website: here.

Vineyard of Bliss

   

Poem 'from In the Garden of Joy' from Túbọ̀sún Ọládàpọ̀. Source: here.

Very Much

Song 'Lost Stars' from Keira Knightly:

 

"We're searching for meaning
But are we all lost stars
Trying to light up the dark?

 

Who are we?
Just a speck of dust within the galaxy
Woe is me
If we're not careful turns into reality

Don't you dare let our best memories bring you sorrow
Yesterday I saw a lion kiss a deer
Turn the page, maybe we'll find a brand new ending"

Nourishment

Oleg Vladimirovich An, 'The Grail' (2006). This work of art is on display at the Embassy of Free Mind in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Commissioned by the Ritman family.

Scene 'Joseph of Arimathea arrives in France with the Grail'. According to a Provencal legend Mary Magdalena and Joseph of Arimathea wanted to secure the holy grail, after Jesus' death, by setting sail to Marseille, France. The Grail was said to have supernatural healing power and to be an infinite source of nourishment.

Try to Build Something, Out on My Own

  

 Music: Elephant, 'Calling' (from Album 'Big Thing' 2022) here

"Well I don't mind if the money's no good
I don't mind if I'm misunderstood
Well I can't be sure that I know what it takes
But I'll take the shot and take my foot off the brakes

Sure, I'll work as hard as I can in this life
For a house, a car, a kid and a wife
But I'll try to build something, out on my own
That can't be torn down, after I'm gone

I think that I have found my calling
I tried to make it disappear
You fear it only leaves me falling
But I don't want to get away from here

Sure, I'll work as hard as I can in this life
For a house, a car, a kid and a wife
But I'll try to build something, out on my own
That can't be torn down, after I'm gone

I think that I have found my calling
I tried to make it disappear
You fear it only leaves me falling
But I don't want to get away from here

I think that I have found my calling
I tried to make it disappear
You fear it only leaves me falling
But I don't want to get away from here

I think that I have found my calling
I tried to make it disappear
You fear it only leaves me falling
But I don't want to get away from here

I think that I have found my calling
I tried to make it disappear
You fear it only leaves me falling
But I don't want to get away from here"

P.S. More lessons of elephant calling: here.

Mondscheinsonate

 A moonlight sonate 

... in music: here.

... in paintings:

 

... in a picture:

P.S. First painting: Homer, 'Sailing by Moonlight' (1880). Second painting: Kawase Hasui, 'Tsuki no Matsushima' (1919). Picture: Rui Telmo Romão, 'As noites já estão frescas, mas o céu alentejano continua limpo para nos maravilhar. Última lua cheia do Verão' (2021). 

Secret Belief

Take your time to read the quote below and put your prejudices on pause. Skip lesbian. Pause on womon and womyn. Skip the last name of the author. She claims that all individual homo sapiens of the female gender have a secret belief. The belief that she is on the edge of madness and is losing control. Almost every woman!

 

 

Question:  Why is it kept secret? Why be on guard? (Is the claim still valid after 44 years?) Please lose control! Show me your temper, appetite, sexuality, feelings, ambition, secret fantasies, and mind. I'll be in a womanlike listening and questioning mode; and not in a manlike problem solving one. And if you want I'll not even ask questions.

P.S. Source: Elana Dykewomon, 'Notes for a Magazine'. In: Sinister Wisdom. A Journal for the Lesbian Imagination in the Arts and Politics. Number 36 (Winter 1988/89), 'Surviving Psychiatric Assault & Creating Emotional Well-Being in Our Communities'. Copy: here.

Metaphysical Optimism

The past 2,500 years (rounded) of western culture summarized by Pouwel Slurink in 'Can Evolution Explain Evil?' (2020):
 

"In this sense, Darwinism puts an end to the ‘metaphysical optimism’ of Parmenides, Pythagoras, Plato, Aquinas, Leibniz, Voltaire, Hegel ... For Platonism, evil comes from a domain in which the perfection of the world has not penetrated or is not properly understood. For Christianity, it results from bad decisions. For Enlightenment thinkers, it result from bad thinking. For Darwinism, ‘evil’ is a somewhat subjective, umbrella term for the many forms of misery that organisms undergo because they are the product of a partly inherently cruel chance process."

P.S. Mount Sarmiento, Chile in the distance, and a sight of HMS Beagle. Drawing made in 1834 by Conrad Martens (1801-1878).. Source: here.

Tell Me About Tomorrow

P.S. This song from Levante can be found: here. The source of the picture: here.