I hardly knew about the existence of Christmas when I was a child. Both the 25th of December and the 7th of January were ordinary working days, with my parents, and everyone’s else parents going to work. When I would read in the newspapers an article, for example, on how Parisian streets were especially nicely lit for that year’s Christmas, I felt vaguely that the French must have been celebrating some weird quasi-medieval festival that no modern-minded person would pay slightest attention to. For me, Christmas celebrations in Western Europe were a bit like those weird customs that I would read still existed amongst the British Lords, Queens and Kings that seemed so outlandish that I was wondering how an advanced country could have such unenlightened practices. It was perhaps like a feeling that votaries of Scientology elicit among most people in the United States today.
Be it as it is, have some relaxing days – off work, time for reflection on past, present and future, near and far.
It had been once upon a time, a day in April. Admittedly the news sounded strange. But thinking so, it had been also clear that Ireland, the small resisting Republic, apparently did have some magic drink, that made it to the model student of Europe – something one could not imagine when the country joined, being ill-reputed as part of the EUropean poor house. So, there had been good reasons to think “Europe is good for us”, and then subsequently good reasons to think about “more Europe must even better for us”. So, the April news:
Ireland will join the European project even more and change the traffic rules fundamentally, introducing the right-hand traffic.
Wow, seems to be impossible … ; but they did it in the nordic countries (Sunday Sonntag, 3rd of September 1967, 5 o’clock in Sweden). The new announcement continued:
From next week, the trucks will begin, using the right side of the road – the experiment will last for month, and if it works out the next month will add to busses driving on the right side. As we expect that things will work out, after another month all other vehicle will follow.
— Amaying, isn’t it?
A BBC-comment on the occasion of the announcement of the new German government reminded me of this story, though we are now facing a kind of reversed version: looking at the “real” traffic light, we see typically one light at a time. The political traffic light will see red, yellow and green at exactly the same time.
Yes, the first of April is also in Ireland April-fools day …
Is it fair to say that Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (yes, I mean THAT Rembrandt) had been a great artist? Ever thought to buy one of the paintings ? Most likely not, not easy to get the money you would have to pay.
It is said that he did not have enough money to buy blue pigments – and indeed he did not often use it.
Still, he managed to paint these amazing pieces of art. – What would he do today?
China – you can blame it for everything … at least it is done this way. And I will shortly engage in this by posting a video, talking a bit about 10 years “Peter’s China” Anyway, I finally I read the article in the NZZ, initially hesitating to jump across the paywall. Be it as it is, surveillance – the big topic and of course in some way employing my thoughts. Indeed, even if compared with what I say a year or so ago, there are more cameras, there are these “distant temp-measures” and ……, well, finally reading the article, there is one obvious point: the author ended apparently up in one of the extreme techno hubs, where simply the technicians are keen to do everything that is possible and put every effort into making possible what is not yet possible – and for this all data have to be collected …, oh mind, next time being possibly too generous with your toilet tissue. Yes, it is often as ridicules as that. – so. what he says is not really about China – or it is much about China as the Silicon Valley is about the US.
Anyway, the article … first complaining and at some stage comfortably settling in – no key necessary .. just walk if you are who you seem or pretend to be. But there is something else that comes to my mind, when looking at the kist in front of me and when thinking about “blame the Chinese, they have broad shoulders and are many, they will carry it”.
The List, I mean the “to-do-list”, seeing the many things I wanted to do, have to so, I could not do because I am waiting for something that I need so that I can do …, something else comes to my mind: It is often said the that in China the n-word is barely used: Even if you mean NO, you do not say it. I cannot say that this is definitely not true – and one can speculate if it is because one does not want to hurt somebody else, is it a continued effect of a clandestine resistance during the various dynasties, or simply ignorance or even part of the genetic code?
Looking at the said list, seeing all things promised, I am wondering if not is possibly not the Chinese but a “nowadays-code”: ignorance due to self-centredness of the “last man”, taking it from the subtitle of Fukuyama’s book on the End of History. Seeing it this way makes sense, as the last man does not need to think about the future – end of history finally means end of time, including end of past, so that there is no future which makes the process of life rather dull and shallow: we add and define our status on Facebook etc, it is a bit like going back to the good old medieval times. And then we blame China — while we forget to ask ourselves: DO WE LIKE TO LOOSE FACE? If we do not ask this question, we lost it already and should SAY NO to continuing this way … never forget: some entered where Dante entered … and that they had to mark as status!
The following is quasi the introduction, not launching the blog, but launching the … well, it is called relaunch. A New Outlook, and a new name – what had been williamthomsponucc.wordpress.com, is now danteskaleidoscope.blog – the name stands for the content – living between Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso; but it is also a homage to a friend.
This relaunch is a somewhat joined event, taking up the Berlin-videos again, though not living there, nevertheless starting with it. What does time and what does space matter? Quantum theory would probably say something like “it is what we make out of it”.
*****
Francis Bacon, in the publication of The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral from 1597, proposed
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested : that is, some are to be read only in parts, others to be read but curiously, and some few to be read wholly with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man ;
But today the era of books seems to be past, each of us
‘s his or her own fake news, in the big
, or, while
about
with one of the friends we
‘ed (people like you and me, yes it is those
people (who) talk in society of a man being a great Actor? They do not mean by that that he feels, but that he excels in simulating, though he feels nothing a part much more difficult than that of the actor; for the man of the world has to find dialogue besides, and to fulfil two functions, the poet’s and the actor’s. The poet on the stage may be more clever than the actor of private life, but is it to be believed that an actor on the stage can be deeper, cleverer in feigning joy, sadness, sensibility, admiration, hate, tenderness, than an olD courtier ?
This is from Diderot at the end of his piece on the paradox of acting — yes, and I am sure you meet real actors there too, perhaps you know them from TV or the stage of a concert hall, or from behind the canvas of a painting in a gallery or museum …
… so with all those friends or the colleagues we are
we are sitting there, perhaps over a cup of
or we are sending via
(no time for long letters, it is all about
… fast, fast) the news to the
, perhaps adding some nicety from
, pressed out of the
… an endless story … if we are not caught … the famous 11th minute, falling in love
still, a nice thing to
… and sure .. , if all has to be paid for …, oh, not with money … – there is
, here the controlled financial market is better organised, not suffering from the deadly competition between, …
– well, every little bank, so many shops, petrol stations and of course banks, airlines etc … and we also pay with out time … in fact time is replaced by the heart beat as our
will tell us, and the smart
will be recording … helping those GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) to
They learned well from intense husbandry farming …
In one way or another they are fighting for their share …- Yes, all this is also about the
… and what do THEY want to share?
Well, each of them would like to have at least one fibre of the rope on which we hang ourselves. But perhaps it not as bad as it seems to be … – sure, nothing we can do on our own, as individuals. But still, there is something
It is late, indeed:
but not too late.
****
Something to be added, on the 6th of October: I stumbled upon an article in The Guardian, making me another time aware of the importance of communication, real communication I mean. – It had been an Opinion piece, written by Fiona Vera-Gray, titled Domestic violence If we’re serious about ending violence against women, we need to talk about culture. The article shows so clearly the possibly fatal consequences of faked communication – I do not means faked news, I do mean communication that remains completely shallow. I am not entirely against all those media, but thay remain difficult to use, especially as it is so simple in instrumental terms.
It is in the meantime a widely used term, possibly also a widely misunderstood one?
Wikipedia suggests on the disambiguation site the following:
Artificial intelligence is at this stage a widely used term, and of course we even agree by small-signing the dotted line of the big thing:
Occasionally I access websites, using the phone. In a blink of an eye the search history is available on the other machines. Sure, I do not have anything to hide …, and as said: I signed. But what exactly did I sign when? Recently I had been looking for a shop – I needed the address and knew that there are some branches in town, however, I did not know that this is actually a national chain. The web suggested the maps with the branches in Berlin, then the general website, and then … the question if I would allow google to use my position. hum …and at the very bottom
Consoling: the postcode is wrong. Or in more popular terms: Artificial intelligence has something humane: it is at times equally stupid.
life being quiet and well structured. Sure, the climate change: No real spring, no real summer, no real autumn, no real winter … but at least the days reasonably well structured … and nowadays?
3:00 Berlin time, getting up, checking essays …, 4:07 to 5:24; going for a walk, listening to some web-presentation …: 5: 30: back to the desk, some mails – business and “gioia di vivere”; 8 Berlin time – 14 Changsha: four hours teaching: “black boxes with names (Chinese characters) written in it”, 13:00 Berlin-Vienna time, after grabbing some lunch, ventilating communication strategies that are more appropriate than lectures and Q&A sessions, off to … ah no, online banking is better than queuing, possibly chatting with some other folks also waiting there: 14:30 Berlin-Berlin some voluntary work, doing the “shopping for a stranger”, also “offering an ear”, 15:15: some homework: fixing some board; 15:30 Berlin — all other places and times: writing down some notes for my contribution to a global webinar; 16: 00: start, one hour reasonably intense presentation and debate on the social security measures and the need …, well to develop other standards to measure their effectiveness; 17:00 Berlin … some time, somewhere: chatting with my daughter? a friend? a friend to be? 17:30 Berlin — late in ChangSha, but I still have to talk to my assistant, we arranged to meet this hour …, later some writing, perhaps some music, more likely the analysis of a recent judgment regarding the payment of social benefits in another country than that of permanent residence
11:00 Berlin – timelessness in the realm of dreams … time for it, though it will not be much time … dreaming … the “good old times when the world had been structured: trotting for 9 to the office, leaving at 5 ….”
recently ….., well, yes taking a historical perspective it had been recently I had been strolling through Rome and a touristy asked for the way – I cannot recall where he wanted to go, but it actually doesn’t matter.
“You should just walk to the Main Street and then turn right; you see the church on left side, cross the street and into the little Street, just go on for a few yards, you will come to church and turn right until you see …”
overview result from google-image search churches
I gave up this way of explaining a route – being in Rome, churches are not really useful to guide a persons way. The other day I went out for a walk in Changhsha – nobody asked me for any way. Still, I was thinking, making a route:
“Walk along the Lushan Road, it is not long walk – approximately 30 minutes. I guess after passing probably between 5 and ten universities
overview result from google-image search universities
you will pursue the huge statue. What ever you say at the end (and I said a lot in the 60s and 70s), it is with him that everything begun.”
The influential dinner party, where the 13 lads served themselves the food, each of them brought along (at least there is no kitchen and there are no waiters mentioned) is reasonably well documented – amongst others Leonardo had been witnessing and painting (Ok, that one is a bit blurred) it. Recent research revealed another meeting, the veil had been at least lifted by a Chinese Human Rights Researcher at Central South University – it may become known in the future as DD, the December dinner. The editors of this blog could take a glimpse, especially at the host’s toast. Here it is presented in a somewhat dramatised form, titled :
The plan for Sunday: visiting the “Mittelmeermonologe“, it will be performed in the Heimathafen in Neukoelln. It is about people, daring the risky way across the Mediterranean Sea, hoping for a better life in Europe.
Sunday … Wednesday I walk to therein train station, going the rest to the airport by bus. At about 4 a.m. I am in the area Brandenburger Too, US and UK embassy. For reason of completeness I have to mention the French embassy, though it is kind of hidden – the time around “Je Sui Charlie” had been the only occasion that it had been really visible. Anyway, waking there that morning I was getting aware of the number police force.
12.10. landing at Dublin. Only elders of the Irish ID and European passports can go through the automated border control. Technology … but standing there in the queue, now being “all other passports”, I get a fright, my own Mittelmeermonolog, my personal talk of the past is coming up, more or less a soliloquy.
Berufsverbote the political control of people orating in any public service, the political refusal of people who did not want to go military service, the roundups – sure, justfied in some respect but not by way of starting from the assumption everybody being terrorist, threatening everybody by holding a machine-gun against their chin …
And now, instead of opening the places, increasing closure, and closure directed again everybody – positive reading: there is no We and Them. All are We, though Them …, well, they are those who tighten control …, closing borders and trying to spread parochial thinking ….
Leaving the terminal, buying the Busticket to Maynooth, the “Hi, dear” mutates, blurs to something like “Hei deer”, thinking about the old bull defending the little empire, maintaining a war that is lost already for a long time … -A saddening welcome, a saddening reminder of the state of Europe.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 