Cita del dia

Vergonya

2006-11-08T11:02:00.000+01:00

Fins ara, hi havia hagut, sobretot, la vergonya pels altres -que, ben mirat, de vergonya, no n'era i, en la mateixa mesura, tampoc no era pels altres, sinó que ell la vivia com a vergonya-, quan, de fet, era recriminació als altres, una queixa que no es podia dir en veu alta, que no sabia dir, que no gosava dir, perquè li feia por la reacció del món, i ho manifestava posant-se vermell, tremolant de cames, pixant furiosament. No n'era, de vergonya, sinó que era una violència contra si mateix que no era capaç de descarregar damunt els que transgredien les normes que ell s'autoimposava fanàticament, fins a l'extrem d'ofegar uns sentiments que, deixats al seu lliure albir, l'haurien menat a violar totes les normes; i alhora que ho menystenia, envejava el deseiximent de qui sabia parlar sense embuts, amb llengua esmolada.

"El metall impur", J. de Jòdar

Paternitat

2006-10-18T17:05:00.000+02:00

L'àlbum de la felicitat es pot omplir amb cromos de gestos casuals. Capturats, per exemple, a quaranta per hora. L'escena va tenir lloc fa cosa d'un mes. Jo anava cap a la feina amb moto pel passeig de Colom. Deurien passar cinc o deu minuts de les set del matí. En passar pel costat del Govern Militar -just abans de tombar a la dreta per enfilar la Rambla- vaig veure un home jove mig ajupit mig assegut en un relleu de la part baixa de l'edifici. Diria que era l'escriptor Alfred Bosch però com que l'escena la vaig contemplar amb la moto en marxa no puc afirmar-ho amb convicció (i, d'altra banda, la identitat concreta de la persona no afecta gaire el que diré). Damunt dels genolls de l'home repenjava el cap un nen de 6 o 7 anys mig endormiscat amb un gest de lliurament absolut. Deurien esperar l'autobús escolar o potser un autocar que s'emportava el minyó uns dies a colònies. Com en una moderna Pietá el pare acariciava lentament el cap del fill tot confegint de manera involuntària una preciosa al·legoria de la paternitat. Una gota de felicitat fugaç i irrepetible enmig de la gran ciutat.

"Cromos de felicitat", Totxanes, totxos i maons, J. J. Isern

longing

2006-02-23T16:27:00.000+01:00

"There are things you don't understand," I said. "I have no intention of summoning my daughter back. I may long for her but I don't want her here. That is why it is called longing. It has to go a long way. To the ends of the earth."
To his credit, he was not deflected by this nonsense.

"Age of Iron", J. M. Coetzee

Estatut estacionari

2006-02-01T19:34:00.000+01:00

"Shit," said the Sheriff. "These guys are using taxpayers' money to test all the urine comes out of Wally Immelmann's place? You'll be telling me next they've got this satellite in statutory orbit over Wilma." He stopped and looked in horror up into the sky. "Could be reading the letters on my badge."
"I think the word is "stationary". Stationary orbit. You said "statutory orbit"."
Sheriff stallard turned his glazed eyes on his Deputy. He was beginning to feel quite mad. "Stationary, Baxter, stationary it can't be. Wilma's moving at around three thousand miles an hour. Has to because that's the speed the world goes round. Something like that. You can work it out. The world goes round once a day and the circumference is twenty-four thousand miles. So twenty-four goes into twenty-four thousand a thousand times. Work it out yourself. Well, if you've got a satellite out there squatting over Wilma... no, not squatting, let's cut the squatting. I don't want to think about that again. It's up there even further out than Wilma, and Wilma's way out enough for me the way those guys are acting, that baby has to be moving even faster just to keep up. Right?" Baxter nodded. "Good. So when I said "statutory" I mean "satutory". This operation has to be costing millions. So it's got to be statutory. Washington's approval. And who's been talking about cutting the Federal deficit?"

"Wilt in Nowhere", Tom Sharpe

Filosofia

2006-01-30T19:37:00.000+01:00

By the time he'd swigged several more times from the bottle he was feeling almost philosophical.
"Wilt in Nowhere", Tom Sharpe

Ciberjoc

2006-01-16T19:27:00.000+01:00

El món del ciberjoc ha crescut exponencialment en cinc anys. Actualment, hi ha unes 50 empreses multinacionals que operen des de paradisos fiscals, sobretot caribenys. Els seus efectes són devastadors, malgrat els esforços d'algunes associacions. L'addicció dels ciberjocs és molt superior als jocs "reals" per la disponibilitat absoluta i la manca de sistemes de control. El resultat són guanys milionaris basats en l'expoli de les economies familiars.

"Ludopaties", de bat a bat, Juan Antonio Donaire

Beaten

2006-01-05T14:45:00.000+01:00

The wind is our friend, anyway, he thought. Then he added, sometimes. And the great sea with our friends and our enemies. And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was.
"The old man and the sea", Ernest Hemingway

Gödel

2006-01-05T14:36:00.000+01:00

Un genial investigador llamado Kurt Gödel logró demostrar en 1932 la imposibilidad de unas matemáticas desprovistas de contradicción. Con ello desmontó de una vez por todas una convicción hondamente arraigada en los matemáticos, quienes desde entonces se ven obligados a aceptar que les resulta imposible zafarse de la inconsecuencia.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Mediació

2005-12-28T22:11:00.000+01:00

Toda mediación presupone que los bandos implicados manifiesten la voluntad y tengan la capacidad necesarias para alcanzar la paz. Pero, por lo general, las facciones contendientes prefieren proseguir la lucha hasta la autodestrucción.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Cultura i violència

2005-12-27T18:09:00.000+01:00

Bienaventurado aquel que llegara a convencerse de que la cultura es capaz de proteger a una sociedad frente a la violencia.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Població civil innocent

2005-12-23T19:39:00.000+01:00

Pero no siempre ha sido así. La "población civil inocente" que permanecía en los śotaneos mientras las bombas de fósforo convertían la ciudad en un mar de llamas había sufrido una profunda transformación. Porque se muy bien cómo habían brillado sus ojos cada vez que hablaba el Führer, quien no les ocultaba sus intenciones -un "combate gigantesco, jamas visto", la lucha decisiva y el empleo de todos los medios-, y cómo pocos años antes habían presenciado la quema de las sinagogas. Sin la entusiasta connivencia de dicha población, los nazia jamás habrían logrado conquistar el poder.

Pero ojo: todo aquel que piensa que esto sólo es aplicable a los alemanes, es un idiota.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Money

2005-12-22T20:06:00.000+01:00

It's funny how fast you can think when it means that much money.
"Fifty grand", Ernest Hemingway

Cos i aroma

2005-12-20T20:00:00.000+01:00

Juraria que el secret de la planta no és la seva fortor. Com més em miro els cafetars, i el món en general, jo diria que la clau es troba en el cos i en l'aroma.
"Les set aromes del món", Alfred Bosch

Explicacions simplistes

2005-12-10T13:20:00.000+01:00

En esta situación surge la tentación de encontrar explicaciones lo más simples posible a lo que parece tan difícilmente explicable. A nadie sorprenderá que tanto políticos como editoriealistas prefieran las interpretaciones más simplistas entre todas las disponibles. Con ello no hacen sino seguir los esquemas tradicionales de los partidos. Quien pretenda describir los esfuerzos de éstos, no tendrá que extenderse demasiado.
Los oradores conservadores evocan sin cesar un imaginario ancien régime en el que supuestamente habrían imperado las buenas costumbres y la decencia, la ley y el orden. Las causas de la perdición del mundo las creen ver en los movimientos emancipadores de los dos últimos siglos y en la decadencia de la autoridad ancestral. Suponen, igualmente, que la salvación debe buscarse en la reimplantación de aquellas virtudes que tienen sus raíces en las sociedades estamentales de cuño patriarcal. Pero, comprensiblemente, no dan detalles de cómo y con qué medios políticos pretenden implantar este ideario en la fase actual de la civilización tardo industrial.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Joves

2005-12-08T22:05:00.000+01:00

Los criminales son, casi sin excepción, jóvenes.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Credos

2005-12-07T10:50:00.000+01:00

A diferencia de los criminales de nuestros días, los de tiempos pasados eran personas creyentes. (...) A buen seguro el contenido ideológico del fundamentalismo islámico también sea mucho más insípido de lo que suponemos en Occidente.
"Perspectivas de guerra civil", Hans Magnus Enzensberger

The discovery of the Mississsippi

2005-12-02T13:09:00.000+01:00

To say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi River, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without interpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset by astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their scientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but you don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture of it.

The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but when one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it, he adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the American dates which is quite respectable for age.

For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less than a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at Pavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by he Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act which began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river, Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was not yet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born, but would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child; Elizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto Cellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and
each was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret of Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the first survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being sometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals
and the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and the tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who could fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion of their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full
rank and children by brevet their pastime. In fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition: the Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was roasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the continent the nations were being
persuaded to holy living by the sword and fire; in England, Henry VIII had suppressed the monasteries, burnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English reformation and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the banks of the Mississippi, it was
still two years before Luther's death; eleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St. Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was not yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must still elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.
"Life on the Mississippi", Mark Twan

Un centímetre

2005-12-01T19:32:00.000+01:00

Ningú que no hagi viscut aquí, al far, no entendrà mai l'obsessió que representa un centímetre lliure entre clau i clau o vidre i vidre.
"La pell freda", Albert Sánchez Piñol

Monstres

2005-11-30T19:18:00.000+01:00

Només puc constatar una evidència espantosa que tot ho aclapara: monstres, monstres i més monstres. Res a veure, res a jutjar, res a considerar.
"La pell freda", Albert Sánchez Piñol

Tiranies civilitzades

2005-11-29T17:24:00.000+01:00

Primer s'amenaça dos homes justos amb la foguera, acte seguit se n'allibera un i així pot simular-se una indulgència que no existeix.
"La pell freda", Albert Sánchez Piñol