it always does amaze
or perhaps i should say hurriedly knowing
winking sighing but knowing oh knowing we ought to know
yet it always does amaze
it always amazes me when faculty
running and jumping breathlessly ask
why we might need freedom or
rights
it always does
amaze
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Hear, hear, friend!
The other day, I was talking with an older colleague who specializes in Holocaust Studies.
“Why are people so terrified to speak their mind?” she asked me. “What would it be like if we were in Nazi Germany? Right now, people don’t even have much to fear but they act so terrified. Why?”
I honestly have no idea.
I love this blog and its multilingual air. Language has always been a great and mesmerizing mystery to me. As if people treated me to enter their world without being noticed and so much so that I am able to taste and entertain their thoughts, wishes, inner musics and, why not, fears as well.
Last night I laughed alone in my office after talking to my dad about a book that I am reading: “Le cheval blue de ma folie” by Ian Gibson. The book is about Garcia-Lorca’s life journey through his poetry and painful experience of feeling different in the way(s) he could love…..
‘ Mon premier verse
la petite aux tresses
qui regardait en face,
est-il en toi,
nuit noire..”
It turns out that “la petite aux tresses” who inspired Federico’s verse was a 14 yrs old blond blue eyes girl, excellent pianist for her age, from Almódovar del Río (Córdoba-Spain). I was excited because my dad is from that town and I was curious to know if he knew her family. So, I called him and said: “Dad, it seems as if Lorca was very much in love with her” and my dad responded: “That’s impossible!. He was seeing somebody else in her because Lorca was gay”!.
Wow, my dad used the English word “gay” and I was so pleased !. He never spoke any other language than his native one and yet, at 87 yo, he had incorporated the concept of “feeling different” in a different language !. Wow, I smiled ’cause I did not want him to feel intimidated about using English words……but later on I laughed…. Whenever I tell him that a friend is coming, he usually asks: Does he/she speak like us?…. meaning his language…. obviously he is a talker and he wants to communicate….
Well, next time I will respond: “Dad, I think that you speak like them”.
That is, in essence, part of a language’s mystery.
Hi Beatrice and thank you! You know, most everyone says “gay” now in Spanish and Portuguese … I guess it doesn’t work as well in French. I’ve read some of Ian Gibson’s work too, but I don’t think that title has been used in the English versions … it’s interesting. So, your parents were civil war refugees and you grew up in France? I would love to go to Córdoba again, and its pueblos. Felicidades…
Hi Z,
Thanks. Yes, I grew up in Lyon but we (+SO) go back to Andalucia every year. Yes, I know that the word “gay” has been incorporated virtually to every language. However, I had not heard senior people using it. So, it was funny and nice to hear it in that context.
Yes, if you have a chance to go back to Spain you should do la Ruta de los Pueblos Blancos. It is really nice and people are very warm, particularly with foreigners. You’ll feel very much at home.
Yes. Like all dogs, we must serve our masters.
Clarissa – because they fear losing the things they have, including their illusions.
Hattie – great post by you:
“…mainstream liberals always sniff out the Zeitgeist and go along with whatever capitalists and warmongers tell them is good and true. These are the people who think Nader is at fault for Bush’s takeover and who look down on Chomsky. And they love our increasingly privatized military, too.
The real power players did not mind what Murdoch and his clowns did until it became clear that Murdoch had the goods on them and could have destroyed their reputations. With Murdoch out, whatever power the press has will be done. Education is finished, as the University of Phoenix rises and charter schools spring up everywhere. Soon no one will learn anything but how to get along in the corporate oligarchy, producing, consuming, and worshipping their capitalist masters. Privatization proceeds apace in every aspect of American life, with the consent of the public, who want to live quiet, safe lives of subsistence off the proverbial crumbs from the rich man’s table. Rich crumbs for some, but crumbs nonetheless as long as they have little or no power over events.”
@Beatrice – shockingly, I haven’t been to Al-Andalus since the 70s. I’d move there in a second, though, if I could. Just the way the earth and trees smell already make me feel good.