A kind of parasite

The wizard in Kangundo who owns a shop and likes to buy people’s toenails; the hill, somewhere in Ukambani, where things slide uphill; thirteen-year-old girls who swarm around bars like this one, selling their bodies to send money home, or to take care of their babies; the billionaire Kamba politician who was cursed for stealing money, and whose balls swell up whenever he visits his constituency; a strange insect in Turkana that climbs up your warm urine as you piss, and does thorny unthinkable things to your urethra.

Painful things are shed like sweat. Somebody confesses that he spent time in prison in Mwea. He talks about his relief at getting out before all the springs of his body were worn out. We hear about the prison guard who got Aids, and deliberately infected many inmates with the disease before dying.

Kariuki reveals himself. We hear how he prefers to work away from his family because he can’t stand seeing his children at home without school fees; how, though he had a diploma in agriculture, he has been taking casual driving jobs for ten years. We hear how worthless his coffee farm has become. He starts to laugh when he tells us how he lived with a woman for a year in Kibera, afraid to contact his family because he had no money to provide. The woman owned property; she fed him and kept him in liquor while he lived there. We laugh and enjoy our misfortunes, for we are real in the group, and cannot succumb to chaos today.

Kariuki’s wife found him by putting an announcement on national radio. His son had died. We are silent for a moment digesting this. Then somebody grabs Kariuki’s hand and takes him to the dance floor.

We talk and dance and talk and dance, not thinking how strange we will be to each other when the sun is up in the sky, and trees suddenly have thorns, and around us a vast horizon of possible problems will re-establish our defences.

The edges of the sky start to fray, a glowing mauve invasion. I can see shadows outside the gate, couples headed to the fields.

There is a guy lying on the grass, obviously in agony, his stomach taut as a drum. He is sweating badly. I close my eyes and see the horns of the goat that he had been eating trying to force themselves through his sweat glands. It is clear – so clear. All this time, without writing one word, I have been reading novels and watching people, and writing what I see in my head, finding shapes for reality by making them into stories. This is all I have done, forever, done it so much, so satisfyingly; I have never used a pen. Maybe – I am not just failing; maybe there is something I have that I can barter, if only for the approval of those I respect. I have lived off the certainty of others; have become a kind of parasite.

Vinyavanga Wainaina. Granta. One day I will write about this place.

Vértigo

"Reducido a la pobreza y a la humillación entre los pobres y los humillados, aparto de mi abrumada frente esta Corona imperial que el Jefe de mi Casa recogió de entre los huesos de Carlomagno y la ciño sobre la testa de su victorioso monarca a fin de que Europa, mañana por la mañana o por la tarde, no sea expuesta al vértigo, perdiendo para siempre la misteriosa cuenta de sus Emperadores...

Recuerde únicamente que se trata de una limosna y que solamente yo, entre todos los seres humanos, puedo darla. Es la limosna al obrero de la undécima hora, a la Prusia advenediza que seguía adorando a ídolos cuando todo el Occidente cristiano llevaba combatiendo siglos.

Agónico y derrotado depositario de este Signo de dominación, lo cedo gustosamente a quien ha sido señalado para sustituirme. Si mi linaje proscrito y mi hijo único me sucede un día, él sabrá recuperarla con la ayuda de Dios...

[...]

Bismarck enmudeció por completo, ensimismado y acaso en una actitud auténticamente respetuosa por primera vez en su vida.

Como si se despertase de una pesadilla, Napoleón se pasó varias veces la mano por la frente, tomó un cigarrillo de su pitillera de oro, lo encendió tranquilamente y, mirando con extremada dulzura al Canciller del futuro Imperio de Alemania, se rebajó a sentarse a su lado, sobre un banco situado en el exterior de la casa, cerca de un florido huerto de patatas sobre el que una alegre alondra concluía su canción de las Galias.

Léon Bloy, Cuentos de guerra.

Sudor de sangre

Al despertarme, las dos primeras sensaciones fueron de frío y sed, y en grado tan intenso que no pude por menos que lanzar un quejido.

Inmediatamente algunas voces débiles, inarticuladas como la mía, respondieron en la oscuridad. Vi entonces, aquí y allá, algunas manchas negras tendidas en el suelo, muy próximas a mí, y mirando con atención pude observar otras más lejanas, aún más distantes, hasta casi hacerse invisibles. Eran los moribundos y los muertos. Y entonces, como si hubiera dado la señal de los lamentos, de toda la llanura me llegaron estertores, sollozos y suspiros...

Éramos quizá dos mil los que esperábamos que vinieran a socorrernos o a enterrarnos. Una desesperación desmedida se apoderó de mi.

Pienso, Señor, que hay que pasar por eso para atreverse a hablar de la miseria de este mundo. Esto sin embargo, como verá, es sólo el comienzo.

Léon Bloy, Cuentos de guerra (Sueur du sang).

Un bell rosari de sang

Veyent acostar les flames
també reculà Dacià
la tanca dins d'una tina
que té sagetes per claus
tot encerclada de glavis
y gavinets de dos talls.

Baixada de Santa Eulàlia
tu la veres redolar
d'un abisme a un altre abisme
per aquells rostos avall
deixant un rastre en les herbes
un bell rosari de sanch.

Jacint Verdaguer.

The universe is only information

Kelly: According to your book, information underpins everything.

James Gleick: Modern physics has begun to think of the bit—this binary choice—as the ultimate fundamental particle. John Wheeler summarized the idea as “it-from-bit.” By that he meant that the basis of the physical universe—the “it” of an atom or subatomic particle—is not matter, nor energy, but a bit of information.

Kelly: That sounds almost spiritual—that the material world is really immaterial.

Gleick: I know it sounds magical, but it needs to be understood properly. Information has a material basis. It has to be carried by something.

Kelly: The extreme view would be that all these bits that make up atoms are running on a very big computer called the universe, an idea first espoused by Babbage.

Gleick: That makes sense as long as this metaphor does not diminish our sense of what the universe is but expands our sense of what a computer is.

Kelly: But as you note, some scientists say that this is not a metaphor: The universe we know is only information.

Gleick: I’m not a physicist, but that concept resonates with something that we all recognize: Information is the thing that we care most about. The more we understand the role that information plays in our world, the more skillful citizens we will be.

Kevin Kelly, Wired. Why the basis of the Universe isn't matter or energy - it's data.

Bradford

The Yorkshire ripper was from Bradford. The prostitutes who came down to London on the train on 'cheap-day return' tickets were from bradford. At a time when de game of soccer was threatened by so many troubles, Bradford seemed to have troubles of the most extreme kind. Days after the deaths in Brussels at the Heysel stadium, forty-seven Bradford football supporters were killed in one of the worst fires in the history of the sport. Eighteen months later, there was yet another fire, and a match stopped because of crowd violence.
[...]

It was everything I imagined a Bradford working-class community would be like, except that there was one difference. Everyone I'd seen since I arrived was Pakistani. I had yet to see a white face.
[...]

That evening, Jane –the friend I was staying with– and I decided to go put. we walked down the hill and into the centre of the town. It looked like many other town centres in Britain. The subways under the rundabouts stank of urine; graffiti defaced them and lakes of rainwater gathered at the bottom of the stairs. There was a massive shopping centre with unnatural lighting; some kids were rollerskating through it, pursued by three pink-faced security guards in paramilitary outfits. The shops were also the same: Rymans, Smiths, Dixons, the National Westminster Bank. I hadn't become accustomed to Bradford and found myself making simple comparisons with London. The clothes people wore were shabby and old; they looked as if they'd been bought in jumble sales or second-hand shops. And their faces had an unhealthy aspect: some were malnourished.

As we crossed the city, I could see that some parts looked old-fashioned. They reminded me of my English grandfather and the Britain of my childhood: pigeon keeping, greyhound racing, roast beef eating and pianos in pubs. Outside the centre, there were shops you'd rarely see in London now: drapers, ironmongers, fish and chip shops that still used newspaper wrappers, barber's shops with photographs in the window of men with Everly Brothers haircuts. And here, among all this, I also saw the Islamic Library and the Ambala Sweet Centre where you could buy spices: dhaniya, haldi, garam masala, and dhal and ladies' fingers. There wew Asian video shops where you could buy tapes of songs of Master SAjjad, Nayyara, Alamgir, Nazeen and M. Ali Shahaiky.

Hanif Kureishi, Granta. Bradford.

Sepultado en el sofá

De vez en cuando sentía el deseo de irse a algún sitio, de desaparecer por completo, e incluso un lugar oscuro y desierto le habría atraído si pudiera quedarse solo con sus pensamientos y nadie supiera dónde encontrarle. O, cuando menos, estar en su propia casa, en la terraza, con tal que no hubiese nadie allí, ni Lebdevev ni los niños, y echarse en el sofá, sepultando la cabeza en el cojín, y pasar de ese modo un día, una noche, y otro día. Había momentos en que soñaba con las montañas y, en particular, con cierto lugar que siempre le agradaba recordar, adonde siempre le había gustado ir cuando todavía vivía allí y miraba la aldea, el hilo blanco, apenas visible de la catarata allá abajo, las nubes blancas y las ruinas del viejo castillo. ¡Oh, cuánto anhelaba estar allí ahora y pensar en sólo una cosa –nada más que en esa cosa durante toda su vida, porque había bastante para pensar en ella mil años! ¡Y aquí que se olvidaran de él, que se olvidaran de él por completo! ¡Oh, eso era necesario, y hubiera sido mejor que no le hubiesen conocido en absoluto, y que todo esto no hubiera sido más que un sueño!
Fiodor Dostoyevski, El idiota.

La nueva Libia

La nueva Libia, si ha de depender de las personas que aguantan la base de la revolución, será muy parecida a una monarquía del golfo Pérsico, sin partidos políticos y sin separación entre Estado y religión, una democracia islámica, basada en el Corán y la ancestral estructura tribal, mucho más parecida a la monarquía saudí que a la república turca.

La élite tecnocrática e intelectual que forma el gobierno rebelde aspira a un Estado de derecho
capaz de integrar su economía con la europea, pero está tan metida en la dinámica bélica contra Gadafi, tan absorbida con gestionar el alzamiento, que ha dejado que los imanes le roben el terreno de la política. Gadafi nunca les permitió hablar de política. Ahora no hacen otra cosa. Los sermones de los viernes marcan las líneas de futuro. El pueblo, arrodillado, escucha y acepta.

"Hágame caso, conocemos muy bien a nuestro pueblo. Estamos todos unidos y no necesitamos
partidos políticos", dice el imán de una centenaria mezquita en el centro de Bengasi, mientras desgrana un proyecto de democracia directa, sin partidos políticos, que recuerda a la utopía que Gadafi no pudo alcanzar.

El imán nos recibió el jueves pasado después del rezo del mediodía con la condición de no revelar su nombre ni el del templo. No quiere problemas con las nuevas autoridades y aún teme a Gadafi. "Queremos que la charia sea la ley del Estado -explica-. Queremos una Constitución basada en la ley sagrada del Corán. Esto es lo correcto y así tendría que haber sido desde el principio".

Xavier Mas de Xaxàs, La Vanguardia. Arabia Saudí y no Turquía.

La història

HISTÒRIA
Aquí és un home.
Aquí és un cadàver.
Aquí és una estàtua.
[...]

RÈQUIEM
Tenen un wàter
d'aquells tan empipadors:
a la que vas una mica clar,
hi queda la merda enganxada.
[...]

MONUMENT
Consisteix a esculpir
l'interior d'un forat
monumental de manera
que el buit afecti la
forma d'una estàtua.

Propiedad particular.
Prohibido el paso.


Joan Brossa, El Saltamartí.

The Austrian cyborg

Sitting at Johnson’s conference table at City Hall beside Tower Bridge, where Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to a photo op riding a “Boris Bike”—the mayor’s environmentally friendly solution to auto exhaust in London—he needles the famously rumpled Johnson about his unruly mop of hair.
Schwarzenegger informs the mayor that his traveling aide “was insisting you don’t wear product in your hair; I say you do. Who is right?”

“What do you mean, ‘product’ ” Johnson demands in a plummy voice.

When Schwarzenegger explains, the mayor confides: “I used shampoo. I use the one that advertises on Desperate Housewives, where the woman is in the shower.”

Although the two have not previously met, they share a history. In October 2007, the governor was waiting to address a Tory party conference in Blackpool by satellite while then-mayoral candidate Johnson was onstage speaking. Schwarzenegger didn’t know his microphone was hot when he whispered that “this guy is fumbling all over the place.” After the press had a field day, Johnson noted that his oratorical style had been denounced “by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.”

“Our most famous encounter so far,” Johnson reminds Schwarzenegger, who replies: “Sorry about that. And I also heard about the comment you made about the Austrian cyborg.”
“I tried to get the ball back over the net. I had to say something.”

Schwarzenegger meets with the 44-year-old Cameron at the prime minister’s office in the House of Commons. They have been friendly since 2005, when New Labour was in power and Cameron was the freshly elected Tory leader.

“Governor! Governor!” the prime minister shouts, bounding into the room like an excited pup. Already that day he’s met with Peres and Gorbachev.

Gorbachev “is a terrific guy,” Schwarzenegger says. “He is so full of energy. I wish he could speak English, but just the Russian sounds great.”

“How do you think we’re getting on in Libya?” Cameron asks. “This was a tough call.”
“It’s terrific,” Schwarzenegger answers.

When Cameron announces that he’s off to Buckingham Palace for his weekly session with the queen, Schwarzenegger says, “Tell her I said hi.”

Lloyd Grove, Newsweek. Arnold's wild road trip.