METRO 2033

METRO 2033
DMITRY GLUKHOVSKY


Metro 2033 (Rusça: Метро 2033), Rus yazar Dmitry Glukhovsky'nin, Rusya'da 2005 yılında basılan ilk romanı. Rusya'da 2005 yılında, ABD'de 18 Mart 2010 tarihinde yayınlanana roman, Türkiye'de ise 2011 yılında çevirisi yapılarak yayınlanmıştır.

Konusu

Yıl 2033. Nükleer savaş sonrası dış dünya tamamen radyasyonla kaplı, şehirler mutasyona uğramış vahşi yaratık sürüleriyle dolu. İnsanlar dünyanın en büyük metrolarından birinde, Moskova metrosu'nda yaşam mücadelesi vermekte. Kahramanımız Artyom'un istasyonu WDNCh, diğer vahşi mutantların aksine gayet zeki olan, insanların zihinlerini okuyabilen ve onları dokunmadan öldürebilen garip mutantların, Karaderililerin tehdidi altındadır. Artyom'un üvey babası Sukhoi'nin eski dostu, cesur bir ştalker olan Hunter, Karaderililerin gizemini çözmek için tek başına, sıradan insanların adım atmaya korktuğu WDNCh istasyonunun kuzeyindeki karanlık, küflü tünellere keşfe çıkar. Eğer geri dönmezse, Polis istasyonuna gidip yardım istemesi için Artyom'a künyesini bırakır. Hunter günlerce geri dönmeyince, Artyom'un zorlu Polis yolculuğu başlar. Kitap, metro tünellerinde ve yalnızca gaz maskesiyle çıkılabilen dış dünyada, Artyom'un istasyonunu kurtarmak için çıktığı tehlikeli ve gizemli yolculuğunda sovyetlerle, nazilerle ve dış dünyanın yeni sahipleri vahşi mutantlarla verdiği mücadeleleri anlatır.Kitap okuyucuyu ters köşeye yatıran sürpriz bir sona sahiptir.



"Sergey Andreyeviç düş kırıklığıyla içini
çekti. “Şimdi sana küçük bir kuram betimleyeceğim.
Hayatına uyuyor mu, buna kendin
karar vereceksin. Tabii ben de hayatın boş
ve anlamsız olduğuna, kader diye bir şeyin
de olmadığına inanıyorum, en azından insanın
doğduğu andan itibaren bildiği,
tanıdığı belirli, net bir yazgısının olmadığına.
Demek istediğim bu değil. Ama bazen, belli
bir süre yaşadıktan sonra, nasıl söyleyeyim, o
zaman, bir an gelir ve öyle şeyler olur ki, bazı
şeyleri yapmaya ve bazı kararları almaya
mecbur olursun. Karşında hep bir seçenek
vardır, onu mu yoksa başka bir şeyi mi yapmalıyım
diye. Ve sonunda doğru kararı
aldığın zaman, sonra olacaklar artık rastlantı
değildir, daha önce yaptığın seçimin
sonucudur. Senin bundan sonraki yazgının
bununla belirlenmiş olduğunu söylemek
istemiyorum. Ama diyelim ki yeniden bir yol
ayrımındasın, o zaman bu karar artık tamamen
rastlantıyla gelmeyecektir. Tabii eğer
seçimini bilinçli yapmışsan. O zaman hayat
artık rastlantılar silsilesi değildir, aksine,
mutlaka doğrudan bağlantıları olmasa da,
her şeyin birbiriyle mantıksal bir şekilde
kenetlendiği belli bir eylemi sergileyecektir.
O zaman bu senin kaderindir. Kaderin öyle
tek başına sana geleceğini sanmıyorum,
kadere sen kendin gitmelisin. Ama eğer hayatındaki
olaylar bir eylemde yoğunlaşırsa, o
zaman bu seni çok uzaklara götürebilir. Ama
burada asıl ilginç olan, kişinin bunu bazen
hiç fark etmemesidir. Ya da olayları hep
kendi penceresinden gördüğü için, çok yanlış
yorumlaması. Yazgının yine de kendine ait
bir mantığı vardır.”
Artyom bu garip teori için önce tamamen
zırva diye düşündü ama Sergey Andreyeviç
ayrıntılara inince ve o Hunter’ın kendisine
verdiği görevi üstlenmesinden bu yana
yaşadıklarını düşününce, bakış açısının
yavaş yavaş değiştiğini hissetti.
Bugüne kadar başından geçen serüvenler,
hedefe ulaşmak için boşuna ve umutsuzca
çabaları -hatta ara sıra bunu ne için yaptığını
hiç anlamasa da- şimdi ona, karmaşık kurgulanmış
bir sistem gibi görünüyordu. Gerçi
belki biraz üst üste istif edilmişti ama son
derece iyi tasarlanmış bir yapıydı.
Artyom’un görevi kabul etmesi yola
atılmış ilk adımsa, o zaman onu takip eden
olaylar da -Rişskaya gezisi, Burbon’la
karşılaşması- diğer adımlardı. Sonra Han
karşısına çıkmıştı, oysa aslında Suharevskaya
istasyonunda kalabilirdi. Bütün bunlar
tabii başka şekilde de açıklanabilirdi.
Örneğin Han davranışıyla ilgili çok başka
nedenler göstermişti. Ama Artyom sonradan
faşistlerin eline düşmüştü. Az kalsın
asılacaktı ama beklenmedik bir rastlantıyla
aynı gün tugay Tverskaya istasyonuna
saldırmıştı. Devrimciler bir gün önce ya da
sonra gelmiş olsalardı, Artyom’un ölümü
kaçınılmazdı ve yolculuğunun da sonu
olurdu.
İnatla ve ısrarla yoluna devam etmek
istemesinin gelecekte olacak diğer olayları
etkilediği gerçek olabilir miydi? Sahiden de
kendi kararlılığı, öfkesi ve umutsuzluğu
muydu gerçeği böyle mucizevi bir şekilde
etkileyen, bir yığın, oluşum, eylem ve
düşüncelerin karmaşık bileşiminden düzenli
bir sistemi meydana getiren ve
Sergey Andreyeviç’in söylediği gibi hayatına
anlamlı bir duruş veren?
İlk bakışta bunlar ona imkânsız görünüyordu.
Ama üzerinde düşünüp kafa
yordukça... O zaman Mark’la karşılaşması
başka ne şekilde açıklanabilirdi? Ona Hansa
bölgesine girme olanağını sağlayan bu
karşılaşma rastlantı olabilir miydi? Sonra,
onu kenef temizleyicisi yapan yazgısıyla buluştuğunda,
gözü kapalı oradan kaçmış,
böylece bir imkânsızı daha gerçekleşmişti:
Nöbetçi görev noktasında durması
gerekirken ortadan yok olmuştu, onu takip
eden bile çıkmamıştı. Yani dolambaçlı bir
yan yoldan kendi yoluna mı dönmüştü? Hayatının
gidişatına yine boyun mu eğmişti,
önünde hiçbir engel olmadan kader çizgisini
ileriye doğru geliştirebilmek için gerçeği deforme
mi etmişti? Belki “düzeltti” demek
daha doğru olurdu.
Eğer bunların yanıtı evetse, bunun tek bir
anlamı vardı: Artyom hedefe ulaşmayı
gözden çıkarıp yolundan vazgeçtiği anda
kader ondan yüz çevirmiş, onu ölümden koruyan
görünmez zırh binlerce parçaya bölünmüş,
itinayla elinde tuttuğu Ariyan ipliği
kopmuş ve arsızca saldırarak gücendirdiği,
darılttığı ve hatta öfkelendirdiği gerçekle bir
başına kalmıştı. Biri kaderi tam yanıltmaya
çalışırken, üzerinde uğursuz bulutlar toplandığı
halde, hâlâ devam etmeye cesaret
edecek kadar kuş beyinliyse, o zaman hırsız
gibi yavaşça oradan kaçıp gitmek belki de
artık hiç mümkün olamazdı. Belki de bundan
hiç yara almadan, incinmeden kurtulurdu.
Ama sonra yine sıradan ve sıkıcı bir hayatı
olurdu, kendisini ilgilendiren olağanüstü,
heyecan verici, büyüleyici, farklı şeyler asla
olmazdı, hayatının eylemine ara verir ve
başaktörü yani kendisini de bir güzel toprağa
gömerdi.
Peki bu ne anlama geliyordu? Yani
Artyom’un gideceği yoldan vazgeçmeye hem
hakkı yoktu hem de zaten vazgeçmesi
mümkün değildi, öyle mi? Kaderi bu muydu?
Bir türlü inanmadığı kaderi bu muydu?
Bunun kendi kaderi olduğuna inanmamıştı,
çünkü başına gelenleri tam idrak edememişti,
yol kenarlarında önüne çıkan sembollere
bir anlam verememişti ve onun için
belirlenen yolu, farklı yönlere uzanan terk
edilmiş bir patikadaki karmaşa olarak
algılamıştı.
Yani her şeye rağmen yine de doğru
yoldaydı. Hayatında karşılaştığı olaylar ger-
çekten de insan iradesi ve mantığıyla uyum
içinde, birbiriyle ilintili bir eylem içinde
gelişmişti. Eylem düşmanlarının gözlerini
köreltmiş, dostlarının ise, ona tam
zamanında yardıma koşmaları için görmelerini
sağlamıştı. Sanki görünmeyen bir eli öyle
yönlendirmişti ki, bozulamaz olan yasalar
hamur gibi yoğrulmuş ve şekillenmişti. Ve
şayet gerçek böyleyse, o zaman eskiden
somurtkan bir suskunlukla dişlerini
gıcırdatarak cevap verdiği “Neden?” sorusu
şimdi bir anda geçersiz oluyordu. O zaman
artık, “Öngörü diye bir şey yok, dünya da
yasaları ve adaleti tanımıyor” diye eskiden
olduğu gibi itiraf etmek zorunda
kalmayacaktı.
Artyom yüksek ve kesin bir sesle “Artık
burada kalamam” diyerek yerinden
doğruldu. Kaslarının yeniden güçlenip canlandığını
hissediyordu. Yüreğinin sesine bir
kez daha kulak verdikten sonra yineledi:
“Artık burada kalamam. Gitmeliyim. Bu benim
görevim.”
Arkasına bir kere bile bakmadan rayların
üzerine atladı ve karanlığın içine daldı. Onu
kamp ateşine sürükleyen bütün korkuları
unutmuştu. Kuşkuları da artık onu terk etmiş,
yerini, doğru yolda olmanın rahatlığı ve
inancına bırakmıştı. Rotasından sapmıştı
ama şimdi nihayet yazgısının rayına girmişti.
Üzerinde koştuğu traversler, onu hiç yormadan,
adeta ayaklarının altında
kendiliğinden kayıyordu. Birkaç dakika
sonra iyice zifiri karanlığın içinde
kaybolmuştu.
Sergey Andreyeviç yeniden nargilesinden
bir nefes çekti. “Güzel bir kuram, değil mi?”
“Duyan da bu kurama senin de inandığını
zannedecek” diye Yevgeni Dimitriyevitç
mırıldandı, bir yandan kedinin kulaklarını
okşuyordu."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033

Yaprak Yakalamak

Önümüzdeki on iki ayın şans getirmesi için güz rüzgarları eserken dışarı çıkıp uçuşan yapraklardan on iki tane yakalamak ya da yakalamaya çalışmak çok önemli. Kulağa kolay gelebilir ama dönen, kıvrılan, uçuşan yaprakları havada kapmak o kadar da basit değil. Yapraklar rüzgarda coşkuyla uçuşurken bol renkli ya da güzel şekillilerinden kapma yarışı kızışarak muhteşem bir anı alabiliyor.

---feeling excited

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (English: The Luncheon on the Grass)

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (English: The Luncheon on the Grass) – originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863. The painting depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The piece is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A smaller, earlier version can be seen at the Courtauld Gallery, London.


The painting features a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men. Her body is starkly lit and she stares directly at the viewer. The two men, dressed as young dandies, seem to be engaged in conversation, ignoring the woman. In front of them, the woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. In the background a lightly clad woman bathes in a stream. Too large in comparison with the figures in the foreground, she seems to float above them. The roughly painted background lacks depth – giving the viewer the impression that the scene is not taking place outdoors, but in a studio. This impression is reinforced by the use of broad "photographic" light, which casts almost no shadows. The man on the right wears a flat hat with a tassel, of a kind normally worn indoors.

Despite the mundane subject, Manet deliberately chose a large canvas size, measuring 208 x 264 cm, normally reserved for historical, religious, and mythological subjects. The style of the painting breaks with the academic traditions of the time. He did not try to hide the brush strokes; the painting even looks unfinished in some parts of the scene. The nude is also starkly different from the smooth, flawless figures of Cabanel or Ingres.

A nude woman casually lunching with fully dressed men was an affront to audiences' sense of propriety, though Émile Zola, a contemporary of Manet's, argued that this was not uncommon in paintings found in the Louvre; he also felt that such a reaction came from viewing art differently than "analytic" painters like Manet, who use a painting's subject as a pretext to paint.

There is much that we still do not know about the painting such as when he actually began painting it, exactly how he got the idea, and how and what sort of preparation works he did. Though Manet had claimed this piece was once valued at 25,000 Francs in 1871, it actually remained in his possession until 1878 when Jules Faure, opera-singer and collector, bought it for just 2,600 Francs.

The figures of this painting are a testament to how deeply connected Manet was to Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Some assume that the landscape of the painting is meant to be Ile Saint-Oeuen, which was just up the Seine from Gennevilliers, where his family property was. Manet often used real models and people he knew as reference during his creation process. The female nude is clearly thought to be Victorine Meurent, the woman who became his favorite and frequently portrayed model, that later was the subject of Olympia. The male figure on the right was based on a combination of his two brothers, Eugène and Gustave Manet. The other man is based on his brother-in-law and Dutch sculptor named Ferdinand Leenhoff. Nancy Locke referred to this scene as Manet’s family portrait.

What many critics find shocking about this painting is the interaction, or lack thereof, between the three main subjects in the foreground and the woman bathing in the background. There are many contrasting qualities to the painting that juxtapose and distance the female nude from the other two male subjects. For example, the feminine versus the masculine, the naked versus the clothed, and the white color palette versus the dark color palette creates a clear social difference between the men and the woman. Additionally, viewers are intrigued by the questions raised by the gaze of the nude woman. It is indeterminable whether she is challenging or accepting the viewer, looking past the viewer, engaging the viewer, or even looking at the viewer at all. This encounter identifies the gaze as a figure of the painting itself, as well as the figure object of the woman’s gaze.

"Commentary of Émile Zola
The Luncheon on the Grass is the greatest work of Édouard Manet, one in which he realizes the dream of all painters: to place figures of natural grandeur in a landscape. We know the power with which he vanquished this difficulty. There are some leaves, some tree trunks, and, in the background, a river in which a chemise-wearing woman bathes; in the foreground, two young men are seated across from a second woman who has just exited the water and who dries her naked skin in the open air. This nude woman has scandalized the public, who see only her in the canvas. My God! What indecency: a woman without the slightest covering between two clothed men! That has never been seen. And this belief is a gross error, for in the Louvre there are more than fifty paintings in which are found mixes of persons clothed and nude. But no one goes to the Louvre to be scandalized. The crowd has kept itself moreover from judging The Luncheon on the Grass like a veritable work of art should be judged; they see in it only some people who are having a picnic, finishing bathing, and they believed that the artist had placed an obscene intent in the disposition of the subject, while the artist had simply sought to obtain vibrant oppositions and a straightforward audience. Painters, especially Édouard Manet, who is an analytic painter, do not have this preoccupation with the subject which torments the crowd above all; the subject, for them, is merely a pretext to paint, while for the crowd, the subject alone exists. Thus, assuredly, the nude woman of The Luncheon on the Grass is only there to furnish the artist the occasion to paint a bit of flesh. That which must be seen in the painting is not a luncheon on the grass; it is the entire landscape, with its vigors and its finesses, with its foregrounds so large, so solid, and its backgrounds of a light delicateness; it is this firm modeled flesh under great spots of light, these tissues supple and strong, and particularly this delicious silhouette of a woman wearing a chemise who makes, in the background, an adorable dapple of white in the milieu of green leaves. It is, in short, this vast ensemble, full of atmosphere, this corner of nature rendered with a simplicity so just, all of this admirable page in which an artist has placed all the particular and rare elements which are in him."

Picasso's Luncheon on the Grass 

For more than two years, from August, 1959, to September, 1961, Picasso worked on this series of paintings, which consists of twenty-seven paintings and many drawings. Once again he found an opportunity to take up a number of his favorite themes. 

Manet's composition, showing two nudes with two clothed men in a landscape, is itself a kind of variation. Almost exactly 100 years before Picasso treated this theme, Manet, building on a theme taken from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, attempted to translate Giorgione's Concert champetre (in The Louvre) into a contemporary idiom. The Arcadian figures in the work of the great Venetian painter were transformed by Manet into Parisians of his own day, and Arcadia itself took on a new, contemporary form just outside the gates of Paris.
Picasso's variations are of an entirely different kind: he takes Manet's composition as a sort of springboard for his own imagination, which carries him into new, as yet unsuspected directions.

In the course of this work we find Picasso often straying far from his starting point, then coming back to it again, and inventing ever new variations on the theme. To Picasso, Manet's painting - like anything in art or nature - is a theme. 

In the painting below (it is the last of one series of variations) Picasso retransforms the model into an Arcadian scene: instead of juxtaposing nude and clothed figures, we have here an idyl with four nude figures, shown near a pond in the subdued green light of the foliage. This brings to mind the themes of the Bather, and Figures on the Beach, which turn up so often in Picasso's works. But, via Manet, a new background has been added to these themes - the dimension of mythology - and the link with nineteenth-century painting has deepened the relationship between the figures, endowing them with greater tension and thus bringing them closer to the spirit of our own days.

Picasso repeatedly felt tempted to match himself against the old masters. He was conscious of his equality with them, and this feeling gave him the freedom to make whatever use of the old masterpieces he cared to. These paintings show his magnificent ability to transform things and forms alike into new signs, which disclose a new meaning, and in which the image of our time is recorded for posterity.

in search for lost time

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."
Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time (French: À la recherche du temps perdu)—also translated as Remembrance of Things Past—is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust (1871–1922). His most prominent work, it is known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." It gained fame in English in translations by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin as Remembrance of Things Past, but the title In Search of Lost Time, a literal rendering of the French, has gained usage since D. J. Enright adopted it for his revised translation published in 1992.

The novel began to take shape in 1909. Proust continued to work on it until his final illness in the autumn of 1922 forced him to break off. Proust established the structure early on, but even after volumes were initially finished he kept adding new material and edited one volume after another for publication. The last three of the seven volumes contain oversights and fragmentary or unpolished passages as they existed in draft form at the death of the author; the publication of these parts was overseen by his brother Robert.

The work was published in France between 1913 and 1927. Proust paid for the publication of the first volume (by the Grasset publishing house) after it had been turned down by leading editors who had been offered the manuscript in longhand. Many of its ideas, motifs, and scenes are foreshadowed in Proust's unfinished novel, Jean Santeuil (1896–99), though the perspective and treatment there are different, and in his unfinished hybrid of philosophical essay and story, Contre Sainte-Beuve (1908–09). The novel had great influence on twentieth-century literature; some writers have sought to emulate it, others to parody it. In the centenary year of Du côté de chez Swann, Edmund White pronounced À la recherche du temps perdu "the most respected novel of the twentieth century."

The novel was initially published in seven volumes:

1. Swann's Way (Du côté de chez Swann, sometimes translated as The Way by Swann's) (1913) was rejected by a number of publishers, including Fasquelle, Ollendorff, and the Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF). André Gide was famously given the manuscript to read to advise NRF on publication, and leafing through the seemingly endless collection of memories and philosophizing or melancholic episodes, came across a few minor syntactic errors, which made him decide to turn the work down in his audit. Proust eventually arranged with the publisher Grasset to pay the cost of publication himself. When published it was advertised as the first of a three-volume novel (Bouillaguet and Rogers, 316-7). Du côté de chez Swann is divided into four parts: "Combray I" (sometimes referred to in English as the "Overture"), "Combray II," "Un Amour de Swann," and "Noms de pays: le nom." ('Names of places: the name'). A third-person novella within Du côté de chez Swann, "Un Amour de Swann" is sometimes published as a volume by itself. As it forms the self-contained story of Charles Swann's love affair with Odette de Crécy and is relatively short, it is generally considered a good introduction to the work and is often a set text in French schools. "Combray I" is also similarly excerpted; it ends with the famous madeleine cake episode, introducing the theme of involuntary memory. In early 1914, André Gide, who had been involved in NRF's rejection of the book, wrote to Proust to apologize and to offer congratulations on the novel. "For several days I have been unable to put your book down.... The rejection of this book will remain the most serious mistake ever made by the NRF and, since I bear the shame of being very much responsible for it, one of the most stinging and remorseful regrets of my life" (Tadié, 611). Gallimard (the publishing arm of NRF) offered to publish the remaining volumes, but Proust chose to stay with Grasset

2. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, also translated as Within a Budding Grove) (1919) was scheduled to be published in 1914 but was delayed by the onset of World War I. At the same time, Grasset's firm was closed down when the publisher went into military service. This freed Proust to move to Gallimard, where all of the subsequent volumes were published. Meanwhile, the novel kept growing in length and in conception. When published, the novel was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1919.

3. The Guermantes Way (Le Côté de Guermantes) (1920/1921) was originally published in two volumes as Le Côté de Guermantes I and Le Côté de Guermantes II.

4. Sodom and Gomorrah (Sodome et Gomorrhe, sometimes translated as Cities of the Plain) (1921/1922) was originally published in two volumes. The first forty pages ofSodome et Gomorrhe initially appeared at the end of Le Côté de Guermantes II (Bouillaguet and Rogers, 942), the remainder appearing as Sodome et Gomorrhe I(1921) and Sodome et Gomorrhe II (1922). It was the last volume over which Proust supervised publication before his death in November 1922. The publication of the remaining volumes was carried out by his brother, Robert Proust, and Jacques Rivière.

5. The Prisoner (La Prisonnière, also translated as The Captive) (1923) is the first volume of the section within In Search of Lost Time known as "le Roman d'Albertine" ("the Albertine novel"). The name "Albertine" first appears in Proust's notebooks in 1913. The material in volume 5 and 6 were developed during the hiatus between the publication of volumes 1 and 2 and they are a departure of the original three-volume series originally planned by Proust. This is the first of Proust's books published posthumously.

6. The Fugitive (Albertine disparue, also titled La Fugitive, sometimes translated as The Sweet Cheat Gone [last line of Walter de la Mare's poem "The Ghost"] or Albertine Gone) (1925) is the second and final volume in "le Roman d'Albertine" and the second volume published after Proust's death. It is the most editorially vexed volume. As noted, the final three volumes of the novel were published posthumously, and without Proust's final corrections and revisions. The first edition, based on Proust's manuscript, was published as Albertine disparue to prevent it from being confused with Rabindranath Tagore's La Fugitive (1921).[2] The first authoritative edition of the novel in French (1954), also based on Proust's manuscript, used the title La Fugitive. The second, even more authoritative French edition (1987–89) uses the titleAlbertine disparue and is based on an unmarked typescript acquired in 1962 by the Bibliothèque Nationale. To complicate matters, after the death in 1986 of Proust's niece, Suzy Mante-Proust, her son-in-law discovered among her papers a typescript that had been corrected and annotated by Proust. The late changes Proust made include a small, crucial detail and the deletion of approximately 150 pages. This version was published as Albertine disparue in France in 1987.

7. Finding Time Again (Le Temps retrouvé, also translated as Time Regained and The Past Recaptured) (1927) is the final volume in Proust's novel. Much of the final volume was written at the same time as Swann's Way, but was revised and expanded during the course of the novel's publication to account for, to a greater or lesser success, the then unforeseen material now contained in the middle volumes (Terdiman, 153n3). This volume includes a noteworthy episode describing Paris during the First World War.

Modern Masters - Pablo Picasso

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."

Pablo Picasso

Modern Masters - Henri Matisse

"What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue."
Henri Matisse

note: you can read more on my daily art page ---> daily art

my new wallpaper

a world of speculation

Kubovy M, 2007, "What might have been is an abstraction, a perpetual possibility, in a world of speculation: We are not aware of what we did not see in an ambiguous figure" Perception 36 ECVP Abstract Supplement

What might have been is an abstraction, a perpetual possibility, in a world of speculation: We are not aware of what we did not see in an ambiguous figure
M Kubovy


Considerable evidence supports the idea that perceptual organization happens late. This paper undermines this view and provides evidence that perceptual organization happens at an early stage of information processing. There has been reports on six experiments in which a second-choice paradigm borrowed from early studies of signal detection was used (and provided strong evidence against high-threshold theories of detection) and apply it to the forced-choice phenomenological psychophysics of perceptual organization. 

These experiments show that when observers report one organization of an ambiguous pattern (a 300 ms masked dot lattice), they have no information about what they did not see, even when they know that they will be asked to provide information about organizations that are not the most probable. The experiments also reveal that in the face of this dearth of information about what they did not see, observers use a strategy to confabulate: they choose the answer most different from the one that corresponds to what they saw.


[Supported by USPH grant from the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Deafness and Communicative Disorders.]

pdf link

words with gods - film festival

Words with Gods is an exploration of the relationship between different cultures and religion. Aboriginal Spirituality, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto Buddhism, Orthodox Christianity, Umbanda, Hinduism, as well as Atheism find their expression in this two-hour film.

Based on a concept by Guillermo Arriaga and arranged in the present order by Mario Vargas Llosa the film's nine episodes present different perspectives on this distinctly human phenomenon.

IMDB

http://www.wordswithgods.com/

Words with Gods is directed by Guillermo Arriaga, Héctor Babenco, Bahman Ghobadi, Amos Gitai, Emir Kusturica, Mira Nair, Hideo Nakata, Warwick Thornton and Álex de la Iglesia. The soundtrack was written and performed by Peter Gabriel, with animations by Maribel Martinez.

Words with Gods is the first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series.

Warwick Thornton
True Gods

"When I started to look for a reason for being on the project Words with Gods I peeled back the folk tales, urban myths and legends. Deep into my dreams I looked for the great and worthy, the one who was first, the CREATOR. But there in the dark alone I found my mother, my sister, and my grand mother. This enlightenment filled me with joy. For I realized that I was surrounded by GODS, who every day created miracles. The miracle of birth. Someone who can gift life is a GOD to me."

- Warwick Thornton



Héctor Babenco
The Man Who Stole a Duck

An ordinary man has for years suffered infinite sadness caused by having beaten, then lost his wife. Possessed by this sense of loss he had let his son, only a few months old, cry until he died. The man carries this pain as he wanders along the streets like a madman whose speech is at times bawling and at times murmuring. One day destiny leads him to the side of a lake where he seduces, or is seduced by the singing of, a white duck which responds to what he is saying to it. On the back seat of a public bus he carries the duck, which he is taking to his son. That night, while on his way back from the cemetery a man dressed in white stops his car. A child, also dressed in white, stares fixedly at him from inside the car. Our beggar follows the father and child, who continues to stare at him, to a locale where a cult meeting is taking place. A catharsis will occur and dialogue with God will transform him.

- Héctor Babenco



Mira Nair
God Room

In most devout Hindu family homes in India, there is a room set aside for God and prayer. Our film, God Room, is set in today's Mumbai, about a wealthy extended family moving into an expensive penthouse apartment overlooking slums and the sea. The symbol of a multigenerational family living together in harmony is gradually broken by an escalating argument amongst the family members about where the God Room should be. As the family reveal layers of their hypocrisy and prejudice, only the 8-year-old child in the family sees that God is everywhere...that God is in the eye of the beholder. The home for God is within us, not without.

- Mira Nair


Hideo Nakata
Sufferings

As an episode in Words with Gods, I wrote and directed Sufferings in 2012. It is based on a true story, about a fisherman who lost his entire family, including his little kids. People who live in the Thohoku district where Tsunami hit are still struggling for living. But I believe in their strength to keep going with acceptance of reality and some kind of hope and joy, which they find in everyday life. I hope Sufferings can comfort them a bit. I would love them to watch Words with Gods in the near future.

- Hideo Nakata


Amos Gitai
The Book of Amos

But in the end the heart of Amos is softened and he says:

And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel,
and they shall build the waste cities,
and inhabit them;
and they shall plant vineyards,
and drink the wine thereof,
they shall also make gardens,
and eat the fruit of them.
15 And I will plant them upon their land,
and they shall no more be pulled up out.

Amos, 9, 14-16

At this point we are moving to the contemporary city of Haifa, a city of tolerance and coexistence.

The film will include references to the Book of Amos, from the Old Testament. Amos who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, in the days of Osaiah, king of Juda, and Jeroboam, king of Israel.

Amos presents to us a vision of divinity with a strong social dimension. Amos is preaching for social justice, using metaphors from his experience as a peasant and as a shepherd.

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey?
Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him?
Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?
Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing,
but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Amos, 1, 1-7

The film will be shot as a series of short monologues including some of the main cast of Amos Gitai films (actors who participated in Kadosh, Kippur and Kedma) and they will all incarnate fragments of the prophecies of Amos.

- Amos Gitai


Álex de la Iglesia
The Confession

When it was suggested that I make a Words With Gods episode, a ten-minute cinematographic piece was outlined, in which the dialogue with God should be established from a preeminent Catholic language; or in other words, to create a moral painting in which a Catholic is reflected without being considered a simple caricature.

The essential religious ideas are in my view, defined in the conception of sin as something inherent to the essence of human beings, and in forgiveness through sincere repentance. The most evil man, if he repents will be closer to God that the most virtuous man.

There is no other religion more generous. Kindness is discovered in forgiveness. Evil in the sovereignty of the man of action. Virtue of the ones who don’t do doesn’t matter. We are attracted to the one who makes a mistake and repents - the one who reconstructs his personality tower with the bricks of its errors - the one who rises above others, after falling under the weight of his knees.

This is the ground for The Confession: To narrate how the protagonist falls into destiny’s hands and before dying, an old man gives him the chance to deny his life, and accept he is just a mistaken man, like others.

- Álex de la Iglesia



Emir Kusturica
Our Life

This film is about humanity, which has a God and it is the best idea that they have found. It is more than just speaking about Orthodox Christianity; it’s about making an image of a man who is always sacrificing himself for his own good and for his well mental being.

- Emir Kusturica




Bahman Ghobadi
Sometimes Look Up

I live in an area in which each day I witness and hear of fratricide, due to differing religious ideologies. After years of staying in this region, I realized the acts carried out are not spiritual and heavenly, but the issue is religion manipulated by man. The religions are manipulated by man, to use against another man; all the while along we humans have forgotten the real story and the beauty of truth. Whether I believe in God or not, I believe in this.

- Bahman Ghobadi


Guillermo Arriaga

God's Blood

I think that religion, any religion, has to bring out the best of each human being. History has shown us that when a religion is imposed, when any God becomes an excuse for intolerance and persecution and murder, then religion has lost its essence. True religion is an invitation to be better, to feel the company of a superior being who will watch and care for us.

I'm an atheist and I have been attacked several times because of it. Believers don't accept someone who doesn’t believe. Many think that because we are atheist we lack values; or since we don`t have a giant vigilant eye over us, we are out of control and we don't behave ourselves. Nothing is more far from the truth.

I think than an atheist becomes a humanist. Since we don't believe in something else, humans become the core of our life. We don't look up, we don`t look down. We look straight into the eyes of the other human beings. That is important for me, acknowledging that every atheist - in the depth of his heart - is a humanist.

- Guillermo Arriaga

shiku hakku 四苦八苦

shiku hakku (四苦八苦), which means “Four Sufferings, Eight Sufferings”. This originates from the Buddhist notion of the Sufferings:

Meaning of Shiku:

Birth
Old Age
Sickness
Death


Meaning of Hakku: (in addition to the four above)

Not getting what you want.
Encountering something you don’t like.
Being separated from someone you like.
Being around people you don’t like.


Shiku hakku

The world in which we live is full of various kinds of suffering. Illness and old age bring about physical suffering. There are people who suffer psychological and spiritual anguish. Human relationships at home or in the work place can be stressful. And some may be fearful of the moment of death that we all will experience at the conclusion of our lives. Most of these forms of suffering cannot be resolved solely by advances in civilization or human effort.

In Buddhism, realities such as these, which our power alone cannot control and which no one can avoid, are referred to as the four and eight kinds of suffering (shiku hakku). Even those who currently feel that they have no particular hardships in their lives eventually will experience these four sufferings and eight sufferings. In fact, it is often the case that these forms of suffering appear together with the effects of the negative causes that we ourselves have amassed from our past lifetimes. As a result, sufferings can intensify and cause us to fall to rock bottom.

In the “Letter From Sado” (“Sado-gosho”), Nichiren Daishonin states:

Indeed, I must eradicate in this lifetime the grave karmic sins from the past, so that I can eliminate the three evil paths in my future existences.               (Gosho, p. 580)

Regardless of how heavy the karmic sins from our past lifetimes may be, the benefit of upholding faith in the teachings of the mystic Law (Myoho) revealed by Nichiren Daishonin is tremendously powerful. He teaches us that the effects of slander from past lifetimes will be entirely eliminated, and we can liberate ourselves from a life of suffering.

The four sufferings (shiku) are birth, aging, sickness, and death. The eight sufferings (hakku) are these four sufferings and the four additional sufferings of having to part from those whom we love; having to meet that those we hate; being unable to obtain what we desire; and the suffering arising from the five components, which constitute our body and mind.

Of the four sufferings, birth represents the agony of being born. It denotes the suffering of being born to into the cycle of transmigrating the six paths of hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity, and rapture.

Aging refers to the suffering of being born human and having to gradually grow old. In modern society, we encounter various problems concerning the elderly. Each one of us will experience the suffering of growing old.

Sickness indicates the suffering caused by illnesses. When we are sick, we are affected both physically and mentally. There are some people who manifest extreme behavior when they are sick. The suffering of illnesses will assail all of us.

Death refers to the suffering of facing our demise. As long as we are born into this world, we eventually must encounter death. In general, we all possess the fear of dying.

Next, the suffering of having to part from those whom we love describes the anguish of having to separate from the people we love, such as our spouses, parents, siblings, and friends.

The suffering of having to meet those we hate is to be forced to encounter those we resent or dislike. Regardless of the reason, being forced to meet with someone we hate is stressful.

The suffering of being unable to obtain what we desire refers to the inability to gain satisfaction by getting what we want in our life. We all strive to obtain various things. However, we are tormented when we are unable to fulfill our wishes.

The final form of suffering is that arising from the five components, which constitute our bodies and minds. The five components consist of form, perception, conception, volition, and consciousness. This type of suffering represents intense physical and mental anguish.


Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu



I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Varanasi in the Game Refuge at Isipatana. There he addressed the group of five monks:

"There are these two extremes that are not to be indulged in by one who has gone forth. Which two? That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects: base, vulgar, common, ignoble, unprofitable; and that which is devoted to self-affliction: painful, ignoble, unprofitable. Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.

"And what is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding? Precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress:[1] Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.

"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress: the remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving.

"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path — right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of stress.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This noble truth of stress is to be comprehended.' Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before:' This noble truth of stress has been comprehended.'

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of the origination of stress'... 'This noble truth of the origination of stress is to be abandoned' [2] ... 'This noble truth of the origination of stress has been abandoned.'

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of the cessation of stress'... 'This noble truth of the cessation of stress is to be directly experienced'... 'This noble truth of the cessation of stress has been directly experienced.'

"Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: 'This is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress'... 'This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress is to be developed'... 'This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress has been developed.' [3]

"And, monks, as long as this — my three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths as they have come to be — was not pure, I did not claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening unexcelled in the cosmos with its deities, Maras, & Brahmas, with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk. But as soon as this — my three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths as they have come to be — was truly pure, then I did claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening unexcelled in the cosmos with its deities, Maras & Brahmas, with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk. Knowledge & vision arose in me: 'Unprovoked is my release. This is the last birth. There is now no further becoming.'"

That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the group of five monks delighted at his words. And while this explanation was being given, there arose to Ven. Kondañña the dustless, stainless Dhamma eye: Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.

And when the Blessed One had set the Wheel of Dhamma in motion, the earth devas cried out: "At Varanasi, in the Game Refuge at Isipatana, the Blessed One has set in motion the unexcelled Wheel of Dhamma that cannot be stopped by brahman or contemplative, deva, Mara or God or anyone in the cosmos." On hearing the earth devas' cry, the devas of the Four Kings' Heaven took up the cry... the devas of the Thirty-three... the Yama devas... the Tusita devas... the Nimmanarati devas... the Paranimmita-vasavatti devas... the devas of Brahma's retinue took up the cry: "At Varanasi, in the Game Refuge at Isipatana, the Blessed One has set in motion the unexcelled Wheel of Dhamma that cannot be stopped by brahman or contemplative, deva, Mara, or God or anyone at all in the cosmos."

So in that moment, that instant, the cry shot right up to the Brahma worlds. And this ten-thousand fold cosmos shivered & quivered & quaked, while a great, measureless radiance appeared in the cosmos, surpassing the effulgence of the devas.

Then the Blessed One exclaimed: "So you really know, Kondañña? So you really know?" And that is how Ven. Kondañña acquired the name Añña-Kondañña — Kondañña who knows.

Notes

1.
The Pali phrases for the four noble truths are grammatical anomalies. From these anomalies, some scholars have argued that the expression "noble truth" is a later addition to the texts. Others have argued even further that the content of the four truths is also a later addition. Both of these arguments are based on the unproven assumption that the language the Buddha spoke was grammatically regular, and that any irregularities were later corruptions of the language. This assumption forgets that the languages of the Buddha's time were oral dialects, and that the nature of such dialects is to contain many grammatical irregularities. Languages tend to become regular only when being used to govern a large nation state or to produce a large body of literature: events that happened in India only after the Buddha's time. (A European example: Italian was a group of irregular oral dialects until Dante fashioned it into a regular language for the sake of his poetry.) Thus the irregularity of the Pali here is no proof either for the earliness or lateness of this particular teaching.

2.
Another argument for the lateness of the expression "noble truth" is that a truth — meaning an accurate statement about a body of facts — is not something that should be abandoned. In this case, only the craving is to be abandoned, not the truth about craving. However, in Vedic Sanskrit — as in modern English — a "truth" can mean both a fact and an accurate statement about a fact. Thus in this case, the "truth" is the fact, not the statement about the fact, and the argument for the lateness of the expression does not hold.

3.
The discussion in the four paragraphs beginning with the phrase, "Vision arose...," takes two sets of variables — the four noble truths and the three levels of knowledge appropriate to each — and lists their twelve permutations. In ancient Indian philosophical and legal traditions, this sort of discussion is called a wheel. Thus, this passage is the Wheel of Dhamma from which the discourse takes its name.