"Un Indien consommé en moyenne 5kg de viande par an et –à âge égal- vit en meilleure santé qu’un Occidental. Il en faut 123kg pour satisfaire un Américain – 25 fois de plus. Nos modes de production et de consommation des produits détruisent le planète. Tout semble indiquer qu’ils contribuent aussi à nous détruire dans le même temps.   

A la fin de chaque journée, j’écris quelques mots dans un journal intime pour résumer ce qui m’a donné le plus de plaisir. En général, il s’agit de choses très simples. Et souvent je me surprends à noter le plaisir que j’ai eu si je n’ ai mangé que des légumes, des pois et des fruits (et un peu de pain multicéréale). Je remarque comme je me suis senti plus alerte at plus léger toute la journée, et je souris à l’idée que j’ ai pesé moins lourd à la planète qui me porte et me nourrit. "       

_________________________________________________________________________________

Terreur ( de Guy de Maupassant)

Ce soir-là j' avais lu fort longtemps quelque auteur.
Il était bien minuit, et tout à coup j' eus peur.
Peur de quoi? je ne sais, mais une peur horrible.
Je compris, haletant et frissonnant d' effroi,
Qu' il allait se passer une chose terrible…
Alors il me sembla sentir derrière moi
Quelqu'un qui se tenait debout, dont la figure
Riait d' un rire atroce, immobile et nerveux:
Et je n' entendais rien, cependant. O, torture!
Sentir qu' il se baissait à toucher mes cheveux,
Et qu' il allait poser sa main sur mon épaule,
Et que j' allais mourir au bruit de sa parole!...
Il se penchait toujours vers moi, toujours plus près;
Et moi, pour mon salut éternel, je n' aurais
Ni fait un mouvement ni détourné la tête…
Ainsi que des oiseaux battus par a tempête,
Mes pensers  tournoyaient comme affolés d' horreur.
Une sueur de mort me glaçait chaque membre,
Et je n' entendais pas d' autre bruit dans ma chambre
Que celui de mes dents qui claquaient de terreur.
Un craquement se fit soudain; fou d' épouvante,
Ayant poussé le plus terrible hurlement
Qui ne soit jamais sorti de poitrine vivante,
Je tombai sur le dos, roide et sans mouvement.

______________________________________________________________________________

"Malcolm looked down at a stack of local area maps. "I've just flown in from South America for a funeral", he told Salima, the woman working the swing shift at the Avis counter. The kindly, pleasant-looking young woman upgraded him from an economy to a midsize. When he added that the funeral was for not one, but both of his beloved parents, she upgraded him to a full-size. Then , after confiding that the only woman he'd ever loved had left him two years earlier and he was terrified to see her again, he drove off the lot in a dark blue Mustang convertible."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Thursday, December 28, 2000 (Henry is 33, and 37, Clare is 29)

HENRY: I am standing in our bedroom, in the future. It's night, but moonlight gives the room a surreal, monochromatic distinctness. My ears are ringing, as they often do, in the future. I look down on Clare and myself, sleeping. It feels like death. I am sleeping tightly balled up, knees to chest, wound up in blankets, mouth slightly open. I want to touch me. I want to hold me in my arms, look into my eyes. But it won't happen that way; I stand for long minutes staring intently at my sleeping future self. Eventually I walk softly to Clare's side of the bed, kneel. It feels immensely like the present. I will myself to forget the other body in the bed, to concentrate on Clare.
She stirs her eyes open. She isn't sure where we are. Neither am I.
I am overwhelmed by desire, by a longing to be connected to Clare as strongly as possible, to be here, now. I kiss her very lightly, lingering, thinking about nothing. She is drunk with sleep, moves her hand to my face and wakes more as she feels the solidity of me. Now she is present; she runs her hand down my arm, a caress. I carefully peel the sheet from her, so as not to disturb the other me, of whom Clare is still not aware. I wonder if this other self is somehow impervious to waking, but decide not to find out. I am lying on top of Clare, covering her completely with my body. I wish I could stop her from turning her head, but she will turn her head any minute now. As I penetrate Clare she looks at me and I think I don't exist and a second later she turns her head and sees me. She cries out, not loudly, and looks back at me, above her, in her. Then she remembers, accepts it, this is pretty strange but it's okay, and in this moment I love her more than life."

_______________

"Solange ich denken kann, habe ich Hämorrhoiden. Viele, viele Jahre habe ich gedacht, ich dürfte es keinem sagen. Weil Hämorrhoiden doch nur bei Opas wachsen. Ich fand die immer sehr unmädchenhaft. Wie oft ich mit denen schon beim Proktologen war! Der hat aber mir empfohlen, die dran zu lassen, solange sie mir keine Schmerzen verursachen. Das taten sie nicht. Sie juckten nur. Dagegen bekam ich von meinem Proktologen Dr. Fiddel eine Zinksalbe. (...)

Wenn ich mit meiner Hand einen Schwanz wichse, achte ich immer darauf, dass etwas Sperma an meinen Händen bleibt. Das kratze ich mit meinen langen Fingernägeln auf und lasse es darunter hart werden, um es später am Tag als Andenken an meinen guten Fickpartner mit den Zähnen unter den Nägeln rauszuknabbern, im Mund damit rumzuspielen, drauf rumzukauen und es nach langem Schmecken und Schmelzenlassen runterzuschlucken. Das ist eine Erfindung, auf die ich sehr stolz bin: mein Sexandenkenkaubonbon.(…)

Wenn klar ist, dass ich gleich Sex habe mit jemandem, der auf Analverkehr steht, frage ich: mit oder ohne Schokodip? Soll heissen: Manche mögen es, wenn die Schwanzspitze beim Poposex etwas Kacke ans Tageslicht befördert, der Geruch von selbst herausgebubbelter Kacke macht ja geil. Andere wollen die enge des Arschs ohne den Dreck. Jeder, wie er will. (…)"

_______

Für Helen, die Heldin dieses Buches, wird Hygiene "kleingeschrieben". Und für 14.90€ (empfohlener Preis) kriegen wir ihre eigenen Feuchtgebiete großgeschrieben. Ein erstaunliches, provokantes Buch mit ganz feuchtem, geruchsvollem und verbotenem Wortschatz.

Und eine interessante Reaktion:

"In der Tat ist es ein ekelhaftes und phantasieloses Buch. Die Autorin hat eine absolut unvirtuose Sprache und reitet nur auf dem Schockieren-wollen, was ihr auch gänzlich gelungen ist - landete sie sogar auf der Bestseller-Liste im deutschsprachigen Raum und war einige Zeit in aller Munde und in allen Medien zu sehen.Tabus wurden schon lange vor ihr gebrochen und das mit viel mehr Geschmack und Phantasie.Aber: können uns solche Schmuddelromane nach Dutroux und Fritzl wirklich noch schockieren?Zumal man auch im Internet alles findet, aber auch wirklich alles!"

___________________________________________________________________________________

…

-Me van a botar del trabajo. No tengo justificación. Hablamos ya…, uhmmm, veintitres minutos.

-Sí, pero qué rico, si estuvieras aquí, Agneta ¿ Y tienes mucho pelo en tu sexo, en los muslos?

-Sí. Te lo he dicho. Mucho pelo, soy muy morena y…

-Ah, cabrona, coge, ya no puedo más, mira como se sale, cabrona, puta, sueca singá, bollo grande, ya no puedo más, coge más, mira como cae al piso…

-Oh, y yo tan lejos. ¿ Cómo es posible?

-Ahh, la última gota, ohhh, ¿ Cómo es posible qué?

-Cómo es posible? Yo tan lejos. ¿ Has terminado?

-No me gusta solo, no me gusta solo, oh, coño. Estas pajas acaban conmigo. No me gusta botarla en el piso.

Finalmente fueron treinta y cinco minutos de charla. Terminé extenuado. Las pajas me matan.

__________________________________________________________________

And the living izizzy... (Summer 2008)

Is there anything better than lying in the shade, on some quiet beach, and reading a good book?

The answer is, yes. Having five (5) books to read,same shade, beach, summer. Probably the only way to ignore the other possible combinations to achieve equal blissfulness, usually involving people of the other sex.

Hence, as long as sun there is,get your Sahara tested oil, book yourself a tree somewhere, pack the books and hasta la vista. And don't forget to call!

“The rest of the evening was a bit of a frost, but when we went to bed, I think Mary must have felt a little guilty about the way she had changed her plans. Suffice to say, my new Marks & Spencer pyjamas were not required for the early part of the night! A relatively rare event in our marriage of late.

Afterwards, Mary said, “There now, darling, that should keep you going for a bit,” and turned on her side and seemed to go to sleep. For a moment I felt a bit like a dog that has just been given a biscuit, but then drowsiness swept across me and I started to doze.

…

The DJj was playing “I'm not in love”, again, and I wondered what those words meant. The truth is, I didn't know about love just as I didn't know about fear or death or space travel. It was something I hadn't encountered or, having encountered it, had not known it was for what it was. Did that mean I wasn't in love, or did it mean I was in love, but didn't know? I remember feeling as if I stood at the edge of a great cliff, tottering towards the precipice.

I knew I had to say something, and then I felt Mary's foot press against mine, hinting of other possibilities, so I said, “Mary, will you marry me?”

She flung her arms around me and said, “Yes, what a good idea!”

…

Of course, ours was a sensible engagement. We agreed that we could not get married until we had both graduated and were in employment and our combined salaries had reached more than £8.000a year. Mary had calculated (as it turned out, accurately) that this would be enough to pay the rent on a small flat somewhere on the outskirts of London plus an allowance for travel, a week's holiday a year, and so on. Long before Microsoft Excel Mary had intuitive software in her brain that allowed her to see the world in numbers. She was my guardian and my guide.

We were married in her college chapel a little more than a year after graduation.

…

I thought about the sheikh saying, although I could not remember his exact words, “Without faith, there is no hope. Without faith, there is no love.”

Then ,in a moment, in that vast space of rocks and sky and scorching sun, I understood that he had not meant religious faith, not exactly. He was not urging me to become a Muslim or to believe in one interpretation of God rather than another. He knew me for what I was, an old, cold, cautious scientist. That was for what I was then. And he was simply pointing out to me the first step to take. The word he had used was faith, but what he meant was belief. The first step was simple: it was to believe in belief itself. I had just taken that step. At long last I understood.

…”

______________________

“The war of the triple alliance

THE PLAYERS

Fransisco Solano Lopez

The dictator of Paraguay , he started the war to gain respect and somehow convinced his people to fight until more than half o them were dead.

Skinny- compared himself to Napoleon and Alexander the Great. It would have been true if napoleon and Alexander had been fat, ignorant failures from obscure countries.

Props- Started the first telegraph line in South America .

Pros- On a Grand Tour to Paris he had a private audience with French emperor Louis Napoleon and Empress Eugenie.

Cons- When Lopez tried to kis the empress, she was so disgusted she turned away and threw up.

Eliza Lynch- Dedicated mistress to her man and mother of his seven children, she stayed with her beloved dictator to the bitter, bitter, incredibly bitter end.

-Skinny- Parisian prostitute of lowly Irish birth, she slept her way to the middle of Parisian society, snared Lopez, and sailed away to her dream world as the despised mistress of an impoverished and war-wracked South American country.

Props- Wore a gown to Lopez's burial. An odd choice, not least of all because she was forced to dig his grave with her own hands.

Pros- Bounced back well from devastating defeats such as the destruction of her adopted country due largely to her own efforts.

Cons- Robbed the country blind and shipped the booty off to her European bank account.

The war of the Pacific

The Chileans, running dangerously low on victory medals, now planned a march on Lima , the Peruvian capital. Forty-two thousand Chileans landed on the coast and marched toward the Peruvian duct-taped defenses outside the city. Forty-two thousand Chileans landed on the coast and marched toward the Peruvian duct-taped defenses outside the city. The defenders scraped the bottom of the barrel and formed ten reserve divisions of troops grouped by their civilian jobs. Thus the retail merchants, decorators, hairdressers, economists, teachers, and others with normally peaceful jobs all had their own divisions and their share of the city's defense. Even some of the Altiplano natives with blowgun darts and poison arrows pitched in. When you are defending your capital with hairdressers and guys with blowguns, ne must begin to realize that hope has fled the field.

…

“Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch

Hitler got to the ber hall early and conspicuously loitered in the lobby waiting for Goering and his personal body-guards. As planned, von Lossow and von Seisser , as well as virtually all of the other Munich power figures, arrived at the Bürgerbräukeller to hear von Kahr's speech. While von Kahr was speaking, Goering and the guards drove up in trucks, barged in, and set up a machine gun right in the lobby of the cavernous beer hall. On a signal from Hitler, the door was thrown open; Hitler, at the center of a flying wedge of troopers, pushed through the crowd waving his pistol like the Lone Ranger while Goering indulged his over-the-top flair by dramatically brandishing a sword. They pushed their way onstage, and Hitler quieted the crowd with a pistol shot into the ceiling. The revolution was on.

Angry that Hitler had broken his promise not to putsch without them, the three leaders, Kahr, Lossow and Seisser refused to move. Hitler, livid at their intransigence, dragged them into a side room and stuck his pistol in their ears. They still balked. Hitler ranted but was forced to the auditorium where Goering was trying to calm the restless crowd by telling them to relax and joking that “after all, you have your beer!”

…

“The Winter War between Russia and Finland

The negotiations stalled and Stalin turned the screws, demanding more territory and bases. The Finns turned him down every time. At the end of a meeting on November 3, 1939, Soviet foreign minister Molotov told the Finns that it was now time for the military to speak. This is Stalinist diplomatic code for “You are about to get crushed.” When the Finns still refused, they shook hands all around, and Stalin bade his Finnish counterparts best wishes, more code for “I'm digging your graves, fellas.” He then left to twirl his mustache and plan the destruction of their country.”

…

“ Romania Fights Both Sides in World War II

With the Soviets reeling in the face of the German blitz-krieg. Romania easily recaptured the two provinces of Bessarabia and Nothern Bukovina lying between Romania and Russia . The army then halted while Antonescu pondered whether whether to invade the Soviet Union . Or not. For most people this is a simple decision-NO. But Antonescu was one of the few people on earth who awoke one day and said, “Yes, I think invading Russia will be a good thing.” (For anyone unfamiliar with basic geography, Russia is just about the largest land mass on the face of earth, and its citizens live in such desperation that the state of total war is often indistinguishable from normal daily life.)

As a reward to the country for his work so far, Antonsecu promoted himself to Marshal. With Russia seemingly on the ropes, Antonescu pushed all his chips into the middle of the table: invasion of Russia full partnership with Adolf. It would al be worth it once Count Dracula's homeland, Transylvania , was returned to Romanian hands.

…

Once word got out, the Germans never flinched but simply added Romania to their growing target list. The ever-practical Germans used the same air bases they shared with the Romanians in attacking the Russians to now attack the Romanians. The Romanians and Germans suddenly found themselves fighting each other from the same air base. It was like a time-share for air forces. The Germans pounded Bucharest without the slightest hint of nostalgia for their former ally. Meanwhile, the Russians watched all of this with glee. In a horrifically clumsy diplomatic sleight of hand, Romania had turned a friend into an enemy but neglected to turn an enemy into a friend. The Germans conducted a fighting retreat to the west while the Russians swept in from the east. Romania had managed to briefly turn World War II into a three-way affair: The Allies and the Axis versus Romania .”

…

“The Falklands Islands War

The Argentines set about folding the islands into Argentina . They forced the 2.000 Islanders, who had staunchly held on to their British traditions, into horrifying acts such as driving on the right-hand side of the road and renaming everything in Spanish. The Islanders rebelled against this outrage by continuing to drive to the left side of the roads and speaking English. One mst also assume they continued to drink a lot of tea.”

…

“The War of the Triple Alliance

Some dictators work alone. Others need the love of a good woman to fully ripen their true evil.

In the nineteenth century, Francisco Solano Lopez, Paraguay 's megalomaniacal, misshapen ruler, provoked a war with the country's three larger, richer, and more powerful neighbors fo no other reason than to gain fame and respect for himself and his mistress. Eliza Lynch, a former Parisian prostitute, was his full partner in a tango of craziness that resulted in Paraguay suffering such a beat-down that 150 years later the country still reels from the pounding it endured.µ

This loving couple tortured, killed, and robed the entire population of Paraguay . It's one of the most twisted love stories of all time.”

_____________________

The most disturbing of Ron's revelations occurred in late March, and he recorded it by hand, on a sheet of yellow legal paper:

Thus Saith the lord unto My servants the Prophets. It is My will and commandment that ye remove the following individuals in order that My work might go forward. For they have truly become obstacles in My path and I will not allow ye work to be stopped. First thy brother's wife Brenda and her baby, then Chloe Low, then Richard Stowe. And it is my Will that they be removed in rapid succession and that an example be made of them in order that others might see the fate of those who fight against the true Saints of God. And it is My will that this matter be taken care of as soon as possible and I will prepare a way for my instrument to be delivered and instructions be given unto my servant Todd. And it is My will that he show great care in his duties for I have raised him up and prepared."

...

_________________________

Dear Rouenna,

I am in a small country called Absurdsvani, to the south of Russia , near Iran . A civil war has broken out and innocent democrats are being shot in the street . I am trying to save as many people as I can. The Belgian government has awarded me citizenship in recognition of my services, but it may be too late to save my own life. Pray for me, Rouenna. Go to mass with your abuela Maria and pray for my soul.

I don't know if your new boyfriend has taught you to read Freud yet, but I want to tell you about a dream I had in which you sold me an apple for eight dollars. My analyst says it means that everything you ever did for me was conditional upon my money. From the very beginning when saw my loft and said, “Dang, jumbo, I think I finally made it,” you were using me. (See, I don't forget a thing!) My analyst, who is a medical doctor, says you better change, Rouenna, because what you're doing to me is going to destroy you inside .You're the one who's going to be hurt by your actions and that's a medical opinion. Think about it!

If I make it out of here alive I'll still be yours forever, because you're the only thing that makes my life worth living.

Your loving Russian bear, Misha

…

Hey there cowboys and cowgirls! I can't answer your message right now because me and my man are going up to CAPE COD for a week just to chill out from all the stress that's been killing us!!!!ll While y'all steaming like Chinese dumplings in NYC we'll be staying a famous film director's house in hiyanissport (can't say who it is or Professor Shteynfarb will kill me!) Ha ha. Just kidding. I'll be back next Wednesday so don't miss me too much. Kisses, R.

Thought of the day: The earth swarms with people who are not worth talking to.” –Voltaire, French philosopher. Totally true!!!!

_________________________________________

Close to the water's edge (Claire Keegan)

“One hour, Marcie. I'll give you one hour,” he said. “If you're not back by then, you can find your own way home.”

She walked for half an hour with her bare feet in the frothy edge of the sea then turned back along the cliff path, and from the shelter of some trees, watched her husband, at five minutes past the appointed hour, slam the car door and turn the ignition. Just as he was gathering speed, she jumped into the road and stopped the car.

Then she climbed in and spent the rest of her life with a man who would have gone home without her.

…

“

__________________________________________________________________________________

I don't know how I found myself on one of the bunks. I was half dead. My head was pounding from the sun. To overcome drowsiness, I lit a cigarette. It didn't taste good. I wanted to put it out, and when I looked at my hand, which was reaching instinctively for the ground, I saw that I was about to extinguish the cigarette on the head of a snake lying under the bed.

I froze. Froze to such a degree that instead of quickly pulling back my hand, I left it suspended, cigarette burning, over the snake's head. Slowly, the reality of my position dawned on me: I was the prisoner of a deadly reptile. I knew one thing for certain: I could not move a muscle, because then the snake would attack. It was an egyptian cobra, yellowish grey, neatly coiled on the floor. Its venom brings death quickly, and in our situation -with no medicines, and the nearest hospital probably a day's driving away- death would be inevitable.

…"Leo", I whispered loudly. "Leo, a snake!"

…We stared at each other silently, not knowing how to proceed. Yet time was running out: were the cobra to awaken, it would probably attack instantly. Because we had no weapons of any kind, not even a machete, we decided that Leo would get a metal canister from the car and with it we would try to crush the cobra.

...And then suddenly, in a split second, Leo, holding the canister before him, threw his entire weight upon the snake. At which moment I too fell with my whole body on top of him. In these seconds, our lives hung in the balance -we knew this. Actually, we only thought of it later, for the instant the canister, Leo, and I came down on top of the snake, the interior of the hut exploded.

I never suspected there could be so much power within a single creature. Such terrifying, monstrous, cosmic power. I had assumed that the canister's edge would easily cut through the snake -nothing of the kind! I now saw we had beneath us not a snake, but a throbbing, vibrating steel spring, impossible to either break or crush. The cobra was thrashing and pounding the ground with such demented fury that the hut's interior grew dark from the dust. Under the powerful blows of its tail, the clay floor was crumbling and scattering, blinding us with clouds of debris. At one point it suddenly occurred to me with horror that we wouldn't manage, that the reptile would slip out from under us and, in pain, wounded, enraged, would start to bite us. I pressed down even harder on my friend. He was groaning, his chest crushed against the canister, unable to breathe.

Finally but this took a long time, an eternity, the cobra's blows started to lose their impetus, vigour frequency. "Look", Leo said, "Blood". Indeed, into a crevice along the floor, which now resembled a shattered clay dish, a narrow trickle of blood was slowly seeping. The cobra was weakening, and the vibrations of the canister, which we felt the whole time and by means of which the snake signalled us about her pain and her hatred, vibrations that terrified and panicked, were also diminishing. But now, when it was all over, when Leo and I rose and the dust began to settle and thin out and I gazed down again at the narrow ribbon of blood being quickly absorbed, instead of satisfaction and joy I felt an emptiness inside, and something else as well: I felt sad that that heart, which inhabited the very pit of hell we had all shared through a bizarre coincidence only a moment ago, that that heart had stopped beating."

____________________________________________________________________

Didactic Murakami...

Ever wondered what is the difference between "transsexual" and "transgender"?

Transsexual is a person that would like to be of the opposite sex.

Transgender is a person that wants to be a homosexual of the opposite sex.

In other words, a gay homosexual! But read this one from Murakami:

“”As you can see, biologically and legally I am undeniably female. Which is why what you’ve been saying about me is fundamentally wrong. It’s simply impossible for me to be, as you put it, a “typical sexist, patriarchal male”.”
“Yes, but…” the tall woman says then stops. The short one, lips pursed, is playing with her collar.
“My body is physically female, but my mind’s completely male,” Oshima goes on. “Emotionally I live as a man. So I suppose your notion of being a “historical example” may be correct. And who knows if I’m a notorious sexist. But I’m not a lesbian, even though I dress this way. My sexual preference is for men. In other words, I’m a female but I’m gay. I do anal sex, and have never used my vagina for sex. My clitoris is sensitive, but my breasts aren’t. I don’t have periods. So, what am I discriminating against? Could somebody enlighten me?”

The three of us are listening flabbergasted  and don’t say a word. One of the women clears her throat; and the jarring sound reverberates through the room. The clock on the wall loudly ticks away the seconds.

“You want to come?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Again with the maybes?”
“Very much”, I correct myself.
She sighs lightly and slowly begins to move her hand. It feels out of this world. Not just an up-and-down motion, but more of an all over massage. Her fingers gently stroke my cock and balls. I close my eyes and let out a big sigh.
“You can’t touch me. And when you’re about to come let me know so you don’t mess up the sheets.”
“OK,” I say.
“How is it? I’m pretty good, eh?”
“Fantastic.”
“As I was telling you, I’m very nimble-fingered. But this isn’t sex, OK? I’m just helping you relax, is what it is. You’ve had a rough day, you’re all tense and you’re not going to sleep well unless we do something about it. Got it?”
…
A little while later she goes to the kitchen, tosses away the tissues and rinses her hand.
“Sorry, I say.
“It’s all right,” she says, snuggling back into bed. “No need to apologise. It’s part of your body. So –do you feel better?”
“Definitely.”
“I’m glad.” She thinks for a while, then says, “I was thinking how nice it’d be if I was your real sister.”

______________________________________________________________________________________

Un soir à Gayland

"A l' entrée du "Power Exchange", le club échangiste de San Fransisco , angle d' Otis and Gough, cet écriteau qui ne plaisante pas: "pas d' alcool; pas de drogue; interdiction de dormir; interdiction de pouffer et de rire fort; capote obligatoire; éteindre les portables; si quelqu' un vous dit non, prière de ne pas insister.
…
Et , de l' autre côté, dans ce décor qui semble fait pour les débauches les plus folles, des clientes et clients décalés, bon enfant, presque sages et, au demeurant, étonnamment âgés… Cordialité balbutiante des rencontres. Saluts courtois. La grosse Japonaise aux cheveux rouges et au fouet qui demande à un Monsieur s' il lui serait agréable de se laisser tourmenter. Le Monsieur qui répond "oui, mais pas trop fort s' il vous plaît, attention à ne pas faire trop mal et, aussi, à ne pas mordre".

____________________________________________________________________________________

“Hello,” I said.
“Happy birthday,” she said. And then, “I’m late.”
I understood straight away what she meant.
“You were here before me, even,”I said. I couldn’t resist it. I was trying to be funny, and I wasn’t being thick. I was just putting off the moment, hanging on to the old Sam. I didn’t want the future to come, and what Alicia was about to say was the future.
“I’m late with my period,” she said, straightaway, and that was it. The future had arrived.”
…
“I put Roof back in his cot and climbed into bed, and Alicia put her arms around me. She was warm, and I pushed into her. Roof suddenly made this sort of stuttering breathing noise and then started snoring. Something I’ve noticed is that Roof’s noises make the room seem more peaceful. You wouldn’t think it would work like that, would you? You’d think that the only way a bedroom can seem peaceful in the middle of the night is if nobody is making any noise. I think what it is, though, is that you’re so frightened a baby’s going to suddenly stop breathing that all his snuffles and stutters sound like your own heartbeat, something that tells you all is right with the world.
“You do love me, Sam, don’t you? Alicia said.
I remembered the last time, back in the future, and how I’d said nothing. I knew more now.
“Yeah,” I said.  “Of course.”

"

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Haruki Murakami

(special issue, at the same price)

It takes very basic arithmetics to see that, since the beginning of Multikulti, when I started adding books that I recently  read AND liked (with just one exception so far...) my preferred author has been Murakami. Now, why is that?
Amazon.com describes him as “highly addictive”. Although one would tend to  think this is pure marketing, chances are that you’ll realise how true this is at first reading (and I would suggest you start with "South of the border, west of the sun").
How can one convey the ambiance  of his novels in mere words? His novels are frames in dim light, accompanied by a tasteful hint of jazz or classic music. Indeed, as it happens with big photographers, you never quite understand how their perspective turns daily scenes to masterpieces. Scenes  that you pass by daily, scenes that you can't manage to capture yourself that successfully. Similarly, Murakami, apart from being a calligrapher of sorrow and a profound connoisseur of the intricate details of human soul, is also an intimate photographer of the global human labyrinth. In other words, in order to describe H.M. one would have to be Murakami himself. But I’ll give it a try...

In the epicentre of his stories usually lives happily an antihero. Thus usually the first pages are a bit of a deception: Why such enthusiasm? What’s so interesting in the life of somebody who has a job, loves his wife and has no precise plans for the future? Whose highlight of the day is bringing clothes to the dry-cleaner's, having a beer and washing up the dishes?
Is there something to write about that?
But assure yourself, those are just the first gestures of the magician, those that will deceive  your attention before the hare comes out of the hat.
Indeed, I  guess that if the average reader abandoned  a book that seems indifferent  after page 10 instead of page 30 (my average at least), H.M. might not be the international success he is.
So keep on reading, because you are bound to become the silent witness to many a strange situations that steadily degrade, scale to absurd, border the surreal. Hints that something very bad is bound to happen multiply page after page...(Who offered this new perfume to the wife of the trusting husband? )
But H.M. takes his time, keeps you unsure in a suspense that makes you want to cheat and read further down to quench your curiosity.

But a book has per definition a beginning and an end, and inevitably there comes the waited moment when the weirdest  things start raining on the most ordinary, unprepared people. And just when you think this is it, he’s lost himself again in his exaggerated surreal, Murakami comes back solid and concrete. And this keeps going on until you realise H.M. is a very experienced litterary alchemist , always using the perfect dose of real and unreal, black and white, yin and yang. In this precise book (see further down), the (anti)hero mingles with two sisters, Malta and Creta Cano, both mediums, and has wet dreams with one of them, and yes, their names do stem from the two mediterranean islands! While another woman calls any time of the day or night and insists on having telephone sex with him for free, not to mention his 16 year old neighbour that acts as his wake-up call to reality (they work together counting mens' bold heads at the subway station for a statistics company…).
Our man is of course sad: his one and only love -and official spouse- left him one morning with just her dress, plus another that she picked up at the  dry-cleaner’s. All he wishes is some concrete news of her and all he gets instead is bizarre women phoning and predicting the most bizarre things...
At this moment, the antihero becomes a loser, is thrown out of routine and into  down-to-earth problems, the kind you may also have had and felt horrible about. He loses his wife, cannot find a girlfriend, loses his job, has no plan, her family hates him -or a combination of the above. Or, in other books, is still in love with somebody he hasn’t seen for ages, with somebody else than his companion,  his first childhood love or somebody irrevocably dead! He is haunted by old feelings, relations, harms, unresolved situations, bad conscience. He has not the faintest idea how to deal with the storm that broke out in the midst of his sunny day and he admits defeat. He ducks, lets the tsunami pass over him. He falls,  drowns, asphyxiates down an abandonned well and tries to stand up, falls again. He is hurt, but he cannot show it. He is approached by persons with ominous, worrying  oracles (i.e., "next half  moon will last several days", "if you fall, choose the deepest well ").

He is you.
Or rather, what you fear you might become with a bad, fast turn of luck.

Is what you see, live, real? Does tomorrow come with a guarantee, an operating guide? The carpet is pulled under the feet of the antihero-become -loser and you can relate to it,  feel it moving under your own feet as well! What is lurking behind your wife’s unfamiliar scent, your boyfriend’s urgent trip? Is reversal of situation just a  possibility or rather a certainty? Is work overrated? How can you count on others when you can't count on yourself?
And the loser, the antihero becomes hero again, an object of compassion, your mirror. Who has not lost somebody they loved? A job? Who is not secretly speaking with somebody they don't meet anymore, who has not had nightmares that lasted daylong, who is not secretly composing letters never-to-send to somebody they still love, who has not had  a secret mail account? And, of course, who does not think he has been harmed more than he has harmed?
Still, this precise loser, the Murakami hero, antihero, whatever! lives all this in absolute, silent,  japanese dignity. In other words, as you would also like to react in similar situations. You sympathise with him in admiration.

During this whole routine-become-mess it rains archetypes, that keep falling like meteorites on a clear moonless night. In other words, you are not only bombarded by H.M.’s charm, wisdom and litterary talent,  but also by the omnipresent fear of death, its necessity as opposed to its inevitability, the wish to be someone else, someone better. Previous lives and remembrances intertwine. Genuine, crystal clear feelings of eternal teenagers-become-adults invade you in the middle of the night. You feel on your chest the weight of a thousand-year-old mystic culture and you can’t let this damn book and go to sleep!
Haruki Murakami is the kind of writer that, if he produced wine, it would definitely be a grand french cru. A wine with not just a bouquet, a wine not for the average palette: a wine for an experienced bon vivant, a wine with character and an aftertaste, one that leaves tears on your glass.
A highly addictive, definitely red wine...

"When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.
         I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax. Finally, though, I had to give in. It could haven been somebody with news of a job opening. I lowered the flame, went to the living room, and picked up the receiver.
         "Ten minutes, please," said a woman on the other end.
         I'm good at recognizing people's voices, but this was not one I knew.
         "Excuse me? To whom did you wish to speak?"
         "To you, of course. Ten minutes, please. That's all we need to understand each other." Her voice was low and soft but otherwise nondescript.
         "Understand each other?"
         "Each other's feelings."
         I leaned over and peeked through the kitchen door. The spaghetti pot was steaming nicely, and Claudio Abbado was still conducting The Thieving Magpie.
         "Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of making spaghetti, can I ask you to call back later?"
         "Spaghetti!? What are you doing cooking spaghetti at ten-thirty in the morning?"
         "That's none of your business," I said. "I decide what I eat and when I eat it."
         "True enough. I'll call back," she said, her voice now flat and expressionless. A little change in mood can do amazing things to the tone of a person's voice.
         "Hold a minute," I said before she could hang up. "If this is some new sales gimmick, you can forget it. I'm out of work. I'm not in the market for anything."
         "Don't worry. I know."
         "You know? You know what?"
         "That you're out of work. I know about that. So go cook your precious spaghetti."
         "Who the hell-"
         She cut the connection.
…"

______________________________________________________________________________________

"Un hombre llamó a la puerta del rey y le dijo, Dame un barco. La casa del rey tenía muchas mas puertas, pero aquélla era de las peticiones. Como el rey se pasaba todo el tiempo sentado ante la puerta de los obsequios (entiéndase, los obsequios que le entregaban a él), cada vez que oía que alguien llamaba a la puerta de las peticiones se hacía el desentendido, y sólo cuando el continuo repiquetear de la aldaba de bronce subía a un tono, más que notorio, escandaloso, impidiendo el sosiego de los vecinos (las personas comenzaban a murmurar, qué rey tenemos, que no atiende), daba orden al primer secretario para que fuera a ver lo que quería el impetrante, que no había manera que se callara. Entonces, el primer secretario llamaba al segundo secretario, éste llamaba al tercero, que mandaba al primer ayudante, que a su vez mandaba al segundo, y así hasta llegar a la mujer de limpieza, que, no teniendo en quién mandar, entreabría la puerta de las peticiones y preguntaba por el resquicio,
¿Y tú qué quieres?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"...

Then at last they were back on course: when they were alone one Saturday afternoon in late March, with the rain falling heavily outside the windows of the disorderly sitting room of his parent’s tiny house in the Clinten Hills, she let her hand briefly on, or near, his penis. For less than fifteen seconds, in rising hope and ecstasy, he felt her through two layers of fabric. As soon as she pulled away he knew he could bear it no more. He asked her to marry him.
…
In later years, whenever Edward thought of her and he addressed her in his mind, or imagined writing to her or bumping into her in the street, it seemed to him that an explanation of his existence would take less than a minute, less than half a page. What he done with himself? He had drifted through, half asleep, inattentive, unambitious, unserious, childless, comfortable.
…
When he thought of her, it rather amazed him that he had let that girl with her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience –if only he had them both at once- would surely have seen them both through. And then what unborn children might have had their chances, what young girl with an Alice band might have become his loved familiar? This is how the entire course of a lifetime can be changed – by doing nothing. On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would have not cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer’s dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was a blurred, receding point against the immense straight road of shingle gleaming in the pallid light.”

______________________________________________________________________________________

“I don’t know how to classify my falling in love with Olga. I’ve been in love often enough to be completely exhausted by it, and not to know what it means any more. When you look back afterwards, you can always find another way of putting it. You say, “I was obsessed, it was really lust, I was fooling myself,” because after you’ve recovered from being in love, you always decide that that wasn’t what it was.”
…
“Chris seemed to be a perfect gentleman. He was longing for me, but he never pushed himself. I used to observe the way that he looked at me when he didn’t know that I was observing him. He liked to look at my breasts and my groin, and I am sure that he often leaned forward to pay attention to me because he was trying to hide whatever was happening. I liked to think about that, and it made me sweat. I was having interesting dreams about him. One of them was about taking a vase of flowers to his room, and him sitting at a desk and turning and smiling at me. That’s all it was, a little dream about a simple act of love.”
…
“I wish I’d been more of a rake when I was young. I wish I’d just followed my balls into battle, instead of sitting about thinking of reasons not to take risks and make memorable mistakes. I didn’t even make a tentative start until middle age. You can’t make love to beautiful girls when you’re dead. When I lie dying I ought to be mulling over my most dramatic and ecstatic memories, but I hardly have any. I’ve wasted my life being sensible when I should have been cavorting and gallivanting. I haven’t had enough bliss, I’ve just had one damned day after another, nice and calm, and now I’ve got bugger all to remember.”
…
“Inside, with the money was a note written neatly in blue ballpoint on the kind of pink paper covered in tiny squares that you use for mathematics. It just said “Mislila sam da me volis.”
…
“I think about my last meeting with her, about how she never had the opportunity to say whatever it was that she’d been working herself up to telling me, about how she cried for days afterwards, and then packed up and ran away. The more I think about it the more I think it can only have meant one thing. It’s the only way to make sense of what she wrote.
            The message was: “I thought you loved me.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

click on to read

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"…Y por eso prefiero morir por algo. "En el Día del Juicio, los derechos serán restituidos a aquellos que fueran desposeídos", eso dice el Corán. Por eso prefiero morir por algo justo, sobre todo en un mundo donde imperan la sinrazón, la injusticia, la ley del más fuerte. Un mundo que se alza sobre sangre, gobernado por los necios y los crueles con engaño sobre engaño, un mundo al que la desolación agita de odio en odio, un mundo que adora a la riqueza y destroza a los que cantan, un mundo en el que hay vidas de primera y de segunda categoría, en el que una vida puede valer menos que un barril de petróleo. Palestinos, iraquís, saharauis: todos sacrificados a la misma pasión, la pasión de occidente por el oro negro. ¿Como hacer frente a un ejercito de codiciosos cuando para luchar no tenemos más arma que el grito? ¿Acaso puede un grito perforar la roca sorda? Preferiría morir para algo antes que vivir en este vivir que es como no vivir. Preferiría morir de pie que vivir de rodillas, como dijo el Ché. Preferiría lanzarme al torrente de balas, poner une prueba a la suerte que se me ha destinado, para que la mi vida fuese por fin algo noble o para que acabase en una tumba que no sería más oscura que mi casa. Para mí el sacrificio sería un honor. El Islam dice: "Hay que obrar como si uno va a morir mañana, pero al mismo tiempo como si fuera a vivir toda la vida". Y eso hago, porque yo no sé cuánto tiempo resistiremos, qué va a ser de mi vida. La libertad es como un espejismo en el desierto: a veces la creo próxima pero cuando voy a alcanzarla se disuelve. Y las heridas de los mártires siguen clamando venganza. Por eso te digo que no puedes entenderme si no conoces a mi pueblo, que yo no soy yo sin mi pueblo, sin mi gente, aunque sea una sin-tierra. No tengo tierra, pero tengo patria. Y esa es la fuerza que me mueve, igual que el camellero guía a la caravana."

_____________________________________________________________________________________-

"With her hands spread around the steaming cup, she watched me with a half smile, caught somewhere between curiosity and amazement.

"So what is it you're going to show me today?"

"A number of things. In fact, what I' m going to show you is a part of a story. Didn't you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?

Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows.

"Well, this is a story about books."

"About books?"

"About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind."

______________________________________________________________________________________

"Really? You'd do that?"

…

"If you asked, I would," he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my eyes. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.

"But I wonder," he added. "Would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha?" And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he'd toy with me, test my integrity.

I wished I hadn't started this conversation. I forced a smile. "Don't be stupid, Hassan. You know I wouldn't."

Hassan returned the smile. Except his didn't look forced. "I know," he said. And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

…"

___________________________________________________________________________________

"There was another knock.

"Come in".

A soldier came into the room. He was very young and smartly turned out. His fatigues were criss-crossed with ammunition belts and his teeth shone. He seemed extremely nervous. His finger quivered round the trigger-guard. I raised my hands and got up off the bed.

"In there!" He pointed the barrel at the bathroom door.

The walls of the bathroom were covered with blue tiles, and on the blue plastic shower-curtain was a design of tropical fish.

"Money", said the soldier.

"Sure!" I said. "How much?"

He said nothing. I glanced at the mirror and saw the gaping whites of his eyes. He was breathing heavily.

I eased my fingers down my trouser pocket: my impulse was to give him all I had. Then I separated one banknote from the rest, and put it in his outstretched palm.

" Merci Monsieur!" His lips expanded in an astonished smile.

" Merci! " He repeated, and unlocked the bathroom door. " Merci, " he kept repeating, as he bowed and pointed his own way out into the passage.

That young man, it struck me, had very nice manners. "

__________________________________________________________________________________

You

You're a beast, she said

Your big white belly

And those hairy feet.

You never cut your nails

And you have fat hands

Paws like a cat

Your bright red nose

And the biggest balls

I've ever seen.

You shoot sperm like a

Whale shoots water out of the

Hole in its back.

Beast beast beast, she kissed me,

What do you want for

breakfast?

__________________________________________________________________________________

"ANCHORAGE, Sept. 12 (AP)-Last Sunday a young hiker , stranded by an injury, was found dead at a remote camp in the Alaskan interior. No one is yet certain who he was. But his diary and two notes found at the camp tell a wrenching story of his desperate and progressively futile efforts to survive.

The diary indicates that the man, believed to be an American in his late 20's or early 30's, might have been injured in a fall and that he then was stranded at the camp for more than three months. It tells how he tried to save himself by hunting game and eating wild plants while notheless getting weaker.

One of his two notes is a plea for help, adressed to anyone who might come upon the camp while the hiker searched the surrounding area for food. The second note bids the world goodbye…

An autopsy at the state coroner's office in Fairbanks this week found that the man had died of starvation, propably in late July. The authorities discovered among the man's possessions a name that they believe is his. But they have so far been unable to confirm his identity and, until they do, have declined to disclose the name.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

September 13, 1992 "

Jon Krakauer belongs to the blessed people that, apart from pursuing at a high level their passion (in his case alpinism) really know how to tell a story. The death of MacCandleness would have propably gone unnoticed were it not for him. Asked to write an article about the mystery surrounding the death of the young man, he followed his trail and found and interviewed all the people he came in contact with during those years of his more or less lonesome odyssey. And he was the one that understood what had really happened, how Christopher died by picking and eating the wrong plants after a fatal mistake when reading his botanist's book (other ways he would have clearly survived, being a very strong nature and an elite athlete), after examining all the details and writings of the ultimate Supertramp. I am sure that "Into thin air", his first big book about another real tragedy in high altitude, can make another great movie.

__________________________________________________________________________________

"…Pero Hatsumi poseía algo que hacía estremecer el corazón de las personas. No lo lograba con un gran despliegue de energía. La fuerza que emanaba de ella estaba escondida, pero despertaba la empatía en los demás. En el taxi, de camino a Shibuya, mientras la observaba, me pregunté qué era aquella emoción que yo sentía de pronto. Pero entonces no logré hallar la respuesta.

La descubrí doce o trece años después. Había viajado a Santa Fe, Nuevo México, para entrevistar a un pintor. Al atardecer entré a una pizzeria, contemplé una puesta de sol tan hermosa que parecía un milagro. El mundo entero estaba teñido de rojo. Mi mano, el plato, la mesa…, todo lo que había ante mis ojos estaba teñido de rojo. De un rojo tan brillante que parecía bañado en un jugo de frutas. En aquel atardecer abrumador me acordé de Hatsumi. Y comprendí que había sido el estremecimiento del corazón que ella me había provocado. Era un anhelo adolescente que no había sido, ni sería jamás, colmado. Durante mucho tiempo guardé este anhelo ardiente y puro en mi interior, hasta el punto que incluso había terminado olvidándome de su existencia. Hatsumi había despertado una parte de mí que llevaba largo tiempo durmiendo. Al darme cuenta, me sentí tan triste que se me saltaron las lágrimas. Ella había sido una mujer excepcional. Alguien hubiera debido salvarla.

Pero ni Nagasawa ni yo pudimos hacerlo. Hatsumi -como habían hecho muchos conocidos míos-, al llegar a cierto estadio de su vida, decidió sin más terminar con su existencia. Dos años después de que Nagasawa se marchara a Alemania, Hatsumi se casó con otro hombre y, pasados dos años, se abrió las venas con una cuchilla de afeitar. Fue Nagasawa quien me comunicó su muerte. Me escribió desde Bonn. "Con la muerte de Hatsumi, algo se ha perdido para siempre. Su perdida es insoportablemente triste y amarga, incluso para mí." Rompí la carta. Jamás he vuelto a escribirle."

...

__________________________________________________________________________________

"She looked up and smiled.

Wordlessly we walked over to a shaded part of the building and held each other and kissed, a shell-less snail and a web-less frog. I held her close to me. Our tongues met lightly. I felt her breasts through her blouse. She didn't resist. She just closed her eyes and sighed. Her breasts were small and fitted comfortably in the palm of my hand, as if designed solely for that purpose. She placed her palm above my heart, and the feel of her hand and the beat of my heart became one. She's not Shimamoto, I told myself. She can't give me what Shimamoto gave. But here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her?

But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair." ...

"Inside the darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet the fish don't know it is raining.

Until someone came and rested a hand lightly on my shoulder, my thoughts were of the sea."

___________________________________________________________________________________

Στον παράδεισο έχω σημαδέψει ένα νησί

Απαράλλαχτο εσύ κι ένα σπίτι στη θάλασσα

Με κρεβάτι μεγάλο και πόρτα μικρή

Έχω ρίξει μεσ στ άπατα μιαν ηχώ

Να κοιτάζομαι κάθε πρωί που ξυπνώ

Ο. Ελύτης, Μονόγραμμα

Tentative de traduction

"Au paradis j'ai marqué une île

Qui te ressemble comme deux gouttes, et une maison à la mer

Avec un grand lit et une petite porte

Dans l' eau abyssale j'ai jeté un écho

Pour m' y regarder chaque matin au réveil très tôt "

__________________________________________________________________________________

"Il mourut avant que le curé du village ait fini sa prière. Il aurait ri s' il avait su, avant de mourir, ce qui devait naître de cette journée.

Immacolata Biscotti tomba enceinte. La pauvre femme allait donner naissance à un fils. C' est ainsi que naquit la lignée des Mascalzone. D' une erreur. D' un malentendu. D' un père vaurien, assassiné deux heures après son étreinte, et d' une vieille fille qui s' ouvrait à un homme pour la première fois. C' est ainsi que naquit la famille Mascalzone. D' un homme qui s' était trompé. Et d' une femme qui avait consenti à ce mensonge parce que le désir lui faisait claquer les genoux.

Une famille devait naître de ce jour de soleil brûlant parce que le destin avait envie de jouer avec les hommes, comme les chats le font parfois, du bout de la patte, avec des oiseaux blessés."

___________________________________________________________________________________

…"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, not attracted much sustained injury.
In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory analysis."…

____________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

"…-Arrête l' auto. Tu sens? Ça sent le bonheur, c' est la Grèce. Les gens sont immobiles, ils prennent le temps de nous regarder passer, ils respirent. Tu vois, Momo, moi, toute ma vie, j' aurai beaucoup travaillé, mais j' aurai travaillé lentement, en prenant bien mon temps, je ne voulais pas faire du chiffre, ou voir défiler les clients, non. La lenteur, c' est ça, le secret du bonheur. …"

"Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran", Éric Emmanuel Schmitt