Mr Noone's Scattered Thoughts (L) has added a new section, Hat Off, where subjective outstanding moments of literature get marked and celebrated. Read his last one here.

It happens right now I'm reading Mark Twain's Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and I thought Good grief — this is so damned good there's no way I can avoid writing it down in Amapolas, a la Noone... So here it goes:

(Speaking about the old woman who takes care of him)

After supper she got out of her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try not to do it any more. This is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

What's one to say? Apaga y vámonos...

GIVE CREDIT...

There are no aliens in the Internet (my own's).

'Please don't arrange to have me sent to no asylum' (Supertramp, Asylum).

'Collecting teardrops in a paper cup' (Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera).

'Ain't nobody but me gonna lie for you, gonna die for you' (Supertramp, Ain't Nobody But Me).

'They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about' (Supertramp, School).

'La más prohibida de todas las frutas' (Joaquín Sabina, Una canción para la Magdalena).

'Living is easy with eyes closed' (The Beatles, Strawberry Fields).

'Before you go to sleep say a little prayer' (John Lennon, Beautiful Boy).

'Apartem els núvols que ens amaguen la claror' (Lluís Llach, Cal que neixin flors a cada instant).

'Esta forma tan cobarde de no decirnos que no' (Joaquín Sabina, Cerrado por derribo).

'What crisis?' (Supertramp, Crisis, What Crisis?).

'Aprendre que en certesa res no tinc si no m'ho dónes' (Lluís Llach, Aprendre).

'Acá está lindo' (heard in the street).

This quiet corner at the shadow of the Internet (my own's)

'Dile a papá que me voy de la ciudad' (Christina y Los Subterráneos, Dile a papá).

'Aprendre per saber-se desprendre, vet aquí el vell secret' (Lluís Llach, Aprendre).

'Tidings of comfort and joy' (Simon and Garfunkel, Comfort and Joy).

'If you think the harmony is a little dark and out of key, you're correct' (The Beatles, Only a Nothern Song).

'I mentres aprenc el preu d'un anhel' (Lluís Llach, A força de nits).

'All the lonely people, where do they all come from?' (The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby).

Liberating insignificance (my own's).

'But it seems a time of sadness is a time to understand' (Supertramp, Lord is it mine?).

'El día que yo fui feliz no me di cuenta y me dormí' (Christina y Los Subterráneos, Ni una maldita florecita).

'I may be mad I may be blind I may be viciously unkind. But I can still read what you're thinking' (Annie Lennox, Why).

'Choosing my confessions' (R.E.M., Losing My Religion).

'Her name was Magil and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy' (The Beatles, Rocky Raccoon).

'I amb el somriure, la revolta' (Lluís Llach, I amb el somriure, la revolta).

'Mai no he sabut dir-ne lo just del nostre absurd' (Lluís Llach, Respon-me).


...WHERE CREDIT IS DUE (I)

Legitimwhat?

Never thought I'd have to quote this for the benefit of a religion other than mine, but boy, times are a'changin'...


If one imagines oneself as a fully aware founder of a society, a kind of combination of Moses and Machiavelli, one could ask oneself the following question: How can the future continuation of the institutional order, now established ex nihilo, be best ensured? There is an obvious answer to the question in terms of power. But let it be assumed that all the means of power have been effectively employed - all opponents have been destroyed, all means of coercion are in one's own hands, reasonably safe provisions have been made for the transmission of power to one's designated successors. There still remains the problem of legitimation, all the more urgent because of the novelty and thus highly conscious precariousness of the new order. The problem would best be solved by applying the following recipe: Let the institutional order be so interpreted as to hide, as much as possible, its constructed character. Let that which has been stamped out of the ground ex nihilo appear as the manifestation of something that has been existent from the beginning of time, or at least from the beginning of this group. Let the people forget that this order was established by men and continues to be dependent upon the consent of men. Let them believe that, in acting out the institutional programs that have been imposed upon them, they are but realizing the deepest aspirations of their own being and putting themselves in harmony with the fundamental order of the universe. In sum: Set up religious legitimations. (Peter L. Berger, The sacred canopy, 1967).



(Thanks to Ryan for the revisiting of the old, extraordinary, admired professor's book).

Which translated into Spanish says:


Si uno se imagina un fundador de sociedades consciente de ello, algo así como una combinación entre Moisés y Maquiavelo, se podría plantear la pregunta siguiente: ¿Cómo se podría asegurar la conservación de este orden institucional establecido ex-nihilo? En términos de poder existe una respuesta obvia a esta cuestión. Pero si se imagina que todos los medios de poder han sido efectivamente empleados, todos los opositores destruidos, que todos los medios de coerción se hallan en nuestras manos y han alcanzado un resultado positivo, y que han sido tomadas todas las medidas razonables para la transmisión de poder a los sucesores designados, quedará todavía por solucionar el problema de legitimación, que resulta más urgente debido a la novedad y a la consciente precariedad del nuevo orden. La mejor solución del problema sería la siguiente:

• Que el orden institucional sea interpretado de modo que oculte su carácter de algo construido.
• Que aquello que ha surgido de la nada aparezca asimismo como algo que había existido desde el principio de los tiempos, o al menos desde el comienzo de este grupo.
• Que la gente olvide que este nuevo orden ha sido establecido por unos hombres y que su continuación depende asimismo del consentimiento de los hombres.
• Que crean que, al proceder de acuerdo con los programas institucionales que les han sido impuestos, no harán sino realizar las más hondas aspiraciones de su propio ser y ponerse en armonía con el orden fundamental del universo.

En resumen: que se establezcan legitimaciones religiosas. (Peter L. Berger, Para una teoría sociológica de la religión).


Now go and burn.

Pistas: Estadísticas para el día internacional de la mujer

Thanks, Wonka, for counter-thinking
(and counter-statisticsing) :-)

Epitafi

Take a look at:

ST Lite: Epitaph - 11

That's superb —Mr. Noone at his best.

Mine is no big deal indeed, but here it comes anyway:

Conte contat, conte acabat.

That is to say: Story told, story finished.

(Catalan-speaking parents with young boys will like it a bit better, I hope).

Speaking about friendship, Ravi Mohan writes:

One Man Hacking: The Importance of Having Friends Who Disagree

...and it's difficult not to agree.

I'd just add two notes of caution... Remember being not too loud either about

1. Politics, because, in your friends' view, you're as good a person as you're so leftist or rightist as them, or about

2. The entertainment business, aka The Arts (literature, film-making, music, paintwork, etc.) because you'll be as intelligent a person as you conform to their tastes (which, not incidentally, they don't usually regard as tastes, but as statements of culture).

And never, ever, think of giving them your sincere opinion when they've asked you explicitly for it.