Slowness

“There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.

A man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down.

Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himeself from a thing still too close to him in time.

The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting” 

Milan Kundera, Slowness

La Loba

Karma, 5-months-old she wolf, Granada 2012

"The work of La Loba is collecting bones. She collects and preserves especially what is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with the bones of all manner of desert creatures: the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow. But her specialty is wolves.

She creeps and crawls and sifts through the mountains, and dry riverbeds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid out before her, she sits by the fire and thinks about what song she will sing.

And when she is sure, she stands over the criatura, raises her arms over it, and sings out. That is when the rib bones and leg bones of the wolf begin to flesh out and the creature becomes furred. La Loba sings some more, and more of the creature comes into being; its tail curls upward, shaggy and strong.

And La Loba sings more and the wolf creature begins to breathe.
And still La Loba sings so deeply that the floor of the desert shakes, and as she sings, the wolf opens its eyes, leaps up, and runs away down the canyon.

Somewhere in its running, whether by the speed of its running, or by splashing its way into a river, or by way of a ray of sunlight or moonlight hitting it right in the side, the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free towards the horizon". 

Dr. Clarissa Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves

The perfect city

"The Town is fair in its own way. The things you need, the things you need to know, one by one the Town will set these before you. Hear me now: this Town is perfect. And by perfect, I mean complete. It has everything. But if you cannot see that, if you are not able to assimilate the things that happen to you in a meaningful way, then it has nothing. A perfect nothing. 

 

Remember this well. This is as much as anyone can tell you; 

what others can teach you ends in itself, what you learn on your own became a part of you. And It will became a big help for you. Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head, figure out the meaning of the things the city is showing you. If  you have a heart, help yourself and use it while you can. 

it's all I can teach you. The rest you must learn for yourself. "

"Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Haruki Murakami

"La ciudad, en cierto sentido, es justa. A partir de ahora te irá mostrando, una a una, las cosas que necesites, las cosas que debas saber. Y tú tendrás que ir entendiéndolas por ti mismo, una tras otra, conforme te vayan llegando. ¿Comprendes? Esta ciudad es perfecta. Y perfección significa tenerlo todo. Pero si tú no eres capaz de asimilar de manera provechosa las cosas que te sucedan, te encontrarás con que no hay nada. Un vacío perfecto.

Recuerda bien lo que voy a decirte: lo que puedan enseñarte los demás acaba en sí mismo, lo que aprendes por tu propia cuenta forma parte de ti. Y te será de gran ayuda. Abre tus ojos, aguza el oído, haz trabajar la cabeza, descifra el significado de las cosas que te muestra la ciudad. Ya que tienes corazón, sírvete de él mientras puedas, es lo único que puedo enseñarte."

"El fin del Mundo y un despiadado País de las Maravillas". Haruki Murakami

Living like an animal (about the coixistence)

"Me devora

mi miedo devorador
a ser devorado

por tu miedo devorador
a que te devore".

Kiko Veneno, Animales, 1977

"I am being consumed
by my all-consuming fear
to be consumed

by your all-consuming fear
to be consumed by me".

Kiko Veneno, Animales, 1977

MAS PALABRAS HABLADAS

3º Palabras Habladas 2011. Ebba Rohweder en el Palacio de Cristal.

Recuperar de nuevo los nombres de las cosas

llamarle pan al pan, vino, llamarle al vino

3º Palabras Habladas 2011. Ebba Rohweder en el Palacio de Cristal.

al sobaco, sobaco, miserable al destino
y al que mata llamarle de una vez asesino.

5º Palabras Habladas 2011. Claudia Faci en el Templete de Música del Retiro.

Nos lo robaron todo, las palabras, el sexo
los nombres entrañables del amor y los cuerpos

5º Palabras Habladas 2011. Claudia Faci en el Templete de Música del Retiro

la gloria de estar vivos, la crítica, la historia

pero no consiguieron robarnos la memoria.

"PALABRAS COMO CUERPOS". Joaquin Sabina
+ info

5º Palabras Habladas 2011. Claudia Faci en el Templete de Música del Retiro

To recover back the names of things
to call bread to the bread, wine to the wine

2º Palabras Habladas 2011. Olaia Pazos en Biblioteca de la UNED Escuelas Pias

call armpit, to the armpits, miserable to the fate

and to the one who kills call it once and for all, a murderer.

1º Palabras Habladas 2011. Joana Brabo. Mercado de Antón Martín

They stole us all: words, sex
endearing names of love and bodies
the glory of being alive, criticism, history
but they didnt get to steal us the memory.

"Words like Bodies" Joaquin Sabina

+ info

 

About Learning

Oh, the thinks you can think!

Oh, the thinks you can think

If you're willing to try...

Think invisible ink!

Or a gink with a stink!

Or a stair to the sky...

If you open your mind,
Oh, the thinks you will find
Lining up to get loose...[...]

Oh, the thinks you can think

Think and wonder and dream-
Far and wide as you dare!

"Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! "Dr. Seuss

Campaña "HACIA LA COHESIÓN SOCIAL A TRAVÉS DEL APRENDIZAJE PERMANENTE" 

para Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia. Transit Projectes & Hablar en Arte 2010

The photographer's attitude

" A veces habla de un viaje en tren, entre la estación de Paddington y Oxford, en el que conoció a un fotógrafo que estaba casi ciego. Llevaba gafas oscuras y dijo que se había dañado la retina hacía diez años, durante un viaje a la Antártida. Llevaba el traje muy bien planchado» y sostenía una cámara sobre las rodillas. Decía que ahora veía el mundo de otra manera, y no forzosamente peor. Preguntó a mi madre si podía hacerle una foto.

Cuando él levantó la cámara y miró a través del visor, mi madre le preguntó qué veía. «Lo mismo de siempre», respondió él. «¿Qué es?»«Una mancha borrosa», dijo él. «Entonces, ¿Por qué lo hace?»«Por si un día se me curan los ojos. Para saber lo que estuve mirando»".


"La historia del amor" Nicole Krauss

"Sometimes she talks about a train journey from Paddington station to Oxford, where she met a photographer who was almost blind. He wore dark glasses and said he had damaged his retina ten years ago, during a trip to the Antartica. He was wearing a very well-pressed suit and held a camera on his knees. He said he now saw the world differently, not necessarily worse. He asked my mother if he could make a picture of her.

When he raised the camera and looked through the viewfinder, my mother asked him what he saw. «The same old thing», he said. «What is it?» «A blur blot,» he said. «Then, why you do it?»«In case one day my eyes get healed. To know what I was looking at». "

"The history of love" Nicole Krauss

the Moment

" La vida está llena de hermosuras impredecibles y sorpresas extrañas.

A veces, la belleza me supera y no se cómo afrontarla. ¿Conoces la sensación? ¿ cuando algo es demasiado hermoso?

¿cuando alguien dice algo, o escribe algo o toca algo que te conmueve hasta las lágrimas, que llega incluso a cambiarte?"

Mark Oliver Everett "Cosas que los nietos deberían saber"

"Life is full of unpredictable beauties and odd surprises.

Sometimes, beauty is beyond me and i dont know how to face it. 

Do you know the feeling? When something is too good?

When someone says something or writes something or touch something that moves you to tears, so far as to change you?"

Mark Oliver Everett "Things the grandchildren should know"

Sobre sonreir/ About smiling

SONREIR
1. Reírse un poco o levemente, y sin ruido.

2. Dicho de una cosa: Ofrecer un aspecto alegre o gozoso.

3. Desde un punto de vista fisiológico, una sonrisa es una expresión facial formada al flexionar los 17 músculos cerca de los extremos de la boca, pero también alrededor de los ojos

La sonrisa de Duchenne, nombrada así por el investigador Guillaume Duchenne, es la sonrisa más estudiada. Involucra el movimiento de los músculos cigomáticos mayor y menor cerca de la boca y el músculo orbicular cerca de los ojos. Se cree que la sonrisa de Duchenne es producida como una respuesta involuntaria a una emoción real. Es lo que se puede llamar una sonrisa genuina.

SMILE
1. To Laugh only a little bit or slightly, and without noise.

2. Said about one thing: Object that provides a cheer or joy.

3. From a physiological point of view, a smile is a facial expression formed by flexing the 17 muscles that exists near the ends of the mouth, but also around the eyes.

The Duchenne smile, named by the neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, is the most studied smile. Involves the movement of major and minor zygomatic muscles around the mouth and the orbicularis muscle near the eyes. It is believed that the Duchenne smile is produced as an involuntary reply to a real emotion. Is what can be called a genuine smile.

Et in Arcadia ego. Places

Vivir en una habitación ¿qué es? Vivir en un sitio ¿es apropiárselo? ¿Qué es apropiarse de un sitio?

 
¿A partir de qué momento un sitio es verdaderamente de uno ¿Cuando se han puesto a remojo los tres pares de calcetines en un lavatorio de plastico rosa?

 
¿Cuando se han recalentado unos espaguetis en una cocinilla de camping?

¿Cuando se han utilizado todas las perchas descabaladas del guardarropa? ¿Cuando se ha clavado en la pared una vieja postal que representa el suefio de Santa Ursula de Carpaccio?

¿Cuando se han experimentado allí las ansias de la espera, o las exaltaciones de la pasión, o los tormentos del dolor de muelas?

¿Cuando se han vestido las ventanas con cortinas al gusto y colocado el papel pintado y acuchillado el parquet?
Georges Perec. Especies de Espacios

“What does it mean, to live in a room? Is to live in a place to take possession of it? What does taking possession of a place mean?

As from when does somewhere become truly yours? Is it when you’ve put your three pairs of socks to soak in a pink plastic bowl?

Is it when you’ve heated up your spaghetti over a camping-gaz?

Is it when you’ve used up all the non-matching hangers in the cupboard? Is it when you’ve drawing-pinned to the wall an old postcard showing Carpaccio’s ‘Dream of St Ursula’?

Is it when you’ve experienced there the throes of anticipation, or the exaltations of passion, or the torments of a toothache?

Is it when you’ve hung suitable curtains up on the windows, and put up the wallpaper, and sanded the parquet flooring?”
 George Perec.  Species of Spaces