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Sunday 15 January 2017

Jorge Luis Borges: Everything and Nothing ("There was no one in him")

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Photos of the day

A migrant disturbs pigeons as he passes through a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for some hundreds of men wishing to reach Western Europe, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. Migrants have been exposed to freezing temperatures and snow as extreme winter weather gripped Serbia and other parts of Europe last week.: photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP, 12 January 2017

Serbia Europe Migrants Weather

A migrant disturbs pigeons as he passes through a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for some hundreds of men wishing to reach Western Europe, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. Migrants have been exposed to freezing temperatures and snow as extreme winter weather gripped Serbia and other parts of Europe last week.: photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP, 12 January 2017

Greece Migrants Daily Life

Migrant Petram Mehdi, 2, from Tehran, Iran, stands by the window of his family's shelter at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Athens, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The European Commission said conditions for refugees on islands and other camps where they are housed in tents despite severe cold weather, are "untenable.": photo by Muhammed Muheisen, 12 January 2017



Today: More than a thousand refugees, mostly Afghans, live on the streets in central Belgrade awaiting an opportunity to enter the EU.: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 14 January 2017
 


Today: An Afghan refugee washes his body outside an abandoned building next to Belgrade central train station, #Serbia.: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 14 January 2017



Today: More than a thousand refugees, mostly Afghans, live on the streets in central Belgrade awaiting an opportunity to enter the EU.: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 14 January 2017



Today: More than a thousand refugees, mostly Afghans, live on the streets in central Belgrade awaiting an opportunity to enter the EU.: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 14 January 2017


Today: More than a thousand refugees, mostly Afghans, live on the streets in central Belgrade awaiting an opportunity to enter the EU.: image via Santi Palacios @SantiPalacios, 14 January 2017

Photos of the day

Migrants wait to board the MV Aquarius, as 193 people and two corpses were recovered Friday Jan. 13, 2017, from international waters in the Mediterranean Sea about 22 miles (35 Km) north of Sabrata, Libya. The MV Aquarius search and rescue vessel operated by MSF and SOS Mediterranee picked up 183 male and 10 female migrants, thought to have originated from African countries including Nigeria, Gambia and Senegal. The migrants are expected to disembark in Italy.: photo by  Sima Diab/AP, 13 January 2017

Europe Migrants

Migrants wait to board the MV Aquarius, as 193 people and two corpses were recovered Friday Jan. 13, 2017, from international waters in the Mediterranean Sea about 22 miles (35 Km) north of Sabrata, Libya. The MV Aquarius search and rescue vessel operated by MSF and SOS Mediterranee picked up 183 male and 10 female migrants, thought to have originated from African countries including Nigeria, Gambia and Senegal. The migrants are expected to disembark in Italy.: photo by  Sima Diab/AP, 13 January 2017

EU Libya Migrants


Refugees from Mali sleep on the deck of the Golfo Azzurro vessel after being rescued from the Mediterranean sea, about 20 miles north of Ra's Tajura, Libya, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. About 300 migrants were rescued Tuesday from three dinghies by members of Proactiva Open Arms Spanish NGO and Italian coast guards before transferring them to the Italian coast.: photo by Olmo Calvo/AP, 12 January 2017


 In this photograph released by the Spanish Civil Guard, a 19-y-o migrant from Gabon is discovered hiding in a suitcase in #Ceuta on 01/01: image via Photojournalism @photojournalism, 14 January 2017

Germany Weather

A block of ice containing a drowned fox who broke through the thin ice of the Danube river four days earlier sits on the bank of the Danube river in Fridingen, southern Germany, Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: photo by Johannes Stehle/dpa via AP, 13 January 2017

Spain Daily Life

A pedestrian shelters from the rain under an umbrella as he walks past through ancient entrance gate of the old city during a cold winter morning, in Pamplona, northern Spain, Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP, 13 January 2017


Aleppo old city: image via Jeremy Bowen @BowenBBC, 14 January 2017

Albania Weather

The snow-covered isolated village of Ternove, about 125 kilometers (80 miles) north of Tirana, is seen from an army helicopter on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. Snow continued to cut off communities in southern Albania where the death toll since the cold snap began stood at ten, most of them homeless people.: photo by Hektor Pustina/AP, 12 January 2017

Palestinians Gaza Electricity Lament

A Palestinian chants slogans during a demonstration against the chronic power cuts in Jabaliya refugee camp, Northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. Thousands of people took to the streets on Thursday to protest chronic power cuts in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, in one of the largest unauthorized protests in the territory since the Islamic militant group took power a decade ago.: photo by Khalil Hamra/AP, 12 January 2017

Jorge Luis Borges: Everything and Nothing

Argentina Dakar Rally

Driver Orlando Terranova of Argentina and co-driver Andreas Schulz of Germany race their Mini during the 11th stage of the Dakar Rally, between San Juan and Rio Cuarto, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 13, 2017.: photo by Martin Mejia/AP, 13 January 2017

Jorge Luis Borges: Everything and Nothing

Nadie hubo en él; detrás de su rostro (que aun a través de las malas pinturas de la época no se parece a ningún otro) y de sus palabras, que eran copiosas, fantás­ticas y agitadas, no había más que un poco de frío, un sueño no soñado por alguien. Al principio creyó que todas las personas eran como él, pero la extrañeza de un compañero, con el que había empezado a comentar esa vacuidad, le reveló su error y le dejó sentir para siempre, que un individuo no debe diferir de su especie. Alguna vez pensó que en los libros hallaría remedio para su mal y así aprendió el poco latín y menos griego de que habla­ría un contemporáneo; después consideró que en el ejer­cicio de un rito elemental de la humanidad, bien podía estar lo que buscaba y se dejó iniciar por Anne Hathaway, durante una larga siesta de junio. A los veintitantos años fue a Londres. instintivamente, ya se había adiestrado en el hábito de simular que era alguien, para que no se descubriera su condición de nadie; en Londres encontró la profesión a la que estaba predestinado, la del actor, que en un escenario, juega a ser otro, ante un concurso de personas que juegan a tomarlo por aquel otro. Las tareas histriónicas le enseñaron una felicidad singular, acaso la primera que conoció; pero aclamado el último verso y retirado de la escena el último muerto, el odiado sabor de la irrealidad recaía sobre él. Dejaba de ser Ferrex o "Tamerlán y volvía a ser nadie. Acosado, dio en imaginar otros héroes y otras fábulas trágicas. Así, mientras el cuerpo cumplía su destino de cuerpo, en lupanares y tabernas de Londres, el alma que lo habitaba era César, que desoye la admonición del augur, y Julieta, que aborrece a la alondra, y Macbeth, que conversa en el páramo con las brujas que también son las parcas. Nadie fue tantos hombres como aquel hombre, que a semejan­za del egipcio Proteo pudo agotar todas las apariencias del ser. A veces, dejó en algún recodo de la obra una confesión, seguro de que no la descifrarían; Ricardo a­firma que en su sola persona, hace el papel ene muchos, y Yago dice con curiosas palabras no soy lo que soy. La identidad fundamental del existir, soñar y representar le inspiró pasajes famosos.

Veinte años persistió en esa alucinación dirigida, pero una mañana le sobrecogieron el hastío y el horror de ser tantos reyes que mueren por la espada y tantos desdicha­dos amantes que convergen, divergen y melodiosamente agonizan. Aquel mismo día resolvió la venta de su teatro. Antes de una semana había regresado al pueblo natal, donde recuperó los árboles y el río de la niñez y no los vinculó a aquellos otros que había celebrado su musa, ilustres de alusión mitológica y de voces latinas. Tenia que ser alguien; fue un empresario retirado que ha hecho fortuna y a quién le interesan los préstamos, los litigios y la pequeña usura. En ese carácter dictó el árido testa­mento que conocernos, del que deliberadamente excluyó todo rasgo patético o literario. Solían visitar su retiro amigos de Londres, y él retomaba para ellos el papel de poeta.

La historia agrega que, antes o después de morir, se supo frente a Dios y le dijo: Yo, que tantos hombres he sido en vano, quiero ser uno y yo. La voz de Dios le contestó desde un torbellino:
Yo tampoco soy; yo soñé el mundo como tú soñaste tu obra, mi Shakespeare, y entre las formas de mi sueño estabas tú, que como yo eres muchos y nadie.



Argentina Daily Life
A merchant is seen waiting for costumers through the window of the closed metal curtain of his shop, as a policeman stands on a street after street vendors and police confronted each other, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP, 13 January 2017

Everything and Nothing


There was no one in him; behind his face (which even in the poor paintings of the period is unlike any other) and his words, which were copious, imaginative, and emotional, there was nothing but a little chill, a dream not dreamed by anyone. At first he thought everyone was like him, but the puzzled look on a friend’s face when he remarked on that emptiness told him he was mistaken and convinced him forever that an individual must not differ from his species. Occasionally he thought he would find in books the cure for his ill, and so he learned the small Latin and less Greek of which a contemporary was to speak. Later he thought that in the exercise of an elemental human rite he might well find what he sought, and he let himself be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long June afternoon. At twenty-odd he went to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself in the habit of pretending that he was someone, so it would not be discovered that he was no one. In London he hit upon the profession to which he was predestined, that of the actor, who plays on stage at being someone else. His playacting taught him a singular happiness, perhaps the first he had known; but when the last line was applauded and the last corpse removed from the stage, the hated sense of unreality came over him again. He ceased to be Ferrex or Tamburlaine and again became a nobody. Trapped, he fell to imagining other heroes and other tragic tales. Thus, while in London’s bawdyhouses and taverns his body fulfilled its destiny as body, the soul that dwelled in it was Caesar, failing to heed the augurer’s admonition, and Juliet, detesting the lark, and Macbeth, conversing on the heath with the witches, who are also the fates. Nobody was ever as many men as that man, who like the Egyptian Proteus managed to exhaust all the possible shapes of being. At times he slipped into some corner of his work a confession, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard affirms that in his single person he plays many parts, and Iago says with strange words, “I am not what I am.” His passages on the fundamental identity of existing, dreaming, and acting are famous.

Twenty years he persisted in that controlled hallucination, but one morning he was overcome by the surfeit and the horror of being so many kings who die by the sword and so many unhappy lovers who converge, diverge, and melodiously agonize. That same day he disposed of his theater. Before a week was out he had returned to the village of his birth, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood; and he did not bind them to those others his muse had celebrated, those made illustrious by mythological allusions and Latin phrases. 

He had to be someone; he became a retired impresario who has made his fortune and who interests himself in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. In this character he dictated the arid final will and testament that we know, deliberately excluding from it every trace of emotion and of literature. Friends from London used to visit his retreat, and for them he would take on again the role of poet.

The story goes that, before or after he died, he found himself before God and he said: “I, who have been so many men in vain, want to be one man: myself.” The voice of God replied from a whirlwind: “Neither am I one self; I dreamed the world as you dreamed your work, my Shakespeare, and among the shapes of my dream are you, who, like me, are many persons -- and none.”

Jorge Luis Borges: Everything and Nothing, from El hacedor (1960); English version by Mildred Boyer

Argentina Dakar Rally

Driver Stephane Peterhansel and co-driver Jean Paul Cottret, of France, race their Peugeot during the 10th stage of the Dakar Rally, between the Chilecito and San Juan, Argentina, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017.: photo by Franck Fife/Pool via AP, 12 January 2017

When It Washes You Clean


Take It Down (LEAVE IT UP). Congress Tiff over Race Protest Painting #visualpolitics by @christajolson #teamrhetoric: image via Reading The Pictures @ ReadingThePix, 14 January 2017 


In transition tempest, #nodrama and class like a natural wonder. #Obama farewell via @photographmag Photo @petesouza 2015: image via Reading The Pictures @ ReadingThePix, 14 January 2017


From security presser on #inauguration safety. Way homeland sec agencies becoming media footballs, apt change to #SecretService logo? Photo @AP
: image via Reading The Pictures @ ReadingThePix, 14 January 2017



@SpeakerRyan wants to fine Democrats for photos like these to stifle any dissent. We will keep fighting.
: image via Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff, 13 January 2017



This is how we feel about @repjohnlewis down here in the GA 5th, a district Donald Trump thinks the congressman is failing #Defendthe5th
: image via Jeb Boone @JebBoone, 14 January 2017



 John Lewis in Selma during the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday": image via Michael Skolnik @MichaelSkolnik, 14 January 2017


John Lewis has used his voice to change a nation. @realDonaldTrump uses his to try and silence those who disagree with him.: image via Adam Schiff @RepAdamSchiff, 3 January 2017


John Lewis was arrested 45 times, while Donald Trump dodged the draft. All talk, no action.
guillermo diaz Retweeted Michael Skolnik
guillermo diaz added,

Hero. We stand with you, #JohnLewis
image via guillermo diaz Verified account @guillremodiazyo, 14 January 2017



 #DonaldTrump says #JohnLewis is "all talk, no action"... There's a difference between bleeding for the country and bleeding the country dry.: image via Cyrus McQueen @CyrusMMcQueen, 14 January 2017



#DonaldTrump says #JohnLewis is "all talk, no action"... There's a difference between bleeding for the country and bleeding the country dry.
: image via Cyrus McQueen @CyrusMMcQueen, 14 January 2017

 

 

Michael Skolnik @MichaelSkolnik
"I gave a little blood on that bridge in Selma, Alabama for the right to vote."…
Star Jones Retweeted Michael Skolnik
Star Jones added,
Be careful Trump. Coming for #JohnLewis is like #LexLuthor coming for #Superman. You won't win...universe won't allow it.  #LionOfCivilRights
image via Star Jones Verified account @StarJones Esq, 14 January 2017
 

 BULGARIA - Dancers wearing costumes perform a ritual dance next to a bonfire during the Kukeri Carnival in Batanovtsi. By Nikolay Doychinov: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 January 2017