Resilient Complexity versus Exposure to Entropy

All systems fail, all organized interactions are vulnerable to entropy, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And at best, we are but stardust, a beautiful yet haunting explanation of our origins. Infused with light. Doomed to shadow. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, in the mortal physical realm, entropy is always interfering. The intellect often uses convenient conceptualizations to feel it is better understood or more secure, more real and lasting, than it is.

Inauguration Diary: a Politics of Inclusion & of Civic Intelligence (photo essay)

Millions of people are expected to gather on the National Mall, between the west face of the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial; security is expected to be without any known precedent, and temperatures are not likely to rise above freezing… should we go? Should we go, and if we do, should we go as citizens, or as journalists? If millions of people can brave the crowds, the security and the cold, to witness an historic moment of such sweeping resonance, then why can’t we?

The Heir & the Cowboy: Social Predisposition, Mediation & Artistic Profession in Marcel Duchamp & Jackson Pollock

Translation sample :: In his analysis of Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, Pierre Bourdieu compares the positions of the protagonist Frédéric Moreau and his friend Deslauriers. The opposition is manifest in the distinct origins of each —the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie— and their echo in the social space of mid-19th-century Paris —the lack of interest in success and the excessive ambition of the one and the other. For Marcel Duchamp and Jackson Pollock, two of the most emblematic artists of the first and second waves of the 20th century avant-garde, the timing and manner of their access to success have much in common with Bourdieu’s analysis of the two characters from Flaubert’s novel…

The Worldwide Empathy Deficit

Politics is informed with some of our best intentions, with much of our lust for ‘improvement’ and with all of our fears, petty and grandiose, paranoid and consequential. We have seen a great and resonant turning toward better instincts in the US, with an election that for good reasons inspires hope and may allow us to manifest more than ever those “better angels of our nature”, but we must recongize that in order to manifest the best in ourselves, we must start by overcoming our own habits of fear and division.

On the Question of Hope

I want to write about hope, about the nature of optimism and how closely linked the quality of imagination is to our ability to conceive of, work for and see through meaningful improvements to the human condition. I want to write about it because it is such a vital commodity in our times, such a spiritual enigma and a challenge to our political systems, but then one glaring fact becomes clear that seems to limit what can be said about hope: that vital spiritual resource does not stand alone, but is linked in every case to human specifics, inseparable from what we seek to apply to it, and so hope is different to all people, even in its most essential manifestations.

Gérmenes y obstáculos

libertad aquella musa
aquel ritual de autodesconcepción
el reto que guía o confunde
siguiendo líneas que no vemos
finos hilos de ópalo y vapor
matriz y desvergüenza …

Retrato en artemisa y burdeos

tus pies tu larga historia
imposible de no sentir

Gengibres, Tanguy

Para el ojo no iniciado parecen más gengibres semipeludos que sufren pretensiones místicas y bailan ciegos en terrenos artificialmente vaciados de contenido. Por eso Bretón avisa que no hay que buscar ninguna referencia mundano-pictórica en el surrealismo de Tanguy…

Monumentos al destierro (NS.14)

Es como si hubiera llegado, a través de un bosque jamás imaginado, sin recursos ni conocidos, a un lago en medio de la más remota de las esperanzas —que parece su ausencia— y donde no para la tempestad : tomo la lluvia de toda una noche como señal de que somos bienvenidos en este cosmos, acompañados cada uno por todos los fenómenos y desgastes, toda la competencia y sus lapsus vitales : vamos llegando a otoños sin otoño —por lo menos está en cada boca esa noticia—, recuerdos sin la eficacia de la forma, rituales sin doctrina, poesía sin lenguaje, texto sin pluma, tinta que no corre, y el olvido inmenso que reemplaza lo que antes era ser libres…

‘Unforgettable’ (la belleza está en todas partes)

Aquí, en un cómodo y familiar rincón del Born, en sí un rincón del barrio de La Ribera, donde los sabores coinciden con la gracia y la calidez y uno se da cuenta, de repente y como si se recordara en el momento oportuno, de que la belleza está en todas partes, que en todo [...]

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