ART HISTORY ADVENT CALENDAR: DAY 2

 

Week of Death

2nd of December - Gustavus Adolphus 

Since it is Sagittarius season and Gustavus Adolphus and Queen Christina have both of their birthdays coming up...

Inspired by thirst

for glory, on the field of battle quaffed

instead death's bitter draught.

The last word was missing in his epic song:

the word that crowns every achievement.

The mourners have done their duty, right or wrong:

they wrote it in blood and bereavement.

He left us when we (and he) expected it the least, 

in the prime of his life and at the climax of his career,

before he could be tarnished by the failing vigour of an older age

or by the corruption brought upon him by success. 

A single bullet, just like any other, 

suddenly struck his back and entered his noble chest, 

to quench a flame that never could or should have burned brighter.

ART HISTORY ADVENT CALENDAR 1: OPHELIA

Week of Death

1st of December - Ophelia

 Ophelia by Millais

A LETTER FROM ELSINORE TO PARIS:

Dearest Laertes,

your sister was not entirely sane:

she kept on doling out weeds to all of us

while singing nursery rhymes,

and therefore, when trying to get a water-lily

beneath the willow that grows by the lake,

she slipped on a rock and her gown was fully drenched,

falling into the lake, and 

the Näkki spirited her away.

We are so sad you lost the only family you have left.

Sincerely,

Queen Gertrude and King Claudius.

THE TRUTH ABOUT OPHELIA:

My older brother's gone to France

to teach French ladies how to dance...

and all my violets have wilted.

Have some rue for my regrets, for I rue the day

that I began loving Prince Hamlet,

who set sail for Mercia and Northumbria 

not long ago.

That Näkki-rose, that water-lily,

that grows in the shade of the weeping willow,

would look lovely on Mama's and Papa's grave,

(ah, if they were alive and understood me!)

so I headed for the lake.

And, as I knelt by the little pier there,

I heard the Näkki play the violin...

He is so handsome,

in spite of his webbed hands and feet,

and the gills frilled like a collar round his neck...

When he fiddled, I sang old sagas and nursery rhymes.

One look, one tune, and we understood

that we were kindred spirits,

both of us outsiders,

neither one wanted in the human realm.

So I gathered my courage and took the plunge,

my gown and apron drenched, I pulled down to the bottom,

I felt both my clothes and flesh melt away,

even as the guards fished up my lifeless corpse.

Now I am another ghost of Elsinore,

married to a freshwater merman beneath the lake,

and the Näkki loves me like no one ever has,

and he understands me like no one ever has.

Merfolk can live for centuries, after all,

and our relationship is certainly

a happily ever after.

ADVENT CALENDAR 2023 - ART HISTORY

 This year's advent calendar for 2023 will deal with art history. You will see myths and allegories mostly - some paintings and sculptures and illustrations from my hometown, home province, or home region and others from further afield. There will be a poem or micro tale of my own making by the artwork and related to it --you will meet and love Aphrodite and her children, Hades and Persephone, and many more. Each week will be dedicated to a different theme: Death, Love, Power, and Creativity. Tomorrow the first artwork on Death Theme starts with a certain Shakespearean female protagonist on whom opinions are still divided...

Bellman: CANCIÓN DEL PUDIN CON PASAS

Esta canción de Bellman se canta con la melodía de "Ja, må hen leva", la canción sueca de cumpleaños feliz. Y no es en vano, dado el festín que describe el bardo de Estocolmo:

CANCIÓN DEL PUDIN CON PASAS

Carl Michael Bellman

(Canción número 11, estrofa tercera)

Traducida por Sandra Dermark en noviembre de MMXXIII

Ostras escojo,

vinos de aguja

podríamos mi reina y yo apurar,

pudin con pasas,

gofres, melaza:

el desayuno con chupito al final...

Pudin con pasas,

gofres, melaza:

el desayuno con chupito al final.

TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT IS POISONOUS

 What about TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT IS POISONOUS?

The unprejudiced observer finds it hard to understand why these people should set such store by consistency of thought and action. Because oysters are occasionally pleasant, it does not follow that one should make of oysters one’s exclusive diet. Nor should one take castor oil every day because castor oil is occasionally good for one. Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. Consistent intellectualism and spirituality may be socially valuable, up to a point; but they make, gradually, for individual death. And individual death, when the slow murder has been consummated, is finally social death. So that the social utility of pure intellectualism and pure spirituality is only apparent and temporary.

Aldous Huxley, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" #enneatype7 #thaasophobia

The human mind is both complex and precarious as it never remains in the same state. Being busy a person can keep themself obsessed with some work; during work the mind often digresses somewhere . However , the mind becomes devilish when one is without any work. One resists boredom, sense of sin and unwanted feeling in state of jobless or deprivation of activity. If such hollowness continues for a long time one faces boredom.

There are two types of boredom namely one of which is situational boredom.

2) Situational boredom: this boredom is common that every normal human can perceive. It takes its essence from situation. We are situationally bored when we want to escape some unfavourable situation that makes us bored. 

Components of situational boredom are: 1) monotony . 2) lack of concentration 3) waiting. 4 solitude.

These four components are causes of situational boredom.

Importance of boredom:

To be bored is necessary for not only creativity but also for avoidance of some feeling . It follows that humans will constantly try to bring new ways of excitements and changes to invade boredom .The outcome of boredom thus leads to success. 

On the other hand , humans kill their inner world and extirpate their ways of happiness by much involvement in work; some freedom from work is vital to extinguish negativity of work so as to attain spirituality. Unending involvement with work destroys the essence of existence as we feel no boredom and find no way to bring a feeling of novelty and creativity. Too much boredom is dangerous; but too much excitement is poisonous.

Boredom is the main cause of every evil and misfortune that has occurred in the human history. Nevertheless, boredom is also the main cause of masterpieces in literature ,science, art...

What about TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT IS POISONOUS?

The first category is what I will term as general boredom; this is brought about by the lack of immediate stimulus, think of waiting in a doctor’s office in an age before the smartphone where you might find yourself looking at the wall for twenty minutes. This type is highly situation and necessarily transient. While elimination of this type of boredom would certainly be desired in the moment, it is not necessary in terms of the greater contest of life; it is by no means permanent. In today’s world there is incredible potential to occupy our time, nigh unlimited truth be told. Situational boredom can be solved by looking up the news or reading a free copy of “The Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” on a Kindle app.

Much of the current research on boredom focusses on situational or state boredom. Fahlman et al. (2013) outlined five different elements to situational boredom that have garnered significant interests: one of which is slow passage of time.

In situational boredom there is common experience of time moving slowly. People often report a distorted sense of how much time has passed on a given activity (Danckert and Allman, 2005). If time flies when you are having fun, then time drags when you are bored. Individuals are more likely to focus on temporal information (i.e., stare at the clock) when they are not meaningfully engaged in an activity (Chaston and Kingstone, 2004). This practice likely adds to the experience of boredom.

-Danckert, J. A., and Allman, A. A. (2005). Time Flies When You’re Having Fun: Temporal Estimation and the Experience of Boredom. Brain Cognition, 59, 236–245.

-Chaston, A., and Kingstone, A. (2004). Time Estimation: The Effect of Cortically Mediated Attention. Brain and Cognition, 55(2), 286–289.

SOLSBURY HILL - HÖGT PÅ KULLEN

 SOLSBURY HILL - HÖGT PÅ KULLEN

Av Peter Gabriel

Översatt av Sandra Dermark 

Första strofen den 14 november i skorpionens tecken, 2023

Andra och tredje strofen den 5 februari, i vattumannens tecken, 

2017

,......................

Högt på kullen Solsbury Hill

såg jag ljusen nere i stan...

Vinden ven, tiden stod still,

en örn flög förbi som ett plan...

Han var någonting att se,

närmare hörde jag en röst

som spände allt jag hade att ge...

Hade inget val och ingen tröst...

Jag var inte på dem orden troende,

gav blott min fantasi mitt förtroende...

mitt hjärta slog: DUNK, DUNK, DUNK!

"Hej, mitt barn,

ta vad du har, nu för jag dig hem!"

Att vara tyst är inte lätt...
har lika vänner nu, som förr...
att göra vatten till Moët
låser varenda öppen dörr...
Så gick jag fram från dag till dag,
ett vanligt liv i ett vanligt land...
tills jag äntli'n tänkte ett slag:
jag måste klippa av ett band!

Jag kände mig som en till del av scenen,
jag klev frejdigt ur den, rask i benen...
mitt hjärta slog: DUNK, DUNK, DUNK!

"Hej, mitt barn,
ta vad du har, nu för jag dig hem!

Visst, ja, hem!"

I illusionens spindelnät
är jag aldrig va' jag vill bli,
friheten slår en piruett
när jag tror att jag är fri...
Mer än en livlös silhuett
som blundar seende förbli...
Ingen har lärt dem etikett:
det gamla jaget är förbi!

Idag behöver jag ej nån likseende;
de ska få veta vad menar mitt leende;
mitt hjärta slår: DUNK, DUNK, DUNK!

"Hej," sa jag,
"ta vad jag har, ty nu för de mig hem!"

CUALQUIER NOCHE PUEDE HABER SOL

 CUALQUIER NOCHE PUEDE HABER SOL

Original de Jaume Sisa

Traducción y versión de Sandra Dermark

Es noche clara y tranquila,

con luna llena que da luz,

les invitades ya llegan y

van llenando toda la sala

de perfume y de color...

Blancanieves, siete enanitos,

Lobo Feroz, los tres cerditos,

Bella y la Bestia, Aladín, Yasmín,

Simbad, Alí Babá, Gulliver,

Zipi y Zape y Sapientín.

Welcome, willkommen, bienvenides,

las penas vamos a desterrar,

que casa mía es casa nuestra

si hay casas de alguien al final.

Hola Jaimito, y doña Urraca,

Éric y sirenita Ariel,

Elsa Reina de las Nieves,

su hermana Anna, Peter Pan

y Campanilla y Wendy y 

Papá Noel y pato Donald

y criatura de Frankenstein.

Welcome, willkommen, bienvenides,

las penas vamos a desterrar,

que casa mía es casa nuestra

si hay casas de alguien al final.

Buenas noches, Astérix,

señor Obélix y Panorámix,

Tintín y Haddock, y Castafiore,

y señor profesor Tornasol,

Pinocho y Pepito Grillo,

y también Nils Holgersson.

Welcome, willkommen, bienvenides,

las penas vamos a desterrar,

que casa mía es casa nuestra

si hay casas de alguien al final.

Y a las doce llega ya

Cenicienta con Alicia,

Conejo Blanco, con Harry Potter,

acompañado de Ron y Hermione,

también Frodo, con Samsagaz y Gandalf,

además de Arwen y de su Aragorn.

Oh, bienvenides, pasad, pasad,

ahora ya no falta nadie, no,

o tal vez sí, ya me di cuenta

de que tan sólo faltas TÚ.

También puedes venir tú si quieres,

aquí hay lugar para muches más,

no cuenta el tiempo ni el espacio,

CUALQUIER NOCHE PUEDE HABER SOL.