Filed under: life, politics | Tags: Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua, poetry, revolution, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Last night, I was privileged to be able to attend a poetry reading by one of my favorite writers alive today, the Nicaraguan poet Father Ernesto Cardenal. He read some of his Cántico Cósmico, musings on the creation of the world and the state of the world today, and finished with the poem Viaje muy jodido (“A Very Screwed Up Trip”, according to the translation I have), written upon the death of his friend and fellow guerilla Laureano. My favorite part: hearing Cardenal himself utter the words:
Poeta hijueputa decí a esos jodidos mis compañeros de Solentiname que me mataron los contrarrevolucionarios hijos de la gran puta pero que me male verga.
(“Poet, son of a bitch, tell all my fucked up compañeros from Solentiname that the sons of the great whore counterrevolutionaries killed me but I don’t give a fuck.”)
Afterwards, during the Q&A, I jotted down some paraphrases of the translation:
When asked whom he is inspired by, Cardenal said that he was most inspired by more modern North American poets, from Walt Whitman until the present day.
Another member of the audience (the father of one of my best friends, who I didn’t expect to run into that night at all!) asked whether Catholic revolutionary theology (aka Liberation Theology) was still alive in South and Central America.
Cardenal answered:
Yes, but it is wounded. When Pope John Paul II came to Nicaragua, a journalist asked him about Liberation Theory and he said that Liberation Theory is no longer dangerous because communism is dead. But a bishop in Brazil has said that as long as there are poor people there will be Liberation Theory.
When asked whether literature should primarily fulfill a social role in order to be considered “good” literature?
It’s not necessary to have a literature that is social literature. I prefer literature that treats on politics and social issues. But if it is good literature it is revolutionary literature. As Mao said – Art that is trying to be revolutionary, but is not good art, is not revolutionary.
When speaking about the state of the revolution in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, Cardenal insisted that “the revolutions that have happened in Latin America have been authentic revolutions. Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, and all other progressive and revolutionary governments have been authentic. The case in Nicaragua is different because the government isn’t revolutionary, it’s a lie.”
Nicaragua, now ruled by President Daniel Ortega, has only a shell of a revolutionary government, according to Cardenal. Instead, it’s become a “corrupt government and a dictatorship of a family,” of Ortega, his wife and his children. Along with many other revolutionaries, Cardenal says, he left the party because of corruption within it. The revolution in Nicaragua is finished, but Cardenal remains hopeful because there are still people fighting against the corruption in the government, “the false revolution.”
Cardenal concluded on a note that sums up his hopes for the Americas in the future:
I have heard Hugo Chavez say that the people of Venezuela are brothers to the people of the United States, and the people of the United States are the brothers of the peoples of Latin America … Once Bush predicted that the United States and Latin America would be one people. But this has to happen without any kind of domination, political or economic, but instead with love.
Seeing Ernesto Cardenal speak was truly a great experience. I’d encourage anyone interested in poetry, politics, human rights, or modern Christian theology to pick up some of his poetry. He is truly a revolutionary, in more ways than one.
Filed under: music
I know I’m jumpin’ on the bandwagon just a bit later than all the cool kids, but I finally up and made a muxtape. I think it’s a cool idea, although its limitations (12 mp3s, that’s it!) made me think harder than I’m used to to decide which songs to include on it. And God knows I’ll want to change everything in about a week.
But it was fun to make. I hope you enjoy!
Filed under: music
Just had to note an article I saw on pastemagazine.com: the seventeen most awesomely cool record stores in these United States. As someone who still enjoys getting her fix of real CD (hate hate hate exclusive iTunes releases!) I love this tribute to the lovely institution of the record store. I’ve even been to one – Electric Fetus, in my beloved Minneapolis. One down, sixteen to go!
Adam, shopping at Electric Fetus, originally uploaded by massdistraction. (Note: I think this is the Duluth Electric Fetus, not the Minneapolis one. But still.)
I realized today that my Facebook status is at once incredibly pretentious and obscure. I rarely enter in what I’m actually doing. Instead, I insert a lyric from a song that I find appropriate for how I am feeling at the time. I tend to change it quite a lot, and for some reason expect people to understand that it’s a quote and not actually what’s happening to me in real life (I wasn’t drunk yesterday, and the only flipflops I own are reserved for use in the shower, see ex. 2 below.)
With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how inaccessible I have made my Facebook status throughout the last couple of months. Keep in mind that my taste in music is eclectic to the point of being slutty, and that if you get even five of these, you’re golden in my book.
So without further ado: a quiz! Identify the song from which I stole the last 33 of my lyric statuses.
1) Emily sure plays a mean pinball. (7:03pm today)
2) Emily is drunk and wearing flipflops on Fifth Avenue. (2:06am yesterday)
3) Emily might go out and watch the moon explode. (11:59pm, May 9)
4) Emily wished she could save him in some sort of time machine. (3:59pm, May 8 )
5) Emily is the second son of Mary mild, and she’s twice removed from Oscar Wilde. (11:04am, May 8 )
6) Emily spits, she smokes, she widens her stride. (12:15pm, May 6)
7) Emily is like a child when she’s been wronged; her heart is aching but she’s still strong. (10:32pm, May 5)
8 ) Emily may talk in her sleep tonight, because she doesn’t know what she is; she’s a little like you, but more like the son of Sam. (12:29am, May 2)
9) Emily will feed you tomatoes and radio wires, and retire to sheets safe and clean. But don’t hate her when she gets up to leave. (2:25am, May 1)
10) Emily got a big big big heart beat, yeah, she thinks you are the sweetest thing, she wears a coat of feelings and they are loud. (10:21pm, April 29)
11) Emily is letting the cool goddess rust away. (9:08pm, April 28 )
12) Emily is nothing of a builder, but here she dreamt she was an architect. (10:37pm, April 27)
13) Emily and the Major don’t see eye to eye on a number of things. (10:02pm, April 26)
14) Emily got to be good-looking cuz she’s so hard to see. (3:27pm, April 24)
15) Emily is thinking maybe all she needs is a shot in the arm. (12:46am, April 24)
16) Emily will find a way, regardless, to make some sense out of this mess. (4:51pm, April 22)
17) Emily is never gonna fall for modern love. (9:22am, April 21)
18 ) Emily is behind the counter with the day memorized, and those cold, vacant eyes. (9:51am, April 15)
19) Emily is a child of fire, she is a lion, she has desires and she was born inside the sun this morning. (7:18am, April 9)
20) Emily got a pair of wings for her birthday, baby. (10:44pm, April 4)
21) Emily will not pretend, she will not put on a smile, she will not say she’s all right for you. (5:15pm, April 1)
22) Emily must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. (10:31pm, March 26)
23) Emily doesn’t know what it is, but there’s definitely something going on upstairs. (6:17pm, March 24)
24) Emily is walking a tightrope into the moon. (1:50pm, March 15)
25) Emily is going to Chicago, via home. (8:26pm, March 12)
26) Emily is afraid of what everyone is made of. (7:14pm, March 7)
27) Emily is trying to downplay being uptight. (5:27pm, March 7)
28 ) Emily is not the pawn to your king, is not your world on a string, is not anything you’ll beat, she’s not anything. (5:02pm, March 3)
29) Emily could spit it in the eyes of fools as they ask her to focus on sailors fighting in the dance hall. Oh man, look at those cavemen go! It’s the freakiest show… (12:32am, March 1)
30) Emily can’t pay attention to the sound of anyone, a little more stupid, a little more scared, every moment more unprepared. (10:06pm, February 25)
31) Emily knows there is a brighter side to life, because she’s seen it, but not very often. (8:00pm, February 23)
32) Emily can always just stay no to the anti-aircraft crew, the boys from the Hitler Youth. (10:06am, February 23)
33) Emily don’t feel like dancin’. (11:59pm, Feb. 20)
Filed under: life
Dry, originally uploaded by em*ly rose.
Let this photograph represent any part of me that used to be creative. Now I’m lucky if I can stay awake while walking to class, let alone while IN class.
Just a week left, then … relative calm.
“I loved my father,” Paul thought. and knew this for truth. “I should mourn him… I should feel something…”
- Frank Herbert, Dune
In other news, my weather- and water-obsessed past two posts have combined to create this singularly uncomfortable Minnesota day. Not only did it rain (see photo), but it also sleeted. And then snowed in earnest. There was a thin layer of slush when I went out tonight (your humble narrator, of course, wiped out completely). I wish this state would make up its mind. What’s so difficult with a constant fifty degrees, Minnesota?
This is why I love geology. It gives me the chance to draw amazing diagrams of things that I already know, under the pretense of taking notes. And, okay, it may not be a complete diagram, and they may sometimes be useless for studying purposes. And other things tend to creep in there… like Decemberists lyrics… So in the end, they’re not really notes at all, because I don’t really need to write down most of the information that I end up skeching. But I try.
Filed under: life
(the sky in South Dakota this summer.)
Today I went to my last class before break (architecture). I leave tomorrow morning for Milwaukee on the bus, at an ungodly hour. It could be the weather, or it could be the fact that spring break is just around the corner. But walking home from class I saw people all over the place, just standing and talking outdoors. Weather.com says it’s currently 50 degrees in Minneapolis (feels like 44). Seeing people interacting, laughing, lingering in the sunlight, I realized how dead, how oppressed, how lifeless this campus has gotten over the winter. But it’s coming alive again. The sky is getting bluer, and my window’s open.
Second video of the day… a stop-motion video illustrating global conflict since WWII using ethnic foods. (Follow the link for an abridged, subtitled version.)
Granted, I’m a little late on this one, but better late than never. It wouldn’t be fair to Jimmy to take sides by not posting his video as well as Sarah’s. Watch it. Enjoy.
