Cioran

“One can be proud of what one has done, but one should be much prouder of what one has not done. Such pride has yet to be invented…

The mission of Everyman is to fulfill the lie he incarnates, to succeed in being no more than an exhausted illusion.”

— Emil Cioran

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

En gammal goding från Beat Generation. Dock inte den mest älskade i mitt halvt sönderlästa exemplar av deras samlade dikter. (Helgon & Hetsporrar, poesi från Beat Generation & San Francisco-renässansen, Rabén&Sjögren, 1960). Alltså de tiderna mellan 1960 och 75 - kul ungdom man hade.

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

just when everything is fine

because even in heaven

they don't sing

all the time

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind some people dying

all the time

or maybe only starving

some of the time

which isn't half bad

if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't much mind

a few dead minds

in the higher places

or a bomb or two

now and then

in your upturned faces

or such other improprieties

as our Name Brand society

is prey to

with its men of distinction

and its men of extinction

and its priests

and other patrolmen

and its various segregations

and congressional investigations

and other constipations

that our fool flesh

is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling

mortician

Sjunga om morgonen

Jag har en liten vana, eller tradition kan man kalla det; att jag gärna sjunger en stund efter att jag vaknat på morgonen. Gärna i liggande ställning. Då blir det låtar från när och fjärran, några av dem som vi sjöng i kören på folkhögskolan i Ransäter; "Sing we and chant it, while love that grant it..." till exempel. Eller en liten låt jag lärde mig på min första Englandsresa till Paignton: "Up among the heather, in the heather I be free..". Ibland en tidig amerikansk låt som satte sig i sjuårsåldern: "When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, what will I be...". Ibland irländskt vemod som i Danny Boy. Eller någon av min pappas visor, som: "Vad himmelen var blå, och molnen ulligt små, i min barndom...". Inte sällan avslutas denna konsert med Bob Dylans To Ramona, en av de få av hans låtar som jag någorlunda lärt mig texten på. Här är den. Tryck på titeln så kan ni höra den med Bob himself.

To Ramona 

Låt av

Bob Dylan

Ramona, come closer, shut softly your watery eyes
The pangs of your sadness will pass as your senses will rise
For the flowers of the city,
Though breathlike, get deathlike sometimes
And there's no use in trying to deal with
The dying, though I cannot explain that in lines

Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss, as to be by the strength of your skin
Your magnetic movement still captures the minutes I'm in
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you trying to be a part of a world that just don't exist
It's all just a dream, babe, a vacuum,
A scheme, babe, that sucks you into feelin' like this

I can see that your head has been twisted
And fed with worthless foam from the mouth
I can tell you are torn between
Staying and returning back to to the south
You've been fooled into thinking that the finishing end is at hand
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one to defeat you 'cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad

I've heard you say many times that you're
Better than no one and no one is better than you
If you really believe that,
You know you have nothing to win and nothing to lose
From fixtures and forces and friends, your sorrow does stem
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel that you gotta be just like them

I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words would turn into a meaningless ring
For deep in my heart I know there's no help I can bring
Everything passes,
Everything changes, just do what you think you should do
And someday, maybe, who knows, baby, I'll come and be crying to you

Konstig årstid

Ljuset vara så mycket längre och kommer igång så mycket tidigare. Jag varvar grynings-morgnar med midnattskvällar, varvar solnedgångar med stjärnenätter och rosa himlar. Vart man än ser är de vackert, bara man tar sig ut. Sparken står tyvärr stilla, eftersom vägarna är gropiga, grusiga eller slaskiga. Nån sorts allt för tidig vår pågår. Jag tar stavarna och går ut. Pratar med människor lite här och var. Står och glor som trollbunden på de skiftande himlarna över fjällen, där gulrosa vetter mot åskblått och fjällen försvinner i dis som gör att man nästan bara ser deras svarta inslag av snöfri granit.

Också denna tid har sin karaktär. Nere under himlarna är allt bara svart-vitt. Vit gammal snö som hänger kvar över brunsvarta sluttningar. Asparnas raka grå stammar. Vita glimtar av vattenpussar på vägen. Över Lulevardos svarta skogskant ses ännu ett rosa skimmer och ute på Insjöns is försvinner tre skotrar med röda baklyktor in i skymningen. Sen är det tyst. Jag går hemåt mot mörkblå himmel, på knastrande isigt underlag. Dagen är all. 

Bild: Bo Trankell, Fyra granar.

T.S. Eliot ftw

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm, but the harm (that they cause) does not interest them.

Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

Bild: Hieronymus Bosch, detalj.

Käre Gilles Deleuze

“Nietzsche’s idea is that things and actions are already interpretations. So to interpret is to interpret interpretations, and thus to change things, ‘to change life.’ What is clear for Nietzsche is that society cannot be an ultimate authority. The ultimate authority is creation, it is art: or rather, art represents the absence and the impossibility of an ultimate authority. From the very beginning of his work, Nietzsche posits that there exist ends ‘just a little higher’ than those of the State, than those of society. He inserts his entire corpus in a dimension which is neither historical, even understood dialectically, nor eternal. What he calls this new dimension which operates both in time and against time is the untimely. It is in this that life as interpretation finds its source. Maybe the reason for the ‘return to Nietzsche’ is a rediscovery of the untimely, that dimension which is distinct both from classical philosophy in its ‘timeless’ enterprise and from dialectical philosophy in its understanding of history: a singular element of upheaval.”

–Gilles Deleuze, from “Nietzsche’s Burst of Laughter” Interview

Bästa socialdemokraten någonsin: Tony Benn