Journeys through history in literature.

Richard Flanagan wrote the rivers and seas around the isolation of Tasmania, of the histories of the new colonies intertwining with the present day. Of convicts and of travellers, of families and of sons and daughters. Of the three books I have had of him, only one I have kept–the first edition of Gould’s Book of Fish, with its rare and unusual pictures and a different colour for every chapter.

Recently I borrowed a copy of Death of a River Guide from a traveller and had a read through it, letting the words rush over me. A book that is hard to put down once you are in the flow of it–I remembered that well. An auspicious debut that predicted the author’s themes. All of that literary stuff.

Sometimes things can only be explored in fiction because they are too difficult to approach through the sober, hard lens of non-fiction. Cut to Prague, scene of my new home. Reflections on Prague by Ivan Margolius, son of a man who was murdered during the Communist era. He intersperses recollections about his father with the details about what life was like in post-war Czechoslovakia, with recollections from prisoners themselves. Like the Gulag Archipelago, hard, disconcerting, real.

History as well as the future brought me here, and yet the exploration never ends the deeper one sinks beneath the surface and deciphers the stories that are told through the lenses of literature, of history, of art, of music.  It isn’t that I am perfectly secure and confident in knowing my path; indeed, often I am riddled with doubts. Seeking out mentors and answering questions still unanswered is the challenge of my lifetime, and in context, nowhere near as hard or as difficult as the moral and ethical questions that intellectual predecessors have had to face in the past. I can’t speak for their individual circumstances, I can only respect their existence.

Very ironic Gmail ads.

The conversation: increasing female participation in an academic group I am involved in. The ads?

The Elders
See Nelson Mandela
announce The Elders.

Social Justice, UCD
Interested in Social Justice @UCD Excellence in Teaching & Research.

Kevin Rudd
1 Minute Poll
Is He a Good Prime Minister?

Married and Unhappy
Find out why so many women today are unhappy in their marriages

Princes of the Night Show
Hens Birthdays and Ladies nights Male Burlesque at Crown

Alia Clinic
Australian liposuction pioneers. Safe, local anaesthetic techniques.

Feminism Research
Full-text feminism books, articles, journals at Questia.

I guess that this is proof that Google really doesn’t read your emails to try and target you with ‘relevant’ information, because the only thing that is relevant there is the link on Social Justice, and possibly the one of feminism (although the discussion is more about inclusion of women in a male-dominated project)–the ones on liposuction and hens nights are, well, just astonishingly inappropriate. So too the one on female infidelity, I suppose.

Why random work-at-homers shouldn’t get paid to write AdWords advertising copy.

A new Sim-game (probably not Maxis? I don’t know, I’m not satisfying Google by clicking on the link) is being billed as a ‘Fantasy Management Simulator’.

A Fantasy Management Simulator. Think about that one for a moment.

Okay: so you have about fifty characters to make your point, and ambiguity does promote curiosity (bet you’re searching for it now, eh?) but how many ways can we reinterpret this message?

Management Simulator: What happens in most day-to-day corporations.

Fantasy Simulator: Oh, possibilities are endless.

Fantasy Management: It’s Playboy Mansion!

Saying it like it is.

So I am trying to write up an article on František Branislav, and have come across an interesting language word: Černomoří.

Now, Černomořský means ‘Pontic Greek’, which makes sense as Branislav could speak Greek as well as Scandanavian languages. Pontic Greek is spoken in Greece, Russia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands; it is a Greek language with Turkish and Caucasian influence, spoken primarly by Greeks around the Pontus region (now in Turkey). Specifically? We are looking at the Greek language as it developed around the Black Sea.

Černý - Black / moře - Sea

Hmm, maybe it should be that ‘Pontic’ is the more interesting linguistic word? ‘Cause the Czechs just say it exactly how it is, while I’m now surfing around reading all about the Pontic Greeks and how they got their name in English!

Sgraffito, hispano-moresque earthenware, Bjørn Rongen and Scandanavian speaking Czech poets.

Just another Sunday in front of my reference books, no?

There is a ridiculously addictive game on Facebook called ‘Owned’. And it’s actually quite interesting to suddenly be owning completely random people that I have never met in the Czech Republic whom I should like to get to know.

On other notes I think I would like to go back to San Marino. Aside from being a completely intriguing, thoroughly beautiful place to visit, it has a rich history, autonomy, and three castles on a mountain that resembles something out of Lord of the Rings.

I really do have to get back to writing about Bjørn Rongen now–more later.

Happy Bunny Season?

The relative secularity of Prague means that there isn’t as much of a chocolate frenzy during Easter as there is back in Melbourne. It’s refreshing, and ironically enough means that I have been focusing a bit more on what faith and observance actually means to me. For years it has always been: attend services because it’s a family tradition, and particularly as one grows up and finds that there are things that I value that challenge a strict doctrine, it’s hard to know whether or not I should just keep following the old routines because they were established.

For tradition’s sake, I do find myself observing the days, a couple of the things that we used to do (like not eating meat on Good Friday–about my only concession to Lent). It seems to be less of a faith-based thing and more out of a respect for my roots–that these were the things that I was raised with, and my parents and family community strongly believed in, and observance of a day, at least, keeps those ties existing.

And not being in a place where it is all commercial and chocolate actually helps gets those thoughts in order–it’s time well spent to think about those I miss, and what it is that had been done in the past to observe these days and why, rather than get caught up in the automatic rush of buying a couple of foil-covered eggs and approaching the day with about the same amount of conviction.

The International Year of Languages: Awareness initiatives

Anyone who is interested in the community initiatives of the UN International Year of Languages, please have a look at this site; it provides an interesting set of links to blogs which are also supporting the International Year of Languages (and the Potato, and Sanitation, and Green Earth …)

A relevant book that perhaps people would be interested in reading is Language Death, published in 2000, by linguist David Crystal. It’s a short, very readable thesis on why it is that we should work to preserve the many languages of the world and what the current statistics and reasons are on language death.

My aims for this year are to perfect my other proficient languages, as well as work on the other official languages of the UN, but also to try and track down and develop my skill in minority languages. In my travels in Europe, attempting to communicate in the local dialect–Romansh, not Dutch or French, or Galician, not Castilian–has resulted in many new friendships and a greater, in-depth look to cultures which may soon be lost. And Chavacano–the Spanish creole of the Philippines–has a new and intriguing fascination to me, much to do with history and and with my own cultural connection to it.

As well as the Language Exchange program on Facebook, there are community sites such as palabea.net where people are willing to teach others their native language in order to learn new ones–an excellent example of people harnessing the power of the Internet for mutual benefit.

With acknowledgements to Don of donosborn.org for alerting me to the existence of the IYL 2008 blog tracking site, thanks.

Naissance – birth. Renaissance – naturellement, a rebirth.

It’s nearly noon and I ought be lunching, but I have been reading up on the Parlers, German art theories and the SonderGotik all morning and I want to go castle chasing.

A small, surprising thought makes me miss A. again. And why not? There were years …

Why I have to stop doing poetry after advanced mathematics.

How strange, and foreign, and apart!

How peculiar it is, when straight lines diverge,

Seeking, exploring, forever journeying outward,

Away from other, away from self, from unity;

Infinite hours later at horizon’s edge to meet again.

Beyond all notions of possibility …

16/03/08

Vergers

… Combien de fois un être, malgré lui,
arrête de soil oeil de son geste
l’imperceptible fuit d’autrui.
en lui rendant un instant manifeste. …

Rilke, 39, Vergers.