Silencio

..........................."Y el silencio se hizo"

No es lo que construyen. Es lo que derribaron.
No son las casas. Es el espacio entre las casas.
No son las calles que existen. Son las calles que ya no existen.
No son tus recuerdos que te persiguen.
No es lo que has escrito.
Es lo que has olvidado, lo que debes olvidar.
Lo que debes seguir olvidando toda tu vida.
…
Los trabajadores desmantelan las casas de los muertos.
…
Él olvida continuar el asunto.
No es lo que quiere saber.
Es lo que quiere no saber.
No es lo que dicen.
Es lo que no dicen.


............................................Una lección

REFERENCIAS. Fuentes visuales: Y el silencio se hizo (“Et le silence s’est fait,” anuncio publicitario de cierta cerveza europea); Una lección (imagen digital inspirada por óleo homónimo de Samuel Bak, 1968; Bak: Paintings of the Last Decade, Nueva York: Aberbach Fine Art, 1978, p. 131). Fuente literaria: James Fenton, “Un réquiem alemán” (A German Requiem, 1981), tomado de su colección The Memory of War and Children in Exile: 1968-83; estrofa 1, líneas 1-7; estrofa 4, línea 8; estrofa 9, líneas 6-9 (The Great Modern Poets, ed. Michel Schmidt, Londres: Quercus, 2006, pp. 220-21). Título del presente artículo y traducción de las palabras de Fenton al castellano rioplatense, idea y diseño por Akermariano (Mariano Akerman). Las palabras de Fenton en su versión original pueden encontrarse en mi artículo Selective Cruelty (ver texto debajo del título "The Selective").

European Cuckoo

Hasn't the same Order created Man and the Cuckoo ? (Masa Confusa)

The cuckoo is a type of grey European bird that lays eggs in others birds’ nests. When a female cuckoo is ready to lay her eggs, she finds a nest of a suitable host species and waits for the host bird to leave the nest unattended. She needs only a few seconds to fly to the nest, pick up one of the host’s eggs in her beak, and lay one of her own eggs in its place. Immediately afterwards she flies off, abandoning her offspring to the foster parents and eating the stolen egg. When the host bird returns, she usually accepts the cuckoo’s egg and incubates it with her own eggs. The cuckoo’s timing is precise, and its egg usually hatches before the host eggs. The hatchling cuckoo, with its eyes not yet open, ejects the unhatched host eggs from the nest. This process of ejection is innate. After ejecting the host’s eggs, the young cuckoo gets the undivided attention of its foster parents, which will feed and nurture it.


Ejection of host eggs from nest by cuckoo hatchling



When a hatchling senses that an adult bird is near, it begs for food by raising its head, opening its mouth, and cheeping. In turn, the foster parent stuffs food in the gaping mouth. These innate behaviors are replayed over and over, even after the young cuckoo is much larger than the adults.


The foster mother keeps feeding the cuckoo chick

Cuckoo's research references and picture credits: Neil A. Campbell, Lawrence G. Mitchell, and Jane B. Reece, Biology: Concepts and Connections, Redwood City, California: Benjamin Cummings, 1994, pp. 720-21; Cecile Starr and Ralph Taggart, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life, Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1995, p. 914. See also Create-Me-Not?

Spot the Difference

Cool Slideshows

Details from nine of my pictures, which belong to The Argentinean Suite, Here, There, Everywhere, The Inner Constellations, and Akermania Digitalis.

For each image complete version, see Wooloo-Akermariano.

Pictures by Mariano Akerman. Copyright 2000-6. All rights reserved.

Metamorphosis (Bald Men)

.

The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.[1]

.

.

« Dios con nosotros »
Porque ese cielo tan azul que todos vemos
Ni es cielo ni es azul
Lástima grande / Que no sea verdad tanta belleza.[2]

“God with Us”
For that sky so blue we all see
Is neither sky nor blue
Big pity / That so much beauty wouldn’t be the truth.[3]

.

Gott mit Uns (Delusion of Grandeur)

.
WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.[4]

.
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.[5]

Four legs good, two legs bad.[6]

.

Ay,
Qué esfuerzo el de la mosca por ser caballo.[7]
Esfuerzo es el del puerco por ser humano.

Ah,
What an effort for the fly to become a horse.[8]
It’s an effort for the hog to become a stallion. [9]

Tamaño esfuerzo el de las moscas por ser caballos.
Such an effort for the flies to become horses.

.

Pure {Delikatessenhandlung} and Superior {Stink}

.

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.[10]

.

.

Reality is always problematic
and not unquestionable.[11]

.
References [1] Jorge Luis Borges, Time, 14 February 1983. [2] Versos de Lupercio Leonardo Argensola (poeta español, 1559-1613). El título “Dios con nosotros” de hecho no pertenece al poema de Argensola. [3] Lines by Argensola (see above); my translation. The title “God with Us” doesn’t belong to Argensola’s poem. [4] George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949, pt. 1, ch. 1. [5] Orwell, Animal Farm, 1940, ch. 10. [6] Ibid., ch. 3. [7] Paráfrasis: “qué esfuerzo [el] de la abeja por ser caballo” (Federico García Lorca, Poeta en Nueva York, 1929-30: “Muerte,” l. 6). [8] Mine is a paraphrase of Lorca’s “what an effort for the bee to become a horse.” Christopher Maurer translates it as “How hard the bee tries to become a horse” (Federico García Lorca: Selected Verse, revised ed., New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004, p. 266). It should be noted that Lorca does not accentuate the mode in which the bee tries to become a horse, but the very effort it takes that insect to become a quadruped. [9] Puerco and hog aren’t synonyms, neither are humano and stallion. [10] Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, 1950. [11] José Ortega y Gasset, “Ideas y Creencias,” 1934-40. Visual sources: “10,” unidentified bodybuilder; Michel Kerbow, Pigs à la Warhol, New York, 1991.

Metamorphosis (Bald Men) is a digital configuration by akermariano (Mariano Akerman); it includes six digital images, Supermann (Proximity), Pigs I-IV, and Supermann Plastified. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

Flight Path (Painted birds) / Trayectoria (Pájaros pintados)

Fly, fly high wounded dove
Fly, fly if you want to change your life
Fly before the night will cover your days
Dove of mine, my wounded dove

Cool Slideshows

click image to enlarge/resume. doble-click sobre cubo para ver detalles

Vuela, vuela bien alto paloma herida
Vuela, vuela si quieres cambiar de vida
Vuela antes que la noche cubra tus días
Paloma mía, paloma herida

The six Painted Birds are digital images by Mariano Akerman. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Visual source of inspiration: S. Bak, “Fugue,” 1972 (Bak: Paintings of the Last Decade, New York: Aberbach Fine Art, 1978, p. 86). Literary source of inspiration: Horacio Guaraní, “La villerita,” chamamé. Translation into the English language by Akermariano.

Kingdom and Ecology

Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Sweden

The Three Kingdoms of Nature

"Nowhere abroad have I found any region richer than our land in marvels in the kingdom of nature; not one, that can boast of so many, so astounding masterpieces of nature…” (Carl Linnaeus, The Necessity of Expeditions Through Our Native Land, 1741; cited in Enchanted Land, p. 5).

Picture credits. Mineral Kingdom: “Sunset, Ramvikslandet, Bohuslän, 27 February 1997,” by Jan-Peter Lahall (Enchanted Land: Pictures from Nature in Sweden, Örebro: Jan-Peter Lahall, 1999, p. 18). Vegetable Kingdom: “Aesculus pavia,” by Edvard Koinberg (Gunnar Broberg, Carl Linnaeus, Stockholm: The Swedish Institute, 2006, p. 21). Animal Kingdom: A Tengmalm´s Owl Chick (“Owls, Hälsingland,” detail), by Håkan Vargas S. (Copyright Håkan Vargas S. / Swedish Travel & Tourism Council). See the site devoted to Linnaeus.

Flying Being

Visual source of inspiration: Samuel Bak, “Fugue,” 1972 (Bak: Paintings of the Last Decade, New York: Aberbach Fine Art, 1978, p. 86). The Flying Being is a digital image by Mariano Akerman.