Random thoughts on the Day of the Holy Spirit – Τυχαίες σκέψεις την Ημέρα του Αγίου Πνεύματος

Ίσως σήμερα εορτάζουν οι άνθρωποι του Πνεύματος.
Ίσως σήμερα εορτάζουν τα Πνεύματα.
Ίσως σήμερα εορτάζουν κάποιοι άλλοι.
Χρόνια Πολλά λοιπόν σε όλες και όλους.

Σημείωση Πρώτη. Ο φιλόσοφος Γιώργος Φαράκλας θεωρεί ότι η λέξη ¨Πνεύμα” είναι πιο κοντά στην θεολογική παράδοση, ενώ η λέξη “Νους” είναι πιο κοντά στην φιλοσοφική. Διαλέγετε και παίρνετε.

Υποσημείωση πρώτη στην πρώτη σημείωση: Πρέπει να ξεκαθαρίσουμε τι θα γίνει με τα Μυαλά και τους Εγκεφάλους. Δηλαδή όλοι αυτοί γιορτάζουνε σήμερα; Άν είναι υποκατηγορίες του “Νού” τότε μάλλον εορτάζουν. Τα Μυαλά που ξενιτευτήκανε, τα Μυαλά που μείνανε εδώ, και όλοι οι Εγκέφαλοι εορτάζουν!!!!

Credit: Wikipedia

Σημείωση Δεύτερη: Όσο και αν έψαξα δεν βρήκα πουθενά εορτή των ανθρώπων της ΄Ύλης. Εφαρμόζοντας την Χεγκελιανή μέθοδο Θέση-Αντίθεση-Σύνθεση επεκτείνω την εορτή και σε όλους τους ανθρώπους της Ύλης. Επειδή χωρίς την Ύλη δεν θα γινότανε παιχνίδι και η η ζωή θα ήτανε πολύ βαρετή (όπως φαντάζομαι θα είναι στον Παράδεισο,στον οποίο όμως σύμφωνα με τις τελευταίες πληροφορίες που έλαβα δεν θα πάω ποτέ).

Credit: Machinatorium

Σημείωση Τρίτη: Μήπως θα πρέπει να έχουμε μια εξειδικευμένη εορτή για το ανθρώπινο Σώμα;Το Σώμα αποτελεί μια υποκατηγορία της Ύλης. ιδιαίτερα σημαντική όμως.

Υποσημείωση πρώτη στην Τρίτη σημείωση: Φανταστείτε να μιλάμε για τους ανθρώπους του Σώματος! Όπως μιλάμε για τους ανθρώπους του Πνεύματος.Αναθεώρηση; Ίσως.

Υποσημείωση δεύτερη στην Τρίτη σημείωση: Άν όμως ο Νους είναι όργανο του Σώματος, το πρόβλημα λύνεται. Αρκεί να πεισθούν οι κρατικοί λειτουργοί, οι θρησκευτικοί ηγέτες, κ.τ.λ.

Source: Reddit, u/PaulEdgy

Σημείωση Τέταρτη: Με τις Ψυχές τι θα γίνει; Με το απλοϊκό μου μυαλό καταλήγω στο συμπέρασμα ότι το Πνεύμα ή Νους δεν είναι το ίδιο με την Ψυχή. Πότε εορτάζομε την Ψυχή;

Σημείωση Πέμπτη: Μονισμός ή Δυϊσμός;

The Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte (1898-1967)

Σημείωση Έκτη: Αφήσαμε την Συνείδηση στο πλάι: Ή μήπως είναι κομμάτι της Ψυχής;

On Light and Shadow: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

“Our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and come to nought as the mist that is driven away with the beams of the sun. For our time is as a shadow that passeth away and after our end there is no returning.” Wisdom of Solomon 2.4

Participants

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer

Ernst Gombrich, British-Austrian art historian

Mr. F, wanderer

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian poet

Ms. B, anthropologist (of unknown ethnicity)

Marcel Proust, French writer

Miss. T, gourmant

Junichiro Tanizaki, Japanese author

Leonardo (da Vinci), Florentine painter, artist, scientist

Martin Gayford, English, Art critic

The Discourse (Fragments)

Ernst Gombrich“By shadow (ombra) is meant that which a body creates on itself, as for instance a sphere that has light on one part and gradually becomes half light and half dark, and that dark part is described as shadow (penumbra)Half-shadow (mezz’ombra) is called that area that is between light and the shadow through which the one passes to the other, as we have said, gradually diminishing little by little according to the roundness of the object. Cast shadow (sbattimento) is the shadow that is caused on the ground or elsewhere by the depicted object . . . .” – After Filippo Baldinucci, Vocabulario Toscana dell’Arte del Disegno, Florence 1681.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Where there is much light, the shadow is deep. A shadow is made when an object blocks light. The object must be opaque or translucent to make a shadow. A transparent object will not make any shadow, as light will pass straight through it.

Junichiro Tanizaki:  Why should this propensity to seek beauty in darkness be so strong only in Orientals? The West too has known a time when there was no electricity, gas, or petroleum, and yet so far as I know the West has never been disposed to delight in shadows. Japanese ghosts have traditionally had no feet; Western ghosts have feet, but are transparent. As even this trifle suggests, pitch darkness has always occupied our fantasies, while in the West even ghosts are as clear as glass. This is true too of our household implements: we prefer colors compounded of darkness, they prefer the colors of sunlight. And of silver and copperware: we love them for the burnish and patina, which they consider unclean, unsanitary, and polish to a glittering brilliance. They paint their ceilings and walls in pale colors to drive out as many of the shadows as they can. We fill our gardens with dense paintings, they spread out a flat expanse of grass.

Mr. F: The opening aria in Handel’s opera Serse (Xerxes), sung by the man character, Xerxes I of Persia, is about the shade of a plane tree.

Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade)

Tender and beautiful fronds
of my beloved plane tree,
let Fate smile upon you.
May thunder, lightning, and storms
never bother your dear peace,
nor may you by blowing winds be profaned.
A shade there never was,
of any plant,
dearer and more lovely,
or more sweet.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Young St. John the Baptist (The Burlington House cartoon)
(London, National Gallery of Art)

Leonardo (da Vinci): Shadow is the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different tone from themselves. And therefore in my first proposition concerning shadow I state that every opaque body is surrounded and its whole surface enveloped in shadow and light. . . . Besides this, shadows have in themselves various degrees of darkness, because they are caused by the absence of a variable amount of the luminous rays; and these I call Primary shadows because they are the first, and inseparable from the object to which they belong. . . . From these primary shadows there result certain shaded rays which are diffused through the atmosphere and these vary in character according to that of the primary shadows whence they are derived. I shall therefore call these shadows Derived shadows because they are produced by other shadows . . . Again these derived shadows, where they are intercepted by various objects, produce effects as various as the places where they are cast . . . And since all round the derived shadows, where the derived shadows are intercepted, there is always a space where the light falls and by reflected dispersion is thrown back towards its cause, it meets the original shadow and mingles with it and modifies it somewhat in its nature.

Martin Gayford: “According to ancient sources, the first artist ever to use this device (chiaroscuro: contrasting light and dark) was an Athenian named Apollodorus. It was he, according to the historian Plutarch, who ‘first invented the fading in and building up of shadow’. Apollodorus was called ‘Skiagraphos’ (‘Shadow Painter’). Before he began to model his figures, Pliny says, there was no painting ‘which holds the eye’.

 

Miss. T: Monsieur Proust “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”, the second volume of “In Search of Lost Time”, you define memory.

Marcel Proust: The greater part of our memory lies outside us, in a dampish breeze, in the musty air of a bedroom or the smell of autumn’s first fires, things through which we can retrieve … last vestige of the past, the best of it, the part which, after all our tears have dried, can make us weep again. Outside us? Inside us, more like, but stored away…. It is only because we have forgotten that we can now and then return to the person we once were, envisage things as that person did, be hurt again, because we are not ourselves anymore, but someone else, who once loved something that we no longer care about.

Mr. F: The woman without a shadow.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “Er wird zu Stein.”

Ms. B: If the Empress still does not cast a shadow within three days, the Emperor will be turned to stone. The following clip is from a stunning production with David Hockney’s stage designs.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “My earliest sketches for the libretto are based on a piece by Goethe, “The Conversation of German Emigrants” (1795). I have handled Goethe’s material freely, adding the idea of two couples, the emperor and empress who come from another realm, and the dyer and his wife who belong to the ordinary world.” (as quoted in wikipedia)

Giorgio de Chirico L’enigma di una giornata (II) ~ 1914 Museo d’arte contemporanea dell’Università di San Paolo

Ernst Gombrich: “Cubism reinstated the role of shadows both to guide and confuse the viewer. Later still the Surrealists exploited the effect of shadows to enhance the mood of mystery they sought, as in Chirico’s dreamlike visions of deserted city squares, where the harsh shadows cast by the statue and solitary figures add to the sense of disquiet.’

Martin Gayford: “Shadows can convey information, but also create illusions.”

Ryoji Ikeda, test pattern [no.5], 2013, audiovisual installation at Carriageworks. Commissioned and presented by Carriageworks and ISEA2013 in collaboration with Vivid Sydney. Image Zan Wimberley | © Carriageworks/WikiCommons
Junichiro Tanizaki:  And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows,heavy shadows against light shadows—it has nothing else. Westerners are amazed at the simplicity of Japanese rooms, perceiving in them no more than ashen walls bereft of ornament. Their reaction is understandable, but it betrays a failure to comprehend the mystery of shadows. Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun can at best but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build on a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of a room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose.

© Roy Zipstein

Junichiro Tanizaki: It has been said of Japanese food that it is a cuisine to be looked at rather than eaten. I would go further and say that it is to be meditated upon, a kind of silent music evoked by the combination of lacquerware and the light of a candle flickering in the dark. In the cuisine of any country efforts no doubt are made to have the food harmonize with the tableware and the walls; but with Japanese food, a brightly lighted room and shining tableware cut the appetite in half. The dark miso soup that we eat every morning is one dish from the dimly lit houses of the past. I was once invited to a tea ceremony where miso was served; and when I saw the muddy, claylike color, quiet in a black lacquer bowl beneath the faint light of a candle, this soup that I usually take without a second thought seemed somehow to acquire a real depth, and to become infinitely more appetizing as well. Much the same may be said of soy sauce. In the Kyoto-Osaka region a particularly thick variety of soy is served with raw fish, pickles, and greens; and how rich in shadows is the viscous sheen of the liquid, how beautifully it blends with the darkness.

 

 

On Friendship – Περί φιλίας

“…μία ψυχὴ δύο σώμασιν ἐνοικοῦσα.”

 Διογένης Λαέρτιος

Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων, [ed. H S Long, Oxford 1964],

Βιβλίον Ε’ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ

 

Στο βιβλίο του για τον Αριστοτέλη, ο Διογένης Λαέρτιος αναφέρει ότι όταν ρώτησαν τον Αριστοτέλη τι είναι η φιλία, απάντησε «μια ψυχή που κατοικεί σε δύο σώματα».

Όλοι έχουμε φίλους, όλοι μιλάμε για την φιλία, που είναι μέσα στη ζωή μας κάθε μέρα. Στο άρθρο αυτό προστρέχω στον Αριστοτέλη και τον Ιμμάνουελ Καντ προκειμένου να παρουσιάσω ένα σχήμα για την κατηγοριοποίηση των φίλων και την περαιτέρω αξιολόγηση τους.  Η έμφαση είναι στην σχέση της φιλίας και δη της αγαθής φιλίας, της δυσκολότερης και ουσιωδέστερης όλων, και όχι στα χαρακτηριστικά που έχει ένας φίλος σαν άνθρωπος. Στην πορεία παραπέμπω και σε απόψεις άλλων φιλοσόφων και συγγραφέων.

Επειδή πιστεύω ότι η φιλοσοφία μπορεί να μας δώσει εφαρμόσιμους κανόνες για την καθημερινή ζωή, έχω προσθέσει τρεις απλές ασκήσεις εφαρμογής προκειμένου ο αναγνώστης να εφαρμόσει τα όσα είπαν ο Αριστοτέλης και ο Καντ στην πράξη. Με τις ασκήσεις ο αναγνώστης θα διαμορφώσει ο ίδιος μια ενδιαφέρουσα εικόνα, που θα του δείχνει τι είδους φιλίες φτιάχνει και μπορεί να τον οδηγήσει περαιτέρω στην αυτογνωσία αλλά και την προσωπική βελτίωση.

Επειδή είναι μονότονο να αναφέρομαι συνέχεια στον αναγνώστη, και επειδή ελπίζω ότι το άρθρο θα διαβαστεί και από αναγνώστριες, θα αναφέρομαι εναλλακτικά στην αναγνώστρια και τον αναγνώστη όπως επίσης στους φίλους αλλά και τις φίλες.

Ο Αριστοτέλης (384 – 322 π.Χ.) είναι ο πρώτος μεγάλος φιλόσοφος που έγραψε περί φιλίας.

Αναπτύσσει την έννοια της φιλίας στο ακόλουθο χωρίο της Ρητορικής (Β, 3, 1380b35-1381al0):

«Ας πούμε τώρα ποιους αγαπούν οι άνθρωποι και θέλουν να τους έχουν φίλους και ποιους μισούν, καθώς και για ποιο λόγο, αφού όμως πρώτα δώσουμε τον ορισμό της φιλίας και της αγάπης (φιλίας και φιλείν). Ας δεχθούμε λοιπόν ότι αγαπώ κάποιον και θέλω να τον έχω φίλο μου θα πει θέλω γι’ αυτόν καθετί που το θεωρώ καλό, όχι για να κερδίσω κάτι ο ίδιος, αλλά αποκλειστικά για χάρη εκείνου, κάνω μάλιστα και ό, τι μπορώ για να αποκτήσει αυτά τα καλά εκείνος. Φίλος είναι το πρόσωπο που αγαπά με τον ίδιο τρόπο που είπαμε και αγαπιέται με τον ίδιο τρόπο: όσοι πιστεύουν ότι η σχέση τους είναι αυτού του είδους θεωρούν ότι είναι φίλοι. Με όλα αυτά να τα έχουμε δεχτεί, καταλήγουμε πια -υποχρεωτικά- στο ότι φίλος είναι αυτός που χαίρεται με τα καλά και λυπάται με τα δυσάρεστα που συμβαίνουν στον φίλο του -και αυτό όχι για κανένα άλλο λόγο παρά μόνο για χάρη εκείνου»

Στα Ηθικά Νικομάχεια (1155a3–11569b30) ο Αριστοτέλης διέκρινε τρία είδη φιλίας.

Την φιλία που αποβλέπει στην ευχαρίστηση. Οι φίλοι που πάνε μαζί για ψάρεμα είναι ένα τέτοιο παράδειγμα. Αν κάποιος από την παρέα αυτή αλλάξει γούστα και δεν του αρέσει πια το ψάρεμα, παύει να είναι φίλος.

Την φιλία που αποβλέπει στο συμφέρον.  Οι φίλοι που συνδέονται από το συμφέρον αποσκοπούν να αποκομίσουν συγκεκριμένα οφέλη από την σχέση της φιλίας. Η επαγγελματική φιλία είναι παράδειγμα μιας τέτοιας φιλίας. Οι φίλοι αποκομίζουν από την φιλία οφέλη για το επάγγελμα τους. Αυτό μπορεί να σταματήσει κάποια στιγμή, γιατί προέκυψαν νέες φιλίες που ξεπερνάνε τις παλιές. Κι έτσι κάποιοι από τους φίλους πάνε στην άκρη για να έλθουν οι νέοι φίλοι, με τα νέα συμφέροντα.

Την φιλία που πηγάζει από την αρετή. Οι φίλοι συνδέονται μεταξύ τους επειδή είναι ενάρετοι και ο καθένας επιθυμεί το αγαθό για τον άλλο, επειδή είναι αυτό που είναι, και για κανένα άλλο λόγο. Αυτές είναι οι πιο σταθερές αλλά και οι πιο σπάνιες φιλίες, αφού οι ενάρετοι άνθρωποι είναι λίγοι. Τολμώ να χρησιμοποιήσω τον όρο «φίλος καρδιακός» για αυτήν την κατηγορία φιλίας, που τον προτιμώ από τον «κολλητό» που είναι πιο επιπόλαιος όρος. Εναλλακτικά, μπορούμε να την ονομάσουμε «φιλία της αρετής» ή «αγαθή φιλία».

Ό Αριστοτέλης επανειλημμένα ανέφερε ότι τα δύο πρώτα είδη φιλίας είναι ευτελή, και μόνο η φιλία της αρετής είναι η πραγματική φιλία, στην οποία και αναφέρεται ο ορισμός που έδωσε στην Ρητορική.

 

Άσκηση 1η: Στο σημείο αυτό αγαπητή αναγνώστρια πάρτε μολύβι και χαρτί και κάνετε μια πρώτη κατανομή των φίλων σας στις τρεις κατηγορίες του Αριστοτέλη. Ονομάστε την Λίστα Α, και κρατείστε ένα αντίγραφο. Η πρακτικές ασκήσεις είναι συνολικά τρείς, και το αποτέλεσμα κάθε μιας είναι μία λίστα.

 

Έχοντας μπροστά μας τη λίστα με τους φίλους ανά Αριστοτελική κατηγορία, προκύπτουν δύο θέματα.

  • Μπορεί ένας φίλος να ανήκει σε δύο κατηγορίες;
  • Πόσους φίλους μπορεί να έχει κανείς ανά κατηγορία;

Ξεκινάω από το πρώτο. Η απάντηση είναι θετική. Ένας φίλος μπορεί να είναι φίλος ευχαρίστησης (π.χ. ποδόσφαιρο, ψώνια) αλλά και συμφέροντος (προσβλέπω να μου δίνει δουλειές με αμοιβαίο το όφελος). Το ίδιο ισχύει και με τον καρδιακό φίλο, με τον οποίο μπορώ να μοιράζομαι και την ευχαρίστηση της Θύρας 13, ενώ δεν αποκλείεται να κάνω και κάποια δουλειά μαζί του.  Κανένα πρόβλημα μέχρι εδώ.

Έρχομαι τώρα στο δεύτερο θέμα, που δεν είναι τόσο εύκολο. Ή μάλλον, έχει ένα εύκολο κομμάτι, κι ένα δύσκολο. Πρώτα το εύκολο. Ο καθένας μπορεί να έχει πολλούς φίλους της ευχαρίστησης και του συμφέροντος. Κανένας περιορισμός εδώ, σε ό,τι αφορά την φιλική σχέση. Δεν έχει αποκλειστικότητα, ούτε και άλλους περιορισμούς.

Όμως η αγαθή φιλία έχει περιορισμούς.  Ο Μονταίν (1533 – 1592) φτάνει στο σημείο να ισχυρίζεται (Περί φιλίας) ότι ο καρδιακός φίλος δίνεται τόσο στον φίλο του που δεν έχει χώρο για κανέναν άλλο. Η καρδιακή φιλία είναι αποκλειστική και αδιαίρετη, κυριεύει ολόκληρη την ψυχή και δεν ανέχεται κανέναν «ανταγωνιστή». Κάτι που δεν ισχύει για τις «κοινές» φιλίες όπως αποκαλεί ο Μονταίν όλες τις άλλες, που μπορεί να καταλαμβάνουν ένα μικρό κομμάτι του φίλου, π.χ. την ευχαρίστηση ενός καλού γεύματος.

Για να υποστηρίξει την άποψη του, ο Μονταίν αναφέρει ένα επεισόδιο από την Κύρου Παιδεία του Ξενοφώντος (8,3.26 – 27). Σε αυτό, ο Κύρος ερωτά ένα νεαρό αναβάτη που κέρδισε μια κούρσα αν θα αντάλλαζε το άλογο του με ένα βασίλειο. «Όχι», του απάντησε ο νεαρός, «αλλά θα το έκανα με όλη μου την καρδιά αν θα μπορούσα με τον τρόπο αυτό να βρω ένα πραγματικό φίλο.»

Η άποψη του Μονταίν μπορεί να είναι ακραία και να θυμίζει τον αποκλειστικό έρωτα, όμως αναδεικνύει το περιορισμένο της φιλίας της καρδιάς. Οι φιλίες αυτές είναι πολύ λιγότερες από τις φιλίες των άλλων ειδών.

Μετά τον Αριστοτέλη έρχεται ο Ιμμάνουελ Καντ (1724 – 1804) να προσφέρει και αυτός με τη σειρά του μια κατηγοριοποίηση της φιλίας. Στις «Διαλέξεις περί Ηθικής» (1770 – 1780) ο Καντ διακρίνει και αυτός τρία είδη φιλίας:

  • Την φιλία της ανάγκης
  • Την φιλία της προτίμησης
  • Την φιλία του χαρακτήρα

 

Αν ο Καντ εδώ φαίνεται να αντιγράφει ή να είναι βαθύτατα επηρεασμένος από τον Αριστοτέλη, στις «Διαλέξεις περί Ηθικής» (1793 – 1794) περιορίζει το ενδιαφέρον του στην φιλία του χαρακτήρα, την οποία αποκαλεί «ηθική φιλία», η οποία έχει πέντε χαρακτηριστικά:

  • Την αγάπη του φίλου, που στηρίζεται σε ηθικό πρόσταγμα και όχι σε φυσική ή άλλη ανάγκη. Η αγάπη αυτή είναι απαραίτητο υπόβαθρο στον άνθρωπο που θέλει να έχει φίλους, και ξεκινά σαν καλοσύνη προς τον κάθε άνθρωπο, αδιάκριτα, πάντα στη βάση ότι αυτή είναι η σωστή συμπεριφορά, ότι αυτό επιτάσσουν οι κανόνες της ηθικής. Αρχικά είναι μονομερής και εξελίσσεται σε φιλία όταν υπάρξει ανταπόκριση και αμοιβαιότητα,.
  • Την ισότητα, που είναι και προϋπόθεση φιλίας, αφού δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει φιλία ανάμεσα σε ανώτερο και κατώτερο, παρά μόνον εύνοια, ή κάτι άλλο. Την ισότητα την συζητώ παρακάτω.
  • Την αμοιβαία κτήση, όπου ο κάθε φίλος ανήκει στον άλλο. Αυτή η κτήση είναι διανοητική, και πραγματώνεται με το να μοιράζεται ο φίλος το κάθε τι με τον φίλο ή την φίλη του. Στη Μεταφυσική των Ηθών (1797) ο Καντ ορίζει την αμοιβαία κτήση σαν συμμετοχή και μοιρασιά στην ευζωία του άλλου.
  • Την εσώψυχη επικοινωνία. Η χαρά που αισθάνεται κανείς όταν μοιράζεται τις πιο απόκρυφες σκέψεις του με τον φίλο του είναι το θεμέλιο της εσώψυχης επικοινωνίας. Για να γίνει όμως κάτι τέτοιο πρέπει να υπάρχει εμπιστοσύνη. Στις Διαλέξεις (27, 676) ο Καντ αναφέρει: «η ίδια η ιδέα της φιλίας θεμελιώνεται στην αμοιβαία εμπιστοσύνη»
  • Την αμοιβαία εκτίμηση και τον σεβασμό. Ο αμοιβαίος σεβασμός των υποκειμένων αποτελεί προϋπόθεση φιλίας.

Με βάση όλα τα παραπάνω, στην ηθική φιλία οι φίλοι μοιράζονται τις ίδιες θεμελιώδεις αρχές, τόσο όσον αφορά τη σκέψη αλλά και την πράξη. Χωρίς αυτές δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει η ηθική φιλία.

 

Άσκηση 2η: Αγαπητέ αναγνώστη, πάρτε την Λίστα Α που φτιάξατε με τις τρεις κατηγορίες φίλων όπως τις όρισε ο Αριστοτέλης και επεξεργασθείτε τους φίλους και τις φίλες που έχετε στην κατηγορία της αγαθής φιλίας, με βάση τα πέντε κριτήρια του Καντ. Το ζητούμενο είναι να γράψετε δίπλα σε κάθε όνομα που εντάσσεται στην αγαθή φιλία, τον βαθμό στον οποίο πληροί τα κριτήρια του Καντ.

 

Θα συζητήσω σαν παράδειγμα το κριτήριο της ισότητας. Δεν είναι τυχαίο ότι ο Ζακ Ντεριντά (1930 – 2004) κλείνει την πραγματεία του για την «Πολιτική διάσταση της φιλίας» διερωτώμενος: «Πότε θα μπορέσουμε να βιώσουμε μια ισότητα που θα αποτελεί  μια δοκιμασία σεβασμού της φιλίας και που επιτέλους θα είναι δίκαια, υπεράνω του νομικού δικαίου, έξω από κάθε περιορισμό;»

Πως όμως μπορεί να εφαρμόσει κανείς το κριτήριο της ισότητας σε μια φιλία, όταν είναι γνωστό ότι η ισότητα είναι ένα ιδεώδες; Η εφαρμογή μπορεί να γίνει κατά προσέγγιση.  Έτσι, για παράδειγμα, μπορούμε να πούμε τι δεν είναι ισότητα. Η ισότητα είναι ασυμβίβαστη με σχέσεις εξουσίας. Ο προϊστάμενος μου δεν μπορεί να είναι φίλος καρδιακός, αλλά μπορεί βέβαια να είναι φίλος του συμφέροντος.

Η κατά προσέγγιση μέθοδος μας επιτρέπει να πούμε ότι ισότητα πρακτικά σημαίνει ότι κάποιες φορές δίνεις περισσότερα και άλλες παίρνεις περισσότερα από τον φίλο, όμως σε τελική ανάλυση όλα αυτά κάπου ισορροπούν. Αν δεν ισορροπούν, δεν υπάρχει ισότητα. Οι φίλοι στους οποίους δίνετε συστηματικά περισσότερα από όσα παίρνετε, δεν είναι κατά κύριο λόγο φίλοι, είναι ευνοούμενοι σας, ή ευεργετούμενοι για να χρησιμοποιήσω μια πιο δυνατή λέξη. Οι φίλοι από τους οποίους παίρνετε περισσότερα από όσα δίνετε, δεν είναι κυρίως φίλοι μου, είναι ευεργέτες, ή δωρητές σας.

Όπως θα δείτε από την διαδικασία της επεξεργασίας της λίστας των φίλων με βάση τα κριτήρια του Καντ, ο προβληματισμός που θα αναπτύξετε για το κατά πόσον μία φιλική σχέση πληροί τα κριτήρια του Καντ μπορεί να είναι ουσιώδης και να σας αποκαλύψει διαστάσεις που δεν τις γνωρίζατε πριν συνειδητά.

Μετά το τέλος της επεξεργασίας, ονομάστε τη νέα λίστα Λίστα Κ και κρατείστε ένα αντίγραφο.

 

Στη Μεταφυσική των Ηθών (1797) ο Καντ επανέρχεται στα θεμελιώδη ζητήματα της φιλίας και αναλύει την αντίθεση ανάμεσα στην αγάπη των φίλων και την αμοιβαία εκτίμηση. Ενώ η αγάπη τείνει να καταργήσει τις αποστάσεις, η εκτίμηση επιβάλει να διατηρούνται κάποιες αποστάσεις.

Όσο η αγάπη φέρνει τους δύο φίλους όλο και πιο κοντά, η εκτίμηση επιβάλλει τη διατήρηση μιας απόστασης, για να περισωθεί έστω και κατ’ ελάχιστο ένας ιδιωτικός χώρος που είναι απρόσβατος. Πρόκειται για μια πολύ λεπτή ισορροπία ανάμεσα σε δύο αντίρροπες δυνάμεις και τάσεις, που οδηγεί τον Καντ στο συμπέρασμα ότι η αγαθή φιλία είναι ένα ιδεώδες, που όμως δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει, παρά μόνο κατά προσέγγιση. Στο σημείο αυτό ο Καντ επανέρχεται σε μία ρήση του Αριστοτέλη «Φίλοι μου, δεν υπάρχουν φίλοι!».

Ακριβώς όμως για τον λόγο αυτό, η αγαθή φιλία αποκαλεί μια από τις ευγενέστερες σχέσεις που μπορεί να αναπτύξει ο άνθρωπος, και όλες οι δυσκολίες που εμπεριέχει το εγχείρημα, αξίζουν τον κόπο, για όσο διάστημα μπορεί να διατηρηθεί η αγαθή φιλική σχέση.

Όπως όλα τα άλλα στη ζωή, και οι αγαθές φιλίες υπόκεινται σε φθορά. Όταν η φθορά αυτή ξεπεράσει ένα όριο, η φιλία φθάνει σε ένα σημείο χωρίς επιστροφή. Ο Κικέρων (106 π.Χ. – 43 μ.Χ.)  στην πραγματεία του «Περί φιλίας» (21.62) συμβουλεύει να προσπαθήσουμε να αποτρέψουμε ή να επιβραδύνουμε αυτή τη φθορά. Σε κάθε περίπτωση δεν πρέπει να επέλθει σύγκρουση μεταξύ φίλων, ακόμη και όταν η φθορά είναι αναπόφευκτη. Όταν κάτι τέτοιο συμβαίνει καλό θα είναι να ακολουθηθεί μια πορεία σταδιακής κατάληξης. Στις Διαλέξεις (27, 430) ο Καντ επισημαίνει: ««το όνομα της φιλίας θα πρέπει να εμπνέει σεβασμό […] και θα πρέπει να σεβόμαστε και εκ των υστέρων την προηγηθείσα φιλία».

Η απώλεια ενός καρδιακού φίλου οδηγεί σε πένθος και σε θρήνο. Είναι όμως προτιμότερη από την τεχνητή διατήρηση μιας φιλίας που δεν υπάρχει πια.

Άσκηση 3η: Αγαπητή αναγνώστρια φτάσαμε στο τέλος της πρακτικής εφαρμογής. Πάρτε την Λίστα Κ και προσθέστε σε αυτήν με ειδική σήμανση τους φίλους και τις φίλες που χάσατε στη διαδρομή του χρόνου, με έμφαση όπως πάντα στους καρδιακούς. Δίπλα στο κάθε όνομα βάλτε και μια περιγραφή, που να αφορά την αιτία και τις περιστάσεις κάτω από τις οποίες κατέληξε η φιλία. Ονομάστε τη νέα Λίστα Τ.

 

Ξεκίνησα αυτήν την περιήγηση με τα τρία είδη φιλίας που όρισε ο Αριστοτέλης και συνέχισα με την αντίστοιχη κατηγοριοποίηση του Καντ. Εστιάζοντας στην αγαθή φιλία, παρουσίασα τα πέντε κριτήρια του Καντ, από τα οποία προκύπτει και η πραγματική πρόκληση για όσους επιχειρούν να αποκτήσουν και να διατηρήσουν φίλους καρδιακούς.

Ο Κικέρων με βοήθησε να αντικρίσω το τέλος μιας φιλίας, όσο επώδυνο και αν είναι αυτό.

Οι πρακτικές ασκήσεις ελπίζω να έδωσαν σε όσους τις επιχείρησαν ένα ουσιώδες μήνυμα. Ότι η αγαθή φιλία είναι μεν δύσκολη, αλλά σε κάθε βήμα, σε κάθε σχέση, αναδεικνύονται ευκαιρίες να γνωρίσουμε καλύτερα τον εαυτό μας, και ίσως και να γίνουμε καλύτεροι, αλλά επίσης και χειρότεροι. Είναι όλα μέσα στο παιχνίδι της ζωής.

By the (breaking) sea wave: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

Mr. FFF: Παρα θιν αλος. By the breaking sea wave.

MM: I see Priest Chryses praying. For his daughter Chryseis has been kidnapped by Agamemnon who does not want to release her.

βή δ’ ακέων παρά θίνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης…

πήρε βουβός του πολυτάραχου γιαλού τον άμμον

Ομηρου Ιλιας, Ραψωδια Α34

Without a word, he went by the shore of the noisy sea (or ‘sounding sea’)

Homer, Iliad, A34

Mr. FFF: The priest Chryses prayed to Apollo to punish the Greek army, so that Agamemnon is forced to return to him his daughter, Chryseis.

Mrs. T: The deep sound of the sea is in stark contrast with the priest’s silent suffering.

Είπε, και την ευκή του επάκουσεν ο Απόλλωνας ο Φοίβος,
κι απ᾿ την κορφή του Ολύμπου εχύθηκε θυμό γεμάτος

Ομηρου Ιλιας, Ραψωδια Α43-44

He spoke, and Apollo Phoebus listened to his wish

and from the top pf Olympus he rushed away full of wrath

Homer, Iliad, A43-44

MM: Apollo shot the plague to the Greek Army, and Agamemnon had to return Chryseis to her father.

Mrs. T: As a compensation for his loss, Agamemnon took Bryseis from Achilles.

Mr. FFF: Achilles is furious at the loss of Briseis.

Briseis returns, sculpture by Michael Talbot

Δακρυσμένος τότε ο Αχιλλέας απ᾿ τους συντρόφους του μακραίνει και καθίζει

μπρος στον ψαρή γιαλό, το απέραντο το πέλαγο θωρώντας,

κι απλώνοντας τα χέρια ευκήθηκε στην ακριβή του μάνα

Ομηρου Ιλιας, Ραψωδια Α348-352

Achilles in tears strays away from his comrades and seats

on the beach, and looking at the vast sea,

unfolded his arms and prayed to his mother

Homer, Iliad, AHomer, Iliad, A348-352

Mr. FFF: Greeks of any age, starting with Homer, have a special relationship with the sea.

Mrs. T: The sea was considered to be the home of many deities.

MM: The sea was also a place of catharsis, a cleansing place for mortals.

Wie Meerekuesten, wenn zu baun

Anfangen die Himmliwschen und herein

Schifft unaufhaltsam, eine Pracht, das Werk

Der Woogen, eins uns andere, und die Erde

Sich ruester aus, darauf vom Freudigsten eines…

Wie Merekuesten…

Friedrich Hoelderlin

As upon seacoasts, when the gods
Begin to build and the work of the waves
Ships in unstoppably wave
After wave, in splendour, and the earth
Attires itself and then comes joy
A supreme, tuneful joy, setting …

(translation by David Constantine)

Wie Merekuesten…

Friedrich Hoelderlin

MM: I see the beach walking and…

Stephen Daedalus: Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick.

MM: Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells.

Leopold Bloom: I am wandering around, avoiding to go home. I am on Sandymount strand. Following Stephen’s steps.

(young) Gerty: It is almost dusk. Roman candles are fizzing through the air.

Leopold Bloom: I cannot get my eyes off her!

(young) Gerty: I pulled my skirt up and revealed my garters.

Leopold Bloom: I surrender, I am too weak to resist.

(young) Gerty: I behaved as an exhibitionist. Will I ever be as important as Molly is?

Leopold Bloom:  I behaved as a true voyeur. I am aging.

Mr. FFF: I like garters.

Mrs. T: The description of the episode with Bloom and (young) Gerty made the US Courts to ban the book as indecent.

 

The beach shines like a mirror, swallowing the confusion of forms, creating whatever it likes.

Here by the beach, I will be covered, in whole, by a layer of sugar, like snow.

It is a sin to be absent from the present.

Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis, Mrs. Ersis’ Novel

Ο γιαλος στιλβει σαν καθρεφτης, καταπινοντας τη συγχυση των μορφων, σχηματιζοντας ο,τι θελει αυτος.

Εδω στην ακρογιαλια, ολοκληρον, θα με καλυψει σαν χιονι ενα στρωμα απο ζαχαρη.

Αμαρτια η απουσια απο το παρον.

Νικος Γαβριηλ Πεντζικης, Το Μυθιστορημα της κυριας Ερσης

Πῶς δύναται τὶς νὰ γίνει ἀνὴρ χωρὶς ν᾿ ἀγαπήσει δεκάκις τουλάχιστον, καὶ δεκάκις ν᾿ ἀπατηθεῖ ;

How could anyone become a man without falling in love at least ten times, and betrayed ten times?

Alexandros Papadiamantis

MM: I see the kissing-on-the-beach sequence where Lancaster and Kerr roll around in the Pacific Ocean’s frothy waves, lips locked as the surf washes over them.

Mrs. T: Lancaster’s sergeant (Milton Warden) with Deborah Kerr playing Karen Holms, another officer’s wife

Mr. FFF: The American censors deleted four seconds from that provocative love-making scene.

Mrs. T: From Here to Eternity was nominated for 13 Oscars and won eight, including best film and best director. It won rave reviews and became one of the highest-grossing films of the Fifties.

Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen,

dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.

You should not understand Life,

then it will be like a celebration.

Rainer Maria Rilke

MM: I see the beach swimming after sunset

Mrs. T: I have never done this.

Mr. FFF: I had a friend who rejoiced every time she had a chance to swim during the night. She could stay up all night swimming.

Τα πρωτα μου χρονια τ’ αξεχαστα τα’ ζησα κοντα στ’ ακρογιαλι,

Στη θαλασσα εκει τη ρηχη και την ημερη,

στη θαλασσα εκει την πλατιεα, τη μεγαλη…

Στη θαλασσα εκει…

Κωστης Παλαμας

I have lived my first unforgetable years by the beach,

There by the shallow and quite sea,

the wide, the great sea, there…

There by the sea

Kostis Palamas

MM: I see the Hotel des Roses in Rhodes.

Mrs. T: I like roses.

Mr. FFF: This is where I was going to swim when I was a kid. For hours on and on. 10am to 7pm. Full time job.

MM: I see the bay of Ladiko, near Kolymbia in Rhodes.

Mrs. T: Looks great!

Mr. FFF: It was even better when there was nobody there! Years ago, access to the bay was blocked and the man who had the keys was a good family friend.

MM: I see food and drinks by the beach.

Mrs. T: Allow me. First stop is Damianos Fishtavern, Ambelas, Paros island, Greece.

Mr. FFF: Wonderful setting, and dedication to serving good seafood all year round.

Mrs. T: It is amazing how different food tastes when you smell the sea breeze!

MM: I see food and drinks on the cliff.

Mrs. T: Second stop. Akelare Restaurante, San Sebastian, Basque Country.

Mr. FFF: Up on a cliff, overlooking the Atlantic, stands one of the shrines of gastronomy in the wonderful land of the Basque people.

Mrs. T: The place is full of the joy of life.

Η θέα

MM: I see seafood by the beach at night.

Mrs. T: Third stop. Ristorante Uliassi, Senigallia, Marche, Italia.

Mr. FFF: Now we are in the Riviera Romagnola, where the ITalians have invented the “beach without the sea”. Nevertheless, in this riviera, where everything happens, where the high and the low co-exist peacefully, Uliassi does his magic. It is worth the trip. Even if you do not make it to the sea.

MM: I see seafood on a balcony overlooking the beach.

Mrs. T: Aristodimos Fishtavern, Pachi, Megara, Greece.

Mr. FFF: Back to the homeland. An unassuming small seaside town 40 km from Athens presents the goods of the sea in a way that honors centuries of eating seafood.

Κουκλι σκετο, με το κλωναρι συκιας να βγαινει μεσα απο την προβλητα!

MM: I see Death encounters by the beach.

Mrs. T: Disillusioned knight Antonius Block and his squire Jöns return after fighting in the Crusades and find Sweden being ravaged by the plague. On the beach immediately after their arrival, Block encounters Death.

Mr. FFF: Black and White. The agony of Man in front of the inevitable. But the sea makes everything look natural. This is why the sea gives another meaning to life.

Mrs. T: (reading from a book): “The whole beach, once so full of colour and life, looked now autumnal, out of season; it was nearly deserted and not even very clean. A camera on a tripod stood at the edge of the water, apparently abandoned; its black cloth snapped in the freshening wind.”

Mr. FFF: (reading from the same book): “Some minutes passed before anyone hastened to the aid of the elderly man sitting there collapsed in his chair. They bore him to his room. And before nightfall a shocked and respectful world received the news of his decease.”

“Prayer does not change God, but it does change the one who prays.”
Soren Kirkegaard

“The essence of truth is freedom”

Martin Heidegger

Participants

Achilles

Ingmar Bergman, Swedish Film Director

Leopold Bloom

Briseis

Priest Chryses

Chryseis

Stephen Daedalus

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Caspar David Friedrich, German Painter

Martin Heidegger, German Philosopher

Friedrich Hoeldrlin, German Poet

(young) Gerty

Homer, Greek Poet

Soren Kirkegaard, Dane Philosopher

MM, partner

Kostis Palamas, Greek Poet

Alexandros Papadiamantis, Greek Writer

Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis, Greek Writer and Painter,

Otto Preminger, American Film Director

Rainer Maria Rilke, Bohemian-Austrian Poet

Mrs. T, gourmant

References

Akelare Restaurant, San Sebastian, Basque Country

Aristodimos Fishtavern, Pachi, Megara, Greece

Damianos Fishtavern, Ambelas, Paros Island, Greece

From Here to Eternity, A Film by: Otto Preminger

A Hole in the Head. A Film by: Frank Capra

Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite), A Film by Fatih Akin

Restaurante Uliassi, Senigallia, Marche, Italia

When eros makes life impossible: A “Fluxus Eleatis” discourse

In the surging swell,
In the ringing sound,
In the world-breath
In the waves of the All
To drown,
To sink, to drown –
Unconscious –
Supreme bliss –

Tristan and Isolde: Act III, Scene III

MM: Mathilde A jumps in the torrent created by the rain. Her body is recovered a few hours later.

Mrs. T: Mathilde B shoots Bernard first, and then she shoots herself. Both are dead instantly.

Mr. FFF: Diane runs screaming to her bed and she shoots herself.

von Grimmelshausen: Werther new that one of the three of them, Albert, Lotte and Werther himself, would have to die. He could not kill anyone but himself.

Mathilde A: (reads her suicide note) I am going before your desire dies. Then we’d be left with affection alone, and I know that won’t be enough. I’m going before I grow unhappy. I go bearing the taste of our embraces, your smell, your look, your kisses. I go with the memory of my loveliest years, the ones you gave me. I kiss you now so tenderly, I die of it.

Mathilde B: I needed to talk to him (Bernard). This is all I was thinking about when I was in the hospital (recovering from a nervous breakdown). But when the time came for me to go, and I put on my raincoat, without plan, withour hesitation, I got the handgun that Philippe (my husband) ket in his study and put it in my pocket. I kissed hm passionately. We rolled on the floor. And when he was on top of me, and when the last intercourse was over, I pulled the gun and I shot him. He did not even realize what was happening. I then turned the gun to my left temple and pulled the trigger. It was over in less than thirty seconds.

Diane: When I saw the blue key on my coffee table I knew that the deed was done. Camilla was no longer in this world. It had to be this way. She betrayed me. She was going to marry Adam. She was also fucking about. She was no good. She had to go. But I had to go as well.

Werther: And so it is the last time, the last time that I open these eyes…Lotte, it is a feeling unlike any other, and still it seems like an undetermined dream for one to say to himself: this is the last morning. … Lotte, I have no idea about the meaning of the word: the last! To die! what does it mean? I have seen many people dying; but humanity is so limited that it has no felling for the beginning and the end of its existence. .. All these are perishable, but there is no eternity that can erase the warmth of life that I tasted yesterday in your lips and I now feel inside me! She loves me! These arms have held her, these lips have touched hers trembling, this mouth has whispered something to hers. She is mine! You are mine! Yes, Lotte, for ever.

Mrs. T: Who is this von Grimmelshausen?

Mr. FFF:He is a German scholar from the Black Forest.

MM: How come he is here with us?

Mr. FFF: He is traveller. He goes to places. He meets people. That’s how.

Mrs. T: Have you seen what is inside the brown leather bag he is carrying with im like a treasure?

Mr. FFF: I recall you back to order!

Mrs. T: Ok, I was just curious.

Madame Guyon: The noonday of glory; a day no longer followed by night; a life that no longer fears death, even in death itself, because death has overcome death, and because whoever has suffered the first death will no longer feel the second.

Matthias Claudius: Man’s way of thinking can pass over from a point of the periphery to the opposite point, and back again to the previous point, if circumstances trace out for him the curved path to it. And these changes are not really anything great and interesting in man. But that remarkable, catholic, transcendental change, when the whole circle is irreparably torn up and all the laws of psychology become vain and empty, where the coat of skins is taken off, or at any rate turned inside out, and man’s eyes are opened, is such that everyone who is conscious to some extent of the breath in his nostrils, forsakes mother and father, if he can hear and experience something certain about it.

Horace: How is it that no one is satisfied with his own condition?

Filippo Ottonieri: The reason is that no condition is happy. The servvants, as well as the princes, the poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as the powerful would all be extremely well satisfied with their lot and would feel no envy for the others were they happy; for men are no more impossible to satisfy than any other species; but they can be content with happiness only. Now, as they are always unhappy, should we wonder if they are never satisfied?

Julia Kristeva: To be sure, analytic discourse does not, or at any rate does not always suffer from the apparent excesses of amorous language, which range from hypnotic fascination with the presumed ideal qualities of the partner to hysterical sentimental effusion to phobias of abandonment. Nevertheless, it is want of love that sends the subject into analysis, which proceeds by first restoring confidence in, and capacity for, love through the transference and then enabling the subject to distance himself or herself from the analyst. From being the subject of an amorous discourse during the years of my analysis (and, in the best of circumstances, beyond them), I discover  my potential for psychic renewal, intellectual innovation, and even physical change. This kind of experience seems to be the specific contribution of our modern civilization to the history of amorous discourse. The analytic situation is the only place explicitly provided for in the social contract in which we are allowed to talk about the wounds we have suffered and to search for possible new identities and new ways of talking about ourselves.

Arthur Schopenhauer: Selfishness is “eros” (in Greek ερως), sympathy or compassion is “love”  (in Greek αγαπη).

Friedrich Nietzsche: The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

Christiane Olivier: Is love, then, an impossibility? The couple is the fantasy of finding again, at last, a mother whom one has never yet met: for the woman, desiring; for the man, not stifling. It is the dream so well imagined by Verlaine: “I often have this strange, affecting dream of an unknown woman, who loves me and whom I love, and who each time is neither quite the same, nor quite other.” 

MM: Eros and Thanatos.

Mrs. T: Libido and Mortido.

Mr. FFF: Life instinct and death instinct.

MM: We are back in the field of the philosophy of the opposites!

Mrs. T: But are we? It appears to me that somehow Eros leads the actor to Thanatos! I see no opposites here, I see two complementary instincts.

Mr. FFF: I wish it were as simple as that. In my view Eros not only leads to Thanatos in the cases under consideration, it seems to me that Eros appeals to Thanatos to seal its eternal meaning. As if Eros does not attain its ultimate state unless it reaches Thanatos.

Jacinta: I was sixteen when, one night while I was sleeping, I had a dream. (Woe is me! And even when I was awake I relieved that dream.) I was going through a lovely forest and in the very depths of the forest, I met the most handsome man I had ever in my life seen. His face was shadowed by the edge of a fawn cape with silver hooks and catches. Attracted by his appearance, I stopped to gaze at him. Eager to see if his face looked as I imagined, I approached and boldly pulled aside his cape. The moment I did, he drew a dagger and plunged it into my heart so violently that the pain made me cry out, and all my maids came running in. As soon as I awoke from this dark dream, I lost sight of the fact that he had done me such injury, and I felt more deeply affected than you can imagine. His image remained etched in my memory. It did not fade away or disappear for ever so long. Noble Fabio, I yearned to find a man with exactly his appearance and bearing to be my husband. These thoughts so obsessed me that I kept imagining and reimagining that scene, and I would have conversations with him. Before you knew it, I was madly in love with a mystery man whom I didn’t know, but you must believe that if the god Narcissus was dark, then surely he was Narcissus.

Arthur Schopenhauer: They tell us that suicide is the greatest act of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Herodotus: When life is so burdensome, death has become for man a sought-after refuge.

ΜΜ: Freud claimed the death instinct drives people to death so that they can have real peace, and only death can get rid of tension and struggles. This is the case of Werther.

Mrs. T: When people feel extreme joy, they want to die and hope time will stop at that moment, which is also the evidence of death instinct, the transformation of life instinct into death instinct. This is the case of Mathilde A.

Mr. FFF: The death instinct exists in almost everyone’s subconscious. It is an irresistible instinctive power in human beings’ consciousness. Many people may deny that there is a death instinct in their consciousness. Indeed, people’s life instinct is very strong. However, if they examine their flashes of idea in their consciousness, they can find that just like death instinct, their desire for death is sometimes also very strong.

Jacinta: Because of this obsession I could neither eat nor sleep. My face lost its color and I experienced the most profound melancholy of my life. Everyone noticed the changes in me. Who, Fabio, ever heard of anyone loving a mere shadow? They may tell tales about people who’ve loved monsters and other incredible things, but at least what they loved had form! I sympathized with Pygmalion who loved the statue that ultimately Jupiter brought to life for him, and with the youth from Athens, and with the lovers who loved a tree or a dolphin. But what I loved was a mere fantasy, a shadow. What would people think of that? Nobody would believe me and, if they did, they’d think I’d lost my mind. But I give you my word of honor as a noblewoman, that not in this or in anything else I’ll tell you, do I add a single word that isn’t the truth. You can imagine that I talked to myself. I reproved myself, and, to free myself from my obsessive passion, I looked very carefully at all the elegant young men who lived in my city and tried to grow fond of one of them. Everything I did simply made me love my phantom more, and nowhere could I find his equal. My love grew and grew so great that I even composed poetry to my beloved ghost.

Julia Kristeva: Loss of the erotic object (unfaithfulness or desertion by the lover or husband, divorce, etc) is felt by the woman as an assault on her genitality and, from that point of view, amounts to castration. At once, such a castration starts resonating with the threat of destruction of the body’s integrity, the body image, and the entire psychic system as well. As a result, feminine castration, rather than being diseroticized, is concealed by narcissistic anguish, which masters and protects eroticism as a shameful secret.

MM: I love you so much I want to kill myself.

Mrs. T: I love you so much I want to kill you.

Mr. FFF: I love you so much I want to kill myself, but I will kill you first, before you kill me.

Albert Camus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.  Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.  All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards.  These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”

Arthur Schopenhauer: To those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with its suns and galaxies, is – nothing.

MM: Driven to suicide by eros is one thing, killing your lover and then killing yourself is another.

Mrs. T: It may not be premedidated, but evolutionary. You start by wanting to exterminate the cause of your living hell, your lover, and you do. And then, after you have done it, you figure out that the road has now opened for your own departure from this world as well.

Mr. FFF: This theory may apply to both Diane and Mathilde B. I would like to note though, that Time could be the differentiator. In Mathilde B’s case, she kills herself imeediately after she has killed Bernard. Whereas Diane kills herself after she realizes that the “contract” on Camille’s life has been successfully executed.

Participants

Albert Camus, French philosopher

Matthias Claudius, German poet

Diane Selwyn, protagonist in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”

von Grimmelshausen, a German nobleman and writer

Madame Guyon, French mystic

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Herodotus, Greek historian

Horace, Roman poet

Jacinta, character in Maria de Zayas’ “The enchantements of love”

Julia Kristeva, French-Bulgarian psychoanalyst

Mathilde A, the hairdresser in Patrice Leconte’s “The Hairdresser’s Husband”

Mathilde B, the woman next door, in Francois Truffaut’s “The Woman next Door”

MM, partner

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Christiane Olivier, French psychoanalyst

Filippo Ottonieri, a very thin disguise for Giacomo Leopardi himself

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

Mrs. T, unknown ethinicity, gourmant

Werther, a fictional character created by Goethe

Blue Velvet: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

IN DREAMS, Roy Orbison

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper:
“Go to sleep, everything is alright”

I close my eyes
Then I drift away
Into the magic night
I softly sway
Oh smile and pray
Like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep
To dream my dreams of you

In dreams…I walk with you
In dreams…I talk to you
In dreams…Your mine

All of the time
We’re together
In dreams…In dreams

But just before the dawn
I awake and find you gone
I can’t help it…I can’t help it
If I cry
I remember
That you said goodbye
To end all these things
And I’ll be happy in my dreams
Only in dreams
In beautiful dreams

Sandy Williams:  I don’t know. I had a dream. In fact, it was the night I met you. In the dream, there was our world and the world was dark because there weren’t any robins, and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was just this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free, and they flew down and brought this Blinding Light of Love. And it seemed like that love would be the only thing that would make any difference. And it did. So I guess it means there is trouble ’til the robins come.

Jeffrey Beaumont:  You did not let me kiss you.

Sandy Williams: I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.

Jeffrey Beaumont:  Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out.

Dorothy Vallens: He (Jeffrey) puts his dicease in me!

Mr. FFF:  We are in a sleepy, idyllic American town that hides a sinister underworld.

MM: Jeffrey Beaumont, a college student visiting his home town because his father is ill at the hospital, finds a severed human ear in a field.

Mrs. T: Jeffrey shares his “finding” with Sandy Williams, a local high school student he is courting. They decide to make their own inquiries and find Dorothy Vallens, a night club singer who is apparently connected to the ear. Dorothy is played by Isabella Rossellini, who makes her real debut in acting in this movie.

MM: Dorothy is somehow related to Frank Booth, a local man of the underworld.

Mr. FFF: Frank Booth is a foul-mouthed and violent sociopath, being sexually inclined toward dry humping and sadomasochism with Isabella Rossellini, while at the same time inhaling nitrous oxide and crying ‘Mommy!’

Mrs. T: Huffing nitrous oxide causes feelings of euporia, insensitivity to pain, and auditory/visual distorions. The only known detriment to one’s health directly related to nitrous oxide is severe vitamin b12 deficiency. This usually only becomes a problem in people who use nitrous oxide several times a day every day. Most, if not all, nitrous oxide-related deaths are a result of not using common sense, such as using it while standing up and falling and hitting your head or huffing from a plastic bag and having your airways blocked. Nitrous oxide is sometimes called laughing gas and dentists commonly give it to patients undergoing painful dental work.

Mr. FFF: Frank’s inhaling from the mask is a ritual. The mask is acting as his inway to the maternal womb.

MM: This may explain why intermittently, Frank inhales and then tells Dorothy “Baby wants to fuck”.

Mrs. T: And then Dorothy tells him “Mommy loves you”.

Mr. FFF: We may have a classic here, a repressed Oedipal complex that in the way becomes twisted and blends with a delirious impulse to return to “Mommy” for his own safety, to protect her, to make sure she is only his. To confine the real world to the world of the boy and “mommy”.

Mr. FFF: The protagonists’ sexuality is rather extravagant to put it mildly.

MM: We could have a case of perverse sexuality.

Mrs. T: How would define perversion?

MM: (reading from a dictionary) Sexual perversions are conditions in which sexual excitement or orgasm is associated with acts or imagery that are considered unusual within the culture. To avoid problems associated with the stigmatization of labels, the neutral term paraphilia, derived from Greek roots meaning “alongside of” and “love,” is used to describe what used to be called sexual perversions. A paraphilia is a condition in which a person’s sexual arousal and gratification depend on a fantasy theme of an unusual situation or object that becomes the principal focus of sexual behavior.

Mrs T: We have quite a lot of paraphilias in “Blue Velvet”, and Dorothy is only one of the actors in them. Lets start with Jeffrey, who is a voyeur. He is in a closet in Dorothy’s bedroom, watching Dorothy taking off her clothes and wig.

MM: Jeffrey initially pretends he is a voyeur, but as the story unfolds he appears to one, but a voyeur who seeks gratification not only from sex, but from danger as well.

Mr. FFF: Another case of paraphilia is Dorothy’s sexual sadism. When she gets a chance, she cuts Jeffrey with a knife.

Mrs. T: We also have sexual masochism. When Jeffrey hits Dorothy and then apologizes, she proclaims that she actually liked it.

Dorothy Vallens: Hit me! (pause) Hit me! Hit me!

MM: Fetishism is also present. Blue velvet is a fetish.

Mr. FFF: And the blue it is not any kind of it. It is Yves Klein blue! Or this is what I see in it.

Frank Booth:  (addresses Dorothy) Baby wants to fuck. Get ready to fuck. You fucker’s fucker. You fucker. Don’t you fuckin’ look at me!…Baby wants blue velvet…Don’t fuckin’ look at me. Don’t fuckin’ look at me. Don’t you look at me. Daddy’s coming. Daddy’s coming home. Don’t you fuckin’ look at me. Daddy’s coming home…Don’t you fuckin’ look at me. [blows out the candle] Now it’s dark.

Mr. FFF:  “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me.” The power of seeing without being seen.

Frank Booth:  Stay alive baby. Do it for Van Gogh.

Dennis Hopper: I am Frank! Thats what I said to David (Lynch) to get the part.

Isabella Rossellini: Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them. David (Lynch) doesn’t translate his images logically, so they remain raw, emotional. Whenever I ask him where his ideas come from, he says it’s like fishing. He never knows what he’s going to catch.”

Mr. FFF: I saw Isabella Rossellini perform live in the Epidavros open theater in September 2001. She was Persephone, but in my eyes she was Dorothy. Blue Velvet in Epidavros. This was my dream during and after the performance. A dream as good as real.

Ben: To your health

Frank Booth: Ah, shit, let’s drink to something else. Let’s drink to fucking. Yeah, say, “Here’s to your fuck, Frank.”

Frank Booth: Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.

Dorothy Vallens: Mommy loves you.

Arthur Schopenhauer: All life is suffering, and suffering is caused by desire. The only way to escape suffering is to escape desire alltogether.

Frank Booth: Goddamn you’re one suave fucker!

Dorothy Vallens: I am not crazy. I know the difference between right and wrong.

Frank Booth: All right. Let’s hit the fuckin’ road, we’re givin’ our neighbor a joy ride. Let’s get on with it. Bye, Ben. Anyone, uh, want to go on a joy ride with us. [to Dorothy] How about you? Huh? Hey, no smile for Frank? No? OK. Fuck it. Let’s go. Now it’s dark. [shouting] Let’s FUCK!I’ll fuck anything that moves!

Mr. FFF: Jeffrey has no fear of Frank whatsoever because Jeffrey is like Frank. As we see the film, we see Jeffrey being metamorphosed from a benign college student to Frank’s double. Frank is Jeffrey’s evil double. This is like a journey of discovery for Jeffrey.

Frank Booth: [to Jeffrey] Don’t be a good neighbor to her. I’ll send you a love letter straight from my heart, fucker. Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fuckin’ gun, fucker. If you receive a love letter from me, you are fucked forever. Do you understand, fuck? I’ll send ya straight to Hell, fucker!

Jeffrey: I did not mean to hit you. I am sorry.

Dorothy: Don’t be sorry, do it again! I loved it!

David Lynch: I equate openness and truthfulness with a recognition and acceptance of inner drives and passions. The pretence of inherent goodness is equated with lying and self-deception.

Blue Velvet, Boby Vinton

She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet was the night
Softer than satin was the light
From the stars
She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet were her eyes
Warmer than May her tender sighs
Love was ours
Ours a love I held tightly
Feeling the rapture grow
Like a flame burning brightly
But when she left, gone was the glow of
Blue velvet
But in my heart there’ll always be
Precious and warm, a memory
Through the years
And I still can see blue velvet
Through my tears

Participants

Jeffrey Beaumont, a college student

Ben, an associate of Frank’s, not exactly a nice guy

Frank Booth, the film’s protagonist, a pervert and sociopath of sorts

Dorothy Vallens, a night club singer

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Dennis Hopper, American actor

MM, partner

Roy Orbison, American singer

Isabella Rossellini, actress

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

Mrs. T, gourmant

Sandy Williams. Police Detective John Williams’ daughter, a high school student

On the Dark Side: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

Ludwig Wittgenstein: “In a conversation: one person throws a ball; the other does not know whether he is supposed to throw it back, or throw it to a third person, or leave it on the ground, or pick it up and put it in his pocket,…Any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning.”

Socrates: So it is that the good man too could sometimes become bad, either through age or toil or disease or some misfortune – for doing badly is nothing other than being deprived of knowledge – but the bad man could never become bad – for he is bad all the time – but if he is to become bad he must first become good.

MM: Are you a good man?

Mr. FFF: I am good and bad at the same time. And not because of lack of knowledge.

Mrs. T: Are you then disagreeing with Socrates?

Mr. FFF: Good and bad is only one of the “dialectical” dichotomies of man. Others being: reason / faith,  bright / dark, rational / irrational, sacred / profane, Apollonian / Dionysian, nature / culture. Dialectics dictate that both sides are taken together, and dealt with as a whole.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Every human embodies a compound of nature and culture, chaos and order, instinct and reason… symbolised by Dionysus and Apollo.

Mrs. T: What are the origins of bad, of the dark side? Was man in the past a unitary entity? How did this dichotomy of bright and dark come about?

Mr. FFF (Reads from Genesis): “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’  And the woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it lest you die.’  And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die for God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate.  She gave also to her husband with her and he ate.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked.  And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

St. Augustine: We took away an enormous quantity of pears, not to eat them ourselves, but simply to throw them to the pigs. Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden. .. the evil in me was foul, but I loved it. I loved my own perdition and my own faults, not the things for which I committed wrong, but the wrong itself. My soul was vicious and broke away from your (God’s) safe keeping to seek its own destruction, looking for no profit in disgrace but only for disgrace itself.

Mrs. T: Surely the Judeo-Christian view is not the only one.

Mr. FFF: Of course not. To take an example, daemons were benevolent spirits in the time of Hesiod. It was Plato and his pupil Xenocrates, who first characterized daemons as dangerous spirits. This was later absorbed by the Christians.

Mrs. T: Is the dark side a moral construct?

Mr. FFF: The dark side is a multifaceted construct. It has moral and religious connotations to say the least.

MM: The seductress of Juliette claimed immediately after the act that morality and religion are meaningless.

Mr. FFF: Lets put two of the prominent “dark side” attributes on the table: sin and evil.

MM: Juliette’s aim in life is to to enjoy oneself at no matter whose expense. What is the meaning of sin and evil for Juliette?

Clairwil: I expect Juliette to do evil – not to quicken her lust, as I believe is her habit at present, but solely for the pleasure of doing it…one must proceed calmly, deliberately, lucidly. Crime is the torch that should fire the passions.

Mephistopheles: Das beste, das du wissen kannst, / Darfst du den Buben doch nichts sagen.

(Mephistopheles: The best of what you know may not, after all, be told to boys.)

Georges Battaile: Sexual reproductive activity is common to sexual animals and men, but only men appear to have turned their sexual activity into erotic activity. Eroticism, unlike simple sexual activity, is a psychological quest independent of the natural goal: reproduction and the desire for children…Eroticism always entails a breaking down of established patterns, the patterns, I repeat, of the regulated social order basic to our discontinuous mode of existence.

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Reads from “The Diary of the War of the Pigs”): “Την κοιτουσε απο κοντα. Καρφωνε το βλεμμα του στα χειλη, στις λεπτομερειες της επιδερμιδας, στο λαιμο, στα χερια που του φαινοντουσαν εκφραστικα και μυστηριωδη. Ξαφνικα καταλαβε πως αν δεν τη φιλουσε, η στερηση θα ηταν ανυποφορη. Ειπε μεσα του: “Ειμαι τρελος”. Κι επανελαβε πως αν την φιλουσε, θα κατεστρεφε ολη αυτη την τρυφεροτητα, που τοσο αυθορμητα του προσφερε εκεινη. Θα εκανε ισως τη λαθος κινηση, που θα την απογοητευε και θα τον εμφανιζε σαν ενα ατομο χωρις ευαισθησια, ανικανο να ερμηνευσει σωστα μαι πραξη γενναιοδωριας, σαν ενα υποκριτη που παριστανε τον καλο, ενω μεσα του κοχλαζουν οι χυδαιες ορεξεις, σαν εναν ανοητο που τολμα να τις εκφρασει. Σκεφτηκε: “Αυτο δε μου συνεβαινε αλλοτε” (και ειπε μεσα του πως αυτο το σχολιο του ειχε γινει πια εμμονη ιδεα). “Σε μια παρομοια κατασταση εγω θα ημουν ενας αντρας μπροστα σε μια γυναικα, ενω τωρα…” Κι αν τωρα εκανε λαθος; Αν εχανε εξαιτιας μιας αγιατρευτης ντροπαλοσυνης την καλυτερη ευκαιρια; Γατι να μη δει τα πραγματα απλα, να μην αφησει τον εαυτο του να καταλαβει πως η Ν κι εκεινος…”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Reads from “The Diary of the War of the Pigs”): He was watching her from a close distance. His stare was penetrating her lips, the details of her skin, the neck, the hands, mysterious and ever so expressive. He told himself: ” I am mad”. And repeated that if he were to kiss her, he would destroy all the tenderness that she was so spontaneously offering to him. He might make the wrong move, that would disappoint her and present him in her eyes as a person without sensitivity, unable to interpret correctly an act of generosity, like an hypocrite who was pretending to be good, while inside him burn all sorts of vile desires, like a fool who dares express them. He thought: “this was not happening to me in the past” (and told himself that this was becoming now a persistent thought). “In a similar situation in the past, I would be a man in front of a woman, while now…” And if he were wrong? If  because of this incurable shyness he was to miss the best chance? Why not see things in the simple way, not let himself understand that N and himself…”

Michel Foucault: …transgression is not related to the limit as black is to white […] the outside to the inside […] their relationship takes the form of a spiral which no simple infraction can exhaust…sexuality is a fissure – not one which surrounds us as the basis of our isolation or individuality, but one which marks the limit within us and designates us as a limit…transgression and the limit has replaced the older dichotomy of the sacred and the profane.

Marlow: And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom and all the truth, all the sincerity, are just compresses into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.

Brother Medardus: One morning when I was going to the choirmaster for my music lesson, I caught his sister by surprise in a light negligee, her breast almost completely bare. She swiftly covered it up, but my prying eyes had already seen too much. Words failed me. New, unknownfeelings welled up within me and drove the red-hot blood through my veins so that my pulse beat out loud for all to hear. My heart was held in a convulsive grip and nearly bursting, until I eased my torment with a gentle sigh.
Georges Bataille:  …eroticism fell within the bounds of the profane and was at the same time condemned out of hand. The development of eroticism is parallel with that of uncleaness. Sacredness misunderstood is readily identified with evil.
Michel Foucault: If it is extremely dangerous to say that reason is the enemy that should be eliminated, it is just as dangerous to say that any critical questioning of this rationality risks sending us into irrationality… if critical thought itself has a function…it is precisely to accept this sort of spiral, this sort of revolving door of rationality that refers us to its necessity… and at the same time to its intrinsic dangers.

Mr. FFF: The spiral negates the dichotomy. A new paradigm is born. I am a descendant of Gerard de Nerval.
Friedrich Nietzsche:…morality takes good and evil for realities that contradict one another (not as complementary value concepts,which would be true), it advises taking the side of the good, it desires that the good should renounce and oppose the evil down to its ultimate roots – it therefore denies life which has in all its instincts both Yes and No.
Alexander Nehamas: The essential unity of what we commonly distinguish as good and evil is one of the most central themes in Nietzsche’s writing.
Georges Bataille:  If they want to elevate sexuality above its organic matrix and turn it into a spiritual activity, human beings cannot but conceive erotism as a gateway to death and the diabolical. The taking over of evil is an extreme and sovereign value. This process would not require the excision of morality, rather it would bring forth a higher level morality, an a-theological “hypermorality”.


Marlow: We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.
Mr. Kurtz: The Horror, the Horror!
Marlow: I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.
Friedrich Nietzsche: It is with people as it is with the trees. The more they aspire to the height and light, the more strongly do their roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep – into evil.
Marlow: The mind of man is capable of anything – because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future… Droll thing life is – that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself – that comes too late – a crop of unextinguishable regrets.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Human beings need what is most evil in them for what is best in them… whatever is most evil is their best power and the hardest stone for the highest creator… human beings must become better and more evil.

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Reads from “The Diary of the War of the Pig”): “Πιστεψε πως δεν ειχε πια ουτε δυναμεις ουτε ψευδαισθησεις για ν’αντεξει τη ζωη. Η φιλια ηταν αδιαφορη, ο ερωτας ποταπος και απιστος και το μονο που περισσευε ηταν το μισος. … του περασε απο το μυαλο μια λυση που αξιζε τον κοπο να την μελετησει κανεις¨το ιδιο του το χερι, οπλισμενο μ’ ενα φανταστικο ρεβολβερ να τον σημαδευει στον κροταφο.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (Reads from “The Diary of the War of the Pig”): Adolfo Bioy Casares (Reads from “The Diary of the War of the Pig”): “He felt that he no longer had any powers or illusions to stay alive. Friendship was indifferent and love unworthy and vile and the only thing in abundance was hatred… a solution emerged in his mind to be further explored “his own hand, armed with a imagined revolver, aiming his temple”.

Participants

Georges Battaile, French writer and philosopher

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer

Clairwil, character in de Sade’s “Juliette”

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Michel Foucault, French philosopher

Mr. Kurtz, half-English, half-French, ivory merchant and commander of a trading post

Marlow, main character in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Brother Medardus, a Capuchin Friar

Mephistopheles

MM, partner

Alexander Nehamas, professor of philosophy

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Socrates, Greek philosopher

Mrs. T, unknown ethinicity, gourmant

The Sea: A “Fluxus Eleatis” discourse

Archilochus: Look Glaucus! Already waves are disturbing the deep sea and a cloud stands straight round about the heights of Gyrae, a sign of storm; from the unexpected comes fear.

Julia Kristeva: We are no doubt permanent subjects of a language that holds us in its power. But we are subjects in process, ceaselessly losing our identity, destabilized by fluctuations in our relations to the other, to whom we nevertheless remain bound by a kind of homeostasis.

W.B. Yeats: What can be explained is not poetry. 

First Steward: Good evening Mrs. T, Mr. FFF, welcome on board! Your cabin is ready. Is there something we can do for you before we show you to your cabin?

Mrs. T:  Good evening Mr. Gerassimidis! It is always nice to see you!

Mr. FFF: Good evening to you too! It is good to see you again! Are we on time?

First Steward: We are on time, and we are going to have calm seas.

Mr. FFF: What time is dinner served?

First Steward: We start at 8pm sharp. Shall I book a table for you?

Mr. FFF: Yes, please. Now you can show us to our cabin.

Mrs. T: How long is the journey?

Mr. FFF: Approximately 18 hours. Assuming the sea is calm. It could be 14 hours, but with all the interim ports of call the time increases significantly.

Mrs. T: Are we going to see the dolphins?

Mr. FFF: Only if we are lucky. But if we do, it is a spectacular ballet show. And the music of the sea with the humming of the ship’s engines in the background brings the experience to supernatural levels.

Ανωνυμος Ναυτης: Θυμαμαι την πρωτη μου αναχωρηση μ’ ενα μεγαλο ποσταλε. Τη στιγμη εκεινη που πραγματοποιουσα το λαμπροτερον ονειρο μου, ημουν γιοματος αμφιβολια και φοβο.

(Unnamed Mariner: I remember my first sailing on a big postale. The moment I was realizing my brightest dream, I was full of doudt and fear.)

Alvaro Mutis: This is how we forget: our affairs, no matter how close to us, are made strange through the mimetic, deceptive, constant working of a precarious present. When one of these images returns with all its voracious determination to survive intact, then what learned men call epiphany occurs: an experience that can be either devastating or a simple confirmation of certain truths that allow us to go on living.

Maqroll “el Gaviero”: I think I’ve exaggerated the true significance of the death of the Duc of Orléans. . . . There’s a monotony in crime, and it’s not advisable to have too much to do with it in books or in life.

Jon Iturri: For three consecutive days we stayed in Hotel Lisboa without exiting the room, which we had transformed into a kind of our own universe, where incidents of eroticism were coming one after another, with the only words given to describing our childhood years and how we discovered the world.

Alvaro Mutis: Because, of course, in a place like that, one experiences situations which are extreme and absolute. In there the density of human  relations is absolute. And there is one thing you learn in prison, and I passed it on to Maqroll, and that is that you don’t judge, you don’t say, that guy committed a terrible crime against his family, so I can’t be his friend. No, in a place like that one coexists. The judging is done by the judges on the outside.

Ανωνυμος Ναυτης: Δεν μπορω να καταλαβω κι εγω ο ιδιος τον εαυτο μου. Ειναι ωρες που νομιζω πως δεν ειμαι τιποτα περισσοτερο απο το μαυρο θερμαστη Τζοννυ, που ζει μοναχα για να τρωει. Ειναι ωρες που νομιζω πως ολα μεσα μου εχουν πεθανει και λεω πως η καρδια μου εχει σκληρυνει, καθως οι παλαμες μου. .. Εχω δει τοσα και τοσα… Κι αλλες ωρες παλι, νομιζω πως μεσα μου εχω ολη την καλοσυνη και την αγνοτητα, που λειπει του κοσμου…

(Unnamed Mariner: I cannot understand my own self. There are moments I think I am nothing more than the black fireman Johnny, who lives only to eat. There are moments I think that everything inside me is dead and I say that my heart is as tough as my palm… I have seen a lot… And then, I think that I have in me all the goodness and purity that the world is longing for…)

Mr. FFF: I have often pictured myself in Tangier, restless and subdued, loving it and hating it, looking from a hill all the way to the north, to Gibraltar, to the escape. Crossing the Pillars of Hercules, entering another life, another planet, another universe, getting away from all the mess. In this sense a sea journey always has this cleansing aspect. The sea takes away all the mess you carry with you.

Mrs T: Why in Tangier?

Mr. FFF: Because I still have this dream that I am in Tangier and I meet W S Burrows in one of the tea shops up on the hill. And then I get on a boat and leave him behind. We do not exchange a single word. We just look at each other and drink tea. As a matter of fact, nobody in the tea shop talks. They drink tea and smoke shisha. I wanted to ask Burrows why he killed Joan Vollmer.

W S Burrows: (we hear his voice through a cloud, but cannot see him) I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.

Mrs. T: The sea cleanses, the sea kills, the sea destroys all evidence of a committed crime. The sea gives you refuge, the sea hides you away from the prying eyes of society, it is the protector of the all the runaways. Hide away, hide away sinful souls! But even worse is the running away of those who have not committed any crime, but run away from themselves. Even the sea cannot save them.

Headwaiter: Would you like to have a drink before your meal?

Mrs. T: I would like a bitter Campari with soda water, a slice of lemon and ice.

Mr. FFF: A double scotch on the rocks for me please.

Headwaiter: Certainly. Here is our menu for tonight. I recommend the grilled shark steak. It is as fresh as it gets.

Mrs. T: Did you catch the shark while sailing? I would loooove to have the juicy grilled shark steak with sea weed rolls stuffed with angulas. 

Headwaiter: I had these rolls in Bilbao, and I loved them,. Unfortunately I cannot offer them to you tonight. Could I possibly offer you instead boiled vegetables with mustard sauce?

Mrs. T: Of course, it was a long shot anyway! Boiled vegetables will be fine. But please hold the mustard sauce.

Mr. FFF: Shall we have a robust white wine with the shark? Like assyrtico from Santorini.

Headwaiter: Splendid choice, I can serve you “Santorini” by Sigalas, 2008.

Ανδρέας Σπερχής: Βεατρίκη!…Βεατρίκη!…Συγχώρησέ με.

(Andreas Sperchis: Beatrice!.. Beatrice!… Forgive me!)

W.B. Yeats

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!

Υβοννη: Τι συμβαίνει και δεν ημπορεί κανείς να απολαμβάνη πάντοτε τον έρωτα σαν μίαν ωραίαν οπώραν {…}, σαν ένα ωραίο τοπείον, σαν ένα ωραίο ξένοιστο πρωί, πασίχαρο, αυροφίλητο, γιομάτο ευφροσύνη, σαν ένα μυροβόλο περιβόλι, ή σαν μια καθαρή αμμουδιά, λουσμένη από γαλάζιο πέλαγος ευδαιμονίας; Μήπως δεν φταίει καθόλου, μα καθόλου ο έρως  (εξηκολούθησε να σκέπτεται μα αιμάσσουσαν καρδίαν η Υβόννη). Μήπως φταίει ο τρόπος με τον οποίον αντιμετωπίζουν οι άνθρωποι τον έρωτα, τόσον εις το ατομικόν, όσον και εις το κοινωνικόν επίπεδον; Μήπως, αν δεν έμπαινε στη μέση το λεγόμενον «αίσθημα» και η λεγομένη «ηθική», θα ημπορούσε τότε μόνον να είναι ο έρως τέλειος και απλός και εύκολος, επ’ άπειρον πανήδονος και απολύτως παντοδύναμος – όλο χαρά (μόνο χαρά), όλο γλύκα (μόνο γλύκα), χωρίς απαγορεύσεις, στερήσεις, πικρίες, διάφορα «μούπες-σούπα» και άλλα αηδή και ακατανόητα, όπως η αποκλειστικότης, η εντός του γάμου αγνότης και όλη η σχετική με αυτόν απέραντη όσον και μάταια ηθικολογία και φιλολογία;

(Yvonne: Why is it that one cannot enjoy sex as a tasty fruit… as a beautiful landscape, as a wonderful morning, without worries, full of joy, fresh air, as a garden full of perfumes, or a shiny sandy beach, caressed by the blue sea? Could it be that this has nothing to do with eros? < continued to wonder with her heart bleeding >. Could it be the way that people handle eros both on a personal and on a social level? Could it be that if there were no “emotional” component and the so called “ethical” dimension, that eros could be perfect and simple and easy, endlessly hedonistic and absolutely omnipotent – full of joy – only joy – without prohibitions, bitter moments, all the incomprehensible  nonsense like fidelity, exclusivity, purity within the wedding and other similar stuff?)

Mr. FFF: (reading from the voluminous novel “Great Anatolikos”, of Andreas Empeirikos) Yvonne all of a sudden stopped crying. It was as if she saw a light, a bright light coming from a lighthouse off the southeastern tip of the coast of Ireland.

Υβοννη: Μήπως, μα τον Θεόν, ο μόνος Θεός ήτο ένας τεράστιος και παντοδύναμος Ψώλων και, ουσιαστικώς, υπήρχαν μόνον ηδοναί, διά του πανισχύρου Πέους του και του υπερπλουσίου Σπέρματός του χορηγούμεναι; Και μήπως αι ηδοναί αύται, τουτέστιν αι ερωτικαί, ήσαν αι πράξεις εκείναι, που επλησίαζαν ασυγκρίτως περισσότερον απ’ οτιδήποτε άλλο τους ανθρώπους προς τον Μεγαλοψώλονα Θεόν, τον απόλυτον Πλάστην και Κτήτορα του Κόσμου, τον απόλυτον Κύριον των Δυνάμεων, τον απόλυτο Άρχοντα των Ουρανών και της μικράς μας Γης;

(Yvonne: Could it be, that the only God were a huge omnipotent Phallus, and, essentially, there were only pleasures on earth, disseminated eternally by its powerful flesh and abundant semen? And it could it also be, that these erotic pleasures, were the actions that were bringing humans close to the Omnipotent Phallus, the Absolute Creator and Owner of the World, the absolute Keeper of the Forces, the absolute Master of the Skies and our little Earth? )

Stendhal: J’entreprends d’écrire l’histoire de ma vie jour par jour

Γιωργος Σεφερης: Μερα με τη μερα ζουμε τη ζωη μας – δεν τη γραφουμε.

(George Seferis: Day by day we live our life – we do not write it.)


Dimitri Mitropoulos: There is a plan for April 1052, a grand tour; travelling on a ship we will call on all Mediterranean ports, where the Philharmonic (New York) under my humble direction, will play, not on board the ship, but in the concert halls of the cities. The route is roughly this: Liboa, Barcelona, Palermo, Athens, Tel-Aviv, Napoli, Roma, Firenze, Milano, Genoa. Later we added Paris to the tour, which means that the whole Orchestra will get off the ship in Marseille and return to the States from Cherbourg on another vessel.

Mr. FFF: The ashes of Maria Callas have been scaterred over these blue waters.

Mrs. T: Why did she die?

Mr. FFF: Because she could no longer love. And life without the ability to love had no meaning for her.

Mrs. T: If you have the ability to love, other people love you?

Mr. FFF: Not necessarily. But you have piece with yourself.

Mrs. T: So you are saying that Callas died because she could not find piece with herself.

Mr. FFF: Yes, you could put it this way.

Mrs. T: Why is it so hard. if not impossible, to find inner piece if you have lost the ability to love?

Mr. FFF: When you lose the ability to love, you begin to view life as an end, the end. Death takes over the mystery of life and it no longer is a mystery, but a horrid affair.

Ανωνυμος Ναυτης: Δεν εχω ερωτευτει ποτε στη ζωη μου… Εγνωρισα χιλιαδες γυναικες. Ειναι ολες τους παντοτε ιδιες… Εχω καιρο να κοιμηθω με γυναικες. Γι’ αυτο το πραμα οι ναυτες με κοροιδευουν. Εγω δεν φταιω… Ειναι μια ιστορια που η αρχη της ειχε γραφτει στο επιβατικο, που ταξιδευα αλλοτε… Ειναι μια θλιβερη ιστορια…Δεν θυμαμαι πια τ’ ονομα της. Αυτο δεν εχει καμια σημασια. Οι γυναικες δεν θα’ πρεπε να’ χουν ονοματα, αφου ολες τους ειναι ιδιες… Ταξιδευε απο την Αλεξανδρεια για τη Μασσαλια με τη μητερα της. Ητανε κορη ενος βαμβακεμπορου, που ειχε ξεπεσει κι αυτοκτονησε…. Μου χαρησε ενα πορτοφολι απο ψαροδερμα και της χαρισα το Σταυρο μου… Υστερα απο τρια χρονια στο Μπουενος Αιρες κοιμηθηκα μια νυχτια με καποια γυναικα. Το πρωι οταν εβγαλα το πορτοφολι μου να πληρωσω, δεν ξερω πως, εβγαλε μια φωνη καθως το ειδε κι εγω αλλη μια, οταν ειδα ενα μικρο σταυρο καρφωμενο στη ρομπα της… Μπορει και να το’ δα στον υπνο μου. Μου φαινεται ομως πως ολες οι γυναικες ειναι το ιδιο.

(Unnamed Mariner: I have never fallen in love in my life…. I have met thousands of women. They are always all the same… I haven’ t slept with a woman for a long time now. One of the reasons the sailors make fun of me. It is not my fault… It is a story whose beginning has been written on a passenger ship, where I used to work… It is a sad story… I no longer remember her name. It does not matter. Women should not have names, as they are all the same… She was travelling from Alexandria to Marseille with her mother. She was the daughter of a cotton merchant who went bancrupt and committed suicide. .. She gave me a wallet made of fishskin and I gave her my cross… Three years later, in Buenos Aires, I slept one night with a woman. In the morning, when I took out my wallet to pay her, I do not know, she screamed as she saw it and I screamed back when I saw a small cross pinned on her dress… I could be dreaming. Nevertheless, it appears to e that all women are the same.))

Frederico Fellini:  I love shipwrecks. Decadence is indispensable to rebirth

Mr. FFF: A dear friend years ago was bragging about specializing in the hauling of shipwrecks. In his own sarcastic way he was referring to his need – of the time – to relate to women in the middle of a huge personal crisis.

Alberto Moravia: (on Frederico Fellini’s film “E la Nave va”) What is brilliant,” is the intuition that European society of the Belle Epoque had emptied itself of all humanism leaving only an artificial and exhaustive formalism. The result was a society founded on a continuous yet contemptible melodrama. The other genial intuition is that of the fundamental unity of the world back then which was completely bourgeois or utterly obsessed with the bourgeoisie. This idea comes through magnificently in the scene where immaculate opera singers perform leaning over the iron balcony of the engine room as sweat-grimed workers cease stoking the furnace with coal to listen to the splendid voices.

Frederico Fellini: Opera has an insane aspect that is truly fascinating. Opera is a ritual, a Mass, a shepherd’s song…

Dimitri Mitropoulos: Here I am, on solid earth again, after an unforgettable sea trip! If you could only see me from a distance, how I survived these 19 horrible days on the lousy ship. But as you can see, I did not die; I made music and played bridge, trying to fight against the complete lack of comfort, the detestable food and the continuous rocking of the boat… I have thought of you more than one thousand times, I was sad, sad in the thought that it will be a long time before I see again the people I love. I wonder if my musical gifts and talent deserve this sacrifice.

Frederico Fellini:  It (filming) makes us regard people and things as if the whole world was a set at our disposal, an immense prop de­partment on which we lay our hands without asking permission. It is somewhat like a painter for whom objects, faces, houses, the sky are merely forms at his disposal. For the cinema everything becomes a still life without limits; even the feelings of others are something placed at out disposal.

Ανδρεας Εμπειρικος: Χτες ακουσα τον μεγαλυτερο μπασο του κοσμου τον Chaliapin. Τραγουδησε την περιφημη αρια απο την οπερα του  Mussorgsky Boris Godunov οπου ειναι θειος. Τραγουδησε και πολλα ρωσικα τραγουδια δραματικα, λυρικα, και λαικα. Και παντου θριαμβεψε. Τι φωνη, τι μεταλλο, τι χρωμα τι δυναμη! Σε κεραβνοβολει και σε χαϊδεβει συναμα. Μεγαλος αρτιστας ο Chaliapin.

(Andreas Empeirikos: Yesterday I heard the greatest bass of the world, Chaliapin. He sung the famous aria of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. He was divine. He also sung many other songs. He triumphed in each one of them. What a voice, what metal, what colour, what intensity! It hits you like a thunder and at the same time it caresses you. Chaliapin is a great artist.)

Mr. FFF: My grandfather was very fond of Chaliapin. He had loads of his records. But he had to exchange them for olive oil during the second world war. Primum vivere, deinte philosophare.


Ανδρεας Εμπειρικος: Πατερα… Δεν μου φαινεται δυνατον να συνεργασθω με εναν ανθρωπο σαν και σενα παρα την μεγαλη αξια που σου αναγνωριζω σε πολλα επιπεδα. Δεν ειναι αρκετα ανθρωπος για μενα. ..Λοιπον αντι να ξαναμπω στις δουλειες σου παραιτουμαι απ’ ολες περα για περα και σου αφηνω γεια.

(Andreas Empeirikos: Father… It does not appear possible to work with a person like you, in spite of how valuable I consider you in many areas. You are not human enough for me… So instead of joining you again in your business I resign from everything and bid you farewell.)



Ανωνυμος Ναυτης: Ζαλιστηκα. Ετσι οπως τοτε παιδι, που μ’ επιανε η θαλασσα. Τι ατιμο πραμα η ναυτια… Ξερατο, χολες. Γινεσαι μπαιγνιο, κουρελι. Τιποτ’ αλλο δε σκεφτεσαι, παρα πως θα ξεμπαρκαρεις, μολις φτασεις στο πρωτο λιμανι. Εφτασες; Τα ξεχνας ολα και ξαναφευγεις. Αρχιζεις να συνηθας. Νομιζεις. Δε σε ζαλιζει πια το ποτζι, μα σε χαλαει το σκαμπανεβασμα. Παει κι αυτο. Σου μενει να συνηθισεις τωρα οταν σκαμπανεβαρει και ποτζαρει μαζι. Εισαι νετα. Κανεις αχταρμα. Αλλαζεις καραβι. Πρεπει να μαθεις τα κουνηματα του καινουργιου. Καθε καραβι εχει τα δικα του. Ενας φορτηγισος ζαλιζεται σ’ ενα ποσταλι. Παραξενη αρρωστια. Φαρμακο… η στερια. Οι κουφοι, εκεινοι που εχουνε χασει την οσφρηση, δεν ζαλιζονται. Μητε οι τρελοι.

(Unnamed Mariner: I am sea sick. As when I was a kid, and the sea was making me sick. What a terrible thing … sea sickness. You become a wreck. You cannot think of anything else, but how to get off, as soon as you arrive at the first port of call. Have you arrived? You forget everything and sail off again. You begin to get used to it. You think you are. You change ship. You have to get used to the movements of the new ship. Every ship moves in its own way. A cargo ship sailor gets sick on a passenger ship. Strange sickness. The only medicine is the ground. The deaf, the ones who cannot smell anything, they do not get sea sickness. Neither do the mad.)

Ιωαννης ο Θεολογος (Αποκαλυψη): Και εδωκεν η θαλασσα τους νεκρους τους εν αυτη, και ο θανατος και ο Αιδης εδωκαν τους νεκρους τους εν αυτοις, και εκριθησαν εκαστος κατα τα εργα αυτων.

(St John the Divine: The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.)

Participants

Archilochus, 7th century BC Greek poet, from the island of Paros

Andreas Empeirikos: Greek born and raised in Vraila, Romania, writer and psychoanalyst

Mr. FFF, Greek, wanderer

First Steward, Greek, passenger ship

Frederico Fellini, Italian film maker

Headwaiter, passenger ship

Jon Iturri, Basque sea captain

Saint John the Divine, author of the Revelation

Maqroll “el Gaviero”, unknown ethnicity, hero in many Alvaro Mutis novels

Unnamed Mariner, in the journals of Nikos Kavvadias

Unnamed Millitary Officer, South American

Dimitri Mitropoulos, Greek conductor and composer

Alberto Moravia, Italian novelist

Alvaro Mutis, Colombian writer

Captain Nick, Greek, captain of motor ship “Gloria”

George Seferis, Greek poet and Nobel Laureate in Literature

Andreas Sperchis, Greek of Wallachian origin

Stendhal, French writer

Mrs. T, unknown ethnicity, gourmant

Voltaire: French writer and philosopher

W.B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright

Yvonne, a passenger of “Megas Anatolikos”

Mushrooms and Truffles: A “Fluxus Eleatis” disourse

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The word gastronomy has been revived from the Greek; it sounds sweetly in French ears, and although imperfectly understood, simply to pronounce it is enough to bring a joyful smile to every face.  We have begun to distinguish gourmandism from greed and gluttony; it has come to be regarded an admissible inclination, a social quality welcome to the host, profitable to the guest, and beneficial to the art: and gourmands are now classed with all other enthusiasts who share a common predilection.

Mrs. T: Mushrooms are primarily texture. Truffles are primarily flavour. Mrs. T: We had grilled mushrooms, in the Dimatis Tavern, Aghios Dimitrios, West of Mount Olympus in Greece. The mushrooms were collected earlier on the day we had lunch, grilled and sprinkled with coarse sea salt, crushed garlic, parlsey, olive oil and lemon juice. Perfection in simplicity, the apotheosis of texture.

Mr. FFF:  Mrs. T will reveal herself today, as a person, of unknown ethnicity, born in Romania, a few days after the Revolution of 1989 in Timisoara. Her parents died in a car crash the day after she was born. I found her by accident – most important things in life happen by accident – and we have been together ever since. She has become my gourmand alter ego. Mrs. T: I met Mr. FFF in Targoviste. It was 24th December 1989. I was 3 days old. Abandoned in a trash can.

MM: Why was Mrs. T found in Targoviste, a town 500 kilometers east of Timisoara, on the day the Causescus were arrested and taken into custody?
Mr. FFF: After the grilled mushrooms west of the mount of Greek Gods, I beg to travel East, and taste crispy deep fried mushrooms with wasabi flavor. I thank Arlene B. Hsu for the recipe, I fell in love with the dish. Arlene says it can be found in variations as street food in Taiwan. This alone is a good reason to visit the island country. Succulent juicy but firm mushroom flesh, coated in crispy dough, oozing wasabi heat and intensity, gives you a reason to live, in spite of the fiscal mess in Europe.
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Cookig is a metaphor for culture. Eating means killing and swallowing a being which has been alive, whether animal or plant. If we directly devour the dead animal or the uprooted lettuce, one would say that we were savages. However, if we marinade the beast in order to later cook it with the aid of aromatic Provençal herbs and a glass of rancio wine, then we have effected an exquisite cultural operation, equally based on brutality and death. Cooking is a metaphor for culture and its hypocritical content.
Fricando +

Mr. FFF: The road has been opened centuries ago and traversed billions of times since then. From the grill to the frying pan, and then to the stew pot. Fricando (beef stew) in Restaurante Ramon Freixa, Barcelona, Cataluna. Wonderful flesh, superbly cooked slowly until it becomes soft and delicious, with the tasty mountain mushrooms “moixernons”. It was served with garlic cloves (like candy) and the green stuff that was absolutely amazing: bitter, crunchy, full of flavour!  This dish is like a volcano of flavours!

Ferran Adria:  the creative inspiration I have drawn from Japan is a revelation, a drink from the fountain of youth.

Akelare: Wild mushrooms and egg pasta (Μανιτάρια με παστα)

Mr. FFF: Wild mushrooms and egg pasta in Pedro Subijana’s restaurant, Akelare, near San Sebastian.

Pepe Carvalho: She asked me to be taken “somewhere where we can  just  eat anything”,  just anything being, precisely, what I never wanted to eat.

Mrs. T: Who was this she?

Pepe Carvalho: Teresa Marsé, a spoilt member of the bourgeoisie dedicated to shopping.

MM: Pepe Carvalho tiene una relación  tormentosa con Charo, su novia. Charo es puta; puta feminista para más señas… ante la promiscuidad de Carvalho ella  se enfada, aunque no ocurre al contrario ,el detective comprende y acepta el trabajo de su novia…

Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria: I do not know what to say, may be it is enough to say I am beautiful.

Mr. FFF: Between dishes it is always good to cleanse the palate with fizzy water.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: A saute of truffles is a dish of which the mistress of the house always does the honours herself; in short, the truffle is the jewel of cookery. I set out to find the reason for this preference, for it seemed to me that several other substances had an equal claim to the honour; and I found that reason is the widespread belief that truffles are conductive to erotic pleasure; what is more, I became convinced that nearly all our tastes, predilections, and admirations are born of the same cause, so closely are held in thrall by that most capricious and tyrannical of the senses.

Mr. FFF: Mugaritz. Loin of duck, served with iodized compliments; crumblings and shavings of summer truffle in the Mugaritz restaurant, near San Sebastian.

Julia Kristeva: Analysis strictly speaking exacts payment of the price set by the subject for revealing that his or her complaints, symptoms or fantasies are discourses of love directed  to an impossible other – always unsatisfactory, transitory, incapable of meeting my wants or desires.

MM: I did not set a timeframe, but I expected to see a mushroom article – an exhaustive one.

Amanita phalloides: I am deadly poisonous! I contain both phallotoxins and amanitins. It is the amanitins that are responsible for the poisonings in humans. Amanitins are cyclic octapeptides that stop protein synthesis in the cells they encounter. All human organs are effected, but damage to the liver is most severe and liver failure is primarily responsible for the death of my victims. Symptoms usually appear 8-12 hours after ingestion. Death occurs in 7-10 days in 10-15% of patients.

Julia Kristeva:  My commitment to analysis … is ultimately shaken by the discovery that the other is fleeing me, that I will never possess him or even touch him as my desires imagined him, ideally satisfying.

Mrs. T :  Artichoke cream with black truffle, in Restaurant Cilantro, Arles, Provence, France.

Pepe Carvalho: Sex and gastronomy are the two most serious things there are.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: Hence it may be taken for certain that the truffle is a food as wholesome as it is agreeable, and that, eaten in moderation, it goes down as easily as a letter into a postbox.

Mrs T: When we went  to Arzak’s restaurant, we had the wonderful truffle egg. But Elena does not want us to publish any of our photos, and we respect this wish. I therefore share a photo from Arzak’s recipe book published by “El Pais”, Baked potatoes stuffed with truffles. Wonderful in its simplicity.

Joni L. McClain: In March of 1985, four illegal aliens who had been without food for several days consumed fried wild mushrooms after picking them in a field in Southern California. They each ate between one a nd six mushrooms and, approximately one to two days after consuming the mushrooms, all four men developed gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and watery diarrhea. They went to a local mission for the homeless where they were unable to eat. Their symptoms continued and they were taken to two local hospitals. On admission, all four men appeared dehydrated and three were hypotensive (blood pres- sure less than 100/50). One man stated that he had developed “white stools .”  Three of the men were initially assessed as having gastroenteritis or acute hepatitis or both. The fourth man had been admitted to a sepa rate hospital with the diagnosis of possible acute mushroom poisoning when he was able to ident ify the mushrooms he had consumed f rom a picture of Ama nita phalloides. The hospital where the other three victims were being treated was contacted and the diagnosis and treatment were modifed accordingly…Three of the men died within three days of admission (five days after eating the mushrooms ), and the fourth died eight days following admiss ion (eleven days after eating the mushrooms) . At autopsy, each of the men d emonstrated findings typical of hepatic failure ..The kidneys were pale, swollen, and  in one case displayed multiple cortical infarct ions. The heart in each case demonstrated hemorrhage ranging f rom patchy petechiae to confluent subendocardial left ventricular intramuscular hemorrhage. Two of the men demonstrated hemorrhagic gastritis , one had focal rectal ulcers, and the fourth had no gastrointestinal abnoralities. Mrs. T:  Veal Sweetbreads with artichokes, black truffles and mashed potatoes, in , Restaurant Cilantro, Arles, Provence, France.

Pepe Carvalho: One must drink to remember, and eat to forget.

Terence McKenna: … the transformation from humans’ early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet – an event which according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BC (this is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus)…In higher doses, the mushroom acts as a sexual stimulator, which would make it even more beneficial evolutionarily, as it would result in more offspring. At even higher doses, the mushroom would have acted to “dissolve boundaries”, which would have promoted community-bonding and group sexual activities-that would result in a mixing of genes and therefore greater genetic diversity. Generally McKenna believed that the periodic ingestion of the mushroom would have acted to dissolve the ego in humans before it ever got the chance to grow in destructive proportions.

Porcini e fegato di vitello

Mrs. T:  A divine combination, porcini mushrooms with tender ultra sweet calf’s liver, from “dal Pescatore”, in the Park of River Oglio in Northern Italy.

Mr. FFF: Carles Abellan. Deconstructed three-part tortilla (omelette).

MM:  You are a mushroom and truffles man.

Mr. FFF: truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean mushroom; spore dispersal is accomplished through fungivores, animals that eat fungi. Almost all truffles are ectomycorrhizal and are therefore usually found in close association with trees.

Robert Burton: Cookery is become an art, a noble science: cooks are gentlemen.

La Famiglia Urbani

Olga Urbani: Truffles grow wild, underground, usually at the base of an oak tree. They used to use pigs, but they ate the truffles.Very rich American people they only see truffles on the table of a very elegant restaurant. They don’t see this. Now you know why they are expensive, right?

Florence Fabricant:The prized, richly fragrant black truffles of France have been called black diamonds. But for some swanky dishes this season, zircons may be more like it. Another, cheaper kind of black truffle, the tuber himalayensis from China, has been flooding the market. This influx has created a problem because unscrupulous dealers in France have been mixing the two and selling them all as French truffles, tuber melanosporum, to restaurants. Dealers in the United States have been doing the same. Although the two types look the same, the Chinese truffles, when cut, are likely to be blacker, with less veining. They tend to have a chemical odor and very little flavor.

Animelle co i funghi

Mr. T: Sweatbreads with mushrooms. Animelle co i funghi del Monte Algido, in Osteria di San Cesario, San Cesario, near Rome, Italy.

Daniel Boulud: Right after Christmas I started getting some truffles that I thought were overripe at first. They were very dark and had very little veining. They smelled of benzine and tasted like cardboard. Then I began hearing about the Chinese truffles.

Mrs. T:  Venison tournedo with foie on top, potatoes, chenterelles and black truffle, in La Provence Restaurant, Vilnius, Lithuania.  . The meat was medium rare, as it should, and it was delicious! The combination with the foie was also a good one, it worked!

Roland Griffiths:As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time. I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people. When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously-occurring mystical experiences that, at 14-month follow-up, were considered by volunteers to be among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives. One mechanism underlying these effects appears to be that psilocybin occasioned an experience having features similar to spontaneously-occurring classical mystical or religious experiences. A limit to the generality of the study is that all of the participants reported at least intermittent participation in religious or spiritual activities before the study. It is plausible that such interests increased the likelihood that the psilocybin experience would be interpreted as having substantial spiritual significance and personal meaning. A systematic replication of the study comparing groups having different levels of spiritual/religious dispositions or interests could be informative.

Mr. FFF: Psilocybin mushrooms, also known as “magic mushrooms”, were used in ancient times, and were depicted in rock paintings. Many native peoples have used mushrooms for religious purposes, rituals and healing. In modern day society they are often used to evoke a “high”, which is sometimes described as spiritual experience and is often euphoric in nature. Sometimes however, the disorientation of psilocybin and psilocin’s psychedelic effects may bring on anxiety such as panic attacks, depression and paranoid delusions. However, recent studies done at the Imperial College of London and also at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine conclude that when used properly, psilocybin acts as an anti-depressant.

“I had a rough day. Lets have a smoke and some mushrooms…”

Roland Griffiths:When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously-occurring mystical experiences that, over a year later, were considered by volunteers to be among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives and to have produced positive changes in attitudes, mood, altruism, behavior, and life satisfaction. In addition to possible therapeutic applications, the ability to prospectively produce mystical-type experiences should permit rigorous scientific investigations about their causes and consequences, and may provide novel information about the biological bases of moral and religious behavior.

Funghi Porcini

Participants

Amanita muscaria

Amanita phalloides: also known as the Death Cap, is the most deadly and poisonous mushroom on Earth.

Ferran Adria, Catalan chef and co-owner of the El Buli restaurant in Roses, Cataluna

Daniel Boulud, chef and owner of Restaurant Daniel in Manhattan, New York

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French gourmand and author

Robert Burton, English Scholar and Vicar

Pepe Carvalho, Catalan private investigator

Florence Fabricant: American, New York Times journalist

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Roland Griffiths, of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School, USA

Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian-French psychoanalyst

Joni L. McClain,  American M.D.

Terence McKenna, American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer

MM, partner

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Catalan writer and journalist

Spencer, private detective

Mrs. T, unknown ethnicity, the gourmand alter ego of Mr. FFF

Olga Urbani, Italian truffle merchant

Venice: A “Fluxus Eleatis” Discourse

Michel Foucault:  Discourse operates in four major ways. Discourse creates a world; discourse generates knowledge and “truth”; discourse says something about the people who speak it; discourse always incorporates elements of power.

Socrates und Alcibiades

 A poem by Friedrich Hoelderlin

“Warum huldigest du, heiliger Socrates,

“Diesem Juenglinge stets? kennest du Groessers nicht?

“Warum siehet mit Liebe,

“Wie auf Goetter, dein Aug’ auf ihn?

Wer das Tiefste gedacht, liebt das Lebendigste,

Hohe Jugend versteht, wer in die Welt geblikt

Und es neigen die Weisen

Oft am Ende zu Schoenem sich.

 

Gustav von Aschenbach: ‘What lies in wait for me here, Ambiguous Venice, Where water is married to stone, And passion confuses the senses?’

 

Farfarello: And so, if you’d like to give me your soul before its time, I’m here, ready to take it.

 

Luchino Visconti: The sky has to be orange, even if Fassbinder copies me in Querelle.

 

Mr. FFF:  I started my trip from the Northern Cemetery in Munich. I arrived in Venice by train. The Marathon run finished a few minutes ago. There are many visitors. The water of the lagoon has a dull grey color. It is chilly. It is cloudy but there is no rain. Mrs. T misses you already.

MM:  Do not get lost in the art farm that is Venice! I googled and saw that you have bad weather and it’s raining. Hope you got your wellies.

 

Apollo: Reason, control, and clarity

 

Gustav von Aschenbach: I am furious because I am forced to return, but secretly I rejoice.

 

Dionysus: Wander lust

 

Gustav von Aschenbach:  Vacillating, irresolute, absurd.

 

Thomas Mann: A life spiraling out of control.

 

Friedrich Hoelderlin:

Und immer,

Ins Ungebundene gehet eine Sehnsucht.

(And always,

there is a longing to dissolve)

 

Mr. FFF:   In Palazzo Grassi I met Mr. Dob, the Manga character that has been adopted by Takashi Murakami. He has three eyes and an energizing stare.  Mr. Dob inhabits Murakami’s masterpiece 727-272 (The Emergence of God at the Reversal of Fate). Mrs. T is in love with him but he ignores her.  For her, it was love at first sight. For him, she does not even exist.

 

MM:  Luckily today I will be on scrub watch so that should keep me busy enough not to think about not having the both of you around.

 

Don Giovanni:

 Deh vieni alla finestra, o mio tesoro,

Deh vieni a consolar il pianto mio.

Se neghi a me di dar qualche ristoro,

Davanti agli occhi tuoi morir vogl’ io.

Tu ch’ ai la bocca dolce piu che il miele,

Tu che il zucchero porti in mezzo il core!

Non esser, gioia mia, con me crudele!

Lascati almen veder, mio bell’ amore!

Friedrich Nietzsche: To experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly – (which, incidentally, is why marriage for love is, from the point of view of society, the most unreasonable king of marriage). The demand for art and beauty is an indirect demand for the ecstasies of sexuality communicated to the brain.

 

Farfarello: Well, then, since of necessity you love yourself with the greatest love of which you’re capable, of necessity you desire your happiness as strongly as you can. And since this supreme desire of yours can never be satisfied even in the smallest degree, it follows that in no way can you escape being unhappy.

 

Gustav von Aschenbach: Time presses, time does not press

Constantine Cavafy: Πλαϊ στο παραθυρο ηταν το κρεββατι που αγαπηθηκαμε τοσες φορες. (By the window was the bed where we made love so many times).

 

Mr. FFF:  A Cretan Madonna in Santa Maria della Salute. It was taken from the Church of Saint Titus in the last minute before fleeing Candia and Crete, by the Commander of the Venetians Morozini. The Ottomans captured Candia immediately after. Crete and Venice, share a co-existence that brought El Greco to Venice before he continued his journey to go to Spain.

MM:  I can’t say I am doing such exciting stuff as you. I waited in line for an hour to change the tires on my car and now it’s being done. Nothing fun to report.  Of course I miss the both of you terribly. It seems like I cannot have meaningful conversation with anybody else, but you.  Not to mention the fact that we took our jokes and puns to a whole other level and now whatever jokes anybody tries to do is pointless.

 

Filippo Ottonieri: Except for the times of suffering, as well as of fear, I would think that the worst moments are those of pleasure because the hope for them and the memory of them, which occupy the rest of our lives, are better and much more pleasant than the pleasures themselves.

 

Thomas Schutte: Efficiency Men, Punta della Dogana, Venice

Jean Baudrillard: Everyday experience falls like snow. Immaterial, crystalline and microscopic, it enshrouds all the features of the landscape. It absorbs sounds, the resonance of thoughts and events; the wind sweeps across it sometimes with unexpected violence and it gives off an inner light, a malign fluorescence which bathes all forms in crepuscular indistinctness.  Watching time snow down, ideas snow down, watching the silence of some aurora borealis light up, giving in to the vertigo of enshrouding and whiteness.

 

Friedrich Hoelderlin:

 Wo aber gefahr ist, waechst,

Das Rettende auch.

(Where there is danger,

some Salvation grows there too.)

 

Gustav von Aschenbach : What if all were dead, and only we two left alive

Luigi Pirandello: The torment of imagining you far away – among other people who can have the joy of seeing you, talking to you, being near you while I am here without life because I can neither see you nor talk with you, nor be near you – can be mitigated only by the thought that you feel my presence within you and that even from far away you give me life, and that even in your silence you see me and talk to me; in one word, that I am alive and close to you, more than those who see you, talk to you, and are around you.

 


Mr. FFF:  Thomas Schuette’s “Efficiency Men” were waiting for me at the Punta della Dogana.  Their steel bodies were covered down to their knees by felt blankets. It was like a call to Joseph Beuys. His felt self is all over German Art.

 MM:  You realize I’m not having nearly as much fun as you are, but I expect to be entertained upon your return! So prepare lots of stories from Venice. You know the kind: money, blood and sex.

Giuseppe Ungaretti:

ECO

Scalza varcando da sabbie lunari,

Aurora, amore festoso, d’ un’ eco

Popoli l’ esule universe e lasci

Nella carne dei giorni,

Perenne scia, una piaga velata.

 

Luigi Pirandello: What life is there left for me? I don’t care anymore about anything. Only about you do I care, and all that concerns you, my Marta; if you suffer, suffering with you and for you; if you get angry, getting angry with you; if you hope, hoping with you and for you. And remaining – for as long as I stay alive, for as long as my eyes stay open, for as long as my heart keeps beating, for as long as the soul burns in me – with my eyes, my heart, my soul, enchanted by your beauty, by the charms of your person, by the divine nobility of your feelings and of your spirit.

Adele:

Whenever I’m alone with you

You make me feel like I am home again

Whenever I’m alone with you

You make me feel like I am whole again

Whenever I’m alone with you

You make me feel like I am young again

Whenever I’m alone with you

You make me feel like I am fun again

However far away I will always love you

However long I stay I will always love you

Whatever words I say I will always love you

I will always love you

Mr. FFF:  Fog everywhere. I boarded a U-boat where a rabbi was reading the Kaballah. Later, in Hotel Metropol during lunch I met an Indian Maharadja and his German maiden.

MM:  All these cultural encounters! We redid the kitchen; the hard part is over now. You may be interested to know that nothing works without me!

Gustav Mahler: I should not have cried on the train departing Venice. I should not have dismissed Alma’s music compositions. It is too late now.  I gave my name to von Aschenbach.

Discource Participants

Adele, English singer

Apollo, Greek God of light

Gustav von Aschenbach, German writer (through the pen of Thomas Mann, through the interpretation of Myfawny Piper, through the camera of Luchino Visconti, through the interpretation of Fluxus Eleatis)

Jean Baudrillard, French philosopher

Constantine Cavafy, Greek poet

Dionysus, Greek God of pleasure

Farfarello, character created by Giacomo Leopardi

Michel Foucault, French philosopher

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Don Giovanni, a young, extremely licentious nobleman (created by Lorenzo da Ponte)

Friedrich Hoelderlin, German poet

Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer

Thomas Mann, German writer

MM, partner

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Filippo Ottonieri, philosopher created by Giacomo Leopardi

Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer and Nobel Laureate

Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian poet

Luchino Visconti, Italian director