Troubled Water

Papillons et coquelicots - Van Gogh (avril-mai 1890) Musée Kröller-Müller, Otterlo [...] Après avoir parlé des variations qu'offre la folie dans ses degrés et dans ses types, disons un mot de ses transformations. Dans une classification naturelle, chaque forme devrait avoir sa marche nettement déterminée et ne pas pouvoir se transformer en une autre. Il n'en est pas ainsi dans l'état actuel de la science. On voit assez souvent la manie remplacer la mélancolie, ou réciproquement. On voit également des moments de mélancolie survenir dans le cours d'une agitation maniaque, et fréquemment de véritables accès de manie interrompre la marche de l'aliénation partielle; cette transformation naturelle de l'aliénation partielle en aliénation générale, c'est-à-dire en forme plus curable, nous a de tout tempsnfait songer à une application thérapeutique. Nous avons cherché, à l'aide des excitants cérébraux, à opérer une transformation du même genre, en vue d'obte...

Thérèse d'Ávila, par François Gérard , 1827. Infirmerie Marie-Thérèse, Paris.  [...] ¡Qué miserable es la sabiduría de los mortales e incierta su providencia! Proveed Vos por la vuestra los medios necesarios para que mi alma os sirva más a vuestro gusto que al suyo. No me castiguéis en darme lo que yo quiero o deseo, si vuestro amor (que en mí viva siempre), no lo deseare. Muera ya este yo, y viva en mí otro que es más que yo y para mí mejor que yo, para que yo le pueda servir. El viva y me dé vida; El reine, y sea yo cautiva, que no quiere mi alma otra libertad. ¿Cómo será libre el que del Sumo estuviere ajeno? ¿Qué mayor ni más miserable cautiverio que estar el alma suelta de la mano de su Criador? Dichosos los que con fuertes grillos y cadenas de los beneficios de la misericordia de Dios se vieren presos e inhabilitados para ser poderosos para soltarse. Fuerte es como la muerte el amor, y duro como el infierno. ¡Oh, quién se viese ya muerto de sus manos y arrojado en este divino...

Botanical plate of   Theobroma cacao  by   Friedrich Guimpel  (between 1805 and 1837)   Como inserir-me em outro contexto esse que proclamas se a outra noite me chama em desespero maior: se o leme não comanda a mão que se confessa incompetente e gesta seu próprio mar? Onde bóiam escombros que se vão de mim à outra noite, e juntá-los seria acender novas chamas?    in 'Canto Rouco' O que perdeste     voltará com as aves. Não será tão deserto     teu deserto. Mas acostuma-te ao silêncio     que virá depois. Folhas falarão pelas folhas. Aves falarão pelas aves.  Depois Este falar de mim já me consola. Mas quando direi de mim o quanto que me baste, e tanto que de mim me canse? E cansando-me seja espanto na página ou palco desse pranto, ou canto geral que aos outros se alongue, e tanto que de mim me esqueça e compadeça.  Quando? De repente esse sussurro de vozes no vento e não é o mar que fala. De repente essa esperanç...

[...] Simon , almost two and a half years old, went missing about 5 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, 23 March 1475. The following day, Good Friday, Simon's father approached the prince-bishop to ask for help in finding his missing child. The podestà , Giovanni de Salis, had his men spread a description of Simon through the city. Over the following couple of days, searches were carried out by Simon's family and neighbours, by the servants of the podestà, and also by the Jewish community, who had been alerted to a rumour that they had taken the child and were concerned about the possibility of being framed. On Saturday, 25 March, Simon's father appealed to the podestà specifically to search the Jews' houses, saying he had been advised they might have taken his child. Despite these searches, no sign of the child was found. Samuel's property was extensive, including a hall that functioned as a synagogue, and a water cellar that was also used for ritual bathing and was s...

«Since 2008 there have been many claims about an economic upturn or the beginnings of hopeful economic growth. However, as Paul Mason (2016) has argued, the years following have been a jobless recovery. Rather than the creation of new jobs and the sharing of the benefits of economic growth, there has been an increase in lowpaid and insecure work. This has been facilitated by the rolling back of employment protections. There have also been aggressive changes to the welfare state including labour market activation policies that are forcing workers into low-paid work, often subsidized by the state. Alongside these policies, some countries are actively encouraging the gig economy as a potential source of economic prosperity and progress. South Korea, for instance, is investing public money in platforms in the hope that they will ultimately contribute to economic growth. Kenya, likewise, is rushing to sign up people to its Ajira Digital programme: a scheme that intends to turn up to a mill...

They who to warmer regions run, May bless the favour of the sun, But seek in vain what charms us here, Life’s picture, varying with the year. Spring, and her wanton train advance Like Youth to lead the festive dance, All, all her scenes are mirth and play, And blushing blossoms own her sway. The Summer next (those blossoms blown) Brings on the fruits that spring had sown, Thus men advance, impelled by time, And Nature triumphs in her prime. Then Autumn crowns the beauteous year, The groves a sicklier aspect wear; And mournful she (the lot of all) Matures her fruits, to make them fall. Clad in the vestments of a tomb, Old age is only Winter’s gloom— Winter, alas! shall spring restore, But youth returns to man no more. The Seasons Moralized First published in Bailey’s Pocket Almanac for 1785. Where the pheasant roosts at night, Lonely, drowsy, out of sight, Where the evening breezes sigh Solitary, there stray I. Close along the shaded stream, Source of many a youthful dream, Where branch...

Escrevo-lhe hoje por uma necessidade sentimental — uma ânsia aflita de falar consigo. Como de aqui se depreende, eu nada tenho a dizer-lhe. Só isto — que estou hoje no fundo de uma depressão sem fundo. O absurdo da frase falará por mim. Estou num daqueles dias em que nunca tive futuro . Há só um presente imóvel com um muro de angústia em torno. A margem de lá do rio nunca, enquanto é a de lá, é a de cá; e é esta a razão íntima de todo o meu sofrimento. Há barcos para muitos portos, mas nenhum para a vida não doer, nem há desembarque onde se esqueça. Tudo isto aconteceu há muito tempo, mas a minha mágoa é mais antiga. Em dias da alma como hoje eu sinto bem, em toda a minha consciência do meu corpo, que sou a criança triste em quem a vida bateu. Puseram-me a um canto de onde se ouve brincar. Sinto nas mãos o brinquedo partido que me deram por uma ironia de lata. Hoje, dia catorze de Março, às nove horas e dez da noite, a minha vida sabe a valer isto. No jardim que entrevejo pelas janelas...

Marguerite Humeau , JOSEPHE, a female is drinking its own milk in a desperate self-cannibalistic gesture of survival. The creature’s soul has left its body, 2016. Exhibition view, Among the Machines, Zabludowicz Collection, London . Courtesy the artist and Zabludowicz Collection. Photo: Tim Bowditch [...] "Just transition" has evolved from conceptual roots in the labour and environmental justice movements into a mandate for societies to mitigate and adapt to climate change while reducing inequality and promoting justice  (McCauley and Heffron, 2018; Pinker, 2020) . Just as 20th-century efforts to do right by workers  and  communities  transitioning  from  highly polluting industries used the idea of just transition to express intuitions about burden sharing, protecting the least advantaged, respecting local agency and sustaining environmental values, so present-day just transition efforts seek to ameliorate existing injustices while avoiding introducing ...

“There was a man who was always writing to his daughter that she should not do things that were wrong that would disgrace him, she should not do such things and in every letter that he wrote to her he told her she should not do such things, that he was her father and was giving good moral advice to her and always he wrote to her in every letter that she should not do things that she should not do anything that would disgrace him. He wrote this in every letter he wrote to her, he wrote very nicely to her, he wrote often enough to her and in every letter he wrote to her that she should not do anything that was a disgraceful thing for her to be doing and then once she wrote back to him that he had not any right to write moral things in letters to her, that he had taught her that he had shown her that he had commenced in her the doing the things things that would disgrace her and he had said then when he had begun with her he had said he did it so that when she was older she could take car...

«Le maternalisme tant prôné n'a pour l'heure engendré ni matriarcat, ni égalité des sexes, mais plutôt une régression de la condition des femmes. Régression consentie au nom de l'amour que l'on porte à son enfant; du rêve de l'enfant parfait et d'un choix moralement supérieur... Chacun le sait: rien ne vaut la servitude volontaire!... C'est l'innocent bébé - bien malgré lui - qui est devenu le meilleur allié de la domination masculine.»  Le Conflit: la femme et la mère - Élisabeth Badinter (2006) [...] In one of our conversations, Badinter spoke of a book, “Les Héritiers,” that was written by Passeron’s father, the sociologist Jean-Claude Passeron , and his colleague Pierre Bourdieu. “It’s about the knowledge of the father and mother—the heritage that creates an aristocracy of knowledge,” she said. “We never talk about that heritage. It’s a privilege that some of us have, and we ignore it. Those eighteenth-century women were our mothers. The fact that ...

[...] Overload is not something that just happened to Europeans in the Renaissance as if they stumbled across ancient texts long forgotten in medieval libraries, or a new continent in America, or a new technology like printing. Overload was born from a drive to accumulate and save which became particularly visible in the Renaissance as individuals and institutions collected copies of ancient texts, exotic natural specimens and artifacts, forming the kernel of libraries and museums that have sometimes endured to the present. Even well before the Renaissance, for every complaint about overload there were also enthusiasts for accumulation: at the Library of Alexandria (3rd century BCE), or in 1st-century Rome, with Pliny the Elder and his Natural history. Renaissance humanists were especially eager to save their writings and findings given their keen awareness of the tragic loss of ancient learning despite their best efforts to retrieve; Conrad Gesner (1516-65), for example, hailed prin...

[...] Miguel Gullander encontrou destino para a experiência, viagens e as suas estórias na escrita. O transporte público em África - neste caso por iniciativa privada para colmatar outras negligências - é uma boa metáfora da sensação de pertença a uma comunidade / casa temporária. Apanhamos uma hiasse, um candongueiro ou um chapa e, entre o incómodo e a curiosidade, ali nos entregamos à deriva, observamos  personagens singulares, comenta-se o mais alargado espectro de assuntos, se desabafam os cansaços e se vomitam os poderes. Nos oferecemos como mártires para que um qualquer condutor louco ou bêbado nos despeje na curva da estrada para a próxima viagem. Ouvimos um kuduro ensurdecedor ou um funáná com voz de grogue. Sentimos a vida a pulsar. “Perdido de Volta” é o nome de um destes autocarros do desenrasca, da boa ou má vontade pessoal, com a única lei de que cabe sempre mais um e que, em princípio se os deuses ajudarem, se há-de regressar a casa. A certa altura o narrador tem u...