Αλικάντη

Αλικάντη

Ενα πορτοκάλι στο τραπέζι
Το φόρεμα σου στο χαλί
Και συ στο κρεβάτι μου
Γλυκό δώρο του παρόντος
Φρεσκάδα της νύχτας
Ζεστασιά της ζωής μου

(ποίηση του Πρεβέρ, μετάφραση δική μου)

'Αχθος Αρούρης (1903-1977)

ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΑΚΗ ΠΟΙΗΣΙΣ

“Dionyssos has the better wine”

W. Shakespeare

(O «Διόνυσος» έχει το καλύτερο κρασί)

Ο. Σαίξπηρ

Αν έλειπε…

Αν έλειπε απ’ την Λέσβον ο «Διόνυσος»

θα’ τανε το νησί μας ερημόνησος·

θα’ χανε τη χαρά του και το κέφι του,

κανείς μας δε θα χώνευε τ’ αδρέφι του,

θα γιόμιζεν ο τόπος μας σελέμηδες,

μοβόρους, χασικλήδες και βερέμηδες.

Κοσμάκη! το κρασάκι του «Διόνυσου»

κορμί και νου, σαν πίνεις το, τονώνει σου

Σκάρτα ποτά, που θα’ ταν δολοφόνοι σου

δεν έχει το τεζιάκι του «Διόνυσου».

Ω κοπελιά, οι εικοσιδύο χρόνοι σου

τραβούν ένα κρασάκι του «Διόνυσου»

Μπορείς, για να το πιεις, να πας και μόνη σου.

Σε προστατεύει η φήμη του «Διόνυσου».

Αν έλειπε απ’ την Λέσβον ο «Διόνυσος»

θα’ τανε το νησί μας ερημόνησος.

Σε χάλια θα προσκόφταμε απροχώρητα

και θα γκρινιάζαμ’ όλοι μας αφόρητα.

κι ο βίος μας θα ήτανε αμφίβολος

κλαψάρης θα γινότανε κι ο Τρίβολος.

ΑΧΤΟΣ ΑΡΟΥΡΗΣ

Διονυσιακός ποιητής

The Ultimate Question

I recently watched the movie Expelled, which besides linking Nazism with evolutionary theory, might be a bit more balanced than other films on the subject “Science against Religion”. At least this guy is arguing for academic freedom. Plus, this film kind of made clear that intelligent design does not equal creationism. Good thing to know... He didn't have to attack Darwinism the way he did though.

I was pretty uncomfortable for the first half of the film but eventually warmed up to it. First of all it had the same flaws that similar films, like Root of all Evil and Religulous, have. There is a lot of throwing opinions around but no evidence. It is obvious that both sides have very strong feelings about their position, but what do feelings have to do with anything? At least in science… Oh yes, there is this little fact that science has always been part of something else and has always been biased. I refer those who disagree to these very important books: Thomas Kuhn’s, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Michel Foucault’s, The Archaeology of Knowledge. That will get you started on how “facts” are constructed. Yes, the subject of the history of science is a fascinating one. So, none of these films provided any evidence to support their position. And until someone does that I am not taking any sides. It is pretty obvious that all these guys are very much limited by tunnel vision and only see their BS (as Robert Anton Wilson would say) and evidence has very little to do with all this.

The truth is that we don’t really know how it all started and we’ll probably never know the answer to the ultimate question about life the universe and everything, and all these guys need to have a drink and relax. Watching this film made me revisit Douglas Adams’ scenario of the earth and life on it having been created by aliens in the form of mice. It is as plausible a theory as any. Even Richard Dawkins admitted that it is plausible that some form of life form created life on earth, but that form of life must have been created by evolution (as long as this condition is satisfied then intelligent design does not clash with his BS).

Maybe it’s just me, but I always thought that similar matters belonged to the realm of philosophy and not science. And even though I am not religious myself I don’t think that religion in itself is responsible for everything bad in this world. The problem is the way religion has been used to manipulate. There is much more to this than equating religion to evil, and the sooner we get on it the better. As one of the people in the film very rightly said you cannot take religion away from people. He compared religion to knitting and taking it away to taking someone’s needles away. I have to say that this statement grabbed my attention, try to take my needles away and see if I don’t poke you in the eye (unfortunately I didn’t catch the guy’s name because I was knitting at the time)!

To summarize my view of this whole debate: I don’t see the point in it. Richard Dawkins is as stupid as a brick and needs to see a therapist. I mean you can see that he suffers deeply just by looking at him. He might need to channel all his energy into something more productive than trying to convince people that god doesn’t exist. Even though I agree with most of his ideas, he just annoys the hell out of me and honestly I think he does more damage than good. Same goes for Bill Maher. Clearly linking the 9/11 attacks to Islam is just ignorant and will not make the world a better place, which is supposedly what these guys strive for. I can’t help but point out that these guys think religion and science exist in a vacuum and do not take into account the historical and political context of anything (which is the only thing anthropology is good for). For the last time, we are all biased, scientists included, and no matter how opinionated one is, if I don’t see some evidence that will allow me to draw my own conclusions, both sides have lost me.

I have one last word for them: “Don’t panic. The answer is 42!”.

FNORD

Fnord?

Fnord is evaporated herbal tea without the herbs.

Fnord is that funny feeling you get when you reach for the
Snickers bar and come back holding a slurpee.

Fnord is the 43 1/3rd state, next to Wyoming.
Fnord is this really, really tall mountain.
Fnord is the reason boxes of condoms carry twelve instead of ten.

Fnord is the blue stripes in the road that never get painted.
Fnord is place where those socks vanish off to in the laundry.
Fnord is an arcade game like Pacman without the little dots.
Fnord is a little pufflike cloud you see at 5pm.

Fnord is the tool the dentist uses on unruly patients.
Fnord is the blank paper that cassette labels are printed on.
Fnord is where the buses hide at night.
Fnord is the empty pages at the end of the book.

Fnord is the screw that falls from the car for no reason.
Fnord is why Burger King uses paper instead of foam.
Fnord is the little green pebble in your shoe.
Fnord is the orange print in the yellow pages.


Fnord is a pickle without the bumps. Fnord is why ducks eat trees.
Fnord is toast without bread. Fnord is a venetian blind without the slats.


Fnord is the lint in the navel of the mites that eat
the lint in the navel of the mites that eat
the lint in Fnord's navel.

Fnord is an apostrophe on drugs.
Fnord is the bucket where they keep the unused serifs for H*lvetica.
Fnord is the gunk that sticks to the inside of your car's fenders.
Fnord is the source of all the zero bits in your computer.

Fnord is the echo of silence.
Fnord is the parsley on the plate of life.
Fnord is the sales tax on happiness.
Fnord is the preposition at the end of sixpence.

Fnord is the feeling in your brain when you hold your breath too long.
Fnord is the reason latent homosexuals stay latent.

Fnord is the donut hole.
Fnord is the whole donut.

Fnord is an annoying series of email messages.
Fnord is the color only blind people can see.

Fnord is the serial number on a box of
cereal.

Fnord is the Universe with decreasing entropy.
Fnord is a naked woman with herpes simplex 428.
Fnord is the yin without yang.
Fnord is a pyrotumescent retrograde onyx obelisk.

Fnord is why lisp has so many parentheses.
Fnord is the the four-leaf clover with a missing leaf.

Fnord is double-jointed and has a cubic spline.
Fnord never sleeps.
Fnord is the "een" in baleen whale.

Fnord is neither a particle nor a wave.

Fnord is the space in between the pixels on your screen.

Fnord is the guy that writes the Infiniti ads.
Fnord is the nut in peanut butter and jelly.
Fnord is an antebellum flagellum fella.

Fnord is a sentient vacuum cleaner.

Fnord is the smallest number greater than zero.
Fnord lives in the empty space above a decimal point.


Fnord is the odd-colored scale on a dragon's back.
Fnord is the redundant coin slot on arcade games.
Fnord was last seen in Omaha, Nebraska.

Fnord is the founding father of the phrase "founding father".
Fnord is the last bit of sand you can't get out of your shoe.
Fnord is Jesus's speech advisor.
Fnord keeps a spare eyebrow in his pocket.
Fnord invented the green hubcap.
Fnord is why doctors ask you to cough.

Fnord is the "ooo" in varooom of race cars.
Fnord uses two bathtubs at once.



I cannot escape them
No matter how I try
They wait for me everywhere
I cannot pass them by.

Driving down the street
I see "Jesus Is Lord"
And then immediately after
I hear the word "FNORD!"

Innocuous sayings and parables
And on the evening news
I hear the word "FNORD!"
And suddenly I'm confused

I sit alone in my room
And I'm feeling rather bored
I turn on the tube and guess what
I hear the word "FNORD!"

"Don't see the fnords and they won't eat you"
That's what I've heard the wisemen say
But I can't get away from those beasties
There's just no fucking way.


I believe I found these on alt.discordia

buxton@uiuc.edu