castor's diary

ORPHEUS

2006-09-30T23:39:00.000+02:00

The Sonnets to Orpheus: XIX

(by Rainer Maria Rilke)

Though the world keeps changing its form
as fast as a cloud, still
what is accomplished falls home
to the Primeval.

Over the change and the passing,
larger and freer,
soars your eternal song,
god with the lyre.

Never has grief been possesed,
never has love been learned,
and what removes us in death

is not revealed.
Only the song through the land
hallows and heals.

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Above you can see one of my pen drawings of the series "Orpheus and Eurydice"

THE BREATH OF THE POET

2006-09-29T06:02:00.000+02:00

AUTUMN DAY ( BY RAINER MARIA RILKE)

2006-09-27T15:29:00.000+02:00

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let thine shadows upon the sundials fall,
and unleash the winds upon the open fields.

Command the last fruits into fullness;
give them just two more ripe, southern days,
urge them into completion and press
the last bit of sweetness into the heavy wine.

He who has no house now, will no longer build.
He who is alone now, will remain alone,
will awake in the night, read, write long letters,
and will wander restlessly along the avenues,
back and forth, as the leaves begin to blow.

Dedicated to my blogger friend Ricardo

Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) is generally considered the German language's greatest 20th century poet. His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

FOR HER AND FOR HIM ;-)

2006-09-26T01:30:00.000+02:00

WHEN CHIRON MET G.W.

2006-09-23T07:50:00.000+02:00

Once when the old religions were prohibited by the new potentates of a new religion, Chiron was placed in the sky by Zeus to live at one of the stars of " The constellation Centaurus.", the refuge of the centaurs.
Now a very boring life started for Chiron who was used to educate young guys.

Chiron often looked down whistfully to earth with his long-glass and observed there below those cute guys, he loved so much ...

One night, Chiron saw a very sad scene below on earth ... he saw how a father maltreated his son ... it was heartbreaking!
Chiron asked Zeus whether he was allowed to return to earth only this one time to assist that poor boy ...
Zeus gave his consent and Chiron went down to earth, wrapped in a cloud ...

When Chiron arrived he found the boy quite alone, crying bitter tears. Chiron came closer to the boy, very gently, and let him weep on his shoulder. That poor boy's name was G.W.

Next morning Chiron called on G.W.'s parents offering them his services as an educator for their son, but they chased him out, for they thought he would seduce G.W., so that G.W. would become gay in later times ...

That's why G.W. remained uneducated, silly and incapable for every decent job ...

ACHILLES AND THE CENTAUR CHIRON

2006-09-22T05:59:00.000+02:00

In the ancient world the sons of very prosperous families have got special teachers, called "centaurs". One of the most famous centaurs has been Chiron, the expert educator of Achilles.

How do Centaurs differ from usual teachers?

Well, a centaur is a mythological creature. Its head, arms, and chest are those of a human and the rest of its body, including four legs, hindquarters, and a tail is like that of a horse, as you can see on the picture :-)

THE CAUCASIAN WEREWOLF

2006-09-20T07:32:00.000+02:00

If the Caucasians are in distress there is no great reason for solicitude, because the Werewolf will come to their rescue :-)

HITLER, THE CATHOLIC NAZI DICTATOR AND PAINTER

2006-09-19T10:18:00.000+02:00

As I already told in a comment (my recent post), the Catholicism is the source of each fascism ...

Hitler, Mussolini, Franco ... they all have got a well-founded Catholic education ...

Their primary object has been :

" FIGHT AGAINST THE JEWISH BOLSHEVISM WHICH HAS BEEN (so they taught) AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN MORAL CONCEPT OF THE ARYAN RACE "

(The idea that the north Europeans were the "purest" of these people was theorised by the Comte de Gobineau and by other writers, most notably his disciple Sir Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who wrote of an "Aryan race" – those who spoke Indo-European languages and were claimed to be the "noblest" of people.) Sic!

On the top you can see a painting made by HITLER !!!

THE POPE AS A SYMBOL OF DEVIOUS REMARK

2006-09-17T13:34:00.000+02:00

It's really incredible that the present Catholic pope in such times like these had no better idea as to quote the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (from 1391 to 1425) in a recent speech at the university of Regensburg with the words: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The point was to illustrate the fundamental contradiction between religion and holy war ...
Well, everything in this connection would have got another point of view if that pope had also alluded to all the acts of violence towards Non-Christians by a lot of former popes, since Christianity has become STATE RELIGION in the ancient Roman Empire under the emperor Constantine (AD 312)...

This pope didn't touch on the persecution of Jews, on the crusades, on the inquisition, on mandatory christianizations and so on ... and so on ... how can a man in his position be so undiplomatic and silly ? This is pure mediaevalism and the devious remark of the Catholic church ...

DAVID STANNARD

2006-09-15T18:55:00.000+02:00

In my recent post I mentioned an interesting sentence about the Native Americans, made by David Stannard, a sentence which is - from my point of view - a very important factor for the understanding of the so-called "WHITE" Caucasian History ... and that's only the tip of the iceberg ...

Who is DAVID STANNARD ?

David E. Stanndard is Prof. of American Studies, at the Univ. of Hawaii. He is a distinguished historian, author, and expert speaker on the subject of the Native American/American Indians and the role they played in the history of the world.

Here is another excerpt of an interview he gave in San Francisco on March 12, 2000:

"By the turn of the Twentieth Century, I think 1910 by official US Census Bureau statistics, there's something like 250,000 Indians and that's all!
From a number that could have been ten million or twelve million· nobody knows. But in any case it's in the ninety percentile of destruction.

Whereas the Spanish wanted to exploit the Natives, that is use them up like draft horses or other animals... and then dispose of them because there were so many, the British had no use for the Indians! None at all...
All they wanted was the land. [So even] as destructive and horrible as the Spanish were, the British were more nakedly genocidal.
They just wanted to kill. They just wanted to clear the land and the Indians were part of the land. Just as the trees were. Just as the bushes were. Just as the animals were.
Clear it! Wipe them out! "

David Stannard's books include:

* Death in America
* Shrinking History
* Puritan Way of Death
* Before the Horror
* American Holocaust.

Here is a link to one of Stannard's books:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/American_Holocaust.html

THE WHITE MAN AND HIS WAR-LIKE WAYS

2006-09-12T22:49:00.000+02:00

In the Beginning I was here.

Long before the White man and his diseases, his religions and his war-like ways.

I lived upon the land for countless moons, in harmony with the Great Spirit, honoring all life around me.

In this land called Kan-tu-kee, the great meadow, the dark and bloody ground, I was known as Shawnee.

I was also known by other names … Cherokee, Chickasaw, Iroquois, Lanapota, Creek …

I am Native American … the indigenous tribes of this land, the American Indian.

WHY ... CAN ANYONE TELL ME: WHY ?

2006-09-11T23:57:00.000+02:00

Our planet is already soaked from the blood of the innocents, however, hate and terror will never take an end ... and God stands on the sidelines ...

This pen drawing I made when there was that terrible war in Ex-Yugoslavia some years before the tragedy of 9/11 ...

MY SON JOHANNES AS MY MODEL

2006-09-08T18:58:00.000+02:00

For Ric and Daniel who didn't know that I have a son :-) I put now this crayon, I made from him 24 years ago when he has been at the beautiful age of seventeen ;-)

Johannes is also very creative, to earn his living he works as a registered nurse with serious commitment ...

MY SON JOHANNES AND HIS WIFE BRIGITTE

2006-09-08T02:50:00.000+02:00

Yesterday they came to see me after their marvellous vacation in Tunisia, that ancient settlement of Phoenician colonists in North Africa, where in just seven years (in the 10th century BC), since their exodus from Tyre (in Lebanon), the Carthaginians have rebuilt a successful kingdom under the rule of their Queen Dido... the opera "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell reminds of that great and attractive woman of the ancient world.

At the top you can see Johannes and Brigitte on the traces of the ancient Carthaginians :-)

WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S LAST POEM

2006-09-05T19:30:00.000+02:00

Then There's Only One Thing To Do

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If they order you tomorrow to stop making water pipes and cook pots - and start making helmets and machine guns, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Girl behind the counter and girl at the office. If they order you tomorrow to fill hand grenades and mount scopes on sniper rifles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Factory owner. If they order you tomorrow, to sell gun powder instead of talcum powder and cocoa, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Researcher in the laboratory. If they order you tomorrow, to invent a new death to do away with old life, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Poet in your room. If they order you tomorrow not to sing love songs, but songs of hate, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Doctor at the sick bed. If they order you tomorrow to certify men as fit for war, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Minister in the pulpit. If they order you tomorrow to bless murder and praise war as holy, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Captain on the steamer. If they order you tomorrow not to transport wheat - but cannons and tanks, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Pilot at the airfield. If they order you tomorrow to carry bombs and incendiaries over cities, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Tailor at your table. If they order you tomorrow to start sewing uniforms, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Judge in your robe. If they order you tomorrow to report to the military court, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Man at the train station. If tomorrow they order you to give the signal for the ammunition and the troop trains to depart, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Man in the village and man in the city. If they come for you tomorrow and with your induction papers, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, you, mother in Frisco and London, you, on the banks of the Huang Ho and the Mississippi, you, mother in Nepal and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all regions on earth, mothers all over the world, if they order you tomorrow to bear children - nurses for military hospitals and new soldiers for new battles, mothers all over the world, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! Mothers, say NO!

WOLFGANG BORCHERT

2006-09-05T19:18:00.000+02:00

There is nothing really "new" in the world in wartimes. So I want to present you the German poet Wolgang Borchert who died in 1947 at the age of 26 years ...

Wolfgang Borchert (May 20, 1921 – November 20, 1947) was a German author and playwright whose work was affected by his experience of dictatorship and his service in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.

Borchert was born in 1921 in the German city of Hamburg. Far from being an enthusiastic Nazi, Borchert hated his (compulsory) time in the party's youth wing, the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend), from which (after much effort) he managed to resign. In 1940 he was arrested by the Gestapo (Secret State Police) and then released. The same year he reluctantly took up an apprenticeship at a Hamburg bookshop. While at the bookshop, Borchert secretly took acting lessons. In 1941, upon passing his acting examination, he left the apprenticeship and began working at a theatre in Hannover. His nascent theatrical career was cut short, however, by his conscription into the Wehrmacht only a few months later.

Borchert was posted to the Eastern front, where he saw the full horror of the eastern conflict, witnessing the numerous casualties in battle and those sustained due to cold, starvation, and inadequate equipment. When a cut on his hand became infected, Borchert contracted hepatitis. His superiors, accusing him of attempting to evade military service by self-mutilation, had him arrested and placed in isolation. He was convicted of making "statements endangering the country" and sentenced to serve a further six weeks of detention and was then sent back to the Eastern front "to prove himself at the front". There he suffered frostbite and several further bouts of hepatitis, after which he was granted medical leave. On leave he again acted in theatre in the now ravaged city of Hamburg. Following a performance in which he parodied Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Göbbels, Borchert was arrested and sentenced to nine months in prison. On his release he was again returned to the army, this time serving on the western front. His company surrendered to the French in March 1945. During their transportation to a prisoners of war camp Borchert evaded the guards and escaped, and then walked home to Hamburg (a distance of around 600 kilometres).

Following the war, Borchert's condition continued to worsen. In 1946 doctors told him the damage to his liver would kill him within a year...

TO ALL MY BLOGGER-FRIENDS WHO ARE INTERESTED IN HISTORY AND POLITICS

2006-08-30T11:23:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I found a very intersting website, which you should read if you are interested in both history and politics!

Here is the link to : Albionmonitor

The painting "Albion" at the top is by William Blake (1757 - 1827)

WAITING FOR THE NEXT STEP

2006-08-27T17:52:00.000+02:00

THE FIRST STEP TO REASON AND JUSTICE IN ISRAEL ISN'T DONE BY ANY "POLITICIANS" ...

2006-08-25T18:32:00.000+02:00

The first step to reason and justice in Israel doesn't come from the Bush-Rice-friendly Israeli administration but from the Israeli citizens themselves.

And so that uncaring and politacally nearsighted Condoleeza Rice won't have anymore a chance for a candlelight dinner with Olmert while the bombs fall in Lebanon ... a fact that she called "birth pangs of a new Middle East" ... because:

As a poll shows,the majority of Israeli public believes that their government failed in handling Lebanon war, Olmert, Peretz, Halutz should go home, is their slogan ...

There is a political earthquake just now in Israel: A poll published on Friday in the Yedioth Ahrnonoth daily shows that 63 percent of Israelis feel that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert failed in managing the war in Lebanon and should resign.
About 74 percent of those polled said Defense Minister Amir Peretz mishandled the war and should resign his post.

Soldiers on reserve duty continue struggle. Hundreds participated in the protest march of reserve soldiers and bereaved families on Friday. The participants left from the Beit Shemesh area, near Jerusalem, and ended the march next to the tomb of late Prime Minister Golda Meir on Mount Herzl in the capital. Once there, they had a moment of silence in memory of the fallen soldiers.

Elipaz Balua, the father of Nadav who was killed in Lebanon, read a letter he wrote to his son: "It hurts me not just because I lost you, but because of an entire nation who lost its direction and because her leaders who cannot take responsibility and say 'we were wrong, we need to go home'," he said. "It hurts me that I brought you up to love your country unconditionally, and for the first time in my life I stand and ask myself 'Is this the right way? Is it right to bring up a child to love the country unconditionally and to give his life for it when our leaders are unreasonable and lack honesty and decency? "

Man is not made of steel,
He has a heart and soul,
He cries and laughs,
He loves and hurts,
He charges.
He is wounded and cries out,
He is flesh and blood.

(Yitzhak Rabin)

MY DEFINITIVELY LAST POST ON THIS BLOG FOR A LONG TIME

2006-08-10T16:05:00.000+02:00

I'll not publish a post on this blog anymore, as long as those war criminals, who have brought a bloody disaster into our global village, are not deprived of their power ...

So I don't cancel my blog but I only close now this diary for ethical reasons for a while ...

Shalom Aleychem ... Salam Aleykum ... Peace be unto you !

Castor

HERE WE GO ! NOW WE KNOW IT EXACTLY!

2006-08-09T08:04:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blithely announced that what's going on in Lebanon and Iraq today were the "birth pangs of a new Middle East".

Such outrageous words could be also pronounced by one of the female guards in the Nazi concentration camps circa 60 years ago ...

( Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 3,600 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage.

The German title for this position, Aufseherin, (plural Aufseherinnen) means female overseer or attendant. )

However, enough is enough! What a shame!

AMEN

THE RESULT OF THE TERRIBLE WAR AGAINST LEBANON

2006-08-07T21:38:00.000+02:00

"GUSH SHALOM" - "THE PEACE BLOC"

2006-07-30T09:44:00.000+02:00

THE REVERSE SIDE OF ISRAEL :

Gush Shalom (Translated from Hebrew, the name means "The Peace Bloc") is the hard core of the Israeli peace movement.

Often described as "resolute", "militant", "radical" or "consistent", it is known for its unwavering stand in times of crisis, such as the al-Aksa intifada.

For years now, Gush Shalom has played a leading role in determining the moral and political agenda of the peace forces in Israel, as well as in breaking the so-called "national consensus" based on misinformation.

The photos above are from the recent demonstration in Tel Aviv.

Here some slogans used at that demonstration:

"Enough killing in Haifa, Beirut and Gaza!"

"The Olmert-Peretz Government is Committing War Crimes!"

"Stop Killing Civilians", "Exchanging Prisoners is Better than Digging Graves"

Gush shalom

ONE THIRD OF THE KILLED LEBANESES ARE CHILDREN

2006-07-29T09:21:00.000+02:00

THIS IS THE SAD RESULT OF THE TERROR OF WAR ...

BUT EVEN CHILDREN WHO ARE NOT KILLED ARE THE MOST TRAUMATIZED ...

"DAVID AND HIS PARENTS"

2006-07-27T02:43:00.000+02:00

This afternoon I've had the final session with Krzysztof, David's father ... here you can see the result.
Now the work on the picture is going on and I hope I'll finish it soon.

YITZHAK RABIN, THE GREAT MAN OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

2006-07-25T21:12:00.000+02:00

I don't want to make a lot of words about Yitzhak Rabin, the great Prime Minister of Israel (from 1974 until 1977, and from 1992 until 1995 ). I only want to pay my deference to him who was assassinated by a young Jewish student, a right-wing activist, 11 years ago.

I think, Rabin was the only man who would have been able to establish a basis of peace in the Middle East.

Here is the link to a web-site dedicated to him:

Rabin center

THE TRUE FACE OF A SO-CALLED "DEMOCRACY"

2006-07-24T07:35:00.000+02:00

“Israel’s relationship with the United States is unique in a number of ways. And one of those ways is that essentially the United States provides 20% of the Israeli military budget on an annual basis, and then about 70% of that money that is given from the United States, from U.S. taxpayers, to Israel is then spent on weapons from Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Raytheon. Most other countries don’t have that sort of cash relationship, where they go straight to U.S. corporations with U.S. money to buy weapons that are then used in the Occupied Territories and against Lebanon.”

(Frida Berrigan)

In short, the Bush Regime is paying for Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon — and American war profiteers are making piles of money. It is militarism as an economic system, what one might call “war capitalism” — which is, in reality, totally state-controlled and politically determined, as far from the system of free enterprises as a nation could possibly get ...

On the top you can see a young Israeli demonstrating against that bloody war against Lebanon... He was hauled off by the Israeli police ...

ALL PROBLEMS ARE RELATIVE AS WE KNOW

2006-07-21T09:41:00.000+02:00

While a lot of people in the middle east don't know how to survive, there are other people who have their own sodding-problems ...

TODAY IS THE 5th ANNIVERSARY OF THE HOMICIDE OF CARLO GIULIANI

2006-07-20T09:38:00.000+02:00

CARLO GIULIANI WAS THE FIRST VICTIM OF THE SO - CALLED "NEW WORLD ORDER"
He was assassinated 5 years ago by the police in Genoa during a demonstration against the first G8 under the regime of Mr. Bush & Sidekicks Co., that summit conference of the government representatives of the 8 richest contries of our planet.

He was assassinated on the 20th of July 2001 ... this was the beginning of THE WAR OF THE PROFIT-MAKERS AGAINST A GLOBAL JUSTICE ...

At that time I've been in the Provence where friends of mine celebrated their silver wedding.
On the 21st of July I returned to Vienna and at the airport of Paris I saw the close-up of Carlo's photograph on the title page of all the newspapers.
I was shaken to the core and I could never forget his face.

Carlo Giuliani

On the top you can see my homage to Carlo Giuliani.

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A GREAT AND VAST EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, CALLED THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, THE ANCIENT EAST ROMAN EMPIRE

2006-07-19T00:44:00.000+02:00

The Ottoman Dynasty emerged from Asia Minor with the Turks invading, often silently, cities just as they began to fall under their own weight. The Turks would wait until a city was falling either from famine or political adversity. They would enter the city, act as citizens and quietly take over, not disturbing the majority of the population. In the early days, they could often take over without any resistance. A quick view of the expansion is as follows: Adrianople 1365, all Bulgaria 1386, Constantinople 1453, Athens 1456, the Morea 1460, Bosnia 1462-1466, Herzegovina 1481, Scutari 1479, Durazzo 1501, (these last two were in Venice), Syria 1516, and the whole of Egypt in 1517. After the fall of Egypt the last of the Abbasids is said to have ceded to Selem I the caliphate over all true Moslem believers, and in August 1517 he received from the son of the Shaikh of Mecca the key to the Ka'ab itself. This made the Ottoman Empire also the leader of the Muslem world.

All the disaster we have now in this region started when the Ottoman Empire was destructed finally at the beginning of the precedent century, when this Empire was devided according pretty well to the commercial interests of the "winners" ...

THE SKETCH FOR THE COMPOSITION OF THE PICTURE

2006-07-12T20:30:00.000+02:00

DAVID'S PARENTS, KATY AND KRZYSZTOF

2006-07-08T19:16:00.000+02:00

LITTLE DAVID

2006-07-07T09:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was with my friends Krzysztof and Katy to make some sketches of their little son David because next week I'll begin with a portrait of the young family :-)

ALL THE PROBLEMS SOLVED ::: I AM BACK AGAIN :::

2006-07-04T19:53:00.000+02:00

Dear friends!

I don't like problems and I hate PC-Problems ... who does like them ?
But all my PC-Problems are solved now, I am happy and a bit tired and so I want to take an enjoyable bath now like the cute guy you can see on the photograph :-)

Thanks again for your sympathy and your encouraging words!

PROBLEMS WITH THE PC-VENTILATOR

2006-06-27T10:40:00.000+02:00

Sorry, I've got some problems with the ventilator of my PC ...

I'll be online as soon as possible!

Castor

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE WRITTEN BY USTINOV IN 2003

2006-06-26T08:01:00.000+02:00

Prejudices are the starting point of many accumulating disasters in the world. At first as inocuous as land mines, to which they bear a certain resemblance when inactive, they become lethal when children toy with them.
Every human needs opinions to express. But they must be fresh, freely expressed,considered.
Beware stale opinions, dead opinions, inherited opinions, thoughtlessly adopt. When they turn into contagion, they can humilate entire nations.
Death is there to survive.
Humiliation can last for centuries.
Palestine is a flagrant example.

(Peter Ustinov, 8-12-03)

Another quote:

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and, war is terrorism of the rich."
(Peter Ustinov)

have a look at:
Veterans for Peace

THE GREAT ACTOR PETER USTINOV

2006-06-25T09:08:00.000+02:00

The first film I've seen with him in 1955 was "Quo Vadis" where Peter Ustinov was the emperor Nero... Immediately I became an Ustinov-Fan :-)

Peter Ustinov was born to Russian parents in London.

He quickly became interested in theatre and at the age of 17, in 1938, he made his first stage debut in ‘The Wood Demon’.
His acting career was put on hold during the Second World War, but he re-entered soon after, working as an actor, writer and producer.

It was in the 1960s that Peter Ustinov became an international star, receiving critical acclaim for his performances, amongst others, in ‘Spartacus’ and ‘Topkapi’, being nominated, and winning, Best Supporting Actor Oscars for both films.

He has made over 50 films, including starring a number of times as Hercule Poirot in the film adaptations of Agatha Christie’s crime novels.

Peter Ustinov was always a writer and director as well as an actor. His successes as a playwright include the works ‘Who’s Who in Hell’ and ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. He directed major, critically acclaimed films, including ‘Romanoff and Juliet’ and ‘Hammersmith Is Out’ in 1972, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

In later years, Peter returned to Hollywood to make a few, select films, and made regular appearance on TV talk shows.

But apart from this Peter Ustinov was also awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1975, and was knighted in 1990.

He was also the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF from 1968 until his death, and Chancellor of the University of Durham from 1992 until his death. He was a Humanist Laureate, a member of the International Academy of Humanism.

He died of heart failure on the 28th March, 2004, at Genolier, Switzerland.

The photos above: Ustinov as Nero in "Quo Vadis" (1951)

LAST NOT LEAST LET'S HEAR WHAT NOSTRADAMUS PRESAGED :-) :-) :-)

2006-06-22T06:18:00.000+02:00

BUSH AND HITLER

2006-06-21T09:02:00.000+02:00

"Well, the Congress has ceded--which it cannot do--but it has ceded its power to declare war. That is written in the Constitution. It's the most important thing in the Constitution, ultimately. And having ceded that to the Executive Branch, he can declare war whenever he finds terrorism. Now, terrorism is a wonderful invention because it doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract noun. You can't have a war against an abstract noun; it's like having a war against dandruff. It's meaningless.

But you can terrify people. The art of government now, the art of control as practiced by the current junta, is: Keep the people frightened. It's exactly what Adolf Hitler and his gang did. Keep them frightened: The Russians are coming. The Poles are killing Germans who live within the borders of Poland. The Czechs are doing the same thing in the Sudetenland. These are evil people. We must go after them. We must save our kin.

Keep everybody frightened, tell them lies--and the bigger the lie, the more they'll believe it. There's nothing the average American now believes (because he's been told it 10,000 times a day) that is true. Now how do you undo so much disinformation? Well, you have to have truth squads at work 24 hours a day every day. And we don't have them."
(Gore Vidal)

TOMORROW THERE WILL BE A GREAT DEMONSTRATION AGAINST BUSH IN VIENNA

2006-06-20T21:56:00.000+02:00

Stop Bush! Stop War!
For peace, democracy and social justice.

The peace plattform "Stop Bush" works on different activities around the visit of George W. Bush at the EU-USA-summit in Vienna on june 21st. The main activity is a big demonstration, starting at 5 pm at Westbahnhof, Vienna.

An important information1

Confessions of an Economist

A COOL WELCOME FOR DOUBLE-U IN VIENNA

2006-06-20T06:58:00.000+02:00

I think yesterday evening they could finish the writing for the welcome for Double-U on the roof of a Viennese house :-)

SOMETHING NEWS :-)

2006-06-17T20:29:00.000+02:00

The cute horses of the world-famous "Spanish riding school in Vienna" will be evacuated to a safe spot when Double U will be here in our metropolis!!!
Why??? :
Just click here and see and hear what Laura says: :-)

DOUBLE - U WILL VISIT VIENNA

2006-06-16T09:04:00.000+02:00

On June 20 and 21, 2006 Double-U will visit Vienna. Therefore from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening there will be extensive obstruction and traffic due to certain areas being closed to traffic.
The Imperial Palace and its surrounding area, where are the most Gay locals, saloons, clubs and baths will be closed for the most part.
Along the route of the Bush convoy, there will be no parking. This is mainly the Ring Boulevard, large parts of the old city, and the route from and to the airport.

As you can see, the Viennese Gay People have their own pride and proudness, more than cute Osama :-)

THEY CALLED ME "EAGLE EYE" WHEN I WAS YOUNG :-)

2006-06-12T19:34:00.000+02:00

Dear friends!

Thank you so much for your prayers, for your good thoughts, wishes, your support and love!
I was really moved to tears when I read your comments.

Today I came home from the hospital, where I had to stay longer than it is usual because the eye pressure was to high after the surgery, but now my "eagle eyes" have got back their visual acuity! It's great although I mustn't overexert my eyes during the next days.

Love,

Castor

CATARACT SURGERY

2006-06-06T18:40:00.000+02:00

Dear friends and readers,

I'll be back again after my cataract surgery!

Love and Peace,

Castor

SAPPHO

2006-06-02T09:26:00.000+02:00

SAPPHO, the one great woman poet of the world, who called herself Psappha in her own Aeolic dialect, is said to have been at the zenith of her fame about the year 610 B.C.

During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to prophesy (628 B.C.), Daniel was carried away to Babylon (606 B.C.), Nebuchadnezzar besieged and captured Jerusalem (587 B.C.), Solon was legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama, the (founder of Buddhism, the religion now professed by perhaps almost a third of the whole population of the globe.

That she was a native of Lesbos, an island in the Aegean sea, is universally admitted; and all but those writers who speak of a second Sappho say she lived at Mitylene, the chief city of the island. The existence of a Sappho who was a courtesan of Ersus, a smaller Lesbian city, besides the poetess of Mitylene, is the invention of comparatively late authors; and it is probably due to their desire to detach the calumnies, which the Comic poets so long made popular, from the personality of the poetess to whose good name her own contemporaries bore witness.

HERE IS ONE OF SAPPHO'S FRAGMENTS:

The stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space.

(Translated by J. A. Symonds, 1883)

FAN PLAY I

2006-05-30T13:28:00.000+02:00

Here is my recent self-portrait, a sepia pencil drawing ... before I'll have a cataract surgery on my left eye on the 8th of june ...

At the same time I want to call your attention to a very new blog, called : "Yid Erotica"
Here you'll find very sensuous shot stories and steamy images! I am sure you'll like already the first story "Chaim and Leah", which is written in an as well sensual and exciting as in a very cultured style.

THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

2006-05-28T15:54:00.000+02:00

Dear friends and readers,

with this post I want to call your attention to a new blog, called :"The Reverse of the Medal"

This blog is created by the English author : Cocaine Jesus , whose idea is, as he says in the introduction :

"The Reverse of The Medal will investigate all aspects of sexuality and NOT just gay issues. It will be an 'organic' vehicle for myself and my fellow contributors to grow.

If nothing else this site will be a platform and hopefully a laugh for those who contribute and, you never know, it might even shed some light on those shady areas of sexuality."
(Cocaine Jesus)

I hope you will enjoy it :-)

Castor

PROTECTION ON THE STREET

2006-05-25T05:03:00.000+02:00

(Photo by Paul McCurdy)

PAUL McCURDY / AN AMERICAN POET AND WRITER OF THE NEW GENERATION

2006-05-22T19:34:00.000+02:00

Paul G. McCurdy is a young, very talented American writer and poet. He grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in January 2003. His poetry has appeared in some American journals, like Lynx Eye, Red River Review, and SoMa Literary Magazine. One of his short stories has also appeared in Best Gay Love Stories 2006. More is available at his blog : Zauberwelt

With him, who is also a very musical guy and at the same time an interesting photographer, I'll complete for a while the series about my favourite men of letters, which I started last year, publishing some essays about Albert Camus’ “THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS” …

Here is one of his recent poems, a poem which has struck a particular chord in my soul:

Cemalettin

O Cemal—hill, rock, bomb, bludgeon,
all things hard, natural, destructive.
When they made robust men in Africa
they thought of you: your thick muscles,
your heavy brow. You stand at the fire
with your club raised against the jackals.
I, long-haired, know little of brutish things.
I tend to hearts, to the unborn and the bearing,
and spin tales over the pots.

O masculine adaptations! O Muslim, you
taught that the Koran is not a paperback
to be written in. You took me—“gay,” I said—
as your neighbor, your brother. I woke
one night to find you over me, god
leaning down, drawing a blanket to my chin
against the world where I was born.
You taught me more than books and learned men
that love was here before the pen
and suffers still from it.

CASTOR AND POLLUX

2006-05-18T07:37:00.000+02:00

Daniel , one of our blogger friends, asked me yesterday in his comment "if there is a Pollux in my life" ...

OK, once upon a time there was a Pollux in my life :-) but the time has gone with the wind and so he did too :-) 26 years ago :-)

Above you can see a painting I made in 1980 which I called then "Signum 1" as a sign for a great male friendship which should be seperated only by death ...

However we've had a great time together for 11 years, my Pollux and me.

THE GREAT AMERICAN ARTIST, GORE VIDAL / PART 2

2006-05-16T10:21:00.000+02:00

To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States. You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women. The American is hysterical about his manhood. ~Gore Vidal

GORE VIDAL'S CRITICAL SPIRIT OF CONTRODICTION :

Vidal's greatness consists in the fact that he never retreated into an ivory tower, so that he always was on the qui vive like all the great artists before him, who never closed their eyes in front of the reality.

So he is strongly critical of the Bush administration, as he has been of previous U.S. administrations that he considers to have either an explicit or implicit expansionist agenda. He has frequently made the point in interviews, essays, and in a recent book that Americans "are now governed by a junta of oil-Pentagon men ... both Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld and so on".

He claims that for several years this group and their associates have aimed to control the oil of central Asia (after, in his view, gaining effective control of the oil of the Persian Gulf in 1991). Specifically regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks, Vidal writes how such an attack, which he claims American intelligence warned was coming, politically justified the plans the administration already had in August 2001 for invading Afghanistan the following October.

He discusses the lack of defense, including the delay in getting fighter planes into the air to intercept the hijacked airliners, compared with the time one might expect after a hijacking report. If, he says, these huge failures were incompetence, they would deserve "a number of courts martial with an impeachment or two thrown in". Instead there is to be only a limited inquiry into how the "potential breakdowns among federal agencies ... could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur." This, concludes Vidal, opens the possibility that the administration in fact let the attack happen, in order to capitalize on a catalyzing event that would enable it to achieve controversial policy goals under the rubric of a War on Terror.

The Gore Vidal Index

Above you can see one of the recent photos of of Gore Vidal and one with his partner Howard with whom he cohabited together for 5o years. :-)
The photo shows them at the Adams Memorial at Rock Creek Park Cemetery, November 1994, after arranging their own gravesites.

ORGIA EPICUREA IN VIENNA

2006-05-14T12:35:00.000+02:00

There is a beautiful Gay-Bathing-Establishment in the center of Vienna, called Kaiserbründl with a very old history:

...The Kaiserbründl (formerly 'Centralbad') is generally regarded as the oldest and most distinguished bathing-establishment in Vienna. The unusually deep well of the building itself was already in use in Roman times for the small fortification at a bridge (proven through the discovery of coins dating back to the emperors Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus). This building structure, later known as 'Weihenpurgkh', formed part of a separate fortified small suburb outside Vienna until 1156...

I don't know if Gore Vidal has visited this establishment, during his sojourn in Vienna in 2004, but certainly he knew about it :-)

If you want to know more about the KAISERBRÜNDL , here is a link to the website of this gay-bath, with a lot of photographs and some informations about it (also in English):
Kaiserbründl

GORE VIDAL & HARALD LANG ON THE BEACH 1947

2006-05-12T09:12:00.000+02:00

While Gore played with the dancer Harold on a beautiful beach I had my first naive "sex experience" with a boy, called Karl, who was a bit older than me. It was a hot summer and Karl and I played in the midst of the heap of rubble of a destroyed apartment of the neighboring house which was hit by a bomb. I don't know why but at once Karl told me quite silently: "Let's take off our shorts" ... he started and I saw his big cock ... Just as I wanted to do the same I heard my father's voice behind me. He was very angry and he routed Karl and wanted to spank me, but just in this moment my beloved cousin Maria, who was twenty years older than me, stepped in and saved my day for she wanted a photo with me and her tomcat Peter, which you can see above. :-)

GORE VIDAL / born october 3, 1925 / PART 1

2006-05-10T09:30:00.000+02:00

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
(Gore Vidal)

Gore Vidal in his younger days:

Gore Vidal is one of the most luminous and exciting artists of the American cultural life. He is a writer of novels, plays and essays, but also an actor.

In 198o I’ve seen the opulent film “Caligula” … this was my first encounter with the work of Gore Vidal.
But I have to admit that I seriously started to concern myself with him and his work, after he paid a visit to Vienna in 2004, invited by “The Renner Institute” within the scope of the series “Voices from America”.

Born into a wealthy family in 1925, Eugene Luther Gore Vidal has politics in his blood. Vidal's maternal grandfather was Thomas P. Gore, a powerful U.S. senator from Oklahoma.
But it's as a novelist and critic that Vidal actually made his mark. After graduating high school in 1943, Vidal enlisted in the army. He never saw battle and, out of boredom, began writing his first novel. Based on firsthand experiences aboard an army freighter, Williwaw (1946) was published along with a host of other postwar war novels and received high marks.

Eschewing college, Vidal moved to New York to write. His second novel disappointed him, though it received good reviews, and he decided to take a bigger risk with his next one.

Although The City and the Pillar (1948) is now considered a classic of gay literature, its frank discussion of an affair between two young men and its daring suggestion that homosexual relationships were natural made reviewers' tongues wag. Vidal dedicated the novel to "J.T." and loosely based one of the characters on his first male lover, Jimmie Trimble. Despite the controversial subject matter, the novel rushed onto the bestseller lists.

Some prominent critics refused to review Vidal's next five novels, possibly out of homophobia. The lack of attention marginalized his writing. To make ends meet, he went into television, movies, theater, and politics.

WHAT'S HIS NAME ?

2006-05-08T18:51:00.000+02:00

Leaving the world of contemporary horror I want to return to the beautiful world of art. So I publish today two photographs which belong to the personality of a famous American author who was also one of Anais Nin's friends when he was young.

Do you know his name? :-)

A NEW STAR IS BORN

2006-05-07T12:10:00.000+02:00

WHAT AN EXCELLENT REPLY TO ANY CRITICISM :-) ... AND HE IS RIGHT! :-)

2006-05-06T21:11:00.000+02:00

BUSH WILL VISIT AUSTRIA IN JUNE

2006-05-04T17:48:00.000+02:00

US President George W. Bush will attend the annual EU-US summit in Austria on June 21, according to the Wednesday edition of an Austrian newspaper.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Astrid Harz confirmed to AFP that a summit would take place in Austria "all being well" but added, "We cannot give official confirmation of the visit by President Bush".

According to Die Presse the summit will take place at the baroque Hof castle, 60 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of Vienna. Bush will be accompanied by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the newspaper said.

The paper said Bush would stay at a hotel on Vienna's historic Ring avenue.

HEIL BUSH !

If you are interested in this topic you should visit this site :-) :
Bush isn't Hitler

ANAIS NIN 1903 - 1977

2006-05-03T11:28:00.000+02:00

Today I want to dedicate my post to Anais Nin, a marvellous author who is probably well known in large part to all of you ...

Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly, France. After her parents separated, her mother moved Anaïs and her two relatives, Thorvald Nin and Joaquin Nin-Culmell to New York City. While still a teenager, Nin abandoned formal schooling and began working as a model.

In 1923, she married Hugh Parker Guiler. The couple moved to Paris, France the following year, where Guiler pursued his banking career and Nin began to pursue her interest in writing, where her first published work was a critical evaluation of D. H. Lawrence called "D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study." She also explored the field of psychotherapy, studying under the likes of Otto Rank, a disciple of Sigmund Freud.

Anaïs Nin is hailed by many critics as one of the finest examples of writers of female erotica. She was the first woman to really explore the realm. Before her, erotica written by women was virtually unheard-of.
Nin, faced with a desperate need for money, wrote the stories in Delta of Venus for a dollar a page in the 1940s.
She considered the characters in her erotica to be extreme caricature and never intended for the erotica to be published. Her writing was scandalously explicit for the time. In her unexpurgated diaries, she wrote about her incestuous relationship with her father.

Nin was a friend, and in some cases lover, of many leading literary figures, including Henry Miller (and his wife, June, with whom she is not officially disclosed as having an affair), Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, James Agee, and Lawrence Durrell...

Here are some of her sentences I like a lot:

We are going to the moon, that is not very far.
Man has so much farther to go within himself.

I saw things as a chain and felt that everything
is continuous and never really ends. I had a
sense of continuity and relatedness
between the past and the present and the future,
between races and between the sexes, between
everything.

...nothing changes the nature of man. I know too
well that man can only change himself psychologically,
and that fear and greed make him inhuman, and it
is only a change of roles we attain with each revolution,
just a change of men in power, that is all, the evil remains.

More about her and her work you will find here:
Anais Nin

TARKAN, ONE OF THE SEXIEST POP-STARS

2006-04-30T17:59:00.000+02:00

According to Sandouri Dean's post about the Turkish pop-star Tarkan here is a link to a vast website about him:

Tarkan

Tarkan, born in 1972 in Germany ... At the age of 14 he returned to Istanbul to study singing. He became a worldwide star with the self-interested support of Mehmet Sögütoglus and his Istanbul Plak production company. Otherwise, there is nothing substantial to report. It could be said that Tarkan truly does has a clean vest ...

But in 2001 someone broke into his home and stole compromising photos of him naked with another man what created a great scandal, an attempted extortion. However, for an artist it's a matter of unimportace if somebody is gay, or bisexual or hetero ... The only thing that counts is the ART :-)

At the moment Tarkan lives in New York and in Istanbul.

"My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good."

Giacomo Casanova

SALOME

2006-04-29T13:41:00.000+02:00

Oscar Wilde's play "SALOME" is the story of the beautiful princess of Judaea whose love was reviled by John (Iokanaan) the Baptist. It is the story of an unfulfilled love which turned into blind hate ...

Here is an excerpt from Oscar Wilde's play "SALOME", after she has got Jokanaan's head on a silver shield :

Ah, Iokanaan, Iokanaan, thou wert the man that I loved alone among men! All other men were hateful to me. But thou wert beautiful! Thy body was a column of ivory set upon feet of silver. It was a garden full of doves and lilies of silver. It was a tower of silver decked with shields of ivory. There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world there was nothing so red as thy mouth. Thy voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on thee I heard a strange music. Ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me, Iokanaan? With the cloak of thine hands, and with the cloak of thy blasphemies thou didst hide thy face. Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him who would see his God. Well, thou hast seen thy God, Iokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou hadst loved me. I saw thee, and I loved thee. Oh, how I loved thee! I love thee yet, Iokanaan. I love only thee . . . . I am athirst for thy beauty; I am hungry for thy body; and neither wine nor apples can appease my desire. What shall I do now, Iokanaan? Neither the floods nor the great waters can quench my passion. I was a princess, and thou didst scorn me. I was a virgin, and thou didst take my virginity from me. I was chaste, and thou didst fill my veins with fire . . . . Ah! ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of Love is greater than the mystery of Death.

Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? . . . Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love. . .They say that love hath a bitter taste. But what matter? what matter? I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth.

[A ray of moonlight falls on Salome and illumines her]

The drawing belongs to my series "Play-Pieces"

BETWEEN DREAMING AND REALITY / or : "BEFORE" & "AFTER" :-)

2006-04-27T08:47:00.000+02:00

Animated by my bloggerfriend Jacky from Jacky's Chronicles to make two self-portraits, called BEFORE and AFTER and by my bloggerfriend Jim, well known also as Persian Guy , who encouragted me a lot to realize these drawings for HNT I overcame my timidness, took place in front of my mirror and began to draw ...

The joyous and gay result you can see above, hoping you'll enjoy the moist scene yourselves too as I've enjoyed it to the full :-)

:-) Do it yourself! So you can save your bacon, first of all, and in the second place you can probably save the cost for an acrimonious divorce :-) !

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA 1898 - 1936

2006-04-25T13:25:00.000+02:00

Frederico Garcia Lorca was one of the great Spanish writers, dramatists and artists of the 20th Century. In his short lifetime he produced a wide variety of novels, short stories, poetry as well as paintings, drawings and even musical compositions. He is also a martyr of the Spanish Civil War ...
He influenced such politically disparate artists as the poet Neruda and the painter Dali.

On August 19, 1936, at the age of 38, Lorca was beaten to death by Franco's falangists along with several other 'disappeared' political opponents of Franco.

While his homosexuality was known even then, his fascist assassins used this to make his assassination look like a bit of 'rough trade' gone wrong, the real reason for his death was his outspoken defense of the Republic and his criticisms of monarchism, Catholicism and Fascism.

The Franco regime placed a general ban on his work, which was not rescinded until 1953 when a (heavily censored) Obras completas was released. Even then, it was only after Franco's death in 1975 that Lorca's life and death could be openly discussed.

It took until the 1990s for his sexual orientation to be acknowledged, and then only by scholars and biographers ...

Here is one of his last poems, before he was murdered by the fascists:

Fare Well

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The little boy is eating oranges.
(From my balcony I can see him.)

The reaper is harvesting the wheat.
(From my balcony I can hear him.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!

A POEM BY FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

2006-04-25T09:40:00.000+02:00

Gacela of Unforeseen Love

No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand Persian little horses fell asleep
in the plaza with moon of your forehead,
while through four nights I embraced
your waist, enemy of the snow.

Between plaster and jasmins, your glance
was a pale branch of seeds.
I sought in my heart to give you
the ivory letters that say "siempre",

"siempre", "siempre" : garden of my agony,
your body elusive always,
that blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth already lightless for my death.

MY OLD FRIENDS ANGELIKA AND YUSSUF

2006-04-22T21:38:00.000+02:00

Today my old friends Angelika and Yussuf came to see me quite unexpectedly and we'll enjoy together this weekend!

Therefore I won't be online during the next days!

I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY WEEKEND !

CASTOR

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

( Anais Nin )

IN THE MIRROR OF MY SPRINGTIME

2006-04-20T17:01:00.000+02:00

3 watercolors, made in front of the mirror in 1971, when I was still a Narcissus :-)

RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861 - 1941)

2006-04-17T16:15:00.000+02:00

Very soon after I've come to the conclusion that Savasana-Exercises had such a salutary effect on my body and on my
soul I wanted to know more about Yoga and about the multifaceted Indian culture in general. By chance I met at a vernissage a very interesting sculptress who was older than me and very congenial. Soon I made friends with her...
She was the first person who called my attention to the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Here is a short biography to the Indian Poet, Philosopher, Musician, Writer, Educator and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore:

He was born in Calcutta, India into a wealthy Brahmin family. After a brief stay in England (1878) to attempt to study law, he returned to India, and instead pursued a career as a writer, playwright, songwriter, poet, philosopher and educator.

In 1912 he then returned to England for the first time since his failed attempt at law school as a teenager. Now a man of 51, his was accompanied by his son. On the way over to England he began translating, for the first time, his latest selections of poems, Gitanjali, into English. Almost all of his work prior to that time had been written in his native tongue of Bengali. He decided to do this just to have something to do, with no expectation at all that his first time translation efforts would be any good. He made the handwritten translations in a little notebook he carried around with him and worked on during the long sea voyage from India.

Upon arrival, his son left his father's brief case with this notebook in the London subway. Fortunately, an honest person turned in the briefcase and it was recovered the next day. Tagore's one friend in England, a famous artist he had met in India, Rothenstein, learned of the translation, and asked to see it. Reluctantly, with much persuasion,
Tagore let him have the notebook. The painter could not believe his eyes. The poems were incredible. He called his friend, W.B. Yeats, and finally talked Yeats into looking at the hand scrawled notebook.

The rest, as they say, is history. Yeats was enthralled. He later wrote the introduction to Gitanjali when it was published in September 1912 in a limited edition by the India Society in London. Thereafter, both the poetry and the man were an instant sensation, first in London literary circles, and soon thereafter in the entire world.
His spiritual presence was awesome. His words evoked great beauty. Nobody had ever read anything like it. A glimpse of the mysticism and sentimental beauty of Indian culture were revealed to the West for the first time. Less than a year later, in 1913, Rabindranath received the Nobel Prize for literature.

In 1915 he was knighted by the British King George V, but in 1919, following the Amritsar massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators by British troops, Sir Tagore renounced his Knighthood.

Above you can see the old Rabindranath Tagore with Albert Einstein

A POEM BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

2006-04-17T15:31:00.000+02:00

Leave this chanting
and singing
and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship
in this lonely dark corner
of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes
and see
thy God is not
before thee!

He is there
where the tiller is tilling
the hard ground
and where the pathmaker
is breaking stones.
He is with them
in sun and in shower,
and his garment
is covered with dust.
Put of thy holy mantle
and even like him
come down
on the dusty soil!

Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself
has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations
and leave aside thy flowers
and incense!
What harm is there
if thy clothes
become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him
in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

THE BASIS OF THE REAL CHRISTIANITY

2006-04-16T00:57:00.000+02:00

St. Luke, XVIII, 18 - 24

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God:
Thou knowest the commandements, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.

And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: And come, follow me.

And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.

And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

JESHUAH

2006-04-14T14:27:00.000+02:00

The word "Christianity" is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Picture by Salvador Dalí

TWO BUDDIES ... TWO STATESMEN OF THE SAME LEVEL ... FULL OF WISDOM

2006-04-13T16:50:00.000+02:00

BUSH:

1) “ God speaks through me.”

2) "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend.”

3) "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law.”

4) "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."

5) "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

6) "No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that.”

7) "I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.”

8) "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."

9) "If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could proliferate.”

BERLUSCONI:

1) Before the election:

"I will try to meet your expectations, and I promise from now on, two-and-a-half months of absolute sexual abstinence, until [election day on] 9 April."

After the election:

" I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."

2) "Let's talk about football and women."

3) "Italy is now a great country to invest in... today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."

4) “Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile."

5) "The West will continue to conquer peoples, even if it means a confrontation with another civilisation, Islam, firmly entrenched where it was 1,400 years ago."

6) "Those judges are doubly mad! In the first place, because they are politically mad, and in the second place because they are mad anyway.”

7) "There is no-one on the world stage who can compete with me."

8) I don't need to go into office for the power. I have houses all over the world, stupendous boats... beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family... I am making a sacrifice."

9) "If they (the judge) do that job it is because they are anthropologically different from the rest of the human race."

10) “I tried many times to convince the American president not to go to war.”

[ ... Berlusconi confessed this after his election defeat on the 10th of April 2006, he still doesn't accept the outcome of the election :-), speaking about election defeat :-) ]

SCENES OF A MARRIED LIFE

2006-04-12T22:26:00.000+02:00

SEVEN SIXTY-FOUR-DOLLAR QUESTIONS:

1) Who of both of them is a white-collar criminal?

2) Who of both of them founded his position of power on falshood?

3) Who of both of them is a war criminal?

4) Who of both of them is gay?

5) Who of both of them is for ban on immigration?

6) Who of both of them fooled his citizens?

7) Who of both of them lost the election last Sunday/Monday?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I can betray one thing to you :-) :

NEITHER OF THEM IS GAY !!!

MY PERSONAL WAY TO THE INDIAN CULTURE

2006-04-11T12:59:00.000+02:00

At the age of 18 I tried to make a suicide attempt. I rode my bicycle at a great speed. It was night and I was alone on the road. On the left side there was an abyss. I closed my eyes and drove to the left side. For a short moment I felt something like a heavy collision, like a wrench and I hurtled through the night, weightlessly having a great feeling to be freed of heartache, sorrow and problems. Then there was a second thud and I felt the cold asphalt under my body, I was returned to earth. Only now I opened my eyes, my bicycle lay ca 30 m behind me and now I acted as if in a trance. I got up, ran back to my bicycle intending to make the same again, but the felloes of the front wheel were twisted like 2 U-bends, so that I couldn't ride anymore and I had to carry my bicycle on my shoulder.
So I went home, the bicycle on my shoulders and aloft the night sky, majestically bright and spangled with stars ...
Three weeks later I got aches and pains on my neck and I couldn't turn my head to the right hand side...
I went to the hospital where I've got pain medications, anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants, and a cervical collar, but nothing could really help me. The pains and the inability to turn my head to the right persisted.
It was in the eleventh year after this self-inflicted accident when I discovered in a bookstore by chance a small book called "Yoga against backache" and suddenly I knew that I had to buy this book.
Next day I started with "Savasana Corpse Pose" and after circa 3 weeks the heavy pains on my neck vanished and I could move my body as before my accident.
This opened my eyes and my soul for the spiritual world of India and afterwards for the Indian Art too.

Buddha said:

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

A NEW EROTIC MASTERPIECE BY COCAINE JESUS

2006-04-09T15:30:00.000+02:00

I should like to recommend you to read a new erotic short story, which is a small masterpiece of this genre, written by my blogger-friend, the English writer and poet
Cocaine Jesus

You will find this story on his special blog, dedicated to EROS ...

utility fish erotica

The story is called "The beach" ... it's full of a subtile erotic as always in his narrations, but you will be amazed about the subject which is a little bit unusual for Cocaine Jesus' application area :-)

Indipendent of his delicious Beach-Story I made this drawing of him when we met each other on our virtual beach some time ago in a hot summer :-)

TWO CUTE GUYS FROM THE HAMAM

2006-04-08T19:07:00.000+02:00

Last night I was in my virtual HAMAM where I met two very handsome guys, cute like two Dioscuri stemming from the period when ALEXANDER THE GREAT had created his reign.
I was very astonished for they resembled two of my young blogger friends...

When I've seen them I had to think of Sandouri Dean and Persian Guy, a proof more that there is no limit between dream and reality in the world of art :-)

RAVI SHANKAR, THE CELEBRATED INDIAN MUSICIAN

2006-04-06T15:41:00.000+02:00

Ravi Shankar (born April 7, 1920 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) is a Bengali-Indian musician best known for his virtuosity on the sitar.

A disciple of Allauddin Khan (founder of the Maihar gharana of Indian classical music), Pandit Ravi Shankar is arguably the best-known Indian instrumentalist, and is well known for his pioneering work in bringing the power and appeal of the Indian classical music tradition, as well as Indian music and its performers in general, to the West. This was done through his association with The Beatles as well as with his own personal charisma. His musical career spans over six decades and Shankar currently holds the Guinness Record for the longest international career.

It's now 34 years ago when one of my friends presented me a record with Ravi Shankar's marvellous Ragas and 34 years later I've had the chance to see and hear him peronally during one of his concerts in Venice and I've been completely enthusiasic about his art.

At the moment my favorite music of Ravi Shankar is a disc called "Homage to Mahatma Gandhi" which I can only recommend to everybody who is searching for inner peace ...

The Homage to Mahatma Gandhi referred to in the title is a Ravi Shankar composition entitled "Raga Mohan Kauns." It was composed on the spot during a radio broadcast at the request of the announcer, just days after the assassination of Ghandi in 1948.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE'S SECRET

2006-04-04T20:10:00.000+02:00

Prmod Bafna , the young and very talented poet from India asked me recently in one of his comments if I can give a short introduction to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and so I try to make now a personal homage to this great man whose ideas influenced and enthused me since my younger days ...

Friedrich Nietzsche's secret

It would be hard to imagine a less likely revolutionary than a sickly, reclusive classical philologist whose works were barely acknowledged in his own lifetime. From his university chair in Basel and later from a series of small rented rooms throughout Europe. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), this caustic critic of Christianity was born into a family of clergy and theologians (both his grandfathers were Lutheran ministers) in Röcken, Prussia.
He poured forth a steady stream of dazzling philosophical treatises whose audience initially numbered in the hundreds; gradually this trickle of influence swelled into a torrent that helped to dissolve centuries of encrusted dogma in Western philosophy, religion, morals, and aesthetics.
Nietzsche’s influence began in the last years of the 19th century and appealed a great magnetism on a lot of artists of the Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism and of the Italian “Pittura Metafisica”
Artists like Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Marc – knew Nietzsche’s ›Zarathustra‹, and they expressed themselves extensively about him in letters, and notes.
Sigmund Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, André Gide, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Satre, and William Butler Yeats are just a few of the twentieth-century writers, poets and philosophers who openly acknowledged their debt to him.

I think that the secret of Nietzsche’s influence on artists is due to the fact that he wasn’t only a great philosopher but also a musician and a poet himself, an out-and-out artist with soul-stirring thoughts and forever young in the world of his ideas.

Here is one of Nietzsche's poems I like a lot, because it shows us his inmost conviction:

To the Unknown God (1864)

Once more, before I wander on
And turn my glance forward,
I lift up my hands to you in loneliness —
You, to whom I flee,
To whom in the deepest depths of my heart
I have solemnly consecrated altars
So that
Your voice might summon me again.

On them glows, deeply inscribed, the words:
To the unknown god.
I am his, although until this hour
I've remained in the wicked horde:
I am his—and I feel the bonds
That pull me down in my struggle
And, would I flee,
Force me into his service.

I want to know you, Unknown One,
You who have reached deep into my soul,
Into my life like the gust of a storm,
You incomprehensible yet related one!
I want to know you, even serve you.

(Translation by Philip Grundlerhner)

to know more about Nietzsche, here is an interesting link:

The Nietzche Channel

THE WORLD OF EROS

2006-03-31T15:23:00.000+02:00

My Eros

Eros has a bow
and a quiver filled with arrows.
By dint of these arrows
he wounds anybody
who obstructs his passage.
In heaven, on Earth
and in the Hades
Indeed, he doesn’t spare
even his own mother ...

And what did Friedrich Nietzsche say about Eros :-) ?

Christianity gave Eros poison to drink;
he did not die of it
but degenerated
into vice.

The picture above is a pen drawing with red and blue Indian ink. It is the first one of a series to some stories of the Greek Mythology.

TWO LOVE POEMS BY MIKE AND RYAN

2006-03-28T10:39:00.000+02:00

The most beautiful result of a love story is always reflected by the lover's poems and so I want to publish today two of my nephew's poems ...

What is Love?

Love is hurt
Love is happy
Love is sad
Love is beauty
Love is ugly
Love to me is waking up in my boyfriend's arms.
Love to me is looking in his eyes and seeing love back.
Love to me is feeling him inside me as we become one.
Love to me is knowing he would die for me.
Love to me is when my day is all stormy he holds me and I feel the sun.
Love to me is called Mikey.

(By Ryan)

You and I

The passions you have stirred in my spirit
are more varied than the brilliant hues
glowing as the evening sunsets.
In you I find myself my true essence.

You created a better me
a person I never knew existed.
In you I am complete whole,
for the first time in my life.

Can you see?
The love you spread?
The smiles you bring?
The gentle caring touch
We all love so much?

I never knew what it was like
to have anyone lay down beside me
just to hold me,
feel me,
love me.
Until I met you
how it felt to be wanted just for me.

We're partners and we're soul mates.
This I know is true
We've been there for each other.
When we're sad
and when we're blue
I know I can turn to you
and you to me
for we know:
We're meant to be.

Love is...The sensation that I get
when he walks
into the room.

(By Mike)

Above you can see a sanguine drawing I made of my nephews when they came to my virual studio.

MY NEPHEWS'S LOVE STORY

2006-03-28T09:20:00.000+02:00

No, this is not an incestuous love story of two first cousins but it is the real story of two young blogger fellows who fell in love with each other one year ago. And me ... I am the happy witness of their story for I am their uncle, their virtual uncle, of course :-) ...

When I started my blog (november 2004) I was looking for an adapted model for my "Ganymede", the cupbearer and sweety of the Greek Gods an I found him in the young blogger, called :

Ryan
When I've seen the pretty photographs of himself on his blog I knew that he was the ideal model for "Ganymede" and so I asked him if he agrees ... he agreed and I started a series of drawings with him which I published on my blog and my readers liked the drawings very much :-), but shortly after Ryan asked me to delete some of the nude drawings, I've made from him for he worried about getting into troubles because of them. A little bit later Ryan canceled his own blog for he really has got into troubles because of the malevolence of some maniacs.

One day after this I've got a comment of a new young blogger fellow, called :

Mike

Here are the comments to this historic moment, which was the begin of the marvellous love story of Mike and Ryan. Since that time I call them "my nephews" and they call me "uncle" :

Sunday, January 30, 2005

10:13 AM
Mike said...
That is a great drawing. It resembles someone but I don't know who. I will have to think on it and when realize who it is I will get back to you.
1:35 PM
Mike said...
It just come to me after I posted. That's Ryan, that really cute and cool guy from Atlanta. I had visited his blog daily but it has been recently taken down and I wondered what had happened to him.
1:45 PM
castor said...
Thank you, Mike, for your compliments! You are right, my GANYMEDE resembles Ryan indeed! And that serves as proof of the theory that: Everything is possible between heaven and earth as in the art!
7:37 PM

BUT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IS THAT THIS VIRTUAL LOVE OF MIKE AND RYAN HAS BECOME REALITY!

BERTOLD BRECHT / POET AND PLAYWRIGHT

2006-03-26T13:11:00.000+02:00

Among the most inventive and influential of modern playwrights, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) has left a legacy of important plays and theories about how those plays should be produced. Throughout most of his career he felt that drama should inform and awaken sensibilities, not just entertain or anesthetize an audience. Most of his plays concern philosophical and political issues, and some of them so threatened the Nazi regime that his works were burned publicly in Germany during the Third Reich.

Brecht wrote his most popular play in 1928, a musical collaboration with the German composer Kurt Weill: The Threepenny Opera. The model for this play, the English writer John Gay's 1728 ballad opera The Beggar's Opera, provided Brecht with a perfect platform on which to comment satirically on the political and economic circumstances in Germany two hundred years after Gay wrote.

Brecht's most successful plays are Galileo (1938-1939), Mother Courage (1939), The Good Woman of Setzuan (1943), The Private Lives of the Master Race (1945), and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948). But these represent only a tiny fraction of a mass of work, including plays, poetry, criticism, and fiction. His output is extraordinary in volume and quality. It includes plays borrowed not only from Gay but also from Sophocles, Molière, Gorky, Shakespeare, and John Webster, among others.

Here is one of his Love-Poems, I like so much:

TO READ IN THE MORNING AND AT NIGHT.

My love
Has told me
That he needs me.

That's why
I take good care of myself
Watch out where I'm going and
Fear that any drop of rain
Might kill me.

SUJAY SUKUMAR

2006-03-23T09:22:00.000+01:00

Sujay Sukumar is a young and very gifted writer and poet which I want to present you today. Sujay has also a great talent for a playwright and I am curious how his artistic life will go on. To know more about him just visit his blog!

Here is one of his poems:

A SHIP OF FOOLS

My ship (No its not!),
Is blue in color,
It’s wobbly and huge,
It keeps going in circles,
Round and round,
The wise men called it ‘Earth’.

Tell me Freud isn’t born yet, or tell me I’m living in a stupor.

I’m seasick, I’m ‘hear’sick, and ‘talk’sick
Basically, I ‘feel’ sick.
The whole ship stinks…

Ahoy, who goes there?
A Nazi? A Moslem? A Chinaman? A Caucasian?
A Hindu? A Buddhist? A believer? A Democrat?
A Communist? An agnostic? A Vagabond? A jehadi?
A junkie? A veggie? A nigger? A Spaniard? A hippie?
……my list is long…

S.O.S – Terrosits aboard !

This ship doesn’t have a raft; it doesn’t have a lifesaver either.

We’re running short of supplies…God (In case you exist) help us!

Oh man, we need fuel to keep this ship going….
These guys will stop at nothing to get their hands on the fuel.
I heard them conspiring war.
They’ll kill babies for fuel they said, and their comrades applauded.
They called it Justice.

There’s enough ammunition on this ship to destroy it 6 times over.
Noah, where are you?

There is a very interesting fact in regard to this poem, because some years ago I made a picture with almost the same theme as you can see above :-)

KHALIL GIBRAN

2006-03-21T10:23:00.000+01:00

The Arab writer, poet and painter Khalil Gibran is one of my favorite artists who is like a good friend for me since my early days.

Born in Bsharri in Lebanon he immigrated with his family to the USA when he was 12 years old. He lived in Boston for two years. In Boston he met the photographer Fred Holland Day who befriended young Khalil and had a significant artistic and intellectual impact of him.

At the age of 14 Khalil returned to Lebanon attending al-Hikmah high school in Beirut, where he pursued a reformist Arabic curriculum. He also studies religion and ethics.

At the age of 19 Khalil Gibran returned to Boston where he met Mary Haskell, an American school headmistress who supported promising young orphans. It is owing to Mary that he will be able to devote himself to his painting.

In 1905, at the age of 22 Gibran publishes a slight collection of essays at the al-Muhajir Press, on "Music." Encouraged by the director of the al-Muhajir newspaper, Gibran begins publishing the prose poems that will later be collected into Arabic books such as "A Tear and a Smile" and "Storms"
In 1906 Gibran published Spirit Brides (`Ará'is al-Murúj) in New York in Arabic and two years later Gibran published a second book of short stories in Arabic, "Spirits Rebellious". At 25 years of age, Gibran began his two-year stay in Paris, paid for by Mary Haskell, where he studied painting and was influenced by the reigning school of Symbolism.

In 1914 the Arabic anthology of his newspaper prose poems, "A Tear and a Smile," was published in New York by Nasib Arida. Also his paintings were exhibited at Montross Gallery on Fifth Avenuev ... a rare success, since most galleries resisted Gibran's work on grounds of its excessive nudity and modernism.

In 1923 appeared his famous " THE PROPHET ". Its lyricism and simple style make it an immediate and considerable success.

In 1931 Khalil Gibran died at the age of 48 in a New York hospital.

Here is an excerpt of "THE PROPHET":

On Friendship

And a youth said, "Speak to us of Friendship."

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

PHOENIX, THE LEGENDARY BIRD

2006-03-18T21:01:00.000+01:00

One of the most fascinating myths of the ancient world is the story about the bird PHOENIX.

According to the Greeks, the bird lives in Arabia, near a cool well. Every morning at dawn, the sun god would stop his chariot to listen to the bird sing a beautiful song while it bathed in the well.

Only one phoenix exists at a time. When the bird felt its death was near, every 500 to 1,461 years, it would build a nest of aromatic wood and set it on fire. The bird then was consumed by the flames.

A new phoenix sprang forth from the pyre. It embalmed the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flew with it to Heliopolis, "city of the sun," where the egg was deposited on the altar of the sun god.

For me this legendary bird PHOENIX became a symbol of renascence in times of crisis and so I made this painting when I was ready to undergo a treatment for Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms seventeen years ago :-).

JACKY has published his new erotic story "RUPERT'S SILENT NIGHT"

2006-03-16T11:48:00.000+01:00

I should like to call your attention to Jacky's new hot story for which I've made some illustrations, as you know :-)

Jacky's Chronicles

Above you can see Jacky's nice bum which he has got by our Lord con amore in a good temper :-)

This drawing should be a surprise for my friend Jacky :-) because, when he was in my studio for the first session, I only made a thumbsketch of his sexy botty which I've finalized now :-)

PRMOD BAFNA

2006-03-14T18:01:00.000+01:00

Today I should like to introduce to you
Prmod Bafna .

Prmod is a very talented young poet from India, whose poems I like a lot.

Here is one of them:

AS I WALK DOWN THE ROAD

As i walk down the road,
lost in a worldly jungle
of selfishness,
reflecting on life and this
world that was once ours.

Struck by the uneasy feeling
of reality,
sadness fills my heart,
looking at all the blinded people,
and thier effort called survival.

Having closed all the doors
around them,
but, the worldly one where
power, greed and indifference
bred and made merry.

Countless lives lost, the
remaining left grieving, survival
was but cheating death, which
lay at every corner, of
even the most dingy streets.

In combination to this touching text I want to publish one of my paintings, called "Pandemonion 1"

JACKY

2006-03-09T06:28:00.000+01:00

Is it a fortaste of spring?

My cyber studio is now like a beeyard, frequented by my cute friends. Yesterday my friend Jacky from Jacky's Chronicles came to see me :-).
He told me about his new erotic short story and asked me if I will make any illustrations for him.
I agreed with great pleasure and made my first drawing of him. As you can see, he has long hair now what gives him a more romantic look than before ;-) ...

BRAD

2006-03-07T14:45:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I met my new friend
Brad there, where aren't any limits
between dream and reality for a first session.

Here is the artistic result of a heartfelt affection ...

A PAINTING INSPIRED BY ONE OF SUE HARDY-DAWSON'S POEMS

2006-03-06T23:09:00.000+01:00

Dreams

I
Dive,
Opalescent,
Through a pool,
Of scarlet birds,
Gilded in sun,
Splashed up,
Fragile as butterflies,
Confused,
As dreams.
Stolen thought,
Intrudes,
Rubies,
On streams,
Floating on pianos,
Confused,
As dreams.

Visions,
With omissions,
Untroubled,
I,
Dive,
Opalescent,
Through a pool,
Of scarlet birds,
Gilded in sun,
Chasing,
Fragile butterflies,
Confusing as dreams,
I,
Dive
Opalescent
Through a pool
Of scarlet butterflies

(by Sue Hardy-Dawson)

Not so long ago I've read this beautiful and oneiric poem by Sue who inspired me to paint this watercolour you can see above! Thank you, Sue, I hope you will like it!

Sue Hardy-Dawson

OASIS / A POEM BY ANGEL

2006-03-06T13:35:00.000+01:00

OASIS

A land forgotten
Not so far away
Over the edge
You will find me
Oasis

A land of water
Dreary ponder
On this night
Of unseen tears
Untouched land
Bring forth
Soaring
Oasis

Lighting strikes
Children cry
People die
But do I stir a blunder
Nay I say
I keep my ways
What was my
Oasis

Hearing you
Seeping threw
As I make my dews
Falling
Crawling

Entering
My Oasis

If you are interested in poems, here is the link to Angel's ( DAVID CARRERO's ) website:

Angel's poems

ANGEL RECITES "THE LITTLE PRINCE" by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

2006-03-05T17:29:00.000+01:00

TO MY FRIENDS AND READERS:

I want to call your attention to the blog of

Angel !!!

For a short time Angel is using "audioblogging" on his site - this is a small audioclip on which you can hear Angel reading his post :-)

Listening to his likable voice I had suddenly the idea that Angel would be very qualified to recite for example "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Sanint Exupéry and I asked him if he can try to do this!
He agreed and the result is marvellous!

Look, see and listen!

Please go to his blog where you can download (for free :-) ! ) his recitation of Chapter 1 & 2 of Saint Exupéry's wonderful narration!

Here is also the link to "The little Prince" on-line where you can read the story and see the nice illustrations made by the author!

The Little Prince

I hope you will enjoy it!

LOVE AND PEACE;

CASTOR

THERE IS A SOUNDLESS SCREAM IN OUR GLOBAL VILLAGE ...

2006-03-04T12:48:00.000+01:00

In order that this scream won't be choked unpityingly by unscrupulous people who have superficial and shallow attitudes towards life, please visit now the blog of our poet-blogger-friend Cocaine Jesus , for nobody else than he could give such a haunting pronuncimento to our concience as he did there in his post of today.

SILENCE GIVES CONSENT ... SILENCE MEANS CONSENT.

about the painting "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso (1881 -1973) :

Pablo Picasso's painted mural (1937) is an artistic document of bombing of Basque city of Guernica by German airforce during Spanish Civil War. Depicts victims of war, suffering women, children, and horse. Perhaps greatest painting about war ever made. Focuses on victims. Timeless and universal in its themes.

More you can find under : PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973): FROM THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR TO VIETNAM / by David M. Hart

ABOUT A SPECIAL KIND OF MAGNETISM :-) :-) :-)

2006-03-01T14:20:00.000+01:00

The magnetism is first of all a common word of our language which applies to the properties of different magnetized metals or still to the magnetic field propagating at the level of the surface of the globe. Up to here nothing again, we are in known ground and nobody will think of noticing these big well sat truths … But under the same word hides another force, much less known and often disputed.

This powerful force is present in every human being and probably as well to certain animals as the dog and the cat … Certain persons shine little or practically not; others, on the contrary possess a natural magnetism indeed over the average. The high natural magnetism is thus what one can call a gift and as any gift, he can and should be cultivated, amplified and "domesticated" especially by that or the one who will want to use it to relieve his fellow man.

There is also a particular magnetisms in masterpieces of an artist ... you may look the other way but you cannot resist ... :-)

DAVE BARRY says:
“Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.”

OH, I FORGOT : IT'S MARDI GRAS TODAY !

2006-02-28T17:09:00.000+01:00

LEONARDO DA VINCI'S PROPORTION STUDY OF THE MALE BODY

2006-02-27T20:09:00.000+01:00

Leonardo da Vinci was born 26th. April, 1452, at Anchiano, near Vinci, Tuscany, Italy; died 2nd May, 1519, at Cloux, near Amboise, France.

He was one of the most famous artists of the Italian Renaissance, as well a musician, engineer, and scientist ... and he has always been rumored to be interested in boys: at age 24, still living in Florence, he was arrested for sodomy following an anonymous denunciation (for more about that and the attitude toward homosexuality in XVth and XVIth-century Florence, I recommend "Forbidden Friendships", the excellent book by Michael Rocke) :-)

About an artist and his work, Leonardo said: "The painter must be solitary ... For if you are alone you are completely yourself, but if you are accompanied by a single companion, you are half yourself."

SALVADOR DALI : THE GREAT MASTURBATOR

2006-02-25T14:47:00.000+01:00

The famous Spanish artist Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) was one of Marshall McLuhan's contemporaries ...

... Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad ... (Salvador Dali)

ALEX AND ME

2006-02-23T23:49:00.000+01:00

My Italian friend Alex Dall'Asta is a musicologist and a journalist. As journalist he primarly specialized in cultural subject-matters.

He was so kind to write an interesting essay about me and my work for my official website in 2002, the updated website you can see under the link:

http://members.chello.at/hans.sfiligoi/index.htm

Now he is writing a book about the development of the music in the occidental part of our planet from the Baroque Music to the Classical and Romantical Music until the Atonal Music and Electronical Music and Jazz.

For a short time we keep now an interesting correspondece to this subject and it was him who called my attention to the important Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan!

Above you can see a photo of Alex and me at our first encounter here in Vienna.

ONE OF McLUHAN's PROPHETIC IDEAS

2006-02-21T14:10:00.000+01:00

"World War III will be a guerrilla information war,
with no division between military and civilian
participation"

... and here we go at the moment, that's the bitter reality of our days ...

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE BY THE PHILOSOPHER MARSHALL McLUHAN

2006-02-21T13:58:00.000+01:00

"The global Village"

McLuhan says:

"By emerging the new medium electricity - which means also a new stage of the expansion of body - McLuhan believes to overcome the condition to the technology serving, "hypnotized" humans. In the electricity humans shift his central nervous system outward. Here it concerns those its senses coordinating instance; the electricity manufactures a connection - contrary to earlier expansions of body (hand, foot, eye), which were converted in separate equipments. "In relation to the 'limited and 'atomistic' mechanical technology, which followed from the dismantling of processes, the electrical is total and comprehensive ' ". For the first time it is possible for humans to recognize the nature of the technology and its situation.
McLuhan sees the 20. Century in a transitional phase, where the "Gutenberg galaxy" was replaced, but old perception patterns still prevail, since they are not replaced ad hoc. Result is "rear view mirror thinking" which tries to solve "the tasks from today with the tools from yesterday and the conceptions from yesterday". The "rear view mirror thinking" represents an anachronism in the environment changed by electricity.
Because of the electrical cross-linking of the globe space and time will overcome, distances of all kinds thus waived, the world is pulled together to a village. In the consequence features of the printing culture - like individualism and nationalism - are overcome. Humans live now in the community of the global village in the form of the oral master organization in interdependence, which requires commitment and sympathy with the other one and which makes redundant past society of passive individuals. The tactile aligned perception is favoured, whereby the rehablitation is made possible before displace feelings."

Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar, professor of English literature, literary critic, and communications theorist, who is one of the founders of the study of media ecology and is today an honorary guru among technophiles.