I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'
TS Elliot The Waste Land.
As if that was all, the blinding brutality of growing older, the calming influence of familiar despair, the chronic thought disorder that had bedeveilled his consciousness, all of these things were swept aside along the tunnel into the past. Magic was missing. Often he could feel the prickling difference of the spirits in the fabric of things, the entities that populated so many places. But not today. Not this day. God had gone missing and not even the hounds of God could round him up. He wasn't bitter, just disappointed. He had thought it all led somewhere, that there was a higher purpose.
That day, way back then in the early years of High school, was another day that seared itself on to his memory primarily because it was so cringingly embarrassing. There was a speech competition at the school; and the winners from the school would then go on to the regions, and then the state. The theme was hobbies; why they were important, what was interesting about them, how they could help you in later life. First time around he had picked stamp collecting, as he had been going through a fairly typical boyhood phase of collecting, fascinated by the bright colours and in love with the smell of the packets as he opened them.
He acquired, from those stamps, a lifelong desire to visit Madagascar, just because their stamps were so beautiful. They filled up their albums, they offered diversion and escape. Everyone was nervous and everyone hated giving their little five minute speeches. But he had topped the class and everyone had been impressed. He moved on to the next level of the competition, where the best in the school battled it out for the honour of competing at inter-school level.
Keen, for whatever reason, to succeed, he thought somehow it would help him with whatever life held in store, he decided to be more ambitious next time around, and do something closer to his heart. He decided to do a speech on learning short hand and typing, and how while it could be a hobby these skills would be incredibly useful in later life. His mother ran a series of typing businesses as they were growing up, going to enormous lengths to set them up, busily typing away for the local businesses. It really was a sterling effort in an era when women were not expected to work. Se he did it in defiance of my father, who stomped around angrily, constantly undermining her. No wife of mine is going to work, he declared.
But they were proud of her, and after school he and his younger brother would go down to her office, and hang about. Sometimes frantically busy, in an era before the word processor when the slightest mistake meant everything had to be retyped, she would order them to play on the spare typewriters. His brother, an earnest, sincere, Christian person who's own suffering with his father was never alleviated by his brother's party going ways, learnt to touch type first. Soon, in the typing competitions they had after work, his brother, 18 months younger, streaked ahead. He was having none of this, and promptly learnt to touch type himself.
As a result, he could touch type by the time he was eight years old. It was very unusual for the era, and unheard of for a man to type. But he stood up in front of the class and delivered his much prepared speech on why it was so important to learn typing and short hand, what an interesting hobby it was and how useful these skills might be in later life. It went down like a lead balloon. There was a baffled, uncomprehending look on the audience's face, his fellow, sneering students, and the teachers, too, were unappreciative, marking him poorly.
Now, in 2008, with the advent of computers, a lot, perhaps even most young men can type. Back then in the very early sixties in Sydney's remote outer suburbs it was absolutely unheard of for a man to be able to type. His advocacy for the acquisition of these skills marked him even firmer as truly weird; and he paid the price in the school yard once again. It was so embarrassing he just wanted to hide; and keep on hiding, for the rest of his life, and in retrospect couldn't understand why he hadn't just stuck to stamp collecting, safe, conformist, acceptable to everyone. But he had to stick his head out; and promptly got it cut off. It might not have been as violent or as vicious as the day when the gangs chanted hit me with your handbag, and tried to bash him senseless, but he stayed very very quiet for months afterwards, barely uttering a word. Silence had become his only true friend.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drug-watchdog-takes-50m-court-hit-20080814-3vq2.html
JIM Selim, the founder of Pan Pharmaceuticals, who yesterday settled his court case against the Federal Government for a near-record $50 million, believes he has been vindicated.
But he still wants the actions by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which withdrew Pan's licence in April 2003, examined in a public inquiry to determine if the regulator can be trusted.
The complementary medicines manufacturer went into liquidation four months after the TGA raised concerns that Pan's anti-travel sickness drug Travacalm had caused hallucinations in some people.
Mr Selim's solicitor, Andrew Thorpe, yesterday said about $750 million was lost to the economy when the company closed, leaving nearly 400 staff out of work, customers without stock, and shareholders with big losses. He said the settlement, six weeks into the Federal Court law suit, would open the doors for those people to also sue the Government.
The case had alleged negligence and misfeasance by the TGA, which, Mr Selim claimed, was motivated by "malice … vengeance and vendetta" arising from a failed prosecution against the company in the late 1990s.
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSLE696364
MOSCOW, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The outbreak of war between Georgia and Russia shocked most of the world last week, but an investment bank analyst predicted it two days in advance.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili sent troops into the breakaway, pro-Russian region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7, on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, and Russia responded with overwhelming military force.
Geoff Smith, a Kiev-based analyst for Renaissance Capital investment bank, had anticipated the Georgian move with uncanny prescience in an e-mail two days earlier to a fellow strategist.
"So whaddaya think? I say Saakashvili is going to 'restore the territorial integrity of Georgia' five minutes before the opening ceremony starts in Beijing and dare the Russians to invade while the games are on?" the note said.
Reuters has seen a copy of the e-mail and confirmed its validity with both the sender and recipient of the message.
The Kremlin swiftly asserted its vastly superior military might and thousands of Russian troops pushed out Georgian troops from the rebel region. Russian units are still operating inside Georgia proper.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/government-to-buy-back-water--and-properties-20080814-3vpx.html
THE buyback of water from the Murray-Darling River system will be massively boosted by an injection of federal funds - which will also buy major commercial irrigation properties such as Queensland's Cubbie Station, if the states contribute.
Speaking in Adelaide yesterday not far from the devastated river communities at the mouth of the Murray and the Coorong, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said an independent auditor would also be brought in to check the accuracy of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission's assessment of how much stored water the system held.
But the future of South Australia's wetlands at the Coorong and Murray mouth remain in doubt with no new allocation of water for downstream communities and the Federal Government admitting it could not provide a magic solution.
Mr Rudd said the river system overall was in deficit, with a capacity of 24,000 gigalitres but only 4800 currently stored.
He said the audit would settle debate about the accuracy of figures on which federal Water Minister Penny Wong based her controversial assessment that there was not enough water in the system to save the Murray mouth, the Coorong and the lower lakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment