Sane Inside Insanity: ZEN AND THE ART OF WATCHING "VOYAGER"

martedì, ottobre 06, 2009

ZEN AND THE ART OF WATCHING "VOYAGER"

Ho trovato un uso pratico per il programma "Voyager": rammendare mutande mentre ascolto.

Non sto parlando della serie di Star Trek, ovviamente. Non è tutto da buttare. A volte una perlina di informazioni mi spinge ad approfondire, a volte mostrano immagini carine (magari addirittura attinenti a quello che stanno dicendo). Purtroppo tutto ciò è sommerso da un'ululante colonna sonora "drammatica" ed effetti speciali da far venire attacchi di epilessia, le stesse immagini "shoccanti" ripetute all'infinito, e "studi" come "L'UOMO DISCENDE DAL KLINGON! Non abbiamo alcuna fonte, e non dovreste preoccuparvi che vi spuntino creste sulla fronte, ma... SE FOSSE???"

E infine, errori puri e semplici. Ieri sera hanno spiegato (o no) che gli Illuminati (la cui odierna esistenza non è provata) furono creati nel misterioso regno di BAVARIA. Solo che noi italiani la chiamiamo BAVIERA, e per quel che ne so produce soprattutto birra e papi. Il traduttore avrebbe dovuto fare i compiti. Ma si sa, traduttore = traditore.

Oh beh, ho due paia di mutande di nuovo operative.

I've found a practical use for the "Voyager" TV show: mending underwear while I listen to it.

(FF: this is about an Italian show - not the Star Trek series - and I bet you have similar ones, too.)

It's not all bad. Sometimes a nugget of info prompts me to research, sometimes they show pretty pictures (maybe even actually related to what they are saying). Unfortunately all this is drowned under a shrieking "dramatic" soundrack and seizure-inducing special effects, the same "shocking" images repeated over and over, and "studies" like "MAN DESCENDS FROM KLINGONS! We have absolutely no sources, and you should not be worried about growing ridges on your forehead, but... WHAT IF???"

And finally, plain mistakes. Last night they explained (or not) how the Illuminati (whose existence today is not proved) were created in the mysterious realm of BAVARIA (literal term in Italian). You FF will have no problem understanding what it is, but we Italians call it BAVIERA, and to my knowledge it produces mainly beer and Popes. You'd think the translator had done his/her homework. But translators = traitors, ya know.

Oh well, I have two pairs of underwear back in working order.

QUOTES

Heart shall be bolder,
harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit
as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter
nor mood waver,
though doom shall come
and dark conquer.
(The Battle of Maeldon, translated by Tolkien)

He who has a treasure, or a demon in his heart, cannot hide it. (King Theodoric the Great)

I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.
(Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio)

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. (Hannibal Lecter)

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. (Ernest Hemingway)

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I... I am crazy. I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns. Perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream. (A Beautiful Mind)

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands,
father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night Watch
for this night and all the nights to come.
(GRRM)

Never criticize a person until you walk a mile in their shoes (Atticus Finch)

A warrior for peace is no less a warrior (General Korrd, unwittingly reminding of Yitzhak Rabin)

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter. (Sirius Black)

Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile (Leonard Cohen)

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. (John Coffey)

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feel - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! (Starbuck)

I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Charlotte Bronte)

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? (Karen Blixen)

Do not you recognize me, Dumas? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armee. I have stood at Kovno, and thrown the last muskets in the Niemen. I am Marshal Ney. Give me a bowl of soup. (Attributed to Michel Ney).