"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Here's one who thinks he is the master of others, yet he is more enslaved than they are."  (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract)

Love Poem to No One in Particular
By Mark O'Brien

Let me touch you with my words
For my hands lie limp as empty gloves
Let my words stroke your hair
Slide down your back
And tickle your belly
For my hands, light and free flying as bricks
Ignore my wishes and stubbornly refuse 
To carry out my quietest desires
Let my words enter your mind
Bearing torches

Admit them willingly into your being

So they may caress you gently

Within

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The Real Enemy

"Letʼs just talk about fear. Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we donʼt need. Think about it. Fear that weʼre going to be attacked, fear that there are communists lurking around every corner, fear that some little Caribbean country that doesnʼt believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear that black culture may take over the world. Fear of Elvis Presleyʼs hips. Well, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath might ruin our friendships... Fear of growing old and being alone.
Fear that weʼre useless and that no one cares what we have to say."
(A Single Man, d: Tom Ford)

Talk To God

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Thank him for your little house
on the periphery, its splendid view
of the wildflowers in summer,
and the nervous, forked prints of deer
in that same field after a snowstorm.
Thank him even for the monotony
that drives us to make and destroy
and dissect what otherwise would be
merely the lush, unnamed world.
Ease into your misgivings.
Ask him if in his weakness
he was ever responsible
for a pettiness—some weather, say,
brought in to show who’s boss
when no one seemed sufficiently moved
by a sunset, or the shape of an egg.
Ask him if when he gave us desire
he had underestimated its power.
And when, if ever, did he realize
love is not inspired by obedience?
Be respectful when you confess to him
you began to redefine heaven
as you discovered certain pleasures.
And sympathize with how sad it is
that awe has been replaced
by small enthusiasms, that you’re aware
things just aren’t the same these days,
that you wish for him a few evenings
surrounded by the old, stunned silence.
Maybe it will be possible then
to ask, Why this sorry state of affairs?
Why—after so much hatefulness
done in his name—no list of corrections
nailed to some rectory door?
Remember to thank him for the silkworm,
apples in season, photosynthesis,
the northern lights. And be sincere.
But let it be known you’re willing to suffer
only in proportion to your errors,
not one unfair moment more.
Insist on this as if it could be granted:
not one moment more.

(by Stephen Dunn)

Listen to the author on Poems Out Loud. 

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Stereotype this!

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The Blackmailed Man

"One cannot object to the globalization blackmail, so it's better to be on the winners' side; resistance is not possible, the very concept of resistance has evaporated."

"The contemporary man is a blackmailed man, a man who's accepted the blackmail and now is moving freely, but within the blackmailing state of affairs which became objective, therefore indistinguishable. We are reborn, but this happens after the blackmail and as a result of it, of a blackmail with life..."

Blackmail... In French: chantage... Chant-Age... (chant - song/singing)... The Age of (existential) Singing...

                                                            

"We are blackmailed, implicitly, with the disasters and the monstrosity of the modern state in order to pay for the market, to accept the market as inevitable, not in itself, as an economic phenomenon, but as a general model of society. And we do "sing", ie we pay, to be left to live, modest, in peace; we do not ask much, we are not dangerous, we fear, above all, of our own shadows, more post-traumatic than post-historical beings that we are." 

                                                              (B. GHIU, my countryman)

Quintessence of (musical) genius

May he rest (or party!) forever in acoustical heaven.

Milgram Reloaded...

I guess we need to remind ourselves who we really are... 

 

Again...

 

And again...

If you want more of it...
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Alf_Red/videos/25/

When would you have stopped? Are you sure of that?

You know it's not about a French TV show, don't you? It's about all of us...

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"The “sapiens” in the generic term “homo sapiens” 

does not so much refer to man’s rationality as 

that which elevates him above the animal, 

but rather to his peculiar status as 

a creature that has no defining characteristic 

except for the fact that he knows that he is human."     

 (Nathan Van Camp)