ileanaa's most read articles

Rhythmanalysis is the study of rhythms :o) Gaston Bachelard borrowed the term from the writer Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos (a 1931-piece in Portuguese) in The Psychoanalysis of Fire and in The Poetics of Space as “rhythmo-analysis”, and developed a chapter on “Rhythmanalysis” in Dialectic of Duration . Toward the end of his life Henri Lefebvre made an attempt to develop a theory of rhythms, in order to build an understanding of “the concrete modalities of social time” ( Rhy…

Etymologically the word flânerie comes from the French verb flâner that means to stroll, to take a walk. The origins of the verb are dialectal. In the seventeenth century the verb ‘flanner’ was used in Normandy to mean ‘to waste time’ (CNRTL). The verb flâner [to stroll], and the nouns flâneur [stroller] and flânerie [the act of strolling] became part of the French language in the nineteenth century, in writings of Balzac (1837) for instance, to describe someone who likes to do nothing.  Fren…

After their 1924 summer in the Bay of Naples (Capri), Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis wrote the essay "Neapel", which appeared in Frankfurter Zeitung in 1926. It is Benjamin's first recording of his reflections on the modern city experience. The ruins of Pompeii and Naples stimulated them to distinguish within the process of decay categories such as spatial porosity (suggested by Lacis) and temporal transition . In terms of architecture, "one can scarcely discern where building is still…

... Richard Sennett wrote an article on the foreigner that starts from Simmel's understanding of the stranger 's role to expose "the sheer arbitrariness of society's script, which insiders follow thinking lines have been written by Right, Reason, or God" (2002) and goes on with the foreigner's knowledge about living a displaced life... To understand the meaning of these roles, Sennett reminds us of Sophocles' Oedipus : "The two wounds on Oedipus's body are thus a scar of origins that cannot…

On the condition of being a stranger, I draw here on Georg Simmel 's description of the stranger as a social type (1908). I n order to determine typologies he focuses on forms of social interaction and contextualizes sets of observations within systems of meanings. If one considers opposed categories as constitutive of the social order, Simmel' s central analytical interest is oriented toward sociological dualism in terms of conflicts and contrasts between the opposed categories. Levine ex…

Prin gările cu firme-albastre Ion Minulescu Tristeţea trenului ce pleacă Noi n-am trâit-o niciodată, Căci – călători ades cu trenul - În clipa când plecăm din gară, Noi stăm pe loc - Doar trenul pleacă!... Doar trenul pleacă, Trenul singur Ne poartă nerăbdarea mută, Bagajul visurilor noastre Şi setea noilor senzaţii, Pe infinite paralele, De-a lungul verzilor plantaţii De mătrăgună şi cucută, Pe schela podurilor albe, Prin noaptea negrelor tunel…

May 23 (1923)* My dear Emilian, As I expect you have already guessed, every ship is going to depart without me, because I am not going to leave this country again. When I went away from you I thought it would be my last absence, as I promised to return, and believed I would be capable to do so. Please imagine that during our prolonged separation I happened to die. And actually that is what happens to me with regard to you. Every death is involuntary, even the self-provoked de…

Il y a du soleil dans la rue Moi j'aime le soleil mais j'aime pas les gens Et je reste caché tout l'temps A l'abri des volets d'acier noir Il y a du soleil dans la rue Moi j'aime bien la rue mais quand elle s'endort Et j'attends que le jour soit mort Et je vais rêver sur les trottoirs Et l'soleil De l'aut' côté du monde Danse une valse blonde Avec la terre ronde, ronde, ronde, ronde Le soleil Rayonnant comme un faune Danse une valse jaune Pour ceux d…

If I controlled the internet? You could auction your broken heart on Ebay Take the money, go to Amazon, Buy a phonebook for a country you’ve never been to Call folks at random until you find someone who flirts really well in a foreign language If I were in charge of the internet You could Mapquest your lover’s moodswings Hang left at cranky Right at preoccupied U turn on silent treatment All the way back to tongue kissing and good lovin’ You could navigate and und…

Sentimental story by Nichita Stãnescu Then we met more often. I stood at one side of the hour, you at the other, like two handles of an amphora. Only the words flew between us, back and forth. You could almost see their swirling, and suddenly, I would lower a knee, and touch my elbow to the ground to look at the grass, bent by the falling of some word, as though by the paw of a lion in flight. The…

The Unseen Power We are the flute, our music is all Thine;
 We are the mountains echoing only Thee;
 Pieces of chess Thou marshallest in line And movest to defeat or victory;
 Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled -
 Thy wind invisible sweeps us through the world. Only Breath Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not…

Shunryu Suzuky 1970: ... everything comes out of emptiness. when we reach this understanding we find the true meaning of our life. when we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of human life ... Zelda Fitzgerald 1929-30: every place has its hours: there is Rome in the glassy sun of a winter noon and Paris under the blue gauze of spring twilight, and there's the red sun flowing through the chasms of a New York dawn. Li Po 李白 (~750): the world around us: Dr…

Fernando Pessoa Portuguese Sea / Mar Portugues Horizon Your fearfulness preceding us, O Sea, / O mar anterior a nos, teus medos Was lodged in coral, shores, and masts. / Tinham coral e praias e arvoredos. Once of night and fog, of bygone / Desvendadas a noite e a cerracao, Tempests and the mystery, unveiled, / As tormentas passadas e o misterio, Distance flowered, and the sideral South / Abria em flor o Longe, e o S…

"Ever since that day I have realized that man's soul is a terrible and dangerous coil spring. Without knowing it, we all carry a great explosive force wrapped in our flesh and lard. And what is worse, we do not want to know it, for the villainy, cowardice, and falsehood lose their justification; we can no longer hide behind man's supposed impotence and wretched incompetence; we ourselves must bear the blame if we are villains, cowards, or liars, for although we have an all-powerful force inside,…

"Le Bosphore : une avenue liquide, une allée triomphale qui vous porte, l'Asie et l'Europe se confrontant pendant des lieux avec une inoubliable solennité... Pour dire l'entrée de Constantinople a ceux qui n'ont pas vue, il faudrait leur parler comme on parle aux aveugles pour leur expliquer la lumière. Dire : c'est un chant qui monte, de plus en plus haut, c'est la chaleur irrésistible, et si vous avez jamais éprouve la joie, eh bien, c'est la joie !" Princesse Bibesco, Les huits parad…