Nepenthe

E um «pequenito» com 7 quilos 7 Der Spiegel

Last November, a couple of weeks after the Dalai Lama received a Congressional Gold Medal from President Bush, his old Land Rover went on sale on eBay. Sharon Stone, who once introduced the Tibetan leader at a fundraiser as “Mr. Please, Please, Please Let Me Back Into China!” (she meant Tibet), announced the auction on YouTube, promising the prospective winner of the 1966 station wagon, “You’ll just laugh the whole time that you’re in it!” The bidding closed at more than eighty thousand dollars. The Dalai Lama, whom Larry King, on CNN, once referred to as a Muslim, has also received the Lifetime Achievement award of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. He is the only Nobel laureate to appear in an advertisement for Apple and guest-edit French Vogue . Martin Scorsese and Brad Pitt have helped commemorate his Lhasa childhood on film. He gave a lecture at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in Washington, D.C., in 2005. This spring, in Germany, he will sp...

An Exercise in Interpretive Lexicography Relating to the Recent Hostilities An Army of One: soldiers who dump their girlfriends/boyfriends right before an overseas deployment ostensibly to spare them the pain of long-term separation. Also The Cult of Aloneness . Black Swan-ism: idea that the war in Iraq is essentially an unknowable event, divorced from the law of cause and effect, its participants merely awaiting the next unforeseeable catastrophe such as the bombing of the Golden Mosque in 2006 which set off a wave of sectarian violence. Calendar Karma: secret mental calculus used to plan operations based upon a unit’s stateside rotation date, the idea being that the last days of a given deployment are always the most dangerous, i.e. all combat tours end early. CNN Solipsism: tendency of newly-arrived, Ivy League-educated reporters from major outlets to view the war in exclusively news-cycle terms. This person has no idea of why someone would enlist in the military and ha...

You never feed me. Perhaps I'll sleep on your face. That will sure show you. You must scratch me there! Yes, above my tail! Behold, elevator butt. The rule for today: Touch my tail, I shred your hand. New rule tomorrow. In deep sleep hear sound cat vomit hairball somewhere will find in morning. Grace personified. I leap into the window. I meant to do that. Blur of motion, then -- silence, me, a paper bag. What is so funny? The mighty hunter Returns with gifts of plump birds -- your foot just squashed one. You're always typing. Well, let's see you ignore my sitting on your hands. My small cardboard box. You cannot see me if I can just hide my head. Terrible battle. I fought for hou...

Without translation, much of the best writing — and thinking — of other cultures would be lost to English-speaking readers. As it is, only a fraction of the world's books are translated into English. Of all books published in the United States, about 3 percent are translations. As author Paul Auster wrote for a PEN translation report: "Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world." Some of these "shadow heroes" are right under our noses, converting Spanish stories, Polish novels and Greek poetry into English. Others are training translators or publishing the best international writing. However obscure these endeavors may be to the general reader, as economic globalization becomes the norm, interest in translation is growing. "I think it's picking up," ...

For the modern, middle-class North American, “clean” means that you shower and apply deodorant each and every day without fail. For the aristocratic 17th-century Frenchman, it meant that he changed his linen shirt daily and dabbled his hands in water, but never touched the rest of his body with water or soap. For the Roman in the first century, it involved two or more hours of splashing, soaking and steaming the body in water of various temperatures, raking off sweat and oil with a metal scraper, and giving himself a final oiling - all done daily, in company and without soap. Even more than in the eye or the nose, cleanliness exists in the mind of the beholder. Every culture defines it for itself, choosing what it sees as the perfect point between squalid and over-fastidious. It follows that hygiene has always been a convenient stick with which to beat other peoples, who never seem to get it right. The outsiders usually err on the side of dirtiness. The ancient Egyptians thought tha...

You scored 3 out of a possible 10 Dear oh dear. It is possible to read at the same time as eating chocolate, you know. How well do you know the literature of chocolate? Easter being the traditional religious festival of chocolate, we are honouring this holiest of confections with a chocolate-coated literary quiz. Find out how greedy a reader you are by answering the following questions Which very popular book of recent years culminates in the depiction of a grand Festival du Chocolat on Easter weekend? A Year in Provence Trainspotting Chocolat Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Charlie Buckett, the young hero of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate...

An extract: The battered cargo balloon came in out of a rainstorm over the White Sea, losing height rapidly and swaying in the strong north-west wind as the pilot trimmed the vanes and tried to adjust the gas-valve. The pilot was a lean young man with a large hat, a laconic disposition and a thin moustache,and at present he was making for the Barents Sea Company Depot, whose location was marked on a torn scrap of paper pinned to the binnacle of the gondola. He could see the depot spread out around the little harbour ahead - a cluster of administrative buildings, a hangar, a warehouse, workshops, gas storage tanks and the associated machinery; it was all approaching fast, and he had to make quick adjustments to everything he could control in order to avoid the hangar roof and make for the open space beyond the warehouse. All of it, courtesy of The Guardian Click on the image to get to the Bridge of Stars website!

And other catty moments ;)

[could be a painting by Vermeer, I say] It's just a bowl of beetroot and cabbage in meat stock. But it was the common denominator of the Soviet kitchen. So what happened to the dish after the collapse of the Union? Recipe: Borscht Serves 4-6 Borscht - beetroot soup - is one of those recipes of which everyone has their own version. Do add the red wine vinegar and brown sugar though, without them it's just a bit bland. Red wine also adds richness, and I've also experimented with adding shot of vodka at the end. This is one of those soup recipes that often tastes even better the next day. 4 large beetroots ½ red cabbage 2 carrots 1 stick celery Bay leaves 2 red onions 2 cloves garlic 1 teaspoon caraway seeds 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1.2 litres of stock Olive oil 2 teaspoons of brown sugar Sour cream to serve Chives Fry the onion, garlic and celery in olive oil for a few minutes, until soft. Add some caraway seeds and a bay leaf or two. Grate the beetroot and carrot and s...

Intertítulo definidor e definitivo do filme Nosferatu de 1919. Ora sendo os intertítulos em alemão, eu gostaria muito de saber quem foi o tradutor português que terá legendado esta obra-prima e nos terá deixado, aos fãs, suspensos desta frase. Também gostaria de saber como é em alemão, e se será igual em todas as poucas cópias, entre restauradas e resgatadas ao esquecimento (a pedido da viúva de Bram Stoker, o tribunal mandou Murnau destruir todas as cópias) (ora se aquilo fosse como na justiça portuguesa, o ror de filmes que ainda teríamos!) Sim, é possível dizer muito bem da portuguesice -- a frase traduzida primorosa -- e muito mal ;) Com isto revelo que não tenho o filme em DVD. O drama, o horror, a tragédia!!

Tradução minha ;)

Inédito até 2001, ano em que foi editada em Barcelona a sua tradução castelhana, este Diário Português foi escrito entre 21 de Abril de 1941 (com o propósito inicial de Eliade se reencontrar após meses sem escrever) e 5 de Setembro de 1945 (dia do último «banho em Cascais»), período em que desempenhou as funções de adido de imprensa, primeiro, e adido cultural, depois, da embaixada da Roménia. É um texto em que o autor se mostra diversas vezes crítico, embora não hostil, em relação a Portugal, país que considera periférico, um pouco à margem da história e da cultura . É também um valioso registo da trajectória de um dos grandes intelectuais do século XX, que passou maioritariamente em Portugal os anos da Segunda Grande Guerra. Um Excerto: 2 de Outubro de 1943 No carro com os Grigore e os Costas para Alcobaça, Óbidos, Batalha, Coimbra. Apontamentos - para o meu eventual livro de recordações e comentários portugueses - no caderno preto. Óbidos, pela primeira vez. A mais impressionante v...

1. Beth Ditto Who: Rock star Why: Standing in the Way of Control, the Gossip's disco-tinted attack on the Republicans' attitude to gay marriage, hit the top 10 last year. Singer Ditto, 26, a self-proclaimed 'fat, feminist lesbian from Arkansas' was already notorious - the NME named her the coolest person in rock in 2006. She embraced fame, using her unique position to educate indie-pop fans about fat politics and queer theory. Which made a nice change. She says: [on posing nude for a lesbian magazine] 'It was a radical thing to do. I got my period 10 minutes before, and I was totally bleeding. I was doing it with my tranny boyfriend, and I was totally bleeding - how radical is that? I'm a fat person, and I'm a femme. It felt good.' 2. Yo Majesty Who: Rappers Why: Yo Majesty are, they promise, 'the only openly lesbian rap group in the world'. The fearless trio, Shunda K, Jwl B and Shon B, come from Florida with partying on their mind and an albu...