Cotidiano de uma brasileira em Paris, comentarios sobre cultura, politica e besteiras em geral. Entre le faible et le fort c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui libère." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Thursday, May 31, 2012

PlethOratoRhetoRich


Or "A lot of rhetorical devices for enhanced oratorical skills"

Tautology and pleonasm

Tautology and pleonasm are not the same thing. Pleonasm is defined as "the use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense."[1] A round circleA big giant. Tautology is a repetition of the same idea in different wordsA huge great big manSay it over again once more. (Say it over. Say it again. Say it once more.) The crucial difference is that "Repeat it again" is a pleonasm, because again is inherent to "repeat". Repeat and again do not simply mean the same thing, which means that this is not a tautological repetition of the same thing in a different word – just as tuna and fish are not the same thing.[2]
The expressions like added bonus, first introduction, free gift, round circle etc. are pleonastic rather than tautological. Why? Because these expressions do not convey the same meaning in different language. Instead, one idea is simply contained in the other. For example- They arrived one after the other in succession is tautology because 'one after the other' and 'in succession' convey the same sense in different languages, while in 'added bonus' added and bonus do not mean the same thing, only one idea is implicit or contained in the other. Consequently, expressions like 'added bonus', 'reason why', 'repeat again' etc. should be pleonastic rather than tautological. Besides, the expressions like 'annual exams every year' should be tautological.

Repetitions of meaning in mixed-language phrases (my fav bit!)

Repetitions of meaning sometimes occur when multiple languages are used together, such as: "rice pilaf" (pilaf is Turkish for "rice"),"chai tea" (tea tea), shrimp scampi (scampi is Italian for shrimp),"the La Brea Tar Pits" (the The tar Tar Pits), "the hoi polloi" (the the many), "Sierra Nevada mountain range" (Snowy Mountain Range mountain range), "Sahara Desert" (Deserts Desert), "Gobi Desert" (Desert Desert), "Mount Fuji-yama" (Mount Fujimountain), "shiba inu dog" (little bush dog dog), "shiitake mushroom" (shii mushroom mushroom), Jirisan Mountain" (Jiri mountain mountain), "Mississippi River" (Great-river river), "Rio Grande river" (big river river), "cheese quesadilla" (cheese cheesy-thing), "Lake Tahoe" (Lake Lake), "Faroe Islands" (Sheep Island Islands), and "Angkor Wat temple" (Angkor Temple temple). A triple redundancy example is "Breedon on the Hill" in Leicestershire (Hill-hill on the hill").


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Lençois Maranhenses


"O sertão vai virar mar, o mar vai virar sertão..."


"Que Deus deu, que Deo dato."

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Saturday, May 26, 2012

SequesTree


Victor Brauner, The Glowworm, 1933


Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, 1622-25


Lift it.

Friday, May 25, 2012

PedestriAnnoyed

Attention porcyclists, steamrollers, and wheelchariots of fire: I made this one just for you Y

Look, I understand.  You're respectively: actively healthy, you have babies who need to see the outside world every day even when you're tired and stressed out, and you need to transport your body even though your legs don't work--- I salute you!

But you're also in charge of a vehicle that's rigid hard, and can hurt human bodies if you bump into one!

Seriously, just because there is no engine in your machine, it doesn't mean you need not be as careful as you'd be were you driving a car or motorcycle!

Yesterday, coming out of a store, about to cross the street, I saw a car coming, so naturally I stopped, since I was not at the pedestrian crossing.  It kindly stopped for me, as Death did for Emily Dickinson, at which point I waved my unemcumbered right hand to paralinguistically thank the humanist on wheels when, suddenly, as if Thor himself had come down from on high.         KAPOW!

"I'm hit, I'm hit!  Human down, human down!"  Ok. I'm being a hyperbolic fiend.  But yes I was hit. It could have been ugly.  The panhandler in front of the shop yelled out "Attention!", so I froze in place. I was almost run over by a Man on WheelSteroids in the Mecca of the Bicycle.  Not Amsterdamage.  In Amsterdam cyclists ride at a normal speed.  Oui, France! Land of the Tour de Force de France. His body hit me.  

Hand on Old & New Testament, the Qu'ran, and any sacred and propane text you want to put under my palm, this monsieur was going faster than the spawn of SpeedyGonzales and the Roadrunner.  And do you know why? Because he is Healthier, and thus Better, than thou -- and than I, ai, ai! But it hurt!  What, what, what makes him think he can go at 40Km/h on a bicycle and take the tiny wee narrow corridor between cars and, well, pedestrians like me, when, I am certain, had he been behind the wheel of a car, he'd never ever do it?

Then, the other month... okay, it was last year, but so what? Last year, I was in Monoprix, buying shampoo, (2 for price of 1, delicious scent, really -- chestnut!) and I'm standing in the kilometric queue when PHLOP!  My right ankle is viciously nicked by a wheelchariot of fire.  It was NOT, i repeat, NOT the disabled person's fault, because her vehicle was being manned by a woman, whom I can only presume to be an absolute relative of the seated lady.  She didn't think it was worth getting too worked up about the fact that now there's an unfashionable dot of blood on my ankle, making me look like I am metamorphosing into a ladybug, which suddenly, just now, makes me think would be uberly cool.  She raised her eyebrows & shoulders, like synchronized water ballerinas, into a Gallic shrug and said, in a soft, almost inaudible, irritatingly nonchalant tone, "désolée."

Yah? *I* am désolée. Me. 

And I am even more days olé when it is a StrollerSteamroller straight out of Rosemary's Baby coming my way, as if channelling a demonic supermarket trolley.  Do ppl become blind when theyre pushing a stroller?  Suddenly, all these women discover a somehow heretofore unknown right to drive a large object on wheels into total strangers in broad daylight!  No swerving, no stopping.  It is Stroller vs Bodies.  I feel like the zombies  videogame heroes must kill. We can guess who wins. This happens all the time in Paris, a city where only infants are adored more than yippie dogs in sweaters being carried around in LouisVuitton bags  the size of a large melon at €1060 a pop per poodle.  This tshirt exists:   Need I elaborate further? (Yah okay it may be cute, cute as long as it isn't steamrolling over you.)

Already these ppl get all manner of provisos for their circumstances, as they should get.  I like to see ppl porcycling instead of driving, and I want to see both wheelchariots and steamrollers get a reserved space on public transportation and other public places.  It is necessary, right, proper, civilized and good! You should get each and every single one of these rights to come and go acknowledged and respected.  

But that does not mean you get to break basic, essential, though sometimes tacit, understandings of savoir vivre and just, well, common decency.  You just don't push your stroller into ppl, ok? You don't.  You have no idea what kind of crazy bastard deranged git lowgrade forehead you may be pushing it into, and next thing you know your baby may be caught in a problematic situation with you.  Ppl with strollers, understand something: you need to think about the infants' safety, not just your own; not just your right to get onto the bus first, to be first in the queue, to be the Monarch on Coronation Day walking down filthy Parisian pavements as if they were the red carpet. A stroller is hardly the Pope-mobile; it can hurt ppl though. But the little human in the stroller can also be harmed.  Think, for chupacabra's sake.

And cyclists.  It is stupidiotic, okay? it is, to think that you can be that healthy and charming and urbane on a cycle going at 40Km/h and not pause to consider you may fall off it and break your stupid head filled with breezy Parisian fumes. Inline skaters, too.  All this applies to you as well.  I don't have eyes at the back of my head so don't creep up on me from behind because I may have to move and now you're flat on the floor like a dragonfly on the windshield of a convertible Jaguar in the Autobahn.  Imbeciles!

Okay, when it comes to wheelchairiots I won't say much. I'll say something to those who push them.  Come on, be civilized!  Your relative gets to ride the bus because people are civilized and demand wheelchairs have a special ramp put on buses, or that the bus be equipped with those up-and-downy thingies that South Central Los Angeles Latino and Black gangsters have under the cars!  We all pay for that, so please, be courteous. Don't assault me.
The person whose chair you're pushing is disabled, but you aren't, so you're game. Why look for trouble?  Why think a wheelchair is less amenable to hurt a human body than a car, a bicycle, or a stroller?  You can damage someone's tendon forever.  Then what? 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

À ala, Punk?

"There's nothing new under the black hole sun," said the gentlemen on the Titanic, rearranging the furniture on deck, as well as some of the tunes.






Monday, May 21, 2012


The Theogony of Hesiod

translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White

[1914]

(ll. 1-25) From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet. Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising Zeus the aegis- holder and queenly Hera of Argos who walks on golden sandals and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-holder bright-eyed Athene, and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon the earth-holder who shakes the earth, and reverend Themis and quick-glancing (1) Aphrodite, and Hebe with the crown of gold, and fair Dione, Leto, Iapetus, and Cronos the crafty counsellor, Eos and great Helius and bright Selene, Earth too, and great Oceanus, and dark Night, and the holy race of all the other deathless ones that are for ever. And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me -- the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis:

(ll. 26-28) `Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.'




Monday, May 14, 2012


The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us. 
Ogden Nash

Monday, May 7, 2012

Android

Andro, the Greek prefix meaning male, or masculine--


The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure which contains the basic drives. The id contains the libido, which is the primary source of instinctual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", seeking to avoid pain or displeasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension.
The id is unconscious by definition:
"It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the Dreamwork and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle."



Thursday, May 3, 2012

Love Potion

The philtrum (Latin philtrumGreek philtron, 'love potion'), is a medial cleft common to many mammals, extending from the nose to the upper lip, and, together with a glandular rhinarium and slit-like nostrils, is believed to constitute the primitive condition for mammals in general.  For humans and most primates, the philtrum survives only as a vestigial medial depression between the nose and upper lip.  The human philtrum, bordered by ridges, is also known as the infranasal depression, but has no apparent function.  

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Moral Maze


Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc has Dustin Hoffman as the mysterious embodiment of something. Some interpreted it as the Devil.  I disagree with that interpretation, because Joan was experiencing doubt about her sanity and motivations, not her goodness. 
Therefore, I posit Dustin Hoffman's character is her conscience, in her mind.  In the context of Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae we see how the masculine is symbolized in the mind, by the mind, logic, and one's ability to reason. (In aesthetics, this takes phallic shapes; in drama, it is embodied by a male character.) Hence, it is a male character, played by a man. 

Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ has a woman as Satan. Whatever one may think of the film, I'd like to point out that few ppl commented on this specific feature, and those who have mentioned it were caught in the feministrap. 
I posit it is a rather apt, correct, interpretation of what the chthonian (daemonic) is within the dogma of the Church. A symbol of dissolution -- which we see, especially in the context of Sexual Personae is not at all an invention of the Church; it is merely how it is symbolized by men, given the concept of Mother Nature is projected onto women, by men, for biological reasons. In the Church, this is called Satan.



To me, this is where the idea that women are somehow better equipped to deal with moral questions comes from.
The idea that because woman gives birth she is closer to understanding Nature, or that she knows something man cannot grasp, or that she is more comfortable with the chaotic or unpredictable...
All this is extrapolated by man. It is imagined, and according to me, not true.  Not true of all women, anyway.

On the contrary. Consider this:  Woman is MORE apt to be a moral agent if she doesn't procreate.  As soon as a woman becomes a mother, so, more familiar with the forces of Nature, she is less able if not unable to keep to (in this context) moral precepts which she (may have) held before she gave birth. Now her priority is her offspring, rightly so.

To me, then, what happens to man is: he sees his mother as the moral agent, not because of some perceived quality, but by sheer force of presence.  The mother is the parent out of whom the child is born, and with whom the child spends most of his/her time, by far. Whether in Western or Eastern, pagan or religious, tribal or urban environments, the mother is the primary carer, for biological reasons.  This is perceived by the child in the only way s/he can, given his/her mental ability is not yet mature, and s/he grows up without making necessary adjustments, because it is now stored deep in his/her RAM.  Only those with manifestly amoral or immoral mothers are ever allowed to rethink her moral authority. The extrapolation "mother - womAn - womEn" comes in... in the same way as a kid might think of animals (it learns the word "cat", say, and for a while, the kid thinks ALL animals with fur and four legs are cats-- fascinating part in the linguistics of language acquisition).

It is fathers' moral authority that is most often challenged by man/boy (girl/woman does this less since she is/becomes a woman thus knows she is not moral because she is a woman, neither is her mother) because the child did not spend as much time with the father.  No other reason, according to me.  The mother becomes a template only because she's always in the kid's face.

Not challenging a parent's moral authority may cause one to think that that parent's gender is morally superior.
That is a mistake, since gender holds no monopoly on morality.

Again, to me, the crucial element behind the Church's and other religions' apparently nonsensical position on celibacy is this: having a personal life which leads to sexual activity and thus potentially to procreation leads a person to become involved in his or her own intimate, personal, idiosyncratic, problems/desires/interests, and to place the potential kid's well-being above all moral considerations.  
Women do this more than men, because of biological reasons. A woman can have relatively few kids over the course of a lifetime, while a man can have hundreds. A woman has to, therefore, suspend other considerations, such as morality, for the benefit of her child, while a man can more comfortably keep his moral views intact, even if they go against his own kid, since his body, his immediate well-being is not threatened by it; he does not have to carry a child and then feed it for ages and ages. 

In our society/civilization, man is the provider; that is the social responsibility, but not the biological one.  Woman has the biological burden.

We hear stories all the time about mothers-- and fathers, but way more mothers -- protecting their kids' misbehaviour, from small acts of misconduct all the way up to criminal acts.
"I'll stand by my child 100% no matter what"  This phrase is mainly said by mothers, isnt it?   My mother says "mothers are shameless."

Finally... the last link in my thought is...
Men then think that the woman is the moral agent, so they project onto women these goddess-like qualities they perceive (without examining it) their mothers to have (gods & goddesses cannot err, since they're not human-- errare humanum est-- and saints cannot err anymore, given they've long been dead...) since their mothers were so dedicated to them... but all women are not their mothers... the conflation made in the mind of a child (mother-woman, woman=womEn, womEn = mothers) goes unchecked straight into adulthood...
Disappointment follows. 

But more than that, when the onus of moral behaviour is placed on Another's shoulders, no matter who it is, one can feel the weight of personal responsibility lifted off one's own shoulders, and it feels good doesn't it? It does. 

But, like a Hollywood film, if it has a 'happy ending' which allows us to leave the cinema feeling all fuzzy and warm inside -- which neither The Messenger nor The Passion does, it is probably ideology at its most powerful, that is, when it is not detected, working its way into our minds.