Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Beatles. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta Beatles. Mostrar todas as mensagens

30 junho, 2017

Eleanor Rigby & the Lonely People



ELEANOR RIGBY &
THE LONELY PEOPLE

 
Eleanor Rigby in Liverpool.

Besides being one of the best songs ever written, the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby is a pungent description and acknowledgment of and homage to the people who live in poverty and, especially, in solitude.

Loneliness does come with its perks and pluses, but as a not wanted, permanent and irreversible condition, it is an unbearable burden leading to a miserable life and probably an early demise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y 

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name, nobody came is a stark reminder of the ultimate punishment of total loneliness: oblivion.

Stripping a person of his name is almost equivalent to erase him from existence: he never was. It is literally, ashes to ashes, dust to dust., or in 21 Century language “control+alt+delete”, file erased.

So, one should look at all those lonely people, even if only occasionally, and remember their names. People need some company, even in their final journey on earth.
 

 

ELEANOR RIGBY’S LYRICS

Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for




All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there's nobody there
What does he care

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

21 fevereiro, 2015

3 Minutos para o Apocalipse e "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"



3 MINUTOS PARA O APOCALIPSE E 
“LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS”



The Doomsday Clock. Localizado em Chicago, é gerido pelo Bulletin of Atomic Scientists e por várias outras personalidades incluindo 18 Prémios Nobel. Em 1991 chegou a estar a 17 minutos do apocalipse. No dia 22 de Janeiro de 2015, foi adiantado para as 23.57h, ou seja, A meros 3 minutos para a meia-noite. Tal não acontecia desde 1984, em plena Guerra Fria. Criado em 1947, durante 60 anos mediu apenas o risco de uma guerra nuclear; desde 2007, inclui também factores tecnológicos, climáticos e biológicos que possam afectar o Homem e a Terra.


Ao longo do dia, quando acordamos, no coffee-break, à hora de almoço, ou no regresso a casa, o que nos ocorre? Em que pensamos? O que nos preocupa e faz reflectir, para além das preocupações e rotinas do quotidiano?

À noite, quando a cabeça já está na almofada, mas os olhos ainda teimam em não fechar, o que vemos?

Vemos os tanques e os lança-mísseis manobrando e abrindo fogo no Donbass? Ou pior: divisamos a guerra na Europa? Não, é demasiado sinistro.

Ou pensamos no petróleo que desce muito e na gasolina que desce pouco? Melhor seria abastecer a viatura directamente na fonte: na Arábia Saudita ou na Rússia… Barato, mas pouco prático.

Talvez a nossa mente vogue pelo Médio Oriente. Veremos cabeças a rolar, tingindo de vermelho a areia quente? Ou simplesmente a bagunça inacreditável da região onde países como a Líbia, o Iémen, a Síria e o Iraque se desagregam em guerras quase indecifráveis? Tentaremos discernir a plêiade de actores internos e externos que se digladiam por poder, território e dinheiro, com religião à mistura? Não. É demasiado complexo para a hora de dormir.

Poderá ser que nos perpasse a mente o empenho de Berlim em fazer da Grécia uma espécie de campo de concentração de pobreza e indignidade (Juncker dixit)? E o que reservará para nós? Teremos de continuar a aturar o cão de fila da Frau Merkel? God forbid!

Ah! Lembramo-nos que o Relógio do Apocalipse Nuclear (Doomsday Clock) avançou recentemente para as margens da meia-noite. Three minutes to midnight. And counting…

Temos, então, três minutos para pensar como está o mundo e como nós estamos...

Três minutos entre a sanidade e o cataclismo nuclear. Três minutos de vertigem entre a consciência que fraqueja e o sono que assoma. Três minutos em que o pensamento, o sonho, a realidade e o pesadelo se envolvem, misturam e confundem.

Vemos Obama a dançar com o Ayatollah. Discernimos Shinzo Abe e Xi Jinping num ring de boxe nas Senkaku. Passa Wolfgang Schauble vestido de preto chicoteando uma quadriga puxada por Gregos. Ao lado, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi instala-se em Bagdad (wherelse?) bandeiras negras desfraldadas e cabeças de xiitas rolando para o Tigre. Vislumbro um mapa em que 8 Líbias, 6 Sírias e 14 Iémenes se digladiam furiosamente. Vê-se Assad a precipitar-se para a despensa de onde sai com 4 botijas de armas químicas que escondera entre as batatas e as cebolas.

Para conferir um certo sentido a esta amálgama feroz, os Beatles cantam “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.


Um último esforço: Merkel e Putin reunidos em Varsóvia partilham a Europa Central e Oriental… Diabo! Isto parece-me déjà vu…. Hollande passa de scooter, sozinho, cantando a “Marseillaise” e sentindo-se pateticamente importante. Cameron, esse já se retirou com os seus que esta Europa já não lhes serve. E continuo a ver o Médio Oriente a arder! Serão fogos florestais? Disparate!

Está a chegar a meia-noite. Foram três minutos alucinantes.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds


Num último estertor, a Índia e o Paquistão deslocam exércitos para a fronteira mútua; ameaçam-se e apontam mísseis. Os centrifugadores giram at top speed em Natanz, no Irão. Irão eles onde o Irão não era suposto ir? Que ira! Num último esgar diviso o gordalhufo do Kim Jong Un a acender um fósforo junto a um pavio. Será um míssil nuclear? Será fogo de artifício? Se calhar falhou a luz. Apago-me também.

Amanhã logo verei se ainda estamos vivos.

Tempos Interessantes. Tempos alucinantes.

18 março, 2014

Back in Russia (Back in the USSR)


BACK IN RUSSIA

(BACK IN THE USSR)



One of the Beatles’ many hits was the 1968 song Back in the USSR. This post is about Crimea, but I got the inspiration for the headline from “The Beatles”.



The Beatles Back in the USSR!

Crimea is not back in the USSR, which passed away in 1991, but she’s definitely back in Russia. Actually, although many pundits like to establish analogies between present-day Russia and the former Soviet Union, it was in the Soviet time that Crimea was arbitrarily taken away from the Soviet Republic of Russia and given as a present (?) to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. It was thus all in the family. And it is in the new Russian era that Crimea is snatched back by Moscow in the context of a serious family rift.

Celebrations at Lenin Square in Simferopol, Crimea, after the referendum.

in Agence France-Presse at http://www.afp.com/en/home/

Today’s Russia points to impressive figures: 83% voter turnout in the Crimean referendum and a 97% support for reunification with Russia.

The United States and the major European powers point to illegalities and coercion in the referendum and in the change of Ukraine’s borders.

Russia effectively annexed Crimea: first by establishing effective control on the ground, then by winning the referendum and, earlier today, formalizing Crimea’s return to Mother Russia in a ceremony in Moscow.

The West implemented some lame, symbolic sanctions targeting some Russian and Ukrainian officials, some of whom for publicly defending Crimea’s reunification with Russia. So much for freedom of thought and speech!

In spite of strong worded declarations and threats and weak sanctions from the West, this blog has long stated (A Faca e o Queijo na Mão, 03/03/2014 at http://tempos-interessantes.blogspot.pt/2014/03/a-faca-e-o-queijo-na-mao.html ) that the future of Crimea depended almost exclusively on Russia’s will and, specifically, on President Vladimir Putin.

What were the decisive factors in the Crimea crisis outcome?


1- The powers that be, in this case, Russia.

2- Ukraine’s overall weakness and disunity.

3- The power that had the most at stake. Again, it was Russia. Check Battleground of Eastern Europe, 06/02/2014 at http://tempos-interessantes.blogspot.pt/2014/02/battleground-of-eastern-europe.html

4- The will of the vast majority of the people of Crimea.

5- The swift, determined and undeterred actions Russia took to reach this outcome.

6- The Western powers’ naiveté (or wishful thinking) hoping that if they would just yell and threat a lot, the Russians would leave the Black Sea Peninsula. It was so much so that even TODAY, there were American and European senior officials saying that Putin could still back-off in a face-saving way. Hilarious!

Given these factors, the outcome was predictable: the most powerful and committed actor takes the prize home.

The Crimea game is basically over. Let’s see what happens in Ukraine, the Battleground of Eastern Europe.




POSTS RELACIONADOS:

“DO KOSOVO À CRIMEIA”, 07/03/2014 em



“A FACA E O QUEIJO NA MÃO”, 03/03/2014 em



“KIEV A FERRO E FOGO”, 21/02/2014 em



“BATTLEGROUND OF EASTERN EUROPE”, 06/02/2014 em



“SEM FUTURO”, 31/01/2014 em