More Influential

New Influential People:

Antoine Lavoisier
Benjamin Franklin
Michael Faraday
James C. Maxwell
James Watts
Heinrich Hertz
The Wright Brothers
Alexander the Great
Darius of Persia
Enrico Fermi
Niels Bohr

Interests

New Movies:

- The human stain (8.5)
- The Jericho mansions (8)

Music:

Tannhaeuser, along with Beethoven's 3rd and 5th.

Interests as of late

Lately I have been once again drifting back to the subjects I love the most:: sci-fi, history, astronomy and music..
I have finished three books in the last two weeks: "Lost worlds of 2001", "2061: Odyssey Three" and "3001: Final Odyssey"... also I have been looking at astronomy related stuff, especially meteorites, comets and asteriods and in music my eclectic tastes are showing up again. I believe it mainly depends on my mood but I find that I keep going back to Walkuere Act II (Wotan's narration), Walkuere Act I and Parsifal Act I along with the whole of Tannhaeuser. I just find it hard to get into Tristan und Isolde in my present state of mind.

Oh and I am mixing that beautiful, meaningful music with more agressive, introspective music like Metallica's "And Justice for All" album and isolated Metallica songs (Fade to Black, Battery, and especially Until it sleeps and Unforgiven). And on the subject of 2001: A space odyssey I have been also getting into Gamma Ray's "Somewhere out in space", which is based on that novel/film.

I would like to know if I will ever experience the highest emotion (don't want to say its name but it begins with L) again. I think I am every time drifting away from it but I don't discard it yet.

More movies

"The interview" (8)
"Gothika" (7.5)

Back to the Ring

I am rediscovering Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen" and what a masterpiece it is !!!!! The pleasure it brings to my life I can hardly put it into words... Tuesday was Rheingold, Wednesday Walkuere .... yesterday Siegfried and today: Goetterdaemmerung....
How is it possible that such a vast masterpiece be the work of a person. I can not understand it but only stand in awe and enjoy

More movies

- Some kind of monster (9)
- Bully (9)
- The Order (7)
- A touch of pink (8)

Random rantings

What have you been thinking about lately?

I have been thinking about something that's been in my mind for the last days. The fact that the same situation affects different people differently. How everything is coloured by our perception of it. They say that a genius is the person that suffers the most when difficult situations arise. I can identify with that. Not that I am a genius or anything, far from it, but I think that it is only when your ability to empathize grows and become an overwhelming part of your spirit that life in this world becomes almost unbearable.

It's like Wagner correctly pointed out in Parsifal "Durch Mitleid wissend"... compassion. The ability to feel what others feel, especially pain (that's why in German it is Mitleid..Leid=Suffering Mit=fellow... fellow-suffering).

How can someone vouch for the existence of God in a world that is so full of pain, where your position in society depends on things that are absolutely out of your hands like looks or intelligence or even money. How can there be a world so full of injustice where people have a disease that consists of people not wanting to eat to stay thin (anorexia) when there's so many people in this world with nothing to eat. They can't afford to be anorexic, if they find food they eat it because they don't know when they'll have the chance again.
Mankind has progressed so much in terms of providing people with luxury items that were reserved for loyalty in the past (for example as recently as 500 years ago, washrooms could only be found in a king's castle) yet there is something else that we lack as a people. We have to create problems where there's none. Young people everywhere that can afford anything they want to get now have to fit in society and so they have to be "bad guys" and prove that they are the "real deal". No one is interested in art, music, history anymore. Everybody is just thinking about having a good time and partying as hard as they can. For some reason I see no fulfillment in that and that's why I don't partake in it but a lot of people do.
People think that we are here to have a good time and to party it up. After all we are only going to be here for 80 years or so (if we are lucky) so we are better off enjoying it. I agree with it but life is much more than that. It is about love and living life to the full by expressing one's emotions. The love to our parents, the love we have for our romantic partner, our relatives, etc.
I am not a religious person (although I don't know if I would consider myself an atheist) but I sincerely think that if we were to follow the precepts laid out by that brilliant rebel that lived in the first century AD we would all be better off. It is very simple, Love yourself and love your neighbour. Respect people, animals and things because they all have a purpose on earth. Ignore race, colour, religion, etc. because those are things that DIVIDE us whereas we should be looking for things that UNITE us.
Unfortunately the teaching of that great rebel are most of the time ignored and the things that are the very opposite to his teachings are carried out in his name. Who wants to follow a rebel's teachings if I can get my way by using HIM for my purposes by tainting his name? Who would want to do what that rebel taught us? Who would want to follow Jesus of Nazareth's teachings?
I, despite not being a member of any religion (especially Roman Catholic), do.

Movies

Oh and I have been watching quite a few movies... here they are with rating (1-10)
 
- Lawrence of Arabia (8)
- The Godfather (9)
- Calendar Girls (6)
- Cold Mountain (7)
- The butterfly effect (9)
- Brief crossings (7)
 

Catching up

A long time with no update!!!!
There is actually not a lot to report lately... the last days have been kind of boring but here we go.
I could finally find a decent exit point for MSFT ($28.50) and CSCO ($24.11) so that I could finally say that I am back at square one compared to the beginning of the year. Pretty much even. However, of course, I made another investment that doesn't seem to be panning out.
ORCL was trading barely below $11 and I thought it was a good entry point; well, suffice it to say that it is now trading at $10.26 so not a good investment at all.On other fronts a good friend of mine just had his citizenship ceremony which I attended as guest... lots of people and with emotional parts such as the oath of citizenship and the national anthem at the end.
Musically, Parsifal has finally lost the grip it had on me. It was difficult but I think I am going to go to other works before going back to it. Right now, the bulk of my music-listening time is devoted to Beethoven's 9th symphony (choral) and also to his 3rd (Eroica). Real masterpieces of art... what a joy listening to those glorious works.. it's amazing that those feelings and how they are conveyed were created by a human being that was tortured beyond its existence, the mark of a real genius.
In terms of reading I have been catching up in my history books (currently I am reading H.G. Wells "The outline of history") and some classics as well (William Blake's "The marriage of heaven and hell").

2001-2010

I had the opportunity to watch 2 great movies: 2001-A space Odyssey and 2010-The year we make contact.
They were very thought-provoking and challenging to the judeo-christian idea of creationism and even to Darwininian theory of evolution... I still can't quite figure it out but I know it made a profound impression in me.

Influential People

Lately I have been feeling like compiling what to me is the list of the most influential people in the world ever (well, for the time that we have had reliable recorded history for). The list is as of now in no specific order and neither do I make a moral judgement about the merits of those included. The list will only try to gauge how influential (for good or for bad) the particular person was. In no specific order here they are (it will be refined and explained later)

Jesus of Nazareth
Mohammed
Isaac Newton
Emperor Constantine of Rome
Johannes Gutenberg
Aristotle
Charlemagne
Emperor Julius Caesar of Rome
Charles Martell
Arminius
Emperor Justinian of Rome
Sidharta Gotama (Buddha)
Ferdinand of Aragon/Isabella of Castile
Henry VIII (King of England)
Joanne of Arc
Napoleon Bonaparte
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Galileo Galilei
Martin Luther
Louis XVI (King of France)
Suleiman the Magnificent
Christopher Columbus
Adolf Hitler
John F. Kennedy
Otto von Bismarck
Alexander Graham Bell
Henry Ford
Alessandro Volta
Michael Faraday
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
Robert Hooke
Albert Einstein
Karl Marx
Hernan Cortes

The Blank Slate

The third book that I read by Steven Pinker is called "The Blank slate". It's a very interesting book, right now I am looking at the major philosophical trends (Locke, Descartes, Rousseau, etc.) and it provides a very meaningful insight into the question: Why we do what we do?

Another catastrophe

Well, once again I made a wrong decision... I am getting tired of bad decisions. Perhaps I should try to keep quiet and don't do anything anymore

Oh well, I am so depressed I don't want to talk about anything so


Bye bye

Catastrophe

Well the catastrophe happened to my investment and I just had to bail out. RHAT is going up like there's no tomorrow. The pig is now about 40 times sales. I will short it once it starts going down

Update

By the way... I took the plunge and went short RHAT at $26... let's see how that plays out.
I think that at 346 times earning and 35 times sales the stock is a catastrophe just waiting to happen... hope I can reap the rewards
I need to make up for those two awful pathetic mistakes I made with CSCO and MSFT.

The day after Victoria Day

It is really a sad state of affairs when people have to get intoxicated in order to "enjoy" time and relax. When there's so many things that one can do without resorting to alcohol, drugs, etc. I still don't understand why people insist on causing themselves harm.

And yep, you guessed it, Parsifal again today: Kna '62 on my way to work and back. At home I kicked back and relaxed with... well, Parsifal; but this time Barenboim's version. How can someone not know and enjoy this work? It is when in the presence of these great works of art that one realized all that man can achieve. Many of these geniuses are sadly not with us anymore but their spirit lives on in their works.

When compared to that I ask myself how important it really is to toil day after day so that a company can make more money. 80 years from now I will definitely not be around and by that time it will be absolutely irrelevant.

Questions

Does Love really exist or is it just a trick on the senses played by mother nature? Do we reproduce because we love or are we forced to love because we reproduce?
Wouldn't love be a higher state of friendship?
All of those interesting questions will remain unanswered for the time being. That does not prevent me from asking myself: Have I loved? Have I ever really loved? or has it all been an illusion created by the human need to love no matter whom?
Is it something that is in our genes? Or is it all convenience. Can there be selfless love or do we always love because we want something in return....
I don't think I have ever experienced real love (I believe I thought I loved and was loved, but in retrospect I am sure I wasn't). Perhaps such thing exists only in works of art because of its idealized nature.
In any case, I hope to experience it... or is it worth the pain?

Go West

Finished the Stuttgart "Siegfried". It definitely left me with mixed emotions but mostly positive ones. I liked Jon Fredric West (yes, this is true) as Siegfried. I think he's got a pretty hefty voice, though not a very beautiful one. However, in terms of beefiness and loudness he was right on the money. Visually he wasn't the best though.
Lisa Gasteen was very good as Bruenhilde too but the best ones were Goehrig's Mime and Wolfgang Schoene's Wanderer.

Wagner Werke

Here's the order in which I started analyzing and getting involved in the Wagnerian works:

Siegfried
Das Rheingold
Goetterdaemmerung
Lohengrin
Der fliegende Hollaender
Die Walkuere
Tristan und Isolde
Tannhaeuser
Parsifal <-- My current obsession. Wagner's last work
Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg (I still haven't quite gotten into it)

I don't have any recording of Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot or Rienzi.

Keeping myself alive

Just got a hold of a DVD of Siegried from Stuttgart with Jon Fredric West. Hope it's worth it but judging by the DVD cover I don't think so.

Parsifal Act II has started to grow in me. I can follow all the motives and most of the text in my head up to Kundry's "Parsifal". I can't get enough of Act I though.

Action in the stock market has been fairly limited but at this point I am thinking of the following:

- Long NOK at $13
- Short RHAT at $25
- Long AMZN at $40
- Short THC at $11.60

I will keep an eye on those ones along with my pathetic CSCO and MSFT. Hopefully I will find a way to snap out of this losing streak.

On May 24th we have Victoria Day so long weekend I will try to enjoy it to the fullest.

Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit

Not a lot going on lately. I am still hooked up on Pinker's "The Language Instinct" and Parsifal Act 1. I believe the climax of the act is Amfortas' refusal to partake in the ceremony of the Holy Grail (beginning with "Nein, lass ihn unenthuellt"). The level of emotion that Wagner achieved there is undescribable. I just can't get enough of it.

Insanity and Genius

Another confirmation that genius and madness are never too far away from each other and that they usually come together: Van Gogh.
I had never read about his life but now that I have I can understand the tremendous pain he was working under and appreciate his work in a different light. Not only were there some innate traits that made him prone to developing mental problems but also situations in his life (failed relationships) contributed to it. I have new respect for the man and his work.

On another subject, I was surprised to completely by coincidence come across someone recommending Steven Pinker's work. I am completely fascinated by it, especially "How the mind works" and the one that I am reading now: "The Language Instinct". It opens up a new world of possibilities and ways to look at why we act the way we do and at explaining everyday wonders that we usually take for granted.

I saw the movie "Swordfish" last night.... Nothing to write home about although I think it was an entertaining movie and with an interesting underlying theme (which ties in neatly with the content of "How the mind works" -see above-):

"What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes"

Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy

It's hard to screw up a story such as "The Iliad", but the movie almost did. I liked the cinematography, the landscapes and the overall experience (including an interesting if somewhat repetitive use of music).
Some performances were great (Hector, King Priam) some were good (Helen, Paris, Odysseus) and the most important character was not entirely believable in my opinion: Brad Pitt's Achilles.
I never felt any empathy for the character. There was not enough characted development even after Priam's visit. Also, we never got to experience the emotional bond between Achilles and Patroclus, which is the reason why Achilles went back to war in the first place. I felt that they knew each other but not that Achilles' sadness was enough for him to make that momentous decision.
Also, I think they downplayed the desecration of Hector's body and that is an important part too because it links back to Achilles' relationship with Patroclus.
In summary, I got what I expected but not more...

Mein Herz ist müde

Today I got Waltraud Meier's DVD "I follow a voice within me". It's a very interesting documentary about this great German mezzosoprano. Among the most interesting excerpts were Highlights of a Walkuere in Bayreuth with none other than Placido Domingo as Siegmund (I believe that was 1993).

Incredibly moving and depressing was a Liederabend also included in the DVD. Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" which never fails to move me almost to tears. How else could it be when you have lines like:

2.- Der Einsame im Herbst
...
Mein Herz ist müde.
Meine kleine Lampe Erlosch mit Knistern;
es gemahnt mich an den Schlaf.
Ich komm zu dir, traute Ruhestätte!
Ja, gib mir Ruh, ich hab Erquickung not!
Ich weine viel in meinen Einsamkeiten.
Der Herbst in meinem Herzen währt zu lange.
Sonne der Liebe, willst du nie mehr scheinen,
Um meine bittern Tränen mild aufzutrocknen

After this, one just wants to go somewhere and meditate about life, death and everything in between.

Irony, anger, sadness, desperation, resignation they are all well represented in Mahler's song cycle.

How fitting it was to end the day with something like that...

Names

Tristan?

Why Tristan? you might ask and well, if you know me (and I think you do since you're reading this) you'll know that it's a reference to the lead character in Richard Wagner's Music Drama "Tristan und Isolde". Besides the obvious reasons about its importance in the history of music and as the summit of romanticism, Tristan und Isolde stands as a monument to love.

Wagner an Liszt (Herbst 1854):

»da ich im Leben nie das eigentliche Glück der Liebe genossen habe, so will ich diesem schönsten aller Träume noch ein Denkmal setzen, in dem von Anfang bis zum Ende diese Liebe sich einmal so recht sättigen soll; ich habe im Kopfe einen Tristan und Isolde entworfen, die einfachste, aber vollblutigste musikalische Konzeption; mit der schwarzen Flagge, die am Ende weht, will ich mich dann zudecken - um zu sterben.«

‘Since I myself have never experienced the true happiness of love’, Wagner wrote in December 1854, ‘I intend to erect another monument to this most beautiful of all dreams, in which, from beginning to end, this love will for once be truly satiated: in my head I have sketched a Tristan and Isolde, the simplest but most full-blooded musical conception; and in the “black flag” hoist at the end, I will wrap myself—to die.’

Wagner refers not to love in a physical sense or even in a spiritual sense but in a way that combines these two, where two people are really one and difference are meaningless. The 1865 part is of course the year that it was premiered (though it had been composed 6 years before).

Parsifal

Lately, I've been insanely infatuated with Wagner's last work: "Parsifal". I have been listening to it every time I have the slightest chance to do so. It's almost obsessive behaviour but it's hard to resist its magnificent beauty and the supreme profoundness of this work. Many people claim that this is a "Christian" work but I completely disagree. How could a "Christian" work openly talk about reincarnation. This work is more buddhist than Christian, despite the heavy religious symbolism (The Holy Grail, the Spear that pierced Jesus, the washing of the feet, the baptism etc.). Wagner does not present a world where man is the master of nature and where the rest of the animal kingdom has been put on earth with the specific goal of serving man. In fact, Wagner openly spoke (and wrote) against vivisectionism and is known to have had several pets which he treated with love and care (his last dog lies buried besides its Master at Haus Wahnfried in Bayreuth).

Parsifal is a work that is about so many things and where its message is beautifully conveyed by its music. Glorious but simple, with grandeur but that doesn't feel out of place. In short, words would fail to describe the different emotions that it arises in its listeners and it's something that is best left for people to experience by themselves so if you get a chance don't hesitate to listen to this work and marvel at its beauty.

Land of the free

Considerable controversy has been surrounding several issues related to Iraq in the american media. People seem to be more upset about the fact that evil deeds were recorded (in the form of pictures) for everyone to see, than about the fact that these atrocious behaviour has been shown by american soldiers. It's hard to believe that some people actually support this unnecessary and unilateral invasion. Now that the truth has come to light and that it's been shown that american soldiers are just as barbaric as the people that they are supposed to be replacing I believe it's time for everyone to realize that this course of action is not only immoral but it's also illegal.

Iraq never posed a real threat to America, it was however tempting to invade it for two reasons:

1.- As a personal revenge on the part of GWB (avenging his father)
2.- Oil

As history has shown time and again, Religious and Economic power are evil forces that threaten peace on earth and that we might just blow ourselves to pieces and with us the whole planet. Roughly 4 billion years that our planet has existed will vanish in a second if we don't realize that this stupid quest for power and (religious and economic) supremacy could prove to be our downfall.

I guess it's only humans that could destroy the earth with our actions. Animals would never do that. Perhaps they are more evolved than us.

What a contrast: Parsifal and Iraq. There is however a link... Gamuret (Parsifal's father) died in battle in the Middle East (most probably in Arabia). He was fighting to defend Christianity while trying to obliterate people who dared to think differently. I guess some things never change.

First one

What is one supposed to include in one's first post to a blog? I have no idea and since as of now there is no one else that will read these lines but myself, I intend it to be a place where I can sort of open up and put my thoughts in order.

I see this as perhaps a kind of journal that has the considerable advantage of being in electronic form so there's no way those lines are going to go missing unless I myself delete them or something like that. It's not like a real diary (though I have never kept one) but it's the closest thing to it (I think).

What am I going to include in here?

Primarily inner thoughts, things that I sometimes find myself thinking about and that for some reason I want to keep so that I can later go back, re-read them and see a snapshot of the way I used to think on that particular day. I am going to try to refrain from posting things that happen during the day and things like that because those are not the things that people who read these lines should know about me but rather how I think and what my thoughts, feelings and opinions on several different topics are. I think that is much more important than a simple retelling of the events of the day. If you are reading these lines that means that you are important to me and I am confident that you will find these lines interesting.

Tomorrow I will try to explain in more details who I am, how I see myself and a little bit more about... guess who... me.