<nettime> (fwd) insomnia@EUnet.yu: may 21st

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

----- Forwarded 

Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 14:02:42 -0700
From: insomnia <insomnia@EUnet.yu>
To: [someone]
CC: [some people]
Subject: may 21st

the nights are beautiful and missiles cross the summer sky.
for a long time, perhaps since time began, the eyes of our tribe, these
poor trachoma-inflamed eyes of  ours, have been gazing at the sky: but
especially since new celestial bodies began to cross the starry vault
above our vilage: jet planes with white trails, flying saucers, rockets,
and now these guided missiles, so high and fast you can't see or hear
them, but in the sparkle of the southern cross, if you look very hard,
you can pick up a sort of shiver, a tremor, at which the most expert of
us say: 'there, a missile passing at twenty thousand kilometres an hour;
a little slower, if i'm not mistaken, than the one that went by last
Thursday.'
i too, sitting at the entrance to my hut, look up at the stars and at
the rockets appearing and disappearing, i think of the explosions
poisoning the fish in the sea, and of the courtesies those people who
decide the explosions exchange with each other between one missile and
the next. i'd like to understand more: certainly the will of the gods is
made manifest in these signs, certainly they foretell the ruin or the
fortue of our tribe...
 * * * 
the words above are quoted from a beautiful story written by my
favourite italian writer, italo calvino. the story is called 'the tribe
with its eyes on the sky'. i put this little calvinism'  in my diary 
as another white pebble in the daily stream of my notes, for no reason
at all. let us not comment on anything. the world may lack peace and
harmony, but beauty is always around. it does not go away when missiles
come.

----- Backwarded
---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl