Impetus

Get a move on Paradox, don't wait around.

Ten days without a post - not good, we've found.

Move it, move it, move and bound.

Jump it, screw it, flee the hound.

Hound of time, ticking sound.

ticking sound, counting down.

Ashes to ashes, dust to ground.

...................................................

Savour the moment, flee from fear

Time

Time is running out, Paradox is ageing

Hugo Chavez pointed out that we should only sleep four hours a day because there is so much to do. For him the Bolivarian Revolution is continuing the work of Jesus.

Viva America Latina. Like the feet of a salsa dancer it's all swirling around in his head, in hurry: Nationalism, socialism, christianity, helping the weak against the powerful, saving the human race against the rapacious demands of capitalism, stopping the US using the atomic bomb against Iran. Viva America Latina, Viva!

He is a man on the move, possessed with urgency, his body boils with fervour.

Yet, poetic. You cannot be a socialist if you cannot love... was one of his phrases.

Friend of Castro and the Pope, this eclectic guy is not easily boxed. Don't be dogmatic was his mantra. Don't have a motto; thats my motto.

The man was a performer, an artist, eyes twinkling he wowed his crowd. Chavez is a popular populist with a heart. He is personally offended by poverty. Government by moral imperative.

The devil is in the detail. How does this work on the ground?... I don't know and I need to find out. But the discourse is so different from that other oil rich nation, Angola.

There, dry eyed dinosours talk of development throught technology. Poverty is a technical issue not a moral one. Soaked in oil they cling to power, caressing and possessing it like a jealous lover. 30 years of combat has crusted their spirit and this rigid shell dulls the heart within.

Outside, the teeming Luanda masses audibly grumble. Literate and alive, they swing to the semba whilst picking their way through the sewage.

Luxurious ladies glide across Luanda in their Lexi. Perfumed down to the pubes and cocooned in air conditioning they prepare ...

... for what? Time is running out...

Luanda, the perfumed upon the pungent

Hugo Chavez

In quick succession Paradox has had the pleasure of personally perusing policies of nouveau-riche Angola and Venezuala.

Contrasts, sim senhor.

Interestingly, Chavez speaks a lot about this man.

What did he say at his recent London meet? watch this space...

Pubic hair

Paradox prises pleasure proximating palavras principating with P

It is called alliteration.

A fervent tropical forest. A mat of thick black scented grass. Hallowed turf.

Evokes tunnelled honey, emits earthly odours, elicits attention yet hides its object.

Inviting strolling fingers, or warning them against further progress.

What? Deforestation here as well?

Why oh why...

Save the rain forest

Pessimism

The defining quality of man is to make a mark.

From remote jungle to metropolitan bureacracy, men make marks. Stamp present.

Carimbar presença.

Paradox has seen freshly, proudly and innocently, cleared 'virgin' forest. Deflowered. Nicely tidied up.

It is what we do. We tidy things up, sort things out, and make our mark.

Suddenly, around 200 years ago, our ability to mark make began to increase exponentially. Imagine, the hull below was constructed well over a hundred years ago to tidy up mackerel for our plates.

A century of cleaning.

Parodox is a pessimist. We WILL destroy ourselves through our obsessive sorting and rearranging. I am sorry, it is inevitable.

In the meantime make merry, its later than you think.

Nicely made mark

Doomed

We are doomed. (ps. to the unitiated, look for John Laurie)

"Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" is a phrase often attributed to Gramsci but in fact one he borrowed from Rolland.

Nevertheless, it requires further balance. Maybe optimism is merely naive human hope and endeavour?

Paradox prefers the following "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, fatalism of the inevitable"

And Paradox would like to append the word 'extinction' to the end of his version.

Why so dreary? All will be revealed tomorrow, in the meantime this picture provides a clue.

Aphrodisiac

Power is a great aphrodisiac.

But why? We know the famous and bizarre.

But why? This man answered, "Because I could."

Paradox was powerful once, in a big fish in small pond sort of way.

There was electrical static, effervescent glance and hormanal oozing. Yes, involuntary swelling accompanied adrenaline powered motion through busy pressured quotidian. Yes, there were remarkable, unsolicited, (and unrequieted) revelations: stretchings and reachings for uppermost shelved file .

And yes, later swimming as paradoxical minnow, power gone = electricity unplugged.

Ergo ego restored to humble normality.

Pleasant puritan Paradox was not pliantly pushed from purity. But why does this often happen?

Is it the selfish gene?

Courage

This is an eclectic blog of liquorice allsorts

There are postings and poems in english, portuguese and spanish

But how about this for cojones that take the biscuit...

click here for courage

Abridged consolance

Cut to the chase, my dear

Can't resume

Then waffle quick

Time?

Have none. Vomit now

C'est finit, ne verrai plus la petite morte avec lui

Twas ever thus, better to have loved and lost...

But pulped heart...

Will mend, make hay

Tiredness

That heavy itch of eye. That longing for bed. Goosepimples greet temperature variation. Sexual awareness raised, potency diminished. Procrastination and paralysis. Soaring imagination and flat application.

Tiredness is not a useful state of mind. Instinct takes over, decisions delayed. And a good thing too - no-one can decide tired.

Go to sleep.

Memorical

Today is international labour day. As an active organising pestering socialist I was utterly convinced of the inevitable forward march of labour, now halted I just sit and ponder...

What's is all about, Alfie?

Good question. What is it all about. Have you ever had years in your life when time seems to have stood still, one year on and you are still stood there? On the other hand, do you know the long weekend that seems to last a year, so much crammed into each second that the very measure of time expands to accomodate the moment?

I once saw a leopard in a Niassa forest, far away from any national park or zoo. We looked at each other for 2 seconds, or was it two years. A moment indelibly hard wired into my memory.

Now what about those years of depression, or should I say compression. Because reflection reduces the wasted months to minutes and then to seconds.

Hindsight balances the leopard second and the depression years with equal memorical weight. And what about that first glance of the forbidden or that recurring unrequieted sensuous lust? It never happened, yet it has memorical weight, a sort of memorical opportunity cost.

There seems to be a very loose connection between physical aging and mental maturing. They are connected as if by elastic, one can race ahead of the other, or one can lag behind. Only a sudden shock, or the honesty of the sleeping face, can relax the elastic to its resting point, combining the two in a temporary harmony. Once awake, the conscious mind returns to zig zag ahead or behind the slow march of dying cells, like a puppy wizzing around its master as he maintains a steady destinatory trajectory.

Memorical is a word invented by Paradox to signify the weight that reflection attributes to each remembered moment or set of moments.