This article is based on this Dutch article by Martinus Benders
The Boy Who Carried Water in a Sieve
Drawing by Veronique. Also available for viewing at Veerland.nl
I think I will place it at the back of the new Zeefjesdans translations (need to ask first).
The final preparations before we set off on the Grand Journey. We will initially head into the Grimm regions. I find Italy in the summer far too hot, count me out. It’s baffling to me why anyone would choose that period for vacations, but such is the logic of HOMO PROBORGUS, who rarely makes very logical decisions.
When it comes to writing, I prefer to stay in dilapidated hotels with lingering grandeur. You find precious few of those in the West — for that right bit of SHINING inspiration, you need hotels in the Eastern bloc.
That said, Airbnb prices are skyrocketing, and bizarrely enough, Germany is now one of the cheapest countries (Poland has become more expensive!). And thanks to the strong euro, England is now surprisingly affordable. Australia and New Zealand are even cheaper now, but they are so far away. Plus, nearly everything you can rent there looks like a football canteen — I find that incredibly off-putting. I need atmosphere, even crumbling atmosphere (often preferably so).
Portuguese version. In Ideogram and other software, you can let AI extend a submitted photo. You can create typographic covers where the letters are woven in equally across languages, a far cry from the old days when such work had to be done by hand — an almost inhuman task.
As I argued yesterday, it is often those with meager bodies of work who shout the loudest that “you should do everything yourself,” the same familiar fallacy concerning psychedelics.
The parasitic entity that implanted those “thoughts” is also responsible for structuring the Abrahamic religions.
It’s not so much that religions were shaped by human nature: there were parasitic conditions that made a specific structure necessary — sitting in darkness, worshiping an invisible god, chanting mechanically, being subservient.
Suddenly, the sun could no longer be considered a living being. That idea was labeled “primitive.”
All of it serves certain energies, parasitic in nature. You can often recognize those poisoned by such energies through their willingness to serve — they snap to attention at the smallest gesture, eager to serve the collective, whether that collective is wicked or not… oh, that hardly concerns them.
“We have a Judeo-Christian culture,” they say, and the rest you can guess.
What I found amusing about the Portuguese version is that “Coli” is also the biological name for a bacterial culture.
Incidentally, the Dutch version of the collection included a shortened version of a poem by Manoel de Barros. Below is the full poem in translation:
The Boy Who Carried Water in a Sieve
I have a book about water and boys.
I loved most a boy
who carried water in a sieve.
His mother said that carrying water in a sieve
was like stealing the wind and
running off to show it to your brothers.
His mother said it was the same
as picking thorns out of the water.
The same as growing fish in your pocket.
The boy clung to absurdities.
He wanted to lay the foundations
of a house on dew.
The mother noticed that the boy
loved emptiness more than fullness.
She said that voids are greater — even infinite.
In time, that boy became
headstrong and eccentric
because he so loved carrying water in a sieve.
In time, he discovered that
writing is the same
as carrying water in a sieve.
In writing, the boy saw
that he could be novice,
monk, and beggar all at once.
The boy learned how to use words.
He realized he could pull pranks with words,
and he began doing just that.
He could transform the afternoon
by setting rain into it.
The boy worked miracles:
he even made a stone bloom.
His mother watched him tenderly.
She said: My son, you will be a poet!
You will spend your life carrying water in a sieve.
You will fill the voids
with your mischief,
and some people will love you for your absurdities!
Kind regards,
Martijn Benders