Your Hands

Cought up in my own thoughts, plans, to do’s and must do’s of the world, this poem incidentally crossed my way and I had courage to read it (several times), which finally made me to slow down for these few moments at least. I loved it instantly.

 Your Hands
by Pablo Neruda

When your hands go out,
love, toward mine,
what do they bring me flying?
Why did they stop
at my mouth, suddenly,
why do I recognize them
as if then, before,
I had touched them,
as if before they existed
they had passed over
my forehead, my waist?

Their softness came
flying over time,
over the sea, over the smoke,
over the spring,
and when you placed
your hands on my chest,
I recognized those golden
dove wings,
I recognized that clay
and that color of wheat.

All the years of my life
I walked around looking for them.
I went up the stairs,
I crossed the roads,
trains carried me,
waters brought me,
and in the skin of the grapes
I thought I touched you.
The wood suddenly
brought me your touch,
the almond announced to me
your secret softness,
until your hands
closed on my chest
and there like two wings
they ended their journey.

 

(Translation found here.)

Perfect present for book lovers…

… but now in a slightly different format. I have discovered it in an article in ‘train magazine’ from Deutsche Bahn and thought instantly to get it as a birthday present.

“All The World’s A Page” is a Berlin-based company, which prints world-famous books on a single poster. Now think of both parts of Goethe’s ‘Faust’ on a single 70 x 100 cm piece of paper (font size is approx. 2.55 pt). The posters are normally typed in black, with some numbers or details in another colour.

Here is how it looks like with an example of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’:

… or Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’, which I have got for a person that just started a job in finance consulting (and during the financial crisis it seemed that we are in fact going back to postulates of Marx):

Other works are: ‘Der Abentheurliche Simplicissimus’ of H.J.C. von Grimmelshausen, Georg Büchner’s ‘Sämtliche Werke’, Herman Melville’ ‘Moby Dick’, ‘The King James Bible’ and Homer’s ‘Iliad’. As you can see, some works are printed in English and some in German, but the actual reading and language here are less in focus, I guess 🙂 These written capital works get a whole new dimension here, as it is not their content and theories what count, but optics. For example, I find ‘Origin of the Species’ quite interesting; it is very homogeneous with continuously spaced text but then the schematic diagram beautifully stands out. (The theory itself we may not want to discuss though…)

And what to do with it? I have just framed mine, put on the wall and it is an instant eye-catcher. Simple black frame or frameless covering would do, but hey – someone is maybe here more creative than me.

(This is not a commercial for the company: I just found the idea very innovative and I hope that I could inspire you to DIY perhaps!)

All photos taken from http://www.all-the-worlds-a-page.com/collections/all-products

Books are flying after Oktoberfest

I’ve got reminded that there is another item, which might be worth sharing here. This is a ‘book tower’ and how I got it: I have seen it in a magazine long time ago, taken out this page with picture and website, so that when we moved to this bigger apartment, I could order it online. Here is the picture and in my case the books are not so neatly organized…

design-3000.de

A friend of mine was even more innovative and she made the mini-version herself, without seeing it (I think) somewhere else. Those are small shelves that, or mini-tower, which stand (or better – float) just next to the bed in the bedroom. Bravo to that!

 

There is a little anecdote related to our booktower. It was in the time of Oktoberfest in Munich and some friends came over to pick us up and go with us to a restaurant. After 7-8 hours in beer tents, they were obviously a bit tipsy. Now you can imagine their faces when they have seen pile of books flying in the air! Or even better, a tiny Chinese dictionary holding a huge book of accounting principles. The rest of us (sober ones) played the game of course and it was hilarious, when trying to convince one of them that it is just so! Strange things are going on at our place all the time…

 

🙂