City Hall listens

Le parc Percy-Walters

Ave Dr-Penfield, Montréal

Over the last 3 or 4 years, a parents group from the vicinity of this park has been campaigning to have a playground for the children.  The land was donated some 50 or 60 years ago by Mr Percy Walters, vice-president of the Imperial Tobacco Company, for family recreational activity.     However children and young family were scarce around there in that period.  Over the years, the park was taken over by dog lovers who came to believe it was a dog park and for their exclusive use.  

After some difficult negotiations, the borough council proposed a compromise: split the park between dogs and children. 

The north side, at the right, for dogs, the left side for the children, the solution is not perfect and not fully accepted by some, but most are adapting to the new setup.  This picture is facing west.

Today, the Parent Committee, my daughter in law and my son, are driving forces behind the Committee, has organized an initiation to archaeology.  Strangely enough, my son, an archaeologist at McGill University, volunteered for the activity.

Even Mr Sammy Forcillo, at left, the borough councillor responsible for the project was there and manipulated a 250000 years old artefact.

Maybe you can’t fight City Hall but you sure can bring it on side when you have a good project.  Parents care for the park, plant flowers and use it.  The Councillor believes it will shortly move from Pilot Project to permanent status.

À Paul Sunstone

Dark eyes

Un poète ukrainien, Yevhen Hrebinka, a écrit “Les yeux noirs » publié en 1843 dans la Literaturnaya Gazeta, les mots furent mis en musique, en 1884, par le compositeur allemand Florian Hermann.  Depuis, Chaliapin, Django Rheinhardt, Bob Dylan et plusieurs autres ont chanté  les yeux noirs.

« Des yeux noirs, des yeux pleins de passion !

Des yeux ravageurs et sublimes !

Comme je vous aime, comme j'ai peur de vous !

Je sais, je vous ai vus, pas au bon moment !

Oh, non sans raison vous êtes plus sombres que les ténébres !

Je vois de la peine en vous pour mon âme,

Je vois une flamme victorieuse en vous

Dans laquelle brûle mon pauvre coeur.

Mais non je ne suis pas triste, il n'y a pas de chagrin

Mon destin me réconforte.

Le meilleur que dieu nous a donné dans la vie,

Je l'ai sacrifié pour ces yeux de feu !»

Pourquoi cette fascination pour les yeux noirs?  Des yeux bleus ont dit souvent qu’ils sont d’acier ou de glace, sauf, bien sûr, ceux de Thérèse; les yeux pers sont déroutants et réservés aux déesses.  Les yeux gris?  On n’en parle pas en littérature même si l’on y trouve « une jument aux yeux verts ».  Les yeux bruns laissent indifférent même s’ils présentent un petit air mystérieux et changent de ton selon l’éclairage ambiant.

Mais les yeux noirs sont insondables à l’instar de l’eau noire des lacs profonds ou réputés sans fonds comme certains de nos lacs laurentiens.  Ils font un peu peur quant ils deviennent encore plus noirs sous l’effet de la passion; certains y voient un reflet de Lucifer, d’autres, une annonce d’orage imminent, d’autres encore de la lubricité affirmant qu’ils deviennent d’un noir spécial sous l’effet du désir charnel. 

La jeune fille sur la clôture, trouvée sur le Blog Café Philos de Paul Sunstone un californien  de Los Angeles, serait-elle moins mystérieuse si ses yeux eussent été bleus ou bruns?   Tant de questions se posent : elle s’assied ou se prépare à partir? Elle a peur ou elle désire ardemment quelque chose…qui s’en vient ou qui s’en va?  A-t-elle peur, est-elle fâchée ou intriguée?  Que regarde-t-elle avec tant d’intensité? D’abord, est-elle si jeune que cela?

Elle ne porte pas, à l’évidence, de brassière mais les seins ne sont pas ceux d’une jeune fille ce me semble.

Son regard trouble par son intensité et son absence apparente de direction.  Les yeux s’orientent vers la gauche mais, en même temps, ils ne semblent pas regarder vers l’extérieur.

Tout, ici, est intérieur, au fond, le corps est accessoire.  Le créateur nous invite à intuitionner une action intérieure, à solutionner un mystère caché dans l’insondable des yeux noirs.  Je sens obscurément que la dame veut qu’on respecte son secret et je le respecterai.

Paul Costopoulos, jeudi, 10 juin 2010

Prose

Chaud/Froid

(inspiré d'Automne) 

Le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres

(Automne, ouvre de Pierrette Prairie « Panda»,  Montréal 2009, collection Costopoulos)

Le soleil levant et froid de l’automne ne parvenait plus à réchauffer l’écorce des grands arbres.  Les dernières feuilles tombées, heureusement, formaient tapis et leur réchauffaient les pieds.  La majorité des oiseaux les avaient désertés et plus aucun pépiement ne s’échappait des nids vides et désolés.  Ce matin, la forêt se drapait vraiment de silence.

La sève hésitait à quitter la chaleur des racines de crainte de geler et de faire éclater les fragiles brindilles annonciatrices de la pousse du lointain printemps.  Pourtant les arbres auraient bien apprécié un peu de sa chaleur et de sa vivacité.  Ils se résignaient, cependant, conscients du danger  et désireux de voir avril et ses bourgeons.

Au loin, une masse grise se dessina.  Bientôt elle masqua le soleil et l’air, curieusement, devint un poil plus chaud.  Un léger espoir se fit jour dans la flore, le secours arrivait.  Paresseusement les flocons valsèrent dans le ciel et vinrent, gracieusement, se poser sur les branches nues.  La couche s’épaississant, une douce chaleur envahit la végétation maintenant couverte du proverbial blanc manteau.

Pendant que les humains se désolaient de retourner à leurs pelles, les arbres se réjouissaient d’être protégés de la froidure.

Paul Costopoulos, vendredi, 4 juin 2010

Le Matin des Magiciens

 Strange things happen on a blog.   Commenting on Wagner I happened to mention the this book and it led to a discussion in a different direction.  Sledpress's comment reminded me of an essay I wrote 5 years ago for a litterary study group that I was moderating at the McGill Institute for Learning in Retirement.  I figured it could be of interest to some people who read the book.  So here goes.

FREED TO INQUIRE!

                        " ln the Province of Québec nothing has changed and nothing should change" (Maurice Duplessis, former prime 

Ministerfrom 1936-1944 and 1946-1959).

Growing up in French Canadian Cathotic and Union Nationale Québec from 1931 to
1960 was not conducive to introspection or to innovation. One was expected to tag along
without questioning or seeking to understand. One had to have faith, both mystical and political.
Troublemakers were promptly dealt with and neutralized.

However, having inherited, from my immigrant father and rebellious anticlerical French-
Canadian mother, a strange disposition to question things 1 never felt easy in that set-up. While
going through my Humanities 1 almost got kicked out of school for having dared read outside
authorized works and having written a short text on how other faiths, even pagans, shared some
of our beliefs and feasts. Later on 1 was denied a Service Medal by Les Scouts Catholiques du
Québec for having criticized our Diocesan Chaplain. ln 1954 entering the Public Service 1 had to
get a letter from my Union Nationale member of the th en Legislative Assembly who made sure
that 1 was not compromised morally (a letter from my parish priest) nor politically (not suspected
of Liberal sympathies).

By 1960, my reputation as a troublemaker was weil entrenched and 1 was beginning ta
wonder whether a behavioural change was desirable if 1 wished ta go somewhere in this Society.
Then two events happened: the liberais were elected and launched the so ca lied Quiet
Revolution and 1 chanced upon a book: Le Matin des Magiciens, translated in England as The
Dawn of Magic (1963) and in the U.S.A. as The Moming of the Magicians. For the French critics
it was an initiation to fantastic realism, an invitation ta use imagination in a Cartesian logical
society through a look at various esoterical teachings and teachers. To the American critics it
was a quixotic dialectical metaphysical manifesto. To me it opened a vista to uncharted
territories that 1 had glimpsed in the past, timidly explored but never really entered.

This book raised ail the questions 1 had asked myself but never dared utter aloud. What
was it that the Church feared about the Oriental philosophers and their teachings, what about
the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail? Why did 1 feel Adam and Eve ta be a nice fable, but
just that. .. a fable. Why were the Vedras, Gilgamesh and the Bible so close under many aspects
if the other two were untrue? Then what about the Bible? Were the Rosicrucians and other
Spiritual Societies as bad as the Fathers said they were? 

Others were asking them and attempting some answers outside of normal channels.

Wow! The book spawned an offshoot: Planète. 1 promptly subscribed to the magazine.
Although 1 never adhered to ail it contained and was a bit sceptical of Mme Blavatsky's
teachings, 1 enjoyed the fresh air brought in by ail those highflying philosophies and musings
about the origins of the Nazca Unes and the possible visits of Aliens.

What was even more remarkable than the book are the authors. It is often said
that politics make for strange bedfellows. Weil this applies to these two authors: Louis Pauwels
and Jacques Bergier. Born in 1920 Pauwels was a rightist intellectual, writer and journalist who
was a resistance guerrillero against the Germans. Arrested, he was sent to Mauthausen. He
survived and went on to become an extreme rightist before he died in 1997.

Bergier, born in Odessa in 1912 was Jewish. His family fled Russia in 1925. He became
a chemist, an anti-nazi and a Communist. Spying on the Germans, he was arrested in 1943. ln
1944 he ends up in Mauthausen. After a visit to Russia he renounces Communism but remains
a staunch Socialist. Bergier died in 1978.

These two men had nothing in common when they met in the mid fifties. Yet they joined
forces to write an astonishing review of fantastic realism and to launch a movement that lasted
several years until Pauwels's steady drift to the far right eventually created su ch a gap between
them that it caused the destruction of their friendship and of the movement they had
spearheaded.

Their approach was simple enough; nothing should be excluded or rejected because it is
unexplainable or unbelievable. Maybe some day our sciences and our knowledge will have
expanded enough to encompass the yet unfathomable. ln the sixties this was revolutionary in
the French traditional culture where logic prevailed and dominated everything else. They
blamed the intellectual morass of the times on those Men in Black who roamed the world
spreading gloom and paralysis of the mind. (ln the Lexus and the Olive Tree, the very serious
Thomas Freedman writes about those few men with their portable computers in their black
attaché case who travel the world wreaking havoc at the flick of a switch with the economy of
whole countries by speculating on their currency to foster their own selfish pursuits).Fortunately
they were opposed by the Men in White who proposed the rebirth of abandoned ideas about our
origins and our destination. A kind of natural spirituality based on an open mind and the
acceptance that even the unexplainable could be NORMAL AND NATURAL.

,-------- -------_ .. _-----

ln other words, if it has not been proven false it can be true. That simple concept
allowed for an openness of mind that paved the way for research and exploration, for
acceptance of differences unheard of in those years. Thus "Le Matin des Magiciens" and its
offshoot « Planète» had an influence far beyond the scope of the book or of its writers's intents.

Is it not funny that the hottest book currently on sale and at the top of the bestseller list
since its publication deals with Secret Societies, Knights Templar, The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei
and the quest for the Holy Grail and the Truth: The Da Vinci Code!

Paul Costopoulos, Friday, January 7,2005.

~--------------------------------------~-------------------~--------------

The Tupperware orange peeler

Sledpress asked for a video of "l'ézesteur d'agrume" my wife uses for her morning bout with oranges, etc.   These little gadgets were given as door prizes to participants to Tupperware sales party some 40 to 50 years ago.  My wife got two at friend's parties.  One was yellow the other, shown above, liight grey or soft beige whatever you prefer.  The yellow one has vanished but we still have, and use this one.