#Constantine Peter Cavafy

[alt-ctrl]

Constantine Peter Cavafy

You must pray that the way be long, full of adventures and experiences.

[alrederedmixedmedia]

Alredered Remembers Modern Greek poet Constantine Peter Cavafy, on his birthday.

To certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No.

C.P. Cavafy

[bruno-duarte]

The City

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried like something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.” You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You’ll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses. You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there’s no ship for you, there’s no road. Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.

BY Constantine Peter Cavafy TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

C. P. Cavafy, "The City" from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University PressSource: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)

[yorgunherakles]

İtaki'ye doğru yola çıktığında, dua et yolun uzun, serüvenler, bilgilerle dolu olsun: Leistrigonlar'dan korkma ne Kiklopslar'dan, ne de öfkeli Poseidon'dan. Böyle şeyler çıkmayacak yoluna, düşüncelerin yüceyse, ince bir duygu sarmışsa gövdeni ve ruhunu. Leistrigonlar'la hiç karşılaşmayacaksın, Kiklopslar'la ve öfkeli Poseidon'la, sen onları ruhunda taşımadıkça, ruhun onları çıkarmadıkça karşına.

Dua et yolun uzun olsun. Nice yaz sabahları doğsun, görmediğin limanlar göresin öyle keyifli, sevinç içinde. Durup Fenike çarşılarından has mallar satın al, sedef ve mercan, abanoz ve kehribar, çeşit çeşit baş döndürücü kokular, bu baş döndürücü kokulardan al alabildiğin kadar; yolun düşür Mısır kentlerine öğrenmek, daha çok öğrenmek için bilgelerden.

İtaki'yi hiç çıkarma aklından. Oraya varmak en son amacın senin. Ama ayağını çabuk tutayım deme. Bırak, yıllarca sürsün bu yolculuk, daha iyi; yaşlanıp demir attığın zaman o adaya, yolda kazandığın bunca şeyle zengin, İtaki'den zenginlikler beklemeyesin.

Bu güzel yolculuğu İtaki sağladı sana. O olmasa yola hiç çıkmayacaktın. Ama artık bir şey veremez sana İtaki.

Ve onu yoksul bulursan, sanma ki İtaki aldattı seni. Kazandığın büyük bilgelik, onca deneyden sonra anlamış olmalısın İtakiler ne demek...

Konstantin Kavafis

[ukdamo]

On the Outskirts of Antioch

Constantine Cavafy

We in Antioch were astonished when we heard

what Julian was up to now.

Apollo had made things clear to him at Daphni:

he didn't want to give an oracle (as though we cared!),

he didn't intend to speak prophetically, unless

his temple at Daphni was purified first.

The nearby dead, he declared, got on his nerves.

There are many tombs at Daphni.

One of those buried there

was the triumphant and holy martyr Vavylas,

wonder and glory of our church.

It was him the false god hinted at, him he feared.

As long as he felt him near he didn't dare

pronounce his oracle: not a murmur.

(The false gods are terrified of our martyrs.)

Unholy Julian got worked up,

lost his temper and shouted: "Raise him, carry him out,

take him away immediately, this Vavylas.

You there, do you hear? He gets on Apollo's nerves.

Grab him, raise him at once,

dig him out, take him away, throw him out,

take him wherever you want. This isn't a joke.

Apollo said the temple has to be purified."

We took it, the holy relic, and carried it elsewhere.

We took it, we carried it away in love and in honour.

And hasn't the temple done brilliantly since!

In no time at all a colossal fire

broke out, a terrible fire,

and both the temple and Apollo burned to nothing.

Ashes the idol: dirt to be swept away.

Julian exploded, and he spread it around—

what else could he do?—that we, the Christians,

had set the fire. Let him say so.

It hasn't been proved. Let him say so.

The essential thing is—he exploded.

St Peter's Cave - in the hills above the city. The 4th or 5th CE church is one of the oldest in existence.

Acts 11:25 - 26.

"Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they associated with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’ ".

[cigsndrinks]

- Come back -

Come back often and take hold of me,

sensation that I love come back and take hold of me—

when the body’s memory awakens

and an old longing again moves into the blood,

when lips and skin remember

and hands feel as though they touch again.

 Come back often, take hold of me in the night

when lips and skin remember... 

C. P. Cavafy

[queerbookcorner]

Kicking off Historical Queer Fiction recs with 20 adult fiction titles written about actual historical figures.

600-500 BC / Sappho's Leap by Erica Jong (Sappho)

300s BC / Fire from Heaven & The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (Alexander the Great)

1600s AD / Moll Cutpurse, Her True History by Ellen Galford (Moll Cutpurse)

1724 / Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg  (Jack Sheppard) 

1770s / The Ladies by Doris Grumbach (Ladies of Llangollen)

1830s / The Moss House by Clara Barley  (Anne Lister+Ann Walker)

1840s / Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard  (Abraham Lincoln+Joshua Speed)

1850s- The Whale by Mark Beauregard (Herman Melville+Nathaniel Hawthorne)

1855 / The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell by William Klaber  (Joseph Lobdell)

1890s / The God of Mirrors by Robert Reilly (Oscar Wilde)

1895 / The Master by Colm Toibin  (Henry James)

1897 / What's Left of the Night by Ersi Sotiropoulos  (Constantine Cavafy)

1900s / The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde by Peter Ackroyd

1912/ Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut  (E.M. Forster)

1927 / The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (Tamara de Lempicka)

1930s / White Houses by Amy Bloom  (Lorena Hickok+Eleanor Eleanor Roosevelt)

1930s / Undiscovered Country by Kelly O'Connor McNees (Lorena Hickok+Eleanor Eleanor Roosevelt)

1937 / Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland (Elizabeth Bishop)

1950s / Dancer by Colum McCann  (Rudolf Nureyev)

1953 / Leading Men by Christopher Castellani  (Tennessee Williams)

[architectnews]

Sigurd Lewerentz Exhibition: Arkdes Stockholm

Sigurd Lewerentz Exhibition ArkDes Stockholm, Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Building Center

Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect Of Death And Life – Arkdes

3 Nov 2020

Sweden’s Most Revered Architect Subject Of Major Exhibition Opening in Stockholm In April 2021

Location: ArkDes Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm, Sweden

• Designed By Caruso St John

• Accompanying Monograph Published Spring 2021

Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect Of Death And Life

3 November 2020 – Sweden’s most revered architect Sigurd Lewerentz, regarded as a giant of 20th century architecture, is the subject of a major exhibition, Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life designed by Caruso St John, opening at ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design in Stockholm, in April 2021.

This will be a significant moment of assessment, the first major monograph exhibition of the work of Lewerentz since the 1980s coinciding with the publication of the first comprehensive biography.

Lewerentz, who was born in Bjärtrå in northern Sweden in 1885 and died in Lund 1975, is an enigmatic figure in the modern history of architecture. He rarely spoke publicly or published, but his influence is acknowledged by a generation of the world’s leading architects.

Colin St. John Wilson, paraphrasing E.M. Forster’s impression of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, said it was “as if he stood at a slight angle to the world.”

In the words of Adam Caruso, designer of the exhibition: “Lewerentz’s late projects represent an unprecedented integration of making and thought. Like Matisse, who advised young painters to cut off their tongues and communicate with brush, paint and canvas, Lewerentz was famously laconic. He did not teach and few of his own project descriptions survive. He built.”

The exhibition and the book are the result of four years of research. The majority of the objects in the exhibition are drawn from ArkDes’ own formidable collection, which will be shown alongside hitherto unknown or never previously exhibited objects that have been discovered in travels by the research team across the country.

The exhibition will cover the full range of Lewerentz’s works. Among these are three iconic projects: The Woodland Cemetery in south Stockholm, designed with Gunnar Asplund (1935-40), where many notable Swedish writers, musicians and actors are buried, including Greta Garbo, and his two late masterpieces, St Mark’s Church, in Bjorkhagen, dedicated in 1960; and St Peter’s Church, in Klippan, a town 60 kilometres north of Malmo, completed in 1966.The show will include a range of drawings of these famous buildings but also objects that show how Lewerentz’s collaborations with artists and theologians made buildings that were deeply literate and inventive about Lutheran traditions.

The exhibition will feature a newly commissioned work by the American artist Amie Siegel in the space called Boxen. Known for her layered, meticulously constructed works that trace and perform the undercurrents of systems of value, design and cultural ownership, Siegel works variously with film, video, photography, performance, sound and installation.

ArkDes will produce a landmark new book in connection with the exhibition, which will be the first ever published with full access to Lewerentz’s archive. Designed by award-winning graphic designer Malmsten Hellberg, it will contain 700 pages of drawings, photographs and models, plus excerpts from Lewerentz’s personal archive and library.

In August 2021, a Lewerentz Festival will be arranged in collaboration with partners throughout Sweden, to pay tribute to one of architectural history’s most revered, and most mythologised architects.

Kieran Long, Director of ArkDes and curator of the exhibition, said: “There is no Swedish architect with more influence on contemporary architecture today, or with more passionate advocates across the globe, than Sigurd Lewerentz. Devotees travel from everywhere in the world to see his buildings. There are very few architects in history with Lewerentz’s ability to make buildings that truly ask the biggest questions about what it means to be a modern person. His work powerfully evokes our deepest and most archaic cultural memories. But he was also fascinated by cosmetic and fleeting pleasures: Shopping, dancing, drinking and having dinner. The life of the city fascinated him and his work made a stage for our playful selves as well as our spiritual ones.”

Background

Sigurd Lewerentz Sigurd Lewerentz was born at Sandö in the parish of Bjärtrå in Västernorrland County, Sweden. He was the son of Gustaf Adolf Lewerentz and Hedvig Mathilda Holmgren. He initially trained as a mechanical engineer at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (1905–8). Later he took up an architectural apprenticeship in Germany.

He first opened his own architectural office in Stockholm in 1911 and became associated with the architect Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940). Together they made a winning entry for the Stockholm South (Woodland) Cemetery (Skogskyrkogården) competition of 1914–15. This project was implemented initially by both architects, however, the latter stages were done by Asplund alone. He and Asplund were appointed as the main architects for the Stockholm International Exhibition (1930) but afterwards Lewerentz became disillusioned, Lewerentz turned away from architecture for many years, and from 1940 he ran a factory producing windows and other architectural fittings of his own design.

Sigurd Lewerentz, together with his colleagues Erik Lallerstedt and David Helldén, created between 1933 and 1944 what is regarded of one of the masterpieces of functionalist architecture, Malmö Opera and Music Theatre (Malmö Opera och Musikteater). The foyer is considered of particular beauty, with its open surfaces and beautiful marble staircases and it is adorned with a number of works of art by artists such as Carl Milles and Isaac Grünewald.

He was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for architecture in 1950. In the last decade of his life he designed two churches, St. Mark’s at Björkhagen in Stockholm (1956) and St. Peter’s at Klippan in Scania (1963–66), that revived his career in architecture.

He continued to work at competition proposals and furniture designs until shortly before his death in Lund, Sweden during 1975.

ArkDes ArkDes, located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, is Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design. It is a museum, a study centre and an arena for debate and discussion about the future of architecture, design and citizenship. It is housed in a beautiful building by Rafael Moneo and more recently ArkDes´ new studio gallery, called Boxen, designed by Dehlin Brattgård Architects.

Kieran Long, Director ArkDes: photo courtesy ArkDes Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design

Kieran Long Kieran Long, the British curator, critic and broadcaster, was appointed Director of ArkDes in April 2017. He was the architecture critic of the London Evening Standard between 2014 and 2014. He subsequently established the department of design, architecture and digital at the V&A in London in 2013/14, of which he was Keeper between 2014 and 2017. His television work includes presenting “Restoration Home’ and ‘The House that £100k Built’ for the BBC.

Sigurd Lewerentz Architects

Previously on e-architect:

11 Jan 2019

ArkDes Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design

photo courtesy of ArkDes ArkDes Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design Stockholm

Address: Exercisplan 4, 111 49 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 520 235 00

Architecture in Sweden

Swedish Architecture Designs – chronological list

Stockholm Architecture News

Stockholm Architecture Tours

Swedish Architecture – Selection

Strängnäs Cathedral Building Renewal, Strängnäs, just west of Stockholm, Sweden Design: AART Architects image courtesy of architects Strängnäs Cathedral Building

Restaurant Tak, Södermalmsallén Architects: Wingårdhs image courtesy of architects Restaurant Tak Stockholm

Geysir Tower, Kista image from architects Geysir Tower Building in Kista

Karolinska Institute Research Center

Novum BioCity Karolinska University Hospital Stockholm

Swedish Architect Offices

Comments / photos for the Sigurd Lewerentz Exhibition at ArkDes Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design page welcome

The post Sigurd Lewerentz Exhibition: Arkdes Stockholm appeared first on e-architect.

[iquotation]

"You must pray that the way be long, full of adventures and experiences."

Constantine Peter Cavafy

[marieherbsteinenglishportfolio]

Reflection on a selected poem by Cavafy

“As Much As You Can” by Constantine Peter Cavafy starts off with a sentence that sounds like a reaction to something. This causes the poem to be energetic. The thought-provoking text links to the global issue of individuals not living the life they truly long for. Its universality causes it to remain as relevant as when it was first written. Although the poem includes a series of negatives, it is optimistic as Cavafy urges the reader not to degrade their life and instead care for it. Despite the poem being written in the imperative mode, it still manages to be sympathetic and hopeful. People should not waste their time on “the daily silliness of social events and parties”. One should focus on what is important and practice gratitude as well as seeing the beauty in life.

[kosashtshqi]

Cfardo fillon, do mbarojë. Cfardo që nuk fillon nuk do mbarojë kurrë. Dashuri s’ështe vetem ajo cfar është plotësuar është dhe cfar ke dashur. Ndoshta prandaj dashurit e paplotesuara na hane perbrenda. Nuk vdesin se s’u munden te lindin kurrë.

- Constantine Peter Cavafy -

[readsaga]

Inspirational Travel Quotes That’ll Make You Want to Travel in 2021

Whether you’re stuck in a rut, hungry for change and adventure, lacking motivation or self-confidence, the right inspirational quote can give you a well-needed kick up the butt to get you on the right track towards achieving your goals. Here are some of the best travel quotes to make you want to pack your bags this year, curated by the Readsaga review team.

1. You need not even listen, just wait…the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself. – Franz Kafka

2. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment. – Hilaire Belloc

3. We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. – Jawaharial Nehru

4. Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. – Gustave Flaubert

5. Travel expands the mind and fills the gap. – Sheda Savage

6. Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator. – Robert Orben

7. The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. – W.B. Yeats

8. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

9. The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams. – Oprah Winfrey

10. Take the time to put the camera away and gaze in wonder at what’s there in front of you. – Erick Widman

11. May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home. – Trenton Lee Stewart

12. Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year. – Unknown

13. It doesn’t matter where you are. You are nowhere compared to where you can go. – Bob Proctor

14. If we travel simply to indulge ourselves we are missing some of the greatest lessons life has to offer. – Unknown

15. It is probably a pity that every citizen of each state cannot visit all the others, to see the differences, to learn what we have in common, and come back with a richer, fuller understanding of America – in all its beauty, in all its dignity, in all its strength, in support of moral principles. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

16. Travelling tends to magnify all human emotions – Peter Hoeg

17. When a man is a traveller, the world is his house and the sky is his roof, where he hangs his hat is his home, and all the people are his family.- Drew Bundini Brown

18. ‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. You live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen non-percent of. – Louis C.K.

19. I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag

20. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean. – Constantine Cavafy

For plenty more great travel content, check out Readsaga today.

[lavandin]

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?            The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating?            Because the barbarians are coming today.            What laws can the senators make now?            Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?            Because the barbarians are coming today            and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.            He has even prepared a scroll to give him,            replete with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold?            Because the barbarians are coming today            and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say?            Because the barbarians are coming today            and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking. Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion? (How serious people’s faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home so lost in thought?            Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.            And some who have just returned from the border say            there are no barbarians any longer. And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution. 

Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης / Constantine Peter Cavafy, 1898, first published in 1904

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

[yorgunherakles]

ithaka

ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. without her you would not have set out. she has nothing left to give you now.

and if you find her poor, ithaka won’t have fooled you. wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these ithakas mean.

constantine cavafy - ithaka

[samgibbsnarrative]

Why I am looking into Penguin books and what we are doing this term.

For this term we are focusing on Narrative in games. Now because most of the time people go and get a certain game concept in there head and focus their research around the game idea they have. In order to prevent this and to force students to base their games off of there research they have done we have all been given one of the penguin classics little black books. This is so that we are meant to read them and base our projet off of the book. However we don't need to make an exact replication of the book. We mainly need to take an idea or theme from the book and include it in our game. For example if the book has a theme of horror then you could create a horror narrative game.

What book did I get then?

Well originally I got issue number 80 which was the Dhammapada. This book is a book of buddhist teachings. However I was not very pleased with it as I am not particularly fond with religious teachings. As a non religious person I knew that I would not get along with the book and wouldn't fully take advantage of it. I Know I chould of taken the Bull by the Horns and tried to make something out of it. However I knew that I wouldn't be motivated enough to do my college work. However Sam kingly let me swap books however I wasn’t able to chose which book I got and in the end I ended up with Pemember, Body... by C.P Cavafy.

Who is C.P Cavafy?

Constantine Peter Cavafy also known as C.P Cavafy was a very distinguished greek poet of the 20th Century. He was born in Egypt on 29th April 1863  and died 29th april 1933 ( aged 70). After his father's death his family moved to Liverpool England for much of his adolescence. While in england he developed his english skill and had a preference for the writings of William shakespeare. However after a while the family moved back to egypt until 1882. During his hectic life style of moving between 2 countries he was an obscure poet who published little of his work. His little effort to publish his poems could be linked to how he was gay and many of them had connotations of sexually explicit activities between 2 men.  As quoted by W.H Auden in the introduction to th 1961 volume ‘The complete poems of C.P Cavafy’:

“Cavafy was a homosexual, and his erotic poems make no attempt to conceal the fact.” Auden added: “As a witness, Cavafy is exceptionally honest. He neither bowdlerizes nor glamorizes nor giggles. The erotic world he depicts is one of casual pickups and short-lived affairs. Love, there, is rarely more than physical passion … At the same time, he refuses to pretend that his memories of moments of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt.”

“Constantine P. Cavafy (also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes; Greek Κ.Π. Καβάφης) was a major Greek poet who worked as a journalist and civil servant. His consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in Greek poetry, but in Western poetry as well. He has been called a skeptic and a neo-pagan. In his poetry he examines critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday. “ - Good Reads 

What is the book about?

The book is a collection of nostalgic,erotic poetry written by C.P Cavafy. In the book we have 50 poems. Some are long and some are quite short and only consisting of 6 lines. Some of his erotic poems include homosexuality. 

What themes and ideas were persistent through the book?

Eros

Homosexuality

Desire

Illicit acts

Passion

Shame

[jamiededes]

I Name You Fear . . and other poetic responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Michael Ancher, “The Sick Girl”, 1882, Statens Museum for Kunst / Public domain photograph courtesy of Michael Peter Ancher

“Kleitos, a likeable young man, about twenty-three years old with a first-class education, a rare knowledge of Greek is seriously ill. He caught the fever that reaped a harvest this year in Alexandria.” Kleitos’ Illness, Constantine P. Cavafy

Of special note:

Please don’t…