The Sensei Speaks

Hayao Miyazaki on nationalism:

The problems of the world come from the fact that nationalism feels that the world’s problems are due to multi-ethnicity. So in my case, at least, I won’t create films where peace comes about when people destroy evil. I feel that, when making films, you need to be well aware of the fact that all problems that exist, exist inherently within yourself, within your society and among your family members. It’s possible that the towns or the country that we love may turn into something that’s not good for the world as a whole. This is something which we learned from the past war, and it’s a lesson which we should not forget.

Read the full interview here.

Bonus track - "Gake no ue no ponyo" trailer

Birthday Pony

Thy eternal summer shall not fade indeed, for as the great Lincoln said "in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." And what a life it is!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare - "Sonnet XVIII"

Y como bonus track, unos amigos de Washington te han dedicado una canción:
Fugazi - "Birthday Pony"

Incandescently beautiful

¿Cuándo fue la última vez que os emocionó un poema?

"What is poetry", by John Ashberry.

The medieval town, with frieze

Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow

That came when we wanted it to snow?

Beautiful images? Trying to avoid

Ideas, as in this poem? But we

Go back to them as to a wife, leaving

The mistress we desire? Now they

will have to believe it

As we believe it. In school

All the thought got combed out:

What was left was like a field.

Shut your eyes and you can feel it for miles around.

Now open them on a thin vertical path.

It might give us -- what? -- some flowers soon?

Bonus Track: One woman’s battle to bring poetry back into everyday life (via BookNinja)

God Bless America

¿Cuándo fue la última vez que os emocionó la política?

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of [...] States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."

Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech

God Bless America indeed, for they are our beacon in these times of disaster.