l'allocco 5

carries off its orderings, until a new idea of
tendency can be resolved from the secretions that clasp the city
in their bath of detainment, listened to beyond all scope of
habit and music. It is in this way you come to decide,
as if the only decision, really, were to begin
with an act committed beside or despite oneself, in which case choice
will have a life of its own: but the paradox, of course, is that it
is your own life you have decided upon, to which you will remain
an assistant, as the body’s estates
continue elaborating your possibility, even after each
sound transposing the flesh into an experience, or
at the very least suggestion of an outside, has begun to fade
and move onwards. It seems you may very well persist as an awakening, or
example, perhaps, of the sun walking through its own reality of
sunlight, whose lessons disclosed in a language of perfume and death
are imbibed with some eagerness, as your contacts
announce their preparations: these clouds which were destined
to fashion us after their own anger, and so produce
a galloping silence, shuttling you to the heart of this very crystal beast
you bit by bit have come to realize is your only habitation,
the world giving vent to its fumes of
venom, as you begin see it for what it really is: an apparition of beauty.
Holding hands with the enemy in that car, this enmity
is perfected, so the monstrosities which will defeat themselves
in that mutual grasping can be transmogrified, and a fellowship
beyond all consensus set its course after future legend,
as wonder is set loose on the bloodstream. The suicide, it turns out, was
staged, a fakery coaxing the truth from its hiding place. No
threshold maintains its integrity, and yet the elections
seem to align themselves with an undisclosed index, as the stars,
for all their irrationality, map one and the same
scenario each night. And the trial, that will be the height
of your ecstasy, twists onwards, a communication
casting you headlong into unheard of thrills
and amusements, for as your arraignment has offered you this one
moment, standing there beside yourself with joy, your judge
An august empire è riportata in lingua originale. Per la versione italiana si rimanda all’apparato di traduzioni.
LA PERCEZIONE (ERRONEA) DELLA SCIENZA
Antonio Ereditato
Recentemente è montata una polemica sulla
sentenza di colpevolezza per i tecnici della
protezione civile, riguardo al terremoto dell’Aquila.
Non amo le polemiche e tantomeno le amo per
argomenti come questi. Tuttavia, questo fatto mi
spinge a fare delle considerazioni, in qualche modo
obbligate, nel mio ruolo di operatore della scienza.
Tutti concordano sul fatto che evidentemente
i terremoti non si possono prevedere e che
qualunque sia la motivazione della sentenza, la
causa della condanna non può essere la mancata,
corretta previsione di quei tragici eventi sismici.
Rimane però l’amaro in bocca per la sensazione che
ormai anche la scienza sia diventata un argomento
opinabile, dibattibile e soggetto alla regola, cattiva
lettura dei principi democratici, che “la tua è
un’opinione, ma io ne ho una opposta”. Alla fine, forse,
solo un sondaggio democratico ci dirà se la Terra gira
attorno al Sole, o viceversa.
La causa di questa falsata comprensione della
materia scientifica, a parte varie motivazioni di
carattere filosofico e sociologico proprie della storia
e cultura italiana, è anche da ricercarsi nel degrado
culturale ed etico che sta dilagando e prendendo
piede in molti aspetti della nostra società civile.
Grazie a internet e ai social networks (peraltro
strumenti formidabili di democrazia e sviluppo)
oggi tutti possono accedere a una mole incredibile
d’informazioni e partecipare passivamente o
attivamente a una miriade di blog, post, discussioni,
has been your one true drug, in which you writhe
with every pleasure the mind can inflict
upon its living body. Lording its secrets over the field, a new
silence gathers, contented to remain itself this time,
disintegrating the newsfeed to make way for a reception
that, if not yet penetrating, then at least presses on reality, as air
flattens the villain’s face into absence, a scandal
of steady focus corrupting the data, to catch filth on silk.
But our institutions have made every effort to reign in the heat
and waywardness of this decay, effecting the opposite
result of catalyzing entropy at every point beyond the premises of
their refrigerators, so calcifying beyond retrieval
the units in which these values were to be stored, so
many figures posturing in a cryogenic stasis.
And outside, the armageddon fires sharpen their teeth
in expectation of the city’s final dismantling
by night, scattered like a thousand chiming ornaments
and flags. Then by a perfect trick, the city
comes back to discover you in the neutral moment, a toy
revolving at the interstice
where the sky splintered to shed this random scrap
of music, which fell as if for you alone.
The hours collapse, waves into the drugged
landscape, as the shadows of trees
lengthen, steps gathering
no distance. By these charms we have been translated
into a future that is perfectly novel. There is
no release from them. A journey crystallizes; rain
colors the earth, alive with tokens of spring being.
It seems one must have been dreaming
just to speak of it, as one stands in the doorway and dreams
of death for a few minutes, over the course of an afternoon,
the gold-flecked beetles thundering up out of the desert floor
in a shower of air. From this point on, there is no more to remember
than that they have been here, and are now scattered
as by a prism’s trifoliate hand, its gift always a departure.
dibattiti on- e off-line, moltiplicando a dismisura il
bacino di utenza delle informazioni e, al contempo,
generando essi stessi informazioni, sia “modificando”
i dati di base delle notizie, sia creando nuovi fatti
trasformando opinioni in “conoscenza diffusa”. A
ciò efficacemente contribuiscono quei media votati
al sensazionalismo e alla notizia spiattellata senza
alcuna analisi o tantomeno giudizio di buon senso.
Uno degli effetti collaterali di questa situazione è,
come accennavo sopra, l’autoconcessione a potere/
dovere sempre fornire una chiave di lettura su tutto.
Tutto nel tritacarne, indipendentemente se si è
qualificati a farlo. Certo, qualificati, condizione che
forse oggi ha perso di significato ma che non può
essere elusa, soprattutto in ambienti nei quali la