witeathome

I would really like to know how to listen to this. There are no instructions, and no way I can see to start it.

An extraordinary rich description that catches all the senses, and the heart. The shouts and cries of the market, the smell and colours of the food, the hiss as it fries, the skill.

And drumming into the mind, an omen. The advancing age of these people, the inevitable loss of skill and livelihood, cuisine and accord.

As a way of life is marvellous captured in words before it dies, we sense with sadness, that huge global chain with massive logo and insatiable appetite, lurks hungry in the wings. Having already devoured the young of these people, it is ready to carve up and greedily swallow the carcass of the whole culture depicted here.

But at least, thanks to this writer, we have secured these words.

I know this may be efficient, but I find it eerie and scary. A kind of complete study in alienation - all the individuals do not relate at all - 'ships passing in the night' would make a good title!

The sad thing is that this would seem to suggest that touch, talking, and personal support do not necessarily lead to the best results in these circumstances - that machinery and distance are more reliable and thorough!

I wonder - what about the holistic effects of trust, personal attention, and reassurance, on healing and survival?

What I love about this beautiful moving piece
is how the open mind heals; the husband taking a risk; the doctor trying something new.
As someone who suffered a long time because of prejudice in this area, it is very heartening to see it being broken down and people being healed, even where it's not 'supposed' to exist.
I was told recently that it is the next generation who will benefit most.
What I found in this description of Nigerian village work and witness by the new generation was humbling and awe-inspiring - life, colour, positivity, make-do, work-around, pragmatism, dedication, and a healthy anger at those who would hold people back. Thank you.

When I read this I think of Olympic boxing -how conflicted I am about it. The last barrier for women in sport, and we have won gold - a great achievement. I cheer that! A sport that reaches and includes so many disaffected young men and 'makes something' of them. And is it really different from martial arts in skill?

Yet I might cheer the result but can't watch it - can't stand to see people fight each other. Is it violence reduced to pleasurable safety, the skilled channeling of aggression, or does it legitimise it? Become part of the desensitising process talked of here? I mean we used to like dog and bear fights....even if for us now its not bare knuckle.... I am unsure. But think the images here are powerful; and beautiful also in their way - especially the top one.

Very vivid and moving. I'm sorry - my comments yesterday were predicated on the understanding that the interview was done in 2003, which seemed to be the date given. I believed the interview had been re-issued to mark several years since this journalist died. I didn't realise it was so recent, thus so raw.

I was using current events to comment on changes in attitudes in what I thought were several years. If I accidentally sounded insensitive to recent loss, I apologise.

It's now 2012. The London Olympic Opening Ceremony included a beautiful (post 7/7) dance of a worried and anxious people excluding an agonised 'Islamic'-looking man and his child. After the struggle of the dance, both man and child were accepted, welcomed, and incorporated into the host group.

I have been informed that this inclusive segment of the event was censored by the NBC in the US and replaced with an interview of Michael Phelps. However, it was shown in full in China and most other countries.

So what times are these? At least much of the world saw such a life-affirming dance, which couldn't have happened a few years ago; they watched it the other night as the Syrian people resist their government's onslaught.

Rough historical tides right now....wave after wave.... but it feels like birth as well as death; so, complex but somewhat hopeful all the same.

samuel, the question was not as silly or parochial as you think. I'm interested in the power of imaginative language, and in particular where and whether the arts and sciences can meet to speak to/with, each other.
The author introduced metaphorical language in her article, which was helpful to both her and the reader, but said it belonged to the 'middle world'. Since imaginative language expresses the ever-expanding human imagination, I was interested in whether the conceit could be carried further in 'imagining' a Higgs Boson Universe, which would help the lay person understand its beauty and function - especially since it's now a 'goddamm particle' and not the 'god particle', and hence part of its initial imaginative puissance is based on a linguistic error. Physicists are imaginative scientists, and metaphor allows us to leap out of a restricted mental world, I think, ie. if it can be 'imagined', it can be imagined. My mistake was thinking this an interactive site and that the author could reply.

The concepts of middle world etc., and info. about origins of name 'god-particle' fantastically illuminating for this unscientific reader. Shows the infinite (sic) power of marketing to cause confusion and needless problems!
However, one thing still puzzles me with your snowy field analogy. Is the Higgs Boson particle what fills hitherto 'empty' space and thus makes a field (snow) to 'cross over' or 'through'. Or is it what makes skis, snow-shoes, boots, make different marks in snow, ie space? Or is it both - ie. is it somehow obvious to scientists that if space is full of tiny 'Higgs Bosons', they will decide how we travel over it - ie. decide whether we need skis, snow-shoes, or boots to traverse it? And is that 'snow' of variable depth, kind, or everywhere? Is my imagination just stuck in the middle world; running away with your simile; or the analogy not hold up all the way through your explanation, and so dropped? I lose my bearings a little there You see your simile starts my imagination flying - then you drop it/me. Can you help me a little further please, to land somewhere?

I'm really quite excited by these poems - and enjoyed the interview. Have just ordered The Children. It's great to discover a fine voice I haven't heard before.