Nightly Poem #8 - Butterflies

Butterfly by "svetlana"

Today the butterflies are free but a day will come
when their wings will be gravel and with hearts of sand
to fly to the sky they will desire, but from that
only despair they'll have.
Who is that, walking these lands, hidden,
many truly will wonder for she again gives hope.
That day they will remember flying
with wings made of silver and eyes seeking upwards 
with flaming hearts reflecting their love. Today,
the butterflies are free.

Astăzi fluturii sunt liberi dar va veni o zi
când aripile lor, pietriș vor fi, și cu inimi de nisip
a zbura către cer vor dori, dar din aceasta
numai disperarea lor va rodi.
Cine-i acolo, călcând pe acele pământuri, ascunsă
mulți se vor intreba fiindcă ea speranță aduce.
În ziua aceea își vor aminti de zbor
cu aripi din argint făcute și ochi indreptați spre cer
cu inimi arzând reflectându-le iubirea. Astăzi,
fluturii sunt liberi.

Top 10 Romanian Rock

This top 10 of Romanian rock songs was created by taking into account all of the following: artistic merit, popularity, longevity, impact, international potential, personal preferences.

Rock music in Romania has a long but uneven history. Due to the cultural masterplan of the Communist regime prior to 1989 much of what can be described as rock has been heavily censored and tempered. This reluctance to accept the Western cultural wave redirected the creative power of some musicians towards a style that tried to plant its roots in the cultural heritage of Romania. When this was not the case, the regime viewed with distrust the "artistic merits" of the bands in question.

Saturday Special : Notre Dame de Paris 1999

Notre Dame de Paris, French version from 1999

This French language musical debuted in Paris in 1998. Based on the novel published by Victor Hugo in 1831, Luc Plamondon created together with composer Riccardo Cocciante one of the most successful such shows in history. Its popularity grew and versions in other languages soon were produced. This 1999 version remains in my opinion the best because it is the only one which successfully transmits the emotional power of the story.

Late Night Post #11

A bird is singing on a tree branch, might be a sparrow, a messenger of good luck, creativity and joy. She looks at me, I see her beak, she sees my nose and flies away. A pigeon walking on my left stops to peck the ground, another pigeon comes, they meet, touch beak to beak and slowly walk away. The sky, neither cloudy nor clear, some rain drops nevertheless appear. One of these drops hit an ant, how would we be with rain drops the size of cars... I wonder.

There is a world in front of us which we can see with our senses yet few are quite that attentive. A bowl of dirt could be interesting, in fact I find it highly inspirational, many thoughts can have their origin in a simple bowl of dirt.

We tend to believe that good things must come in big boxes with red ribbons of silk. The ribbons are optional but the size is important, either in value or in mass but who can still find happiness in simple things. A bowl of dirt is a small world, a life just waiting to arrive. We should feel joy of having the chance to see the world's beauty, and little by little to renounce our feelings of vanity and greed, for we alone are our tormentors.

From time to time, look at the flowers, the birds and everything; but don't just look because there is God in everything and more so in all the beauties of the world. I guess what I'm trying to say is feel and know the price of real things.

Perpetual 

VNV Nation

Find it in you, raise your eyes
Look beyond the place you stand
Towards the furthest reaches
And to the smallest of things
The sound you're hearing
Is the symphony of what we are
Revelation will not come
With heart and mind closed and divided

No need of sun to light the way
Across the ages, we have reigned as we endured
Through the storm fronts we will ever surely pass
To stand as never ending light

Throw away the mantle
Awake from your uncertain hesitation
No way to describe or equate the feeling
No end to what is at your command
A million thoughts run through you
Concentric circles, ever greater
But you have always known
That this is not all that there is
To your questions there'll be answers

Let there be, let there always be
Never ending light 

Lermontov & Balakirev

Portrait of the poet done in 1837,
the year he went on exile
and when Balakirev was born.
by Pyotr Zabolotsky

Moscow, October. A cold wind was blowing thousands of yellow dried leaves, sometimes circling in high tornado like swirls but usually ending under the feet of the few that ventured on the streets that night. A few drops of rain began to fall when at the door of a white two story house a man was knocking, nervously shouting "open, it's me, Yuri". Mikhail Lermontov was born in this house on 15 October 1814 to captain Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, who prided himself with a Scottish descent, and Maria Mikhaylovna Lermontova. Their marriage was a total failure ending with Maria's death at the age of 21, as a result of finding about her husband's infidelity (and her tuberculosis). Mikhail grew up in the village of Tarkany being raised by his maternal grandmother in luxurious comfort and enjoying an excellent education. He became fluent in French and German and learned to play some musical instruments. Eventually, because of bad health, he was sent to the Caucasus, a place that greatly influenced him and where he will eventually return to.

Ode to life : William Oxer & Device

The Kiss from 2014		William Oxer is a refined British artist whose subject matter is centered around love and sensuality which he effortlessly portrays in a sincere way, his figurative art expresses unity and an emotional longing. "Who says" by Device is a rollercoaster of emotional ambiguities, a inner struggle for freedom, a fight between lust and love.

Gallery

2013 - The Dream

2013 - Seduction

Filler : Pink Turns Blue - Walking on both sides

Pink Turns Blue is a German rock/dark wave band which began its activity in 1985 and this song, "Walking on both sides", is from their debut album "If two worlds kiss" from 1987. The song, as it is, lends itself to restless hearts, the lyrics, if read and studied, hold surprises. To my knowledge the video is not official but made by the Youtube user Asinus Aureus. It nevertheless goes well with the song and in some regards even being complementary.


Lyrics:
I don't know I thing outside (?)
suffering endless through my life
I've seen too much I'm all alone
Who likes to sit around and wait
but to act that means to fail
All I ever thought was wrong
Damn the madness of my pride
the price I paid was much too high
My dreams became reality
Cause I'm walking on both sides
Much more real than my life
I am caged by thick ice
Makes me gloomy and morose
Why I dared to go so far
lost my strength and lost my heart
I've to stay somewhere between
Cause I'm walking on both sides
Can't escape reality
always traveling in my dreams
Nothing I could take for true
How should I know whether I love you
whether I love you
I'm walking on both sides

Nightly Poem #7 - Ruby

"Naiad" by David Cheifetz

Why do you want to talk so much
You'd better listen to what's not spoken.
In the deafening silence of thoughts
the most expensive of dreams, rubies,
washed by waters, like river rocks,
forgotten in mountains, in dried river beds.
Here, red stars hidden inside clouds,
imagined by a mind, created by hearts. 

De ce vorbesti atat de mult,
mai bine asculta ce nu se spune.
In tacerea asurzitoare a gandurilor
cele mai scumpe vise, niste rubine,
spalate de ape ca pietre de rau
la munte uitate in albii aride.
Aici, stelele rosii ascunse in nori,
imaginate de minte, create de inimi.

Buran versus the Shuttle

We should start by pointing out  that the Energia-Buran program ended with the fall of the USSR with only one unmanned flight taking place in 1988. The Space Shuttle on the other hand was a full fledged program spanning three decades.

The Soviet Union already had a very successful spacecraft, the Soyuz (which is still used by Russia) and a number of launch systems tailored for the military and for any possible civilian needs like exploration and manned spaceflight. Buran and her sister ships would have been, without a doubt, a source of pride for the soviets, however if this was the only reason of sustaining such a costly project ,it was doomed to failure. A number of new technologies were developed and applied for this space system, a part coming from their defunct Moon program. Unlike its American counterpart, the boosters were reusable having large parachutes that opened during descent and the shuttle would have been fitted with turbojets in order to fly to secured military airstrips once its space mission was completed.

The United States decided to go with a reusable space shuttle because of several reasons: it offered a  potentially more economical way of getting payloads into low-Earth orbit; it was part of a larger plan of creating a permanent American presence in space along with the proposed Space Station Freedom; and it was also meant to be a symbol of America's high technology.

	Buran1	Space Shuttle2
Developer	Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy at EKK Energia	NASA
Beginning of the programe	12 February 1976	26 July 1972
First flight	15 November 1988	12 April 1981
Dimensions and weight	Length = 36.37 m Wingspan = 23.92 Maximum weight = 105 tons Maximum payload weight = 30 tons	Length = 37.18 m Wingspan = 23.77 Maximum weight = 110 tons Maximum payload weight = 25 tons
Number of boosters	5 (4 side boosters and the main tank-booster rocket)	2 (plus the actual shuttle)
Crew	2-10	2-11 (mostly used 7)
Volume of crew compartment	73 m3	66 m3
Orbital maneuvering engine thrust	17600 kgf	5440 kgf

1. Buran - www.buran.su
2. Space Shuttle - www.nasa.org

More space articles, click here

Nightly Poem #6 - Change

Weaknesses will win if we won't start
to clear our veins of vices.
Darkness will triumph if we don't love
to burn the veil before our eyes
and all there is will fall pray to mice
if we don't choose to be wise