Late Night Post #14

Blue Oyster Cult - Les Invisibles (Imaginos : 1988)

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. / The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars / Did wander darkling in the eternal space, / Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth / Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;. This is how Lord Byron started one of his poems entitled "Darkness".

Countless changes that sometimes might make you feel like swinging blind in the cold emptiness of space, like a pendulum, eating time. The past year was a period of expansion and unforeseen developments. Now we will consolidate and nourish what we fought to achieve.

Charlie Hebdo

Before the incident, I must confess, I had no idea about this Charlie Hebdo and surely would have remained ignorant in this regard for years to come. As for most all over the world, I too became a victim of mass-media's machine gun approach towards the event. Stories upon stories with interviews and documentaries about this and that, trying to make martyrs of the victims, martyrs of freedom of expression.

The truth is far more different than that. Charlie Hebdo is not a symbol of freedom but a statement of the blind. The blinded hearts and minds who seem to gain louder voices as time passes. This age is surely one of intolerance and injustice but when you see the distorted views that abound on the Internet and in the media, who can not wonder where is it all heading. What this publication stands for reminds me of similar ones from the inter-war period.

I also condemn the killings, they do no justice to Islam or any other religion. One can not attack ignorance with ignorance, we must exercise our patience and have faith in God for only he knows the true purpose of things. All those who act out of pride and hate will find their downfall in them.

From the Past: Moscow Metro

In July 1931 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR voted for the construction of a metropolitan underground rail system in the soviet capital. This project was overseen by Lazar Kaganovici and because of this fact the underground system was named after him till 1955. Apart from its utilitarian purpose as a means of transportation and as a system of defense, the project was also designed to show a powerful and elegant face of the country to its citizens but also to be a statement for the West. On January 1932 the plan of the first lines was approved. The first 11.6 km route was from Sokolniki to Krymskaya Square branching from Okhotny Ryad to Smolenskaya Square.

[ to be continued ]

Sokolniki station

Late-1930s. Garden Ring, tramlines near Metro station "Smolenskaya" on the Smolensk Squar

Komsomolskaya metro station, Moscow
Designed by DN Chechulin & AF Tarkhov
1935 / Photo © МУАР