Another Zamenhof photo

This photo also showed up on July 26. I surmise that the photo that appeared in the Belfast Telegraph — OAP marks Esperanto 124th birthday —is a cropped version of the photo above.

Esperanto's 124th birthday

July 26 was Esperanto's 124th birthday, which made some news in the anglophone press.

This striking photo, which I don't believe I've seen before, comes from the Northern Ireland press:

OAP marks Esperanto 124th birthday
Belfast Telegraph

Pensioner John Murray expresses his enthusiasm for the language.

You can also listen to a broadcast from the BBC:

BBC News - Today - Esperanto 'more than a good idea'

(audio)

'Former home secretary David Blunkett and Bill Chapman, a member of the Esperanto Association, discuss whether Esperanto is a "genuinely useful" language.'

First Universal Races Congress, London, July 26-29, 1911

La 26a de julio estas la 124a datreveno de la "naskiĝo" de Esperanto. Ĝi ankaŭ estas la 100a datreveno de la Unua (kaj lasta) Universala Kongreso pri Rasoj, al kiu Zamenhof kontribuis. Mi ne sukcesis interesi iun ajn pri ĉi tiu datreveno. Krom mi nur kelkaj bahaanoj agnoskis ĝin. Sed jen mia kontribuo, krom ĉi-bloge:

First Universal Races Congress, London, July 26-29, 1911: Selected Bibliography

Kaj jen la kontribuo de Zamenhof:

• “International Language” (Universal Races Congress, 1911) by L. L. Zamenhof (traduko de la suba eseo)
• Gentoj kaj Lingvo Internacia (1911) de L. L. Zamenhof (notu anglalingvan version tuj supre)

Bizarro Lit / Strangega Literaturo

" . . a chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella!"

— Lautréamont

Here is a literary genre I did not know existed, Bizarro Lit, as reported by Cracked.com. (I presume this web site has its origins in Cracked Magazine, a lesser-known competitor to Mad Magazine in my childhood.) Here we see perverse hybrids of other pulp genres.

This itself is hardly surprising. I cannot fix offhand when explicitly combinatorial or self-conscious genre-bending came into existence, but one can trace this tendency as least as far back as the last third of the 19th century. Consider various movements and genres over the past century and more— 'pataphysics, surrealism, Oulipo, alternate history,  steampunk . . . All are outgrowths of certain time periods and social circumstances. Individual authors such as Hermann Hesse and Jorges Luis Borges also come to mind. I think also of Richard Brautigan's genre experiments in the 1970s.

Yet, it seems to me that, for those not entirely immersed in popular culture and its attendant historical amnesia, we live in a markedly retrospective time, returning to and reexamining the past, especially of the 20th and late 19th centuries. We live in a combinatorially self-conscious period. I suppose this is usually termed postmodernism. But whatever you call it, there is a looking backward and a self-conscious comparison with the different presuppositions and norms of the present. I'm guessing this is where steampunk came from. I'm also guessing that the appearance of Esperanto and Volapük in historical and alternate history novels at this time is no accident; this also reflects our self-conscious exploration of the social/cultural past. (I know an English professor and Esperantist who agrees with me on this.)

What we cannot know, if there is to be any future at all, what to look forward to that is qualitatively new. But then, we're in a situation at least partly described by Hegel:

". . . the Owl of Minerva takes flight only as the dusk begins to fall."

Diary of Dang Thuy Tram published in Esperanto

War doctor’s diary published in Esperanto, VOV, 2011.07.14

"A press conference to introduce the Esperanto version of The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram was held by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) and the Vietnam Esperanto Association (VEA) in Hanoi on July 14."

70-a Hispana Kongreso de Esperanto: Debato Corsetti-Camacho, ktp.

Jen Debato Corsetti-Camacho en 70-a Hispana Kongreso de Esperanto:

Watch live streaming video from 70ahispanakongresodeesperanto at livestream.com

Oni debatas finvenkismon, neologismojn, ktp. La afero ne estas tre interesa, sed Camacho esras pli atentinda ol la absurdulo Corsetti.

Samreteje vi trovos aliajn videojn el tiu kongreso.

Zamenhof-Simpozio at UNo, George Soros, & mi (11)

Jen ĉe YouTube video de la Zamenhof-Simpozio ĉe UNo, la 15an de decembro 2010. Komence vi vidos plej proksime al vi ankaŭ la dorson de mia kapo. George Soros rakontas pri sia patro Tivadar (Teodoro Ŝvarc).