The big scene

Imagine if lightning came down
from heaven and struck away
all your obstacles!
If you were the favored one,
And all your soliloquies mattered.
I know the things I imagine hold me like manacles.
Between the flash and the thunder, your world shatters.
Twin towers fall and the ground becomes level.
Mean streets average the distance between you and others.
Every day fills with breaths you might not have taken.
Can you imagine that,
never having died?
Or remembered birth?

Both what doom decreed and rebirth redeemed,
Are one thing in creation's perfect scene.

Discovery Channel :: News :: Fossils Fill Human Evolution Gap

April 13, 2006— Four-million-year-old remains in Ethiopia have provided the first hard proof of a link between two key stages of human evolution by bridging the gap between prehuman species, paleontologists said Wednesday.

"For the first time, we found fossils that allow us to connect the first phase of human evolution and the second phase," Berhane Asfaw, anthropologist and co-research director of the project that found the remains, told a news conference Wednesday in Addis Ababa.

"The fossils represent unambiguous evidence for human evolution," he said.

The remains of eight individuals found in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia belonged to the species Australopithecus anamensis, part of the Australopithecus genus thought to be a direct ancestor to humans, according to a report in Nature.

"The fossils are anatomically intermediate between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and the later species Australopithecus afarensis," he said.

The Wasteland -- T.S. Eliot

The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the ban

Kobo Buto - Butoh: dance of darkness

"Literally: stamping dance."

Surprising article about this modern / timeless Japanese theater form.