EWA A. ŁUKASZYK
  • Home
  • THEORY
  • EXPERIMENTS
    • POETICS OF THE VOID
    • NON-CULTURAL MORPHOGENESIS
    • INTIMATE MICROSPHERES
    • EROTICISM OF TRACE
    • DESERT
    • PINWHEELS
    • SYMBOLIC MATRIX
  • RESEARCH & PROJECTS
    • CULTURAL THEORY
    • WRITINGS ON ART
    • PLANT & ANIMAL STUDIES
    • COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL LITERARY STUDIES
    • TRANSCOLONIAL & TRANSINDIGENOUS STUDIES
    • TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
    • TRAVEL LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
    • MARITIME HUMANITIES
    • ISLAMIC STUDIES
    • CLASSICAL ARAB LITERATURE
    • ROMANCE MEDIEVAL & EARLY MODERN STUDIES
    • MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
    • MAGHREBIAN STUDIES
    • EURO-MEDITERRANEAN LITERATURE
    • FRENCH & EUROPEAN FRANCOPHONE LITERATURES
    • PORTUGUESE STUDIES
    • LUSOPHONE AFRICAN STUDIES
    • LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
    • VARIA & OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
    • Void in the making (RESEARCH BLOG)
  • TRAVELS & LITERATURE
    • ARCTIC & SCANDINAVIA >
      • GREENLAND
      • ICELAND
      • NORWAY
      • SWEDEN
      • FINLAND
      • DENMARK
    • EASTERN EUROPE >
      • ESTONIA
      • LATVIA
      • LITHUANIA
      • RUSSIA
      • BELARUS
      • UKRAINE
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • SLOVAKIA
      • HUNGARY
      • ROMANIA
      • MOLDOVA
      • POLAND
      • Forty Years of Travel in Poland
    • WESTERN EUROPE >
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • FRANCE
      • GERMANY
      • GREAT BRITAIN
      • SCOTLAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • VENICE
      • NETHERLANDS
      • SWITZERLAND
    • IBERIA & ATLANTIC ISLANDS >
      • PORTUGAL
      • SPAIN
      • CATALONIA
      • CANARY ISLANDS
      • CAPE VERDE
    • THE MEDITERRANEAN >
      • SICILY
      • MALTA
      • CYPRUS
    • THE BALKANS >
      • GREECE
      • SLOVENIA
      • ALBANIA
      • BULGARIA
      • NORTH MACEDONIA
      • SERBIA
      • CROATIA
      • MONTENEGRO
      • BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
    • CAUCASUS >
      • GEORGIA
      • ARMENIA
      • AZERBAIJAN
      • CHECHNYA
      • DAGESTAN
      • A Ride across the Caucasus
    • MIDDLE EAST >
      • EGYPT
      • TURKEY
      • CAPPADOCIA
      • LEBANON
      • ISRAEL
      • PALESTINE
      • SYRIA
      • IRAQ
      • KUWAIT
      • JORDAN
      • SAUDI ARABIA
      • QATAR
      • UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
      • BAHRAIN
      • OMAN
      • YEMEN
    • MAGHREB & SAHEL >
      • AL-ANDALUS
      • MOROCCO
      • TUNISIA
      • ALGERIA
      • LIBYA
      • SAHRAWI REPUBLIC
      • THE FULANI WORLD
      • MAURITANIA
      • MALI
      • BURKINA FASO
      • NIGER
      • CHAD
      • SUDAN
    • WEST AFRICA >
      • SENEGAL
      • GAMBIA
      • GUINEA-BISSAU
      • GUINEA
      • CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • IVORY COAST
      • GHANA
      • TOGO
      • BENIN
      • NIGERIA
      • SAO TOME & PRINCIPE
      • CAMEROON
      • EQUATORIAL GUINEA
      • GABON
      • CONGO
    • EAST AFRICA >
      • ETHIOPIA
      • SOMALIA
      • ERITREA
      • DJIBOUTI
      • KENYA
      • UGANDA
      • RWANDA
      • BURUNDI
      • TANZANIA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • MALDIVES
    • THE SOUTH OF AFRICA >
      • MALAWI
      • ANGOLA
      • ZAMBIA
      • COMOROS
      • MADAGASCAR
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • SWAZILAND
      • ZIMBABWE
      • NAMIBIA
      • BOTSWANA
      • SOUTH AFRICA
    • NORTH ASIA >
      • YAKUTIA
      • BURYATIA
      • JAPAN
      • KOREA
      • CHINA
      • TIBET
      • MONGOLIA
      • KAZAKHSTAN
    • IRAN & CENTRAL ASIA >
      • IRAN
      • AFGHANISTAN
      • PAKISTAN
      • UZBEKISTAN
      • TAJIKISTAN
      • KYRGYZSTAN
      • TURKMENISTAN
    • SOUTH EAST ASIA >
      • LAOS
      • VIETNAM
      • CAMBODIA
      • MYANMAR
      • THAILAND
      • MALAYSIA
      • SINGAPORE
      • BRUNEI
      • INDONESIA
      • TIMOR
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • PHILIPPINES
    • THE INDIAN WORLD >
      • INDIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BALI
      • SRI LANKA
      • MAURITIUS
      • NEPAL
      • BHUTAN
    • NORTH AMERICA >
      • CANADA
      • UNITED STATES
    • MESOAMERICA & CARIBBEAN >
      • MEXICO
      • GUATEMALA
      • BELIZE
      • EL SALVADOR
      • HONDURAS
      • NICARAGUA
      • COSTA RICA
      • CUBA
      • HAITI
      • JAMAICA
      • PANAMA
    • SOUTH AMERICA >
      • BRAZIL
      • COLOMBIA
      • VENEZUELA
      • TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
      • GUYANA
      • SURINAME
      • ECUADOR
      • PERU
      • BOLIVIA
      • URUGUAY
      • PARAGUAY
      • ARGENTINA
      • CHILE
    • AUSTRALIA & OCEANIA >
      • AUSTRALIA
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • TAHITI
      • SAMOA
      • MARSHALL ISLANDS
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • FIJI
      • TONGA
      • VANUATU
      • KIRIBATI
      • PALAU
    • ANTARCTICA >
      • EXPLORATION
  • AUTOBIOGRAPHICA & MARGINALIA
    • The Four Riders
    • The Flight of the Crimson Angel
    • Becoming undead
    • Transition
    • LIFESTYLE
    • ON LANGUAGES
    • FALCONRY
    • NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY >
      • PLANTS >
        • BOTANIC GARDENS
        • FORESTS
      • BUTTERFLIES
      • AMPHIBIANS & REPTILES
      • BIRDS
      • MAMMALS
      • WATER & AQUATIC LIFE
      • EARTH
      • LIGHT
    • GARDEN & DESERT. Erotic Journal
  • News & Events
  • TEXTS
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN ENGLISH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN FRENCH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN PORTUGUESE & SPANISH
  • ABOUT
  • Contact

GARDEN & DESERT
​
Erotic Journal

Gammel, or the Emotions of the Shadow

25/9/2016

0 Comments

 
I've been watching Tribal Wives in the evenings, this BBC series in which English women feeling that "something is missing" are sent to spend a month among any kind of tribal people, in Gabon or elsewhere. And as they departed with a problem, after a month they return without it.
It's nearly a month I'm here.

Gammel is the Dutch, or Danish, or generally Germanic word that I've been using to name my problem. It could be substituted by the simple word "shabby" in English, but I find "gammel" more expressive, more adapted to the essence of my problem. I've made a test, by the way. It says I know around 37 000 English words, more than an average native speaker. It might be true, I presume. My problems with English are mostly bad habits, missing articles, hesitation in tenses, double negations... Curiously, I'm perfect in Portuguese now, as I came after a big break in using this language. My pronunciation irritates me by its total immersion. I speak with hysterical, high-pitched intonation of a real Portuguese freguesa.
Portugal irritates me, because everything is gammel. The seats in the metro are so dirty that I expressly look for a recently substituted ones to dare to sit down. I believe it's organic, it's a kind of microscopic black mildew growing everywhere, on the walls, in all the nooks and crannies. There is heat and sufficient humidity. I always bring old clothes to Portugal, the ones I don't use any more. They serve my total immersion here. 
But I write about all these things, because I discover they belong to what Jung would call my Shadow. The gammel things around me irritate me, because they secretly correspond to the gammel inside me. And as the month passes by, as I go on doing all the hard work of a tribal wife, the gammel inside me goes cracking. Like an English woman in Gabon, I can see and experience how much gammel man can stand. And I grow up to a great liberation.
Perhaps when I come back, I will manage to get rid of my gammel things. Not only shabby clothes, they are falling down of me like autumn leaves at each of my travels (one thing is incredible: how on earth I still do possess such a vast assortment of shabby clothes at home?! sometimes I doubt they make sex and multiply when I'm not looking). But also shabby books, shabby ideas. I've many old Portuguese books at home, filling all nooks and crannies like black lichen. Old books that were old already in my time, the ones I used to buy for 100 escudos from a street book pedlar. I used to gather anything Portuguese, and I thought that what I was doing was specialising. All these gammel papers form a bulk that weights heavily upon my intellectual destiny. This is the hidden reason why I projected to make this history of the Portuguese literature, to have an excuse to dig through all this and hopefully, to get rid.
I wish I had a library at home, a collection, with nothing but valuable things, good books and good ideas. I wish I had this collection reflecting me, and I wish I got rid of the gammel in my intellectual world. I wish I could unlearn the gammel I ingested in all these years. And believe me, to get rid is more difficult than to accumulate. My art is like sculpture in marble, essentially it consists in getting rid. 


***

I've been to my Portuguese bank this morning, to ask why I still didn't receive the debit card I'd requested. They told me the cards are late, because they run short of the plastic to make them.
Now I'm in the library, reading African books about man-eating lions, and I can't stop laughing. Among all gammel things man may run short of, the plastic to make banking cards is certainly the least essential. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    blog archives

    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • THEORY
  • EXPERIMENTS
    • POETICS OF THE VOID
    • NON-CULTURAL MORPHOGENESIS
    • INTIMATE MICROSPHERES
    • EROTICISM OF TRACE
    • DESERT
    • PINWHEELS
    • SYMBOLIC MATRIX
  • RESEARCH & PROJECTS
    • CULTURAL THEORY
    • WRITINGS ON ART
    • PLANT & ANIMAL STUDIES
    • COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL LITERARY STUDIES
    • TRANSCOLONIAL & TRANSINDIGENOUS STUDIES
    • TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
    • TRAVEL LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
    • MARITIME HUMANITIES
    • ISLAMIC STUDIES
    • CLASSICAL ARAB LITERATURE
    • ROMANCE MEDIEVAL & EARLY MODERN STUDIES
    • MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
    • MAGHREBIAN STUDIES
    • EURO-MEDITERRANEAN LITERATURE
    • FRENCH & EUROPEAN FRANCOPHONE LITERATURES
    • PORTUGUESE STUDIES
    • LUSOPHONE AFRICAN STUDIES
    • LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
    • VARIA & OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
    • Void in the making (RESEARCH BLOG)
  • TRAVELS & LITERATURE
    • ARCTIC & SCANDINAVIA >
      • GREENLAND
      • ICELAND
      • NORWAY
      • SWEDEN
      • FINLAND
      • DENMARK
    • EASTERN EUROPE >
      • ESTONIA
      • LATVIA
      • LITHUANIA
      • RUSSIA
      • BELARUS
      • UKRAINE
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • SLOVAKIA
      • HUNGARY
      • ROMANIA
      • MOLDOVA
      • POLAND
      • Forty Years of Travel in Poland
    • WESTERN EUROPE >
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • FRANCE
      • GERMANY
      • GREAT BRITAIN
      • SCOTLAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • VENICE
      • NETHERLANDS
      • SWITZERLAND
    • IBERIA & ATLANTIC ISLANDS >
      • PORTUGAL
      • SPAIN
      • CATALONIA
      • CANARY ISLANDS
      • CAPE VERDE
    • THE MEDITERRANEAN >
      • SICILY
      • MALTA
      • CYPRUS
    • THE BALKANS >
      • GREECE
      • SLOVENIA
      • ALBANIA
      • BULGARIA
      • NORTH MACEDONIA
      • SERBIA
      • CROATIA
      • MONTENEGRO
      • BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
    • CAUCASUS >
      • GEORGIA
      • ARMENIA
      • AZERBAIJAN
      • CHECHNYA
      • DAGESTAN
      • A Ride across the Caucasus
    • MIDDLE EAST >
      • EGYPT
      • TURKEY
      • CAPPADOCIA
      • LEBANON
      • ISRAEL
      • PALESTINE
      • SYRIA
      • IRAQ
      • KUWAIT
      • JORDAN
      • SAUDI ARABIA
      • QATAR
      • UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
      • BAHRAIN
      • OMAN
      • YEMEN
    • MAGHREB & SAHEL >
      • AL-ANDALUS
      • MOROCCO
      • TUNISIA
      • ALGERIA
      • LIBYA
      • SAHRAWI REPUBLIC
      • THE FULANI WORLD
      • MAURITANIA
      • MALI
      • BURKINA FASO
      • NIGER
      • CHAD
      • SUDAN
    • WEST AFRICA >
      • SENEGAL
      • GAMBIA
      • GUINEA-BISSAU
      • GUINEA
      • CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • IVORY COAST
      • GHANA
      • TOGO
      • BENIN
      • NIGERIA
      • SAO TOME & PRINCIPE
      • CAMEROON
      • EQUATORIAL GUINEA
      • GABON
      • CONGO
    • EAST AFRICA >
      • ETHIOPIA
      • SOMALIA
      • ERITREA
      • DJIBOUTI
      • KENYA
      • UGANDA
      • RWANDA
      • BURUNDI
      • TANZANIA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • MALDIVES
    • THE SOUTH OF AFRICA >
      • MALAWI
      • ANGOLA
      • ZAMBIA
      • COMOROS
      • MADAGASCAR
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • SWAZILAND
      • ZIMBABWE
      • NAMIBIA
      • BOTSWANA
      • SOUTH AFRICA
    • NORTH ASIA >
      • YAKUTIA
      • BURYATIA
      • JAPAN
      • KOREA
      • CHINA
      • TIBET
      • MONGOLIA
      • KAZAKHSTAN
    • IRAN & CENTRAL ASIA >
      • IRAN
      • AFGHANISTAN
      • PAKISTAN
      • UZBEKISTAN
      • TAJIKISTAN
      • KYRGYZSTAN
      • TURKMENISTAN
    • SOUTH EAST ASIA >
      • LAOS
      • VIETNAM
      • CAMBODIA
      • MYANMAR
      • THAILAND
      • MALAYSIA
      • SINGAPORE
      • BRUNEI
      • INDONESIA
      • TIMOR
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • PHILIPPINES
    • THE INDIAN WORLD >
      • INDIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BALI
      • SRI LANKA
      • MAURITIUS
      • NEPAL
      • BHUTAN
    • NORTH AMERICA >
      • CANADA
      • UNITED STATES
    • MESOAMERICA & CARIBBEAN >
      • MEXICO
      • GUATEMALA
      • BELIZE
      • EL SALVADOR
      • HONDURAS
      • NICARAGUA
      • COSTA RICA
      • CUBA
      • HAITI
      • JAMAICA
      • PANAMA
    • SOUTH AMERICA >
      • BRAZIL
      • COLOMBIA
      • VENEZUELA
      • TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
      • GUYANA
      • SURINAME
      • ECUADOR
      • PERU
      • BOLIVIA
      • URUGUAY
      • PARAGUAY
      • ARGENTINA
      • CHILE
    • AUSTRALIA & OCEANIA >
      • AUSTRALIA
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • TAHITI
      • SAMOA
      • MARSHALL ISLANDS
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • FIJI
      • TONGA
      • VANUATU
      • KIRIBATI
      • PALAU
    • ANTARCTICA >
      • EXPLORATION
  • AUTOBIOGRAPHICA & MARGINALIA
    • The Four Riders
    • The Flight of the Crimson Angel
    • Becoming undead
    • Transition
    • LIFESTYLE
    • ON LANGUAGES
    • FALCONRY
    • NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY >
      • PLANTS >
        • BOTANIC GARDENS
        • FORESTS
      • BUTTERFLIES
      • AMPHIBIANS & REPTILES
      • BIRDS
      • MAMMALS
      • WATER & AQUATIC LIFE
      • EARTH
      • LIGHT
    • GARDEN & DESERT. Erotic Journal
  • News & Events
  • TEXTS
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN ENGLISH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN FRENCH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN PORTUGUESE & SPANISH
  • ABOUT
  • Contact