Bird on a fence by Dario Dzamonja.

The title of this book was translated by me. I couldn't find on the Internet the exact short story compilation by Dzamonja. However, there is a collection called "Letters from the Madhouse", and perhaps it includes the same short stories.

The Spanish edition is called "Pájaro en el alambre", which literally means "bird on a wire". However, in the Spanish context, the term "alambre" also refers to a fence. And, since the short stories are based on Yugoslavian wars, I thought that the translation and interpretation I did were more correct.

What can I say about Dario Dzamonja? Sorrowfully, he died young; aged 46 in 2001 after finishing the Yugoslavian wars. He left as a legacy several memorable manuscripts, and his friends collected them.

His own biographical note in the 2001 edition (Post-mortem) of Letters from the Madhouse simply said: "My name is Dario Džamonja. I was born in Sarajevo in 1955. I died in Sarajevo in 1993 when I left it. I died again in 1998 when I left America and my children. Now I'm trying to live again in Sarajevo from my writing."

Enjoy.

Indeed, it takes time to get around to reading them. The issue (though I hesitate to call it an "issue") arises when you discover a new style of literature that deeply captivates you. I planned to read many Russian writers this year, and the result has been good but far away from what I expected. I discovered authors from Eastern European countries whose books captivated me to the point of becoming very fond of them.

Yes, and I want to keep it in a category which is not hidden from the main page. — Jamal

Wonderful! What a great idea! :up:

@Jamal

Perhaps this question may be obvious – will the "Currently Reading" thread also be part of the new TPF version on Discourse.org?

It helps me a lot to remember what I read during the year. Furthermore, thanks for your comments and recommendations; I discovered good and intriguing authors.

:wink:

@T Clark

Hey Clarky, I come with a 1950s American film recommendation this time. Perhaps you have already watched it or heard of this film.

It is called Edge of the City. It was directed in 1957, starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier.

I really love black-and-white films. This was very good.

I searched more info on Google and it says that In 2023, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."

Does this count as a classic?

I think yes! :grin:

In other words, if we do our best to be above board, we'll be fine in the UK. — Hanover

:up: :up:
.

Rather than an argument against forming a UK company, this seems to be an argument against existing at all. — Jamal

:up: :up:

A UK limited company is very simple. In contrast, a non-profit or charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) or similar would mean a lot of bureaucracy, at least in the UK. — Jamal

As it has to be. You clearly stated that you want to set up the new version of TPF according to a legal framework. This limited company will be run in the UK, according to British law. I don't see any problem with this. Wondering whether someone would sue me or not for "consumer, financial or legitimate damages" is a bit twisted.

I think some folks are obsessed with the stateless oasis they wish to live in...You do very well to start the company in British territory since you are a UK citizen. It is logical and understandable. It gives me confidence. Setting it up in a tax haven like the Netherlands or Belice would be odder, I think.

UK is restricting free speech pretty severely and those existing and any new restrictions will automatically apply to the forum. — boethius

However, if there's commitment to that, then 100% the only reasonable implementation is that Benkei takes care of the administration aspects. Small errors in paperwork can lead to audits and fines and endless bureaucracy. Just filing the taxes properly will likely cost more than this 100 Euros a month. — boethius

Oh no!!!! @Benkei stop being missing and help him, please!!!

It is a life or death risk.

He was banned — probably for low post quality — but then he created a new account, so we banned him again, but then he created a new account, so we banned him again, ... — Michael

Marco expressed a lot of affection for TPF, but you repeatedly banned him and treated him as a twat. :sad:

The Festival of Insignificance by Milan Kundera.

Seriously, I think we gave banned members a second chance when we moved in 2015, and one or two members were reincarnated. — Jamal

Interesting! @Agent Smith and @karl stone may have a second chance. :smile:

Will all the previously banned members get a second chance? Lol — Mikie

I too was thinking of this yesterday. I wonder whether they would dare to sign up on the new platform.

They must be aware that TPF moved to new software to do it, though.

It was the only place anywhere where Tegmark responded directly to me. Yes, he briefly utilized an account on PF. — noAxioms

I understand how you feel. Forums are very important places in our modern era. We meet wonderful here, and we spend a lot of hours. Thanks to different tools, which I can't explain because I am not very expert, our presence here is recorded and kept in a digital book. We go to the past chapters where we interacted with friends, and we experience a sweet feeling of nostalgia.

I completely understand that each of us feared seeing everything fading away. Fortunately, this will not be the case thanks to Jamal's effort and compromise. Otherwise, if we don't keep all TPF's data in an archive, it might mean that we have never been here—when the countless experiences and conversations we all had here are amazing!

Now that I am thinking of this... The TPF archive will be like our Antikythera mechanism.

(you can get them all in a single file in the download). — Jamal

Yes, yes. I also saw it--very nice!

Wow! This is fascinating. I typed my username, and every post since I joined here it is perfectly ordered from the newest to the oldest. I can follow my TPF track very easily!

It was written in 1977, but it is very worth reading nowadays:

Toward a Creative and Original Spain.

Everything is changing, rapidly and rather smoothly; almost everything has already changed; but there has been no discontinuity or power vacuum or revolution or anarchy.

The Franco years seem incredibly distant; almost everything that seemed impossible has already taken place.

Is this not a political miracle? Has Spain changed that much? Or were the ideas one held about her mistaken? What has happened since November 1975? I would say just one thing: There has been a beginning of a respect for reality. — Julián Marías.

Even if they're on old-fashioned software I think we should celebrate the continuing existence of independent discussion forums. Not everyone wants to discuss everything on Reddit. — Jamal

Absolutely--I dislike Reddit, by the way.

To be fair—and because I'm reflexively argumentative—dull isn't necessarily bad for a forum, What matters more to me is how smoothly everything works — Jamal

I now understand why phpBB is the main software used for the forums in my country. :razz:

Incidentally, I tried NodeBB for a couple of weeks and XenForo for a couple of days, and some other more Enterprisey things like circle.so . I was almost ready to go with NodeBB but then I tried Discourse again and the experience was substantially better than NodeBB. — Jamal

Opera browser has a forum and it is set up on NodeBB. I had a look at it because I wanted to solve some doubts. I'm glad you chose Discourse because NodeBB is a bit plain dull.

Fear not. I will pretty much be with you till death do us part. Or, until something else happens, — BC

I didn't expect otherwise, dear friend. We are going to talk a lot about Spain's mussels in the next home/chapter of TPF. I promise!

I expect you in the new home of TPF with no excuses. Don't leave me (us), BC.

Yep, no paging, either in chat or in regular discussions. But there are other ways of navigating within a discussion, and you can easily search within it too (for chat as well): — Jamal

Cool! :cool:

Here are some screenshots of the Shoutbox, one expanded and one floating in the bottom right corner. — Jamal

OK – it will have a different aspect, but I do not see any problem at all. It seems we will be able to interact as we used to do, and the dark mode is very refreshing. The current light mode strains my eyes when I use it at night.

Perhaps—another different feature I am thinking of—each thread would not be ordered with pages, as in PlushForums, but just a single page where all the comments and replies are posted. Then, if I wanted to reread a response from you, I would have to scroll until I found it; not go to page 261 as we do here.

As you can see, it's pretty lonely there at the moment. — Jamal

There are three Jamals. That's enough. :grin:

The Shoutbox used to be live chat and we had to make it a regular discussion thread when we moved to Plush only because Plush has no live chat feature. — Jamal

et @Outlander

It is a great discovery to know how the shoutbox was born. :up:

I think it is one of the most relevant threads, and that most of us are fond of it because this is where we grow our online friendship. I understand Outlander's concerns, but we have to trust Jamal, and if he states that the shoutbox will still be the same but with a live chat function, then that is what will truly happen. However, if for different reasons, we are not satisfied, we can always ask Jamal to set it up in a different manner until it fits our preferences. I think we will have to be patient. The first months will be about getting used to the new platform. Yet it is very important to admit that some things will indeed be different because we are moving from PlushForums to another software. Like when we move to another neighbourhood.

Keep in mind one important thing—we are actually the ones who make the things. Whether the next version of the shoutbox is funny and entertaining is dependent on us, nothing else.

Metempsychosis? — Banno

Yeah.

True. You were also in the old PF, so the transmigration is not something new to you, Banno. :wink:

Incidentally, aside from the number of posts we will have other things like badges, trust levels, and upvotes, though I'm not sure how we'll use them yet. — Jamal

Interesting!

I wonder what some folk are going to think about having their post count reset to 0 — Outlander

If I am not mistaken, I believe Discourse doesn't count the contribution of each member with the post number. However, everything will depend on how it is set up, I guess.

For legal compliance and technical reasons, we will not be migrating the content from this site (the current one). Instead, we will start fresh, and the current site will become a permanent, read-only archive, which I will host myself. — Jamal

Understood. I appreciate that you will keep the site as a read-only archive. There are many memories here, and it would be a pity to lose them forever.

We will be using Discourse — Jamal

I guess we have to wait until you set up the new TPF to create our profiles in this new software, right?

This upgrade represents a substantial investment in the forum's future. Running costs will be $100/month for Discourse hosting, in addition to the costs of setting up and running a company. Because of this, we'll need more subscribers to keep things going. — Jamal

I'm in. I hereby agree to the costs, investment and other features to keep things going.

Stay tuned for further updates. — Jamal

:up:

Greek Rebetiko.

To me, eudemonia is very much objective. — javra

:up:

I misunderstood you for a moment. My bad.

I was referring to @javra's post. But now I understand that eudaimonia is objective. :up:

------

There is a mixture of concepts in my mind right now. I started talking about pleasure, and now eudaimonia has shown up. It caught me by surprise. :lol:

:up:

Yes, indeed. Happiness/unhappiness may also be related to pleasure. It is another good approach. However, I think this is a clear example of subjectivity. Eudemonia is dependent on how/what we feel. As you stated, eudaimonia is hardly objective.

But how is that possible? I thought Epicurus only conceived pleasure as good, so perhaps he never thought of bad pleasures at all.

The links I shared are nice to read. Kelley Ross says:

From the eponymous Greek Hedonists, the doctrine was continued by Epicurus and survives in the significant modern school of Utilitarianism, with agreement that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. — Kelley Ross.

Thanks for your reply and contribution, javra. It is a complex topic, indeed.

Perhaps you are right in approaching this topic from an ethical perspective. I wasn't seeing pleasure or unpleasantness as related to ethical/unethical actions. Rather, I thought it was more focused on aesthetics, but it is obvious that this philosophical matter cannot be understood by only my own perspective, I guess. The problem is that the question asked by Plato is ambiguous, and it is open to many different interpretations. He just stated: Or are not they in like manner compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures?

In the first glimpse, Plato simply refuted the position of some Epicurean and other philosophers that pleasure is the good and only the good. I already understood, thanks to your explanation and MU and hypercin, that pleasure is subjective. Thus, pain, good, bad, ethical, unethical, etc., are dependent on the subjectiveness of the perceiver. However, this can be tricky, as you also noted in your examples above. Smoking, raping, and murdering are objectively bad, in my humble opinion. Yet there are people out there who see smoking and murdering as pleasant. Then, what is happening here? Isn't it possible to abstract the notions of good and bad at all?

On the other hand, it is important to keep in mind that Plato's point is located in his work The Republic. Therefore, it is likely that his ideas focus on ethics (as you mentioned), and the bad pleasures may refer to those associated with unethical actions or those that negatively impact the majority of people rather than contributing to the common good.

I agree with you, hypericin.

Sorry for my wording. It is true that I don't tend to express myself clearly. Of course you did a wonderful job trying to answer my questions. I appreciate your contribution to my thread, mate. :pray:

Let me clarify what I believe that Plato did. He did not argue that pleasure is unrelated to pain, some pleasures very much seem to be related to pains. But I think he demonstrated that since pleasures come in different types, if there is a type which is not related to pain, that type could be related to good. What I believe he explicitly argued was that as long as we understand pleasure as the opposite of pain, then it is impossible that pleasure can be equated with good. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting. What surprises me the most is that just one phrase of Plato in his book caused an intriguing discussion here. It is astonishing what Plato contributed to philosophy.

I can't disagree with you, and I think we have a common agreement that Plato argued that pleasure came from different ways. It is important to highlight this: are they not in like manner compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures?

I don't know if bad pleasure is related to pain. Perhaps it is, as you explained to me with the above reasons. However, in that quote, Plato clearly refutes the idea that pleasure has a natural significance as the "good," a view held by most utilitarians and other philosophers. I believe that Plato wanted to argue that sometimes a pleasure can be bad too, but it is upon us how we distinguish when a pleasure is good from when it is bad.

Perhaps, the point seems to be what the meanings of 'good', 'bad', 'pain', etc. are when we experience pleasure. Without any doubt, it is a subjective experience. But as I said to @hypericin, such experiences can conflict with other aspects: If I dislike opera and I feel this is insufferable, does this mean that music is bad (or even painful) in my context?

Pleasure and pain are definitely subjective because when I feel pleasure or pain you do not necessarily feel what I feel. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, absolutely.

There may be a type of pleasure though, which when a person feels it, it is subjective, felt only by that person, but it is good for everyone. Then that good could be objective. This, I believe is the pleasure we get from being morally good. Like the pleasure from being a philanthropist for example, the specific pleasure is felt only by that person, and is subjective, but the good is related to all. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is well-noted the examples of objective good, but what about objective bad? This is the issue. Remember that Plato scolded us for not admitting that there are bad pleasures too. :razz:

Not necessarily. Opera is not itself pleasure, it is something that brings pleasure to you. If it is insufferable to me, it brings me no pleasure. The stimulus is not the response. Different stimuli may be needed to bring about the same pleasurable response in each of us. — hypericin

Therefore, you agree with the points of Epicurus and other philosophers who stated that pleasure is subjective. Since something (like opera, for instance) may be considered pleasure/non-pleasure at the same time by different perceivers, then music is dependent upon subjectiveness. The complexity is in the concepts. Plato doesn't use 'insufferable' or 'non-pleasant'. He states that pleasure could be good or bad, and each of us should know where we are in one or the other. But here we find another issue: if opera is insufferable to you. Does this mean that opera (or music) is bad?

And furthermore, are there insufferable experiences which are good? An appointment with the dentist, perhaps?

And so pleasure is an objective feature of the biology of everything with a mind. — hypericin

What do you mean by this? That pleasure is objectively existent from a biological perspective? It is intriguing. I can't disagree with this, but the debate arises when we distinguish between bad and good pleasures. Don't you think?

Pleasure is definitely related to aesthetics. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wanted to express this, but I wasn't very clear, I guess. :wink:

The question is how these two are related to ethics. The two extremes would be, one, that they are completely separate and unrelated, and the other that ethics is completely determined by pleasure and aesthetics. I would think that reality is somewhere in between. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is true that it is better to choose the most eclectic choice and put pleasure between ethics and aesthetics. Perhaps the key to this distinction is more related to what we understand as "good" rather than how we experience pleasure. On this point, Plato (if I am not wrong) argued that everyone has to when he is doing good when something is good. I mean, it is subjective. There is not an objective approach to pleasure, apparently.

Smoking is an immediate pleasure, but reason informs us that it conflicts with the long term, less immediate desires. Since the long term is more highly prioritized, we need to resist from smoking for the sake of the other. Then smoking is a "bad pleasure" because it conflicts with the other which is more highly sought after. — Metaphysician Undercover

Understood! Thanks for this clear and informative explanation, MU. :up:

I don't quite understand what you are asking here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'd try to express myself better.

Since Plato argued that pleasure is unrelated to pain and this determined the "good", what do "pleasure" and "pain" mean? Do you think that their understanding of these concepts depends on each of us because it is a purely subjective experience? What I may consider as "painful", you could feel otherwise, and vice versa. So, when I read that paragraph by Plato, I thought in the first place that pleasure, good and pain are "universals" and they do not have objective existence. They are dependent upon how we experience them. But is there the possibility that pain and pleasure exist in an objective perspective?