In praise of gardeners

A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant – rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance – but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself.
~ Roberto Burle Marx


Roberto Burle Marx is internationally known as one of the most important landscape architects of the 20th century.

An artist of multiple facets, besides being a landscape designer he was also a remarkable painter, sculptor, singer, and jewelry designer, with a sensibility that is shown throughout his work.

Born in São Paulo in August 4th, 1909, Roberto Burle Marx moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1913.

During the years of 1928 and 1929 he studied painting in Berlin - Germany, where he was often seen at the Dahlem Botanic Garden's greenhouses. In this garden he noticed for the first time the beauty of the tropical plants and the Brazilian flora.

His first landscape project was a private garden for a house designed by the Architects Lucio Costa and Gregory Warchavchik in 1932. Since then, his landscape works improved as well as his painting and drawing.

In 1949, he bought a 365,000m2 estate in Barra de Guaratiba, in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, where he started to organize his big collection of plants.

In 1985, he donated this estate to a federal government cultural organization, Pró-Memória National Foundation, which is nowadays called National Institute for Cultural Heritage - IPHAN.

Roberto Burle Marx died in Rio de Janeiro in 1994, at the age of 84.

In 1955, he founded a landscape company, called Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. (Burle Marx & Company), where he started to develop landscape design, along with the implementation and maintenance of his residential and public gardens. In 1968, Haruyoshi Ono, a landscape architect, became his partner.

Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. landscape studio, created by Roberto Burle Marx in 1955. The office develops landscape projects, and implements, maintains, and restores gardens. It is also requested as a consulting board, giving supervision and orientation in landscape and environmental issues. In addition, it owns a small nursery that produces and sells plants




O desenho das pedras portuguesas, marca registrada do
calçadão, foi refeito mais recentemente pelo
paisagista Roberto Burle Marx a partir de um desenho
que já existia na Avenida Atlântica original e que foi
trazido da Praça do Rossio, em Lisboa. “O que se diz é
que essas ondas do Burle Marx são mais sensuais e mais
bonitas que as de Portugal”, conta, em jeito de
provocação, o historiador Carlos Kessel.

Ah, Portugal, Portugal

Cada galo no seu poleiro, todos em fila cantando alegremente (ou não...)
Mas o que um galo canta o outro galo não ouve (nem quer ouvir...)
Todos os galos em fila, para onde vão os galos ?
Seguindo a trilha do milho, quando o há, quando o dão.

Viva Portugal.

The great late Frank Zappa

watch out for his words at the end of the video...

Viúvas

Passo pelas viúvas de manhã quando venho para o comboio...vão à padaria, ou à praça, as mais modernas ao café.
Todas elas perderam as cores e são baças e apagadas. Andam curvadas, como se o que as mantinha erguidas, lhes tivesse sido arrancado de dentro.
São como as flores, ainda no ramo, mas já passado o esplendor, esperando, esperando...

I see the widows in the morning, when I rush to the train...they go to the baker's, the market or even, the more modern ones, to the coffee.
All of them colourless, withdrawn, almost invisible. They walk bended, as if what made them stood, was ripped from inside them.
They're like flowers, still in the plant, but past their splendor, waiting, waiting...

Cura-me, salva-me

Greifer

Equipped with easel, flute and precision gun
Paul Verhaeghen

"...

Sometime in March or April 1943, Stella Goldschlag stood at her window in the Sammellager – the former Jewish nursing home in the Grosse Hamburgerstrasse. It was the early evening of a gorgeous spring day, and heaven knows those are rare in Berlin. From her window, she had a good view of the Jewish cemetery – right underneath was the tomb of Moses Mendelssohn, the great scholar and philosopher from the time of Frederick. Mendelssohn had been a big proponent of the integration of Jews and Germans; he had done the first Hebrew-to-German translation of the Torah, as a service to the gentiles. On an open space in that venerable cemetery with its picturesquely sunken monuments, Stella noted much laughter and merriment. A few of the guards had taken off their uniform jackets; they were playing soccer. Four jackets marked the goalposts. The ball they were using must be flat, Stella thought, it refuses to bounce. Then she looked more closely. The object that the guards kicked back and forth was not a soccer ball. It was a human skull.

Stella had a secret of her own. Stella was a Greifer, a catcher: each day she went into town and made her living pointing out fellow Jews to the Gestapo. For every person she brought in, the Gestapo paid her 20 Reichsmark. More importantly, for every person she brought in she could point out a prisoner – a friend, a family member – and that person would be spared. Except that they wouldn't. When Stella found out, she decided to keep up her gruesome business, if just to save her own life and that of her fellow-catcher boyfriend.

The very first person Stella denounced was her husband.



These stories add up. Because they are true – in many senses of the word. Because the world is not the same without them. These stories tell us who we are. Terror, torture, wanton executions – this is what humans do. Sure, we love. Sure, we paint and write and dance and sing. But this cavalcade of horror is not an aberration. We are built to play. And players like their toys. Need their toys. All you need to do is convince yourself that this human being is not at all like you, and he becomes your toy.

Holding another life in your hand is the ultimate possession. You carve a person's flesh. His mind, his identity, his future, his fate, rests in your hand, and yours alone. You can twist his very soul until it breaks and – oh yes – you will. For he is – wholly – yours, and how could you resist?

...

Our biggest fear is this : that we live for the same reason Jamadi, the nameless Soviet prisioner, Stella's victims, Mengele's little gypsy friend, and some 3000 Manhattan office workers died.

For no reason at all."


My point is, as long as there's one who cares enough to remember and tell our story, there is a reason. Hope.

mágoas na lembrança

Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades,
Luís Vaz de Camões

Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades,
Muda-se o ser, muda-se a confiança;
Todo o mundo é composto de mudança,
Tomando sempre novas qualidades.

Continuamente vemos novidades,
Diferentes em tudo da esperança;
Do mal ficam as mágoas na lembrança,
E do bem, se algum houve, as saudades.

O tempo cobre o chão de verde manto,
Que já coberto foi de neve fria,
E em mim converte em choro o doce canto.

E, afora este mudar-se cada dia,
Outra mudança faz de mor espanto:
Que não se muda já como soía.

Nada se perde, tudo se transforma

Tiananmen

This file photo taken twenty years ago on June 2, 1989 shows some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese gathering around a 10-meter replica of the Statue of Liberty (center), called the Goddess of Democracy, in Tiananmen Square demanding democracy despite martial law in Beijing. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed by China's military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as communist leaders ordered an end to six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. (CATHERINE HENRIETTE/AFP/Getty Images)

If we all abstain from elections and civic participation, we will end up being chinese.

Drôle de film

Ka'bah

The black granite Ka’ba, the cubical structure that stands as the holiest center of Islam, features at its eastern vertex a small black stone about the size of a grapefruit, the al-hajar al-aswad, which may or may not have fallen to earth in the time of Adam and Eve. Supported in a silver frame, this obsidian-like cipher structures space for some billion Muslims, standing as it does at the culminating point known as the qibla—the direction to which devout followers of Mohammed address their five daily obeisances. Tradition has it that the rock was once snowy white, and has darkened over time through exposure to human sin.

A snowy white stone that gives shape to the universe: as it happens, we all carry within our skulls the vestige of such a thing, a kind of existentially reversed qibla (this one perspectival, the other metaphysical) that gives us our sense of being at the center of things, the sense that we are upright at the origin point of a three-dimensional space. The “otolithic organs,” as they are known, are a pair of sensors—the utricle and the saccule—nestled in the labyrinthine architecture of the inner ear.
Leftovers / The Orienting Stone

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D. Graham Burnett

The blessed art of levitation

Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni), The Blessed Ranieri Rasini Freeing Poor People from Prison in Florence, 1437–1444.


I would levitate, from here to there
finding you, I will hastily try to kiss you
my powers will fade and I will crash, as heavy rain

Read all about it here

the positive

This really reminds me of Blade Runner and its Replicants with implanted family memories...Now you can get them in the internet.

Europa

Just some quick thoughts on the results of yesterday's European elections :

- Socialist and Social Democrats on the government were more penalized than center right parties also on government : it looks association with banks, big finance and corruption accusations are heavier on them than on their colleagues…
- Voters don’t give a damn, and not only on the old countries of the Union, even worst new members also didn’t care to vote in significant numbers. The European project is far from the citizens, they feel there’s little democracy in the European process and their vote should be more significant.
- A significant fringe of racist, fascist anti-immigrant minorities are organized and mobilized enough to be heard on the European Parliament, what a shame

Gozo poderoso

la musica es amor

I.

...it's late in the evening, but shop windows still scream with incredible bargains...dark clouds advancing everywhere, millions losing their jobs, lots of others sacrificing leisure time to hold on to theirs, like if jobs are dear lives.
We go through the streets silently, on the other side of the street a blind couple goes by, slowly feeling their way with the help of canes, each one holding on to the other.

II.

...in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean a jet plane crashes, because something that could never go wrong, did go the worst possible way...more than two hundred lives lost.
Just you think about it, things that shouldn't happen, do show up all the time.
Story of our lives.

III.

...Years ago, was I younger and went to the famous Pére Lachaise graveyard in Paris, France to contemplate the tombs of some famous deceased. Looking for some otherwordly inspiration, I guess.
But what I remember now, is the old blind men, each with a child by the hand, waiting for the coins of the passers-by. In the street the walls were full of reclined black men, just waiting, nowhere to go, nothing to do just letting time goes by...the South in Paris, the deep South.
Awhile ago I read a book about Sudanese children, running away from war, fleeing their country, how they went walking in a single line, with the more feeble, walking behind, many times losing touch with the row, staying back left alone to die or be eaten by hungry beasts.

Somehow all this connects in my mind, as I try to grasp some meaning. The future ?

Of splendor in the grass

The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth With a Memoir Por William Wordsworth:

Be now for ever taken from my sight
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass of glory in the flower
We will grieve not rather find
Strength in what remains behind
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering
In the faith that looks through death
In years that bring the philosophic mind

Peach Plum Pear

Colchas

Nasci na casa dos meus avós maternos e vivi lá até me casar. A minha avó Maria nunca saía de casa, mas naquele tempo as pessoas ainda se preocupavam umas com as outras, e ela tinha muitas visitas.
Cresci assim a ouvir conversas de mulheres, sempre fui muito sossegado e pouco aventureiro, portanto ficava por perto, brincando calado e ouvia.
Mais tarde, quando a escola me fez saír do mundo fechado do bairro onde nasci e vivia, comecei também a frequentar a casa dos meus avós paternos e o mundo aí, era ainda mais feminino.
O meu avô era pescador e vivia com as marés, portanto ou estava no rio a aproveitar a maré ou a dormir para apanhar a da noite. O meu pai tinha duas irmãs mais novas e outra já casada, mas que vivia ali mesmo ao lado, portanto eram tardes cheias de conversas de mulheres e eu mais uma vez ao lado calado a ouvir, a fazer uma pergunta de vez em quando.
A vida é uma colcha, que vai sendo tecida de geração em geração e são as mulheres que o fazem, em recato, quando se juntam e poem a conversa em dia e desfiam os momentos alegres e tristes que são o nosso caminho, a história das familias.
Sempre as ouvi falar de tudo, mas acho que guardavam sempre uma reserva, no fundo conscientes da minha presença. Quando as minhas tias mais novas casaram também, aproveitei a cumplicidade que tinhamos, para pedir alguns conselhos ou pedir pequenas ajudas, que não queria ou podia pedir aos meus pais.
Sempre tive um carinho muito grande, por uma dessas tias, talvez porque a achasse mais parecida com o meu pai e se calhar comigo, portanto fiquei muito triste quando lhe foi diagnosticada uma doença grave, que a levou em pouco tempo. Nunca quis falar comigo sobre isso e penso que na última ocasião que a vi, me mandou mesmo embora.
Acho que sei agora, que aquela doença era uma daquelas coisas, que as mulheres guardavam para falar só entre elas e da qual eu nunca poderia fazer parte.

crude stereotype

"I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire."
PRESIDENT OBAMA, in his speech to the Muslim world.

No one, no country should be a stereotype, well in fact nobody IS - so stop behaving like there are stereotypes...there are only misguided individuals and misguided countries.
Allow time for change, amass energy for change, get involved in change.
It will happen.

Can't resist the groove

L'Arabie heureuse

Como passar a vida sem grande trabalho(1)

De pequenino se torce o destino, como dizia o cantor, eh, eh...Começa-se por ser um puto vivaço, daqueles que se aproveitam de toda a gente, mas saem sempre pela porta dos bons patifes. Logo na escolinha, lancha-se dos colegas, mas tem de se ser muito engraçado e fantasiar o máximo, tipo não é de prever(nunca será possível) mas se...todos os putos caem nessa, desde que nos mantenhamos inamovíveis e não mostrarmos demasiado interesse e tenhamos fontes um bocado inverificáveis tipo ouvimos num programa do Odisseia, ou lido num livro do nosso tio.
Assim, somos sempre companhia desejada, os profs acham que ajudamos a compor o grupo, somos um factor positivo e assertivo no meio de toda aquela gentinha pequena e barulhenta, colocam-nos junto a um colega avançado e deixam-nos copiar em paz e assim tranquilamente vamos passando de ano.
Somos um zero a desporto, mas assumimos em todas as circunstâncias uma postura conhecedora, tanto que nem seria justo competirmos realmente com os colegas, num desafio mais forte,podemos sempre invocar uma qualquer maleita familiar congénita, que nos torna geneticamente predispostos para coisas mais espirituais.
Num instante já temos buço e andamos pelos cantos à procura de todo o tipo de experiências fortes, é uma época de grandes disparates e corremos o risco de perdermos muito dos créditos amealhados anteriormente, se não soubermos fingir arrependimento nas alturas certas. Umas delações supostamente arrancadas, provam o nosso colaboracionismo e o nosso grau de maturidade, com as distrações entretanto arranjadas perdemos algum balanço e os nossos pais vão ter de se esmifrar para nos aguentar numa universidade privada. Convém anuir a usar vestimentas cretinas nalgumas ocasiões anuais e continuar a beijar velhos(naquele estado já não têm género...).

Familiar places

I loved to read this

The trick, of course — and it is a hard one to master — is to think of home not as a place we go to or come from, not as something inherent in the world itself, but as a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes it will become the very bedrock of our being.
VERLYN KLINKENBORG

China watching

China is like a big lab, what happens there is important to all of us...

Erros Meus

Erros Meus, Má Fortuna, Amor Ardente

Erros meus, má Fortuna, Amor ardente
Em minha perdição se conjuraram;
Os erros e a Fortuna sobejaram,
Que para mim bastava Amor somente.

Tudo passei; mas tenho tão presente
A grande dor das cousas que passaram,
Que já as frequências suas me ensinaram
A desejos deixar de ser contente.

Errei todo o discurso de meus anos;
Dei causa a que a Fortuna castigasse
As minhas mal fundadas esperanças.

De Amor não vi senão breves enganos.
Oh! Quem tanto pudesse, que fartasse
Este meu duro Génio de vinganças!

Luís Vaz de Camões, in "Sonetos"

On top they're beautiful...

Phytoplankton -- such as this colony of chaetoceros socialis -- naturally give off fluorescent light as they dissipate excess solar energy that they cannot consume through photosynthesis. Credit: Maria Vernet, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Single-celled phytoplankton fuel nearly all ocean ecosystems, serving as the most basic food source for marine animals from zooplankton to fish to shellfish. In fact, phytoplankton account for half of all photosynthetic activity on Earth. The health of these marine plants affects commercial fisheries, the amount of carbon dioxide the ocean can absorb, and how the ocean responds to climate change.

Pure energy

"When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they annihilate each other and their entire mass is converted into pure energy."

A very young God was playing with a load of matter in one hand and a load of antimatter in the other, being childish and playful He joined hands...

BIG BANG

I'm your puppet

- Não vejo, avó, não vejo...

Peço para levar a sopa à minha avó, ela está fechada no quarto há dias, escondida de nós, os netos. O meu avô, e os meus pais, tentam esconder o que já adivinhámos : a minha avó Maria, está louca, sofre de alucinações e sempre tão calma e gentil, grita agora como uma possessa, tem a energia dos prosélitos...
Não sei como, a minha mãe confia nos meus sisudos 11 anos e deixa-me continuar, também não sei como, eu tinha andado a ler sobre antipsiquiatria e confiado nas minhas leituras, ia experimentar a minha abordagem revolucionária na minha avó.
A minha avó, tinha uns olhos azuis, doces e suaves, como ela sempre tinha sido, passava a maior parte do tempo, desde que eu me recordava deitada na sua cama e durante a noite levantava-se e vinha aconchegar-nos a roupa, eu apanhava sustos enormes, porque acordava e sentia alguém a aproximar-se de mim, lentamente e imaginava a morte e passava um comboio e soava como a sua carroça que chegava para me levar...
Pousei o prato na mesa da cabeceira, beijei a minha avó e tentei conversar naturalmente, rapidamente o bijou da familia, começou a ser denunciado como a nossa eminente desgraça, calmamente e com moderação, tentei demonstrar o contrário.
Os carros eram bastante seguros, o nosso também, toda a gente começava a ter um, o meu pai era o melhor e o mais cuidadoso dos condutores...mas nada demovia a minha avó, que entretanto agarrou no crucifixo que sempre tinha junto a si.
- Olha, filho, vê como a avó sabe, vê como o sangue corre nas veias de nosso Senhor, vê filho vê o sangue de nosso Senhor...
Entretanto a minha mãe tinha chegado e empurrado-me para fora do quarto.

Muitos anos depois e com a minha doença, percebi que se fala com a pessoa, com a doença não se consegue falar...

Amazónia

Greenpeace denuncia destruição da Amazónia por grandes marcas mundiais
01.06.2009 - 12h16 PÚBLICO

"Até 2018 prevê-se que a quota brasileira de mercado mundial da indústria pecuária venha a duplicar. Actualmente, detém partes dos três gigantes pecuários do Brasil – Bertin, JBS e Marfrig -, acusados pela Greenpeace de contribuírem para a destruição de grandes áreas da floresta amazónica.

“A expansão do sector pecuário ameaça deitar por terra a meta do Governo de reduzir a desflorestação em 72 por cento até 2018”, considera a organização. Segundo o Governo de Lula da Silva, estas reduções iriam evitar a emissão de 4,8 gigatoneladas de dióxido de carbono (CO2).

Neste momento, o Brasil é o quarto maior agressor do clima, sendo que a maioria das suas emissões provêm do abate e queima da floresta tropical.

“Ao apoiar a destruição da Amazónia em nome da pecuária, o Governo do Presidente Lula está a desprezar os seus próprios compromissos climáticos, bem como os esforços globais para enfrentar a crise climática”, considerou Andre Muggiati, da Greenpeace Brasil.

Em Dezembro deste ano, o mundo reúne-se em Copenhaga para chegar a acordo sobre o sucessor do Protocolo de Quioto, que expira em 2012. A desflorestação tropical é responsável por cerca de 20 por cento das emissões de gases com efeito de estufa, mais do que todo o sector dos transportes. “Por isso, qualquer novo acordo deve lidar efectivamente com a desflorestação”, considera a organização."

O Brasil e o seu governo, são apenas como o surfista cavalgando a onda que somos todos nós...nós somos os consumidores finais dos produtos que saem das áreas deflorestadas, sem alterarmos os nossos padrões de consumo, bem podemos chorar lágrimas de crocodilo.
Em vez de viver com efeito estufa os nossos filhos viverão em estufas...

Mirrors

Quando eu era novo e jogava futebol, havia lá um rapaz, dos mais empenhados, nunca faltava a um treino, parecia ter tudo para ser um verdadeiro craque, mas tudo lhe saía mal quando jogava.
O treinador dizia : - Filipe, os teus pés parecem máquinas de atirar pratos...
Isto porque nunca se sabia onde os passes e os cruzamentos dele iam parar...assim é a vida, corremos pelo nosso flanco, chegamos à linha de fundo e tentamos cruzar, para que algum companheiro nosso marque golo, na realidade nunca sabemos o que acontece à bola depois de saír do nosso pé...

Not what if, what now is better

A nice text about Ballard

"My greatest ally was the pram in the hall."
This is a very nice thought, because most of us decide our lives precisely this way : we go through all the expected motions and end up trapped by the bounds and boundaries of love...

MUNDOpequeno

"A luz e as nuvens, o espaço e as atmosferas, as pedras e as falésias, os mares, as montanhas e o fogo são referências constantes no vocabulário do pintor, sendo traduzidos em vibrantes cromatismos. Aqueles elementos são tão simbólicos como as representações de objectos, de panejamentos, de elementos minerais ou vegetais, e de figuras humanas quando as respectivas formas se desenham em espaços vazios ou emergem em paisagens polimórficas e ambíguas.

Entre a abstracção e a figuração, a expressão plástica de Eduardo Carqueijeiro enquadra-se nas áreas do onírico e do simbólico; esta vertente é particularmente objectivada nos títulos atribuídos pelo pintor aos seus quadros, nos quais parece querer sublinhar o sentido poético, e inclusivamente transcendente, dos respectivos temas e das motivações para o seu trabalho."
Emília Nadal

Gosto disto

Bettina

Muse

"Contava ela que no colégio em que andava não havia espelhos e, por isso, não fazia ideia como era. Até que um dia, tinha eu 13 anos, fiquei estarrecida quando, sentada com as minhas irmãs ao pé da minha avó, vi o grupo inteiro reflectido num espelho. Reconheci imediatamente todas, menos uma estranha rapariga com olhos de fogo, muito corada e com umas grandes tranças pretas. Nunca a tinha visto, mas fui logo atraída para ela. Em sonhos já tinha amado uma pessoa parecida com aquela. E havia qualquer coisa na expressão dela que me comoveu tanto que os meus olhos se encheram de lágrimas. E disse de mim para mim que tinha de seguir aquela criatura, prometer-lhe fidelidade e confiança. Se lhe fizer um sinal, sei que ela responde. Se me levantar, ela virá ter comigo. Nesse momento sorrimos as duas. Só nessa altura tive a certeza que, no espelho, tinha visto a minha própria imagem” (“Os filmes da nossa vida”, O Independente, 14 de Outubro de 1994; estes textos foram reeditados em livro).

Em jeito de remate certeiro, João Bénard da Costa deixa-nos a seguinte e valiosa análise: “Há quem interprete este passo como manifestação de narcisismo. Nada disso. Do que se trata é de espelhismos: fidelidade à imagem própria, como primeiro preceito corroborativo da verdade, da vida, da beleza e do amor”.

Beethoven.

Go vote on the 7th of June

It is really important - start paying atention to the ones who administer our resources.
Ask questions, be involved.

Nostalgia

Go on sing along :

Winters cityside
Crystal bits of snowflakes all around my head and in the wind
I had no illusions
That Id ever find a glimps of summers heatwaves in your eyes
You did what you did to me, now its history I see
Heres my comeback on the road again
Things will happen while they can
I will wait here for my man tonight, its easy when your big in japan

When your big in japan, tonight
Big in japan, be tight, big in japan where the eastern seas so blue
Big in japan, alright, pay, then Ill sleep by your side
Things are easy when youre big in japan, when youre big in japan

Neon on my naked skin
Passing silhouettes of strange illuminated mannequins
Shall I stay here at the zoo
Or shall I go and change my point of view for other ugly scenes
You did what you did to me, now its history I see...
Things will happen while they can
I will wait here for my man tonight, its easy when youre big in japan

Brilliant !

North Korea

<


Inside North Korea : watch this video

"North Korea has more than a million troops and is believed to have huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Defense Department experts have estimated that an actual war on the Korean peninsula would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties."



"A Coreia do Norte testou outro míssil de curto-alcance, a partir da base de Musudan-ri, ao largo da costa leste, anunciou uma fonte do governo da Coreia do Sul.

"Aquilo que foi lançado pelo Norte, desta vez, parece ser diferente do que foi lançado anteriormente", diz a mesma fonte.

O míssil teria um alcance de 160 quilómetros e terá sido lançado cerca das 18h12.

Este foi o sexto lançamento desde o teste nuclear realizado pela Coreia do Norte na segunda-feira."
<

"Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year". Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix[1] in which the basic principles of the language are explained. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking — "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak — impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. One character says admiringly of the shrinking volume of the new dictionary: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.""

“ I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions. ”

How can we reach this people ?

Quiet

If you happen to be in New York this weekend go and see him :

Bang on a Can Marathon

Great POP

I believe great pop, changes the world for the better.

sweet Ella

Rupestre

Thousands of years old and yet so modern...never ceases to amaze me.

Primates

DIGNITY

DEMANDDIGNITY.AMNESTY.ORG

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED
To protect the rights of those who live in slums, to end the needless deaths of women from complications in
pregnancy, to ensure corporate actors pay due attention to the rights of those in poverty, world leaders must
move from acknowledgement to action. Different projects will focus on different targets and levers for change
– all with the knowledge that people in poverty can indeed realize their rights, under the right conditions.
To do so, and to ensure long-term, systemic change, three underlying areas that have traditionally blocked
progress, as well as good intentions, must be addressed.

Read all about it here

I confess I'm more a person’s man myself, these are the causes that motivate me more, because people are really the agents of change and with motivated well informed people, everything is possible.

Earth Condominium

Earth Condominium

A good idea, that needs to be well cared for...need to study all legal and political implications, to study the existing international status quo in order to be able to adapt it.
We have to take notice that there's already an International Penal Court, that we have already global responses to problems, like in the case of the flu pandemic with WHO, the economic crisis with G20...and there's the Global Conference in Environmental issues coming in Copenhagen later this year.
Also, the idea's author speaks freely about law and economics, he has to start talk politics, that's what will make this idea really global and empower it to grow and change reality.
After all making the world a better place is a common goal for humanity.

Pakistan car design

Pakistanis do spend several times their monthly paycheques, to decorate their vehicles...nothing is all bad in Pakistan (if there's fantasy there's hope...).

"The most striking thing in Pakistan is the vision of trucks and buses completely covered in a riot of color and design. They might spew diesel fumes, they may take up all of the winding, narrow, under-maintained road one is trying to negotiate, but they are certainly noticeable, like so many mechanical dinosaurs adorned in full courtship colors.
The decoration of vehicles is a common practice in a number of countries in addition to Pakistan. Similar techniques and materials are employed in truck and (more frequently) bus decoration in the Philippines, Indonesia, and several countries in Central and South America; in South Asia itself, Indian trucks are painted, as are the scooter rickshaws, called "Baby Taxis", of Bangladesh. What makes the case of Pakistan unique, however, is the pervasiveness of vehicle decoration, since decoration is heavily utilized on virtually all privately and fleet-owned commercial vehicles, from the well known trucks and buses, to vans, share taxis, animal carts and even juice vendors' push carts.

The motifs on the trucks can be categorized in five groups:
1. Idealized elements of life, such as the romanticized village, landscapes or beautiful women.
2. Elements from modern life, such as pictures of political figures or patriotic symbols.
3. Talismanic and fetish objects, such as horns, yak tails and items of clothing.
4. Talismanically or religiously loaded symbols, such as eyes and fish.
5. .Obvious religious symbols and images such as Buraq (a celestial horse that is believed to have carried the Prophet Muhammad on a spiritual journey to heaven).

However, by far the commonest religious symbols appearing on a truck are the Ka'ba and Prophets mosque, appearing on the left and right of the front of the truck somewhere towards the top."

See for yourselves

yes, long ago

we all were younger

Long ago...

I was wrong

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Ladies

Gratis Gratis

Technicians

"A technician is someone who might service your car. They fix machinery and appliances. There are chief, expert, assistant and bad technicians. Some deal with maintenance, testing, forensic, x-ray, optical, nuclear, food, brakes, shark, toe nail, nose, lice, cat and dog matters. They make the World tolerable. They are licensed, bonded, illegal or shy, loaded or pretty much like all the rest of us. Some say a technician is generally someone active in a technological field (Gee!).

Few descriptions of today’s technicians mention art although historically, artists were viewed as technicians or craftsmen. Society today is complex indeed, requiring an army of experts to run it. The true technicians are very visible. We need the doctors, plumbers, mobile phone gurus, Redmond enablers (”Your potential. Our passion” which currently translates to xBoxes) and hairdressers. Torturers, lawyers, snipers, SWAT teams and concentration camp guards are desperately needed."
interesting blog

...just pick up this from the Net, I usually refer to myself as an IT technician, so this means I'm an enabler : my job is to enable other people potential( just don't want to be desperately needed like concentration camp guards - just hope there won't be anymore concentration camp guards needed, no, not anymore.).

Desert

smokey

The kiss

"When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek came up to those who were not dancing and invited two officers to have a game at billiards. The officers accepted and went with him out of the drawing-room. Ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wishing to take part in the general movement, slouched after them. From the big drawing-room they went into the little drawing-room, then into a narrow corridor with a glass roof, and thence into a room in which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen jumped up quickly from the sofa. At last, after passing through a long succession of rooms, young Von Rabbek and the officers came into a small room where there was a billiard-table. They began to play.

Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words.

The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with the end of his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!" Before the first game was over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . He felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he went out.

On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. Noticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and turned to the right; he found himself in a little dark room which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room. After standing there a little while, he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked into an absolutely dark room. Straight in front could be seen the crack in the doorway through which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the other side of the door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .

Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss. But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too, almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the door. . . .

When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him, but as he became convinced that people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never experienced before in his life. Something strange was happening to him. . . . His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von Rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.

"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles straight."

Read it all here

Paula

Bill Traylor

This drawing and the one before of the man walking the dog are by american artist, Bill traylor, his story here

Depression

each one of us has to walk his own dog.

love is the drug

take a chance

Silence only

Where did we go wrong ?

It's the end of another day and I'm feeling lost
traced your steps, followed you in, inside our home
did the usual gestures, started what we had to start
silence around us, even inanimate objects follow the silence script
we're all in a silent movie, we're fish in a bowl
somewhere must be a way out, as there was a way in...
Silence only, no more facing each other, no more regards.
Where did we go wrong ?

LOVE!

Give me love, give me life
Give me peace on Earth

Silence

Silence is a good friend.

Modern life...

Is rubish !

shining star

Today ?

Modern art : the sixties

was a gas, gas, gas...

Blue dancer

Fell in love with this yesterday.
"I have spent the four most wonderful days of my life with my pretty friends. The little Javanese girls who were here at the exhibition had already pleased me, and now the delightful Cambodian princesses have reawakened my old impressions and increased them a hundred times. They have brought antiquity to life again for me. They have shown me, in reality, the beautiful gestures, the beautiful movements of the human body which the ancients knew how to capture in art. They suddenly immersed me in nature, revealed a completely new aspect and taught me that artists here below have no other task than to observe nature and find sustenance at its source. I am a man who had devoted his entire life to the study of nature and who infinitely admires the works of antiquity; so you can imagine how such a superb spectacle must have affected me, a spectacle that opened my eyes to antiquity again. These monotonous, slow dances to the rhythms of strange music have an extraordinary, a perfect beauty, like the beauty of Greece but with its own special quality."

The rest here

Bleu

Bleu.

Dive into a colour,
achieve complete immersion
get into its soul.

In the end
our soul.

Music.

Q&A

You ask the questions here...will the answers be good enough ?

This one goes out to the one I love

Les jardins suspendus

Il y aura toujours des idées nouvelles : un homme rêve et le monde s'agrandisse...
Voir ici

Madressilva

it's a pitty we can't have web pages with smell (yet...)

All is beautiful

Me piacce...

the country life

Being in the country, living the simple life
feeling each hour of the day, doing what one feels right,
just when one feels like it.

Sorry, too manyof us now, we all have to share
and in order to share, we have to let go of a lot of things...
It is going to be hard, here we say it is very dificult to go
from horse to donkey...
But just picture it right : donkeys are smarter than horses and more useful.

BlackSunrise are back

Check it out here

Shame

"A suspected gas attack on a girl's school sent 84 girls to hospital in Kapisa Province north of Kabul. There are suspicions that this was another piece of Taliban sabotage. Their ideology forbids the education of girls, even though universal education is an Islamic principle."

This is one of the more shameful things happening in the world today...and there are many things to be ashamed of.

dont bother...

poignant

poignant
One entry found.

Main Entry:poi·gnant
Pronunciation:\ˈpȯi-nyənt sometimes ˈpȯi(g)-nənt\
Function:adjective
Etymology:Middle English poynaunt, from Anglo-French poinant, poignant, present participle of poindre to prick, sting, from Latin pungere — more at pungent
Date:14th century
1: pungently pervasive (a poignant perfume)
2 a (1): painfully affecting the feelings : piercing (2): deeply affecting : touching b: designed to make an impression : cutting
3 a: pleasurably stimulating b: being to the point : apt
synonyms see pungent, moving
— poi·gnant·ly adverb

el sueño de la razon produce monstruos

TRIBUNA: TZVETAN TODOROV
Los torturadores voluntarios de Bush
Los documentos elaborados por el anterior Gobierno de EE UU son manuales detallados del suplicio y de su autojustificación legal, moral y política. Sus eufemismos no pueden evitar el espanto que provoca leerlos
TZVETAN TODOROV 14/05/2009

Los documentos relativos a las prácticas de tortur,a empleadas en las cárceles de la CIA que el Gobierno de Obama hizo públicos el pasado 16 de abril arrojan una nueva luz sobre esta cuestión: ¿cómo explicarse la facilidad con la que han aceptado la tortura y la han aplicado a sus prisioneros unas personas que actúan en nombre del Gobierno estadounidense?

Los documentos que se acaban de publicar no revelan los casos de tortura concretos: éstos son de sobra conocidos por todos los que en su día quisieron enterarse. Sin embargo, aportan abundante información sobre la forma en la que se llevaban a cabo las sesiones de tortura y sobre cómo la entendían los agentes que la practicaban.

Lo más sorprendente es descubrir la existencia de una normativa increíblemente meticulosa, formulada en los manuales de la CIA y retomada, a su manera, por los responsables jurídicos del Gobierno de George W. Bush. Hasta ahora era posible imaginar que tales prácticas eran una muestra de lo que se suele denominar "atropellos", infracciones involuntarias de las normas provocadas por la urgencia del momento. Por el contrario, lo que se percibe en los documentos recién conocidos es que se trata de unos procedimientos pautados hasta en sus menores detalles, al milímetro, perfectamente cronometrados.

Así, las formas de tortura son 10, número que posteriormente será elevado a 13. Se dividen en tres categorías, cada una de ellas con diversos grados de intensidad: preparatorias (desnudez, manipulación de la alimentación, privación del sueño), correctivas (los golpes) y coercitivas (duchas de agua fría, encierro en cajas, suplicio de la bañera).

En el caso de las bofetadas, el interrogador, según estos manuales, debe golpear con los dedos separados, en un punto equidistante entre el extremo de la barbilla y la parte inferior del lóbulo de la oreja.

La ducha de agua fría aplicada al prisionero desnudo puede durar 20 minutos si el agua está a cinco grados, 40 minutos si está a 10 grados, y hasta 60 minutos si está a 15 grados.

La privación del sueño no debe ser superior a 180 horas, pero tras un reposo de ocho horas, se puede recomenzar.

La inmersión en la bañera puede durar hasta 12 segundos, durante un periodo que no debe exceder las dos horas diarias, y ello durante 30 días seguidos (un preso particularmente resistente pasó por este suplicio 183 veces en marzo de 2003).

El encierro en una caja de dimensiones muy reducidas no debe ser superior a dos horas, pero si la caja permite que el prisionero esté de pie, se puede prolongar hasta ocho horas seguidas, 16 por día. Si se introduce un insecto en el interior, no se le debe decir al prisionero que la picadura será dolorosa o incluso mortal.

Y así sucesivamente durante páginas y páginas.

Nos enteramos también por estos documentos de cómo se forma a los torturadores. La mayoría de esas torturas está copiada del programa que siguen los soldados americanos que se preparan para enfrentarse a situaciones extremas (lo que permite a los responsables concluir que se trata de pruebas absolutamente soportables). Y lo que todavía es más importante, se elige a los torturadores entre aquellos que han tenido "una larga experiencia escolar" en este tipo de pruebas extremas; dicho en otras palabras, los propios torturadores han sido torturados en una primera fase de su formación. Tras la cual, un cursillo intensivo de cuatro semanas basta para prepararlos para su nuevo trabajo.

Los socios indispensables de los torturadores son los consejeros jurídicos, cuya labor es garantizar la impunidad legal de sus colegas. Esto constituye otra novedad: la tortura ya no se presenta como una infracción de la norma común, lamentable pero excusable, sino que se convierte en la propia norma legal. En este caso, los juristas recurren a otra serie de técnicas. Para librarse de la ley, los interrogatorios deben realizarse fuera del territorio nacional de Estados Unidos, aunque puedan efectuarse en bases norteamericanas en terceros países.

Tal como se define legalmente, la tortura implica la intención de producir un gran sufrimiento. Se sugerirá, por consiguiente, a los torturadores que nieguen la presencia de esa intención. De tal modo que no se abofetea al preso para producirle dolor, sino para sorprenderlo y humillarlo. En cuanto al objetivo de encerrarlo en una caja de reducidas dimensiones no es provocar un desorden sensorial, sino producirle cierta sensación de incomodidad.

El verdugo debe insistir siempre en su "buena fe", en sus "convicciones sinceras" y en lo razonable de sus premisas. Se han de utilizar sistemáticamente eufemismos: "Técnicas reforzadas", en lugar de tortura; "experto en interrogatorios", en lugar de torturador.

También se evitará dejar huellas físicas, y, por esta razón, se preferirá la destrucción mental a los daños físicos; asimismo, se destruirán inmediatamente las posibles grabaciones o tomas visuales de las sesiones.

Otros colectivos colaboran en la práctica de la tortura: el contagio se extiende allende el limitado círculo de los torturadores. Aparte de los juristas que se encargan de dar legitimidad a sus actividades, en los documentos se menciona sistemáticamente a los psicólogos, a los psiquiatras y a los médicos (obligatoriamente presentes en todas las sesiones), además de a las mujeres (los torturadores son hombres, pero la humillación es aún mayor, más grave, cuando hay mujeres presentes) y a los profesores de universidad que proveen justificaciones morales, legales o filosóficas.

¿A quién debemos considerar hoy responsable de esta perversión de la ley y de los principios morales más elementales?

Los ejecutores voluntarios de la tortura lo son menos que los altos cargos y los magistrados que la justificaron y la fomentaron; y éstos, menos responsables, a su vez, que quienes teniendo el poder de tomar decisiones políticas les pidieron que lo hicieran.

Los Gobiernos extranjeros aliados, sobre todo los europeos, también tienen su parte de responsabilidad: pese a haber estado siempre al corriente de la existencia de estas prácticas y de haberse beneficiado de la información obtenida por estos medios, nunca, ni antes ni ahora, se preocuparon por alzar la más mínima protesta, ni siquiera hicieron el más leve signo de desaprobación. Quien calla otorga. ¿Habría que sentarlos en el banquillo?

En una democracia, la condena de los políticos consiste en privarlos del poder no reeligiéndolos. Y con respecto a los otros profesionales, se esperaría que sean sus iguales quienes les impongan el castigo, pues ¿quién querría ser alumno de semejante profesor, paciente de un médico tal o juzgado por un juez así?

Si se quiere comprender por qué estos valientes estadounidenses aceptaron tan fácilmente convertirse en torturadores, de nada vale intentar encontrar argumentos en el odio o en un miedo ancestral a los musulmanes o a los árabes. No. La situación es mucho más grave.

Lo que nos enseñan los documentos estadounidenses que acaban de hacerse públicos es que, siempre y cuando forme parte de un colectivo y esté respaldado por él, cualquier hombre que obedezca a los nobles principios dictados por el "sentido del deber", por la necesaria "defensa de la patria", o que se deje arrastrar por un temor elemental por la vida y el bienestar de los suyos, puede convertirse en torturador.

Coming togheter

ONE AND OTHER, Fourth Plinth Commission, Trafalgar Square, London


Antony Gormley’s proposal ONE AND OTHER is that the Fourth Plinth is occupied for 100 consecutive days, 24 hours a day, by members of the public who have volunteered to stand on it for an hour at a time. 2,400 people will be able to participate. Visit the ONE AND OTHER website to register your interest.

“The idea is very simple. Through putting a person onto the plinth, the body becomes a metaphor, a symbol. In the context of Trafalgar Square with its military, valedictory and male historical statues, this elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society. It's about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It could be tragic but it could also be funny."

Antony Gormley, 2009




Politics vs Art: some propositions:

• Politics has become management.

• Ideological positions are unsustainable when comfort is the highest good.

• We are post-ideology.

• Art is an open space that allows for the generation of alternative value.

A loveless world, would be a very, very sad place

you walk the streets of the city, no particular place to go
you keep your eyes down, you don't care
You don't care, people pass you by, cars honk at you
you just keep going and going,
it's a lonely place to be, the city
when you have no particular place to go.

Confusion will be my epitaph

sound comes to you in waves,
you feel it against your chest, pounding
synchronizing your very heart to the beat,
go brothers go - sail on.

Simplicity

A dog barks amid the sound of waters,

Peach blossoms dark, bearing dew.

Where trees are thickest, sometimes

see a deer,

And when noon strikes the ravine,

hear no bell.

Bamboo of wilderness split through

blue haze,

A cascade in flight, hung from an

emerald peak.

But no one knows where you've gone--

Disappointed, I linger among these

few pines.

A dog barks amid the sound of waters,

Peach blossoms dark, bearing dew.

Where trees are thickest, sometimes

see a deer,

And when noon strikes the ravine,

hear no bell.

Bamboo of wilderness split through

blue haze,

A cascade in flight, hung from an

emerald peak.

But no one knows where you've gone--

Disappointed, I linger among these

few pines.

Very beautiful article on ancient chinese poetry...

sleepless nites

late nite