all projections here
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
las meninas outra vez
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925). The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882. Oil on canvas 221.93 x 222.57 cm (87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in.).
© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
spare me from my mind
Sidney Keyes: Ulster Soldier
Rain strikes the window. Miles of wire
Are hung with small mad eyes. Night sets its mask
Upon the fissured hill. The soldier waits
For sleep’s deception, praying thus: O land
Of battle and the rough marauders lying
Under this country, spare me from my mind.
This year is blackened: as your faces blackened
Turn to the bedrock, let me not be rotted:
My limbs be never shackled in the roots
Of customary sin, as yours are bound
With oak and hawthorn. Spare me from my mind.
We come of a very old related race -
Drivers of cattle, kings, incendiaries,
SIngers and callous girls; we know the same
Perplexities and terrors – whether to turn back
On the dark road, whether to love
Too much and lose our power, or die of pride:
The fear of steel, or that the dead should mock us -
These trouble our proud race. Protect me now.
The wind cries through the valley. Clouds sprawl over
This exiled soldier, sprawling on his bed.
Sleep takes the bartered carcase, not the brain,
It’s only love could save him from his mind.
Omagh, 13 April 1942.
found at a truly wonderful blog : shigekuni
Rain strikes the window. Miles of wire
Are hung with small mad eyes. Night sets its mask
Upon the fissured hill. The soldier waits
For sleep’s deception, praying thus: O land
Of battle and the rough marauders lying
Under this country, spare me from my mind.
This year is blackened: as your faces blackened
Turn to the bedrock, let me not be rotted:
My limbs be never shackled in the roots
Of customary sin, as yours are bound
With oak and hawthorn. Spare me from my mind.
We come of a very old related race -
Drivers of cattle, kings, incendiaries,
SIngers and callous girls; we know the same
Perplexities and terrors – whether to turn back
On the dark road, whether to love
Too much and lose our power, or die of pride:
The fear of steel, or that the dead should mock us -
These trouble our proud race. Protect me now.
The wind cries through the valley. Clouds sprawl over
This exiled soldier, sprawling on his bed.
Sleep takes the bartered carcase, not the brain,
It’s only love could save him from his mind.
Omagh, 13 April 1942.
found at a truly wonderful blog : shigekuni
ordinary life
"One thing I don’t ever think to say: When I was told I had a year or two, I didn’t want anything one might expect: no blow-out trip to the Galápagos, no perfect meal at Alain Ducasse, no defiant red Maserati. All I wanted was ordinary life back, for ordinary life, it became utterly clear, is more valuable than anything else."
full story here
full story here
traders rule the world
"With a trader, the goal of every minute of every day is to make money," says Philipp Meyer, who worked for UBS as a trader in the late 1990s and early 2000s before going on to write about his time there. "So if running the economy off the cliff makes you money, you will do it, and you will do it every day of every week."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1983747-2,00.html#ixzz0mItsY0ou
Toma-se a terra
Tome-se a terra onde se vai depositar a semente, agindo como ladrões ou assassinos se necessário for.
Esta acção incondicional é a raíz do nosso ser, o nosso destino a partir daí a entrega incondicional, selámos a nossa vida.
Colhamos os frutos na madurez e zelemos pelos lares -
Não há outra via.
Se houvesse degraus na terra...
Se houvesse degraus na terra...
Se houvesse degraus na terra e tivesse anéis o céu,
eu subiria os degraus e aos anéis me prenderia.
No céu podia tecer uma nuvem toda negra.
E que nevasse, e chovesse, e houvesse luz nas montanhas,
e à porta do meu amor o ouro se acumulasse.
Beijei uma boca vermelha e a minha boca tingiu-se,
levei um lenço à boca e o lenço fez-se vermelho.
Fui lavá-lo na ribeira e a água tornou-se rubra,
e a fímbria do mar, e o meio do mar,
e vermelhas se volveram as asas da águia
que desceu para beber,
e metade do sol e a lua inteira se tornaram vermelhas.
Maldito seja quem atirou uma maçã para o outro mundo.
Uma maçã, uma mantilha de ouro e uma espada de prata.
Correram os rapazes à procura da espada,
e as raparigas correram à procura da mantilha,
e correram, correram as crianças à procura da maçã.
Herberto Helder
Se houvesse degraus na terra e tivesse anéis o céu,
eu subiria os degraus e aos anéis me prenderia.
No céu podia tecer uma nuvem toda negra.
E que nevasse, e chovesse, e houvesse luz nas montanhas,
e à porta do meu amor o ouro se acumulasse.
Beijei uma boca vermelha e a minha boca tingiu-se,
levei um lenço à boca e o lenço fez-se vermelho.
Fui lavá-lo na ribeira e a água tornou-se rubra,
e a fímbria do mar, e o meio do mar,
e vermelhas se volveram as asas da águia
que desceu para beber,
e metade do sol e a lua inteira se tornaram vermelhas.
Maldito seja quem atirou uma maçã para o outro mundo.
Uma maçã, uma mantilha de ouro e uma espada de prata.
Correram os rapazes à procura da espada,
e as raparigas correram à procura da mantilha,
e correram, correram as crianças à procura da maçã.
Herberto Helder
the characters she plays
Cindy Sherman is a famous actress and photographer who turned the camera on herself: something that had been done before but not not in the innovative manner of Cindy Sherman. Typically we call the works Self Portraits when the artist turns the camera on oneself. A Self portrait typically reveals something about the artist, but in the case of Cindy Sherman the portraits would reveal a statement on society. She was able to create a commentary of sorts on women’s role in society by photographing herself in various genre. Although her photos created a commentary she would number the photos or leave them untitled in order to not reveal her true opinions or character. She would play many characters from house wife to prostitute. Although many may think of Sherman’s photographs as being self portraits they are anything but self portraits for the do not reveal her, they reveal the characters she plays.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Natividade
Sempre que alguém nasce é Natal, Natal triste, Natal alegre ou Natal como outro dia qualquer.
Só nos importa a luz, só nos importa o poder do pensamento positivo, os favores em cadeia, o encadeamento de acontecimentos.
Como as estações : do calvário, dos comboios, do ano. Tudo muda, partidas e chegadas em simultâneo.
Creio no sol, no regresso das papoilas em cada primavera. Procuro a plenitude do seu vermelho, entre a terra e o céu.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
collage
"I think collage itself, and the activity of making collage, is the most direct way that you can relate diverse elements rather than their going through the transition of a translation."—Robert Rauschenberg (22 Oct 1925 – 12 May 2008)
Friday, April 23, 2010
the way things are
"In Britain the most striking abuse of language is the redefinition of private, for-profit economic activities as services provided by the state. A concrete example is the way private entrepreneurs were given the right to run old people’s homes. However, no one wants to spell that out, which is why they are described as ‘delivering’ the service, as if they were the milkman bringing milk to old people. It prevents people from fully grasping that the state has handed over its mandate of responsibility to a private actor, whose motivation is to provide the cheapest possible service and make the most money.
In France something else is happening, a kind of abusive reworking of republicanism. The old French ideal of egalitarian republicanism with no distinctions, no compromise with religion or localism, with everyone having the same opportunities, speaking the same language, living in the same France – an ideal that was invented in the late 18th century as a way to make a radical break with the Ancien Régime – is now used to paper over the disadvantages of young people, particularly if they are black or brown, from the suburbs or North Africa. The old egalitarian language has been transfigured into saying we all have the same opportunities, we are all equal, we will not talk about the fact that you are female and brown, or allow you to dress differently, because that would not be republican. This subterfuge enables very illiberal behaviour in the name of a ‘liberal ideal’."
very interesting interview of Tony Judt
In France something else is happening, a kind of abusive reworking of republicanism. The old French ideal of egalitarian republicanism with no distinctions, no compromise with religion or localism, with everyone having the same opportunities, speaking the same language, living in the same France – an ideal that was invented in the late 18th century as a way to make a radical break with the Ancien Régime – is now used to paper over the disadvantages of young people, particularly if they are black or brown, from the suburbs or North Africa. The old egalitarian language has been transfigured into saying we all have the same opportunities, we are all equal, we will not talk about the fact that you are female and brown, or allow you to dress differently, because that would not be republican. This subterfuge enables very illiberal behaviour in the name of a ‘liberal ideal’."
very interesting interview of Tony Judt
The Grey Rock by Ezra Pound's sugestion
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.
2. The Grey Rock
POETS with whom I learned my trade,
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,
Imagining ’twould better please
Your ears than stories now in fashion, 5
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
The bow-legged Goban had no say; 10
The moral’s yours because it’s mine.
When cups went round at close of day—
Is not that how good stories run?—
Somewhere within some hollow hill,
If books speak truth in Slievenamon, 15
But let that be, the gods were still
And sleepy, having had their meal,
And smoky torches made a glare
On painted pillars, on a deal
Of fiddles and of flutes hung there 20
By the ancient holy hands that brought them
From murmuring Murias, on cups—
Old Goban hammered them and wrought them,
And put his pattern round their tops
To hold the wine they buy of him. 25
But from the juice that made them wise
All those had lifted up the dim
Imaginations of their eyes,
For one that was like woman made
Before their sleepy eyelids ran 30
And trembling with her passion said,
‘Come out and dig for a dead man,
Who’s burrowing somewhere in the ground,
And mock him to his face and then
Hollo him on with horse and hound, 35
For he is the worst of all dead men.’
We should be dazed and terror struck,
If we but saw in dreams that room,
Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
That emptied all our days to come. 40
I knew a woman none could please,
Because she dreamed when but a child
Of men and women made like these;
And after, when her blood ran wild,
Had ravelled her own story out, 45
And said, ‘In two or in three years
I need must marry some poor lout,’
And having said it burst in tears.
Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
Maybe your images have stood, 50
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
Before that roomful or as good.
You had to face your ends when young—
’Twas wine or women, or some curse—
But never made a poorer song 55
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,
And unrepenting faced your ends, 60
And therefore earned the right—and yet
Dowson and Johnson most I praise—
To troop with those the world’s forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.
‘The Danish troop was driven out 65
Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;
‘Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland’s dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.’
‘When this day 70
Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,
Foot after foot was giving way,
He and his best troops back to back
Had perished there, but the Danes ran,
Stricken with panic from the attack, 75
The shouting of an unseen man;
And being thankful Murrough found,
Led by a footsole dipped in blood
That had made prints upon the ground,
Where by old thorn trees that man stood; 80
And though when he gazed here and there,
He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,
“Who is the friend that seems but air
And yet could give so fine a stroke?”
Thereon a young man met his eye, 85
Who said, “Because she held me in
Her love, and would not have me die,
Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,
And pushing it into my shirt,
Promised that for a pin’s sake, 90
No man should see to do me hurt;
But there it’s gone; I will not take
The fortune that had been my shame
Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.”
’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came 95
He had betrayed me to his grave,
For he and the King’s son were dead.
I’d promised him two hundred years,
And when for all I’d done or said—
And these immortal eyes shed tears— 100
He claimed his country’s need was most,
I’d saved his life, yet for the sake
Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.
What does he care if my heart break?
I call for spade and horse and hound 105
That we may harry him.’ Thereon
She cast herself upon the ground
And rent her clothes and made her moan:
‘Why are they faithless when their might
Is from the holy shades that rove 110
The grey rock and the windy light?
Why should the faithfullest heart most love
The bitter sweetness of false faces?
Why must the lasting love what passes,
Why are the gods by men betrayed!’ 115
But thereon every god stood up
With a slow smile and without sound,
And stretching forth his arm and cup
To where she moaned upon the ground,
Suddenly drenched her to the skin; 120
And she with Goban’s wine adrip,
No more remembering what had been,
Stared at the gods with laughing lip.
I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,
To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot, 125
And the world’s altered since you died,
And I am in no good repute
With the loud host before the sea,
That think sword strokes were better meant
Than lover’s music—let that be, 130
So that the wandering foot’s content.
2. The Grey Rock
POETS with whom I learned my trade,
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,
Imagining ’twould better please
Your ears than stories now in fashion, 5
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
The bow-legged Goban had no say; 10
The moral’s yours because it’s mine.
When cups went round at close of day—
Is not that how good stories run?—
Somewhere within some hollow hill,
If books speak truth in Slievenamon, 15
But let that be, the gods were still
And sleepy, having had their meal,
And smoky torches made a glare
On painted pillars, on a deal
Of fiddles and of flutes hung there 20
By the ancient holy hands that brought them
From murmuring Murias, on cups—
Old Goban hammered them and wrought them,
And put his pattern round their tops
To hold the wine they buy of him. 25
But from the juice that made them wise
All those had lifted up the dim
Imaginations of their eyes,
For one that was like woman made
Before their sleepy eyelids ran 30
And trembling with her passion said,
‘Come out and dig for a dead man,
Who’s burrowing somewhere in the ground,
And mock him to his face and then
Hollo him on with horse and hound, 35
For he is the worst of all dead men.’
We should be dazed and terror struck,
If we but saw in dreams that room,
Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
That emptied all our days to come. 40
I knew a woman none could please,
Because she dreamed when but a child
Of men and women made like these;
And after, when her blood ran wild,
Had ravelled her own story out, 45
And said, ‘In two or in three years
I need must marry some poor lout,’
And having said it burst in tears.
Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
Maybe your images have stood, 50
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
Before that roomful or as good.
You had to face your ends when young—
’Twas wine or women, or some curse—
But never made a poorer song 55
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,
And unrepenting faced your ends, 60
And therefore earned the right—and yet
Dowson and Johnson most I praise—
To troop with those the world’s forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.
‘The Danish troop was driven out 65
Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;
‘Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland’s dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.’
‘When this day 70
Murrough, the King of Ireland’s son,
Foot after foot was giving way,
He and his best troops back to back
Had perished there, but the Danes ran,
Stricken with panic from the attack, 75
The shouting of an unseen man;
And being thankful Murrough found,
Led by a footsole dipped in blood
That had made prints upon the ground,
Where by old thorn trees that man stood; 80
And though when he gazed here and there,
He had but gazed on thorn trees, spoke,
“Who is the friend that seems but air
And yet could give so fine a stroke?”
Thereon a young man met his eye, 85
Who said, “Because she held me in
Her love, and would not have me die,
Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin,
And pushing it into my shirt,
Promised that for a pin’s sake, 90
No man should see to do me hurt;
But there it’s gone; I will not take
The fortune that had been my shame
Seeing, King’s son, what wounds you have.”
’Twas roundly spoke, but when night came 95
He had betrayed me to his grave,
For he and the King’s son were dead.
I’d promised him two hundred years,
And when for all I’d done or said—
And these immortal eyes shed tears— 100
He claimed his country’s need was most,
I’d saved his life, yet for the sake
Of a new friend he has turned a ghost.
What does he care if my heart break?
I call for spade and horse and hound 105
That we may harry him.’ Thereon
She cast herself upon the ground
And rent her clothes and made her moan:
‘Why are they faithless when their might
Is from the holy shades that rove 110
The grey rock and the windy light?
Why should the faithfullest heart most love
The bitter sweetness of false faces?
Why must the lasting love what passes,
Why are the gods by men betrayed!’ 115
But thereon every god stood up
With a slow smile and without sound,
And stretching forth his arm and cup
To where she moaned upon the ground,
Suddenly drenched her to the skin; 120
And she with Goban’s wine adrip,
No more remembering what had been,
Stared at the gods with laughing lip.
I have kept my faith, though faith was tried,
To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot, 125
And the world’s altered since you died,
And I am in no good repute
With the loud host before the sea,
That think sword strokes were better meant
Than lover’s music—let that be, 130
So that the wandering foot’s content.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Young Bruce, working class hero
Young Springsteen and his suicide machines : there's nothing like rock'n'roll, 'cause baby, tramps like us we're born to run*
the world spins
Gostava de ter um momento da tua atenção
um bater do teu coração
Gostava de ter um gesto teu
para guardar como meu
mas nem isso é justo, nada será
porque o mundo gira, gira sem parar
e nós tolos, não queremos ficar para trás,
com ele vamos até ao fim,
o nosso fim.
O mundo gira, gira, ponto.
New York
Couldn't help to notice the similarities between these images and the paintings of New York by Georgia O'Keefe, that I posted the other day.
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