Hiroshima

Nem só a carne é fraca...

Not only flesh is weak...

it all comes down to Bach

Universe

This is an universe.

I can't explain it, it can be simple
filed and classified for many, but I can't explain it.
It is a flower, an universe, it is dying at every moment
being reborn with each Spring.
It is an universe, I can't explain it.

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Isto é um universo.

Não o consigo explicar, deve ser simples
estar catalogado e ordenado para muitos, mas eu,
eu não consigo explicá-lo.
É uma flor, é um universo, morre a cada instante
renasce a cada Primavera.
É um universo, não consigo explicá-lo.

Africa

Just touched Africa, not enough to form my own experience of it, yet heard lots of stories about it : how the heart smells after the rain, how beautiful the sunsets and how warm the people.
It's a place where ends meet, where our innate idea of Eden is closer to reality a place filled with wonderful creatures and breathtaking landscapes and at the same time hell on earth, deserts, refugee camps, famine and war.
Africa is our present, as much as it's sold as the past or the future.

go emo!

"It’s dismissive. On that note, in terms of your statements on religion and pedagogy, how is it possible to allow religion to enter back into curricula if we are, as you say, in the winter phase of irony and satire? Can religion ever be taken seriously from a secular-humanist point of view?

Well, this is what’s wrong with education right now. It’s what’s wrong with post-structuralism. I don’t go in the direction of the cynical, looking for ways to question, to undercut, to dissolve meaning. As an Italian-American, as a very hot personality born under the sign of Aries, I’ve tried to drift things towards emotional extremes. That’s why I’ve been just ecstatic at my recent discovery of Brazil, where I’ve been going to give lectures. Last year I ended up in Salvadore de Bahia, which is heavily, eighty per cent, of African heritage. The emotional level of everybody there and the openness have taught me even more about the ills of Anglo-American society, where you have this inhibition of expressiveness. This is going to affect the performing arts. In live performance, you have to project to a theatre, as opposed to in a contemporary movie, in which you have to undercut, to downplay, or else it looks hammy. People have lost the ability to reach large numbers of people—in a free setting as they do in Brazil, not in a big-ticket arena. We really are entering a very bleak period.

Education should be about remedying whatever the needs are in society at a particular moment. So what do we need now? Emotion. I’ve seen in young people today a fear of being uncool, of making a fool of yourself. In the ’60s we had no problem making fools of ourselves. We were coming out of the ’50s, which was very repressive, uptight. That’s why the guys of my generation were influenced by black musicians; you can see in the film of Woodstock, young men trying to use their bodies in a very relaxed manner, in an almost feminine manner. They’re able to accept emotions: “Wow, far out,” etc. That was the period, and then it was gone. Men were wearing—look at Hendrix—feather boas, different colours, jewelry. Heterosexual men were wearing jewelry! Then all of a sudden it passed. Women went on to experiment with pants and everything, but the men lost it, all of that possibility. Then I began to notice something in the ’80s: whereas in the ’60s we would say, “wow,” “groovy,” or “far out,” young people began to say, “really?” I started hearing that [skeptical] tone. And I thought, “Oh no. We’re going back to the ’50s again. This is not good.”"

This is an excerpt from an interview Canadian magazine Walrus has done to Camille Paglia. I agree with her that we need to accept and express emotions better...
Read it all here

East meets West

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poems

Brahma
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same,
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

1856 [1857]

Lisboa

Adoro Agosto em Lisboa...mesmo nos corredores do Metro, cheira a óleo de coco e passamos na rua por pessoas com sorrisos abertos.

Oh, I love to spend August in Lisbon...even in Subway corridors one can smell coconut oil and in the streets there's people with broad smiles.

a peek of Paris

Inherent vice

A trailer for a book, WOW !

Ciclismo

O homem que empurra o carro do entulho para a caixa do camião, usa um penso no nariz tal e qual o camisola amarela do Tour de France.
Empurra o carrinho com o mesmo sacrificio e garbo, com que o seu colega ciclista trepa os Alpes.
Com camisolas amarelas de um empreiteiro, passam num carro da EDP, dois jovens trabalhadores - porque andarão então num carro da EDP ? Porque saem mais baratos, são mais dóceis e facilmente descartáveis, é por isso...
Continuo a descer a calçada até à Avenida, passo o jardim deserto, nesta cidade de Sol, os habitantes preferem esconder-se nos seus cantinhos sombrios.
Na Avenida passam mulheres, tal e qual como os modelos das grandes montras, correm os carros apressados, aqui ninguém sua, ou mostra rugas de esforço, sequer usa um penso no nariz...Aqui na Avenida usar-se-ão máscaras, quando o medo da pandemia apertar, mas não por enquanto, não ainda.

Love me

"Love me" is a project by photojournalist Maisie Crow. With it she won the Ian Parry award.
Her photos are really worth a look, find them at her site.

See Emily play

the short XXth century

"Picabia adored women, cars, alcohol and drugs."












"Basically I’m a compulsive changer, like Picabia. You do something for six months or a year, and you move on to something else. That’s what Picabia has done all his life.” Marcel Duchamp, chess player

Calvin is cool !

Ceci n’est pas Magritte

"This période vache could not subsequently be transformed into a style. Barely a few weeks after the opening of the show, Magritte used the excuse of his wife’s supposedly negative reaction to bring the adventure to an end. “I would quite like to continue with the ‘approach’ I experimented with in Paris, and take it further. That’s my tendency: one of slow suicide. But there’s Georgette and my familiar disgust with being ‘sincere’. Georgette prefers the well-made painting of ‘yesteryear’, so particularly to please Georgette in future I’m going to show the painting of yesteryear. I’ll find a way to slip in a great big incongruity from time to time.”

Bernard Marcadé on René Magritte

More about this période ici

people lead complicated lives

Peter Severin Krøyer. 1899

Sommeraften ved Skagens strand. Kunstneren og hans hustru

Den Hirschsprungske Samling, København. 2004

Baladeur

balade
nom féminin
(de balader)
■Familier. Promenade : Faire une balade dans les bois.

ballade
nom féminin
(ancien provençal ballada, de ballar, danser)
■Au Moyen Âge, poème lyrique d'origine chorégraphique, d'abord chanté, puis destiné seulement à la récitation.
■À partir du XIVe s., poème à forme fixe, composé de trois strophes suivies d'un envoi d'une demi-strophe.
■Dès la fin du XVIIIe s., petit poème narratif en strophes, relatant, ordinairement sur le mode fantastique, une tradition historique ou une légende.
■Pièce vocale ou instrumentale inspirée par une ballade littéraire (Chopin, Liszt, Brahms ont écrit des ballades pour piano).

(merci Larousse.fr)

Espiritismo

Pai, mãe, Leah


Há muitos anos, era Portugal um país muito mais pobre do que é agora, mesmos os pobres tinham pessoas que os ajudavam nos seus trabalhos.
O meu avô Manuel na sua traineira, tinha sempre alguém com ele, normalmente um rapaz, mas também muitas vezes homens feitos já, que em troca do abrigo,do alimento e pouco mais, o ajudavam na sua faina da pesca.
Conta o meu pai, que um destes ajudantes já espigadote, tinha ganho o hábito de quando havia ajuntamentos, se deixar caír para o chão e começar a nadar em seco. Ele explicava depois que era o espirito de um irmão dele, que tinha morrido afogado e que naqueles momentos o possuía. O meu avô durante uma dessas possessões resolveu agarrar numa tábua e com ela dar umas pranchadas no possuído.
Segundo o meu pai foi cura instantânea e definitiva, visto que enquanto ele continuou com a minha familia nunca tal voltou a acontecer...
Penso é que o meu avô, ficou fã ferveroso da terapêutica, porque sempre que eu e os meus irmãos ficávamos com ele, arranjava umas varinhas de salgueiro e dava-nos com elas nas pernas, agora vejo, para nos livrar dos maus espiritos...
Diga-se também, que nós não éramos exactamente rapazes de parar quietos e com o rio ali mesmo ao lado, o meu avô devia pensar que era melhor andarmos sempre bem atentos e não nos pôrmos a pisar varas verdes.