Breaking sugar

" In “Breaking Sugar”, arguably the single most tender and beautiful story in the collection, breaking a sugar cube with a hammer in the darkness, in order to release a violet burst of light, is used as a metaphor for sex, for reasonably violent physical contact, which releases a different kind of truth than the standard, spiritual, kind."
Shigekun

Found this in the Net when I googled "A.L.Kennedy Breaking Sugar", it's a short story I read today, I wanted to share it with you all, I just loved it. The book is called "Original Bliss".

Professora de linguas modernas

Ela poderia ser uma heroína romântica, não era bela, mas tinha os seus atractivos, era principalmente muito feminina, tinha qualquer coisa de menina em todos os seus gestos. Foi minha professora no Liceu e lembro-me bem da sua figura, sempre muito bem arranjada, grandes óculos de sol e lenços bonitos de seda...para mim, uma imagem de mulher independente, trabalhadora, moderna e sensível...
Anos depois, com amigas desse tempo, calhámos falar nela : "- Oh, essa, sim, claro que nos lembramos, coitada, as sovas que levava do marido...sempre com aqueles grandes óculos a tapar os olhos e os lenços a esconder as nódoas negras..."
Nunca tal me tinha passado pela cabeça até aquele momento, aquilo que era evidente para elas, tinha-me passado e penso que a todos os meus colegas de género, completamente ao lado...realmente as mulheres sabem muito da vida e desde muito novas o sabem.

Late

Slept late this morning, got up in an hurry, but there's no way, gonna feel late all day long...

à noite

Lembro-me vagamente do sonho, penso que alguém, uma mulher, procurava qualquer coisa... entretanto várias peripécias lhe iam sucedendo, não consigo lembrar quais, lembro-me só que o sonho acabou com uma figura masculina, reclinada, na exacta pose da figura que Miguel Ângelo pintou no tecto da Capela Sistina e uma câmara fez um zoom sobre o seu pénis erecto e de alguma forma aquilo representava o fim da busca da personagem. A principio pareceu-me kitsch a imagem, mas sim, depois pensei,se era o que ela realmente procurava, então está bem.



Passeio os cães sempre à noite e por sitios pouco frequentados, gosto de os soltar e deixá-los andar à sua vontade, depois de passarem o dia fechados. Naquela noite, estava um carro parado, encostado a uns arbustos, tinha a janela aberta e o rádio ligado, pensei que fosse um casal de namorados e tentei passar inadvertido, fiz para que os cães também não se aproximassem demasiado, e segui.
Um bocado à frente, tive de me baixar para atacar um sapato que entretanto se tinha desapertado, chamei a cadela para junto de mim, porque ela é a mais irrequieta e a tenho de ter sempre debaixo de olho, entretanto o carro começou a mover-se na nossa direção, quando passou por nós, um sujeito acenou-me através da janela, pareceu-me que o fez em câmara lenta, assim como nos filmes do David Lynch. Lembrei-me de uma coisa que me tinha acontecido no passado.



Vinha de estar com os meus amigos, já era bastante tarde e comecei a fazer a parte final do caminho para casa dos meus pais. Depois da estação dos comboios até casa, tinha de andar um bocado ao longo da estrada nacional, o que tarde à noite era sempre um bocado assustador...Naquela noite, debaixo de uma árvore estava um carro parado, quando passei por ele, um tipo de dentro chamou-me : "- Anda, anda..." e acenou-me com a cabeça, eu continuei a caminhar sem olhar e sem nada responder, o tipo arrancou e seguiu ainda um bocado ao meu lado : "- Anda !" mas eu aguentei-me e segui sempre sem me voltar ou alterar o meu passo.

the Flemish school

Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464) Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) 220 BY 262 cm. Oil on panel. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Images from Google Earth.)

Check it using Google Earth it's in the El Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. Amazing.

The Flemish School of Painting

During the period from the 14th to the 17th century, Flanders (in the northern region of Belgium) produced an unbelievable amount of talented artists, including some men of absolute genius such as Jan Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals and Antony van Dyck.

Their paintings glow with a sense of vitality that is seldom seen in more recent paintings. They have a quality that is often described as “jewel-like.” This is especially evident if you see them in person; it’s easy to pick out the Flemish paintings from those done in other periods, or those from the same period done in other places. The precise detail and gorgeous colors are marvelous to look at.

The early Flemish painters were the first to popularize the use of oil paint.
Check this

Donaimar

Bonito

I want

"That's all we've got." When I held my breath to watch his face, I knew I loved him: I could hear it - like the pause before sunrise, or the small drumming of clean rain.
"Do you think I could feel your skin again ?"
"If you want."
"I want."
And for one complete moment, "I want" was the absolute truth.

A.L. Kennedy, at end of Groucho's Moustache

Sampa, Nippon

let's keep a colour diary

love letter

I hear lake water

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W. B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Memory can be tricky

I don't know Catarina, she appeared as my Facebook friend out of nowhere, but I consider me very lucky, because she is really talented.
Her work makes me think about memory, how since the moment we live something we start to forget it. It's very interesting that Catarina uses snaps from her own life, as material to her work, I think that reinforces this idea of time, people, situations getting away from you...

Europa again

Emotion as colour

more here

Colours are emotions...

Ria Formosa

Estes lugares entre a terra e o mar enchem-me de paz

Guillermo Kuitca

What not to paint

- "No one ever asks what a Bach piece is about. Music is different than art in that way."

- "Explanations can be a cloud between the viewer and a painting."

I knew a woman

I Knew A Woman by Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

HOLD STILL !

HOLD STILL !

Silence/Love

Some say silence is the language of love...I don't know I keep waiting for a sign