See you later!

The sun is shining. The sky is blue. The fields are green. My soul is going for a walk.



Fotografia - www.olhares.com

Musée du Louvre, Paris

UNKNOWN MASTER, Portuguese
Man with a Glass of Wine
c. 1450


Gaugin ou Van Gogh, vá-se lá saber, teriam achado a proximidade entre a faca e a linda orelha irresistível.

Se o P de PEC fosse o P de PROCESSO

O Processo é um romance de Franz Kafka, sobre o bancário Josef K, que é acusado sem saber o motivo.

Josef K era de um funcionário exemplar, trabalhava num banco importante e tinha um cargo de grande responsabilidade. Desempenhava as suas funções com muita dedicação, razão que leva a crescer na empresa.

Na manhã em que completava 30 anos, Josef K é detido no próprio quarto por dois polícias, que tomaram o café que devia ter sido dele e depois sugeriram estarem a ser subornados. Inicia-se assim o pesadelo de Josef K. Chegou a imaginar que tudo não passava de uma brincadeira de seus colegas do banco.

Josef K acreditava que todo o mal entendido seria esclarecido ao ser convocado para um interrogatório. Estava errado. Deparou-se com um inspector rude e agressivo que o ameaçava e fazia chantagens. Josef K exigia esclarecimentos mas curiosamente nem o inspector nem os polícias sabiam sobre o motivo de sua detenção.

Contratou um advogado na esperança de ter alguma saída e obter informações sobre o seu processo, mas rapidamente o dispensou, pois revelou uma grande indiferença em relação ao mesmo.

Tentou um contacto com o tribunal, mas encontrou muitos processos, sendo o dele apenas mais um que ficaria à espera. Todo o desenrolar do processo não lhe parecia verdadeiro, os acusadores e as testemunhas tinham atitudes duvidosas e absurdas.

Josef K não tem um final feliz.

Maurits Cornelis Escher - Relativity (1953)



Tenho para mim que Kafka tinha uma costela de português e cantava o fado.

My heart has some special places 1

This is were special people have brunch with me.

Just what my dark side needed

Two Japanese designers have created Bright Blinds, which are blinds to be hung on blank walls to give the appearance of a window underneath.

Quando o meu amor chega - 2

A avó de Paul Gauguin

Há quem afirme que Flora Tristán inventou a classe operária antes de Marx. Os seus mais famosos ensaios foram publicados na década de 1840. Foi ela quem lançou a ideia de uma União Universal de Operários e Operárias, uma espécie de rascunho da 1ª Internacional Comunista.

Descobria no romance de Mário Vargas Llosa, O Paraíso na Outra Esquina.

TS Eliot - The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair -
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin -
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all -
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all -
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all -
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet - and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" -
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all."
That is not it, at all.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor -
And this, and so much more? -
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous -
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Sometimes a kiss is not just a kiss

When a Project is Gotan

When I sort of fell in love with him

Legends of the Fall, 1994

Delightful moments 1

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is about two classic subjects – blighted love and the horror of war. By setting the scene on a beautiful unspoilt island, the writer is able to counterpoint the tragedy more starkly. How, he seems to invite us to ask, could such terrible things happen in such an idyllic place?



Thanks Carol!

If only she knew

Naquele dia ela deixava o país da sua adolescência, uma cultura, os amigos, e o namorado. Só anos mais tarde percebeu a verdadeira dimensão de tal decisão. Naquele dia também fazia 17 anos. Quando virou as costas e caminhava para o avião, sentiu que uma grande parte dela se recusava. Até o avião levantar voo teve que controlar o impulso de correr disparada contra o passado. Ainda hoje se interroga como teria sido se tivesse contrariado o momento.

ON TIME from Bianca Bodmer on Vimeo.

O som do silêncio

Em 1964 Paul Simon e Art Garfunkel cantaram pela primeira vez este hino ao diálogo. Hoje procurei e ouvi, 46 anos depois. So true.

O perfume da amizade, pela segunda vez

Recebo uma mensagem. Combinamos um chá e alguns dedos de conversa boa, tantos quanto o tempo permitisse. A campainha da porta toca. Abro. “Toma! eu sei o quanto querias.” Fico comovida, queria muito, era verdade. Hoje a casa tem aquele cheirinho único a amizade.

A very cozy christmas

Era natal, lá fora nevava. Sentados no chão da sala à volta dos presentes o entusiasmos era inevitavelmente infantil. Cada um abria um presente de cada vez e à vez. Chegava a minha vez. A caixa era comprida e estreita, o papel muito colorido com um enorme laço brilhante. No meio de muito frenesim avisavam-me que era frágil e muito delicado. Importante para quem valoriza o conforto. Era um termómetro de Galileu.

A very short long story

Entre o dia em que choraram juntos e o dia de nada dizer, só passou o tempo. Sem nada para registar e tudo por dizer. Como terrivelmente cheia e vazia pode ser uma história de amor.

www.olhares.com

É só uma lembrança

Ao cimo da rua avistámos o carro, abriu-se o portão. Estávamos todos ansiosos, especialmente os miúdos. Ela chegava do Japão. No quarto a desfazer as malas ela dá-me um embrulho. Diz-me que era só uma lembrança. Abro, era um saquinho de pano, perfeito para guardar todos os deliciosos momentos que partilhamos.

A minha varanda

Acordei cedo. Estranho para um domingo. Estava sol, que bom! Lembrei-me do investimento que tinha feito para que a primavera este ano fosse amarela. Fui direitinha à varanda, que encanto! Este ano tenho amores-perfeitos lindos que partilho com a rua estreita e antiga.

Spring cleaning

Parabéns aos que calçaram luvas para limpar Portugal.

A contadora de histórias

Chimamanda Adichie conta de uma forma deliciosa, consciente e crua, os perigos de uma história única. Que orgulho em ter nascido em África, reconheço.

Hi Nick

Alexandra from oliver gray on Vimeo.

Mark Linkous - A Coragem

A Abelha

A abelha que, voando, freme sobre
A colorida flor, e pousa, quase
Sem diferença dela
À vista que não olha,

Não mudou desde Cecrops. Só quem vive
Uma vida com ser que se conhece
Envelhece, distinto
Da espécie de que vive.

Ela é a mesma que outra que não ela.
Só nós - ó tempo, ó alma, ó vida, ó morte! -
Mortalmente compramos
Ter mais vida que a vida.


Ricardo Reis

O meu Oscar

Sinalética

Sign Language - a short film from Oscar Sharp on Vimeo.

Please take care of me

Vida de wagyu

A wagyu, é uma raça bovina japonesa da qual é extraída a carne do bife mais caro do mundo, tem uma imensa quantidade de gordura, e a forma peculiar como que essa gordura se mistura com a carne dá aos bifes uma substância e macieza incomparáveis. O gado é originário da região de Hyogo, onde fica a cidade de Kobe. Até meados do século IXX, a raça era usada apenas para puxar carros de boi no cultivo de arroz.






O consumo começou com a Revolução Meiji, em 1868, e aos poucos os japoneses descobriram as características únicas da carne e desenvolveram métodos especiais para potencializar essas qualidades.

Os animais são alimentados com aveia, bebem cerveja e recebem três sessões diárias de massagem um tratamento dispensado apenas a atletas olímpicos, toca-se música clássica para relaxar o gado, e os massagistas usam saqué para deixar o pêlo brilhante.

Quando o meu amor chega - 1

As cougars

Who is a Real Cougar?

• A woman who isn’t afraid to knock down walls and crash through glass ceilings.
• A woman who adores men but refuses to be defined by the age of the man she chooses to be with.
• A woman who has gotten over listening to what other people think.
• A woman who knows how to keep her body healthy, her beauty radiant and her spiritual reservoir full.
• A woman who puts financial freedom high on her priority list.

Every woman, whether she realizes it or not, has a Real Cougar just waiting to be unleashed. Living your life as a smart, sexy, independent woman is the best gift you can give yourself. So get over listening to what other people think you should do and start living the life you deserve. This is the time to let go of your preconceived notions about aging, about sexuality, about beauty, about relationships with money, and give yourself permission to explore all of your possibilities.

I know many women think that a cougar is a derogatory word used to describe women who only prefer younger men. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Real Cougar, a term I coined in 2007, is any woman over 40 who is turned on and excited about life.

This fabulous female is changing the role of women today and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Achieving the rank of Real Cougar is a privilege, never an embarrassment. You have worked hard to earn your stripes, so be proud to revel in your accomplishments. For far too long, women over 40 have been pushed to the sidelines. You are mothers, business executives, entrepreneurs and teachers. You are a million things, but not the complete woman you have always wanted to be. Now is the time to change all that.

Every woman has a Real Cougar inside just waiting to be released—a woman who is strong, confident, independent, sexy and proud to be past 40.

Linda Franklin