Palavras lidas #411

De fato e gravata, fui infeliz no pacato escritório forrado de códigos e madeiras, cheirando a cachimbo. Odiava providências cautelares e petições inicias como um jacobino odeia padres. Sabia que não seria advogado mas treinava vagamente para essa ficção. O trabalho de escritório era calmo e entediante, nada me interessava, só a vaga esperança de um processo criminal aceitável. A vaga esperança da Boa Hora.

(...)

Lá dentro o mundo das leis parecia mais suportável, porque funcionava num jogo necessário e consentido. Regras, retórica, rituais. E pessoas. Nada de muito exaltante, mas ainda assim a possibilidade, até aí insuspeita de um rosto humano de justiça. E na minha memória de abominações jurídicas o Tribunal da Boa Hora é um parêntesis quase benigno. Tenho pena que o fechem de vez.

Pedro Mexia, Lá Fora, "Pátio das Comédias," pp. 30-31

Espantos #577

Estes dois patos vivem nas imediações da biblioteca...

... ele sempre atrás dela. É uma universidade mas podia ser uma quinta :-)

Primavera #99

Still everywhere

Ainda por todo o lado

Palavras lidas #410

Taking Out the Trash*
by Kamilah Aisha Moon

Someone else used to do this before.
Someone responsible,
someone who loved me enough
to protect me from my own filth
piling up.

But I’m over 40 now & live alone,
& if I don’t remember it's Thursday
& rise with the cardinals & bluejays
calling up the sun, I’m stuck
with what’s left rotting
for another week.

I swing my legs like anchors over the side
of the bed & use the wall for leverage
to stand, shuffle to the bathroom.
In summer, I slide into a pair of shorts & flip flops,
wandering room to room to collect
what no longer serves me.

I shimmy the large kitchen bag from
the steel canister, careful not to spill
what’s inside or rip it somehow
& gross myself out.
Sometimes I double bag for insurance,
tying loose ends together,
cinching it tightly for the journey.

Still combing through webs of dreams,
of spiders’ handiwork glistening above
the wheeled container on the back patio,
I drag my refuse down the driveway
past the chrysanthemums & azaleas,
the huge Magnolia tree shading the living room
from Georgia’s heat, flattening hordes
of unsuspecting ants in my path to park it
next to the mailbox for merciful elves
to take off my hands.

It is not lost on me that one day
someone responsible,
someone who loves me enough
will dispose of this worn, wrinkled
container after my spirit soars on.

I don’t wait to say thank you
to those doing this grueling, necessary work.
But I do stand in the young, faintly lit air
for a long moment to inhale deeply,
& like clockwork when he strides by,
watch the jogger’s strong, wet back
fade over the slight rise of the road.
_________

*Most days I rotely go about my routines, but there are some days when everything is presciently clear and nothing escapes notice; I also can't help but gauge where I am in life. This poem is one of those moments of heightened awareness that makes the seemingly mundane profound.

—Kamilah Aisha Moon

Numa sala perto de mim #406

Lazzaro Felice (2018) is a heartbreakingly beautiful movie in two acts. The first in a remote village where peasants work the land of Marquise De Luna from sunset to sunrise in a scenario of poverty and exploitation; the time period is unclear. The second is set in teh present, years later in the city, after the peasants were removed from the illegal situation they had lived all their lives and the ignorance of any potential alternative; the city doesn't offer prosperity or hope so they remain poor and rely on petty crime to get by. 

Lazzaro is and remains young, pure, loyal, good-natured, and unfailingly happy throughout the story, unlike all others who age, become wicked, dishonest, grumpy, and disillusioned. Nevertheless, attitudes towards Lazzaro change dramatically: in the first part Lazzaro is bullied and ordered around, obliging diligently without a complaint; in the second part the same Lazzaro is valued almost as the good luck charm that keeps being happy in grim circumstances.

Worth of note are the acting, the music, the idyllic rural landscape contrasting with the dirty realistic urbanity, the shrill class conflict, the inevitable generational clashes. Made me curious about the other filmography by Alice Rohrwacher.

Coisas que não mudam #494

Porque é bom não esquecer a cara de quem assinou mandatos de captura em branco e que só foi posto no seu lugar 7 meses depois do 25 de Abril, aqui fica Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho (ladeado por Vasco Gonçalves e Rosa Coutinho... olha que dois!) e as palavras daqueles cuja perda irreparável não esquece. Mérito ao plano militar para fazer cair a ditadura, mas as barbaridade que se fizeram até ao 25 de Novembro têm responsáveis que volvidos 45 anos parecem inocentados e inofensivos.

Caprichos #538

Mais Galup

desta vez em forma de pomba para a Páscoa.

Coisas que não mudam #493

Diada de Sant Jordi na Catalunha.

São Jorge é também o padroeiro de Inglaterra

pelo que o google comemora em doodle por estes lados.

Pormenores #155

Rolf

Campus cat!

Caprichos #537

Aperitivos italianos e espanhóis, mediterrânicos portanto,

mas com um laivo português... a sardinha não engana!

Coisas que não mudam #492

Manhãs de Páscoa

Primavera #98

Easter weekend with glorious weather in the UK. According to local standards we're having a heat wave. The high temperature for the day was 24C and we could potentially have the hottest Easter Sunday on record in a couple of days if the temperatures rise to 26C. Heat wave... it all depends on the reference point!

Espantos #576

Oa magníficos lustres do Met!

Coisas bonitas #22

Recentemente num voo de Barcelona para Birmingham

tive oportunidade de observar os Pirinéus cobertos de neve,

não tão impressionantes ou massivos como os Alpes,

mas ainda assim bem bonitos!

Parece que estou a ouvir #290

Goodbye my love

The Searchers

Goodbye my love, goodbye my love
Though I love you truly
It was meant to be
That I'd lose your love
Goodbye my love, goodbye

So long my love, be strong my love
You've done nothing wrong
This love can't go on
So take care my love
Goodbye my love, goodbye

And I know that you're not happy at all
Any fool can plainly see
And I know I'm the one you really love
But I can't go on sharing you, sharing you

Goodbye my love, don't cry my love
I love you sincerely
It just had to be
It hurts me so inside to say goodbye

Goodbye my love
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Ditto #406

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

--Viktor Frankel, Holocaust survivor

Palavras lidas #409

CXL

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

William Shakespeare

Primavera #97

Campus em flor

os narcisos amarelos já definham e os brancos em força plena

Caprichos #536

O marcador de livros que me esperava em casa

Numa sala perto de mim #405

Green Book (2018) based on the true story of classical pianist's Don Shirley's tour of several cities in the South in 1962 and his white driver Tony Vallelonga. The latter consults the green book (actually published between 1936 and 1966) to check hotels and restaurants where blacks were welcome in the highly segregated south.

Against the highly racist background of the 1960s, neither the artist nor the driver have it easy through the trip. Both have prejudiced racial attitudes that get nuanced, or perhaps faded, with time and coexistence. The last couple of scenes are a rather forced but what works for Hollywood is not necessarily that close to true events. In any event, the acting is excellent, the historical setting is sadly accurate, the soundtrack notable. Thumbs up!

Parece que estou a ouvir #289

Just Breathe
Pearl Jam

Yes I understand
That every life must end
As we sit alone
I know someday we must go

Yeah I'm a lucky man
To count on both hands
The ones I love
Some folks just have one
Yeah others they got none

Stay with me
Let's just breathe

Practiced on our sins
Never gonna let me win
Under everything
Just another human being

I don't want to hurt
There's so much in this world
To make me believe

Stay with me
All I see

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
What if I did and I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
'Cause I come clean

I wonder everyday
As I look upon your face
Everything you gave
And nothing you would take, oh no

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave...

Did I say that I need you?
Oh, did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
As I come clean, ah...

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me 'til I die
Meet you on the other side...

Numa sala perto de mim #404

The Mule (2018) acted and directed by Clint Eastwood, tells the story of a 90 year old that becomes the most successful mule of the Sinaloa Cartel carrying loads of cocaine from the Mexican border to Chicago. It is a movie about a man at the end of his life and it feels like a movie by a man at the end of his life. A little slow to grab the audience, but if there's someone who knows how to do it, it's Clint Eastwood.

Note on the soundtrack: I've been Everywhere and On the Road Again among other classics... looks like Eastwood wanted to sing those on camera for a long time... he seemed to really enjoy it!

Coisas que não mudam #491

A fantástica arte de Joana Vasconcelos em Serralves

Espantos #575

Serralves, sempre Serralves