Pedaços de Vancouver #1

Vancouver tem:

marinas a toda a volta

o mercado de Granville

barquinhos coloridos (aquabus) a fazer a travessia para a cidade

Yaletown com lojas a fazer lembrar o Soho

prédios altos de vidro... muitos!

cruzeiros que partem para o Alaska

aviões que amaram na baía com as montanhas nevadas no horizonte

montanhas a toda a volta da água a (quase) toda a volta

muitos arranha-céus em ruas movimentadas e verdes

muitos parques com vista para a água e as montanhas...

ADOREI!

Ditto #76

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Jardins

A 20 km de Victoria (capital da província Canadiana de British Columbia) ficam os jardins de Butchart, que fazem muito lembrar os vários jardins da Madeira!

Espantos #119

Na costa oeste, os prédios que servem de bibliotecas têm o seu quê de artístico.

Em Vancouver a biblioteca toma a forma de um coliseu romano.

Caprichos #48

@ L'entracte Opéra, à Paris

Pormenores #28

Reflexo no prédio do sheraton em Vancouver, British Columbia, Canadá

Espantos #118

Olympic mountains

Vistas do barco de Seattle no estado Americano de Washington para a cidade de Victoria, capital da província Canadiana de Bristish Columbia. Na linha do horizonte as nuvens brancas confundem-se com a neve no topo das montanhas.

Coisas que não mudam #46

Os extravagantes prédios de Frank Gehry... aqui a biblioteca de Seattle.

Espantos #117

Seattelites proudly joke about it...

What a beautiful Seattle day!

Pormenores #27

Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA

Coisas que não mudam #45

longe da vista...

Numa sala perto de mim #61

Juno, numa tv de 56''... é algo deferente! Gostei dos exemplos de maturidade e de falta dela, sem que a idade seja tida nem achada. Ficaram-me na cabeça as músicas da banda sonora como que cantadas em sussuro, como esta:

I'm sticking with you
'Cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

Coisas que não mudam #44

You're a spectator of your own life.

1. people come in & out of your life at their own leisure: they want to come in, you let them; they want to go out, you let them. What can you do...

2. you apply for 100 jobs and then the market plays its random hand, you like what you end up with, but you did very little for it.

3. you're house hunting (on foot) for three days and end up with a tan... coooool ;-)

Coisas que não mudam #43

O fim da tarde dá ao céu tons rosa.

Também há hora de ponta de fim de tarde nos aeroportos.

Espantos #116

Por mais que voe, não deixam de me surpreender as formas das nuvens que se vêem lá de cima... fofos pedaços gigantes de algodão!

Espantos #115

Chegar a Nashville, apanhar o shuttle e ouvir música brasileira...

E o motivo todo o mundo já conhece

É que o de cima sobe e o de baixo desce

Bom xibom xibom bombom

Pormenores #26

Large outdoor -- Canal st., NYC

(publicidade feita de mudança)

Espantos #115

Gasolineira? Não.

Portagem? Também não!

Multibanco senhores, multibanco!
Três máquinas para carros, uma para pessoas. E viva a cultura do carro!

Coisas que não mudam #42

A Thousand Splendid Suns conta a história de um país atormentado por décadas de guerra que necessariamente marca as personagens de forma indelével. Em tantas passagens os sentimentos descritos podiam ser meus ou de pessoas que conheço e felizmente nunca vivi uma guerra... se pudessem escolher, muitos dos Afegãos também não as teriam vivido. Fica parte de um poema que descreve Kabul:

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

Espantos #114

Kirkland Hall, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Fairy tale-like houses

Ditto #75

How inappropriate to call this planet earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

--Arthur C. Clarke

Palavras lidas #47

“I missed you.”
There was a pause. Then Tariq turned to her with half-grinning, half-grimacing look of distaste. “What’s the matter with you?”
How many times had she, Hasina, and Giti said those same three words to each other, Laila wondered, said it without hesitation, after only two or three days of not seeing each other? I missed you, Hasina. Oh, I missed you too. In Tariq’s grimace, Laila learned that boys differed from girls in this regard. They didn’t make show of friendship. They felt no urge, no need, for this sort of talk. Laila imagined it had been this way for her brothers too. Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

____________

p. 119

Numa sala perto de mim #60

Radio Cape Cod, simples, refrescante e ao mesmo tempo tão real que podia mesmo ser verdade. Filmado em Cape Cod e só pela imagem (a fazer lembrar Hopper) vale a pena ver!

Espantos #113

Situation: I'm walking down a bike-walk-run trail by the Charles river. It's sunny and pleasant and there are lots of people out enjoying the good weather. A mother walks together with her two children, a boy of about 6 and a girl of about 4, both on small bikes. His, is a miniature of a mountain bike suited for his age. Hers, is smaller and pink with side wheels. The kids are excited to be biking. The boy goes slightly faster than the girl but both go ahead of the mom. None gets too far, but the mother is worried that they will, if not warned. The dialogue followed.

mom (in a loud voice to be heard ahead) kids, stop by the trash can on the left.
girl (yelling, pedaling and not looking back) whaaat's thaaaa leeeeft?

Parece que estou a ouvir #60

New Soul
Yael Naim

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

La, la, la, la (21x)
La, la, la, la (21x)

See I'm a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate? try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make

La, la, la, la (21x)
La, la, la, la (21x)

This is a happy end
Cause you don't understand
Everything you have done
Why's everything so wrong

This is a happy end
Come and give me your hand
I'll take you far away

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

New soul... (la, la, la, la,...)
In this very strange world...
Every possible mistake
Possible mistake
Every possible mistake
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...
_________________

"Finding myself making every possible mistake"... the lyrics are not the most uplifting ones, but the music is indeed. I can hear myself singing la la laaaaa la lala for the rest of the day. Also known as (aka) the song from the Macbook Air commercial.

Ditto #74

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

-- George F. Will

_______________

well... in this perspective life can even be rosy :-)

Child...

Smiling Child at a Window, Murillo

O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination: then you were
Yourself again after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
You had a father: let your son say so.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet XIII