Pormenores #117

New York honesty 

Ditto #287

To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.

--Seneca

Espantos #404

The beauty of aircraft engineering

Espantos #403

m&m extravaganza

Espantos #402

A turkey on Harvard yard... who would have thought!

Sem título #39

At the 9-11 Memorial Museum

No day shall erase you from the memory of time (Virgil) 

Coisas que não mudam #276

Baltimore from the air

Pormenores #116

Num Crate & Barrel perto de mim...

Caprichos #331

Alfajor, directamente de Mar del Plata, Argentina...
recheado com doce de leite e cobertura de chocolate. Uma delícia!

Coisas que não mudam #275

5 a 10 minutos depois da descolagem, a 10,000 pés de altitude víamos toda a cidade de Boston, com o aeroporto, o porto, a baixa, as curvas do rio Charles...

5 to 10 minutes after take off, at 10,000 feet, we saw the entire city of Boston with the airport, the harbor, downtown, the curves of the Charles...

Ditto #286

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

--John F. Kennedy

Coisas que não mudam #274

Rain or shine!

Coisas que não mudam #273

Rowers on the Charles

Palavras lidas #243

Later, with Douglas back in England, Cunrad prodded him in written notes to recall his experience in France and Portugal.

And Lisbon [she asked him]---you were there for many months. Did you find the Portuguese in general---or which classes in particular---as friendly to the British as tradition states them to be? Do you think it is a hotbed of international political intrigue, with a great many Nazi agents? And on which side do you think is public opinion mostly?

To which Douglas responded:

I noticed no Nazi agents in Lisbon, thought there may have been thousands of them. The few Germans I met were refugees. And the few Portuguese avoided politics like the plague. And the few newspapers were censored, and therefore no guide to the country's political feelings. (p. 129)

______

Lisbon was reached at dusk, and Peabody was introduced to the city's display of light. "The sight of a million lights," she wrote, "blazing in the sky went to my head: it was champagne: it made me dizzy. Lisbon was like a beacon emerging out of the European blak-out. It looked like a dream-city." "The whole place," she added, "resembled a Christmas tree. I wanted to blow the trumpets and throw confetti and sing and dance. Light after darkness. It was thrilling!". When she came to her hotel, the Palácio in Estoril, she had the feeling she was aboard an opulent ocean liner: "In the bar, after the third Martini, I could almost feel the gentle roll of this incredible refugee ship." (p. 131)

______

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer and aviator, luckily found a hotel room in Estoril after he reached Lisbon. But the nearby casino and the exile throngs within only intensified a feeling of unreality that was rooted in his qualms about leaving France in her darkest hour. The figures at roulette or baccarat---men in stiff shirtfronts, women with glittering pearls---stimulated what he called "a kind of anguish---the same feeling that you experience at a zoo when looking at the survivors of an extinct species." Just as Lisbon and its ongoing centenary celebration seemed to him to be playing at happiness, the exiles played at clinging to their past identities: "They still pretended to be someone. They clung obstinately to some semblance of meaning. They said, 'That is who I am. ... I come from such and such town. ... I am the friend of so and so. ... Do you know him?'" (p. 158)

Coisas que não mudam #272

Just another ice cream store in Boston, actually Cambridge.

Espantos #401

Formas perfeitas

Perfect shapes

Retirado do contexto #187

Enquanto ele tocava Beethoven a partir da pauta, ela pulava ao ritmo da sessão de aeróbica no seu computador.

________

While he played Beethoven from the score, she jumped to the rhythm of the aerobics session in her computer.

________

Mentre lui suonava Beethoven dalla partitura, lei saltava al ritmo della sessione aerobica sul suo computer.

Coisas que não mudam #271

Korean food: Bibimbap!

Palavras lidas #242

E como de Camões não se sabe o dia que nasceu, fica o poema.
_____________

O dia em que eu nasci, morra e pereça,
Não o queira jamais o tempo dar,
Não torne mais ao mundo e, se tornar,
Eclipse nesse passo o sol padeça.

A luz lhe falte, o sol se lhe escureça,
Mostre o mundo sinais de se acabar,
Nasçam-lhe monstros, sangue chova o ar,
A mãe ao próprio filho não conheça.

As pessoas pasmadas, de ignorantes,
As lágrimas no rosto, a cor perdida,
Cuidem que o mundo já se destruiu.

Ó gente temerosa, não te espantes,
Que este dia deitou ao mundo a vida
Mais desgraçada que jamais se viu!

Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524 - 10.06.1580)

Foi neste dia #242 (1765)

Camões, grande Camões...

Camões, grande Camões, quão semelhante
Acho teu fado ao meu, quando os cotejo!
Igual causa nos fez, perdendo o Tejo,
Arrostar co'o sacrílego gigante;

Como tu, junto ao Ganges sussurrante,
Da penúria cruel no horror me vejo;
Como tu, gostos vãos, que em vão desejo,
Também carpindo estou, saudoso amante.

Ludíbrio, como tu, da Sorte dura
Meu fim demando ao Céu, pela certeza
De que só terei paz na sepultura.

Modelo meu tu és, mas... oh, tristeza!...
Se te imito nos transes da Ventura,
Não te imito nos dons da Natureza.

Manuel Maria Barboda du Bocage (15.09.1765 - 21.12.1805)