Within a Sky Full of Earth

MOLESKINE DIARIES 2009
Moleskine keeps exploring more layouts to support your creativity and time management. This year new layouts for the exquisite diaries of the Italian brand. Moleskine has introduced two completely new layouts: Weekly Diary Vertical and Monthly Notebook
A complete diary collection now. 19 different styles, including the previous three most popular layouts: Daily Diary, Weekly Diary Horizontal and Weekly Notebook
Moleskine diaries are available in 3 cover styles: Hard Black cover, Hard Red cover and Soft Black cover; and 3 sizes: Pocket, Large and Extra Large.
Sleek design with unmatched attention to details, the diary that evolved from a legendary notebook, with the same quality features as the Moleskine notebooks.
Moleskine Asia designed a microsite to help you choose your Moleskine diary, click the image on the left or ENTER HERE.
Afterward come back here and order from us all your choices throwing us an email. Thank you!
BLOOM IS THE DISTRIBUTOR OF MOLESKINE DIARIES AND NOTEBOOKS IN MACAU

Slightly near Rua do Campo, there's a low flow of a web signal you can catch if you're lucky enough and if the gadget you're using has a wide open mouth. It comes like the wind, no passwords, no special adjustments to enter. It's right on the corner of Cafe E.S.KIMO, a franchisable local brand of places spread around the city and its overshadowed islands. Sometimes WIFI is just around the block and you don't need to squeeze yourself to get in. Stand there and breath it.
We're on the street blogging. People passing and the wheels of the traffic clashing on the tarmac. It's Saturday morning in Macau. Bloom is waiting for spots to grow and build the most Beauty Fool place in town. Stay tuned!
TOOLS USED: BLOGWRITER LITE [software] and iPHONE [hardware]

If you go up to the Se Cathedral and turn left, going down through Travessa do Bispo, towards S. Domingos Street, just on the middle, there's a hairdresser called 'Base Hair Culture'. Just hang there on the door, you can seat at the window outside, and you'll find another free hotspot. By the way, go inside and use their services. They do it very well and Man, the owner, who had learned his metier in Paris, the land of coiffures, is a great guy to be with, you can chat with him all along and discuss the meaningful wonders of Macau and the world. And believe me, you are in good hands.
Cheers!

On the road it's very easy to blog. You just need to get to a wireless hot spot and start working your ditches. I'm just finishing my espresso on a Cafe near Senado Square. It's Ou Mun, a Portuguese coffee shop, on the small alley upwards to the Se Cathedral. Once inside ask them for the password access. It's free!
CTM, the local internet provider, offers different WIFIs around the city, but you have to pay for it and slash into a more complex process to get online. We'll track down here, places where you can tune up the web to your mobile device for free. We use iPhone, there's nothing better for it. Have a nice day!
USING: BLOGWRITER LITE and iPHONE [photos and text]

A BLOOM NO TELEJORNAL
São ainda as cheias na Bloomland. Foi assim que aconteceu, dois dias após o dia fatídico das inundações na baixa da cidade, a TDM esteve no Largo do Pagode do Bazar para registar os pormenores da situação. Da noite para o dia a água deixou um rasto de irrealidade levando quase todos os alicerces da nossa livraria, ou seja, os livros, para além de avultados estragos nas instalações e no equipamento. Desde então até agora pouco mudou, a ajuda prometida pelo governo local, uma linha de crétido sem juros, ainda não chegou. Já está uma semana fora do tempo e sem isso não vamos poder voltar a respirar. Fazemos projectos de eventuais mudanças e sonhamos acordados com visões fantásticas. Sim, a sorrir pela possibilidade do que pode vir. De todo, é uma mudança radical que põe tudo em questão, não importa se é um milagre ou não.
A REPORTAGEM DE LINA FERREIRA / APRESENTAÇÃO DE VITOR REBELO © TDM / CANAL PORTUGUÊS

• QUALIDADE NORMAL (mais rápido)
• MELHOR DEFINIÇÃO (mais lento)

The Centre for Creative Industries is opening a photographic exhibition by Nuno Soares, a Portuguese architect and urban planner based in Macau. At Bloom we're congratulating Nuno for this event and inviting you to attend the opening AWAITING - Reflection on Urban Voids, tomorrow, Friday the 24th, at 6:00 pm. Don't miss it!
The Centre for Creative Industries is located at the Macao Cultural Center.

AFA presents "Monumentum Pro", a new exhibition of works by Konstantin Bessmertny, curated by Amelia Johnson.

"Monumentum Pro" further develops themes from Konstantin Bessmertny's series "Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice" which was created for the 52nd Venice Biennale. The paintings and sculptures comprising Konstantin Bessmentny's "Monumentum Pro" meaning " monument for…" intriguingly allude to the Latin verb monere – to warn, to advise, to remind from which monumentum is derived. Employing Konstantin Bessmertny's idiosyncratic characters and distinctive technique, the works appear to be part monument and part morality tale, their tantalizing warnings, whimsical commemorations and cautionary narratives appearing to form visual declensions of monere.

Konstantin Bessmertny is one of the most distinguished artists working in Asia today. His technical mastery, achieved after seven years of studying Fine Art in the grand academies of the former soviet union, combined with his detailed knowledge on a wide-range of subjects including literature, music, history and politics lend to his work an intelligence and a credibility that is rarely witnessed in contemporary art. Konstantin Bessmertny's work is utterly unique, employing humour and candour in depictions so subtle and gentle that they require revisiting time and time again to uncover all that they have to offer. Never formulaic or predictable, Bessmertny uses his work as a means of exploring and experimenting with new ideas, finding inspiration in the bizarrest of places and creating work that continues to challenge and excite preconceived notion.

The artist will be present at the opening reception, this Friday, 24th of October.

Start Time: Friday, October 24, 2008 at 6:30pm
End Time: Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 8:00pm
Location: St. Paul's Fine Art
Address: Travessa de S.Paulo Nos 3, 5 e 7
City/Town: Macau, Macau

I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain. I hadn't been back in fifty-six years, and I remembered nothing. My parents had moved out of the city when I was three, but I instinctively found myself returning to the neighborhood where we had lived, crawling home like some wounded dog to the place of my birth. A local real estate agent ushered me around to six or seven brownstone flats, and by the end of the afternoon I had rented a two-bedroom garden apartment on First Street, just half a block away from Prospect Park. I had no idea who my neighbors were, and I didn't care. They all worked at nine-to-five jobs, none of them had any children, and therefore the building would be relatively silent. More than anything else, that was what I craved. A silent end to my sad and ridiculous life.The house in Bronxville was already under contract, and once the closing took place at the end of the month, money wasn't going to be a problem.
THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES BY PAUL AUSTER

“When Matisse dies,” Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known and most-loved paintings of our time. Yet behind this triumph lay struggle, heartbreak, bitterness, frustration, lost love, exile—and above all the miracle of survival.
Born into near poverty in Russia in 1887, the son of a Jewish herring merchant, Chagall fled the repressive tsarist empire in 1911 for Paris. There he worked alongside Modigliani and Léger in the tumbledown tenement called La Ruche, where “one either died or came out famous.” But turmoil lay ahead—war and revolution; a period as an improbable artistic commissar in the young Soviet Union; a difficult existence in Weimar Germany, occupied France, and eventually the United States. Throughout, as Jackie Wullschlager makes plain in this groundbreaking biography, he never ceased giving form on canvas to his dreams, longings, and memories.
Wullschlager explores in detail Chagall’s complex relationship with Russia and makes clear the Russian dimension he brought to Western modernism. She shows how, as André Breton put it, “under his sole impulse, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting,” and helped shape the new surrealist movement. As art critic of the Financial Times, she provides a breadth of knowledge on Chagall’s work, and at the same time as an experienced biographer she brings Chagall the man fully to life—ambitious, charming, suspicious, funny, contradictory, dependent, but above all obsessively determined to produce art of singular beauty and emotional depth.
Drawing upon hitherto unseen archival material, including numerous letters from the family collection in Paris, and illustrated with nearly two hundred paintings, drawings, and photographs, Chagall is a landmark biography to rank with Hilary Spurling’s Matisse and John Richardson’s Picasso.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jackie Wullschlager is chief art critic for the Financial Times. Her books include a prizewinning life of Hans Christian Andersen and an acclaimed group biography of children’s book writers, Inventing Wonderland.

Chagall, by Jackie Wullschlager
KNOPF • BIOGRAPHY • HISTORY • OCT 2008

The New Coulour Notebooks

Bloom is proud to present the new Moleskine collection : Volant Notebooks. This collection will be launched in Asia in first week of November 2008. The new Volant notebooks are colourful, light, and fit in every pocket.
MOLESKINE Dressed in New Colours!

They are available in:
• 2 rulings: plain, ruled
• 4 colours: pink, blue, green, black
• 3 sizes: Pocket (9x14cm), Large (13x21cm), and the NEW size Xsmall (6.5x10.5cm)
Each Volants is shrinkwrapped in a pack of 2 notebooks (e.g. a pack of blue Volants = 1 dark blue notebook + 1 light blue notebook).

A Huge hit in Europe, US and Japan
The Volant collection was launched in Europe and US in February 2008 and has become a great hit already. Volants was also launched in Japan in July 2008 and replenishment orders are very strong (even higher than classic collection). For sure, Volants has given a new excitement for current Moleskine users, and also bringing in new customers. Especially, the xsmall size is a huge hit everywhere. First, this is a brand new size amongst all Moleskine collections and it is only available in the Volants family. Second, the little notebook size has made Moleskine even more portable than before. The new colour and the cute size have also attracted a lot of new clients (especially female clients/ fashion lovers) for the Moleskine brand.

PRICING
Retail price of Volant notebooks: Xsmall: MOP$ 58 / Pocket: MOP$ 98 / Large: MOP$ 138

Um dia grande para nós. Aconteceu em Junho do ano passado. Um processo complicado, de preparos longos e escolha minuciosa, que trouxe a nossa maior colecção de livros portugueses até à data. Queremos, com toda a vontade, repeti-lo, muito mais vezes.
É uma semana crucial para a Bloom e para o seu futuro. Período de decisões, em que vivemos no momento preciso e fugídio do traço de novos caminhos. Queremos sobretudo uma aberta no cenário, algo que nos possa levar mais longe, com mais força e abrigados das chuvas e dos ventos. Como se tudo o que aconteceu para trás fosse apenas a preparação do que vai existir para a frente. Uma incógnita e, no entanto, uma certeza. Uma alusão de um mundo diverso onde o futuro seja claro e possível. Concreto como um cataclismo. A certeza de que há ainda muito para fazer neste lado do Mundo. Porque levámos este tempo todo a aprendê-lo e não faz nenhum sentido que o chão tenha fugido de repente, logo agora que estamos munidos de todas as ferramentas.
A única direcção é continuar. Essa é a razão que caminha connosco. Do resto não sabemos. O tempo decidiu e é ele que vai decidir de novo.

Desta guerra entre Bruno e o resto do mundo não é difícil adivinhar quem foi o único morto. Mas nem depois de morto o seu fantasma ficou quieto. Se no século XIX parecia finalmente descansar como mártir da todo‑poderosa ciência, arrumado no panteão [...] já no meio das chamas do cadafalso, com um olhar turvo e arrogante, desviou a vista do crucifixo que lhe apresentavam, e acabou “queimado vivo”, consciente de morrer “mártir, e de boa mente, pois que sua alma subiria junto àquele fumo” para ir reconjugar-se com a alma do universo.
in TRATADO DE MAGIA • EDIÇÕES TINTA DA CHINA

Poderemos compreender tudo isto, mas se não apoiarmos com humanidade, fugirá por entre os nossos dedos.
Poderemos compreender e apoiar com humanidade, mas se não governarmos com verdade, não esperemos a gratidão do povo.
Poderemos compreender, apoiar com humanidade, governar com verdade, mas se não pusermos tudo em prática com todo o nosso empenho, de nada valerá o esforço.
CONFÚCIO [551 BC - 479 BC]

• LIGAÇÕES EXTERIORES: WIKIPEDIA em Português e em Inglês.

More aspects of Rimbaud are known than can be assimilated: his vastly various, influential and innovative poetry itself; his expressive letters; his scornful and unhesitating permanent abandonment of poetry at the age of 20; the anecdotes of his contemporaries showing him as a drunken, filthy, amoral homosexualteenager who becomes a reserved, hard-working, responsible and respectable (if misanthropic and disgust-ridden) adult merchant and explorer. One would have to be a genius oneself to grasp the full significance of Arthur Rimbaud, or at least have the ability to hold many opposed ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still function fully. Numerous writers have sought to demonstrate their qualifications along these lines by publishing studies of him.
This biography by Edmund White is the digest version. If you’re casually curious about the fuss made over Rimbaud and want the lowdown from someone literate, it will satisfy you, without badly misleading. This approach seems to be the plan behind the series of short lives, each written by a distinguished author (often a novelist or scholar, not usually a professional biographer) and edited by James Atlas, first for Penguin, now for Atlas & Company, of which “Rimbaud” is the latest entry. Seems like a worthy idea; there are a lot of famous artists and thinkers one wouldn’t mind getting a convenient little handle on.[...]
[RICHARD HELL for THE NEW YORK TIMES • FOLLOW READING HERE]

Rimbaud, The Double Life of a Rebel, by Edmund White
ATLAS & COMPANY • 192 PAGES • HARDCOVER • OCT 2008
[Read a sample chapter here]

«You have a girlfriend named Alma, who has a long tender horse neck and a big Dominican ass that seems to exist in a fourth dimension beyond jeans. An ass that could drag the moon out of orbit. An ass she never liked until she met you. Ain’t a day that passes that you don’t want to press your face against that ass or bite the delicate sliding tendons of her neck. You love how she shivers when you bite, how she fights you with those arms that are so skinny they belong on an after-school special.
Alma is a Mason Gross student, one of those Sonic Youth, comic-book-reading alternatinas without whom you might never have lost your virginity. Grew up in Hoboken, part of the Latino community that got its heart burned out in the eighties, tenements turning to flame. Spent nearly every teen-age day on the Lower East Side, thought it would always be home, but then N.Y.U. and Columbia both said nyet, and she ended up even farther from the city than before. She is in a painting phase, and the people she paints are all the color of mold, look like they’ve just been dredged from the bottom of a lake. Her last painting was of you, slouching against the front door: only your frowning I-had-a-lousy-Third-World-childhood-and-all-I-got-was-this-attitude eyes recognizable. She did give you one huge forearm. I told you I’d get the muscles in. The past couple of weeks, now that the warm is here, Alma has abandoned black, started wearing these nothing dresses made out of what feels like tissue paper; it wouldn’t take more than a strong wind to undress her. She says she does it for you: I’m reclaiming my Dominican heritage (which ain’t a complete lie—she’s even taking Spanish to better minister to your mom), and when you see her on the street, flaunting, flaunting, you know exactly what every nigger that walks by is thinking. You met at the weekly Latin parties at the DownUnder in New Brunswick. She never went to those parties, was dragged there by her high-school best friend, Patricia, who still listened to TKA, and this was how you got the chance to strike while, as your boys put it, the pussy was hot.
Alma is slender as a reed, you a steroid-addicted block; Alma loves driving, you books; Alma owns a Saturn (bought for her by her carpenter father, who speaks only English in the house), you have no points on your license; Alma’s nails are too dirty for cooking, your spaghetti con pollo is the best in the land. You are so very different—she rolls her eyes every time you turn on the news and says she can’t “stand” politics. She won’t even call herself Hispanic. She brags to her girls that you’re a “radical” and a real Dominican (even though on the Plátano Index you wouldn’t rank, Alma being only the third Latina you’ve ever really dated). You brag to your boys that she has more albums than any of them do, that she says terrible white-girl things while you fuck. She’s more adventurous in bed than any girl you’ve had; on your first date she asked you if you wanted to come on her tits or her face, and maybe during boy training you didn’t get one of the memos but you were, like, umm, neither. And at least once a week she will kneel on the mattress before you and, with one hand pulling at her dark nipples, will play with herself, not letting you touch at all, fingers whisking the soft of her and her face looking desperately, furiously happy. She loves to talk while she’s being dirty, too, will whisper, You like watching me don’t you, you like listening to me come, and when she finishes lets out this long demolished groan and only then will she allow you to pull her into an embrace as she wipes her gummy fingers on your chest. This is me, she says.
Yes—it’s an opposites-attract sort of thing, it’s a great-sex sort of thing, it’s a no-thinking sort of thing. It’s wonderful! Wonderful! Until one June day Alma discovers that you are also fucking this beautiful freshman girl named Laxmi, discovers the fucking of Laxmi because she, Alma, the girlfriend, opens your journal and reads. (Oh, she had her suspicions.) She waits for you on the stoop, and when you pull up in her Saturn and notice the journal in her hand your heart plunges through you like a fat bandit through a hangman’s trap. You take your time turning off the car. You are overwhelmed by a pelagic sadness. Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertible knowledge that she will never forgive you. You stare at her incredible legs and between them, to that even more incredible pópola you’ve loved so inconstantly these past eight months. Only when she starts walking over in anger do you finally step out. You dance across the lawn, powered by the last fumes of your outrageous sinvergüenzería. Hey, muñeca, you say, prevaricating to the end. When she starts shrieking, you ask her, Darling, what ever is the matter? She calls you:
a cocksucker
a punk motherfucker
a fake-ass Dominican.
She claims:
you have a little penis
no penis
and worst of all that you like curried pussy.
(Which really is unfair, you try to say, since Laxmi is technically from Guyana, but Alma isn’t listening.)
Instead of lowering your head and copping to it like a man, you pick up the journal as one might hold a baby’s beshatted diaper, as one might pinch a recently be-nutted condom. You glance at the offending passages. Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel.
This is how you lose her»
[ALMA BY JUNOT DIAZ • ILLUSTRATION BY JAIME HERNANDEZ • PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORKER • DEC 2007]

• Junot Diaz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), this will be the book chosen by Bloom to initiate our Book Club in English. We'll announce it very soon. Join Bloom activities. Save Bloom!

Prefiro situar-me nas margens

Quem o diz é António Conceição Júnior, um dos mais destacados artistas de Macau. Afirma que não tem vocação para o feérico e daí a vocação solitária e solidária. São estes alguns dos pontos de uma entrevista, onde discorre ainda sobre a paisagem cultural, a sua actividade, a obra de arte, falando da obscuridade como fundo da vida. O fio da compreensão está na disponibilidade do encantamento, afirma nas páginas do Hoje Macau na edição de hoje.
Uma exposição e um livro assinalam o seu regresso público. É já amanhã, Sexta-feira, pelas 18 e 30, no Clube Militar.

ENTREVISTA QUE PODE SER SEGUIDA NA SUA TOTALIDADE AQUI.
[TEXTO E FOTOS FABRICADOS @ BLOOMLAND.CN]

Ontem, escalei um monte; a subida correu bem até que deparei com o piso coberto de gelo e me desequilibrei. Não havia por ali uma única arvorezinha a que me pudesse agarrar. Se teimasse em conservar uma pose bonita, não iria conseguir nada. Tive então a ideia, a que seria mais do que evidente, aliás, de colocar as mãos também no chão e de passar algum tempo a andar de gatas numa posição das mais graciosas que se possam imaginar. Sou da opinião que devemos saber adaptar-nos às situações. Esta posição de gatas tinha o valor de um desafio, porque o que interessava era chegar lá acima. Se eu não me tivesse curvado daquela maneira, teria ficado parado no mesmo sítio. A docilidade pode também conter em si algo de orgulho. O que me interessava era vencer o caminho.
[ROBERT WALSER in A ROSA (1925) • RELÓGIO D'ÁGUA EDITORES]

The first thing you need to do before you go is catching the flight. If you've got your ticket and your passport that's much better, you don't need to worry about anything else. If you're in, even if it seems like a small cage, it means that you're on the way to getting there. To your destination.
I lost the boat for fifteen minutes, the one that goes directly to the airplanes. Then, after ridding to a different route, the train closed its doors just in front of my eyes. The clock didn't stop. It kept going on the same pace.
The first check-in was closed and at the second they were packing everything down, after I ran desperately for a kilometer lost on the airport counters. I begged. And they walkie-talked the one in charge on the end of the line. Seconds too long and finally they let me in. I was there and it didn't matter if I had to remove some books from my overweighted luggage. At that time I've reached the point of no return.
That's how the following fifteen days began.

Associamos a Luz ao Saber. (Dizemos até que Fulano tem umas luzes de Trigonometria).
Mas aqui o Autor associa a Luz ao Não-saber. Porque a Luz inicial, a primeira, indecisa e primacial, é aquela em que o Iluminado não o é, aquela em que ele não sabe se sabe.
Só à custa de muitos logros, transpostos de olhos bem abertos, o Iluminado que não é Iluminado apreende, a uma segunda Luz, que o não saber se sabe é afinal a culminância do Saber.
E assim regressa à Luz primeira, para se comprazer na beleza incomparável da sua incompletude.
Como lhe agradeceremos o fazer-nos participar dessa experiência?

We associate Light to Knowledge (to the point of saying that so-and-so has a some lights on Trigonometry).
Here, however, the author associates Light to Non-knowledge. Because in light - first light, undecided and primordial - the Enlightened is not so; in the very light under which he knows not whether he knows.
Only in the course of failures experienced with eyes wide open does the Enlightened one - who is not Enlightened – learn that - under a second Light - if non-knowledge knows, it is, after all, the summit of knowledge.
And thus he returns to primordial Light, to enjoy the incomparable beauty of incompleteness.
How to thank him for making us share this experience?
[Pedro Támen • JUN 2008]

For the introduction of Primum Lumen, a Photography Work by António Conceição Júnior.
OPENS NEXT FRIDAY, 10TH OF OCTOBER, AT THE MILITAR CLUB

A BOOK THAT COMES ON THE PERFECT TIME
Part cookbook—with more than 120 enticing recipes—part culinary history, part inquiry into the evolution of an industry, Milk is a one-of-a-kind book that will forever change the way we think about dairy products.

Anne Mendelson, author of Stand Facing the Stove, first explores the earliest Old World homes of yogurt and kindred fermented products made primarily from sheep’s and goats’ milk and soured as a natural consequence of climate. Out of this ancient heritage from lands that include Greece, Bosnia, Turkey, Israel, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, she mines a rich source of culinary traditions.
Mendelson then takes us on a journey through the lands that traditionally only consumed milk fresh from the cow—what she calls the Northwestern Cow Belt (northern Europe, Great Britain, North America). She shows us how milk reached such prominence in our diet in the nineteenth century that it led to the current practice of overbreeding cows and overprocessing dairy products. Her lucid explanation of the chemical intricacies of milk and the simple home experiments she encourages us to try are a revelation of how pure milk products should really taste.
The delightfully wide-ranging recipes that follow are grouped according to the main dairy ingredient: fresh milk and cream, yogurt, cultured milk and cream, butter and true buttermilk, fresh cheeses. We learn how to make luscious Clotted Cream, magical Lemon Curd, that beautiful quasi-cheese Mascarpone, as well as homemade yogurt, sour cream, true buttermilk, and homemade butter. She gives us comfort foods such as Milk Toast and Cream of Tomato Soup alongside Panir and Chhenna from India. Here, too, are old favorites like Herring with Sour Cream Sauce, Beef Stroganoff, a New Englandish Clam Chowder, and the elegant Russian Easter dessert, Paskha. And there are drinks for every season, from Turkish Ayran and Indian Lassis to Batidos (Latin American milkshakes) and an authentic hot chocolate.

This illuminating book will be an essential part of any food lover’s collection and is bound to win converts determined to restore the purity of flavor to our First Food.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anne Mendelson grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania in an area where small dairy farms were once common. In addition to Stand Facing the Stove (a history of The Joy of Cooking and its authors), she collaborated with chef-writer Zarela Martínez on three cookbooks exploring Mexican cuisine. She has written for Gourmet, Saveur, and The New York Times. Mendelson lives in northern New Jersey.

Milk, The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, by Anne Mendelson
KNOPF • COOKING • HISTORY • HARDCOVER • OCT 2008

ORDER NOW!

[WHO STILL HAVE PROBLEMS TO LOGGING IN]

hubris |ˈ(h)yoōbris|
{noun, first used in the late 19th century} [from Greek],
• presumption, insolence, (orig. towards the gods); pride, excessive self-confidence

EXAMPLES
Aldous Huxley: "Hubris against the essentially divine order of Nature would be followed by its appropriate nemesis."
S. J. Gould: "By what hubris do we consider ourselves any bigger in a universe of such vastness?"
[Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Fifth edition, 1993) page 1281, left hand column.]

The ancient Greeks believed hubris led to downfall
In 'hubris' the 'u' occurs before the ' b', and an 's' is the final letter. The same letters, capitalized and brought together in their hUBriStic order, name an internationally known bank. The overlap of the letters and their positions in the word and in the bank's name is a coincidence, perhaps an amusing one. If one find the coincidence striking then, moving from orthography to meaning, one may come to ask, "Could the bank's abundant enthusiasm for rehearsing its successes and for pursuing profit by means ranging from the conventional, through the disastrous, to the legally dubious, together amount to hubris?"
Moving again, from current meanings to past beliefs, one might see the losses, accusations, and punishment that UBS has recently suffered as echoes of those nemeses that long dead Greeks believed they risked when by ignoring their cities' conventions, faith, laws, and wisdom.
[BY GODFREY @ BLOOMLAND]
• EXTERNAL LINK AT WIKIPEDIA

The thing is that we got a bit confused with all. Right now what we know is that we don't want to harm no one and we just want to be in peace. Then we'll see. We need a revolution!

Meu querido A.
Há muito que não te mando um postalinho. Aqui vai mais um de Klimt, tão característico dele, com tanta cor e os desenhos miudinhos. E eu e o avô vimos esta pintura em Praga nesta galeria! Agora não me lembro bem, mas Klimt é de Viena. Só sei que não entendi esta confusão de mulheres mas ficámos presos a olhar e a querer entender. Embora se diga que a pintura não é para entender mas sim para ficar preso a olhar e às vezes a sonhar e sobretudo a admirar. Ultimamente "dá-me" para me irritar quando penso que todos estes artistas sofreram na carne e na alma e nunca chegaram a saber como estavam certos na sua intuição de que era belo o que faziam.
Beijos da avó Z.
GRONAU 22/07/98

Como foi anunciado aqui e sem grande alarido da nossa parte, devido ao tufão e à crescente corrente de água e por tudo o que aconteceu posteriormente, a Bloom * Creative Network levou Carlos Marreiros à Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universade de Hong Kong dando início às palestras de Outono organizadas por esta instituição. A ideia era levar também o complemento dos livros, sobre a arquitectura de Macau e em específico sobre o multifacetado arquitecto macaense, ocasião que não se chegou a realizar. Acabámos por não estar em condições de acompanhar a pequena comitiva que se deslocou ao território vizinho porque no dia anterior o horizonte era bem diferente.
A palestra intitulada "Tracing Lines Between Two Worlds" acabou por ser um sucesso, com uma audiência repleta e uma grande projecção na imprensa local das duas RAE's. Para nós foi uma grande satisfação ter estabelecido este intercâmbio. É fulcral para o nosso projecto, na necessidade de discussão de todas as suas amplitudes, poder falar, mostrar e discutir tudo o que nos (des)encanta. Foi a primeira colaboração com esta instituição universitária, outras oportunidades surgirão para a contínua repercussão do nosso desígnio, e referimos aqui o "projecto" desta cidade como espaço multicultural e criativo. Para que não se esqueça é necessário incluir esta mescla de muita coisa e de coisa nenhuma que vive e ferve por entre as margens desta terra que há muito tempo tem o nome de Macau. Por alguma razão viemos aqui parar, por outra iremos algum dia partir. Até lá é preciso continuar e fazer a ligação entre estes mundos da realidade e da imaginação. Foi nesse âmbito, para além da clara alusão Oriente/Ocidente, que demos o título a esta sessão. Agradecemos aqui ao Arquitecto Carlos Marreiros pela pronta disponibilidade e a Ralph Lerner, o Decano da Faculdade de Arquitectura de Hong Kong, por ter dado a melhor continuação à nossa iniciativa.
Fica aqui a reportagem do Hoje Macau pela mão de José Manuel Simões.

Carlos Marreiros entusiasma plateia em conferência proferida em Hong Kong
'A arquitectura serve para promover a felicidade'

Carlos Marreiros, um arquitecto com alma, esteve na Faculdade de Arquitectura de Hong Kong onde foi escutado por uma pequena multidão que se rendeu aos seus dotes de oratória, experiência e ousadia.

À conferência, inserida nas Palestras de Outono e realizada em parceria com a Bloom Creative Network de Macau (que alagou mas não morreu), compareceram cerca de 150 pessoas, na sua maioria estudantes de arquitectura, mas também professores e arquitectos, inclusivamente Ronald Lu, Presidente do Instituto de Arquitectura de Hong Kong.
O arquitecto de Macau falou sobre as relações entre arquitectura, sociedade e economia, debruçou-se sobre a arquitectura da miscigenação e da transgressão — sobretudo a da sua cidade — afirmou que “Macau transgride pois, desde as gaiolas de ferro até aos volumes e tamanhos, há muitas coisas que não deveriam sequer existir”.
No seu discurso, percorreu o património construído no Território, desde o chinês e o português até ao dos nossos dias, afirmando que “património é tudo o que faz parte da memória colectiva, independentemente da sua idade, inclusivamente o que está a ser feito agora”. Ou seja, do património mais antigo até ao modernismo, com destaque para a obra de arquitectos como o modernista Cham Kuan Pui ou Raul Furão Ramalho Costa, que percebeu como ninguém o clima e a atmosfera de Macau, Manuel Vicente Bravo, Bruno Soares ou Adalberto Tenreiro.

Viagem pelo tempo

Um discurso que foi uma espécie de viagem pelo tempo, onde Marreiros enquadrou alguns dos seus trabalhos, dos mais pequenos aos de maior envergadura como o do Estádio de Ténis em Coloane. Como não podia deixar de ser, falou ainda do exercício de fazer arquitectura, referindo que “um arquitecto não pode limitar-se a ser competente ou apenas um agente de construção. Tem que ser inovador, adiantar-se ao seu tempo, não se prender ao gosto instituído”. Tem que ser criativo, inovador, ousado. Afinal, “a arquitectura serve para promover a felicidade”.
Marreiros, que na palestra chegou a interpretar John Lennon em “Imagine”, acredita que a globalização é inevitável, acredita na fraternidade universal e no direito à diferença. Todavia, crê, “a globalização só tem valor quando sabemos que o lugar onde vivemos tem alma”. Ao basear a sua obra numa dialéctica de procura e de pesquisa intercultural, Carlos Marreiros vai certamente deixar o seu nome escrito na RAEM. Ele sabe como ninguém pegar na tradição e refaze-la com contemporaneidade. Ele é o exemplo da arquitectura de autor que não se confina à ideia de edifício ou de casino, que não é obtusa nem cria prédios que sobem para cima de passeios.
As Palestras de Outono prosseguem até 25 de Novembro, com Jurgen Mayer, alemão de Berlim, Rene Tan, de Singapura, Mirko Zardini, director do Centro Canadiano para Arquitectura, Remo Riva, de Hong Kong, Laurie Hawkinson e Reinhold Martin, ambos da Universidade de Colômbia, Nova Iorque.
[POR JOSÉ MANUEL SIMÕES]

OUTRAS LIGAÇÕES AO MESMO TEMA:
• Traços e palavras da interculturalidade [JOSÉ MANUEL SIMõES in HOJE MACAU - 26 SET]
• Desafios arquitectónicos em Macau[SÉRGIO TERRA na TRIBUNA DE MACAU - 30 SET]
• Macau's heritage work praised in Hong Kong [ROBERT CARROLL in MACAU DAILY TIMES - 3 OUT]
• Carlos Marreiros' profile [MACAU DAILY TIMES - 3 OUT]

After the success of the limited edition Red diaries, we are excited to announce Moleskine has introduced the Classic Red Notebook Collection, the second incursion of Moleskine into the world of colours. Moleskine Red Notebooks will be available for the two most popular layouts, ruled and plain; and in 2 sizes: pocket and large.

BE STYLISH IN RED
The Red Notebooks of course include the durable oilcloth bound cover binding and acid-free paper pages, the built-in elastic closure, the ribbon placeholder and the cloth-covered expandable inner pocket: all the details that make the classic Moleskines a true icons.
Black or Red: coordinate the classic Moleskine notebook to your mood!

ORDER THE NEW MOLESKINE RED AT BLOOM!
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BLOOM IS THE EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTOR OF MOLESKINE PRODUCTS IN MACAU

At Bloom we are always with an eye on the future. Now, more than ever. For instance we're following since the start the fabulous eInk project and its forming devices. We believe that that's one of the ways of the future of publishing industry. But now there's a new scene on the block. Code named "Brick", following the same idea of the version 2 of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project by the designer Yves Behar, shown here, the "Brick" is an all screen laptop projected by Apple Computers. The upgrade of the OLPC it's something that combines the touch feeling of a iPhone and the use of a normal notebook computer. The concept is the same, a computer that can be used by kids all over the world costing around 100 US$.
Nobody know how's the mac version will come to life, and how will be shaped, but will be something completely different from what we know. Apple’s feverishly-anticipated “Brick” project is the world’s first all-screen laptop. There’s slim chance, of course, but I for one would love a computing device like this: A hybrid iPhone-meets-Macbook-Air that would put hot netbooks like the EeePC to shame.
Apple’s “Brick” would be a hybrid laptop/tablet/ebook that dispenses with a physical keyboard and trackpad in favor of a virtual, adaptive UI that blends multitouch, gestures and its own orientation to switch between different modes:

Laptop — When the Brick is held horizontally with the two screens at an angle, the bottom screen turns into a virtual keyboard and touchpad. There’s no tactile feedback for touch typists, but never mind, corrective text handily makes up for the myriad errors. The top screen acts like a regular laptop screen, except that it also is touch sensitive, and is responsive to multitouch gestures like double-tap to zoom, pinching and scrolling.
Tablet — When the two halves are opened fully they snap together in the middle to make a tablet with a continuous touch-sensitive screen. This mode is best for surfing the web, browsing and editing photos, and displaying mind-altering music visualizers.
eBook — Like laptop mode but held vertically. Each screen transforms into an electronic page for easy reading. Displays eBooks, eMags or specially laid out websites. Readers navigate by swiping the screen to turn the pages.
Tabletop — Like tablet mode but for two people. When an onscreen button is pushed, the screens are oriented for two users sitting opposite each other. Great for collaborative tasks and especially games.

And why’s it called “Brick”? Because it smashes Windows! ;-)
[WATCH YVES BEAR AT TED.COM] [SOURCE: CULT OF MAC & TED.COM]

Para quem for para o Sul do país à procura de um lugar para descansar e perder de vista a cidade, pode experimentar a Quinta do Chocalhinho junto a Odemira. No meio da natureza pura e rebelde, num espaço único, com a praia a dois passos. Espreite aqui as fotos e veja aqui o site provisório. Não vai ficar arrependido.

MAIS INFORMAÇÃO AQUI: CASASBRANCAS.PT • FOTOS BLOOMLAND.CN
[ADICIONE AOS SEUS FAVORITOS: www.quintadochocalhinho.com]

É óbvio que se pudéssemos continuar o que iríamos fazer da Bloom seria algo muito melhor. Como se o jogo ou o campeonato tivessem agora terminado e de repente tivéssemos um outro campo para jogar e uma nova equipa para construir. Com tudo em aberto. Sabendo de antemão tudo aquilo por que passámos. Ajuizando todo o passado. Todos os erros, tudo o que fizemos mal e, pelo outro lado, tudo aquilo que deu resultado. Começar tudo de novo, apesar de tudo o que significa, é uma oportunidade de virar a página. Porque se à partida não tivemos qualquer experiência, não sabíamos sequer o que era uma livraria por dentro, como funcionava, e fomos aprendendo tudo isso a passo e passo, agora temos toda a experiência de dois anos. De contacto com as editoras, com os autores, com uma variedade imensa de fornecedores e com os clientes. E com o rolar de toda a máquina sabemos como se faz. E sabemos o que pode ser riscado e o que se pode fazer muito melhor. Por isso, se pudermos, e vamos tentar tudo para que isso aconteça, acho eu, a versão da Bloom que surgir será a 2.0. E acho que não poderá existir outra saída. Não podemos desistir e deixar-nos levar com a água. Como os livros foram. Como se tudo fosse assim tão simples. Não é uma questão de que o lugar fique vazio ou mesmo que alguém o possa ocupar, é simplesmente porque ainda temos muito para dar. E podemos dá-lo bem melhor. Mas é necessário ter os pés na terra.

Attempting to tell an author's life through the books he read is a risky enterprise. In this remarkable new biography of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Wright makes a convincing start with his claim that books were the greatest single influence on his subject's life. Wilde's first reading of some of his favourites was, says Wright, 'as significant as his first meetings with friends and lovers'. Indeed, he later used gifts of books to seduce young men.
Wilde, born in 1854 and raised in a well-to-do, book-filled house in Dublin's Merrion Square by a literary mother who called herself Speranza and performed public recitations of poetry, devoured the printed word from an early age. At his Enniskillen boarding school, Portora, he ran up a staggering book-bill of £11 5s 9d. The autograph and date (2 September 1865) on his copy of Voltaire's L'Histoire de Charles XII make it the one book known to have been in his possession at the age of eleven, and mark his excellence in French. At Portora he also mastered the King James Bible, won a prize for Scripture and became a fine classical scholar, preferring Greek to Latin.
The most unconventional aspect of Wilde's adolescent taste, in Wright's view, was his love of French fiction. His passion was Balzac. He later said he wept 'tears of blood' when he read of the death in prison of the poet Lucien de Rubempré: 'I was never so affected by any book.'

College, Oxford. There, in 1874, Walter Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance struck him with the force of a revelation and he claimed never to travel without this book 'which has had such a strange influence over my life'.
When disaster struck in 1895 and he was tried and found guilty of 'gross indecency', it struck his books too. Auctioneers descended on the house in Tite Street, Chelsea that Wilde shared with his wife Constance and their two sons. His cherished book collection was sold at auction to pay his creditors. According to Wright, who has consulted the 'Tite Street Catalogue', Lot 114 included 'about' 100 unidentified French novels. [...]
[Brenda Maddox at the Literary Review]

Oscar's Books, by Thomas Wright
CHATTO & WINDUS • 384 PAGES

[FOLLOW READING] [BOOK REVIEW ON THE DAILY MAIL][AT THE PUBLISHER]