Within a Sky Full of Earth

Qual o tempo ideal para se dispensar com uma pessoa real?

Com o passar do tempo, deixamos de ter medo do escuro para começarmos a ter medo de coisas claras e evidentes como a verdade.

De certa maneira, é curiosa a ambivalência em querermos aquilo que perdemos.

A quantidade de episódios que teria de eliminar,para que pudesse antever um final feliz
para histórias que "lamentavelmente" tenho ouvido.

Afinal de contas, o que significam as horas para todas as pessoas que me perguntam as horas.
A invísivel necessidade que temos em questionar as horas.

Porque ao fim e ao cabo,
ao fim e ao cabo, tudo continuará a existir,
mesmo nessa diferença em permanecerem iguais.

Não sei. Liguei a música, o som veio lá do fundo, num crescendo, tomando todos os sentidos. As linhas. O pensar.
E esqueci-me.
Fechei os olhos, à espera. Fui ficando. Uma frase. Outra frase. O mínimo para um pequena estrada. Um parágrafo. Mas que estrada me trazia aqui?
Vejo sempre esse caminho. Sei-o de memória: É quase fim do dia. Uma recta sem fim, o alcatrão já esbadito, cheio de tempo e de rodas. Um céu sem cor, ou talvez cheio dela. E a tarde a esvair-se. Um vermelho ali, por entre umas nuvens azuis e o sol a deixar todo o seu medo para trás ao ver a curva no fio do horizonte. Invisível.
É nessa estrada que eu vou ficar. Ao lado, no campo, a um nível mais baixo, vou deixar estar aí tudo o que faz o meu corpo. A terra mole e húmida, com os cheiros todos. O cheiro dos animais que passaram. E aqueles sons dos pássaros.
A estrada ainda molhada, da chuva que caiu e que deixou o céu revoltado. E a dor do ventre dos pneus que me diz o que estou aqui a fazer.
O que estou aqui a fazer?

First is the whole environment where this architectonic project is build, a green area, full of trees and just the sky to watch. It moves and it's called the Sliding House. It's an amazing home created by London architects studio dRMM. The brief was simple: to build a house to retire to in order to grow food, entertain and enjoy the East Anglia landscape. The outcome was as unconventional as they come. A structure that has the ability to vary or connect the overall building's composition and character according to season, weather or simply a desire to delight. The part-prefab home consists of a glasshouse, main house, open space and annexe aligned on a track. A garage, off the track, adjoins the open space, creating a courtyard. This is a video from Wallpaper* Magazine who captured the physical phenomenon in the only medium that serves it justice - film. See by yourself and give us your opinion. We know that Macau is not the spot for these wonders but anyhow we dream with such a place.EXTRA LINKS:
• dRMM Website
• Sliding House at Dezeen
• Detailed project in PDF
• At bdonline
• Stephen Bayley writes about it on The Observer
• Finally another great one!
[CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE THE VIDEO © WALLPAPER*][BACK TO BLOOMLAND]

É sempre curioso o método ou o próprio acaso que nos faz escolher o nome das personagens. É quase como escolher o nome de um filho. Depende sempre de uma enorme série de factores. Se é inédito, se é bonito, se tem uma ligação familiar, etc. Nas personagens o campo também está sempre muito lavrado e é preciso reflectir nas consequências. Se chamarmos a alguém Herman, Pombal ou Eusébio, a imagem desse nome fica automaticamente marcado, agarrado a uma figura que já conhecemos, e durante o livro todo essa imagem, quer se escreva ou se leia, não nos sai da memória.
O livro "Longe de Manaus", de José Francisco Viegas, pelo meio tem um Isaltino. De pronto visualizei um homem a dar para o forte, de bigode ou mesmo barba, um cabelinho daqueles e uns óculos que mudam de cor conforme a intensidade da luz. Ah! E um fato de xadrez amarelado. Não sei se foi a intenção do autor construir essa alusão. Mas isto não deixa de ser um ficção, deslocarmos as personagens para o nosso mundo particular. Por essa razão é que a leitura, e a escrita, é uma expressão pura de criatividade e imaginação. Vive com determinação colada a uma espécie de sonho.

Readability is a great and simple tool that makes reading on the web much more enjoyable by removing the junk around when you are reading. it's very easy to use, just check it here.
[BY LAB.ARC90]

Caro Sr. Primeiro-ministro,

É assim que deve ser. Simples. O rasto que as palavras de um jornal deixam entre quem as escreve e o seu leitor. À sua frente e na oportunidade de lhe falar e de ser claro, penso em demasiados assuntos que no fundo, de tão misturados, vão delinear coisa nenhuma. É também assim o mundo que temos perante nós, ainda debaixo dos pés. Uma desordem e um embaraço. Acreditar nele, acreditar nas pessoas que o compõem. Dar valor aos seus dirigentes. É de todo um exercício de complexa dificuldade. Haverá diferença entre a telenovela do fim da tarde e o que vivemos no dia-a-dia? O que se vê? E nisto digo entre o estar numa face ou na outra. No lado de cá da tela ou no lado de lá, da ficção, do sonho, do planeta. Do pesadelo? Não se conhece na verdade todo o seu limite, o rosto e a margem que separa e determina todos estes opostos. Ou o logos, que veste toda razão com os seus princípios de inteligibilidade.
Isto são expressões que não pretendia usar e que tornam a língua acre. E no tumulto remonto a uma mistura de saudade com inconformismo e pergunto de novo haverá alguma importância nisso?
Aqui, terra de jogo. De facilidades. Nunca fez tanto sentido a expressão “a árvore das patacas”. Aconteceu em épocas passadas, a corrida ao mesmo Ouro. É apenas uma sequela com outras legendas. Mas cada um vive no seu iraque particular onde o farol é mais a intuição do que a lógica do raciocínio. The world wide web. Que ao sacudir-se das águas se deforma e se mítífica na expressão de um espelho e nessa altura não há nada a fazer, o ecrã já não se desliga.
Conversa da treta, Sr. Primeiro Ministro. O que lhe queria na verdade dizer, sem lhe falar em concreto da gente do seu País que por cá navega, que não tem unidade, talvez seja discorrer acerca do conforto da distância. Do tempo das deslocações. Que me coloca como Estrangeiro ao regressar a qualquer ponto de partida. É um estado híbrido sem identidade em que o pasmo de ficar se sobrepõe à vontade de ir. Uma sensação boa, de zapping. E quanto mais distante melhor, digo-lhe eu, mais se alonga a perspectiva.
Se por vezes me dá a sensação que somos nós, os do sofá, os únicos a ter verdadeiro amor aos desígnios desta terra, sem significado em número mas de importância no espectro social e urbano da cidade, sei que o existir cai para lado nenhum e que nessa inclinação se estende para todos em simultâneo. É essa a natureza que nos encosta a este nicho do mercado e que nos sugere o desejo de resistência. A quê? A coisas más. Aos opostos mundos trocados. Que em informar desinformam. Reflectidos no espantalho dessa coisa que se chama imaginação.
É uma vontade enorme de voltar a ser dinossauro, digo-lhe.
De si? Fale-nos que do passado, do Espaço 1999, se vai começar de novo. Do zero. Sem influência mas com mérito. Que no seu degrau que lhe confere importância fulcral no assumo das decisões. Não por aqui, nem pelo País, mas pelo Mundo. Se erga e faça por nós todos, que temos ainda o chão por baixo. A Vida. O Regresso. A Diferença. De quem está e de quem foi. E que se ultrapasse para lá de qualquer sonho.
E o que fica da sua passagem por Macau? Fica este abraço que lhe envio e o papel que lhe deixo aqui nas suas mãos para que não se esqueça, para lhe dar alguma lembrança, e um domicílio, do que há para fazer.
E rien ne vas plus.

Com muita estima,

António Faisão, Fotógrafo

The legendary editor Robert Giroux, who died Friday at the age of 94, worked closely throughout his career with literary giants including Robert Lowell, Flannery O’Connor, Jack Kerouac and Bernard Malamud. But there was one that got away. In his new book, “The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors and Authors” (St. Martin’s Press), Al Silverman includes the following anecdote from Mr. Giroux, recounting how early in his career he lost the chance to publish “The Catcher in the Rye.” (The “Mr. Shawn” that J. D. Salinger mentions is The New Yorker’s editor at the time, William Shawn.)

I was eating a sandwich at my desk when our receptionist called. “Mr. Salinger is here,” she said, “and he wants to meet you.” I said: “Mr. Salinger? What’s his first name?” And she said, “Jerome, his name is Jerome.” I said, “Send him in.”

In he came. He was very tall, dark-haired, had a horse face. He was melancholy looking. It’s the truth — the first person I thought of when I saw him was Hamlet.

“Giroux,” he said. I said something like, “Right. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Salinger.”

“Giroux,” he said again. “Mr. Shawn has recommended you to me. But I want to tell you that to start me out it would be much better to publish my first novel instead of my stories.” I laughed, thinking, you want to be the publisher, you can have my seat. But I said, “I’m sure you’re right about that.” And I said, “I will publish your novel. Tell me about it.” He said, “Well, I can’t show it to you yet. It’s about half finished.” I said, “Well, let me be the publisher.” And he said yes, and we shook hands. ...

A year later a messenger came to the office with a package from Dorothy Olding, Salinger’s agent. ... There on the top page I read the title: “The Catcher in the Rye.” ...

I gave [my boss at Harcourt, Eugene Reynal] the book to read. He didn’t like it, didn’t understand it. He asked me, “Is this kid in the book supposed to be crazy?” ...“Gene,” I said, “I’ve shaken hands with this author. I agreed to publish this book.”

“Yes,” he said, “but, Bob, you’ve got to remember, we have a textbook department.” And I said, “What’s that got to do with it?” He said, “This is a book about a kid going to prep school.” So he sent it to the textbook people, who read it and said, “It’s not for us.”

I remember apologizing to Salinger. He said, “Ah, it’s O.K. I expect things like that. It happens.” Well, I never thought it would happen to me.
[FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES / 2007]

Lawrence was the name, the only one he staged. That's how everybody knew him. No surname, not a family story. Felt was his band and he was one of my cult heroes back in the 80's. Still is, I guess, in a different shape. From time to time I step across his work and for days I play all his songs again. In these occasions I try to check where he is and what he's doing. Nobody knows, as nobody knew before. He had a hard character but the music is timeless and life flies back and forth. 

Late in 2008 there was a screening of an unfinished film called Lawrence of Belgravia by Paul Kelly, a british documentary photographer, about the present life of Lawrence. News are not pleasant. He's older npw, as all of us are. The 80's were almost thirty years ago. For someone who was always out of the field on purpose now it seems unreal just to mention it all again. Check it bellow.

[...] With just 20 minutes, Paul Kelly's Lawrence Of Belgravia was half the length but twice as dismaying, a yellowed fragment of a work-in-progress concerning the eternally deferred ascent to fame of the former Felt and Denim frontman, Lawrence (pictured above). With its beautifully composed opening shots of brown medicine bottles, hypodermic syringes and overflowing ashtrays, and accompanying crestfallen voiceover as the singer explained his forthcoming eviction, Lawrence Of Belgravia initially seemed closer in spirit to Arena’s 1986 Jeffrey Bernard documentary or Molly Dineen’s 1987 BBC2 account of Colonel Hilary Hook’s return home to England from Kenya; a peripatetic digression down the curious path of a singular life.
[...] A work in progress, Lawrence Of Belgravia could eventually transform into the UK pop equivalent of Terry Zwigoff’s Robert Crumb documentary, a haunting portrait of a dysfunctional soul using art as a survival mechanism. Or it could remain forever a fragment, the unfinished document of a still unfinished dream. In its current version it stands as one of the most affecting films this writer has seen all year.
BY ANDREW MALE AT MOJO MAGAZINE

Other link about the documentary featuring the leader of the english band Felt, is here. Complete it with this one by the hand of Alan McGee the face of Creation Records. Finally follow the whole ballad of the band here. If you want to hear his songs pass by Bloom Yellow one of these weekends. You might hear a bird whistling it. We're still mad at them.

O bom das estradas é que elas nos permitem ir até onde quisermos.

It's dark. It's dark and wet in here. Everything seems chaotic. Hectic. Frantic. I can hear voices out there. Noises and anxious souls waiting out there. Thunders. No, don't drag me out. I want to stay here. Like I've always had. A turbulent move just pushed me to the ground. And now I feel the heat on my soaked body. I can barely open my eyes but I sense the rays of light around me. It's a bright and sunny day. And all I've got now is hope. Yes, hope.
Cesca

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]

[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

But it wasn’t what Saramago was doing that I already could do (albeit on a smaller, less Nobel Prize worthy way) that made reading Blindness so educational. It was a certain, very, to my mind, unSaramago-like quality to this novel that makes it both Saramago’s best novel and the one that opened an until-then locked door for me. The thing that makes Blindness so great isn’t just the writing (by which I mean the language, the way the sentences (even in translation) unfold in perfect rhythm, the sharpness of the insights, the brilliance of all sorts of small technical choices (like not giving any of the characters proper names), which is so mindbogglingly good, but the gripping, unrelenting nature of the novel’s plot.

Two bits of advice (one fairly obvious and arguably useless, the other better all around) for writers, by way of conclusion. First, it’s not a bad idea to read writers that write like you, only better. Second, when you find yourself trying to write in a way you’ve never written before, avoid the urge to simultaneously stop doing what you already do well. This urge is understandable, informed as it is by both the desire to not be accused of repeating oneself and the dream of being the object of that most coveted double negative, “There’s seemingly nothing Writer X can’t do!” Starting from scratch, in regards to style, technique, etc., is asking for trouble, if you ask me. Instead, go from strength to strength. You can thank me (and Jose Saramago) later.
[TODD HASAK-LOWY IS A WRITER AND LITERARY CRITIC WHO WAS BROUGHT BY MARK SARVAS ON THE ELEGANT VARIATION - A PIECE IN THREE PARTS]

In collaboration with the University of Hong Kong and an initiative of Bloom * Creative Network, the Macanese architect Carlos Marreiros will be at the Faculty of Architecture for an open lecture. Titled "Tracing Lines Between Two Worlds" the lecture will flow on the intercultural way of life of this region of the world – Macau, where East and West melted through time, generating its specific and fascinating Architectural Culture. This lecture, which is based on the lines between two worlds, will provide a specific learning experience for the participants regarding Architecture of the East and the West – the similarities and the differences and the boundaries between the universes of reality and imagination, which the Macanese architect is a good example, on its diversity and miscegenation.

DETAILS
Date/Time: 26/09/2008 18:30-20:00
Venue: Room 419, Knowles Building, The University of Hong Kong
Language: English
Registration is not required.
Further information, please visit this website.
Any enquiries feel free to contact the Faculty of Architecture by email.

After I finished the book (a couple days later, which for me is fast), I started trying to make sense of what made it such a powerful reading experience. What I quickly realized was that Blindness isn’t just a great book in some necessarily meaningless objective sense. I know people who did not dig it at all. Rather, it was a great, nearly perfect book for me at that moment, because it had all the elements of the kind of fiction I most liked. But it had more, too. And as much as this might seem like it contradicts all the reader vs. writer/scholar stuff I posited in my opening, this “more” that Blindness has showed me how to write a novel.

I first decided to read Saramago after a fellow writer told me (online, of all places) that my writing style reminded him of Saramago. I figured, well, I ought to see who this Saramago guy is. And the similarities between the voice in my debut story collection and that of Saramago’s narrator—highly authoritative, deeply analytical, long-winded and given to seemingly endless asides—were hard to miss. So I read Saramago from that first sentence the way you read a writer whose style and technique, however impressive and overall unmatchable, makes sense all in all. Because there are writers (Faulkner is my best example) who you read and admire, but whose writing so mysterious and off-the-charts good that you can’t write for weeks after your encounter. Even though I was humbled by Saramago’s writing, I felt like I got him right away.
[TODD HASAK-LOWY IS A WRITER AND LITERARY CRITIC WHO WAS BROUGHT BY MARK SARVAS ON THE ELEGANT VARIATION - A PIECE IN THREE PARTS]

Tim Hetherington was the winner of the World Press Photo of the Year winner, here's a special profile on him. You can get to know more about Tim and his award-winning picture, as well as see and hear him talk about his earlier work and important influences on his development.
Watch a film Tim made for ABC Television, of the Korengal Valley where his prize-winning photos were taken.
In two exclusive interviews, Tim discusses his own feelings about the winning image, and talks about the story behind it.
Tim talks about his involvement in projects using sport as a healing process in Africa, and his years in Liberia, experiences that shaped his personal development and career.
Find out more about Tim Hetherington, his life, beliefs and career.
[SOURCE: WORLD PRESS PHOTO • PHOTO © VANITY FAIR]

The World Press Photo'08 exhibition opens today in Macau at the Tourism Activities Centre, don't miss it! Be there from 6.30pm onwards.
[SEE THE GALLERY HERE]

If you’re lucky enough to get paid to read, then you’re probably unlucky enough to feel that reading is a job. You might well enjoy what you read most of the time, but even so, if it’s part of your work, you can’t help but read it in ways that make the reading anything but the stuff of simple pleasure: you read with a pen or pencil in hand, you ask yourself after every sentence, “Is this good?” “What does it mean?” “How would I teach this?” “Do I even understand this?” You read (or watch) yourself reading, constantly making sure that you’re drawing meaningful conclusions or making suggestive connections, because in one way or another you’re going to be accountable for what you read. Otherwise, why would anyone agree to pay you?

Now as far as making a living goes, one could do much, much worse. But still, if you wind up in a read-for-pay career, it’s likely that a) once upon a time a love of reading played a role in your decision to pursue this career, and/but b) this career of yours has at best complicated this love in ways that on occasion makes the word “regret” not entirely ungermaine to the topic at hand. Sure you avoided selling radio time to advertisers or strip mining in West Virginia, but remember when you just loved reading?

I mention all this in order to present what was for me an exceptional reading experience: José Saramago’s Blindness. I liked, a lot even, this novel from its very first (if memory serves me correctly) long sentence, and my fondness for it only grew as I continued. About 100 pages into it, I reached a happy place I had not visited for some time. I knew I was there when I looked at my watch, saw that it was nearly midnight on a weekday, and said to myself, “Okay, just one more chapter.” I realized that this was a book so good that it silenced all the typically bothersome professional yammering that comes steadily from all the other semi-related-to-reader parts of me (teacher, scholar, writer). I was just reading this book, by which I mean that I was unusually present in the reading experience, by which I mean that I was probably out at some boundary where what I already knew a book could show me meets what I was at that moment learning lies just beyond that.
[TODD HASAK-LOWY IS A WRITER AND LITERARY CRITIC WHO WAS BROUGHT BY MARK SARVAS ON THE ELEGANT VARIATION - A PIECE IN THREE PARTS]

enact |enˈakt|
verb [ trans. ]
1 put into practice (a belief, idea, or suggestion).
2 act out (a role or play) on stage.
3 to strive to make a story come true.

Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.
ALVIN TOFFLER