Within a Sky Full of Earth

CARLOS PICASSINOS DE VOLTA?
Segundo apurou o JTM, Carlos Picassinos, actualmente em Barcelona, mas ainda ao serviço do Hoje Macau, poderá estar de regresso ao território e ao mesmo periódico onde exercia a função de jornalista até há uns meses, mas, desta feita, para o cargo de editor executivo.
Confrontado com o possível regresso do jornalista, que se destacou na área da cultura, o director do Hoje Macau, Carlos Morais José, preferiu abster-se de comentários, ainda que tenha reconhecido ao JTM ter-se encontrado recentemente com Carlos Picassinos na cidade espanhola.
Carlos Morais José frisou, porém, que o Hoje Macau continua em fase de consolidação desde que se fundiu com o suplemento do “Tai Chung Pou” e que, portanto, possivelmente só em Setembro é que estará “sedimentado” por completo. Por agora, o projecto Hoje Macau continua “pujante”, sublinhou.
[NO JTM DE ONTEM]

Sátira política, fantástica e lírica, "Margarita e o Mestre" esteve proibida na URSS durante quase 30 anos. Uma obra-prima do romance do século XX

Mikhail Bulgakov escreveu "Margarita e o Mestre" em segredo, ao longo de onze anos, entre 1929 e 1940, numa Moscovo em que as suas peças eram insultadas (e depois proibidas) pela crítica oficial mais diligente, e os seus amigos iam desaparecendo, exilados ou executados - aquilo a que se veio a chamar terror estalinista.
Enquanto escrevia, noite após noite, Bulgakov sabia que ia morrer, como o seu pai morrera, de uma doença hereditária dos rins. Previu mesmo o ano em que morreria, 1939. Falhou por meses. Morreu, de facto, a 10 de Março de 1940, ainda não tinha cumprido 49 anos.
Duas semanas antes, já cego, e sem poder sair da cama, ditou as últimas emendas ao romance a Elena Sergueievna Shilovskaia, sua terceira mulher - a Margarita do livro, a sua Margarita. Tinham-se conhecido em 1929, casaram-se três anos depois, foram inseparáveis até ao fim.
Com uma fé inabalável no futuro, ela guardou tudo o que ele foi escrevendo, obras (manuscritas, banidas) e cartas. E depois da morte de Bulgakov passou quase 30 anos a lutar pela publicação de "Margarita e o Mestre". Em 1966, o romance veio pela primeira vez à luz, na revista "Moskva", com passagens censuradas. Só no início dos anos 70 foi publicado em livro. Elena morreu, pouco depois.
Aclamado como uma obra-prima um pouco por todo o mundo, quando as primeiras traduções começaram a ser publicadas, "Margarita e o Mestre" continuou, no entanto, sujeito a uma circulação restrita na URSS da Guerra Fria. Tornou-se um romance de culto genuinamente popular, passado de mão em mão, pago a peso de ouro no mercado negro. Só com a perestroika - a que se seguiu, em 1991, o centenário do nascimento de Bulgakov - foi oficialmente "reabilitado". Lido hoje, permanece dificilmente classificável, livre e absoluto, portanto.
Sátira política das misérias do aparelho estalinista, com seu séquito de siglas, funcionários, delatores, trafulhas e mentirosos de meia-tijela, que escondem divisas estrangeiras nas canalizações da casa-de-banho e se esgadanham por mais uma salinha, mais um metro quadrado nos apartamentos comunitários? Romance fantástico que convoca o diabo, com sua corte de saltimbancos, para semear o caos na capital da revolução, e retoma o mito de Fausto no feminino, fazendo de Margarita rainha-anfitriã de um grande baile satânico? História de um amor além da morte, ferozmente lírico e nunca sentimental, o de Mestre e Margarita? Fábula metafísica, que evoca Cristo e Pilatos no lugar vazio deixado pela erradicação oficial do bem e do mal?
"Margarita e o Mestre" será tudo isto e o que cada leitor quiser, ainda. Escrito em segredo, e proibido tantos anos, é uma prova de que toda a arte é íntegra ou não será. Ou de que - como diz o diabo de Bulgakov - "os manuscritos não ardem".
[ALEXANDRA LUCAS COELHO / PÚBLICO]

"Margarita e o Mestre", de Mikhail Bulgakov • RELÓGIO D'ÁGUA

BULGAKOV COUNTDOWN #2
«One day, two members of the reigning literary elite meet in a park to discuss problems with the subject matter of one of their poems - it's not atheistic enough, says the elder, and thus not worthy of publishing (this being Soviet Russia, under Stalin's rule). No sooner is the question (and denial) of the devil raised, than the two are greeting by a tall, dark stranger who appears out of the blue and proceeds to describe how one of them will die. And, albeit under fantastic circumstances, it comes true.
Pretty soon, the stranger and his motley troupe - a clownish bloke with a broken pince-nez, a fang-toothed redheaded goul, and a large, talking black cat who walks on his hind legs - occupy a townhouse in the centre of Moscow from which they direct a chaotic spell over the city. Anyone it seems who gets in their way - usually members of the cultural privileged classes - either vanishes, winds up in the sanatorium, or is vanquished to another part of the country.
Who are they? What are they doing? All of this is unravelled (and exploded) the further into the book one reads. We meet the eponymous Master, a discouraged writer whose seminal work on Pontius Pilate is lain to waste by the bureaucratic tendrils of the sycophantic literary scene, and his faithful lover, Margarita - a married woman who would do anything to be free of her chains and reunited with him.
The Master and Margarita is a wild, throw-the-rulebook-out-the-door tale which manages to weave outrageous satire with eloquent speculation on morality. Bulgakov's novel confidently navigates between deft, fantastic comedy and touching, emotional drama - without one disregarding the power of the other. Written under the tyrannical reign of Stalin from 1929 until Bulgakov's death in 1940, it is both a response to the madness of that period and a triumphant individual statement.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something fantastic and unpredictable to consume them. It is truly a book that can be read and re-read numerous times, with each pass being as fulfilling as the next.»
Text by Matt Cahill • Toronto • Canada
[ABOVE THE PENGUIN VERSION SHOWING THE PAINTING "An Englishman in Moscow" BY Kazimir Malevich]

Don't miss these cuts from a documentary on Philip Roth. It came to us from The Elegant Variation by Mark Sarvas. We keep an eye on him every day. The last of The Elegant Variation is highlighted on the right-side bar of Bloomland in Head On.
[YES, DON'T MISS IT!]

The 4th edition of the Pocket Films Festival has taken place at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, from June 13 - 15, 2008. 140 films made with mobile telephones were presented on the cinema screen, and 150 mobile videos were presented on mobile telephone screens. One hundred of filmmakers, artists, producers, from all over the world including international guests such as Isabella Rossellini, Stephen Dwoskin, and Masaki Fujihata, presented their works in the field of mobile video creation. More than 7,000 spectators visited the festival experiencing a myriad of propositions this year: films presented on multiple screen sizes, the possibility to “Take home” with them video creations designed for wireless diffusion, mobile filmmaking workshops and video-walks throughout the center of Paris.
The jury members, headed by the graphic novel artist and filmmaker Enki Bilal, have chosen The Champion, by the portuguese Rui Avelans Coelho. It's an extraordinary 1 minute 'documentary'. No words needed to describe it. Just see it here and clap your hands.
The 1st prize was 1,500 € and a 3G+ mobile telephone, which he really needed. ;-)
[FROM HERE WE SEND OUR BEST WISHES TO RUI]

A morte de cada homem ou mulher significa a morte de uma tradição, de algum conhecimento sobre rituais sagrados detido por ninguém mais. A informação que está contida nas minhas imagens deve ser adquirida de uma vez por todas, ou a oportunidade estará perdida para sempre.

Durante mais de trinta anos, o fotógrafo Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) percorreu a América do Norte de ponta a ponta. O seu objectivo era registar os vestígios da vida tradicional indígena que se encontravam em progressiva extinção em toda a América do Norte, gravando-os em imagens e palavras. Curtis tornou-se assim um dos nomes de maior relevância no registo e recuperação da cultura dos indígenas, uma técnica que aprendeu por experiência própria por entre as suas sessões fotográficas. Iniciando a sua pesquisa em 1900, criando por si uma máquina fotográfica especial, Curtis aprendeu a utilizar métodos de investigação científica, acreditando sobretudo na fotoetnografia como importante fonte de preservação histórica e obcecado por uma missão superior abraçou essa ideia realizando-a durante toda a sua vida. O resultado tornou-se monumental com a publicação da enciclopédia "The North American Indian". No final este empreendimento compreendia vinte volumes de texto escrito, acompanhado por vinte álbuns com mais de 2000 ilustrações. Nenhum outro fotógrafo criou tamanha obra sobre o mesmo tema, que continha na altura mais de 40 mil fotografias. É Curtis, mais do que nenhum outro, que no fundo moldou de maneira crucial a nossa concepção dos índios americanos. Este grandioso livro mostra as suas imagens mais impressionantes e os detalhes de uma vida que o levou não só pelas pradarias mas também para o meio dos filmes realizados nos estúdios de Hollywood.

SOBRE O AUTOR
Hans Christian Adam estudou Psicologia, História de Arte e Comunicação em Göttingen e em Viena. Como especialista em história pictórica, publicou variados artigos e livros sobre o tema, incluindo títulos sobre viagens e fotografia de guerra.

Edward S. Curtis, de Hans Christian Adam • TASCHEN • VERSÃO PORTUGUESA • NA BLOOM

Não é o ângulo recto que me atrai
nem a linha recta, dura, inflexível,
criada pelo homem.
O que me atrai é a curva livre e sensual,
a curva que encontro nas montanhas
do meu país,
no curso sinuoso dos seus rios,
nas ondas do mar,
no corpo da mulher preferida.
De curvas é feito todo o universo,
o universo curvo de Einstein.

Neste livro, apesar da liberdade plástica, total, que procuro praticar, vocês, meus irmãos portugueses, vão encontrar muita influência da sua velha arquitectura colonial, tão repetida em meu país. Refiro-me às velhas casas de fazenda, senhoriais, todas caiadas de branco, com largas varandas a protegerem e ampliarem os espaços interiores. E, mais ainda, as belas igrejas barrocas nascidas com vocês aí em Portugal. O resto é a minha arquitectura, os longos anos que passei debruçado na prancheta, mas sempre encontrando tempo para sentir a vida, a família, os amigos, este mundo que precisamos melhorar. Tudo isto que, para mim, é mais importante que a arquitectura.
Meu Sósia vem de longe, de outros continentes, de tempos tão distantes que deles só os livros podem lembrar. Mas vem também de áreas mais próximas, vem de Maricá onde nasceram meus avós. Quer ocupar-se de coisas em demasia. Desenhar, fazer esculturas e literatura. Procuro contê-lo, fazendo autocrítica, ouvindo os amigos, lendo muito. Mas ele insiste. Diz que a arquitectura deve estar ligada a todos os assuntos da cultura e lembra como afirmativas de Heidegger e Malraux me foram úteis na defesa de meus projectos. Tudo o que faço tem sua participação e com ele divido o que vocês acharem de bom ou ruim neste livro.
[Oscar Niemeyer]

Oscar Niemeyer, agora com 100 anos de idade, é unanimemente considerado um dos maiores vultos de sempre da arquitectura mundial, tendo assinado projectos como a cidade de Brasília, ou a sede das Nações Unidas em Nova Iorque assim como muitas, muitas outras obras de indiscutível valor, espalhadas pelas mais diversas cidades do Mundo.
Este Livro tem a finalidade de expor de maneira mais clara, mas sempre poética, sob os mais diversos ângulos em que ela se compõe - o Arquitecto, o Artista, o Escritor, o Criador, o Cidadão, o Amigo - a personalidade de Oscar Niemeyer. O seu caminho, as pessoas que marcaram presença na sua vida, as coisas que lhe interessam.

Meu Sósia e Eu, de Oscar Niemeyer • CAMPO DAS LETRAS

July 23rd - Wednesday - 18.00
The Master and Margarita - The Passion, Faust and Mikhail Bulgakov
A Talk by Peter Suart

The Russian writer and dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov died in Moscow in 1940. His masterwork novel. The Master and Margarita, first appeared in a Moscow journal in the 60's. It later went on to achieve cult status around the world.
In 2007 Peter Suart illustrated the book for The Folio Society in London, and it is from this work that this talk as sprung. Peter will show his illustrations for the book and discuss the following subjects:
• Bulgakov’s vision of Jesus as a non-divine seer;
• Faust, Science and the whirlpool of good and evil;
• The life and work of Bulgakov.

Peter will close with a look at the presence of some of these ideas in his own series of illustrated books, the Tik and Tok adventures, published by MCCM Creations.

PETER SUART, born in Jamaica, was raised in Hong Kong and schooled in England. In 1985 he returned to Hong Kong to work as an artist, musician, writer and theatrical performer. Since 1999 he has lived in England. He is a zealous sportsman.
[In English / Limited seating]

In collaboration with MCCM Creations • Supported by the British Council
Image frontispiece of the Folio Society's The Master and Margarita

July 26th - Saturday
The City as a Subject for Literary Expression
Talk + Creative Writing Session by Hong Kong writer Xu Xi
[15.00-17.00 Workshop / 18.00 Talk]

Focused on urban, congested life, Xu Xi, a Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, writes from within, zooming in on her own life in the city and its vanishing culture and sensibility. This surreal example of post-modernity transformed into a 21st Century Communist Chinese city informs her latest book, Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village, a collection of personal essays.

XU XI (pronounced “Shoe-See”), is one of Asia’s leading English language writers. Author of seven books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. THE NEW YORK TIME named her a pioneer writer from Asia in English. Awards include an O. Henry prize story, shortlist for the inaugural MAN Asian Literary Award, Cohen Award from PLOUGHSHARES for best story, a NYFA fiction fellowship, the South China Morning Post story contest winner, among others. Her work is taught, broadcast and anthologized internationally. Her language is described as “uncluttered” and “arrestingly poignant.” She is, above all, uncompromising.
[APPLY NOW FOR THE CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP - LIMITED AVAILABILITY]

Co-organized by the Department of English of the University of Macau.
MORE INFO AT: www.xuxiwriter.com
PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Hilton

July 27th - Sunday - 20.00
The Box in Bloom

In 1987 Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing formed THE BOX, a theatrical music ensemble, and the duo presented concerts and music theatre works alone and in collaboration with visual artists, choreographers, theatre folk and musicians in Hong Kong and Taiwan. For their 20th anniversary, they play Bluebeard at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong

First time in Macau together, Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing, a classical music professor, will perform a selection of material from their twenty-year history; Suart on voice (sung and spoken), keyboard and percussion, and Kung Chi Shing on violin and flute. The music is dark, bizarre and lyrical.
Words in English.

Supported by the British Council
PHOTO from 2008 show: the box, side fourteen — bluebeard CREDIT: Liu Wai Tong

July 29th - 18.00
Mighty Tuesday #1
Nine Lives, The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, by Karen Smith
Book Presentation with the Author / Updated Edition by Timezone 8 • Mar 2008

Nine Lives introduces nine artists and their personal histories and views on China today. Karen Smith‘s highly accessible introduction to an emerging art scene in a society unknown to most of us makes good reading not only for art-world insiders, but for anyone curious about recent history and its effect on the booming Chinese society.

In the early 1990s, the idea of contemporary art in China simply did not compute to a foreign audience. But in 1993, ten contemporary Chinese artists debuted at the 48th Venice Biennale. They were immediately hailed as progenitors of a Chinese „avant-garde." Their brightly colored, Pop Art-inspired paintings played with socialist motifs, parodied Mao, and gave a visual expression to the feelings of disaffected Chinese youth. They were everything western audiences expected of contemporary art from the People‘s Republic of China. But a number of critics were rather guarded in their opinions. The emergence of a market for their art transformed the lives of these avant-garde pioneers from rags to riches, from outcast to hero, from social pariah to cutting-edge cool in a Chinese society adapting to a new era. They did not change but China has changed. The ideology they once had to fight now propagates a cultural climate of laissez-faire that is tantamount to encouragement. Nine Lives paints a compelling picture of artists working beyond the pale of official culture, who started a new cultural revolution that is sweeping China today.

Karen Smith was born in Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. She graduated from Wimbledon Art School in Fine Art. In 1988, she moved to Asia curious to explore its practically unchartered art scene. She calls Beijing her home, where she lives since 1992, and is one of the foremost authorities on China’s contemporary art scene, both in China and abroad. Karen Smith also curates exhibitions, including The Real Thing, Tate Liverpool, 2007, and Chinese Photography and Video, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, amongst others. She is also on the advisory board of Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing.

The author will show the works of Wang Guangyi, Geng Jianyi, Fang Lijun, Gu Dexin, Li Shan, Zhang Xiaogang, Xu Bing, Zhang Peili, and Wang Jianwei.

Timezone 8 Limited is a Hong Kong based publisher, distributor and retailer of books on contemporary art, architecture, photography and design.
In collaboration with Asia Publishers Service • HONG KONG

August 2nd - Saturday (time to be announced)
One Couple Two Cultures: 81 Western-Chinese Couples Talk about Love and Marriage • A presentation by the Author, Dan Waters
NEW POCKET SIZE EDITION BY MCCM CREATIONS

There are those who believe a Western-Chinese marriage is no different, say, to a blond marrying a red-head, although there are others who are more cautious and say that two sometimes antagonistic cultures inevitably add heat to the mix and an added dimension to marriage. There are also opposing views and beliefs having been raised on different codes of conduct and varying lifestyles. After marriage what sort of lifestyles do such couples lead? There can be compatibility and communication problems, not just with each other, but also with in-laws and partners' friends. What cuisines do they prefer? How do they raise their Eurasian children?
While a certain amount has been written about Blacks married to Whites, and Whites to Pakistani, and so on, next to nothing has been written about Westerners married to Chinese. Researched and written by Dr Dan Waters, who can claim approaching half a century of actual experience in such a marriage, is the best person to research the subject of mixed marriages.
One Couple Two Cultures is based on original research of eighty-one couples involving among others Chinese from the People's Republic of China and Caucasians of different nationalities. Examples included in this book are of both successful and not-so-successful unions.

Dan Waters was born in 1920 in Norwich, England, a city of pubs and churches. 'There's a pub for every day of the year and a church for every week'. He's now 88 year old and a whole life of experience. Dan and his Hong Kong Chinese wife, Vera Chan, were married on the Queen's Birthday in 1960, and they have lived together in Hong Kong ever since.

THE PUBLISHER
Since going into book publishing in 2001, the aspirations of MCCM Creations in books have not changed: a wish to bring to you original and inspiring books from creators who share a passion in books as well as having a strong desire to explore new concepts and visualise their experiences, stories and perception in their medium of preference - words, images, sound etc… who often take them across boundaries of illustration, visual art, design, architecture, photography, culture, socio-culture, and literature. Their titles have ‘crossover’ appeals to different age groups and interest groups. MCCM is owned by Mary Chan.
Event Co-Organized by MCCM Creations

August 3rd - Sunday - 18.00
China: Portrait of a Country A book launching presented by Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Liu Heung Shing

China: Portrait of a Country is a landmark on the history of publishing. Initially a book on photography it brings the whole history of a country from the past 60 years to a vivid and close-up form. After a research that took more than 4 years, Liu Heung Shing shows the work of 88 Chinese photographers who gave their perception along the extraordinary hardship that makes way to the humanistic course of this immense country. A document that will make its own life on the standards of gradual change and a monument on the passion of photography. When China opens the curtain at the summer Olympics in 2008 and the world’s focus falls upon Beijing, these images will serve to map out the remarkable road the Chinese have traveled to rejoin the rest of the world and the process by which China navigated the path from periphery to a central position in the world.

Liu Heung Shing’s journalistic involvement with China runs parallel with the development of the People’s Republic. Following the 1979 China-U.S. diplomatic normalization, Liu was Time Magazine’s first photojournalist based in Beijing. His first story was on the death of Mao Zedong. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the The Associated Press in Beijing (1979-1983), Los Angeles (1983-85), New Delhi (19851-89), Seoul (1989-1990) and Moscow (1990-1993). Liu is the author of China After Mao (Penguin 1982), and USSR: Collapse of an Empire(Associated Press 1992). In 1992 he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography on the coverage of the Soviet Union, and in 2005 French Photomagazine named Liu Heung Shing one of the 100 most influential figures in contemporary photography.

THE PUBLISHER
TASCHEN is an art book publisher founded in 1980 in Germany. Taschen has been a noteworthy force in making lesser-seen art available to mainstream bookstores. Bringing this art into broader public view, by publishing potentially controversial volumes alongside its more mainstream books of comics reprints, art photography, painting, design, fashion,advertising history, film, and architecture. TASCHEN's mission is to choose the most interesting, important, and pertinent subjects within a delectable range of disciplines, to make beautiful, unique and high-quality books.
Co-Organized by TASCHEN • Hong Kong

All the events will take place at Bloom Yellow and its boundaries at Albergue, previously know as The Old Ladies House, a complex for Arts and Creativity in Macau.
SUPPORTED by BAMBU SOCIEDADE DE ARTES LIMITADA
ALBERGUE - CALÇADA DA IGREJA DE SÃO LÁZARO, 8 - MACAU

Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India, which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, a telepath with a nasal defect, who is born at the exact moment that India becomes independent. Saleem Sinai's life then parallels the changing fortunes of the country after independence.
The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history. It has thus been compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
The narrative framework of Midnight's Children consists of a tale - comprising his life story - which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted Arabian Nights. The events in Rushdie's text also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in the Arabian Nights, or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility'
The novel is also an expression of the author's own childhood, his affection for the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) in those times, and the tumultuous variety of the Indian subcontinent. Recognised for its remarkably flexible and innovative use of the English language, with a liberal mix of native Indian languages, this novel represents a departure from conventional Indian English writing. Compressing Indian cultural history Midnight's Children chronological entwines characters from India's cultural history with characters from Western culture, and the devices that they signify - Indian culture, religion and storytelling, Western drama and cinema - are presented in Rushdie's text with postcolonial Indian history to examine both the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence.
The foundations of religious authority are a central concern in the novel. As with Judaism and Protestant Christianity, Islam's authority resides in scripture and rests on the belief that its words come directly from God (Allah). Saleem Sinai, the novel's narrator, seems to want to appropriate some of the Islamic tradition's authority while at the same time questioning its legitimacy. Comparing himself to Muhammad, the vessel through whom the Quran is believed to have been dictated by Allah, Saleem claims to have heard "a headful of gabbling tongues", and, though he was initially perplexed and "struggled, alone, to understand what had happened." Saleem points to his (and Rushdie's) desire to unsettle some of the easy dichotomies that individual people as well as entire cultures use to make sense of themselves.
[SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]

LINDESAY IRVINE ON THE GUARDIAN
Rushdie Best of the Bookers

For the second time, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie has been judged the best ever winner of the Booker prize. The Best of Booker award, which has been announced at the London literature festival this afternoon, marks the prize's 40th anniversary. A similar contest - the Booker of Bookers - was held in 1993 to coincide with its 25th birthday, and came to the same conclusion.
Rushdie is currently in Chicago, promoting his latest novel The Enchantress of Florence, and appeared at the ceremony via videomessage. "I have to say this is just a marvellous moment for me and for Midnight's Children ... I'm slightly lost for words which usually I'm not," he said. The recently knighted author's sons Zafar and Milan accepted the trophy, which is the award's only immediate reward (although considerable additional sales can be confidently expected to follow). "I think there's something rather wonderful about my real children accepting a prize for my imaginary children," said Rushdie.
Midnight's Children is a teeming fable of postcolonial India, told in magical-realist fashion by a telepathic hero born at the stroke of midnight on the day the country became independent. First published in 1981, it was met with little immediate excitement. It was an unexpected winner, but went on to garner critical and popular acclaim around the world. The novel's popularity, very unusually for a literary award, is what has secured the prize, having been picked from the shortlist by an online public vote that drew just over 7,800 votes. The shortlist itself was selected by a panel of judges - the biographer, novelist and critic Victoria Glendinning; writer and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan, professor of English at University College London.
As well as securing a welcome boost for Rushdie and the other shortlisted authors, John Mullan argued that the honour was a different kind of accolade to the annual award because of its longer view.
"The Booker is usually a marker of 'this year's thing'," he said. "The contenders for the Best of Booker stretched back almost half a century. It means that we were able to look at books that seem likely to endure because of their inherent qualities, as opposed to 'catching the zeitgeist'."
The Booker - which aims to reward the best novel in English by a writer from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth - has established itself as this country's most influential literary honour. But Mullan was more cautious about whether this award amounts to being declared the very best English novel of the last 40 years.
"The annual Booker winners weren't necessarily the best novels published that year," he explained. "One or two novelists have won for novels which weren't their best."
Glendinning, who chaired the panel, said that "the readers have spoken - in their thousands. And we do believe that they have made the right choice." But her comments fell a little short of the enthusiasm for Midnight's Children on the Booker website, where one voter wrote that "maybe only Shakespeare can top this sort of genius".

AUDIO: Salman Rushdie talks to Stuart Jeffries
BLOG: They picked the right winner
IN PICTURES: The life of Salman Rushdie
REVIEW: Read the original Guardian review (PDF)
EXCERPT: Read an extract from Midnight's Children

When we moved to Bloom Yellow at Albergue we came with a purpose. The mission to bring authors and writers close to the public and get them together with the readers. If not in flesh in every ways possible just to create the flux of their words to the fountain where one could drink them. We started at our open day with a session about Salman Rushdie and his last novel, The Enchantress of Florence, we invited one side and the other, the ones who would tell and the ones who would listen, and we believe, as it happened with us, that both sides took something new when they left. That's one piece of our engine that starts running. One step of the ladder we want to climb. And ahead we want to take you with us.
For now we want to tell - and it's nothing really new as it happened two days ago - that our author of the month at Bloom Yellow, Salman Rushdie, won the Best of Booker prizes. The Booker Prize is a literary award given each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland. The winner is generally assured of international renown and success.
Midnight's Children, by Rushdie, won this prize in 1981. In 1993 was chosen again as the best novel to win the award in the first 25 years of its existence, it was named the Booker of Bookers Prize. On 8 of July, on a poll who brought readers from across the world, the same title was chosen as the Best of Booker. And so, after 27 years of its publication, Midnight's Children, gains another boost of its own genuine life.
That's it. At Bloom July is our crash test month. We have different things prepared and on wheels and we will tell them right away. Be there and stay tuned.

RELATED LINKS:
• BOOKER PRIZE'S OFFICIAL WEBSITE
• LIST OF BOOKER PRIZE WINNERS
• MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN ON WIKI
[PHOTO © BLOOMLAND.CN FEATURING VICENZO OUR NEIGHBOUR AT ALBERGUE]

A revista LER, fundada em 1987, regressou de novo às bancas, totalmente renovada, com uma nova equipa, liderada por Francisco José Viegas, com um nova imagem gráfica, um novo formato, e com novos colaboradores onde se destaca a maior informação possível sobre os livros à venda em Portugal — mas sempre com vivacidade na vontade de chegar a um público mais vasto, afastando a ideia de que é um produto exclusivamente intelectual.
É talvez com esse desígnio de chegar mais longe, diga-se em termos de vendas e de projecção da revista no mercado nacional, e depois de Lobo Antunes e Saramago, que o terceiro número da nova geração da LER traz Margarida Rebelo Pinto na capa. Lá dentro, numa entrevista de nove páginas com a autora que já vendeu um milhão de livros em toda a sua carreira, Carlos Vaz Marques tenta pormenorizar os passos e o valor desta escritora que tanta polémica tem gerado no mundo literário português, encostando-a um pouco à parede mas sem na verdade a pôr em causa. Poder-se-á pensar que esta escolha entra um pouco em dissonância com o resto da revista, mas o mundo vive do debate de ideias por fazer e das suas discussões. Margarida Rebelo Pinto é um fenómeno da edição de livros e um dos maiores exemplos de sucesso. Será esssa razão suficiente para a dimensão que lhe é dada?
A LER de Julho/Agosto traz ainda os destaques de Zadie Smith, Hisham Matar, Mário Cláudio e de todo o panorama da publicação mais recente, com extractos de Roberto Bolaño, com Os Detectives Selvagens e de David Peace, com Tokyo - Ano Zero. Fala-se também dos 25 livros para deglutir este Verão e das 10 cidades literárias para visitar e ler. Esta revista conta com um dsitinto leque no seu corpo 'clínico' de colunistas e colaboradores onde se podem encontrar os nomes de José Mário Silva, Eduardo Pitta, José Eduardo Agualusa, Inês Pedrosa, Pedro Mexia, Abel Barros Baptista, entre muitos outros.
A Bloom tem trazido discretamente a LER para Macau, onde planeia uma apresentação da mesma com mais detalhe, por agora pode encontrá-la no Albergue de São Lázaro, onde se encontra sediada a Bloom Yellow, onde se encontram à venda ainda os números anteriores.
[A LER ESTÁ AQUI]

Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it's me?
SAMUEL BECKETT

If you're coming to Macau next weekend or you just live here don't miss this one. In the dread nightlife of Macau Showtime has been on the top range of the wave, boosting with energy and events. And they don't stop. This Saturday Ricky Stone is the one to get.
Ricky Stone ability to connect with clubbers and bring dancefloors alive is truly outstanding. Originally from Sheffield, Ricky rocked clubs and raves across the UK before continuing his rise in the east. Moving to Asia in 2002, he set up base in Hong Kong and swiftly forged a bright future as one of the region's most sought-after DJs. He became the very first Hong Kong/China-based artist to break into the prestigious Top 100 of DJ Mag. Voted #48 in the world by masses of loyal supporters in 2005, he proceeded to climb eight places to #40 in 2006 – and is currently on a roll as the poll's highest ranked DJ based in Asia!
He's also all set to establish his own record label, 852 Recordings, as we speed into 2007 (852 being the phone code for Hong Kong). So secure your seatbelts and brace yourselves for a brand new wave of deep, ballistic beats and endless grooves. Supported by the local DJ's D'mond and Dhoo.

Where: SHOWTIME - Rua de Cantão. Edf. Yee On Kok 38-C 2ºA (opposite to Fortuna Hotel)
Start Time: Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 11:00pm
End Time: Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 6:00am

FOR MORE INFO DIAL: +853 66132267 OR EMAIL: djdmond@gmail.com

- I asked you two times, I will not ask you again. Will you do it?
Before we go any further I have to explain that there are two guys in the middle of a road. A red car with the doors opened wide. Sunshine and a breeze. Still the scent of a distant sea. They are almost the same size. Even if one seems stronger, the other, the one that is about to answer, he doesn't care.
- No! - He tells without looking straightways.
- As you wish. Then don't ask me why!
- I will not! I'm not asking anything.
- I will do it then. And you will see. I will steal it myself!
The first man enters the car. He forgets to close the other door and rides away. At the curve afar the door closes by itself. The other man walks in the opposite direction. Hands on his pockets. Jiggling about his happiness. He's on the loose. He will see nothing at all and he's carefree upon it.

Intelligent Life is an engaging lifestyle magazine from The Economist. With spirited writing and bold design, now available each season, this elegant publication brings its unique perspective to an eclectic range of issues from travel and the arts to fashion and philanthropy. In features and shorter pieces, Intelligent Life delivers insights into the pleasures and potential of modern living. With distinguished writers from around the world and evocative photography commissioned for each issue, Intelligent Life is a dynamic new environment for readers and advertisers alike.
The issue 4, Summer-2008, is dedicated and has a cover story with the architect Zaha Hahid. After being dismissed as a paper architect because her buildings never seemed to be built, Zaha Hadid is now firmly established as a star in her field.
Intelligent Life is now published quarterly: September, December, March and June. The magazine will be available on newsstands all around the world, or by subscription, in the UK, continental Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Macau, it has just arrived to Bloom. We have just a few. Run while you can!

Eu ouvi-te bem, mas não quis ligar. "Leva a 200", disseste tu. Eu só levei a 50. Era só o que tinha. Não lhe disse que não tinha nenhuma 200, que não tinha dinheiro para a comprar. Ainda.
Eu penso sempre que uma 50 é boa para tudo. Para o bom e para o mal. Não se inventa, vive-se a cru. É como se não tivessemos máquina nenhuma. Como se o nosso olhar bastasse e os nossos bolsos, em contínuo, guardassem as imagens que vamos retendo na necessidade de piscar os olhos.
Isto é tudo teoria, porque a prática é bem diferente. E quando se tem de fotografar uma corrida em que os homens usam os animais, em que o que a rodeia é um charco de lama, já se sabe onde vamos parar. Mas isso não importa, faz parte dos prazeres desta vida e eu agradeço. Furar. Entrar pelo buraco da agulha e estar lá ao pé do relógio e das coisas que acontecem. Olhamos pelo rectângulo da máquina e vivemos momentos únicos em que a beleza da vida se veste por pequenas linhas e formas, encavalitada na velocidade da nossa mente. Essa é a vertigem do real. É um desafio, podermos ter isto para contar mais tarde. Contá-lo como uma recordação que guardamos para nós. É um contacto intímo com o mais profundo do nosso ser. Não há mais ninguém ali e no entanto estamos em plena convivência com tudo o que existe no mundo.
Eu estava na lama a fotografar. Enfiado até aos joelhos, com o galope a entrar-me no obturador, a ocupá-lo de ponta a ponta, e sem nenhum esforço a levá-lo comigo para o tempo eterno, emprestando-o a todos aqueles que não podiam estar no meu lugar, naquele preciso instante. Sorridente porque a 50 me permitia ter aquele sabor. Estar ali perto, com o segurança lá atrás aos gritos a proibir-me e a chamar um milhar de outras pessoas que queriam zelar pela segurança dos acontecimentos, mas que se punham de olhos bem abertos para ver aquilo que eu estava a fazer. Não ali, não àquela hora, mas mais tarde, num impresso inter-planetário que iria escovar as costas do mundo.
Quando voltei e passei as imagens para o teu ecrã ficaste a imaginar como era possível aquilo tudo com uma 200. Não te expliquei. Deixei a dúvida a pairar. Ainda tinha as calças sujas, duas manchas que marcavam a fronteira da minha audácia e o chão do teu escritório cheio de terra. E porque sei que percebes o que é a verdade, sorriste comigo e reviveste aquele pequeno passado que a partir dali deixava de ser só meu.

Fun, educational and sort of quick. This magazine blurs the lines between a great education and great entertainment. Packed full with pages of tidbits, quirky facts and history, a delightfully eclectic new publication who teaches what you should have learned in school - but didn't.
For the record: mental_floss magazine is an intelligent read, but not too intelligent. They're the sort of intelligent that you hang out with for a while, enjoy our company, laugh a little, smile a lot and then you part ways. Great times. And you only realize how much you learned from them after a little while. Like a couple days later when you're impressing your friends with all these intriguing facts and things you picked up from them, and they ask you how you know so much, and you think back on that great afternoon you spent with mental_floss and you smile. Then you lie and say you read a lot.
And here it is now at Bloom Yellow, the July-August issue. If you think you're loosing something on your right or left side of the brain this is the right way to catch it and "feel smart again."
This issue: In the search for Olympic heroes, mental_floss found more than the fastest and the strongest. They also found the craziest, the dirtiest, the meanest, the boldest, the bravest, the saddest, and the funniest. From the swimmer who dog paddled his way to last place to the gymnast who won three gold medals with one leg, they've got all your shocking Olympic stories right there.
Plus: The Quest To Solve The Hardest Math Problem In History. The discovery how Igor Stravinsky introduced the world to music so good that it hurt.
Beijing: Despite the city's 14-inch height limit on dogs, Beijing is living large. Explore its plans to feed the dead, stop the rain, and survive a nuclear holocaust. And much more!

Now we're one of those guys who never stops barking! Do guys bark? Well, now they do! ;-)

A parte inicial deste livro versa sobre um tema que só poderei resumir como o divino e o humano, dado que tenta pensar o vínculo entre as duas coisas. A segunda centra-se em aspectos do Estado contemporâneo. Os dois primeiros capítulos deverão ser entendidos como prólogo e introdução, uma vez que apresentam o ponto de vista e os assuntos, respectivamente. Por último, a título de apêndice, figuram dois textos que originalmente estavam na primeira secção, mas que têm mais densidade conceptual e parecem recomendados para filósofos no sentido rigoroso do termo.
Assim exposto, o propósito pressagia uma seriedade de tratamento que - infelizmente - não encontro ao relê-lo. Como também não encontro incoerências muitos ostensivas, entrego-o ao destino genérico das reflexões escritas, que é semelhante ao das garrafas lançadas ao mar com uma mensagem. Alguém poderá encontrá-la nalguma margem, e ao tirar a rolha dar-se conta de que a mensagem é outra vez um mapa, com indicações relativas a paisagens imprecisamente traçadas à força de quotidianidade ou de estranheza.
Após decénios a cultivar a focagem sistemática para os temas, parto aqui de um princípio que está mais próximo da simples amostra. As experiências são incomparavelmente mais valiosas que as advertências, e embora estejam ordenadas por capítulos, cada uma é a forma ou a totalidade em si mesma, entendendo-se por isso algo que ultrapasse a soma das suas partes.
Em traços largos, acrescentarei que estas páginas têm a intenção de reflectir acerca da banalidade, uma questão pouco banal se decidirmos encará-la de frente. No fragor do mundo mecânico também se manifesta o que assenta através da alteração.

Este é uma espécie de aviso que inicia o livro de Antonio Escohotado, O Espírito da Comédia. É um pedaço de escrita plurifacetado que podia ensaiar uma série de outros temas dentro dele. Mas é de comédia de que fala o livro. Não em teatros, cinemas ou écrans de televisão, mas na vida pública e quotidiana, desde o discurso do primeiro-ministro aos melodramas policiais que dominam as notícias. De facto, com o declínio do género cómico proprimente dito, atingiu-se o auge da farsa moderna: o lucro transformou o ridículo em respeitável modo de vida, pois a possibilidade de ser foi substituída pela necessidade de ter.
O Espírito da Comédia é, em traços largos, uma reflexão acerca da banalidade, usando o autor como referências Aristóteles, Jünger, Castaneda e Cristo. Centrando-se em aspectos do Estado contemporâneo, a obra analisa ainda a ideia do Controlo sob a perspectiva dos respectivos princípios, ritos, colaboradores e valores supremos. O negócio do medo, os equívocos entre autodeterminação e terrorismo, contam-se entre os temas principais.
Este livro recebeu o XIX Prémio Anagrama de Ensaio em 1991.

Antonio Escohotado é um autor heterodoxo, inclassificável. Professor de Direito, Filosofia e Sociologia em Madrid, que lecciona alternadamente. É um especialista em drogas e substâncias proibidas, com inúmeras obras sobre o tema. É anti-proibicionista, mas as suas posições políticas situam-no ambiguamente no centro-direita, com um discurso algo perturbador sobre a política de emigração da Europa e do Ocidente em geral. É no entanto autor de uma obra ampla e diversificada com especial incidência em questões filosóficas, destacando-se igualmente enquanto pensador político cuja conhecida irreverência, ou atitude contestatária, ocupa uma posição ímpar no panorama espanhol.

O Espírito da Comédia, de Antonio Escohotado • ANTÍGONA

Agarrei bem as rédeas com uma das mãos. A outra tinha de estar solta. Para o equilíbrio, foi o que me disseram. As pernas a empurrarem-se uma contra a outra, com todo o lombo do animal pelo meio. Muita força, era preciso demasiada força. Muito mais do que aquela que tinha. Isto durou talvez uns dez segundos. A preparar-me. Quando abriram o portão lembro-me apenas de um raio de sol que me entrou pela retina e que fez parar todo o tempo. Voei de imediato pelo ar e fui cair na terra fofa cheia de estrume dos animais, o cheiro doce acompanhou-me pelos sonhos. Acordei há meia hora atrás, parece-me que um ano ou uma vida depois. Escrever ajuda-me a perceber o que aconteceu.

Normalmente associar sexo a uma mulher famosa significa escândalo. Mas... e se for muito mais do que isso? [ABC]

A busca do prazer é o eixo em torno do qual se rege a história do ser humano. Se estamos a falar de um homem essa procura nada tem de estranho, mas o mesmo não acontece quando uma mulher procura viver para o prazer. Será correcto chamarmos sexodependente a uma mulher que dá rédea solta à sua libido?
A sexualidade foi uma faceta fundamental na vida das 21 mulheres que figuram neste livro. Mulheres com uma forte personalidade, que se impuseram à moral e aos costumes da sua época. Mulheres desinibidas, ousadas, audazes, que viveram em distintos períodos da História e que apenas procuravam o seu lugar no mundo. Sem pudor ou complexos, contra tudo e contra todos, conseguiram ser elas mesmas, o que muito contribuiu para aumentar a fama e o mito que deixaram.

SOBRE A AUTORA
Nascida em Madrid em 1962, Paula Izquierdo é formada em Psicologia e é colaboradora do ABCD Cultural. Publicou vários livros, entre os quais: «El hueco del tu cuerpo»; «La vida sin secreto»; «Picasso y las mujeres»; «La falta» (Cavallo di Ferro, edição italiana). É considerada uma das vozes mais importantes da nova narrativa espanhola. A sua obra encontra-se traduzida em várias línguas.

Sexodependentes: 21 Histórias de Mulheres Radicais, de Paula Izquierdo
PARALELO 40º • 2008

Serpent’s Tail is a renowned British independent book publisher of international fiction and non-fiction, owned by Profile Books Ltd.
Now twenty years old, Serpent's Tail was founded with a commitment to publishing voices neglected by the mainstream. They have a reputation for successfully publishing contemporary fiction (including debut novelists), crime fiction, high quality literature in translation, and informed non-fiction works focussing on popular culture: music, film, biography.
Amongst Serpent’s Tail’s diverse and eclectic range of international authors are: Lionel Shriver, Catherine Millet, Walter Mosley, George Pelecanos, Elfriede Jelinek, Nicholas Blincoe, Stella Duffy, Patricia Duncker, David Toop, Juan Goytisolo, Melissa P, Neil Bartlett, Juan Rulfo, William Burroughs, Michel Houellebecq, Christopher Fowler, Colm Toibin, Manuel Vazquez Montalban and gladly for our side, on the portuguese language authors, there's Fernando Pessoa, Jorge Amado and Mia Couto.
Serpent’s Tail’s logo is an ouroboros and represents the two fundamental attributes of time – imminent annihilation and rising hope, which follow each other over and over again in an infinite cycle: time represented as a serpent swallowing its tail.
The past years have seen a period of unprecedented growth and success for Serpent’s Tail: In October 2004 Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for Literature; in June 2005 Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction; in December 2005 Jonathan Trigell won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for his debut novel Boy A.
Bloom opened a wide door to Serpent's Tail, they will soon banging around Macau with their set of magnificient characters and stories. Wait for it!

There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically.
He couldn't speak, since he didn't have a mouth. Neither did he have a nose.
He didn't even have any arms or legs. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. He had nothing at all! Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about.
In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him.
[Blue Notebook No. 10 or The Red-Haired Man by Daniil Kharms]

The bulk of the fiction of Daniil Kharms (the pen name of Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov) was destined for his desk drawer. Though his work for children was widely published in the Soviet Union, his other efforts were unprintable, thanks to Stalin's iron rule. These tales have now been collected in Incidences, an admirable work, edited and cleanly translated by Neil Cornwell, that highlights Kharms's eerie obsessions: a fear of old women and children, a love of falling bodies and a sensual pleasure in the scents and sounds of daily life. With remarkable precision and fluid language, the stories capture everyday tension in a land where an innocent knock on the door might mean entrapment in a bureaucratic maze or even death at the hands of the military. By yoking official policy with personal ire, Kharms reveals how deeply his contemporaries absorbed and understood their domination. And by casting his tales within the realm of the absurd he lifts anxiety into art. The pity is that his life was as brief as his stories: he was only in his late 30's when he died in 1942, probably in a Leningrad prison.
[ERIK BURNS in The New York Times]

This wonderfully inventive collection of stories presents the writing of Kharms' absurdism at its vibrant, perplexing best. The book is composed of short miniatures: strange, funny, dream-like fragments – many of which the author called ‘incidents’ – that tend to feature accidents, falling, chance violence and sudden death.
An outlaw classic banned by Soviet censors until the 1980s, Incidences vividly conveys the precarious nature of life in Stalin’s Russia. Writing in the 1920s as one of a group called the Society for Real Art, Kharms was first arrested in 1931, and told that he could only publish writing for children. Irrepressible, he was sent to the Gulag in 1941 and died of starvation in a prison hospital a year later. With this new edition of Incidences we can rediscover a Russian writer whose bold writing and tragic death are an urgent reminder of the deranged spirit of his times.
[SOON AT BLOOM]

Incidences, by Daniil Kharms • SERPENT'S TAIL

Bloom wants people to win and create their own wheel of fortune and start drawing another picture. They’re provided by Bloom with a simple apparatus – “pen and paper with effusive colors and shapes”.

This is said at Checkout's website where we were profiled almost at the begining of our life. More than ever this application, who can manage your store like no one, is the right decision. With a Mac platform you can do everything you need and design you life better.
[CHECK OUR PROFILE HERE]

São essas as palavras
que vejo
celebrando na tua boca
todo o curso de uma língua
que no silêncio
soletram a ínfima forma dos teus lábios
Um pequeno vento
uma curva suave
talvez o olhar distante
Tentado a ouvir o que sentes
que sem necessidade de falas
é tudo o que fica por dizer.
[TROCAR BOCA POR LÁBIOS POR LÍNGUA]

Mountains of cash, beautiful women, and a nonstop round-the-world party. This is the life of Calvin Ayre, founder of the online gambling powerhouse Bodog, a company headquartered in Antigua. Shortly after university, Ayre sold everything he owned and with $10,000 to his name he created a brand that could cross over into any industry: The Bodog Entertainment Group. This year, in April, Ayre announced his retirement from Bodog. He now intends to devote his time to The Calvin Ayre Foundation, a private and independent foundation with a charter to do charitable work worldwide. Josh Dean from Fast Company magazine wanted to know why and he met him in Macau earlier this year in February where Ayre was digging for new connections and expansion opportunities for his company. You can read the whole article online or go directly to St. Lazarus district and step into Bloom Yellow (check our map here on the right side) to take the paper version and take it wherever you want. FC is a full-color monthly business magazine that reports on innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design and social responsibility. It was launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors, and it's now owned by the Forbes 400 billionaire, John Mansueto. FC is the sister of Inc. magazine, a publication dedicated to covering growing businesses and entrepreneurs.

This summer, LUXE CITYGUIDES are proud to introduce the fabulous new LUXE European Grand Tour Box which includes LUXE London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Istanbul and Florence. Colourful and festive, this fantastic collection offers the best of Europe in a box. At the same time, we have re-vamped the LUXE World Grand Tour Box. She comes back demure, subdued and sexy as can be with 12 revised titles: London, Paris, Rome, LA, New York, Barcelona, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin and Shanghai.
Always looking for ways to improve, LUXE would appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Place your orders at Bloom. We have all of them with us just for your pleasure.

[22 DAYS TO GO]

I first read Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on a balcony of the Hotel Metropole in Saigon on three summer evenings in 1971. The tropical air was heavy and full of the smells of cordite and motorcycle exhaust and rotting fish and wood-fire stoves, and the horizon flared ambiguously, perhaps from heat lightning, perhaps from bombs. Later each night, as was my custom, I would wander out into the steamy back alleys of the city, where no one ever seemed to sleep, and crouch in doorways with the people and listen to the stories of their culture and their ancestors and their ongoing lives. Bulgakov taught me to hear something in those stories that I had not yet clearly heard. One could call it, in terms that would soon thereafter gain wide currency, "magical realism." The deadpan mix of the fantastic and the realistic was at the heart of the Vietnamese mythos. It is at the heart of the present zeitgeist. And it was not invented by Gabriel García Márquez, as wonderful as his One Hundred Years of Solitude is. García Márquez's landmark work of magical realism was predated by nearly three decades by Bulgakov's brilliant masterpiece of a novel. That summer in Saigon a vodka-swilling, talking black cat, a coven of beautiful naked witches, Pontius Pilate, and a whole cast of benighted writers of Stalinist Moscow and Satan himself all took up permanent residence in my creative unconscious. Their presence, perhaps more than anything else from the realm of literature, has helped shape the work I am most proud of. I'm often asked for a list of favorite authors. Here is my advice. Read Bulgakov. Look around you at the new century. He will show you things you need to see.
Robert Olen Butler on Mikhail Bulgakov • MORE TO COME • STAY TUNED
[COVER: GROVE PRESS VERSION]

On the last issue of The New Yorker Macau gets a big highlight on a ten page feature about the mogul of casinos and the Venetian, Sheldon Adelson, the third-richest man in the United States. There you can find a deep investigation on the man and his world quest to power and to leadership.
Come by to Bloom and get this unique magazine. As we have limited stock you can send us an email for reservations, so we can order one more for you. You can also follow the online version.

«Last October, Sheldon Adelson, the gaming multibillionaire, accompanied a group of Republican donors to the White House to meet with George W. Bush. They wanted to talk to the President about Israel. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. Most had seen Bush as a reliable friend of Israel, and one who had not pressured Israel to pursue the peace process. Adelson, who is seventy-four, owns two of Las Vegas’s giant casino resorts, the Venetian and the Palazzo, and is the third-richest person in the United States, according to Forbes. He is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution; and he had contributed so generously to Bush’s reëlection campaign that he qualified as a Bush Pioneer. A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.” (The White House denies this account.)
Perhaps this exchange contributed to a growing resolve on Adelson’s part to try to force the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, out of office. Adelson and Olmert had been friendly since the nineteen-nineties, when Olmert was a member of the hard-line Likud Party. Olmert became Prime Minister in January, 2006, following Ariel Sharon’s stroke. He, like Sharon, came to recognize the inexorability of Jewish-Arab demographic trends. Olmert declared that a two-state solution was the only way of preserving Israel as a democratic state with a Jewish majority, and he said that he was ready to negotiate with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Adelson saw Olmert’s actions as a betrayal of principle. He had long wanted to see the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Prime Minister, but a revived peace process gave that goal new urgency.»
THE BRASS RING • BY CONNIE BRUCK IN THE NEW YORKER / PHOTO BY BLOOMLAND.CN
[READ IT ALL HERE]