Within a Sky Full of Earth

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]

A exposição "Desenhos de Escritores" abriu no Museu Colecção Berardo, inaugurada no dia 1 de Setembro, e traz a obra gráfica de cerca de uma centena de autores consagrados, desde George Sand e Antonin Artaud a William Burroughs e Günter Grass.

Resultado de uma colaboração com o Institut Mémoires de L´Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), em França, e o Musée D´Ixelles (Bélgica), a exposição será complementada com obras dos escritores-desenhadores portugueses Almada Negreiros, Mário Cesariny e Ana Hatherly, indicou à Agência Lusa fonte do Museu Berardo.
Esta exposição inédita reúne uma grande diversidade de escritores que também desenham, de George Sand a Bernard Heidsieck, do romantismo à poesia sonora, passando pelos surrealistas, até à "beat generation", representada, por exemplo, por Jack Kerouac e William Burroughs.
Em "Desenhos de Escritores" poderão ser vistos desde pequenos esboços que cobrem o rodapé de um manuscrito, como no caso de Stendhal, até desenhos que cobrem páginas inteiras, como Victor Hugo, que criou imagens fantasmagóricas, ou Baudelaire, mais dado às caricaturas.
Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Cros, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Valéry, Max Jacob, Antonin Artaud, Jean Follain, Jacques Audiberti, Henri Michaux, Roland Barthes, Michel Butor, Jean Tardieu, Christian Dotremont, entre outros escritores, são ilustrados ou ilustram-se a si próprios exibindo uma linguagem artística menos conhecida do público.
"Desenhos de Escritores" prolonga-se até 2 de Novembro, com entrada livre.
[FONTE: LUSA] [MAIS INFORMAÇÃO AQUI - PDF]
• O destaque e reportagem no EL PAIS (em espanhol)

Recently published and available at Bloom Yellow is the quarterly issue of ARTICHOKE, the official magazine of the Design Institute of Australia. Interesting, relevant and sometimes controversial, ARTICHOKE communicates good design and the discussion of design issues to industry professionals and a broader audience of design aware consumers.
ARTICHOKE covers interior architecture and design, textile design, product design, exhibition design and graphic design, and provides designers with news and information on current trends and projects, and is published four times a year.
ARTICHOKE is endorsed by the Design Institute of Australia (DIA) and the Australian Institute of Architects.
See some sample print pages here and come to Bloom to buy it, we can tell you is worth every dime spent. Good photos, good design, good texts and a beautiful piece of printing material.

ARTICHOKE MAGAZINE • AVAILABLE AT BLOOM NOW!

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]

Cerca de duzentas fotografias premiadas no concurso anual organizado pela Fundação World Press Photo, sediada na Holanda, vão estar em exposição em Macau, no Centro de Actividades Turísticas, por iniciativa da Casa de Portugal, que quis proporciona esta oportunidade de apreciar o que de melhor se produziu no Mundo, em 2007, em termos de fotojornalismo.
Ao júri do concurso, constituído por personalidades de renome dos mais diversos países e reunido em Fevereiro último, durante dez dias, em Amesterdão, foram submetidas exactamente 80.536 fotografias, da autoria de 5.019 fotojornalistas originários de 125 países. Números que impressionam e que dão bem conta do prestígio de que goza mundialmente a iniciativa.
O prémio maior deste concurso é atribuído à fotografia classificada como «Fotografia do Ano», um concurso dividido em dez categorias, onde se incluem, nomeadamente, as de «Notícias Gerais», «Pessoas que são Notícia», «Desporto», «Natureza » e «Artes e Entretenimento».
Neste último concurso, respeitante a obras produzidas e publicadas no ano transacto, o fotojornalista português Miguel Barreira, do jornal «Record», ganhou o terceiro prémio da categoria «Desporto em Acção», com uma fotografia tirada na praia do Norte, na Nazaré, durante uma espectacular prova de «bodyboard».
Todos os anos, após a atribuição dos prémios, a exposição com as fotografias galardoadas é inaugurada em Amesterdão, e onde surgiu, já no longínquo ano de 1955, a primeira exposição internacional de fotojornalismo, então por iniciativa da Associação Holandesa de Fotojornalistas.
Após a apresentação em Amesterdão a exposição é levada a percorrer o Mundo, através da cooperação com entidades ou instituições das mais diversas e importantes cidades, desde Londres a Nova Iorque, passando por São Paulo, Quito, Manila, Seúl, Paris, Milão, etc..

Em Macau, a exposição será inaugurada no CAT-Centro de Actividades Turísticas no próximo dia 18 do corrente, às 18.30 horas, no decorrer de uma recepção, ficando depois patente ao público, com entrada livre, diariamente, das 10 às 19 horas, e até 9 de Outubro próximo.

Queria tomar partido por alguém. Dizer alguma coisa que ninguém consegue dizer. Como por exemplo que a tua galinha é maior do que a minha. Sim, é verdade. Ou que o Conde Barão é que devia ser o presidente. Mas vou esperar. Vou esperar e volto amanhã para um novo ensaio, com o corpo na mesma mas com a mente mais sã, decerto. Prometo!

O V. disse que não conhecia nenhuma livraria pequena que vendesse também café. Há aquelas de vários andares, em Nova-Iorque, em Milão, essas têm tudo lá dentro. Achou que era um gajo com coragem. Depois continuámos para ali a falar. Se uma pessoa sonha e não segue aquilo que sonha só sabe que sonhou, mais nada. Mas se o segue e o concretiza ao menos sabe o que é. Sabe o que é lá estar. E da ideia forma uma realidade. E vive-a! Apesar de tudo, eu estou a viver a puta da minha realidade. A treta do meu sonho!

This song could have been our soundtrack. It's called "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" "The Sun Smells Too Loud" and is on the last album of the Scotish band Mogway, which was titled "The Hawk Is Howling", that will be realeased on the 21st of September. It's a delightful essay on sound and ambience. Mogwai member Barry Burns described the album's songs as being "dreamy ballads about forbidden love gone awry".
Listen to it as you scroll our website down. We've been very busy and we could not update our blog so often, we'll try our best to do it more in the future, as soon we park all our cars.
[MOGWAY ON WIKIPEDIA]

Where does digitisation lead us?
Give your views.

The Frankfurt Book Fair, as the global meeting place for the book world, is a barometer of change in the industry. Last year’s survey showed that digitisation was seen as the greatest challenge for the book sector worldwide.
This year they want to find out your opinion about how digitisation will influence the future of the publishing industry and who will be the driving force behind it.
They would be grateful if you could spend a few minutes giving your responses to the questions. The results of the survey will be published in the Frankfurt Book Fair Newsletter, which we hope will make an interesting reading.Please answer the following questions in brief (it will take you about five minutes) on this link. Thank you.

Fundada em 1993 e agora com sede em Coimbra, a Angelus Novus, Editora publicou até 2005, data em que interrompeu a sua produção, 110 títulos, tendo criado uma imagem de prestígio sobretudo na área do ensaio e da edição de clássicos da literatura portuguesa. A Angelus Novus divulgou uma nova geração de autores portugueses e editou uma série muito seleccionada de autores estrangeiros, quer na poesia – Durs Grünbein, Luis Javier Moreno – quer no ensaio: Antonio Candido, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Jacques Derrida, Theodor W. Adorno, Ortega y Gasset, Bill Readings ou Eve Kosofsky.
A Angelus Novus que regressou ao mercado em Janeiro de 2008 deseja prolongar o essencial desta herança – o rigor e exigência na escolha de títulos e autores – mas é, na verdade, uma nova Angelus, na medida em que surgiu com uma imagem totalmente renovada e com um catálogo mais variado, destinado a públicos muito mais diversos, pondo em prática um novo conceito de editora, do ponto de vista do design gráfico, da comunicação com os leitores ou da visibilidade no mercado.
Não desiste, à partida, de nenhum leitor, dos 7 aos 77 anos, dos mais integrados aos mais alternativos. Nesse sentido, não são nem pretendem ser uma editora marginal mas sim uma editora disponível para acompanhar e estimular os debates que movem os nossos contemporâneos. Como sempre, o novo pode estar mais à frente ou mais atrás, pode passar pela encomenda de textos cuja falta se sente ou pela recuperação de textos «clássicos» ou simplesmente esquecidos. Como pode passar por grafismos arrojados ou por soluções antigas e ainda válidas, porque muito testadas e com sucesso. Não há aliás razões para não se considerar um livro um objecto coleccionável, porque belo. Ou porque, belo ou útil, nele se declina um pedaço da nossa vida.
A Angelus Novus publica obras em todos os géneros, sem preconceitos de ordem moral, política ou religiosa no que toca às posições defendidas pelas autoras ou autores nos seus textos e sejam tais obras polémicas ou não.
A Angelus Novus não publica porém obras que façam propaganda política ou religiosa ou obras que defendam expressamente posições racistas, fascistas ou discriminatórias no que respeita a questões de «género» e identidade sexual.
[SITE OFICIAL]

Desato-lhe os cordões das botas. Tiro-lhe as meias. Estão transpiradas. Pego-lhe nos pés. São já do tamanho dos meus. Cheiro-lhos. Como se ele fosse um cristo ignoto e eu uma virgem mãe. Beijo-lhe o sinal que tem no dedo mais pequenino do pé esquerdo. Digo Gosto tanto do cheiro dos teus pés. Ele não responde. Limita-se a sorrir, mostrando os dentes novos, definitivos, enormes, que lhe estão a crescer na boca. Pergunto Achas que sou maluquinha por gostar do cheiro dos teus pés? Ele volta a sorrir. Atira-se para trás. Suspira. Depois responde. Um pouco. Acho que és uma mãe um pouco louca. São estas as exactas palavras que lhe saem da boca. Volto a pegar-lhe nos pés. Esfrego-os no meu rosto. Às vezes, muitas vezes, tenho a sensação de o sufocar com os meus gestos. Não sou capaz de não lhe tocar. Tantas vezes que desejo ter um ventre enorme elástico onde ele novamente se aninhe e sossegue. Tenho por ele, mais do que por ela, um amor táctil, quase obsceno. Chegará um dia em que ele não me deixará cheirar-lhe os pés, nem me contará os sonhos, nem me pedirá ajuda para colar cromos na caderneta. Estranhará a minha nudez, esconder-me-á a sua. Abrirá assim fissuras irreparáveis na nossa intimidade. Deixarei de me reconhecer no seu corpo, nos olhos, na boca, nas mãos, na sua pele de maltês e andarilho, escura como a de um cigano. O seu corpo deixará de ser o meu corpo.
(acho sempre que não me sobra amor para outro filho.)
[Barão Trepador por Ana de Amesterdam • 23 JUN 2008]

Beyond Zhang Yimou's Generation: Nostalgia, Humanism and Survival of the Silent Majority in Chinese Cinema since 1997, by Mao Sihui
The Macau Ricci Institute (MRI) is glad to invite you to its September "MRI Forum", a monthly seminar on Greater China related topics.
The forum will be chaired by 徐浩均 Choi Hou Kuan, Chris, Executive Assistant of the Macau Ricci Institute. It will be followed by a small cocktail party during which participants will have the opportunity to meet the speaker.

Under this topic, the speaker will be using film clips of his own choice such as scenes from Jia Zhangke's "Xiaowu" (1997), "Platform" (2000), "Still Life" (2006), Wang Xiaoshuai's "Beijing Bicycle" (2001) and "Shanghai Dreams" (2005), Li Yang's "Blind Shaft" (2003), Yang Yazhou's "Loach is Fish too" (2004), Qi Jian's "The Forest Ranger" (2006) and Zhang Yang's "Going Home" (2007). These films represent the real truth-seeking spirit of these "younger" directors which is extremely valuable in contemporary China and can be a very good channel to explore the deep social, psychological and cultural implications of a fast rising China in the age of "glocalisation" (the dual process of globalisation and localisation).

Mao Sihui is Professor of English and Comparative Cultural Studies, Chairman of English Language Teaching and Research Committee, Director of MPI-Bell Centre of English, Macao Polytechnic Institute and Vice President of Sino-American Cultural Studies Association of China. He is also Honorary Professor of Comparative Literature of Hong Kong University and PhD supervisor for Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. He received his M.A. from Department of English, University of Lancaster, and his PhD (Comparative Literature – Film Culture) from the University of Hong Kong. He taught for many years at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and then at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His publications include Technologising the Male Body: British Cinema 1957-1987 (1999), New Perspectives: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Studies (2000), Decoding Contemporary Britain (2003), and Literature, Culture and Postmodern Transformations: 8 Case Studies from William Shakespeare to James Bond (forthcoming) and also over 50 journal papers/ book chapters in language and translation studies, literary and cultural studies. He is editor-in-chief of New Topics in Contemporary Cultural Studies Series (6 books) published by Sun Yat-sen University Press (2007-2008) He is currently working on the project Representations of Macao in Contemporary Cinema.

Due to limited space, interested persons should reserve their seat on a "first come, first serve" basis. Your contact details, especially e-mail address, will allow us to keep you informed of forthcoming MRI Forums and other MRI activities. At the occasion, a selection of the Institute’s publications will be offered at a discount price (please, see below).
To reserve your seat, please click on the following this link or send an E-mail to forums@riccimac.org or call (853) 2853 2536.

Date & Time: Wednesday, September 17th 2008, at 6:30PM
Venue: Macau Ricci Institute, Av. Cons. Ferreira de Almeida, No. 95-E • MAP
Language: English

Cheguei demasiado cedo a Londres. Não dormi na viagem. Não me lembro de nada. São sete e tal da manhã e é preciso descansar, agora que todos começam a acordar. Tenho tudo vivo dentro de mim. Agora de longe penso que não lutei. Que desisti. Que fiz tudo trocado. Podia ter sido outra coisa e agora aguento-me com novos modos de vida. Novas consciências. A pensar que nada perdura. Mas o futuro está aí. E Londres é a cidade certa para começar.
[BA1245 • JUN 2004]

Eu juro. Todos os poetas estão do nosso lado. Eu juro. E juro que, um dia, todos os políticos se transformarão em estrelas rock e que todas as fardas se confundirão com luzes de néon em cidades sem nome. E juro que, um dia, Marc Bolan ressuscitará por detrás de um écran gigante de vídeo. E que em todas as ruas se dançará ao som de Lou Reed. Take a walk on the wild side. E se, um dia, os fascistas no poder se transformarem em balas perdidas na multidão, nós saíremos à rua, nós seremos mais fortes, nada nos calará, nada nos derrubará. Eu juro.
João Peste, em "Juramento Sem Bandeira" (1987)

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

Ishmael is a half ton silverback gorilla. He is a student of ecology, life, freedom, and the human condition. He is also a teacher. He teaches that which all humans need to learn - must learn - if our species, and the rest of life on Earth as we know it, is to survive.

In 1989 Ted Turner created a fellowship to be awarded to a work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems. The winner, chosen from 2500 entries worldwide, was a work of startling clarity and depth: Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, a Socratic journey that explores the most challenging problem humankind has ever faced: How to save the world from ourselves.
The book opens with a deceptively ordinary personals ad: "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world." Seeking a direction for his life, a young man answers the ad and is startled to find that the teacher is a lowland gorilla named Ishmael, a creature uniquely placed to vision anew the human story.
Ishmael's paradigm of history is startlingly different from the one wired into our cultural consciousness. For Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not a technological event but a moral one, a rebellion against an ethical structure inherent in the community of life since its foundation four billion years ago. Having escaped the restraints of this ethical structure, humankind made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all other species while lacking the wisdom to make its tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one.
That tyranny is now hurtling us toward a planetary disaster of pollution and overpopulation. If we want to avoid that catastrophe, we need to work our way back to some fundamental truths: that we weren't born a menace to the world and that no irresistible fate compels us to go on being a menace to the world.
Since Bantam first published Daniel Quinn's utterly unique novel Ishmael in 1992, the novel has grown into a bestseller. Ishmael has garnered rave reviews and has been adopted for classroom use in schools coast-to-coast, including Dartmouth, the Naval Academy and Stanford University. Along the way, Ishmael gathered a devoted following as thousands upon thousands of readers have written to Quinn to express how the book has changed their lives.
Quinn's first version of the award-winning novel was written in 1977 and was followed by seven more complete and distinct versions. The character Ishmael appeared only in the eighth, and final, version. This is also the only version written as a novel. "I was ready to admit defeat when Ted Turner announced his plans for the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship. I felt, if I read him right, he was looking for exactly the sort of book I was struggling to write, and this encouraged me to give it one more try. I'm certainly glad I did."
Quinn says Ishmael is a story about hope. "I think we have a much finer and more exciting destiny than conquering and ruling the world," he says. "This book shows that we can learn about what that destiny is from the life around us -- and in Ishmael it just happens that life speaks with the voice of a lowland gorilla."
SOURCE: ISHMAEL.ORG • MORE ON WIKIPEDIA • SOON AT BLOOM

It's a new arrival at our yellow shop the frieze magazine, an English venture on contemporary art and culture.
This publication is managed by the Frieze Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 2003 and responsible for the curated programme at Frieze Art Fair, who comprises artist commissions, talks, films, music and education.
Frieze Art Fair is held every October in Regent’s Park, London. It features more than 150 of the most exciting contemporary art galleries in the world. As well as these exhibitors, the Fair includes specially commissioned artists’ projects and an ambitious talks calendar. Frieze Foundation is funded by the European Commission’s Culture 2000 programme.
The magazine, along with its website, is now the front-head of the whole project and the scratch from where it began. Launched up in 1991, frieze magazine, is the leading magazine of contemporary art and culture. frieze is published eight times a year and includes essays, reviews and columns by today’s most forward-thinking writers, artists and curators. You can buy it now in Macau at Bloom Yellow at St. Lazarus district. For subscriptions send us an email. Thank you!
RELATED LINK: frieze project