Within a Sky Full of Earth

Dancers in action

THEY are filled with a quietude
And feel the dedication of their bodies
To movements that are self contained.
Challenging all the formal laws of form,
And with a symmetry that quivers
Within its own acute awareness.
As a light wave is their golden glow
That warms the sluggish outline of those static forms
Who sit and watch with riveted attention.
Now this distant world falls into focus
As the extended curve of bodies reaches
To encroach on space, where the dancers will
Surmount their earthbound earthiness.

The movement’s peak is reached, and their return
Carries the speed and swoop of unhampered swallows
While all earth’s pressures wait to converge on
Lithe limb and brain and movements ecstasy;
But their own world encases them,
And stillness reigns in that retreat
‘Where mind would scrutinise afresh,
Recalling that strange moment of great power
Which was their body’s exploration of
A unity that this instant ceased to be.
Ninette de Valois

The beauty of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev.
Photo from here.

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) Margot Fonteyn - born plain Peggy Hookham - was dreamed into existence by the architects of British ballet: Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton and Constant Lambert. Carried to fame on a wave of wartime patriotism, Margot's sense of duty rather than ambition propelled her forward. Yet her gifts were such that her pre-eminence would come to eclipse the careers of subsequent generations. Ballet is a fairytale world; if Margot, like the pure and poetic heroine of Swan Lake, was a natural Odette, she would also have to contend with virtue's raw shadow-side in the guise of Constant Lambert, Roberto Arias and Rudolph Nureyev - the men who, like Von Rothbart, were to take possession of her heart.

Margot Fonteyn: A Life * by Meredith Daneman.
Penguin * ISBN: 0140165304

Bloom has a new display with hints to a better life!

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"...and alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade..."


What really happened was
the typewriters and clocks
of her heart mutinied
at the exact same moment
of her grizzly discovery.

That's how she found herself
running down an abandoned
horse trot path
wondering at the typeface
of red graffiti
and finding herself without
words or face or hands
two hours later
the mutiny finally sank in.

In the months that followed
she took solace in tube socks
fruit stalls and umbrellas.
These, it seemed to her,
had discovered life
in the shade.

Certain places were avoided:
the fix-all shop
where a Ukranian immigrant
hovered tentatively
over timepieces
like they were precious to someone,
the undergrounds,
the mosques,
places where an invisible hand
shoved the righteous
and conscientious
into line.

She painted her twelve year old
tortoise royal purple
and glued a stone to his back:
a playful sun-dial
which soothed the terror
of daylight, a little.

Afterwards when people would ask
what went wrong she would say
"It wasn't Time that frightened me,
it was the awful machinery
behind it.
It needed reinventing."

-R.E.L.

Do Médio Oriente ao Big Brother. D'O Código da Vinci ao futebol. Da Internet a Berlusconi.
O início do terceiro milénio visto à lupa pelo mais conceituado pensador e romancista da actualidade.
Os escritos reunidos neste livro foram publicados entre o início de 2000 e o final de 2005, os anos do 11 de Setembro, das guerras no Afeganistão e no Iraque, da instauração de um regime de populismo mediático em Itália.
Ao lê-los, o leitor comprovará que desde o fim do último milénio temos vindo a caminhar para trás a um ritmo dramático. A seguir à queda do Muro de Berlim foi necessário desenterrar os mapas de 1914. As nossas famílias voltaram a ter empregados de cor, como em E Tudo o Vento Levou. A pouco e pouco, o vídeo fez com que a televisão se pudesse converter num cinematógrafo e, graças à ajuda da Internet e das pay-tv, Meucci levou a melhor sobre Marconi e a sua telegrafia sem fios. Agora, o i-Pod reinventou a rádio.
Terminada a Guerra-Fria, os conflitos no Afeganistão e no Iraque fizeram-nos regressar à Guerra Quente; desenterrámos o Grande Jogo de Kipling e voltámos aos tempos do choque entre o Islão e a Cristandade, com os novos assassinos suicidas do Velho da Montanha e os gritos de «socorro, os Turcos!».
Apareceu outra vez o fantasma do Perigo Amarelo, ressurgiram as disputas entre a Igreja e o Estado, a polémica anti-darwiniana do século XIX e o anti-semitismo, e o nosso país voltou a ser governado pelos fascistas (muito post, é certo, mas alguns indivíduos ainda são os mesmos).
Quase que parece que a História, cansada das confusões dos últimos dois mil anos, se está a enrolar em si própria, caminhando velozmente a passo de caranguejo.
Este livro não pretende explicar o que é que devemos fazer para reencontrar a direcção certa, propõe-se apenas travar por alguns instantes este movimento retrógrado.
A Passo De Caranguejo, de Umberto Eco ● DIFEL ● ISBN: 9722908245 ● 2007

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
by C.P. Cavafy

O futuro segundo um dos nomes fortes da literatura inglesa contemporânea. Ballard aborda dois dos seus temas preferidos: o mito dos media e a crise da sociedade da abundância, com a consequente perda de valores. O ponto de partida é uma explosão no aeroporto de Heathrow, em Londres, Inglaterra. Um psicólogo descobre que alguém próximo está entre as vítimas e começa a investigar o crime. O ponto de chegada é um grupo que incita à revolução da classe média.

Um fragmento de vidro escorregou da moldura e feriu-me a palma, cortando levemente a linha da vida. Enquanto fitava a mancha brilhante e procurava o meu lenço, dei-me conta que este era o único sangue que derramara em Chelsea Marine durante toda a rebelião.

Uma bomba no aeroporto de Heathrow em Londres parece ao psicólogo criminal David Markham apenas mais um acto isolado de violência gratuita até que descobre que a sua ex-mulher está entre as vitímas. No encalço das suspeitas policiais, Markham decide investigar o crescendo de grupos de protestos londrinos, acabando por conhecer um estranho movimento sediado na rica e confortável marina de Chelsea. Dirigido por um médico carismático, o objectivo deste grupo é fazer acordar a dócil classe média libertando-a dos fardos auto-impostos da responsabilidade e do serviço cívico. Uma meta que irá lançar o caos na capital inglesa. James Graham Ballard nasceu em Xangai, mas será em Inglaterra que completará o curso de medicina e iniciará a sua carreira de escritor. Autor de culto, os seus livros são frequentemente classificados na área da ficção científica, combinando sexo e tecnologia enquanto parte de uma descrição psicoanalítica da moderna condição humana.

Os últimos três romances de J.G. Ballard falam obsessivamente da mesma coisa: a necessidade de violência na sociedade contemporânea. Em "Noites de Cocaína", passado numa estância turística de luxo no Sul de Espanha, Estrella del Mar, um professor de ténis visionário descobre que o crime é a única forma de despertar o sentido cívico e recuperar o amor pela vida. Em "Super-Cannes" (ainda não traduzido em português) um psiquiatra foi incumbido de tratar a depressão crónica dos executivos da "Sillicon Valley" europeia. Prescreve-lhes uma forma de desporto muito eficaz para a saúde física e mental: atacar violentamente cidadãos imigrantes. Em "Gente do Milénio", a classe média de um bairro londrino, Chelsea Marina, cansada do seu estilo de vida demasiado perfeito e monótono, desencadeia uma sangrenta revolução.

E assim se vive. Em Macau a luz está clara, o horizonte limpo. Mais um dia na Bloom onde pode encontrar Ballard no original, em inglês, e na tradução, a língua de Camões, o grande poeta zarolho. Tudo em tempo de revolução, a 60 e tal minutos à hora.

Gente do Milénio de J.G. Ballard ● QUETZAL

Hanging Out at the Buena Vista ( I )

From When the Women Come Out to Dance, by Elmore Leonard

They lived in a retirement village of cottages set among palm trees and bougainvillea, maids driving golf carts. The woman, Natalie, wore silk scarves to cover what was left of her hair, a lavender scarf the afternoon Vincent appeared at her door. He told her through the screen he thought it was time they met. She said from the chair she sat in most of the day, “It’s open,” closed the book she was reading, a finger inside holding the page, and watched him come in his khaki shorts and T-shirt.
“You didn’t have to get dressed up on my account.”
She liked his smile and the way he said, “I was right. I’ve found someone I can talk to.”
“About what ?”
“Anything you want, except golf.”
“You’re in luck. I don’t play golf.”
“I know you don’t. I checked.”
She liked his weathered look, his cap of white hair, uncombed. “You’re here by yourself ?”
“On my own, the first time in fifty-seven years.”
She lay the book on the table next to her. “So now you’re what, dating ?”
He liked the way she said it, with a straight face.
“If you’re interested, Jerry Vale’s coming next week.”
“I can hardly wait.”
He said, “I like the way you wear your scarves. You’ve got style, kiddo.”
“For an old broad ? You should see me in a blond wig.”
“a woman can get away with a good one. But you see a rug on a guy, every hair in place ? You can always tell.”
“That’s why you don’t comb your hair ?”
Again with a straight face. He shook his head.
“I made a decision,” Vincent said. “No chemo, no surgery. Why bother ? I’m eighty years old. You hang around too long, you end up with Alzheimer’s like Howard. You know Howard ? He puts on a suit and tie every day and calls on the ladies. Has no idea where he is.”
“Howard’s been here. But now I think he and Pauline are going steady. Pauline’s the one with all the Barbie dolls.” Natalie paused and said, “I’ll be eighty-two next month.”
“You sure don’t look it.”
“Not a day over, what, seventy-five ?”
“I’ll tell you something,” Vincent said. “You’re the best-looking woman here, and that’s counting the maids and the ones that pass for nurses. Some are okay, but they all have big butts. You notice that ? Hospitals, the same thing. I’ve made a study : The majority of women who work in health care are seriously overweight.”
“You’ve spend a lot of time in hospitals ?”
“Now and then. No, this is the closest I’ve come, this assisted living. Or as it says in literature, “The gracious and dignified living you deserve. As long as you can afford it, live in your own prefab cottage. I did all right with prefab, built terraces, row housing. Some, it turned out, in the wrong place. Andrew came along and blew’em of the lot.” He said, “I know you were married. What’d your husband do ?”
“Commercial real estate.”
“I might’ve known him.”
“In New York City.”
There was a lull. Vincent glanced around the room, at furnishings from another life, expensive-looking pieces.
“You’re happy here ?”
“Am I happy ?”
“I mean, do you like living here ?”
“It’s all right.”
He waited before saying, “Are you in pain ?”
“I have my pills.”

Theory of the Novel. Introducing a Charater. The Art of Fiction by David Lodge - CHAPTER 14

Yet character is problably the most difficult aspect of the art of fiction to discuss in technical terms. This is partly because there are so many different types of character and so many different ways of representing them. [...]

We better read and memorize the master, James Joyce, in A Painfull Case, Dubliners:

1. Mr Duffy abhorred anything which betokened physical or mental disorder. A mediaeval doctor would have called him saturnine. His face, which carried the entire tale of his years, was of the brown tint of Dublin streets. On his long and rather large head grew dry black hair and a tawny moustache did not quite cover an unamiable mouth. His cheekbones also gave his face a harsh character; but there was no harshness in the eyes which, looking at the world from under their tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of a man ever alert to greet a redeeming instinct in others but often disappointed.

2. Her face, which must have been handsome, had remained intelligent. It was an oval face with strongly marked features. The eyes were very dark blue and steady. Their gaze began with a defiant note but was confused by what seemed a deliberate swoon of the pupil into the iris, revealing for an instant a temperament of great sensibility. The pupil reasserted itself quickly, this half-disclose nature fell again under the reign of prudence, and her astrakhan jacket, moulding a bosom of a certain fulness, struck the note of defiance more definitely. Her name was Mrs Sinico.

1. IT will come out seven days a week.
2. Its 7,500 copies will be published seven times a week: seven times more than anyone else offers.
3. IT will be on all inbound and outbound Air Macau flights.
4. IT will be read by people on ferries crossing every 15 minutes between Macau and Hong Kong.
5. IT will reach the high income earners.
6. IT will reach the decision makers.
7. IT will be under leading hotel doors.
8. IT will be in leading casino and leading casino hotels.

Na América da multiculturalidade o acordeão vai passar pela mão de sucessivas gerações de imigrantes. A música torna-se a voz das suas fantasias, tristezas e exuberâncias. São imigrantes que pagam um preço para poderem pertencer à sociedade.

Em 1890 um emigrante siciliano parte para La Merica com apenas um acordeão, sonhos de liberdade e de melhor futuro. Em Nova Orleães este siciliano vê os seus sonhos devastados mas a história do acordeão está apenas a começar...

With short notice we are on our 4th month of activity. Some of our ideas and projects were achieved some others are still on the paper. But Bloom is there, waiting for you. Prepared to fulfil your needs. We still have a long road ahead. Most of all we want to build up our online presence in a different mode, taking Bloom directly to your home and put our collection of titles, and all the others from our suppliers, available for you to choose at every moment, 24 hours a day.

We need events to happen at Bloom. They are a oportunity to show up our work, to get contact with our clients and friends, and to share ideas between all of us.

For June we're having a book launching confirmed, gatherings around the written word, we'll do some reading sessions at our new Children's Space and we are going to be present at the Macau Tower in the Apparel Fashion Week.
What's more? Many things more!
Stay tuned!

Thank you for being there!

[DOWNLOAD OUR NEWSLETTER HERE OR CLICK ON THE IMAGE]

Eventually a second slip, blue this time, arrived. "We still have your oversize package", was the jist of the message. Emmett imagined weary postal workers still holding a huge box in their arms. Driving his car at a slow, deliberate pace, he wondered whether he would be disappointed with the contents of the delivery after such anticipation.

The lady behind the counter wore a dress the same colour as the Late Notice, as she called it. She watched suspiciously as he signed his name, then tottered to the back room to retrieve the unwanted package. She returned holding a small brown parcel, "Too small.", thought Emmett, "Not mine." But it was very much his now as the blue lady silently handed it to him, pointing to the address as if to dispel the doubt which must have showed on his face.

He left it in the back seat as he drove home. Usually Emmett would be home at this time of day, congratulating himself on aqcuiring a job which allowed him to leave the office at four p.m. and beat the intolerable rush hour traffic in a city where the vehicles outnumbered people 2 to 1. There was no escape now, so he resigned himself to the inevitable two-hour journey, most of which progressed a meter at a time. Two hours seemed much longer. Red light. The parcel was partially visible in the rearview mirror. He knew there was really no point in playing this silly game of mystery with himself, but the stereo in his car was broken, always had been. Opening the window was out of the question. This guessing game was the only diversion in his cramped, cracker-box car during that two-hour drive. Green light, go.

By the time he arrived home he had flipped through his personal yellow pages of memory and found no answers. Friends? None. None that wrap brown paper packages with yellow string tied in a neat bow. There was always family, but that was impossible. No one knew where he lived.

He sat down on the only visible chair next to the TV and looked around him. Scissors. The disorder of Emmett's living room was the sort for which the only method he had of finding anything was to keep a 3-D map in his mind of everything piled from the floor up. Then when a certain object needed retrieval, say, TV remote (smooth, rectangle) or missing grey sock (furry, small) he'd picture it, catch his breath and dive belly and fists first till his experienced fingers snagged on a possible target. Years of practice had enabled Emmett to find even missing buttons in the dark and he took a certain pride in this. Scissors. (hard, cool) Breathe, dive.


to be continued...

Beware of the faded hieroglyphs and memories of friendships.
These things can only hinder oxygen intake.

Watch out for advice of the sort given in cookies and on the sides of buses.
You'll absorb more from a thin-limbed girl with a basket of fishes.

Loneliness is a lie. A man's beard can be a hiding place for his finer things.
Sleep the sleep of restless Parisians. Avoid Canadians — they make frisky bedfellows.

If you hitchhike, don't get picked up by men driving to Oslo.
It's very cold there, and you'll catch pneumonia.

Read Plato but be suspicious of Socrates. To commit oneself to virtue
is no big deal. People do it all the time.

Take this piece of paper and fold into thirds. There, like that.
Wear it next to your breast. It will keep vampyrs away.

When in the throes of ecstasy (or close to them, for throes are sometimes
only identifiable as such after the throe unthroes), finger this sheet.

After gutting the large country, after treading through boys and kangaroos,
after affecting an accent, after unfretting fingers from your sun-bleached hair.

After the conversion of the Jews, after forty-one poems about mowing,
take a shower. Don't be afraid of being watched. It's natural to want to touch.

Dwell in the nobody for a moment. Fly your flag, unfold the creased parchment
that is a map to someone's darkest heart. Repeat after me.

This indolent scrap can be used like a rosary. He approaches with a collar.
Every animal has sharper hearing than man—go on, ask me what I know.

At the end of loving, read these words aloud by the greenish light
seeping in through the cracks, read this man who is mad, who is for you.
by Anthony Robinson

If you like this you can visit the author's webpage at luckyerror.blogspot.com

Lisa Gerrard was so indelibly and obviously a part of what made Dead Can Dance what it is, that it's little wonder her debut feels essentially like a continuation of that band's haunting, vast atmospheres and when it comes to singing she again is without peer. This is Sanvean, one of the most beautiful songs I can remember hearing, a song that BLOOM brings to you.
Thank you for being there!

I am your shadow...
[CLICK THE LINK ABOVE]

It would have been an ordinary mail package with a little yellow slip you had to sign at the post office, a package that would sit in the passengers' seat on the drive home. You would have known who it was coming from by the familiar address. On some rare occasions and birthdays you'd puzzle over the area code, wondering if you shouldn't just open it here in the car to save youself the drive back to the post office tomorrow to return it. It wouldn't have been the first heavily gesticulated story you'd share over a pint later the same day. It would have been too ordinary.

Ordinary, if it had happened fifteen years ago. Back then the postal system was a topic of conversation, occasionally even making the news. "Postal Layoffs!" or "Postman attacked by escaped python!" There was a kids' television show about a kindly postman and his cat, and every child over the age of 0 could sing along with the soft jingle at the beginning. "Postman Pat, Postman Pat, and his black and white cat."

But this was 2007. Communication had progressed fast over those years, e-mail, chat and sms was the way to do it now. These days Emmett only checked his mailbox at the end of every month to collect the bills.

So the day he opened his mailbox and saw the thin yellow slip announcing the arrival of a package too large to be delivered to his doorstep, Emmett's excitement was understandable. Not the excitement of Christmas morning, it was more like the feeling he got from skimming the secondhand Nancy Drew paperbacks in the local library. Here was a mystery which could very quickly--too quickly usually--be revealed, so he had learned to drag out the discovery of it by misplacing the book for a few days...perhaps leaving it at a friend's place till they noticed.

And Emmett liked mysteries.

He left the slip in his mailbox for three days.

It just sat there.


(to be continued...)

Manhã de sábado. Ida ao mercado. A azáfama do costume. Rãs, peixe e caranguejos são talhados sem a mínima hesitação. Passemos à fruta. Alguns vendedores lançam uns apelos em português macarrónico. Finjo não ser para mim. Mangas. Generosas, amarelinhas com um ligeiro esverdeado, amanhã de manhã estarão mesmo boas para comer. Pequeno-almoço saudável. Com um sinal de dedos pergunto quanto é. – Sap i man sam có. Começo a andar desinteressado, – Suna, suna, sap man sam có. Concordo, volto atrás para escolher uma dúzia.
Engraçado, quando era miúdo eu e os meus amigos em Moçambique, não podíamos com mangas maduras. Aquilo enjoava-nos. De manhã íamos para a escola, cada um com um pequeno embrulho em papel caqui onde púnhamos sal grosso e piripiri. À saída no caminho para casa, nas árvores de propriedade de alguém, à pedrada deitávamos abaixo umas quantas mangas verdes. Trincávamos um pedaço molhávamo-lo com a língua para depois tocar no sal com picante. Sabor do outro mundo, de um outro tempo. Everything changes, diz o narrador de Eveline em Dubliners.

Dão-nos um lírio e um canivete
e uma alma para ir à escola
mais um letreiro que promete
raízes, hastes e corola

Dão-nos um mapa imaginário
que tem a forma de uma cidade
mais um relógio e um calendário
onde não vem a nossa idade

Dão-nos a honra de manequim
para dar corda à nossa ausência.
Dão-nos um prémio de ser assim
sem pecado e sem inocência

Dão-nos um barco e um chapéu
para tirarmos o retrato
Dão-nos bilhetes para o céu
levado à cena num teatro

Penteiam-nos os crâneos ermos
com as cabeleiras das avós
para jamais nos parecermos
connosco quando estamos sós

Dão-nos um bolo que é a história
da nossa historia sem enredo
e não nos soa na memória
outra palavra que o medo

Temos fantasmas tão educados
que adormecemos no seu ombro
somos vazios despovoados
de personagens de assombro

Dão-nos a capa do evangelho
e um pacote de tabaco
dão-nos um pente e um espelho
pra pentearmos um macaco

Dão-nos um cravo preso à cabeça
e uma cabeça presa à cintura
para que o corpo não pareça
a forma da alma que o procura

Dão-nos um esquife feito de ferro
com embutidos de diamante
para organizar já o enterro
do nosso corpo mais adiante

Dão-nos um nome e um jornal
um avião e um violino
mas não nos dão o animal
que espeta os cornos no destino

Dão-nos marujos de papelão
com carimbo no passaporte
por isso a nossa dimensão
não é a vida, nem é a morte
NATÁLIA CORREIA, Queixa das Almas Jovens Censuradas