A ideia de lusofonia identifica uma área cultural cheia de possibilidades, mas não desprovida de equívocos. Diante do imparável processo de globalização da economia, que se ergue diante de nós pela força da tecnologia, a ideia de espaço lusófono identifica uma área cultural de solidariedades horizontais, que decorrem da partilha de uma mesma língua e da miscigenação de memórias e tradições.
Este livro interroga a permanente reconstrução do conceito de lusofonia, bem como o papel da comunicação e dos media nessa reconstrução. Interroga, também, as políticas da língua no contexto do desenvolvimento da área cultural e comunicacional lusófona. Identifica e debate as principais estruturas de comunicação, nacionais e supranacionais, desta área cultural. Debruça-se, ainda, sobre a importância das representações e dos estereótipos sociais veiculados pelos media no desenvolvimento e na reconfiguração da identidade lusófona.
Uma parceria entre a editora Campo das Letras e o Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade da Universidade do Minho. Obra organizada por três docentes do Departamento de Ciências da Comunicação (Moisés de Lemos Martins, Helena Sousa e Rosa Cabecinhas), na sequência da I.ª Conferência Internacional sobre Comunicação e Lusofonia, que teve lugar, em Outubro de 2005, na Universidade do Minho.
Comunicação e Lusofonia - Para uma abordagem crítica da cultura e dos media
Moisés de Lemos Martins, Helena Sousa e Rosa Cabecinhas (eds.)
CAMPO DAS LETRAS • 2006
Since last month we're having the great german HABA brand in store. They have an amazing catalog, for children of all age and for all the family, from tiny tin games to furniture sets. Check them at WWW.HABA.DE, we can bring to you everything you like. Come to Bloom and ask for a catalog or send us a special inquiry through our main email address. From time to time we'll show you here what makes HABA an amazing trade name.
Thank you! And again: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
A cheeky die game for 2 dwarfs ages 5-99
Authors: Wolfgang Dirscherl and Markus Nikisch
Illustrations: Stefan Fischer
Contents
7 dwarfs
1 die
Set of game instructions
Preparation of the Game
Spread the seven dwarfs in the center of the table and get the die ready.
How to Play
Play alternately. Who has seen a dwarf most recently? You may start first. If you cannot agree, the younger player starts and rolls the die.
On the die thereappears:
• A Colored Dwarf's Cap? - Take a dwarf of this color from the center and place it in front of you.If there is no dwarf of this color left in the center you can steal it from the other player. Nothing happens if you already have all the dwarfs of that color.
• Beautiful Snow White? -The dwarfs love Snow White! Take any of the dwarfs from the center or from the other player and put it in front of you.
• The Wicked Witch? - Oh dear! The witch has thought of something mean! Choose a color.Both players must then return all the dwarfs of this color to the center. Then it's the turn of the other player to roll the die.
End of the Game
The game ends when there is no dwarf left in the center.The players count their dwarfs. Whoever has the most, wins the game.
É pá! Nem me digas isso, pá, o Namora é abaixo de cão, nem é abaixo de Namora, é abaixo de cão, isso eu escrevi! E, aliás, ainda por cima é gatuno, roubou lá umas coisas ao Vergílio Ferreira. Nesse ponto o Vergílio Ferreira tinha uma posição de grande valor intelectual e bagagem ensaística. Agora foi ultrapassado por este, o Saramago, que é muito mais novo. É inteiramente justo. Eu comprei o Evangelho, ele costumava-me mandar, mas eu comprei: li duas páginas e depois fui ver que faltavam ainda 500 ou 400 e não li mais nada.
[Luiz Pacheco entrevistado pela K em 1992, os entrevistadores eram Carlos Quevedo e Rui Zink]
Luiz Pacheco de certo modo não desapareceu. Há qualquer coisa dele que vai ficar sempre no ar. A voz? O cheiro da voz? A cor do cheiro da voz misturada e trocada por palavras. Sim, as palavras de Pacheco vão ficar sempre no ar, coladas às paredes de todas Santas Terrinhas, em altares. Isso. Dia 1 DP (Depois de Pacheco). Começa aqui uma nova civilização.
Na Bloom os livros de Luiz Pacheco já se foram, esperamos mais para breve. Temos cá uma ideia de atulhar a estantes com livros dele e já agora, na Praça, fazer uma estátua em tamanho real para as crianças e os velh0tes fazerem perguntas. Sim. Isso. Luiz Pacheco para sempre. Até já.
"E a Admirável Droga?", perguntaram-lhe.
Ele respondeu. quase de seguida, com o seu olhar de garrafa. Ninguém disse como estava vestido, às vezes Luiz Pacheco vestia-se apenas com advérbios de modo e pontos de exclamação. Não tinha queda para as reticências, era tudo directo. E isto foi o que saiu, o entrevistador era o seu biógrafo, João Pedro George:
A carta que tu me escreveste, quando aquilo saiu, foi a 1ª opinião que me chega sobre a Admirável Droga. Gostava que tivesses sido mais agreste. Não por masoquismo mas porque entendo que o teu adjectivo despudorado é ao mesmo tempo bastante pudico... discreto... delicado... Não estamos em tempos de PIDE, Censura, Clero da Inquisição. Dá-me vontade de rir estas coisas. Eu nem sei o que escrevi. Li agora aquilo como o livro de um outro. Quando revi, em Janeiro de 2001, as provas (ampliadas) escrevi no fundo da página três desabafos, que saíram colados ao texto. Que fazer? Nada. Autorizei a Senhora a fazer o que quisesse… e ela fez bastante, caramba! As pessoas, o que eu tenho visto, prendem-se ao escandaloso, ao insólito, falando vulgarmente, ao espectacular. É com elas. Tá bem, é assim. Não havia, creio que ainda não há, em português, originalmente, relatos com homossexualidade, pedofilia e por aí. Não vai tardar muito, creio! Nem eu me arrogo o Vasco da Gama, o Colombo, o Cabral desses “descobrimentos”. Nem está aí o meu objectivo. O Libertino é uma reportagem, escrita de jacto, no dia seguinte aos eventos relatados. Estes casos, dos marujos e da Emília, chegam-me de longe e já têm meio século.Um livro de inéditos de Luiz Pacheco, autor "maldito" de "O Libertino Passeia em Braga a Idolátrica, o Seu Esplendor", breves textos que há uns anos estavam perdidos na gaveta de um editor. O título, como explica o próprio Luiz Pacheco, é inspirado numa frase de Hemingway, os textos na própria vida, em particular algumas maldições, o envelhecimento, a doença.
Em Luiz Pacheco, maldito renitente (nunca mal escrito), libertino confesso, autor de algumas das páginas mais "comestíveis" da nossa literatura dos últimos cinquenta anos (...) somos confrontados com a velha questão do relacionamento entre vida e literatura. Numa perspectiva algo romântica que mantém o seu encantamento até hoje, o escritor da linhagem dos aventureiros ou libertinos, tipo Benvenuto Celini ou Casanova, tem a própria vida como matéria prima inesgotável da sua escrita...
António Brás / Público
E nós perguntamos, perde-se Luiz Pacheco e quem é que se ganha em troca? Há sempre uma troca nisto de quando morre alguém, não é?Uma Admirável Droga, de Luiz Pacheco
QUARTETO EDITORA • 54 PÁGINAS • 2001
[FOTO: LITTLE PEOPLE - A TINY STREET ART PROJECT]
A visual exploration into the grandeur, beauty and power of “shared experiences” across the globe. A dynamic visual essay that celebrates public performance worldwide.
In Spectacle, the architect David Rockwell, in collaboration with designer Bruce Mau, explores the allure of larger-than-life events that take place around the globe. From the running of the bulls in Pamplonato the Holi Festival in India to deafening - and dangerous - NASCAR races, Spectacle considers what it is about these "shared, live experiences" that transforms not only the way we see the world, but also how we connect with each other.Illustrated with over 200 color photographs, the dynamic visual essay highlights the power of real-time, real-space events in today's highly mediated world.
The book features a collection of photographs and interviews with award-winning authors, producers, directors, and performers. These contributors have documented, participated in, or produced large events and bring a fascinating behind-the-scenes and in front-of-the footlights perspective on "spectacles" today. Interviews include: Muhammad Ali, champion boxer; Kurt Anderson, novelist and essayist; Simon Doonan, author and creative director;Dave Hickey, art critic; Quincy Jones, legendary music and event producer; Guy Lalibert,founder of Cirque du Soleil; Julie Taymor, film and theater director; Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, architects; John Waters, filmmaker;and Steve Wynn, Las Vegas mega-developer, with a concluding essay by critic Herbert Muschamp.
The book offers readers an unprecedented tour of over 60 far-flung and fleeting, beautiful and bizarre man made events around the world. An in-depth selection of "spectacles" are presented thematically in six chapters that focus on various characteristics and unique cultural attributes that connect or distinguish each of the events.
Spectacle offers statistics and sidebars on the history of featured events,providing layers of information that add depth and context. Further, a reference section called "Getting There" contains a monthly calendar listing more global spectacles throughout the year, maps and insider tips you should know before you go."An empty stadium, an open field or a busy urban thoroughfare, each - when transformed by spectacle - undergoes an alchemic process," says David Rockwell. "A group of strangers fuses into an instant community. As an architect I strive to make environments where people connect. This is rooted in vivid recollections of my childhood--from amateur theater on the Jersey shore to the open air markets of Guadalajara Mexico--that have made me deeply aware of the power of shared experience. By physically attending an event, you declare yourself; you become something greater than you."From the glitzy appeal of Las Vegas to the historical reenactment of the Calcio Storico in Florence, Spectacle presents an extraordinary collection of images and text that convey the palpable buzz, sheer beauty and unusual fascination of public performance around the globe.If you are an armchair traveler or spontaneous jet setter, David Rockwell and Bruce Mau offer a mesmerizing, thought-provoking journey into the world of spectacle that is bound to encourage not only conversation but also participation.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David Rockwell is the founder and CEO of Rockwell Group in New York, an internationally acclaimed architecture, planning, and design firm specializing in restaurant, cultural, educational, theatre and film design.
Bruce Mau is the Chairman and Creative Directer of Bruce Mau Design, which has gained international recognition for innovative multidisciplinary work. He is the author of Life Style and Massive Change, both published by Phaidon, and designed and conceived the award-winning book S, M, L, XL with Rem Koolhaas.
Spectacle, by David Rockwell and Bruce Mau • PHAIDON PRESS • 256 PAGES
[SEE IT HERE] [ORDER NOW]
Books, literally wrested from rubbish heaps and the detritus of the white man's world. But a sheaf of paper is one thing, a published book quite another. I have had several accounts sent to me of the publishing scene for Africa. Even in more privileged places like North Africa, with its different tradition, to talk of a publishing scene is a dream of possibilities.
Here I am talking about books never written, writers that could not make it because the publishers are not there. Voices unheard. It is not possible to estimate this great waste of talent, of potential. But even before that stage of a book's creation which demands a publisher, an advance, encouragement, there is something else lacking.
Writers are often asked, How do you write? With a processor? An electric typewriter? A quill? Longhand? But the essential question is, "Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write? Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration.
If this writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn. When writers talk to each other, what they ask each other is always to do with this space, this other time. "Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?"
Let us jump to an apparently very different scene. We are in London, one of the big cities. There is a new writer. We, cynically enquire, How are her boobs? Is she good-looking? If this is a man, Charismatic? Handsome? We joke but it is not a joke.
This new find is acclaimed, possibly given a lot of money. The buzzing of paparazzi begins in their poor ears. They are feted, lauded, whisked about the world. Us old ones, who have seen it all, are sorry for this neophyte, who has no idea of what is really happening.
He, she is flattered, pleased.
But ask in a year's time what he or she is thinking: I've heard them: "This is the worst thing that could have happened to me.
Some much publicised new writers haven't written again, or haven't written what they wanted to, meant to.
And we, the old ones, want to whisper into those innocent ears. "Have you still got your space? Your sole, your own and necessary place where your own voices may speak to you, you alone, where you may dream. Oh, hold onto it, don't let it go".
There must be some kind of education.
My mind is full of splendid memories of Africa which I can revive and look at when I want. How about those sunsets, gold and purple and orange, spreading across the sky at evening. How about butterflies and moths and bees on the aromatic bushes of the Kalahari? Or, sitting on the banks of the Zambesi, where it rolls between pale grassy banks, it being the dry season, dark-green and glossy, with all the birds of Africa around its banks. Yes, elephants, giraffes, lions and the rest, there were plenty of those, but how about the sky at night, still unpolluted, black and wonderful, full of restless stars.
But there are other memories. A young man, eighteen perhaps, is in tears, standing in his "library." A visiting American seeing a library without books, sent a crate, but this young man took each one out, reverently, and wrapped them in plastic. "But," we say, "these books were sent to be read, surely?" and he replied, "No, they will get dirty, and where will I get anymore?"
He wants us to send him books from England to teach him to teach. "I only did four years in the senior school" he begs, "But they never taught me to teach."
I have seen a Teacher in a school where there was no textbooks, not even a bit of chalk for the blackboard – it was stolen – teach his class of six to eighteen year olds by moving stones in the dust, chanting "Two times two is....." and so on. I have seen a girl, perhaps not more than twenty, similarly lacking textbooks, exercise books, biros – anything, teach the A, B, C in the dust with a stick, while the sun beat down and the dust swirled.
We are seeing here that great hunger for education in Africa, anywhere in the Third World, or whatever we call parts of the world where parents long to get an education for their children which will take them from poverty, to the advantage of an education.
Our education which is so threatened now.
[DORIS LESSING ON THE NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH] [PHOTO BY ANSEL ADAMS] • previous part • next part
Segundo Oscar Wilde, ninguém tinha reparado no nevoeiro de Londres antes de Whistler o pintar. Além de Whistler, foi Sherlock Holmes que o tornou visível, ao caminhar nas ruas da cidade ou cada vez que se chegava à sua janela no 221-B de Baker Street.
Onze Aventuras de Sherlock Holmes é uma colectânea da Relógio d'Água, que assinala o nascimento do enigmático detective de Arthur Conan Doyle, há 120 anos, em A Study in Scarlet (1887). Este volume reúne onze dos seus contos, escolhidos por Ana Teresa Pereira, ilustrado por Sidney Paget, que criou as imagens que ainda hoje associamos a Sherlock Holmes e ao seu amigo e ajudante Dr. Watson.
Cada uma destas aventuras mostra-nos as qualidades que tornaram Sherlock Holmes o mais conhecido detective de todos os tempos: a capacidade de observação, o raciocínio dedutivo e a argúcia, que são afinal os elementos essenciais do método de investigação.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle nasceu em Edimburgo, em 1859. Foi médico, escritor e destacado membro dos círculos de espiritismo ingleses. Embora seja sobretudo conhecido pelas suas obras sobre Sherlock Holmes, escreveu também romances históricos e peças de teatro. Faleceu em Crowborough, em 1930.
Onze Aventuras de Sherlock Holmes, de Arthur Conan Doyle • RELÓGIO D'ÁGUA
Affluenza [,æflu'enza]
NAME
• a contagious middle class virus causing depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui.
• an extreme form of materialism in which consumers overwork and accumulate high levels of debt to purchase more goods.
• a global tour of infected minds by renowned psychologist in search of the secret of being successful and staying sane.
• the tittle of a book written by Oliver James.
[MORE INFO ON WIKIPEDIA]
Hope you have a wonderful farewell to 2007. We will miss this year for sure. It was filled with great moments and will be part of Bloom's memories as our first year.
We hope that you enter well in the coming year. With the right foot and with 12 raisins in your hand to eat as the clock is approaching the midnight.
I don't like raisins but I still keep them in my hand as I enter the new Year!
BLOOM WILL CLOSE EARLIER TODAY, AT 19:00.
SEE YOU IN 2008!
Pintor, projectista, inventor, anatomista, músico e filósofo, Leonardo da Vinci é o mais multifacetado dos grandes artistas do Renascimento - e também o mais enigmático. Embora os seus feitos extraordinários sejam exaltados há séculos, enquanto homem, a sua figura tem permanecido difusa e envolta em mistério.
Leonardo da Vinci - O Voo da Mente esboça um dos mais convincentes e íntimos dos retratos do indivíduo complexo, original e eternamente curioso, que se encontra por detrás do vulto do lendário "génio do Renascimento" e "homem universal" . O livro acompanha o notável percurso de Leonardo das suas obscuras origens, como filho ilegítimo nas terras provincianas da Toscana, até ao fim dos seus dias, nas margens do Loire, ao serviço de Francisco I, passando pela aprendizagem em Florença na oficina de Verrocchio, pelos anos em que esteve ao serviço dos poderosos da Itália Renascentista - os Médicis, os Sforza, os Bórgia - e pelo seu relacionamento com Miguel Ângelo e Maquiavel.
Recorrendo a uma vasta gama de fontes contemporâneas e esquadrinhando os recantos menos conhecidos dos cadernos de apontamentos do próprio Leonardo da Vinci, Nicholl escreveu uma biografia integral do artista. Redigida com elegância e profusamente ilustrada e repleta de pormenores esclarecedores, é uma obra prima do subgénero biográfico moderno.
A primeira sugestão do ano da Bloom, para acompanhar a exposição do grande génio patente na Torre de Macau, com os votos de um 2008 cheio de sucessos!
Leonardo da Vinci - O Voo da Mente, de Charles Nicholl
Bertrand Editora • ISBN: 9722515209 • 2006
In 1942, a dashing young man who liked nothing so much as a heated game of poker, a good bottle of scotch, and the company of a pretty girl hopped a merchant ship to England. He was Robert Capa, the brilliant and daring photojournalist, and Collier's magazine had put him on assignment to photograph the war raging in Europe. In these pages, Capa recounts his terrifying journey through the darkest battles of World War II and shares his memories of the men and women of the Allied forces who befriended, amused, and captivated him along the way. His photographs are masterpieces - John G. Morris, Magnum Photos' first executive editor, called Capa "the century's greatest battlefield photographer" - and his writing is by turns riotously funny and deeply moving.
From Sicily to London, Normandy to Algiers, Capa experienced some of the most trying conditions imaginable, yet his compassion and wit shine on every page of this book. Charming and profound, Slightly Out of Focus is a marvelous memoir told in words and pictures by an extraordinary man.
The great photojournalist infused his autobiography with the same brio and warmth that he expressed in his now classic photographs. "Victory was pleasant and exhausting," the Hungarian-born American notes after the Allies' capture of Tunisia. "During the day in the streets... we were kissed by hundreds of old women... We had enough liquor from a captured Gestapo warehouse to keep our singing throats from drying out." Always on the frontlines (he was killed in 1954 in what would later become known as the Vietnam War), Capa went ahead with the parachute invasion of Sicily even though he had been fired from Colliers Weekly--flying in with a squadron of young soldiers he refers to as "boys." When Capa's turn came to jump, he forgot to count "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand" before pulling his cord, instead murmuring, "Fired photographer jumps." "I felt a jerk on my shoulder and my chute was open. 'Fired photographer floats,' I said happily to myself." Stuck dangling in a tree all night, he didn't dare call out for help. "With my Hungarian accent, I stood an equal chance of being shot by either side."
This is a title from Modern Library, an imprint of Random House / USA, an endless pool where you can find the best books written in the world and published in english language.
EXCERPTSlightly Out of Focus, by Robert Capa
It was still very early and very gray for good pictures, but the gray water and the gray sky made the little men, dodging under the surrealistic designs of Hitler's anti-invasion brain trust, very effective.
I finished my pictures, and the sea was cold in my trousers. Reluctantly, I tried to move away from my steel pole, but the bullets chased me back every time. Fifty yards ahead of me, one of our half-burnt amphibious tanks stuck out of the water and offered me my next cover. I sized up the situation. There was little future for the elegant raincoat heavy on my arm. I dropped it and made for the tank. Between floating bodies I reached it, paused for a few more pictures, and gathered my guts for the last jump to the beach.
Now the Germans played on all their instruments, and I could not find any hole between the shells and bullets that blocked the last twenty-five yards to the beach. I just stayed behind my tank, repeating a little sentence from my Spanish Civil War days, "Es una cosa muy seria. Es una cosa muy seria." This is a very serious business.
The tide was coming in and now the water reached the farewell letter to my family in my breast pocket. Behind the human cover of the last two guys, I reached the beach. I threw myself flat and my lips touched the earth of France. I had no desire to kiss it.
Foreword by Cornell Capa • Introduction by Richard Whelan • Modern Library / Random House US
Still on the subject of photography, National Geographic Traveller Magazine published, on the current Jan/Feb 2008 Issue, a journey in pictures to China. It features a beautiful collection of photographs by 14 photographers and their insights on this endless country.
There is never exhaustion when it comes to the subject CHINA. There is always a place, a detail, a building or a landscape that has never been put on paper.
It's NGT's 6th Annual Photo Issue and is a very special one for all of us who live here in China.
[Photograph by Ian Teh]
MAGNUM PHOTOS © DENNIS STOCKDennis Stock is a photojournalist who works primarily in the format of multiple-picture essays. In addition to having held the first exclusive photo rights on James Dean, Stock has extensively documented the behind-the scenes milieu of Hollywood stars and jazz celebrities. He was born in New York in 1928 and currently resides in Menerbes, France. Stock has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1951. His photographs have appeared in other major publications, including Paris Match and Stern. He has worked as a writer, director, and producer for television and film, and has exhibited his work at the Art Institute of Chicago; International Center of Photography, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Schirm Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
As a photographer he explores his own perception of the world, wandering around and finding his own projects just by approaching the glimpse of an idea waiting for something to hit him. Then he follows a self-assigned journey bringing a concise reaction to what he sees and to human behaviour that he reflects with the eye of his cameras.
On MAGNUM IN MOTION we can follow all these tracks of self discovery. Is a great way to learn about the emotions of photography and the recreations of a world that goes beyond time and space. Hope you like it as we do. You can see it here.
[scroll-down and play]
This is something you can not miss and is arriving on the next train. A superb new translation – never before published– of one of Dostoevsky’s major novels comes from the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Adolescent (originally published in English as A Raw Youth) is markedly different in tone from Dostoevsky’s other masterpieces. It is told from the point of view of the nineteen-year-old narrator, whose immaturity, freshness, and naïveté are unforgettably reflected in his narrative voice.
The illegitimate son of a landowner, Arkady Dolgoruky was raised by foster parents and tutors, and has scarcely ever seen his father, Versilov, and his mother, Versilov’s peasant common-law wife. Arkady goes to Petersburg to meet this “accidental family” and to confront the father who dominates his imagination and whom he both disdains and longs to impress. Having sewn into his coat a document that he believes gives him power over others, Arkady proceeds with an irrepressible youthful volatility that withstands blunders and humiliations at every turn. Dostoevsky masterfully depicts adolescence as a state of uncertainty, ignorance, and incompleteness, but also of richness and exuberance, in which everything is still possible. His tale of a youth finding his way in the disorder of Russian society in the 1870s is a high and serious comedy that borders on both farce and tragedy.
[Wait also for The Double and The Gambler they share the same coach]
EXCERPTThe Adolescent, by Fyodor Dostoevsky • EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY • HARDCOVER • NOV 2003
But to explain whom I met just like that, beforehand, when nobody knows anything, would be banal; I suppose even the tone is banal: having promised myself to avoid literary beauties, I fall into those beauties with the first line. Besides, in order to write sensibly, it seems the wish alone is not enough. I will also observe that it seems no European language is so difficult to write in as Russian. I have now reread what I've just written, and I see that I'm much more intelligent than what I've written. How does it come about that what an intelligent man expresses is much stupider than what remains inside him? I've noticed that about myself more than once in my verbal relations with people during this last fateful year and have suffered much from it.
Though I'm starting with the nineteenth of September, I'll still put in a word or two about who I am, where I was before then, and therefore also what might have been in my head, at least partly, on that morning of the nineteenth of September, so that it will be more understandable to the reader, and maybe to me as well.
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky • With an Introduction by Richard Pevear
«It is said that a people gets the government it deserves, but I do not think it is true of Zimbabwe. And we must remember that this respect and hunger for books comes, not from Mugabe's regime, but from the one before it, the whites. It is an astonishing phenomenon, this hunger for books, and it can be seen everywhere from Kenya down to the Cape of Good Hope.
This links up improbably with a fact: I was brought up in what was virtually a mud hut, thatched. This house has been built always, everywhere, where there are reeds or grass, suitable mud, poles for walls. Saxon England for example. The one I was brought up in had four rooms, one beside another, not one, and, the point is, it was full of books.
Not only did my parents take books from England to Africa, but my mother ordered books from England for her children, books in great brown paper parcels which were the joy of my young life. A mud hut, but full of books. And sometimes I get letters from people living in a village that might not have electricity or running water (just like our family in our elongated mud hut), "I shall be a writer too, because I've the same kind of house you were in."
But here is the difficulty. No.
Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books.
There is the gap. There is the difficulty. I have been looking at the speeches by some of your recent prizewinners. Take the magnificent Pamuk. He said his father had 1 500 books. His talent did not come out of the air, he was connected with the great tradition.
Take V.S. Naipaul. He mentions that the Indian Vedas were close behind the memory of his family. His father encouraged him to write. And when he got to England by right he used the British Library. So he was close to the great tradition.
Let us take John Coetzee. He was not only close to the great tradition, he was the tradition: he taught literature in Cape Town. And how sorry I am that I was never in one of his classes: taught by that wonderfully brave bold mind.
In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the Tradition.
I have a friend from Zimbabwe. A writer. Black – and that is to the point. He taught himself to read from the labels on jam jars, the labels on preserved fruit cans. He was brought up in an area I have driven through, an area for rural blacks. The earth is grit and gravel, there are low sparse bushes. The huts are poor, nothing like the good cared-for huts of the better off. A school – but like one I have described. He found a discarded children's encyclopaedia on a rubbish heap and learned from it.
On Independence in 1980 there was a group of good writers in Zimbabwe, truly a nest of singing birds. They were bred in old Southern Rhodesia, under the whites – the mission schools, the better schools. Writers are not made in Zimbabwe. Not easily, not under Mugabe.
All the writers had a difficult road to literacy, let alone being writers. I would say print on jam tins and discarded encyclopaedias were not uncommon. And we are talking about people hungering for standards of education they were a long way from. A hut or huts with many children – an overworked mother, a fight for food and clothing.
Yet despite these difficulties, writers came into being, and there is another thing we should remember. This was Zimbabwe, physically conquered less than a hundred years before. The grandfathers and grandmothers of these people might have been storytellers for their clan. The oral tradition. In one generation – two, the transition from stories remembered and passed on, to print, to books. What an achievement.»
[DORIS LESSING ON THE NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH] • previous part • next part
Charlotta making lasagna
With Mia above the clouds
Charlotta making lasagna
With Mia above the clouds
But you could have waited
You could have locked yourself up
For ten years or so
And when you finally came out
There would still be no chances for you
[THE KNIFE - LASAGNA • AUDIO ON YOUTUBE]
A global up-to-the-minute overview of international contemporary photography.
Curated by Shahidul Alam, Marcelo Brodsky, Joan Fontcuberta, Alasdair Foster, Dennis Freedman, Christine Frisinghelli, Shino Kuraishi, Simon Njami, Wendy Watriss and Paul Wombell
BLINK. presents the work of 100 of the world's most exciting contemporary photographers, selected by 10 internationally acclaimed critics, curators and creative directors. An exhibition in a book, BLINK. showcases up-and-coming talent from all parts of the world, enabling the reader to stay one step ahead of emerging trends in the fast-changing world of photography.
It serves as a unique reference tool for photographers, artists, designers and all those interested in contemporary culture and the image. BLINK. further provides a rare insight into the deliberations of an esteemed, international panel of selectors: the 'experts' making key decisions about the future of photography.
Each curator was commissioned to choose 10 photographers who have broken new ground on the international photography scene in the last four years. BLINK. includes some acclaimed figures, such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Vik Muniz and Rineke Dijkstra, whom the selectors consider set to become household names over the next few years. Other photographers, such as Tomoko Isoda, Shirana Shahbazi and Marc Asnin, are gaining recognition for their innovative work and are on the verge of global emergence.
The photographers' pages are listed in A-Z order, featuring two double-page spreads of recent, exemplary images, a short explanatory text from the curator, and detailed biographical information. In a series of 10 essays written especially for this publication, the curators describe their decision-making process and reflect on the nature of contemporary photographic practice.
In addition to the photographers, each curator has chosen an extract - written since 1995 - which they feel best illustrates the cultural context surrounding contemporary photography. The 10 works reproduced in the book range from cultural studies to fiction, from criticism to journalism.
BLINK. takes its place in a series of surveys identifying 100 of the most interesting, cutting-edge practitioners of key art forms. Earlier surveys include cream and Fresh Cream: Contemporary Art in Culture, 10x10 and 10x10_2: 10 critics, 100 artists. BLINK. is an incredibly exciting event in the world of photography and, like its precursors, is set to become a highly sought-after collector's item.
[FROM THE PUBLISHER]
BLINK. • PHAIDON PRESS • 2007
Paperback Version • 448 pages • 480 colour photographs • 320 black and white photographs
It happened last November, Denis Johnson was the winner for Fiction of the National Book Award (NBA) of the United States of America, the prize was given to Tree of Smoke, an epic novel of bungled espionage and small mercies in the Vietnam era. We give you a highlight of the ceremony and the connection to the author's information as well as an excerpt from the book.
Denis Johnson was born in 1949 in Munich, Germany, and raised in Tokyo, Manila, and Washington. He has received many awards for his work, including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction and a Whiting Writer’s Award. He has published several books, including Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond (2001), The Name of the World (2000), Already Dead: A California Gothic (1997), Jesus’ Son (1992), Resuscitation of a Hanged Man (1991), The Stars at Noon (1986), Fiskadoro (1985), and Angels (1983). His works of poetry include The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems, Collected and New (1995), The Veil (1987), and The Incognito Lounge (1982).
EXCERPT
Last night at 3:00 a.m. President Kennedy had been killed. Seaman Houston and the other two recruits slept while the first reports traveled around the world. There was one small nightspot on the island, a dilapidated club with big revolving fans in the ceiling and one bar and one pinball game; the two marines who ran the club had come by to wake them up and tell them what had happened to the President. The two marines sat with the three sailors on the bunks in the Quonset hut for transient enlisted men, watching the air conditioner drip water into a coffee can and drinking beer. The Armed Forces Network from Subic Bay stayed on through the night, broadcasting bulletins about the unfathomable murder.Now it was late in the morning, and Seaman Apprentice William Houston, Jr., began feeling sober again as he stalked the jungle of Grande Island carrying a borrowed .22-caliber rifle. There were supposed to be some wild boars roaming this island military resort, which was all he had seen so far of the Philippines. He didn't know how he felt about this country. He just wanted to do some hunting in the jungle. There were supposed to be some wild boars around here.
He stepped carefully, thinking about snakes and trying to be quiet because he wanted to hear any boars before they charged him. He was aware that he was terrifically on edge. From all around came the ten thousand sounds of the jungle, as well as the cries of gulls and the far-off surf, and if he stopped dead and listened a minute, he could hear also the pulse snickering in the heat of his flesh, and the creak of sweat in his ears. If he stayed motionless only another couple of seconds, the bugs found him and whined around his head.
He propped the rifle against a stunted banana plant and removed his headband and wrung it out and wiped his face and stood there awhile, waving away the mosquitoes with the cloth and itching his crotch absent-mindedly. Nearby, a seagull seemed to be carrying on an argument with itself, a series of protesting squeaks interrupted by contradictory lower-pitched cries that sounded like, Huh! Huh! Huh! And something moving from one tree to another caught Seaman Houston's eye.
He kept his vision on the spot where he'd seen it among the branches of a rubber tree, putting his hand out for the rifle without altering the direction of his gaze. It moved again. Now he saw that it was some sort of monkey, not much bigger than a Chihuahua dog. Not precisely a wild boar, but it presented itself as something to be looked at, clinging by its left hand and both feet to the tree's trunk and digging at the thin rind with an air of tiny, exasperated haste. Seaman Houston took the monkey's meager back under the rifle's sight. He raised the barrel a few degrees and took the monkey's head into the sight. Without really thinking about anything at all, he squeezed the trigger.
The monkey flattened itself out against the tree, spreading its arms and legs enthusiastically, and then, reaching around with both hands as if trying to scratch its back, it tumbled down to the ground. Seaman Houston was terrified to witness its convulsions there. It hoisted itself, pushing off the ground with one arm, and sat back against the tree trunk with its legs spread out before it, like somebody resting from a difficult job of labor.
Seaman Houston took himself a few steps nearer, and, from the distance of only a few yards, he saw that the monkey's fur was very shiny and held a henna tint in the shadows and a blond tint in the light, as the leaves moved above it. It looked from side to side, its breath coming in great rapid gulps, its belly expanding tremendously with every breath like a balloon. The shot had been low, exiting from the abdomen.
Seaman Houston felt his own stomach tear itself in two. "Jesus Christ!" he shouted at the monkey, as if it might do something about its embarrassing and hateful condition. He thought his head would explode, if the forenoon kept burning into the jungle all around him and the gulls kept screaming and the monkey kept regarding its surroundings carefully, moving its head and black eyes from side to side like someone following the progress of some kind of conversation, some kind of debate, some kind of struggle that the jungle—the morning—the moment—was having with itself. Seaman Houston walked over to the monkey and laid the rifle down beside it and lifted the animal up in his two hands, holding its buttocks in one and cradling its head with the other. With fascination, then with revulsion, he realized that the monkey was crying. Its breath came out in sobs, and tears welled out of its eyes when it blinked. It looked here and there, appearing no more interested in him than in anything else it might be seeing. "Hey," Houston said, but the monkey didn't seem to hear.
[Copyright © 2007 by Denis Johnson]
B. R. Myers, contributing editor of The Atlantic magazine, didn't praise the book as the other critics who stood up for the prize and its general acceptance among literary circle as well as the common readers. The selected members of the NBA jury don't give such space for flaws, who are a group of well known writers, editors, publishers and literature lecturers, well qualified to judge the work of Denis Johnson. Myers jokes of Johnson usage of words and sees "no reason to consider him a great or even a good writer". What we can say is that a great book always calls for different and contradictory opinions. What you should do is check for yourself.• THE CEREMONY [a slice of BLOOM TV]
• THE AUTHOR [on WIKIPEDIA]
• THE BOOK [a from the PUBLISHER]
• THE ARTICLE ["A Bright Shinning Lie", B. R. Myers at THE ATLANTIC]
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Published in September 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux • SOON AVAILABLE AT BLOOM
«Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education, and owe respect to our great store of literature. Of course we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning, but it is on record that working men and women longed for books, and this is evidenced by the working men's libraries, institutes, colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Reading, books, used to be part of a general education.
Older people, talking to young ones, must understand just how much of an education it was, reading, because the young ones know so much less. And if children cannot read, it is because they have not read.
But we all know this sad story.
But we do not know the end of it.
We think of the old adage, "Reading maketh a full man" – and forgetting about jokes to do with over-eating – reading makes a woman and a man full of information, of history, of all kinds of knowledge.
But we are not the only people in the world. Not long ago I was telephoned by a friend who said she had been in Zimbabwe, in a village where they had not eaten for three days, but they were talking about books and how to get them, about education.
I belong to a little organization which started out with the intention of getting books into the villages. There was a group of people who in another connection had travelled Zimbabwe at its grass roots. They reported that the villages, unlike what people reported, are full of intelligent people, teachers retired, teachers on leave, children on holidays, old people. I myself paid for a little survey, of what people wanted to read, and found the results were the same as a Swedish survey, that I had not known about. People wanted to read what people in Europe want to read, if they read at all – novels of all kinds, science fiction, poetry, detective fiction, plays, Shakespeare, and the do-it-yourself books, like how to open a bank account, were low in the list. All of Shakespeare: they knew the name. A problem with finding books for villagers is that they don't know what is available, so a school set book, like the Mayor of Casterbridge, becomes popular because they know it is there. Animal Farm, for obvious reasons is the most popular of all novels.
Our little organization got books from where we could, but remember that a good paperback from England cost a months wages: that was before Mugabe's reign of terror. Now with inflation, it would cost several years wages. But having taken a box of books out to a village – and remember there is a terrible shortage of petrol, the box will be greeted with tears. The library may be a plank under a tree on bricks. And within a week there will be literacy classes – people who can read teaching those who can't, citizenship class – and in one remote village, since there were no novels in Tonga, a couple of lads sat down to write novels in Tonga. There are six or so main languages in Zimbabwe and there are novels in all of them, violent, incestuous, full of crime and murder.
Our little organization was supported from the very start by Norway, and then by Sweden. But without this kind of support our supplies of books would have dried up. Novels published in Zimbabwe, and, too, do-it-yourself books are sent out to people who thirst for them.»
[DORIS LESSING ON THE NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH] • previous part • next part
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