Breviário das coisas breves

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Etiquetas: Diferenças, Fitas

Dois amigos lançam um livro com destaque na imprensa. Uma amiga inaugura um estabelecimento com direito a fashion statement. Outro amigo lança outro livro com festa e banda da moda... Ao fim destes anos todos, é que percebo: ninguém nos tinha dito que a aventura começava aos 30s.

«Uma vez no Coliseu do Porto, o Palma parou uma música para dizer: "Então? Estás cá? É uma francesinha? Deixa-me só acabar isto para depois irmos jantar" (...)».

Tantos anos depois, vejo-me a dar formação à minha ex-professora de Jornalismo. A mesma que, ainda há dias, entrevistou outros dois ex-alunos.

«When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.»

(Rob Sheffield)

THE SONGS WE KNOW BEST

Just like a shadow in an empty room
Like a breeze that's pointed from beyond the tomb
Just like a project of which no one tells —
Or didja really think that I was somebody else?

Your clothes and pantlegs lookin' out of shape
Shape of the body over which they drape
Body which has acted in so many scenes
But didja ever think of what that body means?

It is an organ and a vice to some
A necessary evil which we all must shun
To others an abstraction and a piece of meat
But when you're looking out you're in the driver's seat!

No man cares little about fleshly things
They fill him with a silence that spreads in rings
We wish to know more but we are never sated
No wonder some folks think the flesh is overrated!

The things we know now all got learned in school
Try to learn a new thing and you break the rule
Our knowledge isn't much it's just a small amount
But you feel it quick inside you when you're down for the count

You look at me and frown like I was out of place
I guess I never did much for the human race
Just hatched some schemes on paper that looked good at first
Sat around and watched until the bubble burst

And now you're lookin' good all up and down the line
Except for one thing you still have in mind
It's always there though often with a different face
It's the worm inside the jumping bean that makes it race

Too often when you thought you'd be showered with confetti
What they flung at you was a plate of hot spaghetti
You've put your fancy clothes and flashy gems in hock
Yet you pause before your father's door afraid to knock

Once you knew the truth it tried to set you free
And still you stood transfixed just like an apple tree
The truth it came and went and left you in the lurch
And now you think you see it from your lofty perch

The others come and go they're just a dime a dozen
You react to them no more than to a distant cousin
Only a few people can touch your heart
And they too it seems have all gotten a false start

In twilight the city with its hills shines serene
And lets you make of it more than anything could mean
It's the same city by day that seems so crude and calm
You'll have to get to know it not just pump its arm

Even when that bugle sounded loud and clear
You knew it put an end to all your fear
To all that lying and the senseless mistakes
And now you've got it right and you know what it takes

Someday I'll look you up when we're both old and gray
And talk about those times we had so far away
How much it mattered then and how it matters still
Only things look so different when you've got a will

It's true that out of this misunderstanding could end
And men would greet each other like they'd found a friend
With lots of friends around there's no one to entice
And don't you think seduction isn't very nice?

It carries in this room against the painted wall
And hangs in folds of curtains when it's not there at all
It's woven in the flowers of the patterned spread
And lies and knows not what it thinks upon the bed

I wish to come to know you get to know you all
Let your belief in me and me in you stand tall
Just like a project of which no one tells —
Or do ya still think that I'm somebody else?


(John Ashbery)
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Etiquetas: Poeminhas

«Renée and I ran into each other again when the poet John Ashbery came to town for a reading. He was one of my idols, the man who wrote The Double Dream of Spring. I got to meet him after the reading, but I blew it. A bunch of us were hovering around, trying to think of clever things to say. He’d just read his poem “The Songs We Know Best” and was explaining that he’d written it to go with the melody of Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited” because the song was all over the radio and he couldn’t get the tune out of his head. So I asked if he was a fan of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”, which of course has the same melody as “Reunited”. He smiled graciously and said no, he hadn’t, but that he liked George Michael. Then he went back to saying nothing at all and my friends were furious and I was mortified and I will go to my grave wondering why I spent my one moment in the presence of this great man discussing Wham! (and not even a good Wham! song), but I guess that’s the double dream of dipshit I am.
Afterwards I stood at the bar, drowning my sorrows. Renée came up to kick my shins and bum a cigarette. She mentioned that her birthday was coming up in a few days. As always, there were a few other boys from her fan club hovering around, so we all went out for a late-night tour of Charlottesville’s cheaper drinking establishments. I squeezed into a booth next to her and we talked about music. She told me you can sing the Beverly Hillbillies theme to the tune of R.E.M.’s “Talk About The Passion”. That was it, basically; as soon as she started to sing “Talk About The Clamppetts”, any thought I had of not falling in love with her went down in some serious Towering Inferno flames. It was over. I was over.»
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Etiquetas: Leituras

Sexta, uma mão cheia copos e um pezinho de dança. Sábado, um fato pela manhã e um directo pela tarde. Domingo, um sofá, que a idade começa a pesar na barriga...

...ainda se fazem fatos como antigamente.

* Não é porque este bonito livro tenha sido escrito por dois caros ex-Galarzas, não, nada disso. É só por ser um... enfim, um bonito livro.
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Etiquetas: Leituras

...não se pode nacionalizar o Estrela da Amadora?

«The only thing more terrifying than blindness is being the only one who can see.»

Talvez não seja um filme tão brilhante ou tão apocalíptico quanto se esperaria, mas se há coisa que ninguém pode dizer deste Ensaio de Fernando Meirelles é que não seja fiel à obra de Saramago. Mesmo que aqui e ali surjam discretas alterações ou um ou outro atalho, a verdade é que a versão filmada é tão fiel à matéria prima que acaba por perder o factor choque. De fora, para lá do atalho final, só mesmo as considerações sociais e filosóficas que o narrador do livro vai tecendo ao longo das páginas e que não cabem nas imagens de um filme. Talvez por isso, e por algum excesso de zelo, esta Cegueira - que é soberba obra escrita - não passe de um interessante ensaio no qual só com alguma boa vontade (sobretudo de quem não leu o livro) se pode encontrar a alegoria de Saramago e só quem não viu outros fins-do-mundo cinematográficos pode descortinar o apocalipse. Vale, ainda assim, a fotografia, vale a banda-sonora, vale a coragem. E vale o orgulho de ler, num genérico made in Hollywood, as palavras «based on the novel by José Saramago».
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Etiquetas: Fitas

Etiquetas: Poeminhas

«This morning on planet Earth there are one thousand, six hundred, and eighty-six enhanced, gifted, or otherwise super-powered persons. Of these, one hundred and twenty-six are civilians leading normal lives. Thirty-eight are kept in research facilities funded by the Department of Defense, or foreign equivalents. Two hundred and twenty-six are aquatic, confined to the oceans. Twenty-nine are strictly localized — powerful trees and genii loci, the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Ramses II. Twenty-five are microscopic (including the Infinitesimal Seven). Three are dogs; four are cats; one is a bird. Six are made of gas. One is a mobile electrical effect, more of a weather-pattern than a person. Seventy-seven are alien visitors. Thirty-eight are missing. Forty-one are off-continuity, permanent émigrés to Earth’s alternate realities and branching time-streams.

Six hundred and seventy-eight use their powers to fight crimes, while four hundred and forty-one use their powers to commit them. Forty-four are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQ’s of three hundred or more. Eighteen to be exact. Including me.»
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Etiquetas: Leituras

Ou fifty years of popular songs condensed into single sentences.

«Dear Jane,

I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.

Regards, David.

»

«When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, it's time to go.»

Perseguições espectaculares em cenários de espanto? Check. Carros de alta cilindrada em malabarismos impossíveis? Check. Mulheres lindíssimas com segundas intenções? Check. Vilões megalómanos com planos maiores que o próprio ego? Check. Um agente-secreto infalível de modos subtis? Pois, não... mas isso já sabíamos. Afinal, é suposto esta ser a sequela dessa espécie de origin-story de James Bond que era Casino Royale. Nesse caso, voltemos às contas: um agente-secreto atormentado e ainda em bruto à procura de vingança? Check. Uma história de espiões e seduções e traições e chavões à Bond e diálogos para ler nas entrelinhas? Pois, não... Aliás, é isso que falha, e falha em grande, neste Quantum of Solace: falta história, falta sumo. Que, bem espremido, cabia em pouco mais de 10 ou 20 minutos no final de Casino Royale... Falta história, faltam estórias, faltam personagens, faltam gadgets, faltam as bond-girls de nome risível, falta um Q que compense o excesso de M, falta qualquer coisa que nos faça acreditar que aquele tipo de smoking e pistola na mão irá ser, um dia, o Bond que todos conhecemos. Falta, no fundo, tudo aquilo que faria deste Quantum of Solace algo mais do que apenas mais um filme de tiros e porrada.
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Etiquetas: Fitas

Is McCain president?

Is Obama (already) president?

How is Obama (still) doing?

«There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition.»

(Doctor Impossible)

...que o LiveScore não dê o resultado do jogo Obama - McCain.

No dia de finados, finou-se.

«Tinha trinta e três anos de idade (a idade em que morrem os génios) [...]».

(Bruce Chatwin)

«Ai, Deus me livre e guarde, que a doença me impede de levar o rumo certo...»
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Etiquetas: Ouvido na rua

«Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.»

(Sir David Attenborough)