Lost In Lisbon

Love, Death and Hitchens

2011-12-29T14:19:00.003+01:00

On the ferry to Stornoway, June 2011

Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I look out for their age. Were they over 50? Were they over 70? What did they die of? Was it a good death (natural causes) or was it a bad death (cancer, Alzheimer’s). At what age did they create? Were they married, did they have children, was their life relatively devoid of domestic tragedies but rich in adventure and heroic choices?

Lately, whenever someone illustrious dies, I sigh with relief – death bypassed my lover, once again, and chose a writer, a musician, a philosopher, a politician. This time death chose Christopher Hitchens, whose opinions I often find in my lover’s rants against religion, power, the empty lives of the overprivileged, and, crime of all crimes, the right wingers who turn right on Great Western Road in Glasgow, and hold up traffic for the others.

I sigh with relief – not him yet, we have some more time.

My lover is 62. He is so young, so vital, so bursting with projects and ideas and hopes (even though he claims to be mastering the art of doing nothing!), sometimes even at the cost of just being, with me, enjoying the sweet treacle of love on a boring Sunday afternoon, that it baffles me that he could ever not be.

This is the man who brought me love, possibility, a vaster, richer, purer future than the dullness of a life following the whims of the mediocre and unambitious – which I was fast becoming too. This is the man gently removes the rose-tinted glasses (spectacles!) I have on and shows me how reality is even better, even though it sometimes stinks. This is the man who mocks my neurosis and holds my hand during an anxiety attack. If he is that man, how can he depart sooner, leaving me to fend on my own, at an age when most women are yelling at their husband to take out the garbage.

I try to impart on my lover the sense of urgency, so that we may live and experience in, God-willing, a 20-year period, what others do in twice the time. His will obviously be a good death, as far away in time as it can be. I put all my faith and my belief in these thoughts, sometimes bartering with God in late hours, when he is snoring away into the back of my neck, oblivious to my machinations in keeping him alive just a while longer.

It can’t come as a surprise then, that I see bad deaths as a particular blow to my plans. If giants as Christopher Hitchens just vanish at the hands of cowardly cancer, why shouldn’t my lover suddenly go as well for some stupid, unforeseen reason? Is God not listening (Hitchens’ reply: there is no God, you silly woman. Now get me a drink!)? His stance on almost anything is different from mine though I subscribe entirely to the overratedness of champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics – and, I would add, that green-coloured blemish corrector thing that is very much in Vogue. And cheap sushi. But his style, oh his style – punch after punch of the right word, the right “fuck you” attitude, the balance between knowledge and stylization. Teach me master.

As for my lover, I send him some quotes that will have him roaring for their bluntness and honesty. And I anticipate my delight the next time I see him, and feel his hands on my waist, his sparkky eyes looking into mine, letting me know I am the loveliest fat girl he has ever met and pretend to be shocked for his further delight. I cannae wait. And, each time I will throw my head backwards and laugh, a part of me will secretly pray that we get to keep this banter for as long as possible.

As for Christopher Hitchens, well, I shall (gasp!) have a nice, tall, gin tonic, and smoke one, maybe two cigarettes in his honour. God, do I live dangerously.

Life goes on, until it doesn’t.

2011-05-29T00:33:00.002+02:00

Ya Sadiqqi,

Last week, during yet another endless, and pointless, meeting, I found myself doodling in Arabic – nothing special, the usual, long-standing qalila/kabira debate – baiti qalila aw kabira? – and was taken back to our evening Arabic classes, every Tuesday on some high floor of the David Hume Tower.

I recalled the older lady (I love the Middle East) who, completely confused, was trying to decide between adjectives, only to have the extremely earnest Indian girl sitting beside her repeat endlessly qalila…qalila…qalila, and she trying not too look too aggravated saying I know… clash of civilisation right there and then.

And do you remember Paul, the oil rig worker, on his way to the Middle East and hoping to blend in, all 2m, 150kg of him. He sat behind us, overwhelmed, and overwhelming those old tiny 1970's chairs, sticking his tongue out as he painstakingly outlined each alif, each lam, with the smallest pencil he could find. There were times when I couldn’t even see the pencil, just his gigantic hand slowly moving across the paper, right to left, right to left. During our first language test, our earnest tension was palpable as we tried to construct meaningful sentences from a reduced vocabulary pool (bait, bint, bayna, bijanib, sayyara, zujaja, kalb) – and, from the deepest, most focused, most intense silence in that swaying classroom filled with Open University romantics, Paul's whispered frustration: “Bugger!”.

I remembered you telling me that you couldn’t roll your “r”, because something was up with your tongue, you couldn’t even stick it out. I didn’t believe you and made you show me.

“I don’t believe you. Show me.”

And you stuck your tongue out. “You’re joking, right? Come on, stick it out further.” But that’s all there was. “Dude, your tongue’s tiny”. You weren’t happy, I felt bad for making you feel bad. I resolved to show you crappy stuff about my body (like the mole on my forehead).

I recalled our teacher, the Greek yet German-looking Dr. K., whose life I idolised - intelligent, married to an intelligent man, studying interesting things, knowing exactly what she was up to. I also feared her, as I knew she could read through me and figure out that this, the learning of Arabic, was yet another project that I would not see through. I could sense her despise of me, or perhaps it was my own despise at myself.

She always wore a dark green velvet headband, and never any make-up, reminding me of a Christian missionary. As the weeks went by, and winter set in, Dr. K showed up with long woolly dresses. She also took to patting her belly, which I interpreted as nothing. But you told me that she was pregnant. You noticed. Perhaps because you had noticed one of your highly fertile sisters doing the same (how many nieces and nephews you had? It felt like 10 or more…). And so she was pregnant. I was extremely happy when she announced it – that meant a university teacher could be happily married and have a husband. What a relief!

And I recalled our dinners, after class, at the Taj Mahal, for a kebab with everything. (what was the name?). And sometimes, because of my sweet tooth, we’d have a lassi – each time, you’d order it in a Scottish accent, each time I found it hilarious. Sometimes we’d do the homework as we waited for the food. (Taj Mahal - Shah Jahan -Mumtaz Maham - the grade I always wanted, geddit?)

Then we’d walk home – you to Morningside, and I’d be off to Marchmont.

It was perfect – I knew then that it was perfect as much as I know it now. What I didn’t know then is that it was as perfect as it would ever be. A platonic friendship filled with possibility – a commonplace, I know, but perfect.

Our sharing an apartment, our long night talks, our drunken outings, our eventual falling into each other’s arms – not so perfect. Separations, letterwriting, silent phone conversations, bad choices, solo drinking, raging hormones – even less perfect.

Youth really is wasted on the young!

Overcome

2011-05-03T01:09:00.003+02:00

The news of Bin Ladin's death surprised me this morning. Soon after hearing it on the radio, my mother called: "They got him! What great news!” For those who know me, my mother's joy is fully explained - on 9/11, I was home, a few blocks from the World Trade Centre. Along with thousands of others, I was evacuated and lived as a refugee in a very modern city. Luckily in my case, this was only for two weeks.

The impact of the events was lasting. Decisions that to this day affect my life were made back then. My mother's joy betrayed her hope that this death would release me from sadness and melancholia that should have never been mine, from the residual guilt of being so safe when a few blocks away, 2606 lives were burnt, crushed or vaporized. (Even today, just writing the number of dead fills me with anxiety - what if it isn't accurate? What if they have forgotten to account for someone who died there and no one knows? Am I complicit in erasing the memory that this person existed?)

And I must confess that, at first, I felt some relief. Finally! Finally they got the guy. Finally, they killed him! Finally. Then, almost immediately, the sadness returned, with the realisation that it would never really go away. This man, who so publicly barged into people's lives, who so violently interfered with the lives of some of us, eventually died in an anonymous confrontation, and was buried anonymously. Did he realise he was going to die? In that millisecond before death, did he grasp the magnitude and horror of what he did? Did he feel regret?

Make no mistake - it is for people such as Bin Ladin that I agree with the death penalty. I do not cry for his loss, and I do not care for his suffering. What pains me, as a survivor (I hate this word), is that he was spared what for him, I presume, would have been the most humiliating and vile treatment - a trial, with a defence lawyer, in the Hague Penal Court.

I feel that I have been cheated. As I was cheated when Slobodan Milosevic died, even though he was in custody; or when the British sent Pinochet, and the Scottish sent al Meghrahi, back to their home countries to die peacefully. As I feel cheated when I think that Fidel Castro will never face those he oppressed.

But, obviously, in the case of Bin Ladin it feels much more personal. I feel cheated of my closure, my very personal closure. And especially of the vindication of the social system in which I believe, in which I have unwavering faith - democracy. Failing and fallible yes, but that awards me a louder voice, a wider choice and yes, greater freedom, than any other system. And an integrant value of this system is the concept of Justice.

I never yelled for a Dead or Alive Bin Ladin. In fact, Bush's cowboy language was one of the greatest difficulties I found during my post 9/11 life. I always very much wanted Bin Ladin Alive, so that he could be tried like a man, defend himself like a man, and die like a man. This stripping of the human condition makes me sad and uncomfortable.

Even though I feel - I know - that he received just punishment, I cannot put a full stop on this subject. And now, these events will always be a part of me; they will drag alongside me forever - the unreality of what went on, the loss of lives, of energy, of all the creation that could have happened since that day. The loss of faith in the values of absolute good, of protection of the state, of just reward for a life well lived. This loss is present, it resurfaces, and now, with this "hidden death", will continue to resurface for the rest of my, of our, lives,

In a few months, we will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the events. I had planned, after that date, to never mark it again, to finally let this behind me, to pack it away in my storage box of memories, having paid my dues for having made the right choice that day of not venturing out into the street. Not being a victim, or a relative of one, this was a luxury I could afford. And I always assumed that "the disposal of the Osama" would help in this process. Yet, the initial moment of relief set aside, I realise that it really doesn't.

So bear with me if I seem too sanctimonious, but when President Obama says we can tell families of those who died that day that "justice has been done", I cannot agree. While I certainly do not presume to speak for the relatives of those who died what happened was retribution, not justice. It was a collective sigh of relief of finally seeing a manhunt that was becoming almost as humiliating as the attack that had originated it come to an end.

Justice would have been to feed and clothe the man, throwing in a bath for good measure, and send him to The Hague. Justice would have been to subject him to that long and complex process that constitutes a trial, ruled by laws based on values of humanity, respect for the others and for the intrinsic value of each human life. Values which this criminal so haughtily ignored. Justice would have been to see his conviction - preferably a death one, which is why I am not a judge at The Hague - and imprisonment.

Bin Ladin's death takes me again and again and again to the same question: If, at times of greater difficulty and tension, we cannot behave in accordance to our collective values, then what are our values for?

In reading this text, most of my friends may imagine me with a wagging finger and a facial expression apoplectic with indignation, my word debit per minute reaching full speed.

My friends would be wrong. More than indignant, I am sad that this is how it all ended. It saddens me that we have been deprived of seeing that sample of man, of looking into his eyes, of listening to his justifications based on silly extrapolations of a poorly interpreted Qur'an.

Therefore, while part of me is relieved to finally know the man's whereabouts - at the bottom of the ocean, where no fans will converge on an annual pilgrimage - I now know that for me, as well as for many other, what happened 10 years ago will forever remain unsolved, another loose thread that each one of us carries without being able to tie it to anything, or even knowing what to do with it.

And I feel that my sorrow cannot be that different from that of some families of victims, survivors and witnesses of what happened.

So while the world around me gets ready to yet another round of "Were we right? Were we wrong?”, I pray that God may bless not only America, but all of us.

2011-04-13T00:54:00.003+02:00

Monte Estoril, 12 Abril 2011

Suddenly Spring arrived. The bare trees, their branches held up to the sky were gone. My window a Fauvist canvas for all shades of green, on all shapes of leaves. A domestic jungle of my own. A lush, gorgeous explosion of greenery.

This time last year I was in South Africa, driving through the Karoo, marvelling at the beauty of God’s creation. It was during that time that my grandmother went into hospital.

My Year of Magical Thinking is ending. And this greenery outside is telling me what everybody knows, but that, until that first time when your world shifts irrevocably, you never quite grasp – it’s time to carry on. Life is beckoning and the only way is forward - even when it's circular.

I sit by this window and look outside – I’ll wait for night time, when I can lie down on the sofa and look at the sky. For the first time this year, I will fall asleep looking at the stars, at the pitch black sky, wrapped in a blanket, because it is just that hot.

While still remembering how my Grandmother’s hand felt inside mine as she napped, I stretch out my other hand. É de quem a apanhar.

There’s a Portuguese children’s song about three doves flying. One is mine, the other is yours, the other is for whoever catches it. É de quem a apanhar.

Feliz Dia Internacional da Mulher // Happy International Women's Day

2011-03-08T19:07:00.002+01:00

... e sem esquecer, a Lianor, a Zé, a Adelaide Cabete, a Tina Fey, a Héloise d'Argenteuil, a E. Annie Proulx, a Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, a Christine de Pisan, a Tia Juca, e todas aquelas que se levantam de manhã, seguem os seus sonhos, e não deixam que lhes pisem os calos...

(la musiquita: sisters are doing it for themselves, Annie Lennox e Aretha Franklin)

Beyond words

2010-07-06T01:40:00.006+02:00

Last Sunday 13th June, I went to sleep with a slight sense of trepidation. Just back from a 3-day long roundtable on centres and peripheries, where I stomped through the debates with my usual charm and tolerance, I had returned reinvigorated, ready to take on the world or, failing that, the local authority that currently employs me.

Not alien to my sense of trepidation was the young man I had met there, who happened to tick most of my boxes. Straight (a welcome plus), intelligent (he had me at “positive differentiation”… or was it “differentiated positivism”?), self-deprecating (“yes, I was a young idiotic right-winger”), and, most importantly eager to hear what I had to say, he seemed to perfectly combine a rigorous train of thought, hard-working ethics, unpretentious expression, and, most importantly a non-judgemental, yet moral, stance on life. All the things that matter.

Certain issues needed of course to be resolved before he actually realised that I was a woman, an available one at that. Firstly, he was in a committed long-distance relationship. Being utterly unable to do anything about that (that’s my moral stance on life) I was resolved to wait it out and, in a few months, reassess the situation. Secondly, he didn’t live here. Something which I could easily solve by moving to wherever he was. Yes, I am that kind of feminist. Then, there was the physical incompatibility, him being lithe and limb and I being, well, the stomping kind. Nothing some long overdue exercise on my behalf and a hipercaloric diet on his behalf wouldn’t remedy.

Resolutions in place, his words echoing in my head, why are you complaining? You want change? Go be change! Do something about it!, I felt shamed into action. Yes I would do something about something in the upcoming weeks! Yes I would embrace change! And I would begin by twisting his arm into meeting me for coffee the next day, as he was about to fly half-way across the world.

Hence my feelings of trepidation on June 13, as I went to sleep.

At 5.20 am I was awoken by my aunt, who was at the farmhouse up North. “You know what I am about to tell you?” Partly because I was asleep, partly because I wanted to delay her saying it, I said no.

“Grandmother died”.

I can’t remember how the rest of the conversation went – only that, in spite of my aunt’s instructions that I get some sleep before I got into a 3.5 hour drive on my own, I could not sleep. To fall asleep then seemed preposterous, almost sacrilegious, disrespectful towards my Grandmother. My father was unreachable so it was up to me to keep trying his phone. So, for some three hours, I walked around the house not knowing very well what to do. It was almost 8am when I was able to tell my father that his mother had died. By then I still hadn’t cried and I didn’t cry on the phone to my father. Actually, I was surprised that I was handling it so well.

Because I hardly ever wear black I went shopping for mourning clothes with a friend, then went to Lisbon to my aunt’s house to get her and my uncle their mourning clothes. The experience was surreal.

I didn’t make it to the farm until the end of the day, having picked up my sister, flying in from Brussels, at the airport. That night and the following day were lived in a complete sense of insulation from the rest of the world. A war could have started we would not have noticed, and more likely would not have cared. My Grandmother’s casket was laid open in the formal living room, the double doors opening into the garden and the camellia. That evening, and the following morning and afternoon, sunrays of different colours, bluish in the morning, golden by the afternoon, filtered by the leaves, made their way to the stone doorway. That evening and the next day, before we left to church, time stood still for us.

I was worried about the open casket. During the drive – an incredibly long, arid, lonesome drive, I prepared myself, wishing it would be closed. Yet there she was,, looking rested and restful, dressed in a silk blouse and scarf, with a white silk coverlet draped over most of her body. Silk blouses were a staple of my Grandmother’s wardrobe. When I was a child, I would sleep in her room when visiting and watch her get dressed in the morning – her palette was mostly black and whites, with some beige and greys strewn about. Except for the odd robin egg blue, flashy colours were not her thing.

My Grandmother was tall, lanky, with an understated elegance that at first surprised the folk when she arrived at the village as newlywed, nearly 65 years ago. A Lisbon debutante, the daughter of an important figure of the regime, she entered a drastically different life when she married a 17-years older countryside lawyer, with local political ambitions and no desire to live anywhere else other than Arouca. Amused, she often recalled when, going to the village during her first months of married life, she overheard an old lady, Ha, they said that the Doctor had married a beautiful lady from Lisbon! Look at her, she’s so skinny... that Doctor is a fool!

Another of my Grandmother’s features that I envied was her hair, which she always wore in a classical, full bun. As a child, I watched her comb her long, thick, white hair, and, forced by mother to wear an ear-length hairdo, with a side-part held by a simple pin, I begged my Grandmother to, at least once, wear a ponytail, or even side plaits.

As people poured into the visitor’s room, to view the body and offer their condolences, I recognised some I knew since I was a child – childhood friends of my father and aunt and uncle, former maids and fieldworkers, the seamstress, who reminded me of how often Grandmother would take me to her workshop for fittings – fittings for my Grandmother of course. My very few handmade clothes were made by Granny. One day, I was to go to the river for a bath with my aunt, but had no bathing suit. In 20 minutes, she made me a pair of white briefs with horizontal blue stripes, and I couldn’t believe that something that was sold in shops could be made by her!

Her sewing machine was one of the few things she inherited from her mother, whom she lost to typhus at the age of 9. She was then taken in by her father, as they were separated in those distant 1920’s. Together, they embarked on a “getting-to-know-each-other” journey through some of the country’s spas. One of the few photographs that my Grandmother recognised until the end was taken at Luso. In it, she wears a black dress and, curiously, a side-parted, ear-length bob, held by a pin. She always remembered that period fondly, reflecting the incredibly close bond she forged with her father, which they kept throughout her life – sometimes at the irritation of her husband, my Grandfather. When in Luso, she was taken aside by ladies who were there on a cure, and asked about who she was, why she was dressed in black, and who was that man with whom she was staying. It did look strange to them, I suppose.

Granny married late – at the age of 27. A true beauty, she did not lack suitors, and her explanations on how she broke up with each of them were, for the most part, quite funny. One, a doctor, asked her to marry him and follow him to the colonies, where they would live like kings, and have servants, and leopard skins and all the exotic wares she could want. Upon sharing the young man’s pretences with her father, she heard And you would be able to just leave your father behind?. That’s all my father had to say. I refused straight away.

Another poor soul had the terrible idea of writing her a letter detailing the decoration process of his new house, the home he was hoping to share with her one day – I am now in the process of finding the right curtains. He may have assumed that my Grandmother kept his letters close to her heart. She may have, but she also read them to her father, who, upon learning of the quest for the perfect curtain, exclaimed That is no man for you, minha filha! And another bit the dust.

One suitor almost got her – were it not for his supposed gambling habit at the Espinho Casino, duly reported and censored by my Granny’s chaperones. As she broke off contact with him, and he moved on to a life of adventures, giving her a book, La peur de vivre.

So it almost comes as a surprise that my Grandfather managed to snatch my Grandmother – when they first met she was 13, and he was 30, and he thought she was a kid. My Grandmother was sparse in her details on my Grandfather’s courtship. All we got was the chestnut tree episode. Some years ago, long after he had died, my Grandmother’s sister called her saying she wanted to tear down some chestnut trees to clear a field. My Grandmother threw a fit, she would not allow one particular chestnut tree to be torn down. After intense prodding on the reasons why – after all, she never had cared much for trees or animals or whatever; if it needed to die, it died – she finally relented. It turns out she and my Grandfather first kissed under that one chestnut tree. The tree got a reprieve.

Her romantic, almost tragic, approach to life reduced her to tears on her wedding day – she felt beyond guilty that she was leaving her father behind. After the reception, as my Grandfather waited to take her on their honeymoon, she and her father fell into each other’s arms sobbing. When a family friend hinted that my Grandfather was waiting, that it was time to go, my Great-grandfather replied This moment is long enough for all of us. And off she went, crying like a Mary Magdalene, to join her, I imagine, bemused husband. For a long time I assumed that theirs was a formal marriage, without much spontaneous affection, more of a partnership. Perhaps because of their age difference, or because people always told me stories about my Grandfather’s temper. Some of his clients were mountain people fighting for property or water rights – every now and then, my Grandmother would be summoned to his office by his shouting: Maria Antónia, come here! Can you tell this idiot how the law works?! And Granny would patiently break down into intelligible pieces what my Grandfather was trying to say. From my great-aunt, always more generous in gossipy details than my own Grandmother, I learned that my Grandfather would throw temper tantrums that Granny heard in silence – and then did whatever she wanted anyway.

One day, my preconceptions fell apart when, visiting the farm to heal my broken heart in privacy (if you cry in the middle of the woods and no one hears you, did you really cry?), I went for lunch with Granny on one of our last solo outings. I told her how much I missed the guy, how sad and alone I felt – and she said something such as you’ll find someone, three months with someone is nothing. She then told me about the night when she dreamt of my Grandfather, a dream so vivid that she actually believed he was lying in bed with her. Still sleeping she reached out her arm to drape it over him, and woke up when her arm fell on the mattress. She told me she cried herself to sleep that night. I cried, and still do, thinking of my then eighty-something years-old Grandmother crying for her long-gone husband.

Her beginnings in Arouca were somewhat difficult – she initially moved into the farm in which Grandfather was born, in which his mother and unmarried sister still lived. Cohabitation was not easy, as the two ladies resented the presence of this new woman, with her city manners and behaviour. Eventually, my Grandfather moved to another farmhouse further down the road – the house in which my father, aunt and uncle grew up, the setting of my childhood games and fantasies, adolescent broodings and longings during endless summers and incredibly cold Christmases. It was in this house that I, and my new, more nuclear family, now relived my memories and the stories of my Grandmother’s life.

In the same manner that she eventually conquered her husband’s family, so did she with the village that at first viewed her with suspicion. As the time to leave the house for the mass and burial approached, more people came in. Standing between my Father and Sister in the receiving line, I shook the hands and two-kissed people whom I never met. People who, when they entered the room, signed themselves and knelt at her coffin, kissed her forehead, caressed her cheek. Who then shared with us stories on how my Grandmother helped them. Many of them shared the same regret – that they would no longer see her driving around in her white Renault 4L. The epic Renault 4L, driven by one octogenarian Grandmother and hundreds of Portuguese lumberjacks!

A whole village stopped by to pay their respects, to thank her for her dedication, to say goodbye to someone who, after becoming a widow, did not return to Lisbon, where her children now lived. She chose to remain in Arouca, her home for another thirty-six years, where she had her routines. Alone, she managed a working farm, with its crops, overseers, day workers, harvests. Her daily routine was a comfort for any child in search of peace and stability.

She would wake up early, and go to the village to run errands – I’d often go with her and on our way back to Cela, the farmhouse, just as we were crossing the river, my Grandmother would say Cela to which I would reply de Arouca! And we would yell Cela de Arouca, Cela de Arouca until we parked in the driveway. I often tried to replicate this game with my parents, but they never seemed to have the same enthusiasm. Every day she bought the newspaper, and filled out the crossword puzzles. When I morphed into a sleepy teenager, she would wake me up with Ai, the crosswords hint for laziness. Ai, tanto ai! Tanto ai! So much Ai.

After lunch, she would go back to the village for coffee with her friends – other widows and spinsters who lived in the area. They all went before her, and one day I noticed she was going alone for coffee after lunch.

Their children and nephews were at the wake – and they were an absolute consolation to my Aunt, my Father and my Uncle, with whom they were comfortable enough to cry as much they wanted.

My Grandmother’s last years, especially since she broke her hip, were a mixture of good times and bad times. She was often frustrated that her movements were more limited, that she could not run the house properly, panicking everyday about lunch, waking up my aunt with the questions of who was coming and what was she supposed to feed them. No matter that my aunt had settled the matter the day before. But we also discovered a freer, more spontaneous person, hilariously bossy and frank, perhaps the side effect of a general anaesthetic used so late in the game. Losing her usual reserve, she moaned about the lack of servants on Christmas day, pointed out the sad state of my cousin’s hairstyle and told me that I was fat, oh so fat. She would also repeatedly tell the stories that most marked her in her life – and, as time went by, I listened with increasing attention, lest this be the last time I would be hearing them. The last few times I saw her, we sang together. The last time, my dancing to Agulha e o Dedal had her laughing out loud. Old Portuguese movies – O Costa do Castelo, Canção de Lisboa - French classics such as La Vie en Rose, J’attendrais, were sung in loop. I put the visitor’s sofa next to her hospital bed and we both napped, holding hands – and I am so grateful that I can remember exactly how it felt.

Looking back, I did question the wisdom of going to that Roundtable. I feel tremendously sad that I was napping when my aunt called me from the hospital on Sunday 13^th June, and I didn’t hear the phone. I could have talked to Granny last time. And I feel particularly silly and wasteful that I was wasting my time thinking about some guy instead of being in Arouca, with her. But I thought that she would hold on until September, her birthday. We all did.

By late afternoon on Tuesday it was time to leave to go to the cemetery. That day, Portugal played against Cote d’Ivoire in the World Cup. We were worried that Portugal would win and my Grandmother’s last goodbye would be marred by a concert of vuvuzelas and assorted honks through the streets. God was on our side, and so Portugal drew. Praise be to God, I suppose.

We, the family, had a private moment as the coffin was closed shut, and then the men – my father, uncles, and cousins – picked up the coffin and went out into the golden light of the late afternoon. The same light I saw when I arrived the day before.

Each forward journey always comes with a return journey attached.

As the coffin went down the granite stairs, through the entrance portal, on the men’s shoulders, the sea of people parting in silence to let it pass, I saw this as my Grandmother’s final exit to her first entrance in this house. So as she disappeared from view, I mentally waved her goodbye, and imagined her first entrance in that house, a newly-married Lisbon girl in her late twenties, climbing those steps for the first time, inspecting her new home, where she would raise her family, at a safe distance from her meddling sister-in-law. I saw her inspecting the old mansion and demanding her husband a real bathroom – not the old outhouse and a tin tub, or whatever system he had going on. I saw her sitting at her sewing machine for endless afternoons, training the staff, explaining the law to the mountain people. I saw her drive to the village, stop at the Fire Station to ensure the firemen had enough milk for fire season, and drop her knitted wares at the children’s shelter. I remembered her staying awake on Friday nights until we arrived safely from Lisbon for the week-end, and waving us good-bye from the road on Sundays when we returned.

And so this was my Grandmother’s exit to her first arrival. Greeted by a few, she was waved goodbye by over one hundred. Born in uncertain times, she is mourned by a family of nine.

Portuguese burials have no eulogy, no acknowledgement of the individual traits, achievements, uniqueness of the person who died. Only some semblance of rejoicing because she is now going to eternal life. I wrote this text in a spirit of eulogy. And I also recalled the anguished testimony of a Holocaust survivor, that any acknowledgement of the existence of her brother, who vanished at the age of 7, would cease once she herself was gone. So I wrote this in the hope that, just as I carry with me the memory of a 7-year old boy whom I never met, you may carry with you a little bit of my Grandmother whom you’ve never met. But who, as all grannies are, was adored and is now missed beyond words.

Maria Antónia de Almeida Soares dos Reis Brandão

6.09.1918 – 14.06.2010

To a lady who lunches

2010-05-26T04:12:00.005+02:00

Tara Lynn, na V (Primavera 2010) por Solve Sundsbo

Lady, for the hypocritical reasons that dictate life in Portugal, I have to have lunch with you on a regular basis – and by regular, I mean more than once a month.

For a year now, I have said nothing while you explained, very much unprompted, and in the presence of third parties, the make-over you had in store for me - because you have such a pretty face.

Two weeks into my job you had in mind a diet, a trope that has been recurring in your discourse. In fact, you have followed my weight fluctuations with greater ardour than I ever could muster. Today, you insisted several times, in two different settings that I should have highlights done – grey hair makes you look older and drearier,

Lady, you could be my old aunt, and my parents taught me to respect my elders. So I have subtly tried to indicate you that you are being beyond inappropriate. Changed the subject, smiled feebly, and vehemently explained that I like how I am, to no avail. And the more I think about your petulance, the more irritated I become. So, lady, and others ladies in this category, it turns out I do have something to tell you.

I am barely 33 and I have lived in four different countries, speak three languages fluently (plus all the other ones I can sort of guess at), and have managed to learn good lessons from all the places I have been. I have been a refugee in the same city in which I was living, and I have travelled to places that as child I never even knew existed.

Barely 33, I feel passionate about what I do, grateful that people recommend me to their peers as a knowledgeable and reliable museum professional. I have curated exhibitions, published, taught and am so lucky to have access to archives with a wealth of untapped information that reveals individuals struggling with their creative process, their place in the world, the righteousness of their quests – showing me that these essential questions are truly timeless. How comforting to know we ar enot alone.

33, and I have had the pleasure of having people come to me and tell me that I made a difference, in the way in the way they work and, even more, in the way they see the world. More importantly, I have had the true delight of telling people that they have changed the way that I see the world, the way that love, the way that I work.

Only 33, and I work sufficiently hard to ensure that the only reason why I'll ever need a man is to love and encourage me, not to pay for my face creams.

If I died tomorrow, two books would be left behind to explain my views and my reasoning with the world in which I lived. Hopefully, these would be read, dissected and critiqued, in the same manner as I do in my learning process. So, even if I died tomorrow, I would have taken a chance and put it out there. I know that what I do makes a difference and has a ripple effect.

Lady, how much do you think I actually care for your views on me being obviously not on a diet?

I have had the luck of meeting everyday people with extraordinary stories – some were accidental encounters of two people who were engaged with the world around them, others were absolutely sought after by me. I also was able to meet and, in some cases, befriend, writers, poets, academics, community leaders, in museums, at university, at friends’ houses, on the street. These were people who took time out of their lives to show me other ways to live, other ways to think, who inspired me by their own willingness to risk the opprobrium of people such as yourself, by exposing themselves, their doubts and their quests, to the world.

I have crossed paths with academics who are world-wide authorities in their fields – most of them true humanists, completely unpretentious; generous with the information they had, absolutely aware that the only knowledge worth having is the one that you share. From meeting them I carry the responsibility of passing on not only their information, but their way of treating it, to others.

Lady, the people who truly enrich us are Linux, not Vista. Which one do you think you are?!

I have been flirted with, desired, loved, and made love to by men who were taken by who I am and, yes, very much so by my body – which at times was fat, at times was less fat, at times was hairy, at times not so much, whatever… and I can't even tell you what their feelings were about my hair, as we had more fun things to talk about. I have looked like a butch lesbian while in a relationship, and I have looked like prim lady while single. If it only were that simple.

And let me tell you about the women I admire – they are of varying ages, from many places, some are in relationships, some aren’t, some are incredibly stylish, some make me look like Coco Chanel in comparison, some have high power jobs, some just have jobs. Some of them don’t even get along with each other. In common they share a joy for life, creativity for what life throws at them, thirst for new experiences, a sense of loyalty and propriety towards, and unconditional love for, their friends. My friend Rina fought in one of the Israelo-Arab wars, married her American husband in non-orthodox ceremony, wearing her (gasp!) short, cropped, dark hair, and a magnificent strapless dress, with a fabulous cleavage. Later she went for a PhD just for the fun of it, and today she walks through Central Park to the Met Museum where she volunteers in her sneakers, comfy sweaters and slacks, and the most incredible large ladylike straw hat you can imagine – it even has a ribbon! Rina and the others inspire me in the way they live their lives everyday, not in the awesome way in which they coordinate a $500 belt and shoes.

Lady, do you realise how silly your views on blonde highlights on my hard earned grey strands of hair sound just about now?

Oh, make no mistake, I love clothes, shoes, and fashion magazines. And I most likely will dye my hair at some point in the future. But such a decision would most likely be taken on a whim, to see what it looks like. Certainly not to look less “old”, less “dreary”, and more “perky”. The time I spend on these issues accounts for little more than 2% of my time. And never, in a million years, would I even dream of, unprompted, informing others of the makeover plans I have for them.

And, what shocks me more, what a waste of time it is - why don't you tell me about a film, book, documentary, exhibition that has touched you, changed you? I am yet to have a good conversation about the Great Meaulnes, Lady Chatterley, or Glee!

So while I really want to ask is Who the fuck do you think you are? I will not. Having said “fuck”, and this being Portugal, my words would have meant that I was being rude, an occurrence which, by the laws of Portuguese stagnation, void any just claim I would have had.

So understand this, lady: There is nothing is your life that I envy. Nothing. Not your blonde hair. Not your gel nails. Not your perky (argh that word again) breasts. Not your shoes. Not your clothes. And certainly not your personality. Besides a taste for the same pastry store, we have nothing in common. None of your core values correspond to mine. For some hidden reason or insecurity, you have been rude, disrespectful, insensitive, and purposefully passive-aggressive towards me. And, in yet another demonstration of how truly different we are, you took my polite silence as agreement with the insanity sprouting from your mouth.

Unbelievable as it may seem to you, when I look in the mirror I generally am quite pleased with what I see. I am well-rounded in more ways than one. I am proud of what I have achieved, relieved that I rely on no man to pay my way, beyond grateful for my friends and mentors, and look forward excitedly to what's coming ahead. Not having highlights doesn’t even compute on my system (go figure!).

So lady, should you be willing to listen to one of the lessons I have learned from others at such a late stage in your life, here goes: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.

Tara Lynn na Elle francesa (Abril 2010) por David Oldham

PS. FYI, no one in Portugal does decent highlights – you really have to go to John Frieda in New York and ask for the Belgian colourist who works there (or worked in 2001). Just a little tip from me to you, orange face.

who would I grow? *

2009-10-14T23:57:00.003+02:00

* James Spader (in character, as E Edward Gray, Attorney at Law)

Sim, que eu também vou na procissão.

2009-10-07T01:01:00.002+02:00

2009-10-07T00:51:00.002+02:00

(...)
Já repararam nos efeitos tremendos que a música tem nos brônquios e nas laringes do nosso respeitável público? Vai-se ao teatro, ou ao cinema, e a saúde da população parece ser absolutamente normal, fora um ou outro catarro próprio da estação. Mas vai-se ao concerto, seja qual for a altura do ano, com chuva ou com sol, com frio ou com calor, e é uma desgraça: espirros, roncos, tosses de arrasar, narizes que se desentopem a tiro de canhão, é um tal cortejo de faringites, laringites, bronquites, sinusites, tuberculoses pulmonares, tosses convulsas, alergias ruidosas, que corta o coração! Sem falar nos casos de flatulência e de dispneia, que também abundam. Ora o que eu ainda não consegui determinar é se só vão ouvir música os doentes crónicos das vias respiratórias, ou se é a própria música que dá cabo da saúde aos frequentadores dos concertos. Aqui peço a ajuda de algum médico melómano para me tirar desta perplexidade. É que o problema é grave, não só porque diz respeito à saúde pública, como até porque tem sido motivo de espanto e de dó por parte dos artistas estrangeiros que nos visitam.

(...)

MARIA DA GRAÇA AMADO DA CUNHA
Desenho de JOÃO ABEL MANTA
da "GAZETA MUSICAL e de Todas as Artes" nº 112/113 de Julho/Agosto de 1960

Texto completo no blog da Associação Guilhermina Suggia: http://suggia.weblog.com.pt/

2009-10-03T01:22:00.000+02:00

2009-10-01T22:27:00.004+02:00

Portrait d'une négresse
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
1800, Musée du Louvre

Endechas a Bárbara escrava
Aquela cativa
Que me tem cativo,
Porque nela vivo
Já não quer que viva.
Eu nunca vi rosa
Em suaves molhos,
Que pera meus olhos
Fosse mais fermosa.

Nem no campo flores,
Nem no céu estrelas
Me parecem belas
Como os meus amores.
Rosto singular,
Olhos sossegados,
Pretos e cansados,
Mas não de matar.

U~a graça viva,
Que neles lhe mora,
Pera ser senhora
De quem é cativa.
Pretos os cabelos,
Onde o povo vão
Perde opinião
Que os louros são belos.

Pretidão de Amor,
Tão doce a figura,
Que a neve lhe jura
Que trocara a cor.
Leda mansidão,
Que o siso acompanha;
Bem parece estranha,
Mas bárbara não.

Presença serena
Que a tormenta amansa;
Nela, enfim, descansa
Toda a minha pena.
Esta é a cativa
Que me tem cativo;
E. pois nela vivo,
É força que viva.

- Luís de Camões

endecha : composiçã poética de tom melancólico e triste em versos de cinco ou seis sílabas agrupados em quadras segundo os esquemas rimáticos ABCB, ABAB ou ABBA

2009-09-29T19:34:00.004+02:00

Às vezes, passo horas inteiras
Olhos fitos nestas Traseiras,
Sonhando o tempo que lá vai;
E jornadeio em fantasia
Essas jornadas que eu fazia
Ao velho Douro, mais meu Pai.

Que pitoresca era a jornada!
Logo, ao subir da madrugada,
Prontos os dois para partir:
Adeus! adeus! é curta a ausência,
Adeus! rodava a diligência
Com campainhas a tinir!

(…)

Depois, cansados da viagem,
Repoisávamos na estalagem
(Que era em Casais, mesmo ao dobrar... )
Vinha a Sra Ana das Dores
"Que hão de querer os meus Senhores?
Há pão e carne para assar..."

Oh! ingênuas mesas, honradas!
Toalhas brancas, marmeladas,
Vinho virgem no copo a rir...
O cuco da sala, cantando. . .
(Mas o Cabanelas, entrando,
Vendo a hora: "É preciso partir").

(…)

Arouca, Setembro 2009

(...)

E a mala-posta ia indo, ia indo.
o luar, cada vez mais lindo,
Caía em lágrimas, — e, enfim,

Tão pontual, às onze e meia,

Entrava, soberba, na aldeia

Cheia de guizos, tlim, tlim, tlim!

Lá vejo ainda a nossa Casa

Toda de lume, cor de brasa,

Altiva, entre árvores, tão só!
Lá se abrem os portões gradeados,

Lá vêm com velas os criados,

Lá vem, sorrindo, a minha Avó.

(…)

Ó Portugal da minha infância,

Não sei que é, amo-te a distância,

Amo-te mais, quando estou só...

Qual de vós não teve na Vida
Uma jornada parecida,
Ou assim, como eu, uma Avó?

Viagens na minha terra

António Nobre, in Só

A une passante

2009-09-25T01:57:00.003+02:00

La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.

Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,

Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse

Soulevant, balançant le feston et l'ourlet;

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.

Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,

Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan,

La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

Un éclair... puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté

Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,

Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité?

Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!

Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,

Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!

— Charles Baudelaire

2009-09-24T00:27:00.003+02:00

Praia da Poça, Estoril - Inverno 2008

L'Homme et la mer

Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer!
La mer est ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme
Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame,
Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.

Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image;
Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton coeur
Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur
Au bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage.

Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets:
Homme, nul n'a sondé le fond de tes abîmes;
Ô mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets!

Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrables
Que vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remords,
Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort,
Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables!

— Charles Baudelaire

Depressão

2009-03-06T01:12:00.003+01:00

é o que me dá quando numa conferência sobre museus, uma piquena tenta explicar ao C.O.O. do MoMA - e a todos os participantes, que também tiveram que ouvir - que, se calhar, a razão pela qual a entrada do British Museum é universalmente gratuita é porque, e parafraseio a menina, como eles têm peças dos Egípcios e dos Gregos, porque é que os Egípcios e os Gregos deveriam pagar para ver o que é deles, I don't know, maybe.

Um argumento perfeitamente lógico, está bem de ver. Até porque se há coisa que o BM tem são hordas de egípcios e gregos, os "bons", que, pelo que a Dra. dá a entender foram preservados criogenicamente desde a Gréca e Egipto Antigos para se poderem apresentar enquanto legítmos herdeiros, a entrar pelo museu adentro a gritar Não Pa-ga-mos! Já visitantes Britânicos e de outros países europeus e americanos (os "maus" ), têm que deixar o seu rim direito e/ou primogénito na bilheteira para ver as raridades do dito Museu.

Conversa de café em conferências deixa-me muito constrangida. E bastante irritada.

mesmo a calhar vem este artigo no DN (http://dn.sapo.pt/2009/03/05/artes/cidadaos_querem_reaver_tesouro_vendi.html).

Interessante ver como o argumento de uma venda ocorrida em 1922 parece consensual, explicando a manutenção das peças em Madrid, enquanto o argumento de uma venda legal, ocorrida em 1801 entre o sultão Otomano e um lord inglês, vinte anos antes da guerra de independência grega, trinta anos antes da fundação da Grécia moderna, é tido como pouco ético e, para alguns mesmo, ilegal...

while you worry whether Rihan(n)a was the victim...

2009-02-10T01:02:00.002+01:00

... just get in your car and listen to this.

Alison Krauss, Robert Plant
Killing the Blues

zebda - tomber la chemise

2009-01-26T00:12:00.002+01:00

we're on the road to nowhere...

2009-01-17T01:25:00.003+01:00

o Estoril versão subúrbio

2009-01-17T01:09:00.000+01:00

Sometimes French comes in handy...

2009-01-14T00:39:00.002+01:00

... like when you are at the Louvre, in the Mesopotamian galleries walking down memory lane, remembering the dipshit archaologist who, before trading my heart for some Sumerian cylinder seals, set the bar so high that everyone else is just plain boring, and you come across this little one, living proof of Lavoisier's law (you know it, you know it, you KNOW you know it):

Le « juste souffrant ». Époque paléo-babylonienne, règne d'Ammiditana, 3e successeur de Hammurabi. Babylonie (Iraq)

« ... Que ton coeur ne soit plus mauvais...
Tu as goûté à la détresse retenue sur toi peu de temps,
Lorsque tu eus porté ce lourd fardeau, on t'a remis
en liberté... ta route est libre...
Désormais, n'oublie plus jamais ton dieu, ton créateur
Je suis ton dieu, ton créateur, ton secours...
Ne sois plus endurci... Donne à manger à qui a faim, à boire à qui a soif...
Que le mendiant gisant goûte à ta nourriture, la consomme et l'emporte...
La grande porte du bonheur t'es rouverte : rentres-y
librement, sois en paix. »

http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=24699

I'm sure that some archaologists will dispute this translation - too lyrical, perhaps, not Marxist, not enough info on crops and the like - but it is beautiful. (yeah, yeah, yeah I know that beauty is an irrelevant concept for arahcologists. whatever).

Boys DO cry. And when they do it well, they're men.

2008-11-06T02:49:00.002+01:00

The future belongs to crap dancers!

2008-11-04T00:36:00.001+01:00

Wanted

2008-10-20T03:21:00.008+02:00

Managing Director
for
Major International Organisation Respected by Most Nations

Qualifications:
High libido.
Inability to keep junk in own trunk.

No sense of propriety required.

Given their proven commitment to the cause, the following need not apply:

Envy is a mortal sin.

2008-10-20T02:49:00.003+02:00

This is my dream couple, with my dream blog, my dream creativity, my dream cakes.

(3 hail Marys coming... and some cupcakes too)

the best bond song...

2008-10-02T04:07:00.000+02:00

... for a so-so bond movie

the end of an era...

2008-09-28T01:02:00.001+02:00

ooops, can't find photo credits!

Blast from the past (II)

2008-09-13T21:56:00.001+02:00

Blast from the Past

2008-09-13T19:07:00.001+02:00

Things I have learned (III)

2008-09-09T22:07:00.001+02:00

Quando foges do piroso, o piroso encontra-te:

Things I have learned (II)

2008-08-03T04:00:00.000+02:00

A mohawk is a mohawk is a mohawk.

Dia do Pai atrasado...

2008-06-30T11:41:00.003+02:00

SUGESTÃO: para quem não gosta de música clássica, ouçam enquanto lêem. para os outros, não é preciso. se por acaso o Rui Vieira Nery estiver a ler este post, pelo amor de Deus vá-se embora.

Comecei por gostar deste morceau porque me lembrava a música do genérico da série do Sherlock Holmes. O Beaux Arts Trio era na altura o staple lá de casa - a culpa é do Barry Lyndon, filme de que só recordo uma cena numa banheira por causa da nudez - e que feliz estava o meu Pai por eu gostar de música clássica que não fosse vesões fílmicas da Traviata e da Carmen (quando se tem 9 anos nos primórdios do VHS, fazer o rewind da morte da Violetta vezes sem fim é hi-la-ri-an-te). Para não o desapontar, transformei o Trio nos meus melhores amigos imaginários. e já me via de vestido de mousseline branca de corte empire, grinalda de flores no cabelo, saltitando por prados verdejantes (têm que ser verdejantes, se forem alentejanos, fico menos virgem e mais criada)... com o Trio ao fundo a tocar Schubert.

Quando fiz 12 anos, as minhas prendas (presentes, menina!)foram, por ordem, o meu primeiro par de meias de vidro (para quem odeia collants, what a prize!), a minha primeira antiguidade (e, até hoje, única, porque com o divórcio os meus pais deixaram de se preocupar em tornar-me na teenager mais pretenciosa do hemisfério norte), e... um bilhete para um concerto do Brendel com o meu Pai (admito que adormeci, mas também estavam lá uns quantos velhotes que não conseguiram resistir. um até ressonou). Ah, a minha primeira antiguidade... um cofrezinho de pau-santo com embutidos de marfim, onde não consigo guardar rigorosamente nada. Que ficava lindamente no meu quarto em cima da cómoda D. João V, ao lado das camas D. José e D. Maria (qual é o mal do IKEA?! e, já agora, dos edredons?!).

Claro que na altura eu preferia ter recebido um par de jeans, um estojo de maquilhagem e um CD da Kim Wilde. Mas se assim tivesse sido, os meus Pais tinham tido um ataque de coração, os meus coleguinhas da Escola Europeia tinham perdido mais uma oportunidade de zombaria, e eu seria apenas mais uma Valley Girl Bruxelense.

Há uns meses fui ver o Beaux Arts Trio à Gulbenkian, parte da tournée de despedida. Fiquei toda comovida quando tocaram o (inspiração profunda) Trio nº2 em mi bemol Op.100 2º movimento - andante con molto (porque é que não dão nomes mais fáceis a estas músicas, como sei lá, Thriller ou Hound Dog ou Michelle, Ma Belle, assim uma coisa mais fácil para o ouvido). Lembrei-me de ouvir este CD de kilt escocês e meias até aos joelhos (eh toi! eh toi avec les chaussettes rouges! t'as pas vingt francs?) saltitando pela na sala, com o jardim em flor, uma explosão de Monets enquadrada pelas três portas duplas de vidro nas duas semanas que constituíam a Primavera-Verão daquela terra.

Aquele jardim, que ainda hoje floresce para deleite de mais uma família de expatriados, foi provavelmente o único projecto familiar dos meus pais que funcionou. Isso e um residual interesse das suas filhas pela música clássica. E pelas antiguidades. E, no meu caso, em vez das meias de vidro, das hold up opacas.

à Shakira

2008-06-28T05:26:00.003+02:00

... ou para que serve a paisagem!

Coldplay, Violet Hill

Depeche Mode, Enjoy the Silence

A-ha Hunting High and Low

Niagara, La fin des Etoiles

Preferia ter posto o video da menina a dar ao rabo entre os búfalos, mas como a cabrita não deixa usar os vídeos dela, fica aqui um de substituição. Shakira da treta.

time is a bitch

2008-06-24T03:30:00.002+02:00

Quando era pequena e via este vídeo ficava com saudades da adulta que eu seria. Agora tenho saudades da menina com saudades da adulta que eu seria.

summer in the city

2008-06-21T03:07:00.000+02:00

and here's to the california supreme court!

2008-06-18T03:05:00.001+02:00

noites quentes de lua cheia...lobisomens à solta...

2008-06-17T04:27:00.001+02:00

por do sol e caipirinha

2008-06-15T20:39:00.000+02:00

You'll want to read this - click on the image

2008-05-27T21:47:00.003+02:00

os pontos nos ii

2008-05-21T02:11:00.002+02:00

AMOR FEINHO

Eu quero amor feinho.
Amor feinho não olha um pro outro.
Uma vez encontrado, é igual fé,
não teologa mais.
Duro de forte, o amor feinho é magro, doido por sexo
e filhos tem os quantos haja.
Tudo que não fala, faz.
Planta beijo de três cores ao redor da casa
e saudade roxa e branca,
da comum e da dobrada.
Amor feinho é bom porque não fica velho.
Cuida do essencial; o que brilha nos olhos é o que é:
eu sou homem você é mulher.
Amor feinho não tem ilusão,
o que ele tem é esperança:
eu quero amor feinho.

Adélia Prado

Legenda
Patrick Zachmann
Paris. Rue Richer. Outubro 1981. A comunidade Judaica.
O Sr. Friedman, electricista e poeta Yiddish, com a sua mulher.
Copyright: Patrick Zachmann / Magnum

Decisões feministas

2008-04-17T14:24:00.004+02:00

Num dos primeiros posts deste blogue, perguntava-me se uma feminista deveria comprar O Meu Pipi. O livro, muito bem escrito, corria o risco de validar a visão grunhesca das mulheres e do seu papel em Portugal. Ora, uma feminista aque se preze não vai apoiar, nem que seja passivamente, o status quo.

Depois de ouvir várias "bocas" sobre isso do feminismo, e coiso de "deixa-te disso" e "não espanta que não arranjes namorado com essas manias", foi com algum alívio que descobri que há outras como eu.

No caso da Alice Wignall, a dúvida prende-se com "o Sexo e a Cidade" em filme, que sai em Maio. como é que uma feminista pode gostar da série, e do filme, quando aquelas mulheres passam a maior parte do tempo a falar de homens, usam as relações que têm (ou não) para se sentirem visíveis socialmente, e, horror do horror, a relação principal da série - Carrie e Mr. Big - é completamente disfuncional. Mr. Big é uma besta de todo o tamanho, e no final é ele quem vem salvar a heroina... pathetic.

antes - depois (dentro de 6 meses)

2008-04-09T04:04:00.003+02:00

trip down memory lane...

2008-04-09T02:17:00.000+02:00

... I once was her age...

show mee yopasodoble!

2008-04-04T02:05:00.000+02:00

Headline of the week

2008-04-03T11:12:00.002+02:00

(washington post, april 3, 2008, p. A8)

Brazil's Military Mobilizes Against Dengue

so what are they going to do? shoot the mosquitoes?

(in case you are interested, article can be found here - military action actually involves massive insecticide pulverisation and setting up emergency hospital tents)

mas o que é isto?!

2008-03-24T05:43:00.003+01:00

quem é o bil, o mica, e sobretudo quem são estas miúdas, algumas mulherzinhas, que não se respeitam ?! ó meninas, ide estudar!

(dormir à porta do Pavilhão Atlântico? nem para ver o Noddy!!!)

I'm the blonde... for real.

2008-03-20T03:12:00.001+01:00

(Stephen Colbert; Amy Sedaris; Paul Dinello)

On the anniversary of the Iraq war

2008-03-19T19:47:00.001+01:00

You may want to read this.

The Hangings of a Girl and a Dictator, and What Happened in Between

Pequeno desafio para sonhadores e aventureiros.

2008-03-19T00:51:00.000+01:00

Culpo Hemingway e o seu estilo. As suas frases limpas e curtas. Seis palavras compõem a sua obra-prima. For sale: baby shoes, never worn. (Vende-se: sapatos de bébé, sem uso).

Uma inspiração para a SMITH Magazine. A SMITH pediu autobiografias aos leitores. Em, claro, seis, sim seis, palavras. O resultado, um livro bem compacto. Not Quite What I Was Planning. (Não era bem o que esperava). Título de Susan Grimes, jovem cabeleireira.

Well, I thought it was funny. A vida de Stephen Colbert resumida.. Aimee Mann vê a vida diferentemente. Couldn’t cope so I wrote songs. Do Jon Stewart, nem pio.

E eu, o que consigo escrever? Como resumir a minha curta vida? Amor, carreira, sexo, ética, família, amigos. Sem ordem de importância, ou prioridade. Que critério prefiro, que impressão dar?

Vejam os resultados, optimistas ou não. Quem quiser que junte o seu. Nos comentários, está bem de ver.

Esperei. Boas coisas vieram. Sou feliz.

Gorda inteligente procura carpinteiro bem educado.

Testemunha de atentado terrorista contradiz anti-semitas.

Maior ambição: casar com Jon Stewart.

Jon Stewart casado! Mãe guarda facas.

Mão de Deus. Rodin define objectivo.

Privado ou público? Ambas perspectivas deprimentes.

Falha o Pai, apaixono-me por falhados.

Love is the key

2008-03-17T00:20:00.003+01:00

In my kitchen, held against the water boiler with a magnet, you can find an article I ripped off the Observer. This much I know belongs to the category of articles featuring advice on living by someone famous or half-famous.

I had originally read it in Paris, and left the magazine behind, writing off the article as part of those texts that strike me for a season (rather than for a reason or a lifetime). Some months later, I returned to Paris and was happy to find the magazine exactly where I’d left it (cleanliness isn’t my hosts’ strong point). This time I was determined to bring Rose’s views home... hopefully for a lifetime.

Lately, some close relatives and friends have been feeling depressed, wondering about the purpose of life, about death and the whole shebang. Well, Rose lived until she was 102, and she seems to never really having given up.

And without further ado, I give you Rose Hacker’s advice for the living, written by the oldest newspaper columnist in the world. (and yes people, I am aware of the irony of valuing the advice of someone who says that obesity is disgusting)

(For her obituary, read: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3470119.ece)

This much I know

Rose Hacker, newspaper columnist, 101, London

Interview by Stephen Emms
Sunday April 1, 2007
The Observer

Life might be about nothing, but it might be about something.

It takes me an hour to get ready every morning. My right eye socket oozes muck and has to be cleaned out, I've got false teeth, my gum is very sore and when I put my hearing aids in, they whistle and drive me mad. To cap it all I forget names, places and people I know well. But I'm so lucky - and I never forget that.

At my first supper dance, at the age of 18 and wearing my best dress, I speared the chicken and it went whoosh on to the floor. My suitor George crawled on the floor shouting 'chick, chick, chick, chicken!' and I wanted to die. That memory came back to me on the day of my husband's funeral when I saw that George was next in line to be cremated.

People today don't realise what poverty means. I became a socialist in the Twenties after seeing hunger marches on Oxford Street, thousands of starving people from Wales or the Midlands who were inches shorter than us in the south.

The most evil thing we have to fight is fundamentalism and nationalism combined. We have religious schools, which I think is monstrous. As long as we have them we'll never have peace.

When I first started marriage-guidance counselling after the war, I met wives who wouldn't have a bath in front of their husbands without their nightie on. The biggest issue I uncovered was unconsummated marriages.

All the misery in my life has revolved around looking after the sad ends of people who smoke. Everybody in my family, including my husband, has died in their seventies.

I have a tipple every day, whisky is my favourite, but I'll drink anything.

I was certain I would go quickly after my husband died. I was 76, and worn out. But I carried on dating until I was 90, and in my eighties fell in love with a gay man who I met on a Nile cruise.

When the sirens went off in the First World War, my parents made us sit under the kitchen table and drink cocoa. Twenty-five years later, I did the same with my own children.

Why can't we talk about old people having sex without sniggering?

People leak. Nobody mentions it. You go into an old people's home and it stinks of urine.

Obesity is disgusting. All you do is eat less.

Love feels like having hot treacle pouring down your back.

I'm an optimist. If I were a pessimist, I would have killed myself long ago. The best role model is my oldest friend Alice, who's 103. Not only is she a concentration-camp survivor, she also survived the death of her son at 64. In the camps, every time they came for the children she hid him, but she watched everybody else die: her husband, mother and sister.

Music often saves me: I can't read, I can't watch anything and I can't see, but I can listen to music. I'm in love with Radio 3, it's wonderful - but even they've gone jazzy now.

T'ai Chi is a marvellous way to control mind, body and breathing. It gives me energy.

My greatest fear is watching my children die. They're 73 and 70 - the thought is unbearable.

Being hugged is the fulfilment of the dream. My parents never touched us - we had a peck on the cheek at most. When my father died, however, he held out his arms from the bed and cried 'Rosie darling.' That was the only time he ever hugged me, and I remember thinking: 'I've been wanting this all my life.'

I welcome death, I've never been afraid of it. I just think it's the end, so what, it's inevitable.

People can live without sex, but they can't live without love. The more sex you have the more you want love. Love is the key - it's the only thing that matters.

haka barrosã /rural haka

2008-03-13T03:16:00.000+01:00

Blame it on the Rucgby World Cup.

Is it a bird? Is it a turd? It's Norman Mailer!

2008-03-07T04:32:00.000+01:00

I'd kill for one of them dresses!

2008-02-29T01:05:00.000+01:00

e pá, vou almoçar pá...

2008-02-22T17:35:00.003+01:00

Quando vejo este clip, nunca sei se hei-de rir ou chorar.
Este homem é extraordinário - sem spin, sem preocupações de imagem, chama as coisas pelos nomes ("olhe essa dos padeiros não me tinha lembrado...)

A impaciência dele com os jornalistas, os militares, o Costa Gomes, e, se calhar a fome, dá-lhe a clareza de retratar Portugal em 2'22".

C.U.Next.Tuesday /Casa Onde Negas Amor

2008-02-16T04:46:00.003+01:00

A boca de Jane Fonda foge-lhe para a verdade.
E a de Meredith Vieira para a hipocrisia.

australian apology to the stolen generation

2008-02-13T15:03:00.000+01:00

For St. Valentine's Day...

2008-02-08T23:52:00.000+01:00

... I want a date like this one

... or some tickets to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

bam

2008-01-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

ro rebajes, no rebajes...

2008-01-18T02:56:00.000+01:00

Together, as a team.

2008-01-11T01:48:00.000+01:00

A controversy over whether Sir Edmund or Mr. Norgay had been first to stand on the summit threatened briefly to mar the celebrations, but Colonel Hunt settled the issue by declaring: “They reached it together, as a team.”

http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

A propósito de barbudos

2008-01-06T01:51:00.000+01:00

Andy Samberg and Adam Levine Iran So Far
Colocado por dtrip01

Dizem que o amor só vem uma vez na vida
Somos de lados opostos do planeta mas o meu coração diz-me
que és tu o homem p'ra mim.

Mahmoud.

Lembro-me quando tudo começou
Tu a odiar os gays no telejornal
e eu a comer leite com cereal
e 'tava-ta sentir,
e embora não concorde com o que disseste
tu 'tás tão bem p'ra mim,
tão forte p'ra mim,
tu és tudo p'ra mim,
como um Jake Gyllenhaal bem peludo p'ra mim.

Mahmoud, faz o meu coração bater fora do peito
A cabeça diz não mas o corpo diz sim.
Ameaça nuclear? A única ameaça de jeito,
é a de ires p'ra casa hoje sem mim.
O nosso amor é uma atómica colisão
Não consigo dizer o que sinto, Adam vamos lá então

E o Irãããããõ, e o Irão aí tão longe
é o teu laaaaaaaaaar,
mas no meu coração vais ficar

Ele correu, concorreu para presidente do Irão
E nós corremos juntos para uma ilha tropical.
O meu homem, Mahmoud, é famoso p'la violência
Mas s'ele dá a outra face então também eu ,
Chamam-te doninha invisivel, e à tua pose insensivel,
Fazes tu de Judeu e eu faço de Jim Caviezel,
S&M, e quando estivermos enrolados
Podes ser o porto onde o meu porta-aviões atraca

Eu tiro o som à tv, mas tu ainda me vês
com os teus doces olhos escuros
as tuas pernas bronzeadas
e o teu rabo bem peludo... Yeah.

E o Irãããããõ, e o Irão aí tão longe
é o teu laaaaaaaaaar,
mas no meu coração tu vais ficar

Antes eu olhava p'ràs estrelas e sonhava
Que tu as vias do outro lado do mundo
E esse brilhozinho nos teus olhos
Mahmoud

Susssurra ao meu ouvido, com essa barba de esquilo
E as tuas calças bem subidas, mmmmm, que estilo.
'Bora lá ao Zoo ver os animais
Rir das coisas divertidas dos animais
Com'ó Gaspar*, 'mor contigo estou a tripar,
Olha bem para os meus olhos
E diz eu também tou a tripar.
dizes c'o Irão não tem a bomba, mas eles já a têm
E preciso que saibas que a bomba és tu.

És louco p'ra este mundo, Mahmoud.
Podes negar o Holocausto o que quiseres
Mas não podes negar o existe entre nós.
E sei que dizes que não há gays no Irão -
Mas estás em Nova Iorque, princesa!
Por isso pára de te esconder,
E começa a viver.

* Eugene (Levy) na letra original, que diz "you got me straight trippin, boo" no filme Bringing Down the House.

Tradução livre e "criativa" do original do Andy Samberg

Vivà greve!

2008-01-03T22:55:00.000+01:00

Talvez pelas suas raízes nórdicas-protestantes-puritanas, a sociedade Americana tem uma aversão cultural à barba. Da minha parca convivência com o macho americano, pude inferir que a barba tem conotações semelhantes à do bigode em terras lusas - as desenvolvidas, claro, porque nas outras, o Artur Jorge reina: um complemento capilar facial pouco higiénico, sub-desenvolvido, e, quiçà, algo comunista.

Foi com tristeza que vi um namorado desfazer-se de uma barba loura-arruivada porque ia defender a tese e era uma falta de respeito aparecer barbudo (oh homem aparece, olha que o teu supervisor é Inglês, já viste os dentes dele? Quem tem dentes assim não manda bitaites sobre as barbas dos outros...). Sem barba, a boca dele era fina, e a minha Mãe sempre me disse para não confiar nos homens de boca fina. Por isso, bye-bye teddy bear.

A barba que Al Gore abraçou depois de lhe roubarem a eleição ia-lhe dando cabo da credibilidade - que ele estava deprimido, que se estava a desleixar, que, coitado!, não sabia aceitar a derrota. Eu estava louca à procura do número de telefone do senhor para o convidar a jantar um ploughman’s pie num retiro de pescadores qualquer na costa do Maine. Infelizmente, as Gore-antennas ligaram-se ao ambiente e...zzzzzzzzz! lá se foi a barba, e regressou aquela mistura de homem-bébé (também ele de boca fina...). Bye-bye Gore.

E é por isso que estou extraordinariamente grata à Writer’s Guild of America (o Sindicato dos Argumentistas lá do burgo) pela greve que levam já há dois meses e qualquer coisa. Se, por um lado, já não tenho novos episódios do C.S.I. para descarregar da net, porque esses safados querem mais dinheiro para escrever o desenlace do romance entre a minha rica Sara Sidle e o meu adorado Gil Grissom (que, aproveito para dizer, é igualzinho ao tal americano, meu Deus, até fico zonza quando o vejo na télevisão), por outro, permitiram um longo e não previsto descanso a actores e apresentadores de talk-shows sem material para fazer rir o bom povo americano. (o quê? Achavas que era o Jay Leno que escrevia as graças dele, não? O homem só lá está porque tem aquela cara torta).

Ontem, e porque, ao fim de dois meses, a mulher do Jay Leno já não o devia poder ver à frente (ó homem larga-me, estás sempre atrás de mim, não me deixas respirar, cala-te, não tens graça nenhuma, que chato, V-A-I T-R-A-B-A-L-H-A-R), os talk-shows humorísticos recomeçaram, o do Jay Leno, por quem, já terão percebido, não nutro especial simpatia, sem os seus escritores.

E, minhas amigas, que beleza. Caras que nos habituaramos a ver lisinhas como a pele de um adolescentre prepúbere apareceram fartamente decoradas por barbas fofas em solidariedade com os tais dos argumentistas. Uns perfeitos teddy bears... e com graça.

Quase à altura do meu Grissom de estimação.

Suspiro.

happy new year II

2008-01-01T17:47:00.000+01:00

E para o ano novo, aqui vai um presentinho - ver por ordem!

2008-01-01T17:20:00.000+01:00

Vistes o acidente?

2007-11-06T15:57:00.000+01:00

no DN :

Acidente na A23
Pedido aos leitores
22:27
A todos os leitores que tenham assistido ao acidente na A23 e queiram enviar ao jornal as suas MMS ou SMS, podem fazê-lo através do número de serviço 961 333 666, a qualquer hora do dia ou da noite.

Gosto desta precisão "do dia ou da noite". Imagino o desespero na redacção quando perceberam que só iriam conseguir imagens do reboque do autocarro. Nem um sapato ensanguentado para animar a coisa. Um um braço entalado debaixo dos destroços para trazer a emoção do momento. Ou uma nossa senhora de Fátima que ficou para trás para ilustrar a dor da perda. Se houvesse criancinhas ainda pedíamos imagens de uma boneca ou um urso de peluche como nos filmes. Mas Castelo Branco é longe e os fotógrafos estão em Lisboa, já só vão chegar a tempo das fotografias do hospital e dos enterros. Graças a Deus temos os cidadãos-repórter, também conhecidos por empata-fodas-repórter.

Exercício #1

2007-10-23T21:19:00.001+02:00

(Caixa com monograma)

A caixa é de latão pintado, com partes de ferrugem na base. A tampa é azul clara e o resto azul-escuro. Na tampa lê-se um monograma, I.S., a branco. A caixa não é muito grande, chega para guardar um maço de cartas, se forem daqueles envelopes quase quadrados, que têm a pestana em triângulo, daqueles que já não se usam e custam mais 10c a mandar pelo correio porque são fora de formato, então a menina não sabe que só aceitamos 9 por 15?

Na caixa também cabem pequenos objectos – uma vela, um isqueiro, ou um maço de tabaco; ou um rosário, umas algemas e papel de carta. Não interessa, o que quer que fosse, já não está lá. A caixa está vazia. Mas ainda se distingue o cheiro a magnólia, de um perfume talvez, ou de uma barra de incenso?

(Imagem de Nossa Senhora)

A imagem tem o tamanho de um cromo do Dartacão. Quando a olhamos de frente vemos Nossa Senhora, naquela pose kitsch que todos conhecem, de olhos revirados e auréola na cabeça, faces rosadas e túnica cor-de-rosa, como as estatuetas de Fátima ou de N.S. da Guadalupe. Quando inclinamos a imagem, outra aparece. Vemos então uma loura platinada, deitada numa espécie de nuvem. Está nua a não ser pelas ligas brancas, os brancos sapatos de verniz e um véu seguro por uma grinalda de flores. Com uma maquilhagem grotesca, e uma boca obscena, é olhada no canto superior direito por um homem de tronco nú com umas asas de anjo a tocar uma harpa. freaky.

(Agenda de 1975 em excelente estado)

A agenda é pequena, do tamanho de um bloco de notas de bolso. Em papel reciclado, de má qualidade, a capa está forrada a papel de jornal. Na primeira página surge o ano, “1975” inscrito em letras angulares, negras e duras. Folheando-a, vemos desenhos quase infantis de corações trespassados com as iniciais I.S. ama J.K., de vestidos de noiva com muitos folhos, e recortes de anjinhos de uma caixa de chocolates barata. Tem apenas uma entrada, a 1 de Janeiro:

Querido diário, a partir de hoje tudo muda. Amanhã fujo com o Jan para Itália. Andamos de noite e dormimos de dia. Passar a fronteira pode ser difícil, mas o Jan diz que um amigo dele é guarda e que, se eu for simpática com ele, passamos os dois. Não quero nada ser simpática, mas pelo Jan faço tudo – eu gosto tanto dele… Assim que chgarmos a Itália casamo-nos, disse ele. Para celebrar a Liberdade.

Já tenho o bilhete de identidade, que comprámos a um cigano no mercado de Buda. Era muito caro, mas o Jan disse-me para ser simpática com o cigano e eu fui e os bilhetes de identidade ficaram mais baratos. O Jan diz que temos que saber fazer sacrifícios pelo nosso Amor e ele tem razão. O Jan é muito inteligente. O bilhete de identidade diz Repubblica Italiana. A minha fotografia não está lá muito bonita, não gosto nada deste louro platinado com que o Jan me mandou pintar o cabelo.

O mais difícil vai ser habituar-me ao meu novo nome, deixar de ser a húngara Ilona, e passar a ser uma italiana de apelido Ciccio e nome próprio Lina.

Hobbies de dondoca

2007-10-23T21:15:00.000+02:00

Agora que a exposição acabou e eu estou em plena depressão pós-parto, preciso de novos projectos. A coreografia do Running Up That Hill requer uma importante perda de peso, por isso já (re)(re)(re)comecei a dietazinha da praxe bem como os passeios no paredão em companhia das divorciadas, das mães recentes e sus niñitos, e dos Y.M.C.A’s em t-shirt justa manga cava, botas à cowboy e handlebar moustache absortos no seu cruising.

Além disso, estou a fazer um curso de dança do ventre (previsível, eu sei, mas as outras danças requerem um par masculino, coisa que eu não encontro e já estou farta de fazer de parceiro masculino com menopausadas com as hormonas aos pulos recém-chegadas de um encontro de sindicalistas, que me chegam à altura do decote) e outro de escrita criativa... que está a ser uma alegria. Ora vejam a história que se segue, em que o exercício consistia em descrever três objectos ligados por uma narrativa...

Quando acabar com a exposição...vou aprender esta coreografia.

2007-10-11T21:55:00.001+02:00

Debute...

2007-10-03T14:23:00.001+02:00

Aqui está. Agora é tarde demais para fugir para o estrangeiro e fingir que não tenho nada a ver com esta exposição, que inaugura no dia 19 de Outubro e abre ao público no dia 20.

No dia 21 faço a primeira visita guiada à exposição. Se sobreviver à inaguração...

Apareçam. Visitem. Coiso. E. Tal.

palhaço du jour

2007-09-25T04:21:00.000+02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4bhMnVlKx0&NR=1

untitled

2007-09-24T22:45:00.000+02:00

« Nous avons parlé de ce suicide à deux quand nous l’avons appris. (...) Je n’y pense pas et elle non plus. Dorine et moi vivons dans l’infini de l’instant en sachant qu’il est fini et c’est très bien ainsi. Pour nous, le présent suffit. »

http://multitudes.samizdat.net/Andre-Gorz-le-philosophe-et-sa.html

tábá brincare...

2007-09-07T13:23:00.000+02:00

Ui, ui. Afinal a West-Eastern Divan Orchestra é passé. O que está a dar é a Orquestra Juvenil Simon Bolívar, da Venezuela, liderada por Gustavo Dudamel, recentemente escolhido pela Orquestra Filarmónica de Los Angeles para substituir esse finlandês de nome impronunciável, Esa Pekke Salonen.

Os caracóis do Gustavo, aliados às cores extraordinárias dos fatos de treino usados pelos músicos, fizeram da sua actuação nos Proms do Royal Albert Hall, um momento "mágico e inesquecível", que eu muito gostaria de ver repetido cá no burgo. Quanto mais não seja para lhe arranjar uns fatos de treino menos shiny… e guardar um daqueles caracóis pour moi toute seule.

Ai, ai, ai minha machadinha

2007-09-07T13:20:00.000+02:00

Em 2002, uma amiga veio a Nova Iorque com o pai, que me convidou para ouvir o Woody Allen y sus muchachos. Foi uma noite fantástica, sobretudo pela companhia do pai da Alex, um Palestiniano cristão de oitenta e muitos anos, que chegara a trabalhar na Palestina para o Protectorado inglês, e que se mudara para Londres a seguir a 1948. Eu estava fascinada com ele, e com o que contava – para mim, era falar com a História.

Já final da noite, a conversa rumou para o orientalismo, e para Edward Saïd, pensador palestiniano, e génio tout-court. Depois de me deixar louvar Saïd de todas as formas e feitios, o Sr. B. revelou ser amigo dele, e propôs que o encontrasse. Eu, estúpida e insegura, disse que não, que tinha vergonha, que não havia nada que lhe pudesse dizer que ele não soubesse já. E assim recusei conhecer um dos grandes pensadores do séc. XX, que morreu no ano a seguir. Estúpida. Insegura.

Lembrei-me da minha cretinice há um mês e meio, quando soube do concerto na Gulbenkian da Weat-Eastern Divan Orchestra, fundada por Saïd e por Daniel Barenboim, uma experiência pedagógica que junta músicos árabes e israelitas na mesma orquestra. Num rasgo de optimismo, comprei dois bilhetes, convencida que, até lá, arranjaria companhia interessante, de preferência masculina e heterossexual. Como é óbvio, uma hora antes do concerto, estava ainda a tentar convencer amigos reticentes a descerem até à Gulbenkian. Nada feito.

No átrio, enquanto esperava que abrissem as portas, entretive-me a ver os músicos passar – e, meus amigos, não há dúvida que os semitas, israelitas ou não, são o povo eleito de Deus. Bonitos, morenos, ruivos ou esbranquiçados, cool quanto baste, com o ar de quem acabou de sair da tropa e está pronto a explorar o mundo. (Às vezes também passava um ou outro com ar de quem tinha acabado de sair da yeshiva ou da madrasa). Como de música clássica sei pouco, percebi que, pelo menos visualmente, o concerto já estava pago (e ainda não tinha visto a pièce de résistence, Barenboim, o próprio).

Pelas standing ovations, o concerto foi excelente. Não posso comentá-lo por aí além – de música clássica sei pouco, nem sequer para perceber que quando me falaram em Sinfonia Patética, se referiam à segunda parte do concerto, e não à segunda peça tocada, que essa era de Schoenberg. Ainda sinto as orelhas a arder da vergonha que passei. De qualquer modo, a Sinfonia Patética foi lindíssima e acho que vou comprar aqueles suplementos da Deutsche Grammophon que estão à venda nas papelarias.

No final do concerto, influenciada decerto pelo final triste da Sinfonia Patética (e, como descobri então, do próprio Tachikovsky, que se suicidou dias depois, porque, segundo o vizinho a quem vendera o bilhete, tinha dificuldade em aceitar a sua homossexualidade) senti-me melancólica. Olhava para aqueles miúdos, e pensava no esforço titânico de criar uma orquestra como esta. Para quê?, é uma gota no oceano, que impacto é que pode ter esta orquestra no que se passa hoje na Palestina e em Israel? Milésico. E enquanto eles agradeciam, o público aplaudia, e o maestro dava aos músicos os seus quinze minutos de merecida fama, perguntava-me se se preocupavam mesmo com os objectivos da orquestra, ou se pertencer à West-Eastern Divan Orchestra significava para eles pouco mais do que poder aprender com uma lenda viva como Berenboim. Mas, cismava , se tal acontecesse, seria assim tão grave? Porque exigiria eu aos miúdos aquilo a que a maioria do público que se encontrava na sala, incluindo eu, era incapaz de se entregar – a dedicação a uma causa maior com resultados mais que duvidosos sobre a procura do sucesso individual imediato.

Quando fui levantar o meu casaco ao vestiário, os miúdos vinham a sair. Contentes, felizes, amanhã iram para outra cidade tocar outra vez.

Say Cheese

2007-09-05T19:27:00.001+02:00

Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

USA. Nevada. Reno.
US actress Marilyn MONROE with Arthur MILLER showing her some dance steps for a scene she has to play. Miller was describing the way his father used to "Skip-to-my-lou", a rustic dance from middle America. 1960.

De todas as fotografias que Eve Arnold tirou a Marilyn esta é a minha preferida. Porque foge às convenções da Marilyn sex-bomb, ingénua, femme fatale, all-American girl, ditsy blonde, blonde bombshell, etc e tal...

Foge também às fotografias de uma Marilyn cerebral, absorvida pelo estudo dos seus guiões, preparando o seu personagem. Aqui, vêmo-la com o seu ainda marido, Arthur Miller, no set de The Misfits (Os Desajustados) o último filme de Marilyn.

Estranhamente para quem está habituado a imagens em que Marilyn aparece mais expansiva, é Miller que aqui ocupa o espaço, num pas-de-deux cómico e tenso, que não só ilustra a complexa relação entre o casal, como dá a entender os difíceis bastidores das filmagens, marcadas pelo alcoolismo de John Hudson, pela instabilidade de Marilyn e pelas constantes revisões do argumento por Miller.

Arthur Miller, num registo de comédia física que lhe é pouco conhecido, explica à mulher como deve dançar com Guido (Eli Wallach). E Marilyn obedece, concentrada num esforço físico que, pensamos nós, lhe seria natural. Este é o seu primeiro, e único, papel "sério", uma prenda do marido escrita em dias mais felizes. Qual é aqui a motivação de Marilyn? O reconhecimento dos seus pares e da indústria como actriz séria? Responder às expectativas de Miller, e ser a mulher que ele espera que seja? Arnold conta que, durante as filmagens, Marilyn era intratável com o marido e que este acabaria por sair do apartamento que partilhavam em Reno. Orfã, Marilyn conhece uma solidão que a maioria de nós pode apenas imaginar. Suponho que, com a sua personalidade carente e instável, era um peso para alguém como Miller, herói da esquerda Americana pela sua denúncia do McCarthismo, habituado a ser o centro das atenções e a não ter que resolver les petits problèmes de sa petite femme.

Sabemos que os dois estão no plateau, pelo holofote que os ilumina - mas Arnold escurece o fundo, isolando-os dos técnicos e actores que os rodeiam, sublinhando os universos cruzados de um casal que se pretendia mítico. O divórcio dá-se em 1961 - o que torna esta fotografia ainda mais comovente pelo desencontro que anuncia, não obstante os esforços de cada um.

Como observadora e romântica incurável, dou comigo a procurar os últimos raios de entendimento, e encontro Marilyn sozinha, ultrapassada, overwhelmed, e Miller ganhando oxigénio e espaço. Em 1962, Miller casa-se com Inge Morath, fotógrafa da Magnum que conhecera durante as filmagens. Inge Morath tinha o pedigree impecável de ser objectora de consciência alemã durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, e, com Eve Arnold, fora a primeira mulher admitida na Magnum. Teriam dois filhos: Rebecca, hoje casada com Daniel Day-Lewis, e Daniel, que cresceu num sanatório por ter nascido com síndrome de Down. O que diria Marilyn, se soubesse que o seu ex-marido impora ao filho a vida que ela teve em pequena, a solidão de não conhecer os pais?

Mas Marilyn não chegou a saber. Morreria em 1963.

you know you're a snob when

2007-09-05T18:56:00.000+02:00

at a clothes store in the Algarve:

- Let's go Mum. There's nothing here that fits me and most of this stuff looks like it's made for some tacky soccer player.
- Dearest, I have never heard of a non-tacky soccer player!
- Well, there was that guy, in the 80's...Norton de Matos... wasn't he one of us?

Proud mother beaming at me.

you know you're an old spinster when

2007-09-05T18:54:00.001+02:00

your best friend calls you on a Saturday:
- what are you doing tonight?
- baby sitting your kids, I suppose...
- can you be here at 7?
- as long as there is a new CSI Season on the DVD player, a pizza in the oven and plenty of M &M's in the sweets jar... oh,and make sure the kids are already asleep.

you know you're an adult when

2007-09-05T18:52:00.000+02:00

your great aunt's will executors return your letters to her back to you - and you find yourself wincing at that naïve teenager's assumptions.

When I grow up...

2007-08-24T13:52:00.000+02:00

... I want to write like this man:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_page

Tias de Portugal, cuidado com as burkas

2007-08-07T01:37:00.000+02:00

O Algarve foi conquistado há mais de 700 anos, mas se um dia Ben Laden mandasse usava-se em Albufeira, na Praia da Rocha ou na Ilha de Faro burka, o longo manto que cobre as mulheres afegãs. E em Vilamoura também.

Leonídio Paulo Ferreira no DN
(tive que voltar DUAS vezes ao DN para ver como raio se escreve este nome. Leonídio, que belo nome. Tão macho.)

Graças ao Verão e às férias/despedimento dos jornalistas mais sérios do DN aqui o nosso amigo Leonidio foi promovido do comentário desportivo à crónica de opinião. Vai daí escreveu um artigo sobre as ambições expansionistas de Bin Ladin e al Zawahiri no nosso querido Portugalzinho. Depois de quatro parágrafos sobre a Espanha, conclui com esta preciosidade literária.

Ora notem bem:

O Algarve foi conquistado há mais de 700 anos, mas se um dia Ben Laden mandasse
(mas porquê?! porquê Ben Laden?! mandasse?! mandasse como?! vinha para cá e dizia, Ora bem meus amigos, eu sou o Ben Laden e quam manda agora sou eu?! )

usava-se em Albufeira, na Praia da Rocha ou na Ilha de Faro burka, o longo manto que cobre as mulheres afegãs

(ó homem, nesta altura do campeonato só mesmo um comentador de desporto ou, vá lá, o vendedor de farturas do Intendente é que não sabem o que é uma burka! Aliás, se Ben Laden mandasse, posso garantir-lhe que a burka seria o mínimo das nossas preocupações).

E depois, o nosso Lioneldo termina com a frase lapidar, decerto pensada enquanto, sentado no trono, contemplava o sentido da vida, perdão, da burka:

E em Vilamoura também.

Meu Deus, que preciosidade. Que exemplo de contenção vocabular.
Reparem, ele poderia ter dito:
E em Tavira também.
Ou então
E no Sasha Beach também.
Ou ainda
E naquela-aldeia-de-onde -desapareceu-a-pequena-Maddie-ou-na-outra-de-onde-desapareceu-a-pequena-Joana-também.

Mas não.
Ele escolheu Vilamoura.
Será pelo trocadalho do carilho? (Vila-Moura, topas? Ah, pois é, isto é sempre a carburar...)
Ou pela crítica social? Estão lá eles com as gajas deles, descascadas e ao sol, enquanto o nosso Leãozinho pondera sobre o futuro da pátria? Vamos lá assustá-las, para essas mulheres verem o que é bom para a tosse.

E, agora pergunto eu, se fosse com outra ameaça, também funcionava?
Ora deixa cá ver...

O Algarve não tem um tsunami há mais de 250 anos, mas se um dia aparecesse um andávamos em Albufeira, na Praia da Rocha ou na Ilha de Faro de bóia , o pneumático dos que não sabem nadar. E em Lagos também.

Mmmmmmmm... estou cansada de pensar, vou cagar.

Yup. Aha. Pret-ty Much. Also, consider a Porsche.

2007-08-07T01:28:00.000+02:00

´"What do you expect them to do - fall on the ground and grovel?"
Alexander Downer, Australian Foreign Minister, rejecting requests that police and prosecutors apologise for detaining Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef on suspicion of his involvement in june's UK terror plots. allcharges were dropped on July 27.

(quoted in Time Magazine's Verbatim, Aug 13 2007, p.10)

why crystal meth is reaaaaaaally baaaaaaad for you.

2007-08-04T01:59:00.000+02:00

from www.imdb.com

Bobby Brown Believes He's Still a Target for Bin Laden

R&B star Bobby Brown is still convinced Osama Bin Laden wants him dead so he can marry Whitney Houston - 11 months after the singers officially separated. Brown's 14-year marriage to Houston came to an end when their divorce was finalised earlier this year, but the hitmaker remains adamant he is on the al Qaeda leader's hitlist. He even hired extra security to guard him on his recent tour of Australia. He tells the New York Daily News, "I figure if Bin Laden wants me, and everybody is looking for him, it probably won't happen. But if he wants to try and find me for something so stupid, he can do what he wants. I have to leave it in the hands of my higher power. Come on, if anybody (else was) threatened by Al Qaeda, they'd take it seriously."

What goes around...

2007-08-04T01:21:00.000+02:00

Recebi ontem um email a convocar-me para uma vigília em apoio a uma funcionária cuja comissão de serviço não foi renovada, promovida a mártir do Governo.

O remetente era o Gabinete de Comunicação (o depcom) da instituição que a dita dirigia.

Ah, meus amigos, que mulher é que precisa de um Sansão nos dias que correm?

Classificados

2007-07-19T00:40:00.000+02:00

Jovem de trinta anos, bonita e bem parecida, de Cascais, educação liberal-sindicalista, oferece-se para abrilhantar com a sua presença, devidamente vestida de calças de ganga à boca de sino, chancas de plataforma e top giro, festas, arraiais, foguetório, concertos do Toy, desde que devidamente enquadrados nos festejos de comemoração da vitória eleitoral do Presidente da Câmara de Cabeceiras de Basto, ou até do Alandroal.

Mandar email para palhaçosdealuguer@tristeza.pt

Três Idades da Mulher

2007-07-12T20:55:00.000+02:00

ACTO 1
Rapariga-mulher escreve uma carta.

(…)
A diferença é que hoje dou por mim a imaginar a tua reacção e este ou aquele dilema. Ainda estás aqui, comigo. Uma coisa acontece e eu quero contar-te, sempre. Estou a preparar a exposição e sei o que dirias se lesses o meu texto – não está suficientemente bom, se calhar pensavas, para eu não ficar triste. Escrevo o texto e penso na tua crítica, nos melhoramentos que me dirias. E sinto-me envergonhada por achar que sou capaz, quando olho para ti e vejo que tu sim és capaz. Continuas tão confiante e optimista como há seis anos, Doutor?

Nunca te disse, mas quando foste para a Síria eu ia passear-me para o departamento, para apanhar um pouco da tua essência, para te sentir ainda presente. Arrancaste-me o coração quando te foste embora, sentia que me faltava um braço, ainda me falta um braço, não recuperei o equilíbrio.

Querido, não sei como te pedir de outro modo, mas podemos tentar outra vez? Desta vez como deve ser, os dois no mesmo continente, no mesmo país, na mesma cidade, como as pessoas normais. In a relationship, timing is everything, dizias-me, e eu que sim, que sim, mas que nós superaríamos isso. Que estúpida... Deixa que eu crie o timing. Onde estiveres, eu sigo e todo o politicamente incorrecto que vem por acréscimo..

(...)

ACTO 2
Senhora de vestido às flores de linho, cabelo arranjado, salto alto, sem maquilhagem.
Fala sempre devagar e pausadamente.

Boa tarde.
Diga-me uma coisa, tem batidos?
E os batidos são feitos como?
Não, o que eu quero saber é se são feitos com leite, iogurte, gelado?
Ah... é que tenho medo que com leite seja um pouco... pesado.
Então sim. Um batido de iogurte com manga.
E tem brioche?
Então queria se faz favor um brioche com fiambre, sem manteiga, levemente aquecido. Obrigada.

Põe os óculos de sol e com as costas muito direitas, olha em frente.
Chega o batido e o brioche que ela come devagar e pausadamente, sempre.

Olhe, que bolos é que tem?
Não, bolos à fatia... sem chocolate por favor.
Pode ser um toucinho do céu. Mas sem chocolate por favor.

Espera sentada com as costas direitas, olha em frente.

Ah, obrigada. Não tem chocolate, pois não? O chocolate é pesado.

Come devagar e pausadamente.
Levanta-se e vai-se embora.

ACTO 3
Senhora mais velha, com voz de tabaco.
Aliás, vai já no seu terceiro ou quarto cigarro enquanto fala com a amiga.

Se Deus me der saúde não tocam em nada. Agora se eu perder o juízo elas são realmente minhas herdeiras. É realmente uma categoria à parte e vi que realmente... mas ela já é uma mulherzinha. Tem que haver ali uma história muito mal contada.

Mas um dia destes eu marco e vou lá fazer uma visita para lhe dizer,

Olhe, você era pequenina e os seus pais procederam assim, assim assim e assado. Sabe o que os seus pais lhe fizeram? E o que eu sofri? Se calhar até acha bem. Ela tem a história mal contada. Ela não conhece a minha versão. Agora crescida, ela deve fazer muitas perguntas à Mãe. Mas comigo... nem, nem, nem sabe, nem nada!

Que horas são? Marco um dia e vou lá ter uma conversa séria...

A sua Mãe até ficava parva. Porque sentimentalmente continuo muito ligada a si. Só Deus sabe o que eu passei, não foi com a minha filha foi consigo. Nunca me vou esquecer, nunca.

Ela não se levanta, não cozinha, não faz nada. O médico diz que organicamente não está há nada mal mas que ela fica assim... depressiva.

Tenha eu as razões que tenha, fique ciente disto, você sabe que eu já passei por essas fases milhentas vezes, milhentas, eu passei por isso, consegui superar, aprendi a viver sozinha. E você precisa de mim para aprender a viver sozinha, e você vai contar comigo... e isto sem rebaixe nenhum. O passado é o passado. Você precisa e eu estou cá.

É a vida. Quanto é que é? Olhe que são contas separadas...
Tenho é uma grande força de vontade e ultrapasso as minhas dificuldades. É diferente.

A CORTINA DESCE

C(rap I) S(hould) I(gnore)

2007-07-07T04:13:00.001+02:00

Friends,

At this particular moment of my life, I should have been deeply immersed in the intricacies of deconstructing the politics of museumising the Islamic Middle East, ascertaining whether the display of a monolithic Islamic unit within the museum space is the result of an established agenda of objectifying the other for a greater public perception of out collective self, or whether it is merely the byproduct of an outdated curatorial practise of endorsing the museum as a neutral ground where gazes, perceptions and preconceptions meet and clash in the object-mediated space.

(Phew)

Instead, let me tell you of a website I have just stumbled into when I mistakenly Googled “Do Grissom and Sara get it on?” when I had actually meant to research “Derridean constructs of appropriation”.

Anyway, I stumbled upon a very interesting and useful site aptly entitled grissomsararomance.com . This site, my friends, is everything a teenager trapped in a thirtysomething’s body such as myself dreams of ever finding. Having just discovered the wonders of CSI (at present, I am a Season Two graduate), I am mesmerised by the sexual tension, father-daughter, mentor-mentee thang going on between Grissom and Sara. I don’t think I have ever been so worked up about the sentimental well being of two fictional characters since V, when I laid awake for several nights in row wondering whether the lizard half-cast would actually leave the Cosmos asshole who took her away and return to the cool effeminate resistance fighter she’d left behind (i.e. Elizabeth ♥ Kyle).

Now, this website is fantastically organized. Leave it to an unpopular teenager to explore all the cutesy, corny shit that this oldie is too self-conscious to. Each episode has a sickly sweet classification system. A heart indicates GSR content, or Grissom Sara Romance content, with precious indications such as “Grissom calls Sara Dear”. You can actually download the specific scene and, instead of watching a whole show about grimy crimes and the scientists that solve them, you actually follow the development of a very weird love story, a Savannah for the geeks. I bawled when Grissom, asked whether he’d ever paid for sex, replies that sex without love makes one sad, and that Sara makes him happy. I bawled because I was supposed to be working on the Display of the Other for the Definition of the Self, instead of Two Geeks, One of Them a Geriatric, Hook Up.

The website’s designer also thoughtfully included the danger sign for some epiodes, as in careful! Grissom is away on sabbatical in this specific episode! Watch at your own risk!
(yes, ‘cos you may just catch a normal CSI episode… and who would want to see yet another murder?)

I can't wait for season 7 to begin. September 20th I'll be calling my friends in the US to follow the episode live - if Sara dies I'll cry. All that time wasted for nothing

Christ I need a boyfriend fast. Or soon I’ll be launching GrissomSaraHaveABaby.com

The Big 3-O

2007-06-08T12:21:00.000+02:00

I recently turned 30, an anniversary I had been dreading for the past months. Whichever way you put it, 30 is not the same as 29. At 30, you’re supposed to know what you want, and to be minimally competent at working for it. Your life is supposed to make sense. Your body is supposed to be nurtured, when nurtured means appetising for the opposite sex. Hell, you’re even supposed to be pre-, if not already, married, with your entire life (and your spouse’s and your kids’) mapped out before you.

A few days before I turned 30, my malaise was at its highest. I didn’t know what I wanted; I didn’t really know who I was. My job was tedious, and, though I had indeed learned a lot on behaviour among the grown-ups, I wasn’t quite happy with the person I was becoming, rude, impatient(er), mean. I was tired of being paid less for the same responsibilities as my (surprise, surprise) male co-worker, even though I knew my director, to whom I owed a lot, was powerless about it. Honestly, I felt an idiot, working for a company with whose core mission (sell! fuck the customer! reward incompetence!) I did not identify. Fakery had become such a daily practice that I had started believing it was an actual value.

So, on the day I turned 30, I decided that, even if I did not know what I wanted, I knew enough to quit my job. I had enough freelancing projects to keep me afloat until December and, by then, I hoped, other projects would fall on my lap.

On the day I left, I felt like a loser. My boss had told me that I had opted for the easy way out; I had chosen to run away, rather than “owning” and dominating the situation. I told him my fears of being nothing more than an eternal dilettante, jack of all trades, master of none. He replied that I was indeed a dilettante, since I chose so, as I could never truly commit to a project. He was interviewing a candidate, one of the 1000+ applicants, for my job when I left, so no sad goodbyes, just a peck on the cheek. I sobbed my heart out on the elevator and then walked free.

On the first day of my new daily routine I was in a haze – to avoid feeling like a loser (who in their right mind walks away from a permanent contract with good health insurance?), I had a to do list, which included shopping for groceries that fit my new diet. Driving home, lost in thoughts, I saw a leaf crawling in front of my car. I hit the breaks, and realized it was a turtle, crossing a busy street.

Behind me, a red car screeched, then honked. I waited and watched, marvelled at the turtle’s determination, at its unawareness of its larger environment and of how the mere fact of reaching the other street was already beating the odds. I debated whether to pick it up and take it with me. When the turtle hit safe ground, I drove on.

Had I stayed at work, the red car would have ran over the turtle.
Because I left my job, this turtle reached the other side,
Leaving was a good decision.

Had this happened two years ago, before I took my job at the “back-door multinational” I would have thought that I had saved its life, that the turtle would now live happily ever after.

Today, I know that, as I write this sentence, this animal is probably dead, crushed under some other driver’s wheels on its return journey, fallen into a hole, or, turned upon its back by a cruel, perhaps merely ignorant, child. So the two years at The Company were not misspent, I have in fact become more realistic – the world doesn’t depend on my wonderful self to keep on turning. A long time, a friend had told me that I was not God’s gift to mankind. Somehow I never truly believed him.

Call it mid-life crisis, but, thanks to this gal’s mid-life crisis, a turtle got a stay of execution.

A Colposcopy...

2007-05-24T20:59:00.000+02:00

... is God's way of telling you you're past your prime.

Maktub

2007-04-27T20:10:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday was a very emotional day.

In the full throes of my dedication and zeal to the Troll, who has now taken to treat me like one of the guys, never inhibiting himself from saying Fuck, Dick and other niceties of the kind in my ladylike presence, we actually agreed on a movie date. (Well, the date part is my invention, he wanted to see Letters of Iwo Jima and I wanted to tag along.)

We scheduled it for Thursday night and, that morning, in a fit of wishful thinking, I opted for wearing head-to-toe slimming black – a colour which also applied to my cast iron bra, an apparel I only take out on special occasions, as they make my breasts look pert and appetizing, at the obvious expense of much pain and restricted bloodflow.

By early evening I was freely engaging in non-stop daydreaming about the movie ceremonial – will he be pissed if I get Popcorn? Should I pay for his ticket as a thank-you? Lost in this delicious state of anticipation, I felt a vibration, and realized that it wasn’t just my heart thumping away at the possibility that the Troll and myself could actually share the same CO2, at the expense of sharing anything else. It was an incoming text message on my cell.

“Wanna go for a threesome? My friend’s finishing some stuff and she’ll text me the time and place once she’s done”

Damn.

Just when I had decided that I should live faithfully to my adoration for the Troll and his unawareness of my existence, one of my gentleman friends decides to remind me of all the goodies stashed away in my Pandora’s box. A box that I had chosen to keep closed, in an effort to show the Troll that I am a lady in the parlour.

Now, I face the possibly once-in–a-lifetime opportunity of engaging in mild sexual transgression, with no one being none the wiser. Yet if I do engage in a threesome without love, where will that leave my undying passion for the Troll. What would he think if he found out?

What a dilemma, choosing between one’s platonic love and one’s basic instincts.

Or maybe…

maybe I could do both!
Movie at 10pm, threesome at midnight… would that leave me enough hours of sleep? Let’s say it lasts until 3am (It can’t last longer than that, right?! I mean, we’re not animals!). Half an hour to go home, four hours of sleep, shower and I am back at work fresh as a lettuce…

“Well, let me know when she’s done and we’ll see…” I reply back.

Should I go home for a shower? No time.
Should I check with my best friend if this is legit? No way.
Should I dash to the cosmetics store across the street and put some perfume on? Absolutely.

“Hey, Troll, how about catching that movie at 8pm instead of 9?”

“Mmmm… I don’t know, I’m kind of tired. I don’t think I’ll go out.”

Ba-boom.

Dude I’m wearing my cast-iron bra!!! You can’t just BE tired…

“Yeah, the week has been pretty tiresome… Yeah, cool… it’s a good thing I didn’t have to cancel plans or anything…well, talk to you later”, I replied breezily (I’m wearing my cast-iron bra, you dick.)

I silently come to terms with my disappointment.

“So what do you say? Do you want to meet my friend Amanda or what?”, the SMS suitor goes on.

“Mmmm… I don’t know, I’m kind of tired. I don’t think I’ll go out. I guess it just wasn’t in the books.”

In the face of not being with the Troll a few hours more, exploring my sexual perversions with aa complete stranger came in a poor second.

Actually, make that a poor third.

The 3 bowls of chocolate cereal, 2 scoops of chocolate ice-cream, and 1 dark chocolate bar I had for dinner was a poor second.

The Big Blueshit

2007-03-24T20:47:00.000+01:00

It is of this writer's opinion that Jean Marc Barr is God's gift to women.

I was first made aware of his existence while at university, when I watched The Big Blue for the first time, discovering over a bowl of apple and rhubarb crumble made by a flatmate whose sense of humour I try hard to emulate in this blog, that there is such a thing as hot bald man.

Even today, while acknowledging the evident machismo of Besson's endeavour, and wearing my boredom at dolphins, Italian mammas and the like as a badge of honour, my delight in Jean Marc Barr's features and musculature leads me to prolonged daydreaming, involving heavy fanning and opaque staring at the computer screen during work hours.
(you can sense the effect on my prose as it suddenly turns sickly rich in adjectives, elaborate yet clumsy. the way I feel in front of a beautiful unattainable manchild.)

So it will come as no surprise that when I met a Barr look-alike, I was immediately silenced into awe.

I didn't make the obvious connection until quite later, when his lost expression and offbeat laughter brought into my mind Barr as Jacques Meyol, driver extraordinaire, friend to dolphins. This Portuguese Mayol was bald , and his body a temple.

We started out as African social dance partners, and the chemistry between us us unbelievable. I couldn't wait to kiss him, he seemed to be in possession of some Zen secrets and I really wanted his calm to rub out on me. It finally happened one night, after another evening dancing... and it was all that I expected from a nouveau hippie, a man who was confident enough to ditch a pure Mathematics degree to become a tennis instructor.

That first week, we'd meet every day, talk about philosophy into the wee hours, about stuff that we wanted to make sense of. We'd smoke narguileh under the stars, after dinners that we'd cooked together, with Jack Johnson and other laid-back dudes playing in the background. We'd sleep in his futon, with the window open so the summer wind could come into the room. He had this dog whom he'd found half-dead on a roadside, hit by a car. He'd taken her to the vet and kept her, which vouched for his incredible heart.

Wow, I thought, this is it. I have met my soulmate, the man who will bring me peace and security, and we'll be happy ever after. Who would have said?

In all truth, I was a little bit uneasy at certain of his personal habits - the dog sleeping in the bedroom, him wondering aloud about my intelligence Did you just come up with that? Wow..., about certain table manners that seemed to be lacking. But I brushed aside all concerns when comparing them to his Zen-ness with life.

But this was the first week.

By the second week I had seen the light.

My very own Jean Marc Barr was either aloof or perpetually stoned. As it turned out, his persistent smile was not due to an upper state of Nirvana, but the extraordinary quality of his home grown ganja. His new age attitude to life was in fact pure laziness disguised as philosophy.

Nights smoking narguileh soon turned to nights watching CSI. Each day I slept at his place, my place not being Zen enough for his holiness, what with the normal bed and the wooden shutters and all, I'd wake up with back aches and a stiff neck thanks to his prime quality futon.

And have I mentioned the dog? The dog farted.
The dog farted in the bedroom.
It farted while we slept.
It farted, and watched, while we had sex.
It farted while he watched television right after he'd had sex (looking back, I don't think I actually had sex with him).

And one, night, I woke up at 3a.m. with the dog farting, the TV on, and Mel C. bellowing on the radio. My back ached, the guy snored, I grabbed my shit and ran out the door. Before he took me with him and we ended up being two bums marvelling at the beauty of dogs with fleas or something.

There is a price to pay for beauty and I am certainly expensive.

Éloge de la Laideur

2007-02-24T23:08:00.000+01:00

I know, I know, I have been taking far too long in writing another post.
But there is an explanation:
I have fallen in love.
I think.

When I first met this fella I thought nothing of him but the worst – lazy, unreliable, misogynist, unbelievably proud, overall prick.

And ugly.

And when I say ugly, I don’t just mean unattractive-ish-y.

I mean Troll ugly.

One day, though, my eyes fell upon his hands.
His beautiful, careful, kind, delicate hands.
Even when he is holding a cigarette they’re beautiful.
With their knuckles slightly red and wrinkly.

And I keep telling to myself
Ugly sex can be hot
Ugly sex can be hot
Ugly sex can be hot

The thing is, he's not exactly available.
Which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
But those hands, those hands...

My Own Private Nightmare

2007-01-06T01:58:00.000+01:00

God, please let this never, never, ever, ever, ever happen to me.

EVER.

Thankyouverymuch.

Um mundo de desentendimentos

2006-12-06T02:03:00.000+01:00

Acabo de chegar do lançamento de um livro que me deixou completamente abananada. É que por momentos, achei que tinha encontrado o homem da minha vida:

Quando cheguei ao CNC vinha 1) atrasada; 2) encharcada pela chuva 3) irritada porque trazia a roupa de "pesquisa de arquivo" (calças largas, camisa larga e sapatilhas, o que para um tamanho 42 - ok, 44 - não transmite propriamente uma imagem de femininidade). Entrei durante um discurso numa sala cheia e encostei-me ao muro do fundo.

Enquanto a discursante citava um filósofo, um escritor amigo e, surprise, surprise, Borges (que tem citações para todas as ocasiões), fixei-me num moreno encostado a outra parede da sala.

É giro o rapaz...

Quaisquer pensamentos libidinosos que pudesse ter deram lugar ao orgulho familiar quando se iniciou a leitura dos contos por amigos e familiares da autora, que incluíam a minha Tia (razão principal da minha ida ao CNC num dia em que nem tinha trazido o carro para Lisboa!). Como sempre, a minha Tia foi a melhor deles todos...

... incluindo o mancebo que entretanto se instalara na mesa dos oradores e se preparava para os seus 15 minutos de fama. Ajusta o microfone à altura dele (ah macho!), inicia a leitura, e dou por mim com o coração a bater desenfreadamente, a barriga a comprimir-se num nervoso inexplicável, a boca seca e uma vontade estúpida de sorrir.

O que é que se passa? Estarei doente? Comi alguma coisa estragada? Não pode ser, isto deu-me assim de repente, quando este miúdo se pôs a fal... Ai, valha-me Deus, era o que mais faltava! Não pode ser...

No minuto seguinte, tendo aceite a verdade incontornavel de que fomos feitos um para o outro, deixo-me assolar por inseguranças e questiúnculas - será que estou com bom aspecto, será que ele reparou em mim, será que esta magricela ao meu lado a sorrir-lhe é a namorada dele? (era a prima) - e pela mais importante de todas as questões - porque é que eu não fiz a merda da depilação ontem à noite e tinha trazido um vestido?!

Venho a perceber que o mancebo é filho da autora e entro em colapso. Valha-me Deus, eu conheço-o, ou melhor, conheci-o em pequenina, quando os nossos pais se davam todos bem, antes do segundo divórcio dos meus pais e da saída de Portugal. Ele não se lembra de mim de certeza, mas lembro-me eu dele - pelo menos, dum puto charila que era ele. Há uns anos, soube que uma miúda lhe tinha feito uma judiaria indecente, e, na altura, mantive durante breves segundos a fantasia romântica de lhe mostrar que as mulheres não são umas loucas, e até (gulp) de que, comigo, aprenderia a amar de novo. (E tudo isto sem nunca ter lido uma novela do Nicholas Sparks.)

Recomposta da surpresa, ponho-me a pensar se não terá sido o destino que nos juntou numa tarde chuvosa de Outono, numa sala a abarrotar de notáveis, onde até dei de caras com a minha primeira madrasta - um encontro que procurava adiar desde o meu regresso a Portugal, três anos não é nada mau - que cumprimentei com o beijo da praxe (sorry, Cidália). Peço desde já perdão a Deus, mas eu sou uma fraca e não ia fazer uma cena no CNC.

Acho que chegámos a cruzar olhares - eu e ele, não eu e a 'drasta, que não estava lá muito inclinada a olhar-me nos olhos, a consciência é uma coisa chata - ou então ele é estrábico e estava a olhar para a prima à minha esquerda, ou para a amiga da Mãe, que, por acaso, é irmã da 'drasta-primeira, à minha direita (Cruzes!, Lisboa é pequena demais para mim e para os meus demónios).

Mas, se chegámos a cruzar olhares o dele dizia aflição - o que é que aquela miúda com cara de bébé me quer? será que tenho um macaco no nariz? será que estou com a braguilha desapertada? será que ela é daquelas estagiárias da Biblioteca Nacional que me trazem os livros e está à espera que eu a reconheça?

Não chegámos à fala. O que é que eu lhe ia dizer? - Quando éramos pequenos jogámos às cadeiras musicais e tu eras um mau perdedor... Ainda para mais, obriguei-me a relembrar que ele já contava com uma piquena de pedigree irrepreensível para lhe mostrar que as mulheres não são todas loucas.

Ach, o que me vale é que os pregos do CNC vêm com dois tipos de mostarda... e que o livro da Mãe dele se lê lindamente entre o Cais do Sodré e o Estoril.

Cidália/Floribella

2006-11-15T23:01:00.000+01:00

Realmente não sei [porque é que nunca abracei o meu irmão e abracei pouco a minha mãe], mas pelo menos não nos poupamos às palavras, quaisquer que elas sejam. Quando vejo no restaurante esses pais de Salvadores e Martins a tratarem os filhos por você, enquanto os ignoram ostensivamente para continuar a falar da casa nova ou da “criada” (palavra que abomino), fico doente. E mais doente fico quando percebo que a miudagem, na sua arroganciazinha já premeditada, se trata entre si na terceira pessoa. Ou seja, a Constança, que tem três anos, trata o irmão Salvador, de seis por você. De resto, nem beijinhos, nem abraços; nem carinhos nem sinal de ternura. Nada. Até porque, por esta altura, já devem saber que só podem dar um beijinho.

In O País dos Afectos, Sexo e a Cidália, Notícias Sábado, p.82, 4 de Novembro de 2006

Cara Cidália,

Foi com algum espanto, que li este parágrafo na sua última crónica. Percebo que esteja em tempos de vacas magras, que já não haja homem, mulher ou cão a desvirginar em Nova Oeiras e redondezas, e que, portanto recorra a temas extracurriculares para as suas crónicas, como o é o desta semana.

O seu texto é um apanhado de impressões e de citações de terceiros sobre a falta de afectos dos portugueses, de que sobra este original parágrafo – que ouvi há tempos em versão abreviada numa música da Floribella (pobres dos ricos que tanto têm ... sobra arrogância, sobra ganância... lá-lá-lá).

Achei estranho que a Cidália, pregadora da tolerância na líbido, da compreensão entre géneros, de liberdade sexual e responsabilidade sentimental, não estendesse estes valores para fora da cama preferindo empenhar-se num retrato estereotipado de pessoas que, pelos vistos, vê uma vez na vida, em restaurantes. O que não a impede de lhes atribuir de imediato uma panóplia de características do que é, para si, O Outro, que para si tem a forma de um casal-monstro com uma casa noa, uma criada, e dois filhos, a Constança e o Salvador que se tratam por você e se dão um beijinho.

Quando andava na escola, mini-Cidálias e proto-Cidálios tinham como hobby perguntarem-me porque me dirigia à minha Mãe na terceira pessoa e, horror dos horrores, porque me tratava a minha Mãe por “a menina”. Ao que respondia com um encolher de ombros “olha, calhou”. Que é o que qualquer Constança ou Martim lhe responderia do alto da sua arroganciazinha já premeditada (!), caso a Cidália se lembrasse de perguntar.

Seguia-se uma diatribe, semelhante à da Cidália, sobre o relacionamento frio e distante a que utilizar a terceira pessoa obriga, acabando som o sempriterno Eu cá não era capaz, uma versão menos histérica do que o seu fico doente.

O interessante era ver o pânico de algumas dessas coleguinhas quando as Mães lhes vasculhavam as gavetas e lhes descobriam a pílula. Era um amor lindo de se ver. Ou quando um colega meu aparecia com as marcas do cinto – tantas quantas os erros ortográficos no ditado – que o Pai, numa arrojada expressão de afecto, lhe aplicara. Mas, admito, tratavam-se por tu e davam dois beijinhos. Aquilo é que era expressão de afectos.

E penso na minha Mãe que, entre scones e chá no Estoril, me proibiu de aludir ao sexo com expressões como “coiso”, tinha eu 15 anos:
- Eu não quero ouvir a menina a falar de sexo dessa maneira. O sexo não é uma coisa feia! Sexo é bom, percebeu?
- Ó Mãe fale mais baixinho...

A minha Mãe, enquanto me ensinava a comer à mesa como deve ser, mostrava-me o que é ser mulher livre. Livre das expectativas dos outros.
Sempre com um beijinho, não dois.
(Princípio que tenciono ensinar aos meus filhos, quanto mais não seja para desde cedo saberem lidar com as diferenças – as suas e as dos outros).

Quem me dera, cara Cidália, que fosse tão fácil assim reconhecer crianças sem afecto e famílias desestruturadas.

Chamas-te Mafalda? Só dás um beijinho e tens criada? Coitada que não sabes o que é o amor porque o teu pai está preocupado com a casa nova.
Chamas-te Floribella? Dás dois beijinhos e és a criada do pai da Mafalda? Tens tanta sorte, porque os teus pais gostam muito de ti...

Honestamente, Cidália, o que é que a Cidália tem a ver com os beijinhos, tópicos de conversa, relações fraternais, da família sentada ao seu lado num restaurante?
Ou o contrário, o que é uqe qualquer "Tia" tem a ver com os beijinhos, tópicos de conversa, relações fraternais, da família sentada ao seu lado num restaurante?

O que é que isso lhe interessa?!

Como é possível que a Cidália prefira juntar-se àqueles que escondem a frustração de classe média por trás de uma barricada de estereótipos e lugares comuns – quando, no seu melhor, habituou os seus leitores ao mundo de uma mulher crescida, livre e verdadeira?

Love God, and do as you please.

Pub night

2006-10-27T19:04:00.000+02:00

What is it about Australian, and, at a lesser degree, South African, men and their accents? They start talking and I find myself wishing I were a word so they could roll me in their tongue and pour me out of their mouth.

These were thoughts I entertained when I ordered a Manhattan to the inexperienced bartender at Cascais's very own Irish Pub, called, surprise, surprise, O'Neills. Obviously, this kid was so healthy, and, most likely, so innocent (yummy!) that I actually had to teach him how to make a Manhattan - amateur style.

Do you have bourbon? Do you have Vemouth? No Vermouth? Well, do you have Martini? Dry Martini? Well, that's Vermouth... Ok, here's what you do. You get 1 shot each of each and stir them together. Ideally he could give me the maraschino cherry from his lips, but that's wishful thinking, I mean, it was an Irish Pub, I couldn't expect them to know their maraschino from their cherry.

Ever the grown-up, I started working on my CV as their Thursday night act got under way, the omnipresent Irish folk singer, even in a beachtown where girls prance about in biquini tops from May to September, reminiscing about the green fields of Ireland, the lovely girls from Ireland, and, Ireland's pastime, being a bum - drunk today and seldom somber la-la-la.

Since I was the only one there who didn't know the Singer personally - it was a slow night - he asked me what I wanted to hear. I was feeling bold, so, in my best cowgirl attitude I asked if he knew Allison Krauss. Ach, I wish I knew her, was his quick retort. Not to be left behind I counteracted with I wish I knew her guitar player (Damn! I should have said her slide player, which would have been really smooth!).

He went for Here Comes The Sun.

By the end of the first act I was done with my CV, though not with my drink. The Singer headed for the bar, and the Aussie kid and his bartender friend debated which CD should be played.

They hesitated between Metallica and some "depressing shit". In the end, the depressing shit won out - Hello darkness, my old friend - or were this not an Irish pub. A good choice, actually, since I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep myself from jumping the bar counter and snogging Aussie to exhaustion, in manner of Billy Idol's schoolgirl in Cradle of Love video, at the first sounds of Enter Sandman.

I hopped to the bathroom - Home, where my thought's escaping, home - and, by the time I returned, a girl wearing t-shirt with STAFF emblazoned on the back sat by the bar. I didn't pay much attention as I was lost in a world of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyyyyyyyme.

Aussie was paying he attention, though. Him and is buddy took turns flirting with the girl, Aussie even dared to try his French. I gripped my chair right there and then so as not to drag him out of the bar into a dark alley and teach him a couple of things about bad Portuguese girls. Depressing song written when Carrie Fisher was stuck in Tunisia filming Star Wars played, reminding me of lying in bed with boyfriend, back in those sweet university days, wondering if it was love. Christ! Where is that goddamn Singer?! And the Sky is a Hazy Shade of Winter! Hang on to your hopes my friend.

Since I couldn't have the Aussie kid, I consoled myself with Ami, 19, from Birmigham, featured topless in The Sun's page 3 - it's just a secret, just a Robinson's affair.

I gave in and ordered a double Manhattan (double everything - are you sure you don't have any maraschino cherries?) at the sound of El Condor Pasa. It was either that or puking.

My martyrdom was granted a reprieve when the second act, finally, got under way. This time, the Singer wallowed about a guy named Jessie whose girlfriend ended up a farmer's wife while Jessie stormed off to California. I imagined myself as Lady Chatterley to my Aussie's farm boy with my guy far away in Los Angeles. The troubadour tried to squeeze in a Brazilian song - Às vezes no silêncio da noite - when all I wanted to hear was As Certezas do Meu Mais Brilhante Amor.

Before I noticed, his second act was done, my glass was empty, and Marillion was playing on the CD system. Or maybe it was the Steve Miller Band (I wanna reach out and grab ya!). Aussie sat with some of the patrons with a Guiness. Too coward to reach out and grab him, I stood up, ready to go home for a little me-on-me action - Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day / And I'm trying to get some rest / That's all I'm trying, to get some rest.

(alternative ending: as I step into the wind and rain outside, he follows me and we walk together. Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together...)

What a whole lotta love...

2006-10-10T19:04:00.000+02:00

I have always had a weakness for bass players.

O que esta mulher quer.

2006-10-04T20:46:00.000+02:00

- ... É, as mulheres gostam mais de preservativos texturizados, estimula melhor – diz ele.
- Ah, sim? Nunca notei nenhuma diferença, nem com texturas, nem com sabores, nem nada... sabes, comigo acontece quase tudo na cabeça – respondo, lembrando-me de certo poema, do seu fantástico autor, e da tusa tenho quando o leio (das outras vezes, não percebo nada e sinto-me burra).

E para as outras mujeres para quem é preciso um pouco mais do que textura, aqui vai.

Ter pernas é muito bom
pode-se ir até aos campos
e trazer as costas carregadas de batatas e cebolas dos outros.
Ter pernas é muito bom
e ir ao lado da namorada
para um saco de pipocas,
escuro no cinema e depois casar
para fazer mais pernas.
Ter pernas é muito bom
e correr sem precisar de falar.
Ter pernas é muito bom
ainda que só as uses para escrever
e nem sequer saibas.
Ter pernas é muito bom
para pôr uma boca entre elas.
Ter pernas é muito bom
sair para ir às compras
e trazer comida às forças para andar.
Ter pernas é tão bom
que a inveja inventou a guerra
só para as cortar.
Ter pernas é muito bom.

Paulo José Miranda

Gendered and confused

2006-09-14T21:57:00.000+02:00

Within the last weeks I have shagged two men.

I left the first one enjoying his post-coital cigarette when I bolted, anxious to sleep in my own bed, my head resting on my own pillow, and haven't talked to him since.

I did spend the night at the second guy’s house, having passed out. The next morning, I got ready to leave, but somehow ended up curled with him for a cheesy Christmas tearjerker – at his insistence. I spent the most of the movie cracking jokes, his head resting on my arm, him hiding his tears at the little boy’s predicament, as I awkwardly consoled him. I was itching to go, remembering Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, how long do I have to stay here hold him until I can go? I want to go to the beach!

Mmmmmm
going out on multiple dates…
saying “I shagged” rather than “I made love” or, even better, “was made love to”…
uncomfortable with pillow talk and cuddles…
impatient with soppy Christmas movies…
raring to go do something else…

It couldn’t possibly!
Could I be on the way to becoming… a man?!

My fears seemed to be confirmed when I watched the Lake House with my mother.

As Mum sniffled her way through the interminable first part, I tried hard not to sigh too much, as well as not to fart, having eaten a large bowl of popcorn. As Sandra and Keanu (is it me or is he the most inept actor of the Nirvana generation?!) happily kissed at the end of the movie and my Mum bawled, my dry and rolling eyes brought it home that testosterone seemed to be my major hormone. Earlier, on my way to the bathroom, I’d distinctly felt two lumps on either side of my pelvis.

Great, I’m a guy with two balls and no dick.

Confident in my newfound manhood, I took to fix my bedside lamp’s faulty lightswitch with my Swiss army knife. After some fiddling about, I beamed and basked in its glow.

I wiped a couple of tears, realising that I’d singlehandedly fixed the soft pink lamp with a cast iron pedestal I’d painted white after buying it at the flea market, bargaining its price to a whopping €4.

Doing the you go girl! dance in my kitchen, I' d pat myself on the back, You are so cool. Look at yourself, fixin' that lamp with no help from a guy... And without ruining your manicure either!

I found myself longing for a guy to whom I could gloat. And then the God-damn water dam broke and I bawled for a good 15 minutes feeling sorry and compassionate for myself (I learned that from George Bush).

That evening, putting on my face serum, face cream, eye cream, and getting dressed for sleep in my embroided Victorian nightie, I asked myself why the Crying Guy hadn’t called me back. In bed, I drew the mosquito netting around my bed and aware of my fabulous lamp through the fabric.

I hope he calls.

It then dawned on me that spontaneous combustion into tears, having more than one face cream, longing for an emotionally disconnected guy, and a tacky bedroom were the undeniable proof of my being a girl. A grrrrrrrrrrrrrl perhaps, but still oozing with enough bipolarism to keep me in the female camp.

A girl then.

If Crying Guy doesn’t call, well then, I’ll ask the fabulous metrosexual all clad in piercings n’ tattoos dubbing as my deli’s manager out on a date. That’s not only girly, it’s grrrrrly.

Oh, and those lumps on my pelvis?
Ingrown hairs resulting from excessive bikini waxing.

Ahm... there's a gremlin under my bed

2006-09-11T12:04:00.000+02:00

"I think anybody who is in New York, or who lost somebody or who paid witness that day, has a bunch of little gremlins under their bed, and every once in a while those gremlins leap out and they taunt you and they bite you and they want to play with you.

"So you play with them and then you put them back under your bed and maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's five days, maybe it's five months till they come back out and play, but you've got to confront your gremlins and then say 'You know what, folks, it's time to move on, I'll see you in six months'."

David Handschuh

Cinco anos

2006-09-10T16:05:00.000+02:00

Amanhã completam-se cinco anos desde os ataques de 11 de Setembro.
(a pressão de querer escrever um post à altura do que vou dizer obriga-me a recorrer a pirosadas como "completam-se", "obriga-me" e "recorrer").

As televisões, rádios , jornais e revistas já entraram em overdrive para proporcionar a melhor experiência ao telespectador, como se lá estivesse. A RTP tem um fim-de-semana dedicado à coisa. (três dias de loucura).
Cinco anos depois, as Torres Gémeas!!!
Cinco anos depois, não-sei-quê!!!

Por um lado, acho que não devia escrever o que vou escrever - que a melhor homenagem a quem morreu é guardar as minhas sentimentalidades, não misturar a minha vivência com o burburinho dos voyeurs. Se sobrevivi, não tenho história para contar. Não tenho direito de receber a atenção dos outros por isto, não é ético. E é o que tenho feito, não tenho contado (a não ser aos meus amigos próximos, a quem dei cabo da paciência).

Por outro lado, tenho que escrever. Porque fui testemunha, porque só assim se mantém viva a memória, porque fico tão cansada que falem em meu nome. A Inês vivia em Nova Iorque na altura do 11 de Setembro. Que me perguntem se vi as torres em chamas (não, só na televisão) ou se vi as pessoas a atirarem-se (Não. A minha rua era estreita e só víamos o edifício em frente, a JP Morgan). Porque ainda tenho pesadelos e sonho com aquilo.

E arrepia-me, mais do que gostaria, esta sofreguidão por reciclar os testemunhos da Amy e do Patrick, o olhar de burro do George Bush numa escola na Florida, e as imagens, em zoom e câmara lenta das pessoas a atirarem-se das torres, por ouvir as gravações entretanto desclassificadas - em que é que ouvir uma rapariga perguntar se vai morrer ajuda a perceber as falhas na resposta de emergência?

No dia 11 de Setembro de 2001 prepararava a minha aula a Antropologia do Médio Oriente. Como de costume não tinha percebido nada das leituras obrigatórias, Max Weber e amigos, uns chatos… tinha um dia carregado pela frente.

À uma ia almoçar com o meu amigo David perto do Institute of Fine Arts onde tinha uma reunião a meio da tarde com a minha professora de Arte Islâmica, que tinha recusado dar uma nota o meu trabalho - dez páginas a explicar em que é que Arte Islâmica é uma categoria fictícia, e que a grande maioria da produção artística a que se refere não é inerentemente "Islâmica", mas é apenas produzida numa região maioritariamente muçulmana. O meu ensaio não se inseria no contexto da palestra, porque é que não escreves sobre Portugal Islâmico?

Às 7 de tarde havia o cocktail de apresentação dos alunos e professores do Departamento de Estudos Orientais da Universidade. A pensar nisso, já me tinha arranjado "como deve ser", saia de linho azul, camisola de capuz de linho cor-de-rosa e sapatos cor-de-rosa. Só temos uma hipótesse de causar uma boa primeira impressão, a minha seria de europeia feminina, para que pudesse melhor dizer as barbaridades que mais gostava.

Às 8.55 da manhã, sentada em frente ao meu computador, a minha vida entrou num mundo paralelo. Durante muito tempo achei que ia recomeçá-la exactamente onde a tinha deixado. Mais de um ano foi o que demorou perceber que a minha vida era "aquilo", que não era um desvio por uma experiência menos boa, mas que "aquilo" tinha acontecido e que, como uma morte na família, um divórcio, um desastre de carro, eu tinha que andar para a frente - move on with it. Se houve quem morresse, quem ficasse ferido, eu fora apenas mais uma no sítio errado na hora errada. Move on with it.

Quando o avião embateu e as minhas janelas tremeram eu pensei numa bomba - estávamos em frente ao NYSE, era possível. Olhei pela janela, liguei para o porteiro. Se calhar foi apenas um pneu que rebentou - e voltei para o meu trabalho. (gosto de pensar que a minha nonchalance era um sinal de uma síndrome de nova-iorquinice adquirida). Uns segundos, talvez minutos, mais tarde, olhei pela janela, e vi a neve. Neve num dia quente e solarengo… não, não pode ser. Abri a janela estiquei a mão, eram papéis que caíam, eram cinzas grandes, do tamanho de laranjas. E depois um pássaro que caiu muito depressa.

Plof.

Não pode ser, foi mesmo uma bomba. Saio do apartamento e encontro os meus residentes - havia um avião, outro avião, eram dois… falavam ao mesmo tempo, frenéticos… e, finalmente, percebi, que dois aviões tinham ido contra as Torres Gémeas a cinco quarteirões dali.

Depois só me lembro de pequenas coisas, sobretudo da sensação de incredulidade - isto não pode estar a acontecer - e ao mesmo tempo de "obviousness" - claro que isto ia acontecer, só um idiota é que não via que as Torres eram um sitting duck para um louco num avião. Não me passou pela cabeça que alguma vez as Torres desabassem; nem quando a primeira torre caiu pensei que a segunda caísse também.

Liguei para o meu Pai, que me disse para ficar o apartamento e não andar de metro. Tentei falar com a minha Mãe mas a secretária não deixou, que Mme est occupée elle est en réunion, je ne peux pas la déranger. Derange-la connasse! Coitada, passou meses a desculpar-se.

O barulho de milhares de pessoas na rua a fugirem de um prédio que desaba é assustador, ensurdecedor, antes do tsunami acontecer era o que eu pensava ser o barulho de um tsunami. Uma onda de detritos a varrer milhares de pessoas da rua.

A minha residente coreana estava semi-nua quando lhe ordenei que evacuasse o apartamento imediatamente, mas ela não me percebeu e só apareceu no rés-do-chão quinze minutos depois, quando era tarde demais e íamos ficar ali duas horas enquanto ruía a outra torre e só nos diziam que tínhamos de ficar por ali.

Afastar o medo é fácil. Difícil é não entrar em pânico.

Pensar, enquanto fujo, que a qualquer momento isto tudo pode acabar, para que é que eu estou a galgar estas escadas vestida de linho se nem sequer sou capaz de chegar lá abaixo.

Rir-me do absurdo de morrer tão bem vestida e tirar os sapatos para poder correr mais depressa. Demora tanto descer 14 andares.

Dizer com um ar sério à residente em pânico que ninguém aqui vai morrer - porque eu sou portuguesa e os portugueses não morrem nestas coisas.

O senhor hasídico, vindo da rua, a ter um ataque cardíaco e o grito estúpido "há algum médico na sala". Levá-lo para uma sala diferente e saber que afinal foi só um susto.

O ginásio do prédio era pequeno para todos nós, mas era onde se respirava melhor. E porque é que conseguíamos ver televisão mas não conseguíamos usar o telefone? Só consegui ligar seis horas depois dos ataques. Só falei com a minha Mãe à noite.

Tentei consolar uma rapariga em pânico - don’t worry, you’re safe here, it could be worse, we could be stuck inside the towers - ao que ela responde histérica - my boyfriend works there. E eu a olhá-la e a pensar na minha sorte - aqui sou só eu, não tenho família nem amigos em perigo. Só eu é que tenho de sair daqui. Decidir que era o que mais faltava morrer ali. Rezar com ela, sem acreditar, porque vai tudo ficar bem. Como nos filmes americanos.

Ouvir a residente boliviana - mais tarde fui ao casamento dela em City Hall - dizer que quando os ataques parassem "los palestinos" não-sei-quê-que-mais… e repreendê-la, ainda não sabemos quem foi, em Oklahoma todos pensaram que eram Árabes mas foram americanos. Como se isso fosse realmente importante naquela altura.

Sentir o chão a tremer, demais, pela segunda torre a cair, e dizer ao Sergio que era o metro. Sentir as pernas a tremer, então o pânico é isto?... Controla-te, olha os outros.

Ver o Brian, porteiro irlandês com o cabelo ruivo, que nunca deixou de me chamar Ai-ness durante o ano em que lá vivi, a ordenar a distribuição de água e de panos para molharmos e pormos à volta da boca. Pedir-lhe, que por favor me desse alguma coisa para fazer.

Pensar que devia ir buscar os residentes que ainda estavam nos quartos - mas decidir ficar com os que estavam, no lobby com medo que alguma coisa acontecesse enquanto eu estava lá em cima. O meu director disse-me que fiz tudo certo - mas uma residente acusou-me de ter abandonado os residentes à sua sorte.

Quando finalmente evacuámos o prédio, ao que não pudemos voltar nos dez dias seguintes, as minhas memórias são a preto e branco. Só no ferry é que me lembro das coisas a cores outra vez.

Um táxi quase entrou pelo lobby do meu prédio dentro, a fugir do desmoronar da Segunda Torre. No táxi vinha um casal de velhinhos, agarrados aos carry-on. Quando evacuámos a pé eles vinham connosco e andavam tão devagar. E eu queria ajudá-los mas também queria fugir. Porque é que os velhinhos andam tão devagar, porque é que os outros não pegaram neles ao colo e saíamos todos ao mesmo tempo? E eu não tinha que me sentir culpada por deixá-los para trás e juntar-me aos meus residentes.

A caminho do ferry o meu residente inglês, o Nick, pergunta-me Where exactly are we
going? Como se seu soubesse. We’re going to the river and then walk up to the Brooklyn Bridge. We could take a shortcut, but I think we’ll breathe better in Water Street.
Era a explicação que todos nos davam - respiram melhor se ficarem dentro do edifício; respiram melhor se ficarem quietinhos no ginásio; respiram melhor se puserem um pano à volta da boca; se forem para Brooklyn; se saltarem ao pé cochinho enquanto rezam o Pai Nosso. I don’t give a shit about this breathing better business, I just want to get out of here. Ainda hoje me rio quando penso no seu estilo very British. Invejo-o, nunca perdeu o aplomb.

Escolhemos os barcos que iam para Brooklyn - era o sítio mais perto. Acabávamos de sair de casa e não sabíamos para onde ir, o melhor era ir para o mais perto possível de casa, mas suficientemente longe. Durante a tarde acabaríamos por voltar para Manhattan, para a universidade que acolhia os seus refugiados no ginásio. Na primeira noite dormimos no chão, nuns colchões de ginástica. No dia seguinte já tínhamos camas de campanha.

Quando saímos do ferry, no sopé da Ponte de Brooklyn, onde descobri mais tarde, há um restaurante fantástico e um apeadeiro com excertos de poemas do Walt Whitman sobre a cidade, ao estilo da Ode Triunfal, quando saímos do ferry, estava um casal a meio da encosta com um carrinho de mão cheio de garrafões de água que distribuiam à massa da gente "abananada" que éramos nós. Aí quis chorar pela bondade, pela generosidade, pela cidadania (depois do Manuel Alegre esta palavra parece vazia de sentido).

Os dias a seguir foram de adrenalina - não dormi a primeira noite, nas outras pouco. Sentia-me invencível, imortal. Se não morri ali, I sure as hell ain't dying any time soon. Pouco a pouco caí em mim e, na sexta-feira os meus amigos vieram-me buscar - foi quando compreendi o que tinha acontecido, só chorava e fazia birra que queria voltar para casa.

Quando voltei ao meu apartamento pus um CD da Marisa Monte e comecei a dançar - Quando eu cheguei, tudo, tudo, tudo estava virado... e logo parei, como é que eu posso dançar ao pé de uma vala comum de quase 3,000 pessoas? Devia ter vergonha!

Hoje o que é mais complicado é perceber que isto não me aconteceu Por Uma Razão, porque Deus quis que eu fosse testemunha. Ao princípio eu pensei que sim e empenhei-me em viver o melhor possível, o mais nobremente possível, o mais generosamente possível, ser o necessário para quem se cruzar comigo. Hoje acho que o sobreviver não tem a ver com um desígnio especial que Deus tinha para mim, além do de eu viver a minha vida. O que eu tive foi sorte de fazer as escolhas certas quando nem percebia o que é que estava a escolher.

Safaste-te miuda, agora vê lá não te esqueças de esperar que o sinal esteja verde para atravessar a estrada.

Health care wonders

2006-09-05T14:10:00.000+02:00

Ah, the joys of womanhood - ingrown hairs, menstrual cramps and... oh, yes, yeast infections!

As my vagina's PH seems to have a mind of its own, I have had to meet with gynecologists wherever I have lived or faced an immediate need of relief. I am thus experienced with several health systems, public and private. Here's my two cents .

Option 1: New York (2003)

Appointment: $US 12 @ Women's Health Clinic. Doctor tells me that her daughter, half Indian, half American, is married to a Portuguese journalist, lives in Lisbon, but wants to move. Soon. I laugh out loud.
Lab exams: sent by the doctor directly to the labs, cost included in appointment. Results sent to the doctor who calls me if there's a problem.
Medicine: $80 (Diflucan), I tell the doctor my plan doesn't cover medicine and she gives me samples for free.

Option 2: Brussels (2006)

Appointment: €45 @ top Belgian gynecologist. Don't really notice the exams as am hearing the birds outside and the classical music on the radio. Have to pay attention if doctor is speaking as his voice reaches 5 decibels tops. Also, he looks like an old lady. Wait, I think he might just BE an old lady. Nope, he's just an ageing upper-class hippie. Good for him.
Lab exams: sent by the doctor directly to the labs, results (€15) mailed to me, checked by phone with doctor.
Medicine: €50 (Diflucan)

Option 3: Lisbon (2005)

Intro (why do the Lisbon-based episodes always demand an intro?): After fleeing the office of the male gynecologist (Dr. Pereira, International Health Clinic, Cascais) who requested that I perform a "little strip tease from the waist down" so as to "relax me", as was later explained matter-of-factly by the Clinic's Administrator, before propping me on a Soviet-era piece of equipment and proceeding to explain me how the US were just a bunch of assholes and deserved 9/11 as he probed my nether regins with some very cold equipment, I opted for the gentle female gynecologist, possibly a Catholic.
Appointment: €80 for first appointment; €75 for subsequent appointments. I suppose the A4 sheet with my name on it is really worth €5. No health plan is accepted. Lecture on how you really should start thinking about having babies, as time flies and in ten years it will be too late, as no man wants a 38-year old woman to have his child, a patient of mine was dumped by her husband, he got a younger woman and made her pregnant immediately, and now my patient wants to get pregnat but she's 40 and it's too late, and I certainly won't help her, included.
Lab exams: Taken by me to doctor-recommended lab in other side of town at lunch time. Lab closed at lunch time. Return after lunch time to find that receptionist has locked herself out. Return next day right after lunch time. Pick up exams a month later. Cost: €5 + parking fees. Am expected to make second appointment to go over the results - open the envelope instead, read results and decide, from experience, that everything is alright.
Medicine: €50 (you guessed it, Diflucan!) + €10 for Rose Petal Intimate solution + €10 for creams that I won't use.

Winner: NHS, UK

Free appointment. Doctor sees me and has lovely, motherly nurse perform all the exams. She gives me a gooey cream AND generic brand medicine to take home (i.e. Diflucan look-alike, but cheaper). Everything is free. She also asks if I need to go on the pill or wish to refill my order. I explain her that I do not use hormonal contraceptives. She says I am very wise and mature beyond my years ad reminds me that sugary foods and spermicized condoms may alter my PH. I guess I better start watching out for that candy, then.

PS. Women all over the world, buy Pfizer stock options, they make Diflucan. Or use the "natural remedy" approach, which involves sticking a clove of garlic up there. Or you can just use the tampon-in-live yoghurt approach (there's no live yoghurt in Portugal, all I can find is "bifidus activo", Lord knows what that is, but apparently it makes thirty-something mothers and housewifes sit on the sofa with their best friends rubbing their belly.)