Thursday, December 29, 2011

Valter Hugo Mãe - A Maquina de Fazer Espanhóis

Esse livro me chegou como chega a maioria dos livros que gosto; por recomendação de um grande amigo no qual confio no gosto literário. Normalmente nestes casos eu nem faço caso de que seja capaz de dizer a qualidade do livro por uma página lida em pé na livraria; compro sem sequer ler a orelha.

O livro conta a historia do senhor silva, que apos perder a esposa - amor de sua vida por 48 anos – é colocado pela família em um asilo. A narrativa se assemelha ao descascar de uma cebola; em cada capítulo m episódio do presente ou passado que vai revelando a personalidade e as ramificações de um silva amargurado, ateu e omisso fascista (?). Ao mesmo o desenrolar emocional transforma-se em uma ode a amizade.

Angolano de nascença, Valter Hugo Mãe empresta o estilo narrativo de Saramago, onde dialogo e narrativa se confundem e clarificam-se umas as outras. Empresta também da prosa poética de Neruda e Mia Couto, com construções que demandam uma pausa na leitura; não para compreende-las, mas sim para evitar que uma outra frase sem a mesma poética lhe enterre de imediato nas linhas lidas.

Mais um autor que entra para o pequeno rol de favoritos, e le-lo se parece com assistir um novo parto da língua portuguesa. Eu sei, parece exagero; mas quem assim falou não fui eu, foi Saramago. Sugiro fortemente que leiam a tirem a prova, que eu vou para o próximo dele que encontrar.

PS - alias a edição brasileira da Cosaicnaify deste livro esta espetacular; obra-prima editorial

Friday, December 9, 2011

Imagens são minhas palavras

Eu não tiro foto, eu conto minha historia com imagens.

Porque o que deus abundou no sentir, economizou na capacidade oratória. E fico ai, com excesso de sentir e falta de contar, a pegar carona no texto, musica, poema alheio. Eis que me acusam de plágio; ora pois, que mesquinhagem - que custa emprestar poética? Não estou eu sempre disposto a lhe emprestar razão (mesmo quando esta não cabe)?

Então me recorro a imagens. Afinal, dizem por ai que elas valem mais que mil palavras. Mas o problema não é elas falarem; o problema é a gente entender - desaprendemos lentamente a língua das imagens e esta está perigosamente perto de ser extinta.

Mas quem disse que preciso ser entendido? Eu só preciso falar...

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Records!

I collect records (I mean vinyl records, or LPs, if you prefer); actually one can say that my preferred form of music is through records. Of course I am not a fundamentalist – if I haven’t got the record or it does not exist in old school format, I consume it in the way it presents to me, disk, virtual or cloud!

I started around 10 years ago, when I moved from my parents’ place. I was wandering in the city center and entered into a great music place (when itunes wasn’t around yet) and felt in love with this old sound system for sale, with one of the first record players to come to Brazil. I bought and then on my Saturday mornings suddenly become scavenger hunt in downtown Sao Paulo after records.

However I have never truly figure out the answer for one of the questions I get the most, which is, why do you like / prefer records? I don’t use the vague “records have a better sound than other formats”. Honestly I probably wouldn’t be able to use this bullshit sentence and get passed a blind test.

A good explanation could be that I truly enjoy the whole process involved, in shopping for great records in obscure locations, the interactive process of browsing through used (or new ones, since they started pressing again) and eventually discovering a great artist that would have gone unknown to me if I just shopped as a responsive effect (i.e. looking for an artist I know) as most of online purchase I usually do.

Another very plausible explanation is that I love the social aspect of owning a good record collection (as I write I have something like over 350 records in Brazil and close to 100 here in the US). I have lost track of how many times that was the excuse to gather some friends at my place, to listen to some records and have beers and good talks from dusk till dawn.

Whatever the explanation the truth is that I like and it makes me feel good, so why the hell do I need to know the reason? To get by this question lately I just borrow my brother’s punch line: “ I like music with texture”.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Endings...

People are different (and also strange, according to the Doors) and react differently to similar situations. For me one of the most insightful dichotomies is how people deal with relationship break-ups.

There are some people that only remember the bad aspects and moments, or the times when the partner let you down. Either consciously (or most likely unconsciously) those people block all the good memories, the happy moments. This approach makes a clean and clear break-up much easier, and it usually lead to people drifting apart even as friends... after all, why would I want anything to do with THAT person?

Then there are those that once the relationship is over only remembers the good part of it, those lovely moments where everything made sense. All the small annoying details, the painful habits, all gone. Those are the ones that struggle to move on, and every now and then wonder "why did it end?...".

No matter on which side of the field you identify yourself with, it is always good to be aware - otherwise you may risk being either a sad person attached to these perfect ex-girlfriends, miserable cause you lost them, or a miserable person, unhappy about all those bastards (or bitches, pick your genre) that you have met and that wasted your time with bad relationships.

After all; life is not so black and white as our recollections and memories try to lead us to believe...

Friday, December 2, 2011

Initial thoughts...

I am an earlier adopter of technology that produces content, but a later adopt of technology that shares it. During the early blog fever I must confess I was a skeptical; I rarely read any kind of blog and didn't think for a second of creating one.

To be honest I once tried to venture into it once before, with a blog on one of my passions: records. But either due to lack of discipline or due to the fact that I hardly believe anyone would find that useful I gave up.

Later one of my other passion, photography, inspired me to give it a second try. After a lapse of absence I came back to it, and decided to share my perspective of the world, through the lenses of my camera.

But as the great poet Fernando Pessoa once said "I write what I feel to cure the fever of feeling". So I decide to write what images cannot convey. I have felt too much and shared too little so far; since life is a balance, maybe here I can swing a little bit over the other side.