os interesses dele e os meus

It started when an alien device did what it did
And stuck itself upon his wrist with secrets that it hid
Now he's got super powers, he's no ordinary kid
He's Ben 10.

So if you see him you might be in for a big surprise,
He'll turn into an alien before your very eyes
He's slimy, freaky, fast and strong, he's every shape and size
He's Ben 10

Armed with powers, he's on the case
Fighting off evil from Earth or space
He'll never stop till he makes them pay
'Cause he's the baddest kid to ever save the day
Ben 10

estes muito claramente os dele e uma grande aleluia ateia (ateia?) ao cartoon network que permite que as mães doentitas e de cama possam esquecer-se da maleita chata de inverno e chuva e possam rebolar no prazer mais extremo de abrir o plástico que cobria o melhor livro de poesia do ano: Ofício Cantante, a poesia completa de Herberto Helder. chegou ontem à livraria e hoje à minha mão. se eu estivesse com um descomunal sentido de humor sugeria já que fossem substituídas todas as bíblias de todas as sacristias por este livro. para além de o tamanho ser idêntico e a côr da capa idem, este Ofício dwarfs os livros em volta, incluindo o tal. e fugindo à brincadeira sugiro vivamente a sua compra** e leitura muito longa.

**"compra": o acto de comprar um livro de poesia e que deveria ter lugar única e exclusivamente na melhor livraria de Lisboa (valor actualizado, desculpas à Trama): a Poesia Incompleta na rua Cecília de Sousa, perto do Britânico. por mim ia lá todos os dias sentar-me um bocado no chão (opção própria) ler livros que eu pensava que nem existiam. trouxe também o meu favorito o primeiro dos primeiros e o final, a obra poética completa de Samuel Beckett. quem sofre de coração deve encomendar a poesia directamente ao livreiro extraordinaire. um dia tão mau por fora só pode ser tão bom por dentro.

- - - -

de somenos

abrir a porta, o pé na soleira e depois retirar. deixar os monges entoar as melodias do milénio, do início e do final. de somenos. e deixar-me disto durante uns tempos, a vontade é muita.

"I never felt that I could identify myself with only one singular tradition or language"

.

Being

Judite dos Santos

(daqui)

"Being an artist, I believe, is in itself an expression of hope. One hopes that there is something relevant to be said or shown, and that possibly, someone one else might be interested in hearing or seeing what we have to share... nothing else can be expected. There is work to be done. For me, the senses and sensuality are never autonomous of intelligence. Experience is knowledge and vice versa. I always attempt to make that evident in my work. I speak of it in a multiplicity of forms and means, through site, images, forms, textures, sounds, smells, etc. I use geometric structures metaphorically, nesting organic and abstract elements, for example, as well as fragments, multiples and series that point to a whole. Process and materials can be expressive and sensual and yet incorporate the rational. Interdisciplinary approaches to realize concepts and share my concerns have been present in my work since I was an art student. I never felt that I could identify myself with only one singular tradition or language. Complexity and flexibility is at the core of my culture and vision of the world. The interdisciplinary, however, once it becomes the standard and fashionable, can be as oppressive as any other tradition. As an artist I continue to choose the language/s and forms that seem appropriate for my particular projects without concern for any trends in the arts. My work results from observing life as it evolves through me, my contemporaries and the world of my time. I am very interested in observing how we humans process "reality" and make our world what it is, individually or collective. My work reflects my responses to those things that concern me at any time and I attempt to be as honest to the moment and context as I possibly can. An artist grows in public. I am very interested in transformation and whenever possible, my work makes evident that continuity, intersections, disruptions, ruins and new beginnings make us what we are. This can be shown in multiple ways. It can be seen, felt, smelled, painted, drawn, photographed, molded, heard, discarded, forgotten, remembered, retrieved, reshaped, distorted and made evident in infinite ways. Transformation, change, transition and impermanence are among those few things in the world that we can be sure of, and yet often disregard. That in it self is fascinating to me. How we create our world as a reflection of our beliefs and convictions in a continuous struggle to control nature and reality, allow me endless possibilities for learning, showing and sharing my observations, without the pretense of providing any answers. I just live my life and keep working at my own pace, hoping to make some sense of this journey."

beads

Bric-a-Brac
Dorothy Parker

Little things that no one needs --
Little things to joke about --
Little landscapes, done in beads.
Little morals, woven out,
Little wreaths of gilded grass,
Little brigs of whittled oak
Bottled painfully in glass;
These are made by lonely folk.

Lonely folk have lines of days
Long and faltering and thin;
Therefore -- little wax bouquets,
Prayers cut upon a pin,
Little maps of pinkish lands,
Little charts of curly seas,
Little plats of linen strands,
Little verses, such as these.

prague map i wish i wasn't here

part 1. part 2.

you're alive, don't you ever forget that: Lulu on the Bridge

without music there is no life. noite de filme à beira do aquecedor. reparo na cortina atrás, a banheira antiga com pés, uma moldura dourada. e ela que também foi comprar o CD daquele que perdeu a vida. o jazz nas ruas de Nova Iorque (tantalizing) once I give my heart to someone, it is forever. a bela Gina Gershon para a frente e para trás no tempo, vermelho. muito woodyesque, vou achando. mas por baixo das palavras do script, consigo ouvir a voz do Auster no estoril. mas o outro resolve-se sempre em palavras, solitárias ou diálogos, enquanto aqui a acção principal é no silêncio que decorre. uma impressão apenas. (e se eu não for especialista de arte cinematográfica não posso dizer nada?) um guardanapo de papel com conchas em relevo, um número, tiras de vozes, uma pedra. acaba por ser um homem com o enigma do futuro, o que fazer agora que está morto. morrer um pouco mais. há sempre tanta coisa que acontece às personagens, coincidências descontroladas e misteriosas que as ultrapassam. are you an ocean or a river? a match or a cigarette lighter. mesmo que muito improvável, mesmo que fora do contexto, o que transportam duas histórias diferentes e o que passa de um lado para o outro. duas paletas diversas cujas cores se misturam durante um período fechado de tempo. Lou Reed e uma tough cookie glittering, loura. as ruas de Nova Iorque são tão propícias ao desenho como as de Lisboa. wederkind. de novo só, escuro. a história dentro da história, a rapariga que sobe através de outros para depois cair, como se diz. a Lulu que Alban Berg transformou numa obra prima. e agora uma espécie de fantasma dos natais passados, um vício de escritor, texto no texto no texto. Singing in the Rain por um Dafoe às portas do paraíso, o julgamento final (melhor do que Moby Dick). tão teatral como a Lulu de wedekind. the whole thing is like a dream, it's like she's never been there. é a Amália que canta a estranha forma de vida, reconhecia-a em qualquer lado, sussurrada. a vida é uma ilusão. Ha'Penny Bridge e Singing in the Rain. se bem que me aborrecem os afinal era tudo a brincar, uma vida não foi pela outra.

ou, finalmente, gostei de ver o filme mas não adorei. há demasiadas coisas sem contexto, as imagens não são fora de série, vale sobretudo pelo trabalho excelente dos actores, um bom casting. a história deixa a desejar, para mim, com um recurso incongruente ao sobrenatural. longe da perfeição de Coeurs, mas ainda assim "better than most".

"I started looking around for inspiration," says Ivanov, "and for some reason the painter that I really connected to was Francis Bacon. It's inevitable that when I read a script, an image forms in my mind; a color, a painter, a mood comes to me. I thought that Francis Bacon was a good reference for this movie, because on the one hand, he is a portraitist, which is a traditional, formal discipline, while, on the other hand, his work is extremely experimental and emotional. Izzy Maurer seemed to me like a Francis Bacon character; he lived in that sort of dark, oppressive world, and he desperately needed to be rescued from it. This woman who comes into his life is a ray of hope, a true breath of fresh air. She is what saves him from the deep depression he has fallen into. And although Bacon uses a very dark palette, his paintings always have a line of brightness running through them as a contrast. I wanted to try to bring those same combinations of simplicity and formality, of expressionism and emotion to the set." (daqui)

what to do about pumpkin

anasazi soup. scones. gratin. tagine. layer cake. butternut squash.

The Graveyard Book

ouvindo a jazz88fm, e entre as novidades do LRIT e a revisão de procedimentos, acabo de saber da escolha do livro "The Graveyard Book" de Neil Gaiman para o prémio Newbery através da NPR, uma das melhores rádios que neste caso se podem ler. O prémio Newbery é significativo e tenho confiado nele para conteúdos de grande qualidade. No mar da edição de livros para crianças, uma ajuda séria faz sempre muita diferença. A dupla Gaiman/McKean é única e, para mim, capaz de levar qualquer prémio de qualquer categoria. Obras um pouco negras para crianças ("His hair was dark and his eyes were dark and he wore black leather gloves of the thinnest lambskin"), à primeira vista, mas daí talvez não. No extenso artigo da NPR, um excerto do livro, entrevista ao autor e mais, incluindo este link aqui, onde podemos ouvir o autor a ler a totalidade do livro. Recomendável em alto grau.

Ernesto Neto

Esqueleto Glóbulos, 2001


Leviathan Thot, 2006

Celula Nave, 2004

Ernesto Neto, arte comtemporânea brasileira. e um novo Museu, o Museu Boijmans van Beuningen, em Roterdão.

"ernesto neto is considered one of the absolute leaders of brazil’s contemporary art scene.
his inspiration comes partly from brazilian neo-concretism. at the end of the 1950s and
beginning of the 60s the movement’s best-known proponents, lygia clarc and hélio oiticica,
rejected modernism’s ideas of autonomous geometric abstraction. instead, they wanted to
equate art with living organisms in a kind of organic architecture, and invite the viewer to be
an active participant." (daqui)

- - -
"Descendendo dos trabalhos feitos de meias preenchidas com bolas de chumbo, Ernesto Neto passa a fazer, na segunda metade da década, esculturas compostas de tubos de malha translúcida e fina (quase sempre na cor creme) contendo especiarias de sabores, cheiros e cores diferentes, tais como pimenta-do-reino moída, açafrão, cravo em pó, urucum ou cominho. Algumas vezes, essas construções simples são somente levantadas a uma pequena altura e soltas sobre o chão pelo artista, espalhando parte do conteúdo que, com o impacto da queda, atravessa os poros do tecido e se acomoda em torno do que se assemelha a um saco parcialmente cheio de matéria colorida. Os títulos dessas esculturas são quase sempre onomatopéicos (Poff; Puff puff; Piff), tentativa de registrar o som de quantos objetos tombaram sobre o piso e lembrança de que o trabalho depende de um gesto simples mas decisivo.

Em outras ocasiões, ao invés de simplesmente jogados, os amontoados de temperos (às vezes, dezenas de quilos) repousam ensacados no chão enquanto as extremidades dos tubos de tecido são esticadas e amarradas no teto ou costuradas em outra porção do mesmo tecido, que os abriga esticada no alto e reforça a verticalidade das esculturas." (daqui)

- - - In the Studio, article and gallery, here.

- - - Ernesto Neto's page on Artsy with images of 21 pieces, 4 of which are for sale.

há textos fantásticos

e este é um deles, mais uma vez do Rui Manuel Amaral, parte da série fora-de-série (tanto me repito que encalho) "Diário de Bernfried Järvi". esperando não deixar nenhuma letra para trás desta vez.

18 de Janeiro de 1978

Antes de deitar
enrolo o dia e sento-me
a fumá-lo.
Creio que não é ilegal
fumar o dia.
Tanto quanto sei
aos mortos
ainda nada é proibido.

all about death and love

The Painted Bed, Donald Hall.

ler o público online, offline

abrir os blogues do Público é sempre bom. folhear o Público também. gostei de ver o Desenhador do Quotidiano, Eduardo Salavisa. muito também do projecto conjunto Urban Sketchers. para quem gosta de ver ou fazer desenho. lá acabei por reencontrar Tommy Kane, de quem já tinha falado (onde é que já vi isto?)

stuff to remember in the not so new millenium

e na sequência de post anterior, o Al's Breakfast. que eu me lembre não tem livros, mas não faz diferença. o café across the street tinha. e sofás, wifi gratuito e uma cabina telefónica londrina. neste pequeno corredor à laia de cozinha anos oitenta em dormitório suburbano muito português -ai a fórmica- há um balcão comum. os que esperam, fazem-no atrás, de pé. quem se despacha derrubando um pequeno almoço que só por si derrubaria sansão, vai saindo para dar lugar ao próximo. tão famoso que tem lugar na wiki . Dinkytown.

Sundance, Park City, Utah

"These are, as one distributor blurted out to me seconds after saying hello, “tumultuous times” in the movie business. No kidding. On the eve of Sundance three more movie critics joined the ranks of the unemployed, including Ella Taylor, a longtime and well-respected critic for The LA Weekly in Los Angeles. And earlier this week Warner Brothers Entertainment — which last year dismantled three of its specialty divisions, Warner Independent Pictures, Picturehouse and New Line Cinema — announced that it was laying off an additional 800 workers.

For independent cinema, which relies on reviewers to get the word out because they don’t have money to buy their opening weekends, the thinning of the critical ranks is no small thing. The specter of the big studios getting out of the indie business presents a more ambivalent problem, one put into relief by the festival’s silver anniversary and the presence of Steven Soderbergh at this year’s event.

In 1989, Mr. Soderbergh helped put Sundance on the world cinema map with his debut feature, “sex, lies and videotape.” That spring the movie was at Cannes, where it won the Palme d’Or (beating out “Do the Right Thing,” among other titles). A hungry little outfit called Miramax Films swooped down and grabbed it.

Three years later, Miramax was bought by Disney. Soon every big studio that did not have a boutique division opened one. Prices for independently financed movies skyrocketed. Harvey Weinstein became a media fixture, Quentin Tarantino became a rock star, and Parker Posey and Zooey Deschanel became Indie It Girls, while character actors like Sam Rockwell and Paul Giamatti became headliners. Sundance veterans like Bryan Singer, Christopher Nolan and Mr. Soderbergh signed on for blockbuster duty. Sponsors like Entertainment Weekly (and The New York Times) slapped their brand on the event, and the crowds poured in as the festival chatter shifted from questions of art to matters of industry. For 10 days a year, Sundance turned into Hollywood in the snow, and real independent spirit seemed on the wane.

The industry was still in attendance this year, but the high-roller fever that has gripped the festival for the last decade has cooled. Although this made for the most pleasant Sundance in memory, it also presents a host of unknowns. If the studios don’t buy independent films, fewer investors in turn may be inclined to bankroll projects, particularly those with bigger budgets. Yet it is precisely those movies with heftier budgets, and the glossier production values and marquee-ready performers that can come with those budgets — like the ready-made entertainment and 2006 Sundance success story “Little Miss Sunshine” — that distributors believe can help bring in the increasingly finicky audience. If the investors don’t invest and the buyers don’t buy, will the movies still be made, and what kind?

Films with no-name actors are a tough sell, as is anything considered too arty, brainy, bleak or dark, which is why much of the best work produced today either goes without American distribution or is released by smaller companies that don’t require huge returns. This was true when “sex, lies and videotape” hit, and it may be even truer now. That doesn’t mean that you won’t see some of the best work from this year’s Sundance, including “Unmade Beds,” “Big Fan,” “Big River Man” and “In the Loop,” but it might mean that you’ll see these titles only if you live in a large city, or when (if) they’re released on DVD. That is, if someone picks them up for American distribution."

muito interessante este artigo do NYTimes, para ler todo, aqui.

Rua do Século

"Ricardo Reis aconchega a gabardina ao corpo, friorento, atravessa de cá para lá, por outras alamedas regressa, agora vai descer a Rua do Século, nem sabe o que o terá decidido, sendo tão ermo e melancólico o lugar, alguns antigos palácios, casas baixinhas, estreitas, de gente popular, ao menos o pessoal nobre de outros tempos não era de melindres, aceitava viver paredes meias com o vulgo, ai de nós, pelo caminho que as coisas levam, ainda veremos bairros exclusivos, e só residências, para a burguesia de finança e fábrica, que então terá engolido da aristocracia o que resta, com garagem própria, jardim à proporção, cães que ladrem violentamente ao viajante, até nos cães se há-de notar a diferença, em eras distantes tanto mordiam a uns como a outros."

in O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis

J. Saramago

semínima

squeezing flavor out of the word lemon.

saindo de chicago para norte, pela IC90 que depois vai ser IC94, passa-se ao lado dos subúrbios ricos da cidade depois de se terem visto os invisíveis, por aí não há que tomar nenhuma saída. Tanglewood, umas das melhores experiências, à sombra e pelos relvados, uma multidão civilizada de toalhas quadriculadas e bancos de desarmar. mais a cima Harvard, a ruralidade de um pequeno sítio à beira dos campos de milho, onde se escondem mexicanos e outro latino-americanos que aqui aportaram. em torno de Madison, o playground da água em plena terra do leite e do queijo. gostava de ver as florestas verticais e negras que ombreiam a via rápida. muitas horas de quase nada, acompanhando os monstros da estrada com as suas decorações kitch. qualquer pausa equivale a um passeio em localidade de via única, casas gastas, uma porta que se abre para o diner de terceiríssima categoria, hamburguers e tarde de maçã congelada. nada como o the Norske Nook, capital das melhores tartes, um enclave da neve ainda no Wisconsin, onde a floresta negra tapa tudo menos os snowmobilies que aumentam à medida que se aproximam as cidades gémeas. atravessando o Mississipi, famoso no insconsciente por outras paragens mais a sul, é lá que chegamos, Minneapolis daqui a olhar a catedral de St. Paul do outro lado. estas cidades do norte, soterradas em gelo durante a maior parte do ano, parecem cinzentonas, um amontoado de edifícios austeros. uma cidade surpreendente pelo positivo de quem nela vive, cidade cosmopolita, sleek. de inverno corre-se no recinto desportivo, tornado jardim público, uma cidade de túneis e pontes aquecidas de carpete, de universidades e de caras de muitas cores que aqui se tornaram activas. nos outskirts, os mil lagos gelados brilham ao sol, tantos patos de cores fundas nunca antes tinha visto.

absolutamente fora dos parâmetros

das sobremesas portuguesas, quero eu dizer. da "nossa" maçã assada até aqui vai um oceano de diferença. quantas vezes ouvi dizer que a comida americana são os hamburguers. na foto: maçãs e ameixas assadas com maple syrup, do mais que excelente blogue (Amy's yummy scrumptious blog) eggs on sunday. a receita adaptada de Cooking with Shelburne Farms. cozinhar em Vermont, o segundo melhor sítio para viver logo a seguir ao Maine e só porque ali há mar e lagosta. 

[Amy's message I would make my own: "A little bit about me and my cooking philosophy, in a nutshell: I believe in cooking with whole, natural and organic ingredients, celebrating seasonal foods, and supporting local farmers by using local ingredients whenever I can. I’m not “officially” vegetarian, but I try to choose meat, dairy and eggs from animals that I can trust have been cared for, raised and processed humanely. I love to garden — the process of growing your own food is immensely rewarding and fun. I believe in taking time to enjoy food, and in relishing the joys of delicious food! As much as I love the pleasures of eating, I also love the process of cooking: chopping, slicing, stirring, sauteing, caring for the ingredients. I love learning new things — new methods of preparation, discovering new ingredients, the science behind why certain things happen in the kitchen." Plus, her photographs are beautiful.]

"words lead to deeds"

Looking for Work
Raymond Carver

I have always wanted brook trout
for breakfast.

Suddenly, I find a new path
to the waterfall.

I begin to hurry.
Wake up,

my wife says,
you're dreaming.

But when I try to rise,
the house tilts.

Who's dreaming?
It's noon, she says.

My new shoes wait by the door,
gleaming.

in A New Path to the Waterfall

aranha

entrou. ao longo de um dia procurou uma ideia ao canto da casa, encontrou um risco, sentou-se e adormeceu. três dias mais tarde deve ter partido, enfadada. era hora de pratos e comida esta noite quando procurava outro risco, igual ao primeiro. 

Joaquín Torres García no ccb

"Torres García vivía en el otro extremo de París, en la calle Marcel-Sembat, cerca de la puerta de Montmartre. Habitaba un apartamento en la planta baja, con una cochera bastante espaciosa que había podido transformar en taller. La iluminación allí era mediocre, pero reinaba una atmósfera de una vivacidad incomparable que suplía la falta de luz con un desbordamiento dinámico constante. Los cuatro niños de Torres García eran los reyes allí. Arp recuerda como yo, los disfraces de indios con grandes plumas y el arco tendido que, desde la entrada, apuntaban al visitante. Juegos y empujones se sucedían entre las telas totalmente frescas, las construcciones frágiles, los manuscritos y los dibujos extendidos sobre las mesas.

Si paradójicamente, los niños no parecían estorbar en absoluto al pintor en su trabajo, es porque eran sus principales colaboradores, sus principales discípulos, y él mismo los admiraba. Obtenía de ellos, cada día, muchas enseñanzas, se sentía hijo de sus obras. Nunca vi una ósmosis tan perfecta entre hijos y padre." (Michel Seuphor, daqui)

um uruguaio que acabou por ser marginalizado, idealista e propenso à obsessão. teorista, nada como a quase plácida Vieira da Silva. muito diferente em ideias, tempo e concretização de Imi Knoebel (esses quadrados não valem nada. mas ficavam bem na minha escada). Julie Methru faz o que Vieira da Silva fez já há muitos anos.

eléctrico

No vale de Colares os plátanos ladeiam a linha de carris.
Era verão e passava rente ao canavial (não te cortes!),
línguas de oboé.

uma boa maneira de começar as aulinhas de literatura norte-americana

Inaugural address of Barack Obama

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land--a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America--they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted--for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things--some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions--that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act--not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions--who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works--whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account--to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day--because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control--and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart--not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience' sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort--even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West--know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment--a moment that will define a generation--it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends--honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism--these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility--a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence--the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed--why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to [the] future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet" it.

America: In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

January 20th 2009

hoje não me apetece dizer mais nada. live online na cnn, aqui.
os cartoons são de David Fitzsimmons, publicados no Arizona Daily Star.

enterrar os mortos cuidar dos vivos

como se nada fosse












todas pela bbc

o MEC voltou

via sentado via as folhas ardem, acabei por saber que está de volta o MEC (isto é o que se chama "de boca") no Público, absolutamente todos os dias durante um ano. como groupie antiga do MEC, aqui fica já um pedaço da crónica de dia 8: "Durante décadas, quando ser consumidor era praticamente o mesmo que ser comunista, guiávamo-nos todos por uma tabela que por cá nunca falhava: estrangeiro=melhor=mais caro. Quem fosse pobre ou tivesse um carinho fascista pela mediocridade, comprava nacional. Ou, pela calada, pedia a um fascista amigo para trazer do estrangeiro, onde era sempre mais barato. Hoje, esta regra está sob ataque. Nas frutarias e sapatarias; nos Aldis e Lídeis; o nacional é que é bom; o nacional é que é mais caro; o nacional é que é o único que se "pode levar à vontade." isto para contrabalançar duas manchetes: missas contra o casamento gay uma, já nem de cretinice se trata, os adjectivos qualificativos aplicáveis não entram num blogue modo geral bem educado. em Espanha, li, celebraram-se já cerca de 9000 casamentos homosexuais.

e afinal será o dilúvio: 101 cookie cutter set, mais culto que isto seria mesmo impossível.

palavras que criam musgo e um livro em espera para amanhã

por enquanto, Kay Ryan.

Chemistry

Words especially
are subject to
the chemistry
of death: it is
an acid bath
which dissolves
or doubles
their strength.
Sentiments
which pleased
drift down
as sediment;
iron trees
grow from filament.

. . .

são horas em janeiro, pouco espaço para esboroar ou esvoaçar, cada dia arrancado forçosamente. um livro em espera é quase como um encontro no café ruidoso, ela de flor vermelha no casaco e ele com o jornal debaixo do braço. vou de azul. daqui do canto vejo quem entra e quem sai. pior é a nódoa de creme no punho da sua camisa, sigo-a com os olhos, se conseguisse disfarçar, mas apanhou-me a imagem impúdica e persigo-a de modo doentio. fora deste lugar público gostava de se atarefar, a mulher, duas palavras que viajam juntas. assim em minudências se revia, aconchegada na seda azul de janeiro.

byebye

não fossem os constrangimentos domésticos e ia a uma delas, google powering, esta noite é dia de champanhe para uns, de luto pelos mais de mil mortos e cinco mil feridos para outros. entre um presidente e outro folgam as costas armadas. há dez anos foi o mesmo.

eros

duas serigrafias de Júlio Pomar que estiveram até ontem em exposição no Centro Português de Serigrafia do CCB e que me lembraram mas tanto o Baldessari (salvaguardando o cinismo daquele e o romantismo deste). obras dos anos setenta no entanto. série "Eros", Rouge o primeiro, Le Chateau o segundo. e a pensar que isto é que ficava mesmo bem acompanhando o Frevo da minha sala. sem esquecer que sou quinhentos por cento contempladora de Pomar.

o verdadeiro poder das mulheres é a influência

dito pelo Fernando Dacosta, seria contrapondo o poder executivo. nada como uma cretinice logo de manhã.

square -ing, by Imi Knoebel

Imi Knoebel, Grace Kelly III (1994)





Entre Malevich e Beuys, ou na sua sequência, mas "at odds with contemporary formalist theories propounded by Clement Greenberg".

"Knoebel began a series of drawings that were kept in boxed portfolios housed in specially designed cabinets. When put on public view, the six cabinets that constitute Untitled (1973–75) can be opened under supervision to make a selection of their contents available to viewers. Realizing that this vast project was potentially limitless, the artist curtailed it at the point when he had filled more than 900 portfolios with a quarter of a million pencil drawings, each a typewriter-format sheet of paper limned with thin vertical rules varying in number and spacing. This combination of a monumental scale (and concomitant ambition) with a willingness to maintain the work in what might be deemed a truncated state bears a close relation to works by several of Knoebel's contemporaries, notably Hanne Darboven, for whom the book as "stored time" serves as an important structural modality, and Franz Erhard Walther, who typically presents his "demonstration materials" in a "stored state."
daqui

lista

aos especialistas de listas, em progresso, que acho uma piada inquisidora às listas, houve tempo em que se fizesse lista não sobrava tempo para a coisa. por piada inquisidora a lista da semana. continuando O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis, entremeado com Caravana. falando nisto e tenho que ver J. Rivette, mas isto já sai do contexto. Lidos em corrida três livros do Baudrillard para descobrir que o que eu queria era o América. Ao mesmo passo o C. Simic, mas volto. em leitura o catálogo da exposição Vieira da Silva Joaquin Torres, que vi e adorei. é só entrar. também visto o filme sobre a pintora no espaço da exposição. Lidos textos de Torres. Pela Pluk e ainda relacionado se bem que de viés os fotógrafos Tichý e Ezawa. o filme Coeurs logo no início da semana e vontade de ver mais. aliás, este mesmo merece ser revisto e revisto. no lado infantil, um Atlas com globo, reler the Snowleopard, o pirata Xavier, a história da Goldilocks, entremeados de muitos super-heróis. construção de uma mini-casa, stamping. relembrar como se tiram os vídeos do youtube e usá-los. retomar o powerpoint para o isps. preparar o manual de primeiros socorros e outro de incêndio, tentar organizar um mini-curso nesta área. na frente culinária nada de novo a não ser confirmações: as panelas de ferro fundido valem o que custam, as castanhas ficam bem na comida, o arroz biológico caçarola vale a pena. alguns planos. e depois há o pessoal e o caseiro, que não cabem aqui. cá está. acho que não volto a fazer isto. (a Mary Temple, esquecia-me dela)

uma curtíssima leitura

e porque calhou, fugindo a Gaza por uns instantes. "Nope, none, nada. Talent is a crook. People with talent often waste it with procrastination, drinking, doubt, whatever. Persistence, patience, practice, and the willingness to learn is the key to writing poetry. Everything else is icing." para além de um optimismo primário e até superficial, é por vezes curioso encontrar algumas razões nos charcos. mas vale, vale? pela piada e pela citação. "The poet makes silk dresses out of worms." (Wallace Stevens) e continuando, "Being a good poet is being able to see the world differently or more clearly...", uma afirmação de elevadíssimo grau de controvérsia. a voz a quem a tem:"I could no more define poetry than a terrier  could define a rat." (A.E. Houseman). definitivamente não valendo o dinheiro, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry. pode até ser altamente nocivo.

Cabbage

She was about to chop the head
In half,
But I made her reconsider
By telling her:
"Cabbage symbolizes mysterious love."

Or so said one Charles Fourier,
Who said many other strange and wonderful things,
So that people called him mad behind his back,

Whereupon I kissed the back of her neck
Ever so gently,

Whereupon she cut the cabbage in two
With a single stroke of her knife.

(Charles Simic)

in The Voice at 3:00 A.M., Charles Simic, e ainda fica mais barato. ler aqui.

technicalities

PowerPoint to YouTube using Windows Movie Maker and Embed YouTube Video into PowerPoint. save2pc.

fazer.re fazer. e ver um raio de luz negra, vinda do mais escuro do que pode ser um humano, é ouvir o relato legalístico de quem representa uma mulher presa por crime inimaginável. ou muitos deles. enquanto se refaz, animais na toca, nem um pouco mais, escapa-se. o que pode ser em cada minuto. coisas pequenas, sem deus católico a ver, e as mais sublimes por vezes. as muitas formas repetidas de um tecer com tinta, paixão ainda fresca. uma carícia na cara. quem se vê em desdém oferece o mesmo a quem olha. e quem se doura, que outras cores estão em falta ou se desejam tanto. sempre achei que o meio das linhas era maior do que tudo o que se pode dizer e até agora mantenho essa crença nas sombras, mais altas do que o meio dia. e quem vai descendo. quem precisa desse cumprimento vago, quem se esconde. não quantificar, não comparar nada senão as palavras e a sua história. abstenção. era dela aquela voz que podia nem estar lá. é contraditório que se ouça agora mais e que soe à minha volta tão clara. no céu não há mortos nenhuns.

à la pulpe de date verte

depois de algumas voltas regressou às formas de dentro, acendeu o azul, esperou que o vapor subisse em ondas emplumadas, verteu folhas e dedicou-se ao predispor dos volumes. 

de há muito tempo

primeiro gostei muito, depois desgostei, reencontro-o nos escaparates como se diz, agora que os  oitenta brilham de novo, uma geração que cai numa quase meia idade e de repente se apercebe que perdeu alguma coisa, e a quer reaver. filhos à procura dos pais, enigmas confusos de outro tempo, não sei o porquê desta nostalgia. agora em releitura, ainda à boleia do google books, pode-se ler não tudo mas muita coisa. "Can you grasp a world when you're no longer tied to it by some kind of ideological enthusiasm, or by traditional passions? Can things "tell" themselves through stories and fragments? These are some of the questions posed in a book which may seem melancholic. But then I think almost every diary is melancholic. Melancholy is in the very state of things." não me tinha apercebido antes da centralidade do sexo e das mulheres-vulto que atravessam esta obra. talvez por isso tenha desistido dela há vinte anos atrás. da melancolia vou gostando, agora que me tornei nadadora de fundo, mas por tantas razões diferentes.

"All the objects, places and faces that are so much a part of us that they intensify our loneliness and we are forced to love them because there will be no others after them. They have involuted into us and we into them; they have created around us the optical illusion of everyday life. At most they are capable, like a mirror, of inverting the symmetry of our lives." (in Cool Memories 80-85).   e mais perto, perto do que mudou e é agora, mais afastado de dúvidas datadas. "The concept is unrepresentable, but the image is inexplicable. Between them there is, then, an insuperable distance. As a result, the image is always nostalgic for the text and the text nostalgic for the image." com o qual não concordo, mas que soa tão bem assim colocado numa linha. depois ouço nostalgia e estou a perseguir o restante da frase. um dramatismo de paixão: "We have to take the view that we have entered a phase of thought-prohibition, and so we must prepare to go underground, to take refuge in the catacombs of the Virtual." (in Cool Memories IV)outra, agora com underground pela nostalgia. são cores que acenam.

sublimação e voyeurismo

onde é que começa e acaba o limite, se for encenado na tv, se solitariamente, quem escreve é sempre um observador dos outros, quem fotografa. entre o ver e o transformar que distância está? Miroslav Tichý está numa destas linhas limite , como Kota Ezawa está no limite da manipulação do alheio. se gosto de fabular sobre a fronteira disto e daquilo, mais ainda gosto da chama pura, a que não deixa margem para dúvidas. (via the Pluk Mag)

e parte do que eu ia dizer e mostrar de Tichý está aqui.

quando sei

que alguém estava a pensar em mim: e embrulhou um sabonete que dizia preparato con amore e cura e lhe pôs uma fita dourada em cima. girasole e zafferano.

o cardeal é uma bestinha

cuidado com o cardeal.
pensem duas vezes antes de casar com um cardeal.
ah não se pode?
ah.

as sombras de Mary Temple

Light Installations

"I'm investigating the experiential qualities of specific environments through several bodies of work and multi-disciplinary approaches. In my site-specific installations, light and shadow seem to cast on walls from nearby windows. However, in actuality, the images are installed in rooms where there is little or no natural light, nor corresponding windows. In this way I'm relying on the viewer to complete the architectural intervention by conceptualizing a window and borrowing from past experiences with light in space. I am interested in what informs the emotional sensibility of a site, how tenacious and fragile our memory of an environment is, and how an artist might affect conceptual modifications to such physical spaces". (Mary Temple)

- - -

gosto de tudo em Mary Temple: a ideia de luz e sombra (manto diáfano), o jogo conceptual, a noção de espaço e de realidade. os materiais, incluindo o papel em obras que não incluo ainda aqui. e uma artista contemporânea que a colecção Berardo ainda não tem.

a origem do cão das lágrimas e um passeio em Lisboa

"Meditam-se estas contradições enquanto se vai subindo a Rua do Alecrim, pelas calhas dos eléctricos ainda correm regueirinhos de água, o mundo não consegue estar quieto, é o vento que sopra, são as nuvens que voam, da chuva nem se fala, tanta tem sido. Ricardo Reis pára diante da estátua de Eça de Queirós, ou Queiroz, por cabal respeito da ortografia que o dono do nome usou, ai como podem ser diferentes as maneiras de escrever, e o nome ainda é o menos, assombroso é falarem estes a mesma língua e serem, um Reis, o outro, Eça, provavelmente a língua é que vai escolhendo os escritores que precisa, serve-se deles para que exprimam uma parte pequena do que é, quando a língua tiver dito tudo, e calado, sempre quero ver como iremos nós viver. Já as primeiras dificuldades começam a surgir, ou não serão ainda dificuldades, antes diferentes e questionadoras camadas do sentido, sedimentos removidos, novas cristalizações, por exemplo, Sobre a nudez forte da verdade o manto diáfano da fantasia, parece clara a senteça, clara, fechada e conclusa, uma criança será capaz de perceber e ir ao exame repetir sem se enganar, mas essa mesma criança perceberia e repetiria com igual convicção um novo dito, Sobre a nudez forte da fantasia o manto diáfano da verdade, e este dito, sim, dá muito mais que pensar, e saborosamente imaginar, sólida e nua a fantasia, diáfana apenas a verdade, se as sentenças viradas do avesso passarem a ser leis, que mundo faremos com elas, milagre é não endoidecerem os homens de cada vez que abrem a boca para falar. É instrutivo o passeio, ainda agora contemplámos o Eça e já podemos observar o Camões, a este não se lembraram de pôr-lhe versos no pedestal, e se um pusessem qual poriam. Aqui, com grave dor, com triste acento, o melhor é deixar o pobre amargurado, subir o que falta da rua, da Misericórdia, que já foi Mundo, infelizmente não se pode ter tudo nem ao mesmo tempo, ou mundo ou misericórdia. Eis o antigo Largo de S. Roque, e a igreja do mesmo santo, aquele a quem um cão foi lamber as feridas da peste, bubónica seria, animal que nem parece pertencer à espécie da cadela Ugolina, que só sabe dilacerar e devorar, dentro desta famosa igreja é que está a capela de S. João Baptista, a tal que foi encomendada a Itália pelo Sr. D. João V, tão renomado monarca, rei pedreiro e arquitecto por excelência, haja vista o convento de Mafra, e outrossim o aqueduto das Águas Livres, cuja verdadeira história ainda está por contar."

J. Saramago, O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis

há livros em que os olhos vão de expresso, outros em que caminham numa marcha muito lenta. este é um deles, em cada página encontro coisas que nunca vi.

- - -

engraçada a leitura desta obra como tragédia

mayii Ô

4 colheres de sopa de maionese . 2 ovos cozidos . 1 colher de sopa de picles picados . 1 colher de café de molho inglês . 1 colher de chá de mostarda . 1 colher de sopa de uísque (ou de conhaque). sal . pimenta .piripiri . salsa picada

musical

as notas de uma typewriter das antigas a escrever dois gabinetes ao lado.

manual de primeiros socorros

não é literatura, mas deveria estar na casa de todos nós. é o Manual de Primeiros Socorros da Escola Nacional de Bombeiros, que pode ser totalmente descarregado em .pdf. um bom manual, claro e conciso. admirou-me muito foi o facto de não estar mencionado o choque anafilático, uma situação de claro perigo de vida em que a rapidez e o diagnóstico correcto são vitais. até porque este é um manual de formação de quem muitas vezes chega primeiro ao local.

Hipoglicemia – A quantidade de açúcar no sangue é baixa e pode levar
rapidamente à morte. Este tipo de situação pode surgir por erro na
administração da medicação ou por jejum prolongado, podendo surgir
em doentes não diabéticos, principalmente em resultado de um esforço
físico, infecções ou por ingestão de alguns medicamentos. Devido à
gravidade da situação torna-se fundamental a identificação da situação.
Assim deve suspeitar-se de hipoglicemia quando se estiver perante um
doente diabético que esteve sujeito a um jejum prolongado ou a esforço
físico continuado e que se apresente inconsciente, confuso ou agitado,
pálido e suado. Sendo a hipoglicemia a situação mais grave e que resulta
da baixa de açúcar no sangue torna-se fundamental a sua reposição.
Assim, devem ser adoptados os seguintes procedimentos:

– Se o doente se encontrar consciente e for capaz de beber, deve ser
administrada de imediato uma bebida açucarada.

– Se o doente se encontrar inconsciente ou muito sonolento, deve ser
deitado de lado e ser administrada uma papa de açúcar, dentro da
bochecha, de forma a que não exista risco de obstrução da via aérea;

– Se está na dúvida se é uma hipoglicemia ou hiperglicemia e se o
doente for diabético, deve administrar-se sempre açúcar.

sounds the shape of words

"New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand something that is being said, for, if something were being said, the sounds would be given the shape of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds."
John Cage in Silence na página 10, que o google book permite ler na íntegra. e uma ideia que pode ser transposta para todo tipo de criação artística que não utilize aquelas formas sonoras e gráficas. embora eu duvide que se consiga retirar o sentido, a máquina inteligente tem passado os últimos milénios nesse vício. dar sentido a coisas que não o têm: os animais falam, os objectos denotam (v.Auster), o universo quer dizer. o cair das folhas do chá na chávena, os sinais da bolsa, o vôo das aves. invenções.

Coeurs, Alain Resnais

Charlotte e o seu livro na mesa de madeira da cozinha. A cassete de Thierry. O gorro de Nicole. "O meu pai está desiludido. Desiludido com o que me tornei. Mas eu sou o que sou." aqui  e aqui. Resnais, admirável.

. . . and perfectly put by Ferdy: "Private Fears in Public Places maintains the theatrical atmosphere of the source material. Although Resnais strips most of the farcical elements from what is essentially an homage to the classic French farces of Molière, he seems to call on Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello for inspiration. Like Pirandello’s absurdist play Six Characters in Search of an Author, the six characters in Private Fears in Public Places are intertwined, trapped in claustrophobic and intentionally artificial settings. Resnais is given to shooting straight down into the roofless apartments Nicole visits with Thierry, emphasizing the artificiality of the movie set and the ratlike maze in which the characters are caught. Charlotte is seen to be a religious hypocrite and liar, very much in keeping with sentiments common in the works of Molière, but sympathetically human nonetheless. Unlike the unfortunates of Pirandello, Resnais provides his characters with open doors in an acknowledgment of their humanity. Some walk through those doors, other remain trapped, others find themselves unexpectedly freed. In this way, Resnais adds a genuinely religious framework of free will and grace to the proceedings.", from here, a great film blog. great blog.

squaring again

Joaquin Torres-Garcia do Uruguai e que a Colecção Berardo juntou a Vieira da Silva.

coisas ditas...

"Hay quien podrá vivir sin poesía; yo no. Hay quien se jugará toda la poesía por la certitud matemática. Yo digo que el saber demasiado fisiología no predispone al amor. Y ya desde muchos años, escribí, que prefería pensar que era Apolo en su carro, quien traía la luz al día, que no lo que nos ha enseñado la astronomía, que quisiera desaprender. ¡Qué infeliz ha hecho al hombre la ciencia física! Yo no quiero saber, yo deseo ignorar; porque quiero estar del misterio para allá. Para todo lo material del hombre, sirve la ciencia, pero, siempre que se haya salvado el hombre esencial, que hará que esa ciencia tenga el mejor empleo. Me decía uno: ¡qué grandeza la del hombre moderno, que ha llegado a desintegrar el átomo! Cierto; pero, ¿qué pretende hacer con eso? Y aún ¿cuál fue la musa que inspiró tamaño invento?
El arte toma su raíz de la vida. No es copiando la realidad, que se hace arte. Es siendo artista. Y este hecho nadie podrá explicarlo."

Torres-Garcia in "la Recuperación del objecto". outros textos, aqui, no seu Museu. 

textos tão interessantes como a sua arte

convite e resumos

parabéns ao Cristiano que o mereceu. e desde que instalei o jazz na cozinha posso dizer que o nível de vida foi melhorado em 300 por cento. por falar em jazz, hoje ouve-se rádio marginal no posto de trabalho. saudando o novo projecto da melhor de todas, a Maria João agora com João Farinha (em baixo no Hot) e quanto ao Hot, o convite do ano: 11 de Fevereiro às 11 da noite, os Combos da escola de Jazz Luiz Villas-Boas do Hot Club de Portugal no Hot Club da Praça da Alegria.

carta

"À cette parole, je sentis la conversation était devenue glaciale et que, par conséquent, je manquais, peut-être, de la stricte politesse qu'un bourreau de si étrange acabit était en droit d'exiger de nous. Je cherchais donc une banalité pour changer le cours des pensés qui nous enveloppaient tous les deux, lorsque la belle Antonie se détourna du piano, en disant avec un air de nonchalance: «À propos, mesdames et messieurs, vous savez qu'il y a, ce matin, une exécution?»
in Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Le Convive des Dernières Fêtes

- - -

Desculpa mas é o material disponível e terá de ser poupado. Estou em Sevilha, viemos para o Corpus Christi mas chegámos tarde no sábado santo. Depois lembrei-me que já tinhas morado em Espanha e resolvi escrever-te. (...) Li um conto "Le convive des dernières fêtes" numa daquelas edições minúsculas, pouco maiores do que esta folha. Penso que faz parte de "Contes Cruels". Conheces? São uns contos de 1883, elegantes e negros, à la Poe mas com os salons e soies de Paris. Foi surpreendente para mim porque os franceses são um bocado chatos com aquelas descrições de festas e etc. mas este agarra o leitor. Recentemente li também numa edição Penguin miniatura "Matilda's England" de William Trevor - muito suave, muito nostálgico, muito british, daquelas leituras que tu provavelmente odiarias, com countryside e cottage gossip, mas que me limpam o espírito para outras leituras. (...) Estou louca para que abram as livrarias amanhã. Hoje é Domingo Santo e acho que até as casas de banho estão fechadas.

e pelo Nemo, visuwords.

vantagens do google reader e dos shared items

UMA AMEAÇA DE BOMBA

Um telefonema anónimo
E todos os poetas
Saem em pânico
Da página em branco

fantástico para alegrar a manhã, daqui: edições-mortas, o centro nacional de contracultura. escrito pelo mão pesada ou será pela mão pesada?

gaza gaza

entre a cnn e a al jazeera. o que se está a passar em gaza é inaceitável, a morte aos nossos olhos, repudiável, faltam-me as palavras para as imagens que vejo nos canais noticiosos. que isto seja possível debaixo dos olhos das câmaras, a própria cnn me surpreendeu pelo realismo pouco comum das imagens. um ultrage mundial. avançam neste momento as forças terrestres. esta manhã ouvi, 900 mortos palestinianos civis, 3 israelitas. não me venham dizer que os "rockets" do Hamas são de chocolate (!) "The rockets will never stop", diz a Christiane Amanpour.  Nunca, nunca desta maneira.

um abraço virtual ao nosso eurodeputado Miguel Portas que descreve no seu blogue Sem Muros a visita da comitiva europeia a Gaza.

"O centro de refugiados
O centro de acolhimento de refugiados da UNRWA em Arafat é um dos 26 que administram no território. Este acolhe 1215 crianças e mulheres. Crianças e mulheres que ficaram sem casa ou sem casa e sem família. Os rostos delas e as suas palavras são severas e dignas. O das crianças e dos jovens era entusiasmado. Não entendo o árabe, mas há momentos em que o som das palavras e os movimentos dos corpos dispensam tradução. Estava tudo naquele protesto, naquela dignidade, naquelas mão elevadas para o céu e naquela felicidade momentânea. A chegada dos de fora, os primeiros a entrarem, foi um bálsamo. Afinal, não estavam sós no mundo. Lá fora, muitos se batem contra este delírio. Não lhes levámos comida, mas outro tipo de alimento. Só por isso valeu a pena. Valeu para eles e valeu para a coragem dos homens da UNRWA que, contra todas as pressões, quiseram mesmo que entrássemos para aumentar a pressão sobre os que decidem do fim deste conflito sem solução militar.
Foi nesse mesmo centro, uma escola preparatória das Nações Unidas transformada em refúgio que pudemos ouvir o responsável máximo da UNRWA na faixa de Gaza explicar o óbvio - que se houvesse uma só munição ou arma nestas escolas, ninguém nelas procuraria acolhimento. Isto a propósito do bombardeamento de outra mais a Norte, há uns dias. Foi também aí que John Gilgs nos recordou outra evidência - que cada dia que passa sem um acordo de cessar-fogo e a reabertura das fronteiras tem um preço insuportável em vidas humanas. Esta é a mensagem desta visita - a primeira a romper um bloqueio criminoso. Outras considerações, de ordem política, deixo-as para mais tarde. Agora vou rever as imagens que filmei. É noite de lua cheia, faz um frio de rachar lá fora e eu sei que aqueles corpos se encaixam uns nos outros enquanto as bombas caem."

bolembre

eram uns quarenta carros numa tarde linda de inverno. clara e nítida. os muros de pedra que odiava em miúda e que adoro agora. o ferro branco de uma cama com florão no quintal de uma casa. um portão feito de corda e sacos de plástico, pinheiros mansos, canaviais. a terra castanha, nada como o verde alentejano, com o mar ao fundo. família.

ladeira

Vereda da Ladeira na Ribeira Brava, sítio de Pombais. passeio que não fiz mas que deve ser inacreditável: Santa do Porto Moniz – Miradouro dos Pombais – Levada dos Pombais – Vereda da Ladeira – Calhau das Achadas da Cruz – Teleférico – Achadas da Cruz.

Schad's

painting, Dove's words:

Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove
Rita Dove em Selected Poems (1993)

Schad paced the length of his studio
and stopped at the wall,
                        staring
at a blank space. Behind him
the clang and hum of Hardenbergstrasse, its
automobiles and organ grinders.
                        Quarter to five.
His eyes traveled
to the plaster scrollwork
on the ceiling. Did that
                        hold back heaven?
He could not leave his skin - once
he'd painted himself in a new one,
silk green, worn
like a shirt.
                        He thought
of Rasha, so far from Madagascar,
turning slowly in place as
the boa constrictor
coiled counterwise its
                        heavy love. How
the spectators gawked, exhaling
beer and sour herring sighs.
When the tent lights dimmed,
Rasha went back to her trailer and plucked
a chicken for dinner
                     The canvas,

not his eye, was merciless.
He remembered Katja the Russian
aristocrat, late
for every sitting,
                        still fleeing
the October Revolution - 
how she clutched her sides
and said not
                        one word. Whereas Agosta
(the doorbell rang)
was always on time, lip curled
as he spoke in wonder of women
                        trailing
backstage to offer him
the consummate bloom of their lust.

Schad would place him
on a throne, a white sheet tucked
over his loins, the black suit jacket
thrown off like a cloak.
Agosta had told him
                        of the medical students
at the Charite
that chill arena
                        where he perched on
a cot, his torso
exposed, its crests and fins
a colony of birds trying
to get out . . .
                         and the students
lumps caught
in their throats, taking notes.

Ah, Rasha's 
                        foot on the stair.
She moved slowly, as if she carried
the snake aroudn her body
always.

                        once
she brought fresh eggs into
the studio, flecked and
warm as breath
                        Agosta in
classical drapery, then,
and Rasha at his feet.
Without passion. Not
the canvas
                        but their gaze,
                        so calm,
was merciless.

susto [leia e escreva críticas literárias]

ou o que se encontra quando se anda à procura de Alberto Pimenta, depois de ver uma capa -read & mad- na Poesia Incompleta, que a loja fecha mas é só a da Rua Cecílio de Sousa. acabei por encontrar aqui. e lá me perdi de novo. em final de noite, Peggy Guggenheim, nua, no mar nocturno de Cascais.

- - -

"1
Prologue sunday dinner, summer 1941:
sojourn on the coast of portugal

Having recently fled German-occupied France, Peggy Guggenheim found herself on a Sunday afternoon in late June 1941 holding court at a large table in the dining room of a Portuguese resort hotel, surrounded by a motley band of friends and family, including a painter, a writer, an ex-husband, children, and others who were depending on her to get them out of wartime Europe. They were cooling their heels in Estoril, a resort town on what was once known as the Portuguese Riviera and home to exiled European royalty, including Juan de Borbón of Spain, Karl von Habsburg of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and King Carol of Romania, which lent a certain frisson to the Guggenheim party’s experience. The town lay between the small coastal fishing village of Cascais and Lisbon, the latter near enough so that members of Peggy’s party could make forays there to try to determine when their enforced exile would end—for Estoril was just a way station on the journey to America. For the past three weeks they had been waiting for passenger lists that would tell them when they could, all eleven of them, get passage on a Pan American Clipper flight bound for America.

at that time was the single most important point of embarkation for refugees from Europe who wanted to go to the United States. Portugal was a neutral country, and more than 70,000 refugees passed through the port during the war. In the 1942 Hollywood classic Casablanca, Lisbon is the destination for the refugees stranded in Morocco. Because of its transatlantic connections, and because it was a city crowded with foreigners of all nationalities, it became a rendezvous spot for spies and a hotbed of intrigue.

It is difficult to overstate the anxieties of those wishing to flee the Nazis—not to mention the fears of the Jews among them. One observer took measure of the atmosphere on a train heading for Lisbon after the war commenced: “Outside the sun beats down in muggy waves, but inside . . . fear—like a blanket of dark cobwebs—lies over the lives of the passengers. Fear that visas may expire before a destination can be reached. Fear that each new border check might bring a gruff order to get off the train and turn back. Fear that scanty funds may not last until a safe place is reached in the New World. Fear that an outbreak of war in a new theater will slam the gates to freedom at the last moment. Fears by the hundreds—by the thousands.” The Guggenheim party was not immune to such fears; just keeping their papers together was an anxiety-ridden chore.

Most refugees got out of Lisbon when they could, and many of them went to America. The war saw a torrent of them making their way to the United States, through Lisbon or through Marseilles, another jumping-off point. In the French city, the American intellectual Varian Fry ran the Emergency Rescue Committee, which conspired to help refugees from a list of two hundred mysteriously given to him in the States. Fry risked everything as he maneuvered around and away from the Gestapo and the Vichy police to secure passage to the United States—usually through Lisbon—for the writer Hannah Arendt, the painters Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, and the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, among many others.

Peggy Guggenheim—herself, as a Jew, in a very vulnerable position —had aided Fry materially, giving the committee 500,000 francs in December 1940: she also arranged and paid for the flight to the United States of André Breton and his family. The surrealist potentate, whom Peggy would support for a good part of his stay in America, would reassemble his court around Art of This Century, Peggy’s wartime gallery in New York City. Among the other artists seeking haven in New York were Chagall, the Chilean-born Roberto Matta Echaurren, Yves Tanguy, André Masson, and Kurt Seligmann. In fact, Peggy’s gallery would become a place where the European refugees could meet with emerging American artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Robert Motherwell in a heady mix of cross-pollination and creative collaboration, out of which came abstract expressionism, and which saw the center of the art world move from Paris to New York City.

The year before Peggy and her party arrived in Lisbon, as a German invasion threatened, she had tried desperately to find ways to preserve her remarkable trove of surrealist and abstract art, which would serve as the anchor of her New York gallery and which by then included, she wrote, “a Kandinsky, several Klees and Picabias, a Cubist Braque, a Gris, a Léger, a Gleizes, a Marcoussis, a Delaunay, two Futurists, a Severini, a Balla, a Van Doesburg, and a ‘De Stijl’ Mondrian. Among the surrealist paintings were those of Miró, Max Ernst, Chirico, Tanguy, Dalí, Magritte and Brauner. The sculpture [included] works by Brancusi, Lipchitz, Laurens, Pevsner, Giacometti, Moore, and Arp.” When the Louvre declined to store the collection, a museum director in Grenoble had agreed to show it and to store it afterward, but he kept putting off the exhibit. Finally, a shipping agent and family friend suggested that she wrap up all her artworks with the rest of her possessions—dishes, furniture, and her car—and send them to America as “household goods.”

The woman who assembled this remarkable collection was not a conventional collector or patron. Peggy had found her vocation within the larger frame of a life in quest of a personality separate from the confining world of her prominent and wealthy family. Instead of a respectable marriage and a stable home, she had opted for an itinerant life with a succession of male companions, friends, and hangers-on in the literary and artistic circles of France and the United Kingdom. The entourage she took with her on her constant travels across Europe—and now to America—was an inextricable part of her life, for better or for worse. Out of these circumstances Peggy became one of the most colorful figures in the expatriate community of the 1920s and 1930s, and her New York endeavor would prove the most distinctive and individual in America in the 1940s. The collection she assembled represented her iconoclasm: decidedly modern art, heavily surrealistic, a genre that was sexually and ideologically confrontational. She had been brought up on old masters. True, her uncle Solomon Guggenheim was collecting the works that would form the backbone of his Museum of Non-Objective Painting—later the Guggenheim Museum in the Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue in New York—but he was thought to be eccentric himself, and at any rate he thoroughly disapproved of his niece having a career in the first place, not to mention dealing in modern art. The party in the hotel dining room on a summer Sunday made a de- cidedly unconventional family picture. Peggy, at the center, was then forty-two and had maintained her attractive, slim figure; her build was delicate in the wrists and ankles, and she waved her hands when she talked, giving her an air of fragility and vulnerability. She could be a strikingly handsome woman, with raven black hair and bright blue eyes, but her crudely applied makeup—a crimson gash for her mouth —and her famously ugly nose marred her looks. She spoke in vaguely English-sounding, plummy tones, her voice often dryly amused, radiating an ironic air that masked an underlying insecurity about how others regarded her.

With Peggy in Portugal was her ex-husband Laurence Vail, a harddrinking literary and artistic dabbler, equipped with a volatile temper but a wonderful sense of fun. Once known for his yellow mane, Laurence wore his light, receding hair long on top but clipped underneath, giving him a boyish air even in his late forties. He too had striking blue eyes, and his large, aquiline nose, rather than detracting from his appearance, made him look distinguished. He was a naturally graceful man. In group conversation, he was witty and ebullient, and in one-onone discussion he was capable of creating a rare intimacy. He was also very much the proud papa, affectionate toward his large brood.

With Vail was his second wife, the writer Kay Boyle, a beautiful and patrician American who had managed to curb her husband’s scenes by throwing impressive ones of her own. Kay was at the hotel with the others reluctantly. She spent the rest of the week in a Lisbon clinic, supposedly because of a sinus infection but really to escape family turmoil. Kay intended to divorce Laurence as soon as she got to the States and to marry her new lover, an Austrian baron named Joseph Franckenstein. Between Peggy and Kay there was no love lost. Kay had urged Laurence to obtain custody of their two children by any means possible, including dredging up some nasty gossip about Peggy’s family in an attempt to prove that all Guggenheim women were crazy, unfit mothers.

Laurence eventually won custody of their son, Sindbad, and inevitably Kay and Peggy fought a tug of war over him and later, over Laurence and Peggy’s daughter, Pegeen.

In Estoril, the assorted children, however appreciative of the drama of their situation, were themselves going through difficult passages, especially Peggy’s children, Sindbad and Pegeen, eighteen and sixteen respectively. Pegeen, a beautiful blond girl who projected a lost, otherworldly vulnerability, inherited her mother’s mannerisms, including a habit of drawing her mouth inward and downward when she laughed. She had bonded deeply with Kay and defended her stepmother’s actions —which was hard on Peggy. And Sindbad told Kay, “You haven’t only ruined one man’s life. You’ve ruined two!” With Kay’s departure, he felt that he was losing the only real mother he knew. Sindbad, with soulful, large eyes, was darkly handsome, having inherited the paternal, not the maternal, nose. This summer, he was obsessed with losing his virginity, a burden he did not want to bring to America. The adults made this a topic of much amused conversation—Peggy urged her son to forswear the local girls, from whom he might acquire a venereal disease.

One member of the group, Pegeen’s close friend Jacqueline Ventadour, fifteen, had fallen in love with Sindbad, creating another subject for gossip among the adults. But Sindbad was still in love with Yvonne Kuhn (the sister of Pegeen’s first lover) from the previous summer at Lake Annecy in the French Alps, and paid no notice to Jacqueline’s attentions.

The fourth adult in the ménage was the surrealist artist Max Ernst, Peggy’s latest lover. She had met the German painter just two months before in Marseilles, when they were all arranging for their departures for the United States. Peggy had fallen in love with the strikingly handsome Max, who, with his long whitish blond locks, piercing blue eyes, and beaky nose, closely resembled a younger Laurence. Max had allowed Peggy to take him in tow, grateful to her for making it possible for him to get an emergency exit visa, despite a stay in a French internment camp, as well as for paying his way—for which Peggy, driving a hard bargain, got her pick of his artworks. Yet Max was inscrutable. Sometimes boisterous, he could also be frigid and taciturn, emitting waves of European displeasure. With his aloof manner, he kept Peggy guessing. A believer in personal anarchy, he introduced a wild, unpredictable note into a household that already contained enough conflict to keep it at the brink of chaos. On this Sunday, his hair was dyed blue— he had soaked it in mouthwash—to the children’s delight and the grownups’ titillation; yet he made no reference to the hue of his hair. Max could be a little frightening, especially to the children; just that morning, Kay and Laurence’s daughter, the twelve-year-old Apple, had seen him naked in front of the mirror in his room, solemnly applying the blue to his hair.

Peggy was dismayed by what she felt was Max’s lingering affection for the English painter Leonora Carrington, who had turned up in Lis- bon independently. Yet, as she wrote in her memoir, “I soon had a definite feeling that my life with [Max] was not yet over.” One evening Peggy and Max went over to nearby Cascais, and Peggy took a nude midnight swim: Max implored her to come out of the water, as the sea at night looked threatening and the sight of the naked Peggy bobbing in the black waves frightened him. Afterward, Peggy dried herself with her chemise and they made love on the rocks. Repairing to a nearby chichi hotel bar, Peggy hung her chemise on the bar railing to dry as they sipped their brandy. “Max loved my unconventionalities,” Peggy later recorded.

That evening in late June, Peggy sat, as was her custom, at the head of the great table, with Max on one side and Laurence on the other. Kay, sitting next to the various children, tended to them and generally ignored the other adults, though at one point she piped up to tell Peggy she had heard a rumor that the ship carrying Peggy’s art collection to the United States had sunk, a malicious remark she repeated several times during the group’s long wait in Portugal. Peggy had been greatly relieved when she saw her collection off for America, but now her relief gave way to worry about its safe passage. Her father had gone down with the Titanic, and Peggy had a deep mistrust of boats.

“Our life in the hotel was rather strange,” Peggy later wrote fondly. She hugely enjoyed the confusion their seating arrangement caused the hotel staff. “No one knew whose wife I was or what connection Kay . . . had with us,” Peggy wrote. Once, the hotel’s head porter—nicknamed, by Laurence, Edward the Seventh, because of his resemblance to the English king—took a telephone call from Peggy with information about when her train would arrive in Estoril. “[H]e guessed my dilemma and, not knowing to whom I wanted the message delivered, went to the dining room and facing both Laurence and Max, said impersonally, ‘Madam arrives on the nine o’clock train.’”

It was no accident that Peggy took the presiding post at the table. It was she who was paying the $550 Clipper fare (roughly more than $6,000 in today’s currency) for everyone in her party, with the exception of Jacqueline Ventadour. In Marseilles, the wartime hub of visa activity and travel arrangements for those seeking to leave Europe, she had arranged for her party’s travel documents and for money from the Banque de France to be transferred to her account, and she made sure that everyone’s passports registered the sums.

What this footloose, unconventional, gypsyish collection of expatri- ates had in common was Peggy. She was the glue that held them together. The entire band would be going to America because they had to, not because they wanted to. Peggy, Kay, and Laurence—Laurence especially, having grown up in Europe—had adapted themselves to expatriate life. They viewed the United States (from a distance) as commercialistic and tawdry, devoted exclusively to business. Max was essentially stateless and had been for some time; there was no place for him in Germany or in any other European country for that matter. He would go where the winds of change carried him. Peggy, however much she may have dreaded revisiting the city of her childhood, had been frustrated by the shutdown of her artistic efforts by the war and saw only possibility in a new life in America. She and her collection, she hoped, would find a worthy home, and Peggy could continue a life among artists and other creative people.

It was in Europe that Peggy Guggenheim had asserted her independence and begun to sketch out a role for herself as a patron, collector, and occasional savior to a generation of modernists.With her marriage to Laurence at twenty-four in 1922, Peggy had put behind her what she considered a ridiculously conventional and confining destiny as the daughter of a prominent family in New York’s old guard German- Jewish elite, exchanging it for a life among artists and writers in Europe. Marriage to Laurence was a round of adventures, but many of them were sordid.Too often, Peggy felt she was living the life of the idle rich, and she wanted more—to be engagée, actively on the scene of artistic or literary production. Divorcing Laurence, she had moved on to the man she considered the love of her life, John Holms, a would-be writer and literary critic, and they surrounded themselves with writers, most notably Djuna Barnes and British critics such as Edwin Muir.

Peggy was trying out possible destinies for a woman of independent means in the twentieth century. Not until she turned forty, in 1938, four and a half years after Holms’s sudden death, had she begun to see her way. She opened a London art gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, which became, despite her inexperience, an overnight success. For two years Peggy exhibited the best in modern art, giving shows to Tanguy and Kandinsky and displaying sculpture by Brancusi, Moore, Arp, Calder, and Pevsner, among others, developing the habit of buying at least one piece from every show.When the gallery failed to realize a profit, she closed its doors and attempted to open a museum of modern art in Lon- don, setting a higher goal for herself. She came to collecting motivated in part by economics, reasoning that in Europe’s threatening climate artwork could be had for rock-bottom prices. With an eye toward amassing a personal collection that could be the basis for her museum, she took advice from Marcel Duchamp, who had assisted her at Guggenheim Jeune, and later from Howard Putzel, an astute American art dealer, and set out to buy, as she put it, “a picture a day.”

In France, with invasion threatening after the outbreak of war, Peggy gave up the idea of a museum—for the time being—and put her collection in storage. She roamed around the country, toying with the idea of opening an artists’ colony but really marking time until her departure became inevitable. When she had turned forty, coincidental with the start of her career as an art patron, Peggy had begun to take lovers. She chose them from the literary and artistic milieux she knew; they included, among others, Samuel Beckett (perhaps the closest she came to a true match), Tanguy, Brancusi, the British surrealist Julian Trevelyan, and James Joyce’s son, Giorgio. Some of these affairs were more difficult than others, but sexual freedom energized Peggy and gave her a new vitality. All the while she supported—financially—her growing and colorful caravan of family and protégés, including Djuna Barnes, Laurence Vail, the anarchofeminist Emma Goldman, and now, in Portugal, Max Ernst. Sometimes the world whispered, and she heard the whispers. But she chose to disregard conventional morality and the gossip of those who seemed to her excessively narrow-minded and prudish.

Peggy had come to Europe twenty-one years before and, except for very occasional family visits, she had never looked back. In June 1941, from her temporary perch outside Lisbon, America loomed disconcertingly ahead again. In a sense, she was following her art collection, for increasingly that was what defined her. It gave her confidence, a gift to one whose life thus far had been riddled with personal insecurity. Though she had little inkling of what awaited her in New York, and no idea of the full role she had yet to play in twentieth-century art, she knew she would have to rely on that confidence."

de Mary V. Dearborn no livro Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim