Monday 21 September 2015

Vítor Silva Tavares


Triste notícia.









Se houve uma editora, a primeira que, independentemente do idioma das obras por ela editadas, me cativou ao longo da vida, foi
 a "& Etc"

, e digo-o sem hesitação. 




Vítor Silva Tavares: 17 de Julho, de 1937 / 21 de Setembro, de 2015.















A sad day for Literature, one of my all time favourite publishers
is gone.




Sunday 6 September 2015

Leitura Encenada | Mulher de Porto Pim, de ANTONIO TABUCCHI


Quem puder ir, aconselho vivamente o seguinte evento.


Local: Clube Naval da Graciosa (Açores - Ilha da Graciosa)
Data e hora: 11, 12 e 13 de Setembro, 21.00h






Ilustração de Isabella Staino



Deixo o seguinte descritivo e informação, escrito por Fernando Mora Ramos (encenador)

- LINK (Fernando Mora Ramos - na rede social - fb)



- LINK (Teatro da Rainha - site)
- LINK (info. sobre a peça, no site do Teatro da Rainha)


_____________________________________________________________

Esta leitura-encenada tentará dar a ver os homens “através dos olhos doloridos de um lento animal”. E será um pequeno texto no fim do livro, retrato dos humanos feito por uma baleia, que Tabucchi refere ter sido inspirado num poema de Drummond de Andrade, a bússola da aventura encenada, pois atravessará, e comentará a passo, à semelhança de um coro da tragédia grega - aqui a voz das baleias agirá através de um corifeu multiplicado porta-voz— o desenrolar das três narrativas seleccionadas: Uma caçada,cujas páginas “não aspiram a ser mais que uma crónica”, Mulher de Porto Pim que Tabucchi confessa dever-se “às confidências de um homem que suponho ter encontrado numa taberna de Porto Pim” e que não exclui ter “modificado com acréscimos e juízos próprios da presunção de quem crê que da história de uma vida se extrai o sentido dessa vida”, e Antero de Quental. Uma vida, biografia contada como “se de uma vida imaginária se tratasse”.

Ideia original de Franco Ceraolo
Encenação de Fernando Mora Ramos
Música de Carlos Alberto Augusto
Pianista Antonella Barletta

Interpretação
Carlos Borges
Fábio Costa
Franco Ceraolo
Fernando Mora Ramos
Manuel Jorge Lobão
Luís Vasco Gregório
Sandra Santos

Operação de Luz e Som de Carina Galante
Produção Executiva Ana Pereira e Carlos Canto Brum
Ilustração do Cartaz de Isabella Staino
Grafismo de Margarida Araújo

11, 12 e 13 de Setembro | 21h30
Clube Naval da Ilha Graciosa
Entrada Livre
[Devido à limitada lotação – 40 lugares – é necessária reserva com 24h de antecedência para o telefone 96 55 39 198 ou para o mail crossoverazores@gmail.com]

A iniciativa da Cross-Over em co-produção com o Teatro da Rainha, é subvencionada pela DRAC – Açores e pela Câmara Municipal de Santa Cruz, conta com o apoio do Instituto Italiano de Cultura de Lisboa e do Clube Naval da Ilha Graciosa e com o Patrocínio do Graciosa Hotel.




_____________________________________________________________


LINK (Fernando Mora Ramos - na rede social - fb)
LINK (Carlos Alberto Augusto - na rede social - fb)

LINK (Teatro da Rainha - site)
- LINK (Teatro da Rainha - na rede social - fb)
LINK (para o evento, na rede social fb)


Saturday 5 September 2015

A Heart of Darkness - revisited

Let us imagine, if not for a moment, that there were no "legal" implications for the term refugee.
(there are - but humour me, please, for the moment)

We'd all like to think everyone could picture being close to 400,000 kilometres from our home, no gravity or air, looking back at our home and marvel emotionally, lovingly homesick, as we have
- "a moment" -
in awe of its astounding, penetrating, blue shine, in the midst of an endless, colourless, void.

Yes, it would be nice, but, things aren't quite so.
There are always a few deranged beings who think and act in accordance to their own whims in an illusion of personal freedom. Freedom can never be true liberty or real if it is only sought by, or for, oneself



work from the series "Beaches of Absolution" - Sept. 2011 Guida Almeida



Europe, it's not that different from other continents, with (some) people keeping people in, (some) people keeping people out.  One thing it is known for (also, like the others) is "a past" with a large flux of people fleeing from the horror of wars, from hardship, from political, economic or past religious persecutions throughout the centuries, bloody civil wars and genocides..
It has (also, like the others) its body of artwork (music, fine art, cinema, dance, dramatic art, architecture, literature, et cetera).

Conrad's - A Heart of Darkness - alone, written in one of Europe's idioms tells us so very much, doesn't it?

I was going to place a video clip with Brando's Kurtz..
If I don't it is because I am a sissy, I love the book, films based on it, and love Brando but, no, not this time.


Migrants.

Joseph Conrad was a migrant, a Pole granted British nationality that travelled the seas with the French and the Brits. in merchant vessels.







Merchant vessels. The Market. Dictatorships.

Trade. Treaties. Turmoil

Exploitation. Misery, Human Will. War. Destruction.

"the horror"






It's too easy to put the blame on this or that nation, on those that pray, pray differently or that do not pray, that eat meat or do not eat meat, or on a victim - be they of war, catastrophes, persecution, hate crimes or whatever it may be that is brought upon them due to someone else's whims,
due to others overstepping their own personal freedom or obeying those that do,
or even by simply not acting, by turning away from those that are wronged.


A Heart of Darkness.

Leopold II, one of the world's top genocidal maniacs of all time was not an example of a typical Belgian person, the same can be said of other monstrous beings born in other lands in relation to their countrymen.

One can turn the coin and say that Gandhi,  Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker,  Martin Luther King Jr.  Teresa of Calcutta,  Peltier,   Mandela or Gandhi weren't or aren't the same as others in their lands,

(..one can expand things to say neither
Hannah Arendt, Rabindranath Tagore, Fernando Pessoa, Bill Evans, Kandinsky, Picasso, Einstein, Bach, Rameau, Coltrane, Monet, Pomar, Stephen Hawking, and a number of others weren't or aren't, in a similar fashion)

(Each person has their own capacities, and freedom of choice, all of us take and choose our own paths)


 but one thing one can definitely say is, whether the "authority" is Science or God, even though obedience is important to social structure and survival
(as it is with other species (dolphins, for example are wonderful but they too have the occasional raping, killer psychopath that causes havoc among the others. Like other animal species, we are social beings),
 it can also be lethal and have a horrific outcome.

To think about things, think them through and well may not be easy but it is important.




(playlist with 3 short clips)








It has taken me a while to try to write down my thoughts regarding the "European Migrant Crisis", not because it doesn't hurt me deep down in my soul, but because I have been perplexed at reactions each time news regarding the terrible ordeal is announced.


Some of us comment the news in such a way that we see how "a heart of darkness" can be anywhere, just as one can be shocked by the outcome experiments such as the one above.


The European Union is a union of states. for obvious reasons with open borders among themselves under the Schengen Agreement, a necessary tool for the EU to function, with its 2013 - Dublin Regulation (revised in 2014) is ill equipped to deal with today's world as can be, to our horror, verified.

To my surprise, some go to great lengths to argue over semantics, whether people are refugees, migrants, immigrants, emigrants, citizens of here or there, to such a degree that something is lost - the understanding that these are
people.
Anyone of us, any one of our children, fathers, mothers, wives or husbands, due to catastrophe, war, famine, drought, plague, or whatever, can become from one moment to the next, a refugee.. Think of it.  If the term refugee seems to (for reasons beyond my knowledge) be demeaning to some people, it is because either they do not fathom in the least  (they themselves)  what it is to be caught in an earthquake, plague, a war torn nation, being pursued by a tyrant's special forces because they liked daddy's car - although daddy was a minister in the tyrant's government - and in a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality - shot daddy's son who was taking a drive and have daddy's nephew who was in the passenger seat throw himself behind the wheel.., never stopping until he gets to a place where those who would cover-up their blunder (thinking if it happened to us what happens to others?) could not get their hands on him - having been refused protection until he got to the third country he arrived in, thousands of km later, struggling with the thought that he may never to be able to see the face of his family, his fiancée and friends ever again.. His country wasn't at war, imagine if it were,, Demeaning, is not the word that comes to mind when I think of a refugee.
A refugee can be anyone.

It can be you or me in the past, present or future for any reason.

The term exists because Man's world isn't perfect and our backyard may not always be a safe haven.

It is a legal term, with legal implications, defining a hopefully temporary status.


To make things worse, great profit in one of the world's major money making venues is being obtained - human trafficking, blood money being made
- LINK - Guardian news article on Migrant Crisis and Human Trafficking - April 2015 


- GP (international affairs magazine) article regarding flaws in Dublin Convention - Feb. 2015











More LINKS:



Dublin Regulation


NY Times article - Sept 2015


Sputnik News article - Aug 25, 2015


UN Refugee Agency


Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project - International refugee law


European Council on Refugees and Exiles










painting from the series "Beaches of Absolution" - Sept. 2011 Guida Almeida












September and three blogs to post - ok - I might as well start with a beauty pageant. Why not? ('Heavens to Murgatroyd' - i'm writing about a beauty pageant!!)


I admit that ever since I can remember beauty pageants repel me, something about measuring human worth in contests where the superficial values of one's physique are weighed always made me turn away and not care for them in any way whatsoever, not even enough to take them seriously so as to merit criticism.

I suppose it is related to the reasons the Oddessy and its "world" always appealed more to me than that of the Illiad, although obviously one without the other would have a fraction of its worth, one relating the "journey to" (a destination), the other back, and what each reveals about those particular worlds and changes, or differences, therein.

I won't be a hypocrite and say that (in my case) a man's physical attribute's doesn't affect me, or catch my attention, but attraction and appeal (in my case) need way much more than that.


This said and eventhough exceptions always seem to reinforce a rule, as in this case. I feel an exception such as this is stronger still due to an ironic situation.
One sees where what is usually deemed as a path par excellence for conformity and entertainment for the masses, moreover a model for it, in our present times of mass consumerism, labels, where the contents of a package are downsized and of residual relevance (in this case "package" being an individual, anyone of us), in value never more than a second place at best,
in favour of the package's appearance
(the wrapping - so to speak), here
one is taken by surprise by receiving a request for people to think "outside the box", presented with a  light for non-conformity right in the heart of the realm of conformity.


Competitions of this nature, be they to crown a Mr/Miss/Mrs Universe, or others, where a panel of "judges" for the most part are requested to value one's physical attributes, far too similar to the judging of cattle for my taste, may have brought us the likes of a Sarah Palin (a female version of Donald Trump, but without the bad hair) but also people such as this young lady.
It commands my respect that someone like her should subject herself to a pageant, but after becoming aware of the competition's theme I understood a little more how, in this case, it could be possible.

I believe it is the first time (I doubt it will happen again, but who knows?)  that I do not look upon such a competition as a joke, and am thankful for being thus contradicted.

I leave you now with this year's Mrs. Universe.




(taken from this article - LINK , found on a friend's Social Network account's wall)






















________________________________________________________________________________________

Wishing all a good day

image from - here