Positive asphalt always tries to see the bright side of everything.
#49: Os melros e as ervinhas e nós
Hoje o dia nasceu fechado. Nuvens sobre nuvens sobre nós.
Portanto resolvemos sair para correr.
Os melros ficam à chuva a olhar para nós.
O parque parece um jardim zen, a erva aparada em carreirinhos desenhados pelo tractor que o jardineiro encaminha sem pressa.
Os bugalhos polvilham o alcatrão (sei-os antes de os ver). Contorno-os inspirando profundamente.
Sempre nos ensinaram que nos agasalhássemos, que fugíssemos da chuva, que voltássemos as costas ao vento, que temêssemos o frio.
E no entanto o vento parece correr connosco e a chuva parece rir o tempo todo sobre as folhinhas e os postes e a terra debaixo dos ténis.
Correr à chuva sabe a comer chocolate às escondidas e sujar as mãos todas.
E encho-me de paz…
#43: This is what happens when you leave the highway
The tarmac is now a thin liquid strip dragging you downstream to some place you don’t really need to know.
Your brain slows down until you are able to marvel at the stillness that blankets trees and puddles and moors.
Your lungs remember how to breathe deeply,
Clouds become clearer and the sky gets crisper,
And you try to capture it in some fashion, but somehow no method ever seems to retain the atmosphere properly. Maybe all there is left to do is an evocation – it is up to your mind to fill in the blanks.
And your car gets really dirty.
#27: When a slice is not enough
How do you know when a pizza is extraordinary?
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Well,
You drive all the way across the city to have it,
You realize you are hungry for lunch because it’s the only food you can visualize,
There is nothing else you can think of as the perfect lunch that morning,
You stare at the menu, unable to pick one recipe, although you know them all by heart (you know which one you are having, you’re just in denial and trying to go for novelty),
You visualize the pizza being slid into the wood oven and wonder about each moment’s degree of dough goldenness,
Although you plan to split a pizza, you end up devouring one by yourself,
Although you are a regular, you marvel every time at details such as the lightness of the base, the crispness of the crust, the thinness of the ingredients that allow for that flavor balance, the perfume perfectly cooked green papers exhale (not too raw, not too mushy).
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Yup, this one was spot on, too. (One large expresso and I can get back to work…)
#24: Sakamoto e Basho: dois Japões
Para onde quer que olhe, há sempre dois Japões…
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Slow-motion repeat of breaking glass
Fear Creeping up from behind
A slide into corruption
A train of thought stops all along the way
From start to goal
Easy to understand
Thatness, thereness
A grid of time in view.
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Deep blue metal
Undulating, rise and fall
We’re hiding ourselves
Don’t want to see ourselves
But still desire persists
For self-injury, through exposure
To reality
Thatness, thereness
A deep blue rush in time.
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Slow-motion repeat of breaking glass
Fear Creeping up from behind
A slide into corruption
A train of thought stops all along the way
From start to goal
Easy to understand
Thatness, thereness
A grid of time in view.
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– Ryuichi Sakamoto, Thatness & Thereness, 1980
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Não esqueças nunca
O gosto solitário
Do orvalho
–
Frescura
Os pés no muro
Ao dormir a sesta
–
Deixem-me caminhar
Até que tropece e desapareça
Na neve
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– Haikus de Matsuo Basho
in “O Gosto Solitário do Orvalho”, Assirio & Alvim, 1996
#22: Artigo no Público
No passado dia 19 de Maio, um texto meu sobre uma viagem ao Japão foi seleccionado para o prémio semanal de escrita de viagens dos leitores do Público. Assim, no topo da página 37 do Fugas – o suplemento de viagens do Público – foi publicado o Imagens do Japão.
Ao atravessar o Japão senti-me impressionado – talvez a palavra certa seja emocionado – com a complexidade do tecido social das suas cidades. É impossível a um único indivíduo viver a miríade de submundos existentes paralelamente, todos componentes verdadeiros de um mesmo organismo. A dificuldade de verbalizar esse espanto cristalizou nas linhas e fotografias que agora se imprimem.
O texto já se tinha lançado às águas da net há uns anos, n’O Covil de Miss Precious – blog mais ou menos bem comportado que alberga as rants da autora (de caminho, podem visitar). Desta feita, para além da edição impressa de Sábado, é publicado no website do jornal (ver link acima). Seguir-se-á, aqui no Going Bite-size, o artigo completo, com a extensão original (encurtada para o Fugas).
Aproveito para partilhar o artigo e agradecer aos jornalistas do Fugas, que todas as semanas nos levam a passear sem sair do sofá.
Adoraria ouvir a opinião de todos sobre o texto e, quem sabe, trocar memórias de viagens!
#20: Exercício etimológico
Em Bucelas, todas as mulheres têm bigode.
(Na foto: Greta Garbo, famosa bucelense.)
#9: The wonderful smell of a fresh Post-It package
Please allow me to divert from my quest to conquer envelope world. I MUST state my love for fresh Post-Its.
Realising I was out of the square pieces of gorgeousness (and after a brief moment of panic), I ran to the local stationery supplier for a fix. What a pleasure, to rip open a fresh packet of Post-Its! I can’t avoid inhaling the wonderful perfume – reminds me the smell of the sticker collections we had during our childhood.
The relief I feel compares only to the sense of order the yellow fellows (couldn’t resist) pass on. And what a way to save paper on tasks that don’t require much footprint…
The yellow squares stack on my desk, waiting for the waterfalls of gibberish I fill them with: miles of notes, thoughts one tries to catch mid-air, concepts for projects, memos I forget to read, doodles, the inevitable arithmetics – life concentrated.
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Do check out the previous posts. Please use the arrows for navigation.
#7: Spatial fiction at Oporto – O labirinto / The labyrinth (2 of 2)
English version of the text from last post:
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Small spatial fantasies from Ribeira
Small fantasies shaped into Ribeira’s mental diagram.
More than documenting Ribeira and portray its scenarios or its quirks, the composition aims at proposing a fresh look on the spaces lived daily. A legacy is evoked – one of alleys made rivers flowing to the Douro, of heavy buildings clustering on the hills that compose the borough.
One of the fantasies gathers the volumes the inhabitants occupy, testimonies of the city’s crossroads and divergences, of time passing by. Hence, a castle of coloured blocks and familiar textures is built – the stage for lives being lived everyday.
In the other, the gaps fuse into one, creating spaces where you and me walk along, just like the way we perceive them when we choose to see life in a different way. A labyrinth that allows for a different story, filled with secrets, revealing its true shape in full clarity.
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Do check out the previous posts. Please use the arrows for navigation.
#6: Spatial fiction at Oporto – O morro / The hill (1 of 2)
A while ago, I took part in a course on digital photography at FAUP, the Architecture Faculty of the Oporto University.
It focused on photography as a technique for spatial analysis and used the medieval borough of Ribeira as a case study. It’s historic and spatial complexity ensured plenty of depth for the studies and pretexts for photographic detours.
The material produced was published on CCRE – Centro de Comunicação e Representação Espacial / FAUP, along with the short brief that follows.
(Please check out the next post for the English version.)
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Pequenas fantasias espaciais ribeirinhas
Pequenas fantasias em jeito de esquema mental da Ribeira.
Procura-se, mais que documentar a Ribeira nas suas cenas ou nos seus tiques, propor um olhar fresco dos espaços que se atravessam todos os dias.
Num par de fantasias, evocam-se heranças de ruas feitas rios que desaguam no Douro, de prédios feitos fortes que se aglomeram nos morros do bairro.
Numa, juntam-se os volumes que as gentes ocupam, testemunhos de encontros e desencontros da cidade, do tempo longo. Constrói-se um castelo de blocos coloridos, de texturas que reconhecemos, palco das vidas que lá existem todos os dias.
Noutra, os intervalos unem-se, surgem espaços onde andamos, tu e eu, tal como os vemos quando resolvemos olhar a cidade de forma diferente. Um labirinto que deixa contar uma outra história, cheia de segredos, revelando com clareza o seu verdadeiro recorte.
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Going Bite-size 