Genius Lives On!

“I was born November 30th, 1835. 

I continue to live, just the same.”

"Lisboa em Pessoa"

Este é o nome da exposição dedicada a celebrar os 125 anos do nascimento do nosso poeta maior da Língua Portuguesa. É uma exposição organizada pela Casa Fernando Pessoa sobre a cidade onde Pessoa viveu desde que regressou da África do Sul. A exposição abriu hoje e realiza-se até 30 de Novembro.

Deixo-vos aqui o site da exposição.

Lucy doesn’t change, Charlie Brown!

Numa bela manhã de Inverno, Lucy está a fazer a sua primeira bola de neve do ano. Ela parece realmente feliz por ter uma bola de neve perfeita e fica radiante com a possibilidade de conseguir realizar um ritual anual de a arremessar contra Charlie Brown. O garoto parece confiante de que ela não vai fazer nada contra ele, mas ele devia conhecer a Lucy melhor, não? Afinal, Lucy maltrata Charlie Brown durante todo o ano... Da mesma forma, ele está sempre zangado com ela, como resultado. Mas é muito típico do Charlie Brown admitir a possibilidade de que Lucy possa se transformar nuuma boa menina. Certamente não é razoável, mas acreditamos que Charlie Brown tem esse tipo de esperança. "As pessoas não mudam", já alguém dizia. E isso é certamente verdade, tanto para a Lucy como para o Charlie Brown.

Small Demons risks closure

Já aqui falei do site Small Demons. Para mim, foi um pequeno achado, e é com alguma preocupação que relato uma notícia que li no LA Times: o dito site tem até dia 25 de Novembro para arranjar um comprador ou será encerrado. Após um acordo falhado com compradores internacionais, esta pequena jóia está em risco de extinção. 

Esperemos que o site se salve de uma morte prematura!

Há que visitá-lo... enquanto podemos!

O Milagre do Nascimento

Para quem nunca viu um livro "nascer", aqui vos deixo um vídeo muito interessante sobre o trabalho extraordinário dos trabalhadores de uma oficina gráfica tradicional. O vídeo é um espectáculo para os olhos porque, com as maravilhas da tecnologia, estas oficinas estão infelizmente a tornar-se 'obsoletas' e a desaparecer.

Para quem olha para esta arte com uma alma saudosa, aqui fica outra série de vídeos sobre como os livros foram fabricados em tempos idos pela Oxford University Press.

Viva o livro!

Receita para o Sucesso

"Para vencer – material ou imaterialmente – três coisas definíveis são precisas: saber trabalhar, aproveitar oportunidades e criar relações. O resto pertence ao elemento indefinível, mas real, a que, à falta de melhor nome, se chama sorte."

–– Fernando Pessoa

Proust por ele mesmo

Biblioteca Nacional de França

Para os amantes da prosa magistral de Marcel Proust – os que sabem falar francês e os que consigam decifrar a caligrafia do autor, podem agora consultar os  manuscritos de Em Busca do Tempo Perdido escritos e anotados pelo autor no sítio da Biblioteca Nacional de França. 

The Beauty of Fictional Characters

"These were the events taking place in the book I was reading. It is true that the people concerned in them were not what Françoise would have called “real people.” But none of the feelings which the joys or misfortunes of a real person arouse in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the image was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of real people would be a decided improvement. A real person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, remains opaque, presents a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist’s happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one’s soul can assimilate. After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall, as we feverishly turn over the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to this state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid and more abiding than those which come to us in sleep, why then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which only we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slow course of their development prevents us from perceiving them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change."

–– Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Czechoslovakians

One of the most important moments in early Roswell history was the 'human' attempt to adjust to a radical shift in status quo. You have to admit: it has to be excruciatingly difficult to adapt to something so different, in such a short time frame. Liz's life changed from one second to the next, when she got shot, and then changed again when she learned about Max's true identity. 

Ironically, it was Maria who showed the most outward signs of being totally freaked out! Well, Liz had a little more time to adjust, and more importantly, she is more reserved about her feelings than Maria.

Maria has such a need to figure all of these things out with her best friend that she finds a code name for the aliens – Czechoslovakians, which leads us to one of the saddest scenes in this episode. The fact that Alex is in the dark about this enormous turn of events, and his best friends have

to keep quiet about it.







Is omission the same as lying? I don't think it is, but it's a debatable idea. One thing is for sure: it must've hurt Alex a lot to be left out of a secret of this magnitude, or of any other kind of magnitude, maybe. Secrets among best friends are never a good thing.




Finally, there's the question of what was Michael doing at the Crashdown so early that morning? My guess, he was just looking for Max so they could go to the Sheriff's office together, but Maria's scared and slightly paranoid state didn't seem to be rubbing of on Liz just yet... Or maybe, just not as hard!

Disclaimer: Written for love, not for profit. The characters do not legally belong to me. They belong to: Melinda Metz and Laura Burns who created them, Jason Katims who developed them, 20th Century Fox Television and Regency Television who produced them and the WB and UPN who broadcasted them.

Images taken from Google search.

     In the back of the Crashdown Café, Maria and Liz were getting ready to start their shift. “I mean, what do we even know about these people? Nothing. How do we know that they’re not 3 feet tall, green, and slimy?” Maria asked. “I guess we don’t,” Liz replied. “And you know what else doesn’t, like, particularly please me? These powers. How do we know they can’t just like wiggle their noses and poof us into oblivion?” “I guess we don’t,” Liz repeated. She knew her best friend was still freaked out by the revelation that Max, Michael and Isabel were not of this Earth, but she also knew that Maria had her own process for dealing with these things, and that no amount of reasoning would reassure her. “OK, you’re being like so casual about this, I want to choke you! Liz, we’re dealing with alie--” Liz clapped her hand over Maria’s mouth as one of their fellow employees walked in. “Can you please not say that word in public?” Liz whispered. Maria took a deep breath, certain that she would explode if she didn’t figure this out in her head. So, she kept on talking – in code. They moved into the restaurant. “The point is that we don’t know anything about these – ‘Czechoslovakians’. Are they good Czechoslovakians? Bad Czechoslovakians? We don’t know. They’re just random Czechoslovakians. For all we know, they don’t have their ‘passports’.” “Who’s Czechoslovakian?” Alex asked, popping up from the front booth. The girls greeted him in an awkward manner, both wondering what to tell him. Alex asked again. “So, who’s Czechoslovakian?” “The new kid at school-” “The guy at the hardware store-” Liz and Maria said, simultaneously, leaving Alex even more confused. “The new kid at school who works at the hardware store,” Liz clarified, with a nervous chuckle. “Exactly.” Maria added, in the same tone. “Oh. What about him?” “Nothing!” Both girls said, further confusing their best friend. “Fantastic!” Alex replied. He wasn’t stupid. Clearly, the girls didn’t think he should know what they had been talking about... which was odd... and a bit hurtful!... 

     Liz and Maria kept walking, but Maria stopped so suddenly, making Liz bump into her. “Czechoslovakian, 9 o'clock.” Maria said, freaking out. Michael Guerin was peering through the doors of the Crashdown Café, looking for Max. Was he watching them now, making sure they kept their traps shut about the alien business? Maria wondered. “OK, that guy creeps me out.” she whispered, going back into the employees area in the back of the diner. Liz remained where she was, wondering about Michael’s motives for showing up there alone. Surely, Maria was overreacting about his intentions; still, she couldn’t help but  worry about the look on his face. 

WE WANTTO BELIEVE!