José Saramago (1922 - 2010)

Os ombros dos gigantes

Não é por ter morrido. Morrer, morremos todos. E no caso, nem foi um acontecimento inesperado. José Saramago tinha 87 anos ontem, quando morreu. Já tinha idade para morrer.

O mundo vai ficar um bocadinho mais apertado porque essa morte física nos assegura que não vai escrever mais, intervir mais, ensinar mais. É provável que ainda apareçam linhas e linhas de palavras inéditas dele. Mas ele, o Saramago, a sentar-se à secretária e a escrever, não vai acontecer. O nós com ele, a contemporaneidade dele connosco, cessou. A pertinência dessas letras vai passar a aferir-se pelo passado.

Quando morrem pessoas com este tamanho, desde que sou mãe, não consigo deixar de pensar que o meu filho vai viver num mundo sem elas, que só se ler ou procurar com muito afinco poderá crescer como eu cresci a lê-lo e a ouvi-lo, destemido e ponderado. Sério. Não vai ligar a televisão e deparar-se com declarações que ele fez nesse dia ou beber das suas palavras e silêncios numa entrevista que tivemos a sorte de apanhar. Não vai receber SMS da obsessiva Sandra a avisar que essas entrevistas estão no ar e correr para a televisão. Vai ter muitas outras coisas, mas vão faltar-lhe estas.

O primeiro livro que li do Saramago, há talvez uns quinze anos, foi o Memorial do Convento. A minha tenaz amiga Mafalda insistia que eu lesse e eu, eivada dos preconceitos que sempre afastarão tantos leitores da sua obra, resisti até mais não poder. Ela, a Mafalda, é das amigas mais casmurras que tenho perto (embora tenha mais, agora que penso nisso) e, como muitas outras vezes, venceu a peleia. Já lhe agradeci pessoalmente várias vezes, muitas outras depois, sozinha, pelo menos uma por cada livro de Saramago que li. Faltava deixar aqui registado: obrigada.

José Saramago morre no mesmo ano que JD Salinger. No meu mundo, já são dois bocadinhos menos. Menos quatro ombros.

Hermandad

Octavio Paz
Homenaje a Claudio Ptolomeo

Soy hombre: duro poco
Y es enorme la noche.
Pero miro hacia arriba:
Las estrellas escriben.
Sin entender compreendo:
También soy escritura
Y en este mismo instante
Alguien me deletrea.

A foto não sei quem a tirou, mas eu tirei-a daqui.

JD Salinger

Os factos são sempre óbvios demasiado tarde, mas a diferença mais singular entre a felicidade e a alegria é que a felicidade é sólida e a alegria é líquida.

A Fase Azul de Daumier-Smith, in Nove Contos

Uma daquelas coincidências que, de certo modo, me consola porque me deu a ilusão de proximidade é que, nos últimos dias, tenho pensado que, ao contrário da minha consciência de finitude e da quantidade imensa de livros que quero ler ultrapassar largamente aquela outra circunstância, tenho de regressar aos livros do Salinger. Não direi o The Cacher in the Rye, que foi o primeiro, e o que menos me tocou (talvez mercê de já o ter lido nos trintas), mas os outros três. Ainda ontem, quando colaborava com a higiene da minha gata, me questionei porque raio não hei-de ter-lhe chamado Franny, que era o que fazia mais sentido.

(...) e os meus átomos, de resto, estão organizados de modo a tornar-me constitucionalmente inclinado a crer que onde há fumo há normalmente geleia de morango e poucas vezes fogo (...)

in Carpinteiros Levantem Alto o Pau de Bandeira e Seymour (uma Introdução)

Obviamente, ontem, nem me passou pela cabeça que o JD Salinger podia estar à beira de morrer. Até porque nunca pensamos isso de quem admiramos sem condições e à distância de umas centenas de páginas.

Mas o pior de tudo é que não consigo entender, juro-te que não consigo, como és capaz de rezar a um Jesus que nem sequer compreendes.

(...) ..., mas. santo Deus, quem, excepto Jesus, sabia realmente o que se passava? Ninguém.

- Oxalá casasses - insistiu - Porque não o fazes?
(...)
- Gosto demasiado de andar de comboio. Depois de nos casarmos nunca mais podemos sentar-nos à janela.

in Franny and Zooey

Hoje, pouco antes das vinte, na SIC Notícias, ouvi a notícia que tinha morrido, aos 91 anos, proeza que não será credencial que muitos de nós possamos apresentar à entrada do after life. E tive de fazer algo que pensava que só iria começar a fazer daqui a uns 15 ou 20 anos, quando a senilidade me desse liberdades que agora não me permito: telefonei para a SIC e disse-lhes que os dois exemplos de obras que tinham dado para contextualizar literariamente o falecido autor não eram senão duas traduções do mesmo título, porque À Espera no Centeio e Uma Agulha no Palheiro são os dois The Catcher in the Rye. O senhor que me atendeu, muito profissional, tomou nota da minha observação, que duvido tenha tido efeito no Jornal das 8.

As citações que hoje reproduzi foram tiradas ao calhas dos sublinhados dos meus livros. Falta a minha preferida, que postei há praticamente quatro anos e que continua a dourar-me o privilégio de partilhar o planeta com algumas pessoas:

Se for consultar o psicanalista, confio em Deus que ele permita que se sente também ao nosso lado um dermatologista, pois sinto que tenho cicatrizes nas mãos por tocar em certas pessoas. Uma vez, no parque, quando Franny ainda andava no carrinho, pus-lhe a mão debaixo da cabeça e deixei-lha lá ficar muito tempo. Outra vez, na Rua Setenta e Dois, fiz a mesma coisa, no Lowe, com o Zooey, durante a passagem de um filme sonoro. Ele devia ter cinco ou seis anos e metera-se debaixo da cadeira para não ver uma cena que muito o afligia. Pus-lhe a mão em cima da cabeça. Certas cabeças, certas cores, certos contactos com a pele humana deixam-me cicatrizes para sempre. Outras coisas também. Charlotte, uma vez. Fugiu-me do estúdio e eu agarrei-lhe no vestido para a deter, para a conservar perto de mim. Era um vestido de algodão amarelo, de que eu gostava por ser demasiado comprido para ela. Ainda conservo uma marca amarelo-limão na palma da minha mão direita. Oh, meu Deus, se eu sou qualquer coisa a que se possa dar um nome clínico, sou um paranóico ao contrário! Suspeito que as pessoas se conjuram para me fazer feliz.

in Carpinteiros, Levantem alto o Pau de Fileira

it is here (for A)

What sound was that?

I turn away, into the shaking room.

What was that sound that came in on the dark?
What is this maze of light it leaves us in?
What is this stance we take,
to turn away and then turn back?
What did we hear?

It was the breath we took when we first met.

Listen. It is here.


Harold Pinter, 1930-2008

RIP

Paul Newman
"Exodus" | Israel
© Leo Fuchs 1960




26011925 - 26092008



Haverá alguém que, ainda que apenas em um momento da sua vida, não o tenha visto como o homem mais bonito do Mundo?

RIP

Albert Cossery

Cairo, 3 Novembro, 1913
Paris, 22 Junho, 2008

right there in the room

"

o fantasma de robert forster

um belíssimo texto do robert forster, sobre o novo disco, the evangelist, ou na verdade sobre muito mais que isso...

We had started on our 10th album. It had begun the same way as all the others. I went over to his place during the day and we’d play the songs each of us had written.

I’d find him in either of two locations: pottering around the kitchen or lying on his bed, reading. The first 10 minutes would always be a little tetchy. Although we’d known each other for almost 30 years and worked closely together for a good half of that time, he’d be a little gruff; it was as if, each time I saw him, he had to get to know me again. So, he’d make coffee and I’d sit in a chair in the kitchen and pepper him with questions in an attempt to bring him around to good humour. This is where having known him for such a long time helped, because I knew the buttons to push, the silly things to say, the cheeky remark about an album he liked, the films of a certain actor I’d know he’d trash, a bit of local rock-scene gossip. Anything really, and after 10 minutes, he’d be the person I’d always known.

Then we’d play guitar together: his new songs and mine, which built a world we’d then shape, record and send out to those who loved or liked what we did. It was the 10th album we were shooting for. We were just two months into it, eight songs written, when he died.

The group is the Go-Betweens and «he» is Grant McLennan. We’d started the band in 1978 when we met as art students at Queensland University. He was the film nut who passed every exam and who, at 18, was programming the campus cinema. I was flailing my way through courses with a 50% failure rate, my mind too taken up by the NME, import records and the fumbled desire to express myself through songwriting. We became best friends and, two years later, I convinced Grant to learn bass, to learn my songs, and to fall into the dream of being just 20 and in a rock band.

Quickly, Grant started to write songs, too. I knew he would – given he was the most switched-on and creative person I’d come across. So there were two singer-songwriters in the band and, over the next 11 years, we took the group as far as we could. People joined and left. Six albums were made. For five years, we lived in London and did as well as any Australian band could hope to do without hitting the big time of platinum-selling albums and arena-filling tours.

Maybe that made us lucky. It meant Grant and I could walk away from the band in 1989 and still be friends, still be sane and still have the determination to make good solo albums. It also meant we weren’t stamped with the 1980s. No reunion tours with Culture Club beckoned.

This all helped when we restarted the group in 2000. With musician friends Adele Pickvance on bass and Glenn Thomp-son on drums, we made three more albums, the last being 2005’s Oceans Apart. By then, the whole thing was on an upswing. We got five-star reviews and our first music award. With another album approaching, Grant and I could feel the momentum and goodwill. We were writing well: it felt as if, with our most recent three albums, we were on a run, as we had been in the 1980s. And then it all changed in a day.

Grant died of a heart attack on May 6, 2006. He was 48. Others lost a brother, son, lover, cousin, acquaintance. I lost my best male friend and my working partner: the one who’d been with me through countless performances, studios, rehearsals, airports, tour buses, bad television shows, hard-to-find radio stations, songwriting bedrooms and kitchens; the one I thought I still had a future with. Our band finished the day he died. I knew that instantly. What remained were shock waves of grief and days on my veranda trying to make sense of it all, and of what I was going to do next.

We had the eight songs. Two of them I had written; the other six were Grant’s. One of his was Demon Days. I remember him phoning me up in late January to say I should come over and hear some new songs. There was excitement in his voice. I went over late one night, which was unusual because we always played during the day. He lived in a small two-storey tower at the back of a house, and I climbed the stairs to his bedroom, where he’d set out two chairs. He then played me three songs. Two of them were amazing, and one in particular, Demon Days, I immediately thought was one of the best four or five he’d ever written. It was a waltz ballad, and as he strummed and sang it, with a beautiful instrumental section included, I looked at him in wonder. And I’m glad that at that moment, as the room went still, I said: «For the next 18 months, I’m going to be writing just to catch up with you.» He laughed, but it was true.

The reason The Evangelist exists is partly due to my determination to record Demon Days and bring it to the world. There were other great songs he had, two of which I took for the album. Our collaboration went on after his passing in that he had not finished the lyrics to any of those three songs. Demon Days was the most complete, with a chorus and five lines written of the first verse; the other two songs, Let Your Light In, Babe and It Ain’t Easy, had chorus lyrics only. For Let Your Light In, I constructed a narrative that had come to me after reading a 19th-century poem of erotic romance set in a church. It Ain’t Easy was harder to write. I settled on a portrait of him, something detailed that played off against the quick pop feel of the melody. I wrote eight verses before I hit one that started «And a river ran, and a train ran, and a dream ran through everything that he did». I liked this. So I started the song with it.

There were my songs also. Some Grant knew, as I had played them with him; others he would never know.

The writing of the first song after Grant’s passing was a moment that had to come. A breakthrough came in August, when I wrote the title song, The Evangelist. The song crept up on me and just unfolded in one day. I wrote it with relief, and with joy, because I could see it was a big song, the kind you hope to have two or three of on any given record.

I wrote another song, and then it was time to phone Adele, the bass player, who lived 10 minutes away from me in Brisbane, and to start playing the songs with her. By now, it was the new year. We would sit side by side. I’d say, «Here’s Demon Days» and play it to her. Then, «Here’s The Evangelist». Then, «Here’s Let Your Light In, Babe». And a new process started up. Adele, whom I’d known and played with for 13 years, became the other person with me now: kicking off ideas for arrangements, listening to the songs and commenting, and singing along on the choruses.

Where to record the album, and with whom, was the biggest question. One impulse was to run: find a shed somewhere by the beach or out in the bush, drag an eight-track in there, make a howl and a seeming fresh start somewhere far away. But I went with Adele and Glenn back to London. Back to Lower Norwood, in fact, where the producers Mark Wallis and Dave Ruffy have a studio and where we recorded the previous Go-Betweens record in 2005.

That decision worked. We recorded together knowing a piece was missing, but that we were all happy working together on the thing that happened after the piece went missing. Grant’s ghost was there, but there weren’t too many sad moments. Process, and the day-to-day work that goes into making an album, robbed us of too much reflection. His amp was set up and a guitar of his stood on a stand. We all had to work a bit faster because Grant’s turn to sing or play never came around. Through it all, though, we knew we were honouring him by making a great record in a place that he knew.

We did Demon Days, and I think we did it justice. On the night Grant had first played it to me, we had talked of strings and one name had come up: Audrey Riley. Audrey had done the string arrangements on our fourth album, Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, which we’d recorded in London back in 1985. They were the first string arrangements she’d done. After us, her career bloomed (this often happened to people who worked with us) and you’ll now see her name gracing Coldplay and Foo Fighters records.

Audrey and the other members of her quartet came to the studio on the allotted day. Three of the quartet (including Audrey) had played on Liberty Belle 22 years ago. Circles were being completed. Grant had been close and then far away through the recording. As we heard the gorgeous flowing lines that Audrey had written, at that moment, bows on strings, strings on wood, he was right there in the room.

publicado aqui, no dia 20 de abril de 2008


"


furtado (o post) daqui thanks sweetie pie

and left the building

Elvis Presley, Unchained Melody (Indianapolis, Indiana’s Market Square Arena, 21-06-1977)


fim.


Obrigada, Pedro Lago

*****

habituarmo-nos a ler liberdade desta

Escritor belga Hugo Claus morreu por eutanásia

O escritor belga Hugo Claus morreu hoje num hospital de Antuérpia, aos 78 anos, depois de ter solicitado a eutanásia, por sofrer da doença de Alzheimer. Em Portugal, Claus tem publicados "O Desgosto da Bélgica" (ASA), "Caça aos Patos" (ASA), "Rumores" (ASA), "Sexta-feira" (Textual).

“Claus determinou o momento da sua morte e pediu a eutanásia”, explicou a sua editora, “De Bezige Bij”, em comunicado oficial. “Em nome da sua família comunicamos que o escritor, pintor e cineasta Hugo Claus faleceu ao meio-dia no hospital Middelheim em Antuérpia”, lê-se no texto.

O autor fez parte da editora “De Bezige Bij” durante quase cinquenta anos.

O ministro flamengo da Cultura, Bert Anciaux, afirmou que “o conhecia suficientemente bem para saber que queria morrer com orgulho e dignidade. Vamos ter saudades”.

Hugo Claus foi indicado em várias ocasiões como candidato ao Nobel da Literatura e em 1998 foi galardoado com o Grande Prémio a Literatura da Comissão Europeia.

A Bélgica é um dos três países da Uniâo Europeia que legalizou a eutanásia, juntamente com a Holanda e o Luxemburgo.


Público

da série: serei blogocleptomaníaca?

WHAT WILL DEATH BE LIKE?
(Momus)

Death will be unlike the night-times when we lie awake thinking of death
Death will be unlike the Spanish maracas that rattle inside your last breath
Death will be unlike the Mexican festivals, skeletons wearing top hats
Death will be unlike the brownstone apartments that dynamite or dereliction collapse
Death will be unlike the mandolin the hangman relaxes by playing
Death will be unlike the Hound of the Baskervilles, chilling the moors with its baying
Death will be unlike the British museum, its bodies from peat bogs and bones
Death will be unlike the curse of the mummy that turns the explorers to stone
Death will be unlike the great roller coaster, a plunge from a boast to a scream
Death will be unlike mahogany coffins great pianists play in their wildest strangest dreams
Death will be unlike a garden in autumn where poets can sit and compose
Death will be unlike the granite memorials where memories wither in rows
Death will be unlike the charge of the Light Brigade Alfred Lord Tennyson rhymed
Death will be unlike the thin piece of paper that Reagan and Gorbachov sign
Death will be unlike the hospital bedside with Novocain needles and cards
Death will be unlike the great day of judgement when God the headmaster presents the awards
Death will be unlike the marriage that bickers 'til death us do part
Death will be unlike the dreams of the young man who sang 'Love will tear us apart'
Death will be unlike TV documentaries showing us life from outside
Death will be unlike the Buddhist nirvana the moth seems to seek in the light
Death will be unlike the Cities of crystal they build in a few grains of smack
Death will be unlike the long picture window the coffin looks through to a widow in black

Death will be unlike a room full of spiders all clinging together and crying
Death will be unlike the wedding guest's story, the ship drifting lost and the dead sailors sighing
Death will be unlike the din in the steeple when cholera poisons the village
Death will be unlike the illumination that Tolstoy provided for poor Ivan Illych
Death will be unlike the wrinkling sea children glimpse through the chinks in the boardwalk
Death will be unlike the magical land of 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe'
Death will be unlike the treacherous virus that murders the lovers with AIDS
Death will be unlike the phantoms of freedom that lead the crowd over the barricades
Death will be unlike the night thoughts of 'Late Call' when ministers stop being cosy
Death will be unlike 'The Pit and the Pendulum' co-starring Bela Lugosi
Death will be unlike the bulge of the mouse inside the boa constrictor
Death will be unlike that drunkard the phoenix, so tight on the moonshine of golden elixirs
Death will be unlike that violent pornography, dear to the Marquis de Sade
Death will be unlike the last stitch of clothing the stripper discards as her nipples grow hard
Death will be unlike the bankrupt, handing over the keys to his house
Death will be unlike the last day of summer, when insects grow stupid and swallows fly south
Death will be unlike the skull of a merchant that slants through the portrait by Holbein

Death will be unlike that strange proposition on silence, the Tractatus of Wittgenstein
Death will be unlike your holiday snaps when the camera lets in the light
Death will be unlike the honest-but-cold-blooded bank clerk whose hobby is homocide
Death will be unlike the hands of the clock, coming together at midnight
Death will be unlike the grim amputations of medical students larking on rag night
Death will be unlike the hijacker's voice in the heads of air traffic controllers
Death will be unlike the sea as it thunders on Liv Ullman vanishing under the rollers
Death will be unlike the abbey the pilgrims all saw when they prayed
Death will be unlike the unholy land at the end of the Children's Crusade
Death will be unlike the hell in Huis Clos Mr Sartre informs is just other people
Death will be unlike the travelling salesman who woke up one morning transformed to a beetle
Death will be unlike 2001, the room at the end of the ride
Death will be unlike the wrath that Charles Bronson let loose on the Lower East Side
Death will be unlike the House of the Shades the dog Cerberus guarded for Hades his master
And death will be unlike that lesson on Infallibility, the Chernobyl disaster
And death will be unlike the empty career of the temp's vacillations gone permanent
Death will be unlike the unlucky omens the clairvoyant reads in the meaningless firmament
In the meaningless firmament

What will death (what will death)
Be like? (be like?)

What will death (what will death)
Be like? (be like?)

Death will be like -


do João Lisboa