Wednesday, February 28, 2007

 

Joyce...


...The very reverend John Conmee S.J. reset his smooth watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? Dignam, yes. Vere dignum et iustum est. Brother Swan was the person to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic: useful at mission time.

A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for aims towards the very reverend John Conmee S.J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his purse held, he knew, one silver crown.

Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my old days. He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves: and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P.

-- Very well, indeed, father. And you, father?

Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful man really.

Monday, February 19, 2007

 

Eu vi Deus....

Era uma menina de dez anos de idade. Sim, dez. Cravados. Desfilando com short rosa revelando a silhueta de seu biquini e top preto como sua tez. Cabelos alinhados, alisados em volumosos fios penteados para tras, com uma elegancia para alem de sua idade. Taratamudeava taciturna enquanto deslizava nas areias quentes proxima ao mar vendendo chicletes. Estes eram redondos, encouracados com o latex acucarado protegido e revestido como em tubos por um plastico ja amolecido. Uma etiqueta de papel perfurada por grampos metalicos com a marca segurava o mini-canhao de balas coloridas que necessitavam ser comercializados. Todos arrumados na mini-caixinha de papelao colorido. A oferta era feita mimeticamente, em tom quase inaudivel. O suor lhe escorria pelos ombros e a jornada que se vislumbrava parecia ser um calvario sem fim. Como o moh amarrado as criancas que o Cristo maldizia, nem o proprio Redentor em 40 dias de deserto evocaria tamanha (com)paixao. A troca foi efetuada, ou apenas a troca parcial. O produto ficou onde estava. A desordem de todos os fatores nao alteraria a soma que nunca vai bater... Mais paixao verdadeira, e uma agua ou coca-cola foi oferecida onde a escolha ficava com quem oferecia e nao com que nem nem pedia mais e simplesmente aceitava. Aceitava. Pois nao se diz nao. O assombro do alvo sorriso, do canudo sendo desemcapado e enfiado na lata. Nao desses sorrisos que mexem conosco, mas que mudam uma vida, uma trajetoria, que ardem como a areia quente. La estava a tal da pureza, talvez escondendo algo dos observadores. Mas a melhor traducao da pureza jamais vista foi revelada epifanicamente. De quem se cuida e de quem eh enviado, arcanjinho negro, querubim das trevas alvas, que sumiu nas areias escaldantes deixando um rastro de terra-arrasada, no coracao e nos olhos de quem presencia o milagre diario da vida. Coisa mais bonita, coisa mais linda de Deus, siga protegida, com o caminho de luz que te proporcione um sorriso de coca-cola a mais, e de mais em mais, que ele contraste com o negro rosado, com o garbo, maioridade, com o andar seguro, sem titubear, pois temos a nossa tarefa a cumprir. Muita luz sera apontada para teu ser, ateh o fim de todos os dias e todas as noites... Quando nao sera mais que um sorriso gratificado.... Quando sera este uma metonimia de pureza, do mais alto grau de perfeicao, a quem temos vontade nao de cuidar e de abracar, isso certamente faremos e fariamos. Mas a quem olhamos e vemos....

You smiled at me
Like Jesus to a child....

I'm blessed.... I know....
Heaven sent.....

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

 

Api Files - Fictional Truth

Fictional truths
Clive James on Borges' political blindness during the dire 70's in Argentina:
In 1979, when Borges wrote his homage to Victoria Ocampo (the founder of the cosmopolitan magazine Sur) in which this revealing passage appeared, the Argentine junta was doing its obscene worst. Surrounded by horror, Borges either hadn't noticed or—a hard imputation, yet harder still to avoid—he knew something about it and thought it could be excused. But even if he was confident that the political Brahmanism he favored could be pardoned for imposing itself by extreme means, he might well have detected an incipient challenge to his conscience. He had good reason—i.e., a bad reason but an urgent one—to suggest, if only to himself, that what was happening to his country was of secondary importance, because his first loyalty was to the world. But the world, not one's country, is the abstraction: an ideal that means nothing if one's first loyalties to truth, justice, and mercy have been given up. The old man was pulling a fast one. At this point there is a key quotation from Ernesto Sábato, one of Borges' most talented peers, that we should consider:
From Borges's fear of the bitter reality of existence spring two simultaneous and complementary attitudes: to play games in an invented world, and to adhere to a Platonic theory, an intellectual theory par excellence.
In Buenos Aires after World War II, there were two literary voices of incontestable international stature. The main difference between them was that only one was known to possess it. The whole world heard about Borges. But to get the point about Sábato, you had to go to Argentina. Both inhabitants of a beautiful but haunted city, both great writers, and both blind in their later lives, Borges and Sábato were linked by destiny but separated in spirit: a separation summed up in this single perception of Sábato's, which was penetratingly true. Borges did fear the bitterness of reality, and he did take refuge in an invented world. Sábato's fantastic novels were dedicated to including all the horrors of the real world and raising them to the status of dreams, so that they could become apprehensible to the imagination. Most of the dreams we recognize all too clearly. He didn't need to search very far in order to find the stimulus for them. All he needed was the recent history of Argentina. In Borges, by contrast, the near past scarcely exists: In that respect his historical sense, like his Buenos Aires, is without contemporaneity. His political landscape is a depopulated marble ­ghost ­town remembered from childhood, spookily hieratic like the cemetery in Recoleta. Before he went blind he would walk the streets only at night, to minimize the chance of actually meeting anyone. In his stories, the moments of passion, fear, pity, and terror belong to the ­long-vanished world of the knife fighters. Death squads and torture are not in the inventory. The time scale ends not long after he was born. Why did he hide?

Thursday, February 08, 2007

 

Clarisse Tarran - Brasilha



Anagramas de Ordem e Progresso

Preso Segredo Mor . Gorem os Podreres.

Na cidade lisa, onde o olho pouco se fere,

sem quinas, sem perpendiculares quebras.

Olho doido, desliza redondo, inócuo,

boiando num sem tempo (como estas absurdas não construções)

Tudo flutua em ar quente, em seca e rubra atmosfera

Tudo se esconde; a vida, a carne e tudo que se espera

Homens surgem do nada. Inesperadas vezes, mergulham para o nada

Espaços ocos, em ocas moradas. Projeto clean invasor, ocas muradas

Cidade que os ocupantes, simultaneamente, devora e cospe

Em mágico movimento de existência-alinhavo

Não há lugar no mundo melhor para ilicitar

Depois da reunião, depois, depois da proposta, depois

Imunidade parlamentar, decoro, retórica palestra

Festa, infidelidade, propina, fresta

Atendimento ao público, ao meio expediente, encerrado

Orgão público, ao público, privado Brasília, cidade ilha

Poder você com vermelha poeira de flor do cerrado

Cidade deslumbrante, onde em 68 nasci,

não por acaso, morrendo, sufocada.


Tuesday, February 06, 2007

 

American Dream





Crosby Stills Nash & Young -
I used to see you on every T.V.Your smiling face looked
back at me.
Then they caught you with the girl next door,
People's money piled on the floor,
Accusations that you try to deny,
Revelations and rumors begin to fly.
Now you think about reaching out
Maybe get some help from above.
Reporters crowd around your house.
Going through your garbage like a pack of hounds,
Speculating what they may find out,It don't matter now, you're all washed
up.
You wake up in the middle of the night.Your sheets are wet and your face is white,
You tried to make a good thing last,
How could something so good, go bad, so fast?
American dream, American dream, American dream,
Don't know when things went wrong,
Might have been when you were young and strong.
Don't know when things went wrong,
Might have been when you were young and strong.
American dream, American dream.

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