October 19, 2004
October 13, 2004
September 21, 2004
September 20, 2004
September 17, 2004
September 15, 2004
Azulejos
Castelo, Lisboa
AZULEJO is the portuguese word for the painted ceramic tiles that, among other uses, cover up some of the older buildings' entire facades.
September 07, 2004
Indian people
Yet another great book I bought at Bahri's: "Indian Travel - Diary of a Philosopher" by Count Hermann A. Keyserling.
This book was written in the 1920's but it still describes my own travel impressions much better than I ever would:
"The unique magnificence of colour in Indian life, which delights my soul more and more from day to day, is due to the Indian indifference to all questions of cohesion and uniformity. I have hardly travelled in India as yet, and nevertheless I have seen more variety than anywhere else among men."
"The Hindus are famous for their dialectics, their logical powers and complicated systems."
"Logic in India has never pretended to establish connections of ultimate validity; it has very wisely recognized its own limitations and left this problem to mystic intuition."
"In logical acuteness the Hindus are not behind the Europeans, and it would not have been difficult for them to have invented similar systems. They have not done so because, as metaphysicians, they were too profound; because they knew logical understanding does not plumb the depths."
"The indians are rich in imagination rather than exact."
People of India - Photoalbum here.
September 06, 2004
The Cow and the Elephant
Sights of India - Photoalbum here.
Shopping in India
Rule #1 Every price is negotiable.
Rule #2 Bargaining is mandatory.
There is no such thing as simply going inside a shop, buying an item and leaving. Every acquisition is painfully long and demands skills that I obviously lacked but during these weeks in India I had excellent training.
Favourite lines:
"You are such a beautiful lady, you need a beautiful saree!"
"My daughter! Can I call you my daughter? Look at the quality of the weaving on this carpet!"
"God gives me the opportunity to give you a 30% discount!"
"With this pashmina shawl you'll look like Miss India!"
"You want a 25% discount?!?! Look at this! It's so cheap for you! You come from Europe!"
"Don't walk here at night; it's not safe to go any further than my shop."
"You have such a sweet face and this colour looks so good on you; I'll give you a 5% discount"
"This is for your mother? I have a mother too and because I have a soft heart, I'll give you a 10% discount"
Fun ads and signs in India. Another Photoalbum here.
July 07, 2004
The big ocean
Praia do Carvalhal, Odeceixe, Portugal
Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it. - Mark Twain
July 06, 2004
A glimpse of the holidays
I spent a lovely weekend in the Algarve, that british colony on portuguese soil :-), she said trying to avoid the topics of the Portuguese team defeat by Greece and the fleeing of the "I have a strategy for Portugal for the next 8 years" Prime Minister who changed his name so that foreigners can pronounce it. Unfortunately, undesirable topics have a life of their own and build entire paragraphs without the author's consent ;-)
Although I prefer less crowded destinations, I have to admit that the weather down there is great. And by crowds I mean the mob of drunk englishmen on their late 20's behaving like they are 16 years old. Peter Pan syndrome?
May 25, 2004
Defective
Mentira by Enrique de Hériz was one of my readings while in hospital. Very clever choice (not). A story about the supposed death of an anthropologist who researches funerary rituals throughout the world. Really appropriate, isn't it? ;-)
It's rather interesting to find these kind of defects. I had to imagine the rest of the text...
April 28, 2004
Contemplation
Madalena dreaming about holidays overseas? ;-)
March 25, 2004
Procession of the Candles
Apparently at least in Condeixa, Portugal there's a tradition in which children dress up as saints whenever there's a Procession. This one is supposed to be St. Teresa de Avila, Doctor of the church.
March 20, 2004
Vernal Equinox
Here's a fairly simple explanation:
What Happens at the Equinox?
Far from being an arbitrary indicator of the changing seasons, March 20 (March 21 in some years) is significant for astronomical reasons. On March 20, 2004, at precisely 1:49 a.m. EST (06:49 Universal Time), the Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is the moment of the autumnal equinox.
Equinox Means "Equal Night"
Translated literally, equinox means "equal night." Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes. A second equinox occurs each year on September 22 or 23; in 2004, it will be on September 22 at 12:30 p.m. EDT (16:30 UT). This date will mark the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the vernal equinox in the Southern (vernal denotes "spring").
Reasons for the Seasons
These brief but monumental moments owe their significance to the 23.4 degree tilt of the Earth's axis. Because of the tilt, we receive the Sun's rays most directly in the summer. In the winter, when we are tilted away from the Sun, the rays pass through the atmosphere at a greater slant, bringing lower temperatures. If the Earth rotated on an axis perpendicular to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, there would be no variation in day lengths or temperatures throughout the year, and we would not have seasons.
March 12, 2004
February 25, 2004
Progress?
Jorge Luis Borges lived in this building and wrote here his first ultraist poems. Now there's a model looking out the window...
Madrid, Puerta del Sol
AUSENCIA Habré de levantar la vasta vida | ABSENCE
I shall raise the wide life |
From Fervor de Buenos Aires, Borges' first book of poems.
p.s. - My own crappy translation! Corrections are welcome.
February 23, 2004
Inês by Velazquez
My friend Inês admiring "Las Meninas" by Velazquez at the Prado.
February 12, 2004
ARCO 2004
Today starts ARCO 2004, the contemporary art fair in Madrid.
The guest country is Greece. I'm quite curious to see what are they doing artistically there. Is the "birthplace of civilization" a fertile ground for modern artists? We'll see.
Anyway, if you're thinking about going, don't bother. I just booked the last two affordable hotel rooms in the city ;-).
This ARCo-related column here about photo portraits is really interesting. I didn't know Susan Sontag had a book "On Photography". There it goes, to my wishlist. Here's an excerpt:
"Most tourists feel compelled to put a camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable they encounter. Unsure of their reasons they take a picture. This gives shape to the experience: stop, take a photo and move on. The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic - Germans, Japanese and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working ... "
Hmmmm. Well, I'm portuguese but I work for an american company :-). I am probably handicapped by a ruthless work ethic. I can't have a do-absolutely-nothing-sit-back-and-relax holiday :-D
Another excerpt from here:
"Photographs are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up, and thicken, the environment we recognize as modern. Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. "
She also wrote piles of articles on photography to The New York review of Books.
February 10, 2004
Glamour?
Rossio, Lisboa
Is there anything more glamorous than being a model?
Somehow, it doesn't look that glamorous when being a model means that, for the sake of a photoshoot, you have to bath on a fountain's dirty water, in the middle of Winter, with a few dozen drooling men looking at your...hmmm...soaked clothes ;-)
Portrait of the weblogger as a young woman
Self-Portrait at theGunpowder Factory - Fábrica da Pólvora
Forgive me for the pretentious Joycean title... :-)
February 05, 2004
Pet Therapy?
Update:
The dog on the right is saying to the middle dog, "Crikey, I hate to worry you but there's a lady growing out of your rear end, mate." - caption by Alkam. :-D
There’s an increasing number of people who live alone in Lisbon. This lady has pet therapy and she probably doesn’t realize it.
February 01, 2004
January 29, 2004
January 22, 2004
Catching the last rays of sun #2
In Tomar, by the main church, a man looks at his own shadow as the sun sets.
January 21, 2004
January 19, 2004
To the lighthouse
The weather was fabulous this weekend. Not really warm, but there was a glorious sun and a beautiful blue sky! This is the lighthouse in Cape Espichel, Portugal. I'm very pleased with this photo! :-) I zoomed in to check the red iron work and found those little lion heads!
I was thinking how lighthouses stir the writer's imagination. There are so many books where the action is set in a lighthouse or are related in some way to them. The obvious one that came to my mind was "To the lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf. A very creepy terror book I bought the last time I was in Madrid had the most bizzarre adventures set in a lighthouse: it's called "La piel fria" by Albert Sanchez Pinol. And of course, from my childhood memories (especially the hot summers at my grandmother's) came The Famous Five and the Lighthouse Mistery.
January 15, 2004
Anarchic Manifestation of Social Freedom
Graffiti at Costa do Castelo, Lisbon.
"Graffito means "scratch" in Italian, and graffiti (the plural form) are drawings or images scratched into the surfaces of walls. Illicit graffiti (of the "Kilroy was here" variety) dates back to ancient Egypt. Graffiti slipped into the studio as a subject after World War II. Artists such as Cy Twombly and Jackson Pollock were interested in the way it looked, the Frenchman Jean Dubuffet was interested in what it meant as a kind of outsider art, and the Spaniard Antoni Tapies was interested in the ways it could be incorporated into his imagery of urban walls.
During the early 1970s, soon after aerosol spray paint in cans became readily available, New York subway trains were subjected to an onslaught of exuberantly colored graffiti. The words and "tags" (graffiti writers' names) were soon augmented with elaborate cartoon-inspired images. Most Graffitists were neither professional artists nor art students but streetwise teenagers from the Bronx and Brooklyn.
The popularization of Graffiti raised questions of unusual aesthetic and sociological import. Was graffiti vandalism? Or urban folk art? The writer Norman Mailer romanticized it as the anarchic manifestation of social freedom, while critics such as Suzi Gablik charged that ghetto youths were being exploited by a novelty-crazed art market." in e-fineart
January 12, 2004
The road not taken
Sintra, Portugal: foggy first day of the year!
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
January 05, 2004
Before 2004
Lisbon, shortly before the fireworks at Terreiro do Paço.
December 29, 2003
Catching the last rays of sun
These cats are the "employees" of Oeiras City Park rodent biocontrol programme.
How to find a cat: wherever there is sunlight...
December 22, 2003
A cat's perspective
Taken at Ruínas do Carmo, Lisboa.
November 28, 2003
Raindrops
It's so relaxing to be in the countryside...waking up and finding crystal pure and perfect raindrops on the green leaves.
November 27, 2003
Porto, seen from the South ;-)
As it would in practically any other country, the north/south rivalry "forbids" ;-) me to praise Porto, the "capital" of the north of Portugal. But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
2 pictures = 2000 words? :-)
November 25, 2003
Christian Iconography in Caminha
The main church of Caminha dates back to the 15th/16th centuries, is made of granite and has gothic origins.
One possible interpretation from left to right:
*The first statue is holding an anchor. It represents faith (Hebrews 6:19);
*St. Peter can be recognized by the key he is holding. It's the key to the Kingdom of Heaven given to him by Jesus (Matthew 16:13-19);
*St. Mark has a lion at his feet. The (winged) lion is also the symbol of Venice because St. Mark is its patron saint;
*St. Luke is symbolized by an ox. The ox is a symbol of strength, of patience and of sacrifice, ready either for the plough or for the altar (Matthew 11:30);
*St. James was originally identified by a sword, symbolizing the apostle's martyrdom (beheading) under Herod (Acts 12:2).
On the top of the church is something I had never seen before: lying beside the cross is a lamb.
The lamb is a symbol of unblemished sacrifice, of modesty, and of innocence. It might be a representation of Christ: "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said: Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"(John 1:29)
November 24, 2003
Up North
I spent a lovely weekend way up north...in Portugal :-). Caminha is a little city by the river Minho, on the verge of meeting the ocean.
On the other side of the river is Spain. Hence the cannons (rain water drainers) aiming there :-D.
ps: thanks Virginia and Eduardo for such a lovely weekend!
November 17, 2003
November 12, 2003
October 27, 2003
Thunderstorms and Lightings
Saturday night: scattered thunderstorms on the other side of the river over St. Michael's church.
October 16, 2003
Juggling with fire
I met a juggler and his girlfriend in Chiado this evening. They live on the streets and don't "work" for free: this picture costed me 2 Euros! :-)
October 13, 2003
Optical Art
One of the hidden jewels of Budapest is the Vasarely Museum! His works are everywhere around the world's museums but here you can find 300 superb paintings.
Victor Vasarely is the "father" of Op' Art. Optical Art is a mathematically-oriented form of art, which uses repetition of simple forms and colors to create vibrating effects, moiré patterns, an exaggerated sense of depth, foreground-background confusion, and other visual effects. Another good example (although he's not an abstract artist) is M.C.Escher.
Here is an extremely interesting site on the mathematics of Escher's work.
And some pictures of Vasarely's paintings in Budapest:
Statue Park
The old communist monuments in Budapest were not destroyed. Instead they created a park that is supposed to be a memorial to the 1989-1990 change of the political system; the statues there are quite impressive (in a socialist realism style, of course).
Lenin is a classic....
But the others are quite good:
Buda and Pest
Budapest is divided by the Danube. The hilly side where the Royal Palace and the old city stand is Buda (very good restaurants!!!- try the Pest Buda Vendeglo on Fortuna street); the other side is Pest.
Budapest
I have spent the weekend in Budapest, Hungary.
Two lessons learned: first, the Budapest American Express Guide stinks; second, I will never ever complain about portuguese cab driving again!
The Hungarians are quite proud of being "different": they have a language which is unrelated to any other; they are one of the oldest countries in the world and they are home of some incredibly brilliant minds:
* Zoltan Bay - First to use radar to take measurements of the moon
* Antal Bejczy - Developed Mars Rover "Sojourner"
*Gabor Bernath - Computer Prodigy: at 15 invented the commercially viable 3d Scanner
*Jozsef Laszlo Biro - Developed the ballpoint pen in 1938 AND the automatic gearbox for automobiles
*Paul Erdos - Legendary Mathematician
*John Harsanyi - Economics Nobel Prize 1994
*Imre Kertesz - Literature Nobel Prize 2002
*John von Neumann - father of Game Theory
*Erno Rubik - inventor of the Rubik Cube
"Do extra-terrestrial people exist?" - The Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, was once asked by his disciples in California.
Fermi answered: "They are already here among us, they are called Hungarians… " :-D
October 06, 2003
October 05, 2003
Under the Bridge
I know there aren't that many public WC's around...but is this really necessary? JC watching and all..?
September 27, 2003
The Morning
Lisbon at sunrise; view from the Sheraton Hotel, 24th floor.
September 24, 2003
Pleasure & Pain
The greek philosopher Epicurus (342-270 BC) is commonly associated with hedonism. He believed that the greatest good was to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. It sounds really common sense, doesn't it?
According to Epicurus, what prevents us from being happy is anxiety; no matter how rich you are, if you're anxious to earn more money, you won't be happy.
The way to avoid anxiety is to "Don't fear god, don't worry about death; what's good is easy to get, and what's terrible is easy to endure." (Philodemus of Gadara)
It seems to me that Epicurus was the first self-help propaganda writer of all time! :-)
Which leads to things such as The Hedonic Society of America who appear to have sensible beliefs:
* Knowledge is gained through reasoned study of all available evidence.
* In the absence of conclusive evidence for a supernatural, ethics and morality must be based on our living in the natural world
* Pleasure and pain are our natural means for determining what is beneficial or harmful to life.
* Those actions are best which lead to the greatest pleasure and happiness, or the least pain and suffering, in the long term for all concerned.
* Our lives are made most happy and fulfilling by cultivating the higher pleasures of intellectual development, aesthetic appreciation and creativity, and social bonds of friendship, family and romantic love.
* Happiness is best attained in an atmosphere of freedom, tolerance, nonviolence and diversity.
Epicurus even gets his own fanclub centuries afer his death! :-)
September 22, 2003
Poets
It's not everyday that you see the two most famous portuguese poets together :-)
The bronze sculpture is Camões and the one on the painting in the back is Fernando Pessoa.
September 20, 2003
A Tree in Alentejo
I spent a couple of days in the Alentejo... and this tree caught my attention!