June 27, 2007
Revenge
Araeen's Third Text magazine
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October 24, 2006
At the aftermath of the recent spanish changes, there's an ongoing debate about gay marriage here with the government dismissing it as not important at this time and as being a dividing issue.
I can't resist to summarize this three-fold comment by Miguel Vale de Almeida on the recent polls in which some newspapers/TV stations have asked random people if they agreed with same sex marriage - to which a vast majority of Portuguese people said no.
- the right to same sex marriage is a political one and not just a law issue or a moral issue: its denial goes to show how citizens are not treated equally before the law thus going against the Portuguese Constitution;
- on surveys about "values" they never ask if the respondent agrees with the situation of there being so few rich people and so many poor ones: it's a given fact, it's not questionable;
- why not come up with a survey to see if Portuguese people agree with letting women vote (they should be given alternatives such as "Yes, but their vote only should count as half" or "Yes, with the bulletin pre-filled by their husbands"); no one asks this because the right of women to vote is not a "values" related issue, it's the product of an unquestionable right to being treated equally.
++++
“I will never understand those who proclaim love as the foundation of life, while denying so radically protection, understanding and affection to our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, our colleagues. What kind of love is this that excludes those who experience their sexuality in a different way?”
— José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s Prime Minister, May 11, 2005
++++
“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”
— Voltaire
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“Same-sex relationships have long been part of our African history and heritage. There is ample research illustrating that African people have loved and had sexual relationships with people of the same sex for hundreds of years. For example, in Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria and SA, bond friendships, ancestral wives, female husbands and male wives have existed for centuries as forms of same-sex relationships.
All these relationships were accepted and respected in Africa, long before Africa was colonised. In addition, these forms of partnerships and marriages were protected by common law. Same-sex practices have always been a part of our sexual desires, intimacy and practice. In SA, the practice has been traced among the Zulu, Lovedu, Sotho, Tswana and Venda tribes. It is important to understand the traditional and cultural institutions that form families, marriages, and clans before we pronounce on these matters.
There is no record of traditional African societies legislating against homosexuality. Such laws are a western import, manifested through colonial penal codes and the criminalisation of sodomy across the continent. So, one could argue with authority that it is homophobia, not homosexuality, that is un-African.”
— Fikile Vilakazi, editorial: “Protect South Africa from Sexual Apartheid”
in Business Day, September 7, 2006
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July 13, 2006
Stereotyping Portugueseness
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss.
--Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon disaster; Or an Examination of the Axiom, “All is Well”
*****
I am convinced Portugal is an island. Most times there's this claustrophobic feeling there is no way out of here, just an endless ocean in front of us, a sense of isolation. Portugal has the oldest unchanging borders in Europe. A whole identity based on myths and fictions and immobility. An old, old country that sees that the best it could have has already gone by. The sea here is much larger than anywhere else I've been. An abyss of water. On our backs there's this improbable Europe, miles and centuries away. There's also a huge country called Spain but whose inhabitants have nothing to do with us, we like to think. We cannot understand their pride and passion. There's only melancholy and nostalgia for an imagined past in the blue, cold ocean ahead. An overwhelming sense of the power of destiny that inspires lethargy and throws life in the hands of fortune.
A country of people obsessed with the meaning of being portuguese and that can't help themselves (ourselves) from writing about it.
*****
Malhoa, O Fado (1910)
*****
"E assim o génio de aventura, decaindo, transformou-se na mais completa falta de persistência. Ela aparece em todas as manifestações da nossa actividade, a cada passo interrompida ou abortada, o que a torna tristemente caricatural. Ei-la passeando o seu desânimo, pelas estradas que pararam, mortas de cansaço, a dois quilómetros do ponto de partida. E vive num belo edifício público sem telhado."
"And thus, the genius of adventure, decaying, has become an utter lack of persistence. It appears in all manifestations of our activity, at each step interrupted or aborted, which renders it as a sad caricature. There it is, showing off its lack of stamina in the roads that stopped, dying of exhaustion, a couple kilometers away from the starting point. And it lives in the beautiful roofless public building."
The Art of being Portuguese (1915) - Teixeira de Pascoaes
*****
"O já agora, e a variante popular Já que estás com a mão na massa..., significam a forma particularmente portuguesa do desejo. Os Portugueses não gostam de dizer que querem as coisas. Entre nós, querer é considerado uma violência. Por isso, quando se chega a um café, diz-se que se queria uma bica e nunca que se quer uma bica. Se alguém oferece, também, uma aguardente, diz-se: «Já agora.» Tudo se passa no pretérito, no condicional, na coincidência.(..) tudo o que sucede é absolutamente incontrolável. Por isso, a mentalidade do «já agora» traduz-se na ideia de que se deve aproveitar o acaso, já que nada mais se aproveita."
Note: "Já agora" is literally translated as "now now"; it actually means something like "As long as we are here...." or "Considering that this happened..."
"The 'Já agora' and the popular variation 'now that you're dealing with it'..., are examples of the particularly portuguese form of desire. The Portuguese don't like to say that they want something. Among us, wanting is considered an aggression. And so, when you go to a café, you say 'I could have an espresso' and never that you want an espresso. If anyone offers a brandy too, we say 'Já agora'. Everything happens in the past, in the conditional, in the coincidence.(...) anything that happens is totally uncontrollable. Therefore, the mentality of the 'já agora' gives meaning to the idea that you should take advantage of randomness, since you can't take advantage of anything else."
Explicações de Português(2001) - Miguel Esteves Cardoso
*****
Oh sea of salt, how much of your salt
Is tears of Portugal!
For us to cross you, how many mothers wept,
How many sons prayed in vain!
How many fiancees remained to be wed
In order that you be ours, oh sea!
Mensagem, Fernando Pessoa
*****
”O medo é medo do poder, mas também da impotência própria diante do poder. (...) O medo de «não estar à altura» impera, arruina as potencialidades criativas; medo que implica e arrasta outros, como o de ser avaliado, de ser julgado, de «ir a exame».”
"The fear is fear of power but also of the impotence in face of power.(...) The fear of not being up to the situation is ever present, ruining the creative potential; fear that implies and drags the others, like the fear of being evaluated, of being tried, of being examined."
Portugal today - the fear of existing (2004) - José Gil
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June 21, 2006
Gerês
Will someone please cut the top off that damned tree? It's ruining the view from Pousada de S.Bento.
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June 20, 2006
Bacchanalia
I don't think I ever used my blog to advertise anything (maybe a bookshop or two and my dentist :-) but I finally found a "product" I can sponsor with the greatest conviction.
A rainy evening in Porto. A crooked street near the the river Douro waterfront, in Miragaia. I called in advance to book a table and on the other side was someone who was not just booking tables but was trying to chat with me, addressing me by my name and asking if I knew how the restaurant worked. I dismissively said yes, believing it was one more of these places mushrooming all around offering a "menu degustation". How I was wrong.
I was surprised to find a tiny restaurant. The host introduced himself and asked for our names. From then on, a very presonal treatmet: "my good friend Claudia, please have a sip of this honeydew melon juice". On the table sat beakers bearing a greenish liquid. The lamp looked also like a beaker. Later I found that this was really a laboratory. Sensory experiments.
The host, Mario, brought chilled white wine and grapes "to dress the table". We were invited to taste the wine before and after having a grape. To feel the nuances between sweet and sour. We tasted different types of olive oil, we were given quizzes - which olive oil was used in the confection of this dish?, we were incited to moist the tips of our fingers with olive oil and flower of salt and suck them like kids. Mario, our host, is also the resident DJ; a cool, lounge music was playing. A popular party outside brought some new sounds and, while we waited for our next course, Mario invited us to take our white port glasses outside and dance. An unusual combination of tastes and smells were successively presented. He sprayed balsamic vinegar on my ice cream and you know what? It was delicious.
A series of the most carefully selected wines and tasty dishes - while we played with luminous gadgets - were accompanied by Mario's bright dissertations on smell, touch and taste.
A feast for the senses and a great experience. That is what I call service. And I'm not even talking about the food...
When we left, I almost felt like I just had dinner over at a good friend's place.
*****
À mesa com Bacchus
Rua de Miragaia, 127
4050-387 Porto
Tel: 222 000 896
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June 10, 2006
So cute
Google is commemorating Portugal Day with us.
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May 15, 2006
Labyrinths
El laberinto de la soledad / The labyrinth of solitude - Octavio Paz
O labirinto da saudade / The labyrinth of saudade - Eduardo Lourenco
A Mexican poet and a Portuguese philosopher. Both tried to put into an essay what means to belong or to be born in their respective countries.
I like it how soledad and saudade sound similar but carry different meanings. Soledad meaning solitude and saudade being that very Portuguese word for the longing for other person or time that is gone.
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November 03, 2003
The Cemetery of Pleasures
Only in Portugal would you have a Cemetery of Pleasures and a Holy Ghost Bank.
The cemetery of pleasures (Cemitério dos Prazeres) is named after Our Lady Of Pleasures: now, THIS is an oxymoron (a contradiction in terms).
I'm interested in funerary art, especially in gravestone symbolism. This cemetery is very rich in symbols whether they are religious, masonic, profession-related or heraldic.
I took some pictures of a few interesting ones. This one is the from the mausoleum of a newspaper co-founder:
Another crafts and professions symbols:
A painter
A merchant (Hermes, the greek god of commerce)
A physician
A musician
The general's own little fortress :-)
The woodworker bench is his own grave!
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