Aprender Aprendendo...

Ciò che dobbiamo imparare a fare,

lo impariamo facendo.

Aristotele

Lentamente Muore...

Lentamente muore chi diventa schiavo dell'abitudine, ripetendo ognigiorno gli stessi percorsi,chi non cambia la marcia,chi non rischia e cambia colore dei vestiti,chi non parla a chi non conosce.Muore lentamente chi evita una passione,chi preferisce il nero su bianco e i puntini sulle "i" piuttosto che un insieme di emozioni, proprio quelle che fanno brillare gli occhi, quelle che fanno di uno sbadiglio un sorriso, quelle che fanno battere il cuoredavanti all'errore e ai sentimenti.

P. Neruda

LANDSCAPES OF FEELINGS

"The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness."

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

"Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering."

CARL GUSTAV JUNG

Art experiences are a good way to get ourselves back in touch with our inner feelings, be it a musical composition, a picture in a gallery or in the big screen, an exercise in sensual touching or whatever else one wishes. Through them we release the feelings of past experiences and we also always can get involved in new experiences as well too. In doing this, we paint or musicalize the territories of our inner self, giving them colours, lines, shapes that enables us to be in touch again with who we really are, not just with whom we wanted to be. It's an exercise in being real again. We all have different landscapes inside ourselves, sometimes a swamp, sometimes a deep cliff, sometimes a solar beach, sometimes a waterfall... Our feelings are not strange things that get inside us for some unknown reason - they are all cast by our contacts with the real world, and denying some feelings as not legitimate for some moral reason is equal to deny the real diversity of landscapes of the world. All of them have something to teach us - we just need to let them do this to us naturally without forcing upon them some meaning of our choice, framed by our moral behavior of choosing some as "better" than others, and so leaving the real diversity of our experiences unrecognized.

Cadê os comentários?

O Blog completou recentemente 20000 hits, mas para mim não foi desta vez motivo para comemoração. Isso porque apesar do alto número de acessos (penso eu), são ainda raríssimas as pessoas que deixam comentários nos posts que, eu sei, tem sido algo meio erráticos ultimamente. Parte da culpa é, portanto, minha, primeiro por postar pouco nos últimos tempos e segundo por postar sobre assuntos um tanto dispares um do outro. A idéia do Blog era a de servir como espaço de inspiração e reflexão sobre temas relacionados às artes, mas percebi que nem os posts relacionados diretamente às artes (como meus desenhos e poemas nos posts mais antigos e algumas citações de trechos de história da arte) recebiam comentários, não sei se por preguiça ou porque afinal a forma BLOG se presta mais aos comentários pessoais sobre fatos diversos do cotidiano do que realmente à reflexão e inspiração sobre arte. O fato é que com o tempo fui acrescentando posts que tem mais a ver com a arte dos cuidados de si (como bem coloca Foucault) do que sobre questões mais diretamente ligadas à estética, por exemplo. Ainda que eu acredite que essa arte do cuidado de si faça parte em certo sentido do que costumamos chamar, meio escorregadiamente, de Arte com "A" maiúsculo, eu entendo que a maioria das pessoas não vejam claramente como se dá essa correlação, e por isso (tento explicar eu para mim mesmo) as pessoas deixam tão poucos comentários. Pois bem, vou tentar de agora em diante explicitar mais essa correlação, aproveitando sempre que der para fazer meus próprios comentários. De resto, convido os poucos leitores a darem uma olhada enquanto isso em meu outro Blog sobre o tema da Melancolia, onde andei postando mais comentários ultimamente. O link está ai do lado: trata-se do Melancholy Lakes. Lá vocês vão encontrar coisas relacionadas à "Arte" também, mas espero desde já que possa ficar clara a ligação entre essa arte que a gente vê nos museus e exposições e a arte da vida, ou dos cuidados de si. Aproveito para convidar aqueles que se interessarem pelo tema de deixarem seus muito bem vindos comentários, seja lá quanto aqui.

Um grande abraço,

Skywalker...

Don't fear the fear

"The man who fears suffereing is already suffering from what he fears."

MICHEL de MONTAIGNE

Para o Chris...

Achei a referência desse livro que conta a historia social e econômica do Rum na época da colonização do novo mundo. Quando vi não pude deixar de pensar no Chris e seu interesse pelo tema do colonialismo (Tintin) regado a uma boa perspectiva antropológica sobre comidinhas e bebidinhas. Marshall Sahlins que o diga...


A History of Caribbean Rum

Frederick H. Smith. 2005. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. ISBN 0-8130-2867-1. University Press of Florida. 247 pages, plus extensive notes, references and an index.

Caribbean Rum is the story of a New World invention--hard liquor distilled from sugar cane and byproducts--and its role in the European and African colonization of the American continents. The 'social, spiritual, and medicinal' liquid called alcohol has a deep history among Europeans and Africans, but at the time of the colonization of the Caribbean, early in the 16th century, distilled spirits were not widely available anywhere. Wine-making, making alcoholic drinks without distillation, was the manufacturing method of choice, because it was fairly simple and didn't require special equipment. Distillation was invented in England in the 13th century, but at first it was a secret process known only to physicians and apothecaries.

Earliest Alcoholic Beverages in the New WorldAs described here, and despite modern disapproving viewpoints to the contrary, alcohol was a necessary staple commodity to 16th century colonists and the countries from which they originated, whether for safely ingesting liquids, experiencing religion or as a method of easing the pain of enslavement or distance from home and family. The colonies of the New World were only reached after months of voyaging, and quantities of imported brandy--the most popular alcoholic beverage of European colonists--were limited. Locally produced alternatives needed to be identified. The earliest alcoholic beverages made by Europeans and Africans in the New World were based on drinks made by the local Carib peoples, such as those made from fermented potatoes (called mobbie) or from casava (called perino or ouicou). Other early experiments making alchohol included wines made from pineapple, plantain, banana and plums. Fermented sugar drinks such as guacapo (called by various names including grappe, grippo and guarapo) were also made.

Sugarcane and Rum Production It was these cane sugar byproducts that proved most popular, and after the first alembic arrived, early in the 17th century, rum production took off. The birth of the distilled rum industry began as a result of a burgeoning sugar cane agriculture in the British colonies on the islands of Barbados and Martinique, fueled by the investment in that agriculture by the British West Indies company, about 1650.

Frederick Smith's Caribbean RumFrederick Smith's Caribbean Rum details the story of rum making within the context of the African and European cultures, both at home and in the colonies, the political machinations of intercontinental trade, the competing colonial markets and the effects of treaties and conflicts. Most of all, the book describes the social and religious aspects of alcohol in the Caribbean, among the various components of that eclectic society. Although the text is clearly a reworking of Smith's dissertation, and has some of those academic characteristics (including a fat bibliography and dense notes), the story Smith tells is a fascinating one.

Self Control

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Caminhando se faz o caminho...

A PEDRA

O distraído nela tropeçou...
O bruto a usou como projétil.
O empreendedor, usando-a, construiu.
O camponês, cansado da lida, dela fez assento.
Para meninos, foi brinquedo.
Drummond a poetizou.
Já David matou Golias e Michelangelo extraiu-lhe a mais bela escultura...

E em todos esses casos, a diferença não esteve na pedra, mas no homem.

Para a Letícia, com carinho...

LEVEL 42 - LESSONS IN LOVE (LYRICS)

I'm not proud, I was wrong
and the truth is hard to take
I felt sure we had enough
but our love went overboard
lifeboat lies lost at sea
I've been trying to reach your shore
waves of doubt keep drowning me
All the dreams that we were building
we never fulfilled them
could be better, should be better
for lessons in love

For restless eyes egos burn
and the mold is hard to break
now we've waded in too deep
and love is overboard
heavy hearts token word
sall the hopes I ever had
fade like footprints in the sand

All the homes that we were building
we never lived in
could be better, should be better
lessons in love
if we lose the time before us
the future will ignore us
we should use it, we could use it, yeah
Lessons in love

Lost without love...

Lessons in love
When will you ever learn

Lessons in love
When there's nowhere left to turn

Lessons in love
Don't let your spirit burn

Lessons in love
I'll wait 'till you return

All the dreams that we were building
we never fulfilled them
could be better, should be better
for lessons in love
All the homes that we were building
we never lived in
could be better, should be better
lessons in love
if we lose the time before us
the future will ignore us
we should use it, we could use it, yeah
lessons in love

For all the egocentrics around there in the universe, me included

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.

-Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Words on VERSO, IMAGES on RECTO

ETIMOLOGIA DE "VERSO":

verso (VUR-so) noun

1. A left-hand page.
2. The back of a page.

[Short for Latin verso folio, from verso (turned) and folio (leaf).From versus (turning), from vertere (to turn). Ultimately from theIndo-European root wer- (to turn or bend), also the source of wring,weird, writhe, worth, revert, and universe.]

The counterpart of this word is recto, the right-hand page.

Perhaps the use of VERSO to designate the poetic phrase may be linked with the use, somewhere in the past, of the poetry on VERSO and the corresponding illustration of the passage by an image on RECTO. But I'm not sure on this....Anyone have some clues on it?

The path

It's never to late to recall the power of fear over us:

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
-John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

Todo dia é um começo e um fim....

A bit harsh quote for the X-day, but nevertheless not least truthful:

Don't wait for the Last Judgement. It takes place every day.
-Albert Camus, writer and philosopher (1913-1960)

Buda

Winning gives birth to hostility.

Losing, one lies down in pain.

The calmed lie down with ease,

having set winning & losing aside.

Samyutta Nikaya III, 14

Carpe Diem

Quod in iuventute non discitur, in matura aetate nescitur. (Cassiodorus, Variae 1.24)

Translation: "What is not learned in youth is not known in later years."

Mais de 10000 Hits!!!

O blog recebeu agora à pouco mais de 10.000 visitas!! Muito obrigado a todos que o visitaram... Faço questão de lembrar que todo comentário será muito bem-vindo! Até breve e mais uma vez muito obrigado pelas visitas...

- Skywalker

Styx - Mr. Roboto (Lyrics)

Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
Mata ahoo Hima de
Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
Himitsu wo Shiri tai.
You're wondering who I am - secret
secret - I've got a secret

Machine or mannequin - secret
secret - I've got a secret

With parts made in Japan - secret
secret - I've got a secret

I am the Modren Man.

I've got a secret
I've been hiding under my skin

My heart is human
my blood is boiling
my brain I.B.M.
So if you see me acting strangely
don't be surprised

I'm just a man who needed someone
and comewhere to hide
To keep me alive - just keep me alive
Somewhere to hide to keep me alive.

I'm not a robot without emotions - I'm not what you see

I've come to help you with your problems
so we can be free.
I'm not a Hero
I'm not a Saviour
forget what you know

I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control

Beyond my control - we all need control.
I need control - we all need control.
I am the Modren Man - secret
secret - I've got a secret

Who hides behind a mask - secret
secret - I've got a secret

So no one else can see - secret
secret - I've got a secret

My true identity.

Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
Domo - Domo

Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
Domo - Domo

Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto

Domo Arigato
Mr. Roboto
. . .
Thank you very much
Mr. Roboto
for doing the jobs that nobody wants to

And thank you very much
Mr. Roboto
for helping me escape
Just when I needed to. Thank you
thank you
thank you

I want to thank you
please
thank you

The problem's plain to see: Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
machines de-humanize.

The time has come at last - secret
secret - I've got a secret

To throw away this mask - secret
secret - I've got a secret

Now everyone can see - secret
secret - I've got a secret

My true identity - I'm Kilroy
Kilroy
Kilroy
Kilroy !

- Daria um óbulo para saber a que se refere essa música fantástica da minha infância!!! Quando era moleque brincavamos de encenar essa música, fingindo ser o Mr. Roboto, que escondia nossa verdadeira identidade. Dificil saber se de lá para cá já a descobrimos no meio de tanto disfarce...

Reo Speedwagon - Keep on Loving You (Lyrics)

You should've seen by the look in my eyes, baby
There was somethin missin
You should've known by the tone of my voice, maybe
But you didn't listen
You played dead
But you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissin

And though I know all about those men
Still I don't remember
Cause it was us baby, way before then
And we're still together
And I meant, every word I said
When I said that I love you I meant
That I love you forever

And I'm gonna keep on lovin you
Cause it's the only thing I wanna do
I don't wanna sleep
I just wanna keep on lovin you

(solo)

And I meant every word I said
When I said that I love you I meant
That I love you forever

(chorus)

Air Supply - Lost In Love (Lyrics)

(Graham Russell)

I realize the best part of love is the thinnest lace
And it don't count for much but I'm not letting go
I believe there's still much to believe in

So lift your eyes if you feel you can
Reach for a star and I'll show you a plan
I figured it out
What I needed was someone to show me

You know you can't fool me
I've been loving you too long
It started so easy
You want to carry on

Chorus:
Lost in love and I don't know much
Was I thinking about
Fell out of touch
But I'm back on my feet
Eager to be what you wanted

So lift your eyes if you feel you can
Reach for a star and I'll show you a plan
I figured it out
What I needed was someone to show me

You know you can't fool me
I've been loving you too long
It started so easy
You want to carry on

Chorus

You know you can't fool me
I've been loving you too long
It started so easy
You want to carry on

Chorus

Now I'm lost, lost in love, lost in love, lost in love
Now I'm lost, lost in love, lost in love, lost in love
Lost in love, lost in love, lost in love
Lost in love, lost in love, lost in love

O Sonho de Cipião ou Hércules na Encruzilhada

- Baseado na história do Hércules de Pródicus, entre a Virtude e o Vício.



- RAFAEL, CIPIÃO SILIUS ITALICUS (1504), National Gallery, Londres.