I was having a discussion the other day about youtube and mass media. It's difficult to make people understand how mass media alienates someone - it's even difficult to make them understand what "alienation" really means in this context.
This is a simple example, in a wierd video. If you're not north-american or a rapper, i guess getting this girl must be difficult to you too - i thought she was a stand up comedian for the first minute, for example, it took me a while to realize her art was some kind of street poetry - very close to music, but also very bound to text. But it's not really important how the information is presented. This is an easy example of the Information Era alienation. Of course it's only a mild example. But it's simple, so it's important for starters.
If your reflections about this matter grow deeper, the problem also grows deeper - unfortunately, i assure you.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
i´ve got a reputation of being gentle but bold
not much to be said in here
this is just so fucking awesome,
and that's it
this is just so fucking awesome,
and that's it
Monday, October 20, 2008
the dream as it's fresh
I dreamt that i died, today. It was one of this dreams so real it takes you a few minutes awake to realize it was a dream – simply because it HAD to be a dream, or your mind would still wonder…
It wasn’t any terrifying death. There was nothing unhappy, painful or oppressive about it. I was calm the whole time. I knew already in great advance (in my dream) that i would die, and i was at that point completely ready to welcome it.
It went like this: "The buildings tumbled in on themselves; mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble and pulled out their hair. The skyline was beautiful on fire - all twisted metal stretching upwards; everything washed in a thin orange haze" This is the best dreamlike description i could find in literature. And a dark wind blew. I was barely standing over a shaking concrete bridge, and the water was so wild, and the wind so imperative you just knew it was no regular storm. You didn’t need to talk about it, or think about it. Suddenly you’re just there, and your friend/neighbor (a guy who actually i’ve never seem in my real life, and can’t even trace him to any celebrity or anything) was in the driver’s seat of his car, beneath the bridge, inside the water. The wild ferocious water was almost covering the bridge already, and the times it rose higher i’d try to help my friend getting out of the car.
After a struggle useless to be described – intense and gigantic to be experienced – the car finally had a bad turn and slipped beneath the bridge. My friend was still inside it. I remember the sad, sad desolation of losing a friend – mixed with the urgency of accepting and moving on for all hell’s hounds were loose and shit was happening – as i instinctively turned myself towards the other end of the bridge, where in a few seconds the car would reappear, and my friend i had never seem in real life, but towards who i had this great affection, would emerge and hold himself in the bridge. I ran to him and helped him up. We acknowledge and ran to opposite directions, to move on with our goals.
And there were these things i simply knew about – i didn’t get surprised when they arrived. They were little monsters with big teeth, and they would attack and eat people. I won’t try to describe them, as a dream creature is meant for drawing artists to describe. Enough to say they were about the size of a normal men, with huge mouths and pointy teeth – their alien body all colorful and tight, so flexible and agile, so fast and massively strong. You can let them take the form your own mind gives them, and them they’re real.
And as i ran sometimes i’d see one of them attacking a house, or a car – and i couldn’t stop, as there was this family i had to go, for they sure were in the same problems. As i ran i noticed they were too many and too strong to be beaten. And there was the storm and everything else and, as i saw the monsters go throw walls and solid steel and break, one after the other, any and every idea i could form to beaten them as i ran, i knew already it was the end and that there was absolutely no point in fighting.
It was the end.
But i kept running and as i accepted defeat i was getting growingly more disposed to fight. May this death be beautiful, i felt.
And suddenly we’re blocked in this room, and they come from all sides – but i’m like some movie action hero, and somehow i’m beating all of them always and the tension grows the way it grows in those movies and it grows and it grows and there are more and more monsters and i beat them faster and faster and at the break of tension they stop and move back.
And i have no illusions at any point that i won – i know it’s just an interruption. And a vampirela-like girl enters the room and we talk. I can only remember fragments. There was something about a book. And she moves behind me and i know that i will die. And she carve her needle teeth in my neck and i feel my blood being pumped in short strong pulls. And i remember telling myself to remain calm, and managing it. After a few sucks i feel like suffocated – but not from air. I feel the lack of something, as if i was underwater, and them more intense – and at that point it would be easy to feel desperate, if that was what i was searching for. But instead i was calm, and observing how it was to die, and it was so very, very interesting to me to have felt that.
I was compressed – suffocated – and more, and more, and more compressed, and nothing. I vanished for a second – almost all of me. And there was silence for a while, but something was still there, and them silence – as dark hit by a candle – was hit by a wave of things quickly expanding into consciousness again. Shit, it was such an easy feeling in my mind, up to now. I really thought it would be easy to describe, but as i turn my thought into words for describing it in this text, it turns out i couldn’t define it at all. Will stop trying. Don’t feel like writing anymore. Just wanted to write this dream before facts disappear and only substance remains.
It wasn’t any terrifying death. There was nothing unhappy, painful or oppressive about it. I was calm the whole time. I knew already in great advance (in my dream) that i would die, and i was at that point completely ready to welcome it.
It went like this: "The buildings tumbled in on themselves; mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble and pulled out their hair. The skyline was beautiful on fire - all twisted metal stretching upwards; everything washed in a thin orange haze" This is the best dreamlike description i could find in literature. And a dark wind blew. I was barely standing over a shaking concrete bridge, and the water was so wild, and the wind so imperative you just knew it was no regular storm. You didn’t need to talk about it, or think about it. Suddenly you’re just there, and your friend/neighbor (a guy who actually i’ve never seem in my real life, and can’t even trace him to any celebrity or anything) was in the driver’s seat of his car, beneath the bridge, inside the water. The wild ferocious water was almost covering the bridge already, and the times it rose higher i’d try to help my friend getting out of the car.
After a struggle useless to be described – intense and gigantic to be experienced – the car finally had a bad turn and slipped beneath the bridge. My friend was still inside it. I remember the sad, sad desolation of losing a friend – mixed with the urgency of accepting and moving on for all hell’s hounds were loose and shit was happening – as i instinctively turned myself towards the other end of the bridge, where in a few seconds the car would reappear, and my friend i had never seem in real life, but towards who i had this great affection, would emerge and hold himself in the bridge. I ran to him and helped him up. We acknowledge and ran to opposite directions, to move on with our goals.
And there were these things i simply knew about – i didn’t get surprised when they arrived. They were little monsters with big teeth, and they would attack and eat people. I won’t try to describe them, as a dream creature is meant for drawing artists to describe. Enough to say they were about the size of a normal men, with huge mouths and pointy teeth – their alien body all colorful and tight, so flexible and agile, so fast and massively strong. You can let them take the form your own mind gives them, and them they’re real.
And as i ran sometimes i’d see one of them attacking a house, or a car – and i couldn’t stop, as there was this family i had to go, for they sure were in the same problems. As i ran i noticed they were too many and too strong to be beaten. And there was the storm and everything else and, as i saw the monsters go throw walls and solid steel and break, one after the other, any and every idea i could form to beaten them as i ran, i knew already it was the end and that there was absolutely no point in fighting.
It was the end.
But i kept running and as i accepted defeat i was getting growingly more disposed to fight. May this death be beautiful, i felt.
And suddenly we’re blocked in this room, and they come from all sides – but i’m like some movie action hero, and somehow i’m beating all of them always and the tension grows the way it grows in those movies and it grows and it grows and there are more and more monsters and i beat them faster and faster and at the break of tension they stop and move back.
And i have no illusions at any point that i won – i know it’s just an interruption. And a vampirela-like girl enters the room and we talk. I can only remember fragments. There was something about a book. And she moves behind me and i know that i will die. And she carve her needle teeth in my neck and i feel my blood being pumped in short strong pulls. And i remember telling myself to remain calm, and managing it. After a few sucks i feel like suffocated – but not from air. I feel the lack of something, as if i was underwater, and them more intense – and at that point it would be easy to feel desperate, if that was what i was searching for. But instead i was calm, and observing how it was to die, and it was so very, very interesting to me to have felt that.
I was compressed – suffocated – and more, and more, and more compressed, and nothing. I vanished for a second – almost all of me. And there was silence for a while, but something was still there, and them silence – as dark hit by a candle – was hit by a wave of things quickly expanding into consciousness again. Shit, it was such an easy feeling in my mind, up to now. I really thought it would be easy to describe, but as i turn my thought into words for describing it in this text, it turns out i couldn’t define it at all. Will stop trying. Don’t feel like writing anymore. Just wanted to write this dream before facts disappear and only substance remains.
no need for a title is a title already
I was reading a great short story yesterday, from some Vernon Lee - who's probably this great writer, very famous and celebrated from whom i had never heard before. I got it in a collection of short stories from the 18th century about the fantastic. And today i had a dream - you know about it, right? You know about The Dream that happens sometimes... Something you'd know like you know love - something that's out there, even if it didn't happen to you. A dream so powerful and real and meaningful that people wake up from it with some kind of momentary enlightenment. Like the guys who become prophets, or saints, or superstars, or missionaries, or business men, or doctors after they had a Dream.
I woke up and was staring at the ceiling, and i was deeply thinking for a long while. Then i woke up and i'm listening to some great music and my head is full of wonder and i just wanted to share.
I woke up and was staring at the ceiling, and i was deeply thinking for a long while. Then i woke up and i'm listening to some great music and my head is full of wonder and i just wanted to share.
You see, so what if i bleed?
It's easy to post a song, because then i don't have to say much.
I recently told a girl i had gone back in time, lived again and again as all the members in a band to write her a song. This is true many times, and again.
I'm leaving this place and this blog soon, and this language for that matter, and though i make efforts to stay away from what does me no good, i must think and wonder and finish things in my head, so new ones will start always clean. I'm not scared of anything and i won't be spared. When it used to hurt i kept my way and did what i had to do. It doesn't even hurt anymore, for so long, and i shouldn't stop now just because there's no immediate reason to finish it.
The cycle is almost completely finished and abandoned in my head already - in my practical life, it's over for months. But in my head i can still take one or two steps to finish it, instead of covering it with dust, and i will do it. My winter's almost gone, but before i leave something must be said. There's no practical point to make, neither any desire to speak, but somethings must be said and i'm already used to do what must be done, opposed to what i want to do or am inclined to do.
I could have lied, but i'm such a fool. And i'll never become smart like you. Part of me would die, and that's the part which gives me more joy.
I recently told a girl i had gone back in time, lived again and again as all the members in a band to write her a song. This is true many times, and again.
I'm leaving this place and this blog soon, and this language for that matter, and though i make efforts to stay away from what does me no good, i must think and wonder and finish things in my head, so new ones will start always clean. I'm not scared of anything and i won't be spared. When it used to hurt i kept my way and did what i had to do. It doesn't even hurt anymore, for so long, and i shouldn't stop now just because there's no immediate reason to finish it.
The cycle is almost completely finished and abandoned in my head already - in my practical life, it's over for months. But in my head i can still take one or two steps to finish it, instead of covering it with dust, and i will do it. My winter's almost gone, but before i leave something must be said. There's no practical point to make, neither any desire to speak, but somethings must be said and i'm already used to do what must be done, opposed to what i want to do or am inclined to do.
I could have lied, but i'm such a fool. And i'll never become smart like you. Part of me would die, and that's the part which gives me more joy.
Friday, October 17, 2008
About leaving covered hate
What is any book about? It’s usually very hard for me to think of answers. If people ask me what a book i wrote is about, i never know what to say.
Books (good books, that is) are machines of generating meaning. It’s supposed to be complex. Even a simple good book is supposed to be complex in what it talks about.
Let’s take Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, for example – a book most people will think they know, without having read it. One could write, possibly, in two pages everything they think this book is about. But the book doesn’t have two pages, and it’s a good book. A good book that could be fully described in two pages would have exactly two pages.
You can take from within The Godfather, quite surprisingly and only as an isolated example, this amazingly reasonable and clear description of some loving-relationship enlightenment towards women that – obviously – most people lack. There’s a lot to learn in the Godfather that has nothing to do with crime.
Johnny Fontane is a character partly based on Frank Sinatra. This part is about him. I’ve taken the same oath not to hate women. I’ve just written below something about girls who deeply hurt me and still, when i think of them, i can’t help but thinking of how adorable they were, or could be. I know by experience how much this decision involves, and how deep of a matter it is – yet, here it occupies but a little space in a good book about gangsters.
Yeah, the book is about gangsters, but it’s also about learning to live fully, and many other things.
A good man with a big moustache wrote once that if your eyes were more cunning, you’d see everything moving.
Books (good books, that is) are machines of generating meaning. It’s supposed to be complex. Even a simple good book is supposed to be complex in what it talks about.
Let’s take Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, for example – a book most people will think they know, without having read it. One could write, possibly, in two pages everything they think this book is about. But the book doesn’t have two pages, and it’s a good book. A good book that could be fully described in two pages would have exactly two pages.
You can take from within The Godfather, quite surprisingly and only as an isolated example, this amazingly reasonable and clear description of some loving-relationship enlightenment towards women that – obviously – most people lack. There’s a lot to learn in the Godfather that has nothing to do with crime.
Johnny Fontane is a character partly based on Frank Sinatra. This part is about him. I’ve taken the same oath not to hate women. I’ve just written below something about girls who deeply hurt me and still, when i think of them, i can’t help but thinking of how adorable they were, or could be. I know by experience how much this decision involves, and how deep of a matter it is – yet, here it occupies but a little space in a good book about gangsters.
Yeah, the book is about gangsters, but it’s also about learning to live fully, and many other things.
A good man with a big moustache wrote once that if your eyes were more cunning, you’d see everything moving.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
That’s how things happened
Like Camila, girls who deeply hurt me have three syllables on their names. Makes me think of only talking to Maja’s, and Ana’s and Sarah’s and Vicky’s.
Wondering if i should start a numerology work about this – it’s just too much coincidence (Camila, Ivana, Olívia, Elisa, Martina)
Camila broke my heart because she didn’t know.
Ivana broke my heart because i was a sucker.
Olívia broke my heart because she had to choose.
Elisa broke my heart because she was afraid.
Martina broke my heart because she had to lie.
You see, after the second one, it wasn’t my fault anymore. I can’t even care, after i know i’m doing alright. And as i build a new heart i’m expecting it to be broken already. So i need things to keep me from becoming a skeptic. This song, for example, still makes my blood run.
Wondering if i should start a numerology work about this – it’s just too much coincidence (Camila, Ivana, Olívia, Elisa, Martina)
Camila broke my heart because she didn’t know.
Ivana broke my heart because i was a sucker.
Olívia broke my heart because she had to choose.
Elisa broke my heart because she was afraid.
Martina broke my heart because she had to lie.
You see, after the second one, it wasn’t my fault anymore. I can’t even care, after i know i’m doing alright. And as i build a new heart i’m expecting it to be broken already. So i need things to keep me from becoming a skeptic. This song, for example, still makes my blood run.
Nenhum de Nós - Camila
| Depois da última noite de festa Camila |
|
these last days i’ve been close to such a mysig butterfly
but i live like a zombie and, besides, she’s always high
and though my hand will slide in seek of heat among her thighs
i feel we’re somewhere else - beyond the flesh - inside our minds
but i would never worry
it’s all ok
and she’s so fine
i crawl outside my cave
to kiss her face
and say good night
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
i will not disgrace myself
shit, i've been listening to this for years...
it never ceases to amaze me
or to make me feel...
i don't know
genuinely rock'n roll
it never ceases to amaze me
or to make me feel...
i don't know
genuinely rock'n roll
Guided by Voices - Sheet Kickers
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