[ ]

I could write a lot

and play a sad song

and draw an apologetic thought

and explain,

again,

all the things I do not know how

or want to.


Instead,

for once,

let's make this simple:


.. Goodbye my dear ..

'Room' by Emma Donoghue

Inspired by the Josef Fritzl case, this is a beautiful book. Sweet, thrilling, utterly sad, intriguing, and just what I needed to read. Good to be out of the academic shelf once in a while.

Here's The Observer's critique: 

Nicola Barr, The Observer, Sunday 1 August 2010

 

 

Room has a 'strange dislocating appeal'. Much hyped on acquisition and by its publisher since (and longlisted for the Booker prize last week), Room is set to be one of the big literary hits of the year. Certainly it is Emma Donoghue's breakout novel, but, seemingly "inspired" by Josef Fritzl's incarceration of his daughter Elisabeth, and the cases of Natascha Kampusch and Sabine Dardenne, it's hard not to feel wary: what is such potentially lurid and voyeuristic material doing in the hands of a novelist known for quirky, stylish literary fiction?

It is a brave act for a writer, but happily one that Donoghue, still only 40 but on her seventh novel, has the talent to pull off. For Room is in many ways what its publisher claims it to be: a novel like no other. The first half takes place entirely within the 12-foot-square room in which a young woman has spent her last seven years since being abducted aged 19. Raped repeatedly, she now has a five-year-old boy, Jack, and it is with his voice that Donoghue tells their story. And what a voice it is. "Ma" has clearly spent his five years devoting every scrap of mental energy to teaching, nurturing and entertaining her boy, preserving her own sanity in the process. To read this book is to stumble on a completely private world. Every family unit has its own language of codes and in-jokes, and Donoghue captures this exquisitely. Ma has created characters out of all aspects of their room – Wardrobe, Rug, Plant, Meltedy Spoon. They have a TV and Jack loves Dora the Explorer, but Ma limits the time they are allowed to watch it for fear of turning their brains to mush. They do "phys ed" every morning, keep to strict mealtimes, make up poems, sing Lady Gaga and Kylie, and most importantly, Ma has a seemingly endless supply of stories – from the Berlin Wall and Princess Di ("Should have worn her seatbelt," says Jack) to fairytales like Hansel and Gretel to hybrids in which Jack becomes Prince Jackerjack, Gullijack in Lilliput: his mother's own fairytale hero. And really, what is a story of a kidnapped girl locked in a shed with her long-haired innocently precocious boy if not the realisation of the most macabre fairytale? Donoghue has not been so crass as to make light of their plight: at times it's almost impossible not to turn away in horror. When Ma's kidnapper comes to the room in the evening, she makes Jack hide in the wardrobe, where he listens as they get into bed: "I always have to count till he makes that gaspy sound and stops." Ma has days where she is "gone" to blank-eyed depression and Jack, left to his own devices, reveals: "Mostly I just sit." But the grotesque is consistently balanced with the uplifting and there is a moment, halfway through the novel, where you feel you would fight anyone who tried to wrestle it from your grasp with the same ferocity that Ma fights for Jack, such is the author's power to make out of the most vile circumstances something absorbing, truthful and beautiful. Thereafter, the setting moved to "Outside", the relationship diluted by alternative voices, by the number of new things with which Jack has to deal, the novel loses some of its intensity and has the more familiar feel of the naive child narratives of Roddy Doyle and Mark Haddon. Jack's introduction to the confusing world of freedom is handled with incredible skill and delicacy – as is his first separation from Ma. But the novel, like Jack, now has to follow a more logical and straightforward path. For me, the rhythm of Ma and Jack's speech bears traces of the author's native Irish brogue, though the second half reveals the setting to be America (Donoghue now lives in Canada). But this only adds to the strange, dislocating appeal of Room. In the hands of this audacious novelist, Jack's tale is more than a victim-and-survivor story: it works as a study of child development, shows the power of language and storytelling, and is a kind of sustained poem in praise of motherhood and parental love.

[Always]

- ... and again this year... Happy birthday me :) ... -

Toquinho, 'Valsa para uma Menininha' [worse video, best original version]

Happy Happy Happy

Happy Birthday Me.

Happy Girl You.

You've made it.


AREN'T YOU SO FUCKIN' HAPPY?!!



I hope you are - one of us should be. And because it's my day, I dedicate it to you.



[one hour and forty four minutes late... I was giving you a slack...]




Have a blast. Here's for you. Here's for us.

Bon Iver- 'Skinny Love'

A Heart I Love

If You Forget Me

I want you to know one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

Poem: If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

Images: © Hedi Slimane with Alex Dunstan for Another Man Magazine, 2009

Triste et Marveilleux

Song by Edith Piaf and Théo Sarapo

A quoi ça sert, l’amour ?
On raconte toujours
Des histoires insensées
A quoi ça sert d’aimer ?

L’amour ne s’explique pas !
C’est une chose comme ca !
Qui vient on ne sait d’où
Et vous prend tout à coup.

Moi, j’ai entendu dire
Que l’amour fait souffrir,
Que l’amour fait pleurer,
A quoi ca sert d’aimer ?

L’amour, ca sert à quoi ?
A nous donner d’la joie
Avec des larmes aux yeux…
C’est triste et merveilleux !

Pourtant on dit souvent
Que l’amour est décevant
Qu’il y a un sur deux
Qui n’est jamais heureux…

Meme quand on l’a perdu
L’amour qu’on a connu
Vous laisse un goût de miel -
L’amour c’est éternel !

Tout ca c’est très joli,
Mais quand tout est fini
Il ne vous reste rien
Qu’un immense chagrin…

Tout ce qui maintenant
Te semble déchirant
Demain, sera pour toi
Un souvenir de joie !

En somme, si j’ai compris,
Sans amour dans la vie,
Sans ses joies, ses chagrins,
On a vécu pour rien ?

Mais oui! Regarde-moi !
A chaque fois j’y crois !
Et j’y croirait toujours…
Ça sert à ça l’amour !

Mais toi, tu es le dernier !
Mais toi’ tu es le premier !
Avant toi y avait rien
Avec toi je suis bien !

C’est toi que je voulais !
C’est toi qu’il me fallait !
Toi que j’aimerais toujours…
Ça sert à ça l’amour !

Dangereux

Manara

It's when you start 

[hol] - [ding]

and 

s u s        d i n

       p e n        g

words 

in the last split of a second 

on the tip of your tongue, 

that you know...

You're in for trouble.

Again.

Merde.

Remains

Jan Saudek, 'Pimp and Hooker'

What is it that breaks hearts?

Can't be love. No. Nor the lack of it. Nope. Not that.

It is you. 

You.

Mãos.

As tuas mãos, sempre, na minha cabeça, a afagar memórias. Mãos fortes mas sempre trémulas ao sentir-me. Paixão, suor, tanto mel. 

Nunca mais me tocas, me bebes, me comes de dentro para fora, e eu a deixar e a pedir-te mais e a sussurrar-te segredos tantos dias e tantas noites e entre os lençóis e combóios e praias e montanhas e castelos e torres e suspiros - oh! - suspiros!...

Quero fechar os olhos e poder ter-te de novo. Não ter-te a sério - porque senão me terias também e não posso - mas aqui, dentro, sem que ninguém saiba. Nem tu. Principalmente, não tu. Tu não me amas, só me queres. Não chega. Não chegou. Não vai chegar para ninguém...

Mas [hmmmm] as tuas mãos, os braços que me arrancavam do chão e da razão, os olhos que me pegavam fogo e o cabelo nas nossas bocas, o suor, os dedos como garras e os dentes cerrados, as línguas quentes e o teu corpo dentro do meu!... Como me agarravas e como me abraçavas e como ias de animal a água morna na minha pele...

O teu peito em que me perdia e que mordia e em que adormecia e em que enterrava a cara em êxtase, a afogar-me no teu desejo. O teu sorriso, cheio de mim nos olhos - ou cheio dos teus sonhos de mim, ou dos meus sonhos de ti? - e a tua boca, sempre tão quente, sempre a procurar-me, sempre em mim...

Hoje choro-te.

[mas só por um instante]

Hoje sinto-te a falta.

[mas not for long]

La Première Fois

Amamo Yoshitaka, He Meets, 1996

 

He took me by surprise and kissed my lips 

oh so fast, 

oh so smooth, 

oh so strong and 

oh so deep!...

Last night he came in my bed.

'Slowly, please...' - I asked...

'Oh, don't you worry...' - he whispered...

[previously in between laughs]

'Isn't it sad how the first time with someone is always shit??' - I said laughing

'Yeah, but hey, sometimes it can be just amazing and perfect...' - he replied with a shrug

(did I catch a cheeky smile there?)

The music was loud and he was so right. 

So sweet.

So not first time.

[why was I nervous?]

Vous venez de détruire ma théorie.

Merci, Monsieur.

Au revoir.

Maze Haze

 

by David La Chappelle

Over

Egon Schiele

Over.

Over and over again.

It's over.

Again.

And so life goes on.

Again.

All over again.

I said I'd come back for you

 

And if I have to go, will you remember me?
Will you find someone else, while I'm away?
There's nothing for me, in this world full of strangers
It's all someone else's idea
I don't belong here, and you can't go with me
You'll only slow me down

Until I send for you, don't wear your hair that way
If you cannot be true, I'll understand
Tell all the others, you'll hold in your arms
That I said I'd come back for you
I'll leave my jacket to keep you warm
That's all that I can do

And if I have to go, will you remember me?
Will you find someone else, while I'm away?

To dream

To My Boy

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats [1886]

 

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid out faery vats,
Full of berries
And the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters of the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

Drink up, baby
Stay up all night
Things you could do
You won't but you might

The potential you'll be
You'll never see
Promises you'll only make
Drink up with me now
And forget all about
Pressure of days
Do what I say
And I'll make you okay
And drive them away
Images stuck in your head

People you've been before
That you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Drink up, baby
Look at the stars.
And I'll kiss you again
Between the bars
Where I'm seeing you there
With your hands in the air
Waiting to finally be caught

Drink up one more time
And I'll make you mine
And keep you apart
Deep in my heart
Separate from the rest
Where I like you the best
Keep the things you forgot

The people you've been before
That you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Breathing deeper...

by Tony Ward

E dói cá dentro

... porque hoje tenho dois anos outra vez...

Vivo-te...

Henri Matisse, 'Odalisque with a Turkish Chair', 1928


... porque se inventam palavras quando todas as outras estavam já gastas...