English is Cool

segunda-feira, agosto 27

A poem

Are You There?
by W. H. Auden


Each lover has some theory of his own

About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;
The more they love, the more they feel alone.

Whatever view we hold, it must be shown
Why every lover has a wish to make
Some kind of otherness his own:
Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.


Thank you for having introduced this great poet to me, Sergio!

quinta-feira, agosto 23

Evgen Bavcar

THE BLIND PHOTOGRAPHER
By Benjamin Mayer-Foulkes


Why would a blind man want to wear transparent
eyeglasses? Why would he wish to walk the streets of
Paris dressed in the same black hat, cape and red scarf
worn by Aristide Bruant as depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec?
Why would he want to risk speaking on a radio program
about paintings which he has never actually seen? And
why would he desire to take photographs?

The name of this man is Evgen Bavcar, he is an art
photographer and he is completely blind. Born in 1946
in a small Slovenian town near Venice, he lost both eyes
before he was twelve in two consecutive accidents.
Four years later, he lay his hands on a camera for the
first time, to take a snapshot of the girl with whom he
was in love: as he recalls, The pleasure I felt then
resulted from my having robbed and fixed on a film
something that did not belong to me, I secretly
discovered I could possess something that I could
not see.

Bavcar studied History at the University of Ljubljana,
and Philosophy at the Sorbonne. Having settled in Paris
he embarked on an academic career, and intensified his
photographic activities. In 1988 he was named Official
Photographer of the City of Light’s Photography Month.
Since then his work has been widely exhibited, particularly
in Europe. Walter Aue, the acclaimed Berlin poet, considers
that after Niepce, Fox Talbot and Daguerre, Bavcar is "the
fourth inventor of photography".

Bavcar’s work addresses the relations between vision,
blindness and invisibility: My task is the reunion of the
visible and the invisible worlds, photography allows me
to pervert the established method of perception amongst
those who see and those who don’t.



The complete article in http://zonezero.com/EXPOSICIONES/fotografos/bavcar/#

segunda-feira, agosto 20

In the mood for a pun?

- Knock, knock!

- Who's there?

- Orange!

- Orange who?

- Orange you going to open the door?


I suggest you read it aloud, folks :)

quarta-feira, agosto 15

Quintana and Poe

Dois poetas, dois estilos, dois tempos,
dois hemisférios, um tema: os sonhos.

Mário Quintana nasceu em Alegretes, Rio Grande do Sul, BR.
Cantou principalmente a vida e suas emoções.
Viveu de 1906 a 1994.

Edgar Allan Poe nasceu em Boston, Massachussets, EUA.
Cantou principalmente a morte e suas emoções.
Viveu de 1809 a 1849.

Hoje, aqui, um poema de cada um deles.

Os degraus
Mário Quintana

Não desças os degraus dos sonhos
Para não despertar os monstros.
Não subas aos sótãos - onde
Os deuses, por trás de suas máscaras,
Ocultam o próprio enigma.
Não desças, não subas, fica.
O mistério está é na tua vida!
E é um sonho louco esse nosso mundo...


A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

sexta-feira, agosto 10

He lived 100 years

Everyday happiness means getting up in the
morning, and you can't wait to finish your breakfast.
You can't wait to do your exercises.
You can't wait to put on your clothes.
You can't wait to get out - and you can't wait to come
home, because the soup is hot.
George Burns

sábado, agosto 4

Cat Stevens' Morning has Broken

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world
Sweet the rain's new fall sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

quinta-feira, agosto 2

Nothing gold can stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
by Robert Frost