the abominable disorder of life

- If I wanted, I could go mad. I know a lot of terrible stories. I have seen a lot, I heard of extraordinary situations, I myself... well, sometimes I just can't cope with it all. Because, you know?, you wake up at four in the morning in an empty room, you light a cigarette... Do you know what I mean? The dim light from the match suddenly rising the mass of shadows, the shirt fallen over the chair assuming an impossible volume, our life... do you understand?... our life, the whole life lies there as an excessive event... You need to tide it all very quickly. Fortunately there is the style. No clue what it is? Let's see: style is a subtle way of transferring life's confusion and violence to the mental plane of a unit of meaning. Do I make myself clear? No? Well, we can't stand the abominable disorder of life. So we take it, reduce it to two or three topics that can be equated. Then, by means of an intellectual artefact, we state that those topics stand on a common topic, let's say, Love or Death. Do you understand? one of those abstractions that can be used for anything.

From "Estilo" in "Os passos em volta" by Herberto Helder
losely translated from portuguese by O Coxo

FIFDH

FIFDH is back with its selection of films and documentaries on human rights issues, and in particular those often forgotten by the mainstream (and even the not-so-mainstream) media. Recommended by O Coxo.

ad hoc

O louco apercebe-se da inexorável descida à loucura.

Hipótese 1:
A lucidez exonera-o da condição de louco.
A percepção da loucura é incompatível com o estado sobre o qual se debruça.

Hipótese 2
A lucidez agrava a condição de louco.
A percepção da loucura facilita a imersão no estado percebido.
O sujeito afunda-se numa espiral de assombro.

Os conceitos:
1.
A lucidez: uma hiper sensibilidade a estímulos externos.
(digamos que os estímulos externos são facilmente interiorizados)
2.
A loucura: uma hiper permeabilidade a estímulos internos.
(digamos que os estímulos internos são facilmente exteriorizados)

Aqui se vê o peso que se coloca na distinção entre externo e interno.

Ora aí é que está o busílis.


(O Coxo)

le bar sous la mer

Adapted from Stefano Benni's book "Il bar sotto il mare", the company of Theatre du Loup, in Geneva, is showing the play le bar sous la mer until february 19th. O Coxo recommends this funny, sometimes poetic and refreshingly unpretentious performance of Theatre du Loup.

Black Movie

Geneva, Feb 2012: The black movie festival is back for its 2012 edition.

Syria

Euphrates' cities and
Palmyra's streets and you
Forests of columns in the level desert
What are you now?

Your crowns, because
You crossed the boundary
Of breath,
Were taken off
In Heaven's smoke and flame;

But I sit under clouds (each one
Of which has peace) among
The ordered oaks, upon
The deer's heath, and strange
And dead the ghosts of the blessed ones
Appear to me.

(poem "ages of life" by Friedrich Hölderlin )

the passenger

Get into the car
We'll be the passenger
We'll ride through the city tonight
We'll see the city's ripped backsides
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright
Stars made for us tonight

(picture: winner picture from death row prisoners' last meals by Helen Grace Ventura Thompson)
(text: lyrics from the song "the passenger" by Iggy pop)