WILD BOAR EYE
A novel in twelve episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FOURTH EPISODE
(The big fountain)

Six in the afternoon. At the belvedere by the Jade Mountains, Maya and Rui step out of the car. They sit side by side on the stone bench, listening to the distant wind. Everything seems to point to a Hopper painting, such is the special tonality of the wait and languor. Later, without any sign of strangeness, Maya turns to the big fountain full of weird garlands and ivy offshoots and said in a very low voice: “It’s time to change over. I’ll drive from now on.”
Rui conceded. He shook his head like a yoyo on goo, a puppet hanging from a cross where invisible actors tame their fatigue and tension. His candid posture rose up slowly, pulling a handkerchief across his forehead, looking Maya in the eyes: “Ok. Later in the evening, by nightfall, I’ll take over again, then.”
So be it.
Maya set off up the mountain, curve after curve. Light falls and shadows grow long, the wind surges into the dense forest. Below them is the alluvial plain of the great city, an abyss caught between walls and the immense valleys whence holy waters sprout from a colossal spring where four rivers blend, two by two.

(Next episode of Wild Boar Eye: “The truth is the vaccine was certainly not in the best interest of a lot of nicely settled people...”)

Continues

WILD BOAR EYE
A novel in twelve episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

THIRD EPISODE
(Was it hunger, coincidence, a mirage?)

Chasing the same bright yellow line engraved on the floor, Rui and Maya carry on as if united in a single fate, a single impetus, a single chance. Step by step. And in that tap-dance one could hear a sort of tune spreading out into the air, screeching out of some tollbooth speaker: was it raucous Ravel, an orchestra from Cadiz or Algiers?.. Piano, a flute, booming percussion and agitated strings, permanently hovering overhead. It was like a circus, with the asphalt undulating and rippling, pleasure imminent; as if Broadway were waxing and waning into a new musical, combined with the sharp acrobatics of an unusual noon. Was it hunger, coincidence, a mirage? Rui broke off to his left, nearing on the car door. Maya squinted for the first time.
“What?” she muttered. “What! I can’t believe this!” she thought out in a tight thin voice. She ran past the man, clinging to the door that, after all, was the door to her car.
Rui and Maya, came out of nowhere, holding different keys - or the same -, trying to open the very same door. And each demanding, swearing, heart crossed to high heaven, “But… This is my car!”
“It’s mine, look!” Both produced the same documents, the same papers, and both names matched the license plate.
“This can’t be! Look here, I’m a serious person and I hate squabbles!”
“Listen, I don’t like games and least of all at this time of day. I’m tired, overworked!..”
“Wouldn’t it be better to call the police?”

From that moment on, it was impossible to hear another word that went on between Rui and Maya. Each held his key by the Midnight Blue Mobilin 2000; their expressions contorting, transfiguring into slow motion close-ups, while the tedium of explanations faded out. Fudged out. Everything is now, seen from afar. Panoramic. And tension tightens in, only to subside. But why?

(Next episode of Wild Boar Eye: “His candid posture rose up slowly, pulling a handkerchief across his forehead, looking Maya in the eyes...”)

Continues

The blank blog is staring back at you - 7

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"Last spring, when I was living in Boston, love was in the air. I had a date with a very beautiful young woman in Vermont. But I didn't want to take the bus up to see her. I wanted to drive. However, my driver's license had just expired and I couldn't get a quick renewal, because I no longer lived in DC, where the license was from.Swept away by thoughts of romance, I decided to head over to the local Enterprise Rent-a-Car and hope they wouldn't notice my licensed had expired. But they did. And they explained politely but firmly that renting a car to someone without a valid license is absolutely unacceptable. I knew they were right, so I took the bus. Perhaps that why the girl broke up with me." (David Adesnik)

I sould have tried another Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
David´s life and... everything would have been different!

WILD BOAR EYE
A novel in twelve episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SECOND EPISODE
(The grand parade)

Across the square, Maya stopped in front of the man with a giant egg under his unfurled, caught in the wind, shirt. She shivered at that open mouth that was but a rocky cave, cut across by a trident of tooth decay. When she came back the same way later on, the curtain had gone up from that Breughel face, where there fluttered a smile fit of a saint. Of the kind that rose into heaven and wore, long ago, the whitened satin of everlasting salvation. Macerated skin, gondola lips, eyes apparently frozen, and the pause, the immense pause between hisses complicating the insistent entreaty: “It’s only two euros, ma’am, couple o’euros only. Come - buy this small bunch of costmary; the greatest tonic in the world against hiccups, nervous problems, evil spells, everything.”
And Maya, not knowing why she had stopped at that shack, that warehouse of voids, found herself holding onto nothing but her purse and the small bunch of French mint that accompanied her slightly sweaty, pale, and probably astonished life line.
She walked on, in slender high heels, waving her hips in readiness and elegance, taking heed of the time and the serious look of the freckled policewoman that wouldn’t stop whispering into her walkie-talkie. Then came the crosswalk, a blotch of insects and cetacean-shaped clouds. The grand parade. And in that interval from the world, Maya remembered the trip she was about to take on the following day. Nine am, leaving for the airport and… how nice it will be, ten days in New York doing absolutely nothing. Maya poised her eyes on the lulling reflex of light coming from the big wheel at the fun fair. Chagall lights turning, arching, whirling a clarity that made it hard for you to perceive the green blossoming once again.
And footsteps crashed into each other again in an eager chaos, a sudden vortex, as soon as the pedestrian lights announced themselves to mankind. Motorbikes, buses, archangels of all kinds, and especially taxis came to a halt. Everything stops in this miniscule hour of urban delights as the city seems to burst into a mixed smell of sandal, rosemary and burnt tires. Maya’s shrewdness is obvious, as she sucks in and tastes the air, and opens her purse with care and circumspection. From within she pulls out her car key and proceeds with determination to the street corner, her tiny costmary bouquet caught between her red, blood-colored nails. This is the dictate, the everyday law. She proceeds into the park, pays for the full morning parking at the booth and walks towards her car.

(next episode of Wild Boar Eye: “Was it hunger, coincidence, a mirage? Rui broke off to his left, nearing on the car door. Maya squinted for the first time.”)

Continues

There´s a great poem just around the corner - 5

(E. E. Cummings, Complete Poems)

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the littlelame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

WILD BOAR EYE
A novel in twelve episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FIRST EPISODE
(A delight, tasting of Bosch prodigies…)

Perhaps because he pronounced words with some difficulty, the old man seemed to be saying, even if in a mumble, the other name for that plant I had long forgotten. And he repeated it out loud, with creased eyebrows, shirt puffed out in the wind, three needlelike teeth and one open eye: “It’s costmary, a marvelous tonic… for making tea against hiccups”, “Buy the grand tonic against hiccups and evil omens!” And there I was, thinking about spasms, monsters, silicone breasts, with my right hand in my pocket clutching at the car keys with unusual strength. Step by step, I waddled on the sidewalk, a salsa or merengue beat overseeing my rhythm, pace and fate, until the crosswalk made me halt.
I lazily glanced back, only to catch sight of the freckled policewoman and, further down, of the haughty man still holding onto the costmary, a small stem of rickety leaves culminating in three or four tiny buds. Only later did I come to find out, by a strange will of chance, that it was in fact French or Roman mint. The green light finally summoned the pedestrians, my fingers glistened through the pomade in my hair, I put on my glasses and advanced into the crowd. In slower, paused steps, I unfolded the newspaper to read the headlines. Deaths in Macedonia, six twins born in Valparaiso, UFOs in Basel, the Asian stock crash, and, cover story: the wonder drug. The discovery of the magic vaccine. Made from wild boar’s blood. Strange stuff; was this even possible?
Behind, like Napoleonic drums in the distance, lost among ambulance sirens and a strange rush of wind from the construction site, I still managed to hear threads of the costmary balsam street cries. A delight, tasting of Bosch prodigies. I turned the corner to head for the park when I recalled the six o’clock rendezvous with Helen at the theater door.
Memory fell in like an apparition – I looked up and saw anew: there was the sun navigating in the zenith between low clouds, the fun fair turning giant pulleys and winding out puffs of fried dough into the stratosphere, while the newspaper, nicely folded up by now, promenaded under my arm. Under my feet went the harmonious tale of the planet, as, same as any other day, I entered the park. I paid the parking fare through the prefab booth glass and finally headed for the car. It was noon, precisely.

(Next episode of Wild Boar Eye: From within she pulls out her car key and proceeds with determination to the street corner, her tiny costmary bouquet caught between her red, blood-colored nails. This is the dictate, the everyday law.)

The blank blog is staring back at you - 6

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"A Little Conversation with GodThis morning, I woke very early before dawn; looking at the clock and thinking that it was really much too early to be starting my day, I stayed in bed and thought of a question I might ask God. I don't often expect direct answers to my questions, but on at least one occasion I did receive what seemed an answer. I was in an especially pitiful and despairing mood and I asked God "Oh, God, shall I just die?" (not truly planning to kill myself, but I know of many who simply give up the fight, stop eating and caring, and who die in pretty short order - it's still a kind of suicide, just in different form) The anwer I felt in my heart was "Leave that to me, Dear". Did that answer come from God or was it simply the imaginings of a delusional mind? I don't know and I don't think it even matters - the answer was a very good one in that it put a stop to my self-pitying attitude and renewed my hope and my commitment to life - it might as well have come from God for the healing it provided." (Ophe´s promise)

Isn´t it?

"Love's fire heats water"

The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,/
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary took up that fire,
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the general of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,

Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

(William Shakespeare, Sonnets)

Quote of the day

"In an age of split-second access to unlimited information, a short story is wonderfully finite: the end is always in sight. Yet the best short stories aren't short on story at all. Instead, they manage to fit an unwieldy world into a very small space. The trick for the writer is to hide the muscle it takes to pull off that compression, convincing us that the world on the page spins easily beyond the story's boundaries." (Maggie Galehouse)

Human image

"I googled 'marketing with blogs' and got 18,500 hits, so a lot of people are thinking along similar lines.
I honestly don't think blogging is the way to market...not yet. But at least some companies are using blogs as a way to sell some things, including a human image for their companies. That may be the most important thing they're doing on the Web."
(in Writing For The Web)

It ain't over until the fat lady sings!

There´s a great poem just around the corner - 4

Letters (Julia Forster)

You found poetry in postmarks. You tore
these finite ink circles from their homebound envelopes
to be stuffed into filing cabinet drawers in
rigid, faultless, alphabetical order.

I liked the magnetic letters that could create their own town
and would still make sense upside down or under
the rattling fridge. These could be i and !, u and n
at the same time, as well as holding up envelopes, unopened.

There´s a great poem just around the corner - 3

Alien(s) by David Meltzer

"(...) yes yes
why wait when time breaks down
fails to existin axes of remove
chop chop
your hand reaching out for
the promised land."

There´s a great poem just around the corner - 2

Back from Australia (John Betjeman)

"Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height,
The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay,
We never seem to catch the running day
But travel on in everlasting night
With all the chic accoutrements of flight:
Lotions and essences in neat array
And yet another plastic cup and tray.
"Thank you so much. Oh no, I'm quite all right".

At home in Cornwall hurrying autumn skies
Leave Bray Hill barren, Stepper jutting bare,
And hold the moon above the sea-wet sand.
The very last of late September dies
In frosty silence and the hills declare
How vast the sky is, looked at from the land."

The blank blog is staring back at you - 5

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"John Kerry flying first-class (commercial) on American Airlines direct flight National Airport to Miami, evening of March 11th. Was without Teresa. Ate some Junior Mints. To his credit, he didn't play silently with a toy Air Force One. Left Junior Mints box on seat afterward, as we all de-planed." (Wonkette)

Isn´t it?

There´s a great poem just around the corner - 1

Jerome Rothenberg’s Writing Through:

1
Beginning with needles.
Insomnia.
Beginning with baskets.
The Moon.
Who is naked? The imagination
(wrote Lorca) is seared.
This is a homage to water.
Beginning & end.
The “variation” of the poem “Lorca’s Spain: A Homage”

2
Where we are the flowers in our clocks flare up their
feathers ring the light
on a distant sulfur morning cows are licking the salt
lilies
o my son
my son
we are always brought down by the color of the world
it’s blue more blue than subways than astronomy
we are too thin
we have no mouths
our legs are stiff & knock together
faces shapeless like the stars
Tristan Tzara’s “The Great Lament of My Obscurity Three,”

(see also “Narcissus Journal”)

Are you a "Bobo"?

"(...) The bohemian and the bourgeois are all mixed up, as David Brooks explains in this brilliant description of upscale culture in America. It is hard to tell an espresso-sipping professor from a cappuccino-gulping banker. Laugh and sob as you read about the information age economy's new dominant class. Marvel at their attitudes toward morality, sex, work, and lifestyle, and at how the members of this new elite have combined the values of the countercultural sixties with those of the achieving eighties. These are the people who set the tone for society today, for you. They are bourgeois bohemians: Bobos."

Five years after, are "Bobos" still alive?

The blank blog is staring back at you - 4

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"Secretly, every girl wants to be Cinderella. Every woman wants to be rescued from her circumstances by a wonderful and charming prince who is determined to do anything to get her." (...) "All the good princes are taken or (more often) not interested and all the Cinderellas are too busy chasing to be chased. My suggestion: Secretly like from a distance and flirt little. Flirting only confuses and sends mixed signals. Will I be able to stop flirting? Heck no!"
(Sometimes life surprises you)

Isn´t it?

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

TWENTIETH (AND LAST) EPISODE
(The cloud that covered Lisbon)

That was the last time I ever saw him. We shall both die with two secrets engraved in our souls, and that will be enough. Certain thresholds can only be understood in this conformity, in taking pleasure in this unlimited and extreme recess. I stood there staring at the Casa dos Bicos and realized, there and then, that there is indeed a degree of lucidity in stupefaction. Somewhere between brightness, bedazzlement, and on the other hand, perspicacity and even intelligence. There are times in life when one of the sides of the scale suffices – but afterwards, sooner or later, the cracks, the lacks, and the unforeseen always surface. It is as unforeseen to fall in love as it is to bump into a friend near the Terreiro do Paço, who doesn’t even want to recognize me. A lifelong decision is as lucid as sharing a big, though meaningless, secret.
I walked out of the Campo das Cebolas and called Albe on my cell to meet her in front of the Lapa Hotel. We were celebrating the anniversary of the day we met by the pool. Again.
I looked into the water and I swear, Albe, I saw you again, floating, adrift with open arms joined in a clean, pure, ancient ring.
Albe looked ahead and seemed to see the whitish silhouette of a linen suit and, beyond the dark glasses covering her face, a giant starfish.
Such was the cloud that covered Lisbon at that hour.

The End

Karnazes : one must suffer to be happy

"Dean Karnazes thinks that comfort, convenience and quick gratification - the Big Three of the middle-class American lifestyle - are not making us happy and that we should seek out more suffering.
"Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness,' " he writes in his new book, "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner" (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin)." (Kirk Johnson)

Read more about the unprecedent promotional tour for this "Ultramarathon Man".

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

NINETEENTH EPISODE
(the power of obvious limitations)

I lost track of António Romeu some five years ago. As long as he could maintain the kind of life he led at the Penta, he did. After that, he moved to a boarding house by the Lisbon fun fair, but he did all he could to preserve the dignity of his lifestyle. He woke up when he felt like it, dreamt and fulfilled his heart’s content, ate what he wanted, or could; slept with whom he wanted, or managed to; traveled whenever he felt like it, or could. After a while, pleasure was joined by power. Not anymore the power of he who commands, but rather the power of obvious limitations, for there is no amount of money that can last forever, especially when the intent (legitimate, in point of fact) is to spend, spend, and spend again. António took his noble choice to its last consequences, and by the mid 90’s was dragging himself through the streets of Lisbon like a bum, eating at the soup kitchen of the Holy House of Lisbon – a name that spelled out the regal origin of his singular way of life.
The last time I saw him was at the Campo das Cebolas garden, in 1996 I believe. He was sauntering on a blazing August day with a hypermarket plastic bag in his hand, wearing a completely worn-down shirt which read – I shall never forget this – “Mythic Land”. It was an old Valencia soccer club shirt, which allowed me, at the lack of imagination, to start a conversion:
“So, you’re in the soccer business now, hum?” He had become a human wreck. He almost sidestepped me, as if pretending not to know me. He shouldn’t, I thought. Especially because his courage devoured fate itself. Or melted into it. So I had another go: “Where are you going, Romeu?”
António vaguely pointed out West, across the bridge, towards the docks, the old ship yard. And off he went.

(Next and last episode of The Giant Cloud: “A lifelong decision is as lucid as sharing a big, though meaningless, secret…”)

Continues

Ground Zero

"This is sacred ground"(...)"We wanted to have cultural institutions that would reflect our pride, our courage."
(Governor Pataki)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

EIGHTEENTH EPISODE
(It was written...)

Coming back from the bullfight on the following night, the roads were long, ill-lit and never-ending; Albe’s father drove and her mother took the passenger seat. The music came in a steady double time, loud and vibrant; on that night coming back from Gerona, passing through La Bisbal, Parlavà and Torrebella de Montgrí (even though, in those days, these places could only be pronounced in Catalan and in the dead of night); on that night of endless moonlight, as I was filled with the select memory of the sound of horse trots, acrobatic bull-grapples and the thousand combustion engines that stole my soul away; on that night, I say again, in the quiet softness of the back seat where a pale penumbra of lust and temptation abounded, I pushed my hand along the upholstery and there reached Albe’s hand.
And how she gripped my fingers, my life-line, the paths to my fate and my very wrists; and how tenaciously I responded to such emotion! How happiness seemed to be that single moment, about to be summed up, later, in its lived and celebrated pilgrimage! And how decisive was Samuel Lupi’s marvelous bullfight on horseback and the providential breakdown of my Ford Escort!
It was written.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “António took his noble choice to its last consequences…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Getting good answers to caregiving questions

Where are the canadian... political blogs?

"Does anyone know of any good ones? I seem to find American ones at every turn, which is fine, American politics affect the entire world and I like knowing what's going on down there, but I would like to read about my own country from time to time too."

That´s the simple truth of Dan's question.
Who gives us the answer?

The blank blog is staring back at you - 3



Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"Little sis Camron and her boyfriend Ben arrived Friday. They are drama nerds, by which I mean, they both have degrees in drama--Ben with an emphasis on playwrighting and Camron with an emphasis on puppeteering. They're both just out of undergrad and thinking about grad schools. Ben's checking out playwrighting options and Camron is looking into a puppet program in Connecticut. They're casing neighborhoods and thinking about jobs, and might move up around September or so. We'll see. They have friends here, plus us, so a move would be a hell of a lot easier on them than it was on us! (We laugh about that first year now, but it wasn't too funny at the time.)
Friday night we hit Maggie Nelson's party for Jane at Pete's Candy Store. The book is chunky in an impressive way, and it looks great, with a photo of Jane at 15 on the cover. Maggie read for us a little bit and received hearty congrats from all kinds of poetry peeps including Reen, Jimmy, Brandon Downing, Anselm Berrigan, Erica, et al."
(Brand New Insects)

Sign of times

"Very few judges have been killed in the nation's history, but threats against judges are on the rise." (N.Y.T. - E./O-E)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SEVENTEENTH EPISODE
(Beyond the fine grains of L’Escala sand)

And together we cheered affectionately, ate cotton candy, heard expressions of approval, tasted sweet herb smells, watched women wearing lively colored flounces and prophetic men tainted by the Ebro River Moorish olive tone in tight pants, with their eye on this art of devouring and doom which is bullfighting.
It was during our encounter the day before, at the Avuello Bar, that I had confessed to Albe that I would not be able to make it to Gerona. I was truly sorry. My car, although practically new, had broken down. Probably the spark plugs, the battery, don’t know really. For me, an engine was and remains a kind of miracle, moved by more or less controlled explosions, so unlike the real drift of bangs that break out in a bullfight. Astonishing machinery, fed by petrol vapors, so dissimilar to the swerve of explosions that were invading the secrecy of my passion, that veil, a stark handle where her voice and what she tells me grows into a presage of pure desire, without guide, without rudder.
And I went on talking about my project for my book on Lusitanian tauromachy, and my spark plugs, over a Fanta naranja in front of the beach sand, and Albe cracking a smile, in complete secretiveness. Who would figure?
She smiled once more, but it was not merely the callings anymore; it was also her lukewarm body motionlessly dancing, her backbone bristling, the stars confessing in the vicinities of her hot ilium, the shimmering of Lebanon cedar growing in front of the bar, wanting to crawl into the sands, and the ineffable certainty that nothing would remain the same. Edmundo’s strange face was at odds with the world’s boredom and foretold the rise of a chorus of moons, as her wrists navigated over the table top, and her elbow touched his during a brief soft earthquake. In front of them always the Fanta naranja and the body lotion, leather sandals and the illusionary tractability of the Mediterranean, beyond the fine grains of L’Escala sand.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “On that night of endless moonlight, as I was filled with the select memory of the sound of horse trots …”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day

"Intentionally misleading comparisons are becoming the dominant mode of public discourse. The ability to tell true analogies from false ones has never been more important." (Adam Cohen)

The blank blog is staring back at you - 2

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"And my father is a truck driver, so I only get to see him like on the weekends and sometimes only every other weekend, but when me and my dad hang out we usually play games. I love games, any games, card games, board games, computer games, or video game, I love them all."
(What about me?)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SIXTEENTH EPISODE
(Writing a book on bull-grappling)

I saw him coming towards me as if we were old buddies. I was kind of awestruck and it seemed he was pretty much talking to himself, carrying a prodigious smile while his syllables ran over each other: “We’ll drive you to Gerona and go along with you, what do you think?” I was pretty blown out of the water by his readiness, but saw Albe in the backdrop, behind her dad who was almost hugging me with the unexpected offer, spinning on herself, face blossoming with unusual contentment, waving over the justice of the solution.
“Look, I’m very grateful, but… how could I accept?” I watched Albe opening her arms, her father stared into my eyes, her mother sat on the reclining chair with a Paris Match mag for a fan.
“All right, all right, I accept, but on one condition: you’ll allow me to invite all three of you to the bullfight!” And Mr. and Mrs. Granet called out yes together, revealing their instant complacency and content.
“Dad, Edmundo told me that the Portuguese bullfight is totally different from the Spanish!” Albe let out, before we started off and I started to tell her about the Ford Escort having broken down. In the early afternoon the four of us left to see Samuel Lupi bullfighting on his horse and the Portuguese-style bull-grappling that was curiously about to take place at the Gerona bull ring some miles off L’Escala beach.
Writing a book on bull-grappling was something that had grown in my mind, an obsession that had long stalked me. It stemmed from a timeless moment when everything can and will happen between the enormous challenge of the initiate and the leaders, and the large bull, black and headstrong. The bull dashed at defiance under the din of the crowd, the heat of the merciless afternoon and the dust cloud which swelled in the air, with blazing nostrils, swerving hooves, and its blood-spike irons smoking rebellion. Facing it, the bull-grappler of the world prepares for the moment of impact, the clash, the fatal isthmus, his hands on his hips. Infinity fills the space between the bull and the man, between collision and lethargy. It is zero hour again, born from that word without sound whence the largest roar echoes at last, as in birth, so that man and bull, brothers in tusk and arms, in the unique tumult of creation, can together conquer the sign of life, the sortilege of fortune and the trance of the strong. What a feast, bullfights!

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “And together we cheered affectionately, ate cotton candy, heard expressions of approval, tasted sweet herb smells, watched women wearing lively colored flounces…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The blank blog is staring back at you*- 1


Nicole Blackman

Bloggers sometimes become characters much like blogging becomes a literary mode:

"Right now I'm sitting two doors down from Brian, looking at my bookshelf--and Tom's. And I see a hodge-podge of fantasy, Neal Stephenson, Gore Vidal, Norton anthologies, memoirs, "feminist" literature (whatever that means) on marriage, Egypt and Iran, cookbooks, New York guidebooks, novels from possibly every era, from Wuthering Heights to my recently signed Lost in the City. (Anyone who knows us will guess what books are mine and what books are Tom's.) To avoid the cliche, the thing I feel most tells about me through my books is the creases in the spine, the dog-eared pages, the coffee stain on the title page."
(A woolf by any other name)
*David Weinberger

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FIFTEENTH EPISODE
(Fighting against all the boredom of the world)

“That’s right. That’s what you did, in your own way, back then. But I decided to go a step further and set my sail towards total, unbound freedom. If there is such a thing. I just want to try it. If I don’t, I’ll never know.”
“Well, I want to confess something too.”
“What?”
“Back then, as you say, I also should’ve turned my back on business. I should’ve sold all that shit. These days – well I can’t complain, I do lead a happy life… it’s just that sometimes I even have to take sleeping pills cos of the damn print shop! Can you believe it?!”
“Oh yes, I can. But you’re still in time to pull the plug on all that crap. Life’s three days long, and two are for separating the wheat from the chaff. Vocation and heritage, lust and blindness, desire and restraint, freedom and inertia, etc, etc… Am I right or wrong?”
“Haven’t you gone back to being a kid, man! Who would tell…”
“It must be genetic. Do you remember that time with the paper boats on the Nabão river?”
“Don’t I… Our own Discoveries.”
That day, by nightfall, I went out for dinner with Albe and our two kids, Ester and Isaías. By the Tagus, not a breeze, not a ship or sound, only that feeling of the both of us, forever at the Avuello Bar, fighting against all the boredom of the world as if we were fortune tellers for a chorus of moons and our soft earthquake of brief seconds had been, more than passion, a lucid enchantment.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “I was pretty blown out of the water by his readiness, but saw Albe in the backdrop, behind her dad who was almost hugging me with the unexpected offer”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day


Le Figaro

"A majority of Americans support an America that works with international institutions, that wants a strengthened U.N., that wants to be part of a constructive multilateral engagement with the world. And that is ignored by too many liberals because it doesn't seem like a winning strategy." (Katrina vanden Heuvel)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FOURTEENTH EPISODE
(I decided to turn into a ghost and disappear)

“Ok: what happened, man, was that I won the lottery. I haven’t told this to anyone, I assure you. You’ll be the only one to know. A secret for a secret. I owed you this, and for a long time. Don’t ask me why, but some things a guy should cherish till he’s old, and, for me, with that tasteless life I led back home, only later did I understand how much your breaking free, your guts, and foremost your loyalty meant to me back then. The great small things should be cherished, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I agree… and thank you. I wasn’t ready for all this, I should tell you.” António got up, used the second large pause in the conclave and went on:
“When I found out I was rich, I decided to vanish. I didn’t go around explaining, just a couple of hints back home - and off straight to Lisbon. It was just the way I wanted to do things. To tell you the truth, I think my kids are already grown up; and besides, a family is supposed to be this ‘untouchable institution’, my close friends are leeches, the clubs and parishes are the barren tits of the people and my job as a public servant was, for a long time, nothing but a slow death. So I decided to turn into a ghost and disappear. Furthermore, I decided to live here, at the hotel, for as long as I could afford it, and simply go to bed when I feel like it, eat when I want, sleep with who I want to… The diet I want, the hours I want, to drink and dream my desire away and… well, that’s it. For the rest of my life: long live freedom!” António Romeu set his glass on the table, leaned against the large window sill and let a huge smile come out, from ear to ear, leisurely, witty, joyous.
“You mean you’ll never return to Ribatejo?”

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “By the Tagus, not a breeze, not a ship or sound, only that feeling of the both of us…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Remoras?

Kurt Anderson wrote in New York Magazine:

"But just as CNN was never really able to reinvent itself to be indispensable for anything except covering wars and tsunamis, one can imagine the blogs settling in forever at their present level of almost wholly media-on-media impact. For now, bloggers are a second-tier journalistic species. They are remoras. The Times and CNN and CBS News are the whales and sharks to which Instapundit, Kausfiles, and Kos attach themselves for their free rides. (Remoras evolved special sucking disks; bloggers have modems.) If the sharks and whales were to go extinct, what would the blogging remoras do? " (via Davenetics)

I'm afraid I don't agree with Anderson´s idea. Do you?
Bloggers as a "second-tier journalistic species"? Remoras?

Question of the day

"I really can't think of a single literary weblog (consult the list to the right) that fits this description. Literary blogs are engaged in a serious (albeit not heavy-handed) discussion of books and writing. They are "literary" in the best sense: They care about the quality of the books being published and want to promote a genuine literary "culture" in which books can be discussed seriously." (Dan Green)

What are your first reactions to reading this?
("Dan Green's critique of Richard Curtis's vision of the future of the book", via Wyatt John Bonikowski)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

THIRTEENTH EPISODE
(Without delay, I told António Romeu everything...)

But why on earth was I, of all places, in a suite at the Penta talking about passions with António? I haven’t a clue. But, at a given moment, he changed his expression, put on that face of serious conclaves and solemn pacts, blew out a puff of zeppelin smoke, smiled and confessed that I had given to him, in life, something no one else had. Or would ever come to give. The exclusivity of a secret.
It was true.
When I went back to that Portugal which still reeked of fado and lost myths, I felt the need to tell my story to no matter whom. And I concluded that, from Minho to Timor, throughout our vast and happy nation, only one friend, most of all a very old one, could be the receptacle of such a confidence. Without delay, during an August weekend in ’68, I went up north to Ribatejo and told António Romeu everything, bit by bit, as if I had jumped out of a summertime script by master Truffaut.
He was more amazed and embarrassed then, I remember clearly, than I was now, here at the Penta, observing in Romeu’s face what I had never thought he could have become: an unemployed bon vivant who had left behind his wife, kids, football club, parish, the guys from the local coffee shop, his barber, everyone. But since he kept on postponing the story, I pretty much yelled out:
“Come on, spill it out!” António sat back down, glanced at his watch, poured out some more scotch and finally went through the story in double time.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud:“ António Romeu set his glass on the table, leaned against the large window sill and let a huge smile come out, from ear to ear, leisurely, witty, joyous.”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

TWELVETH EPISODE
(Albe put the entire universe on hold...)

I saw in it the time of all or nothing, the zero hour. The exact time when I should crack my inertia, my chill and burden so as to express that decisive move, that unrepeatable gap that would break the weight of hesitation. But as I started, Albe moved faster with an almost pre-Raphaelite serenity and said, “If you think about it, problems begin when you finish your degree. It isn’t just a question of having a job and doing something - it’s mostly a question of motivation, or of having a special calling to follow a career as a lawyer, you see?” And I understood perfectly, and answered back joyfully, and was just about to greet her generous confession with a wise proposal when she left to sit at her parents’ table:
“Will I see you later, at the beach?” Albe put the entire universe on hold, silenced my answer, blushed slightly and, as she turned to face the aquarium by the breakfast room, quickly turned round and said:
“At Avuello, three o’clock. Ok?”
I had done it. Now all I had to do was destroy what remained of boredom and climb the tall ivory tower. Against my hopelessness. Then nothing would be as it was, the stars confessed, as did the sea, and my most secret cloud.
“What cloud?”

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud:“When I went back to that Portugal which still reeked of fado and lost myths, I felt the need to tell my story to no matter whom…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day

"As with any form of storytelling, a good Web-based story depends on a compelling plot and interesting characters." (The Nature of Too Bad)

Good News

"(...) Much of the change (in the Middle East) seems to be pushing in a welcome direction, towards a new peace chance in Palestine and the spread of democratic ideas around the Arab world." (From The Economist P.E.)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

ELEVENTH EPISODE
(I saw in her hand the asking for a unique wait...)

That it would be too heavenly to depart on a golden carriage in the arms of my desired Albe. To softly fly over the Apennines, the holy mountains of Kufa, and the almost-out-of-reach heights of Aphrodite. Inertia was coming down my arms; a chill probed my almost steamy eyes, a tardy balk extending into the uselessness of my smile.
And Albe, completely oblivious to all this, was redrawing sincerity, postponing certainty and, after all, confessing herself openly. “It’s true, we should all know our callings before we begin our studies. But that’s the way life is, you have to start someplace and what you’re offered simply comes in such a fixed way… it’s so airtight that your options are few and problems ahead many, don’t you think?”
And Albe, sweet Dulcinea, talking in front of me, and I could barely hear her, as the stain of fatigue slowly subsided, inch by inch. Across the breakfast room, Albe’s parents summoned her with a gesture. She answered the call by raising two fingers in the air.
And I saw in her hand the asking for a unique wait. Exclusive.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud:“… nothing would be as it was, the stars confessed, as did the sea, and my most secret cloud. …”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day

"It's not too soon for Hollywood to start thinking about next year's Oscar ceremony - and if the producers want another outrageous, hard-edged host in the style of Chris Rock, they need look no further than Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney can do the job, as evidenced by White House transcripts, which faithfully note his comedic genius." (Haart Seely)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

TENTH EPISODE
(António was the only friend that truly understood my fury...)

I was tired of the tie-up my life had become, and was lacking hope and courage, so I decided to ask for military leave, a passport and new papers. When I got all the paperwork together, I got into the recently acquired Escort and headed for the Costa Brava. I needed to clear my head, and above all, to escape our national graveyard. It was three full days to the L’Escala beach.
Besides, I had watched die, well inside my home and skin, one of those weddings from days of yore, where the divine unction aspires to a commitment for eternity, and of which a grand and mythical example is the marriage of Dom Pedro and Lady Inês, who will rise to meet face to face someday, in Alcobaça, at the end of time, when the radiant advent from paradise and its thousand limbos are revealed by Our Lord God. In those days of Salazar and “Tomásio”, before the first black and white TV ads, I was the candid and traditional owner of two printing shops, condemned to the outrage of a divorce against all holy law and, as if that was not enough, António was the only friend that truly understood my disjunction and, especially, my fury. After having seen Lady Filipa escape from my legion to her uncle’s house (the Bishop) in Viseu, I permanently escaped from Restelo into Bairro Alto of a thousand loves, where I ended up finding a different life and a new assortment of pleasures.
A shade of a second went by and I was still muttering to myself how tired and running short of hope I was. And that it would be foolish to think of other flights or temptations.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud:“…And Albe, sweet Dulcinea, talking in front of me, and I could barely hear her, as the stain of fatigue slowly subsided, inch by inch…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

NINETH EPISODE
(I was truly tired and with no great hope at heart…)

“He touched my back ever so slightly, while he pointed to Albe and smiled, smiled, overflowing, and went on and on, without me having asked a thing: ‘That’s my daughter, that’s my daughter!’ and I just stood there, dumbfounded, realizing, perhaps, the oldest lesson of geometry and optics in the world: that a straight line unites at the very least two points, but can bring together, by pure illusion, many more. I went back to my reclining chair, but minutes later, that brief encounter with her father made me notice a girl in her young twenties and eyes avid with an unfulfilled aura of candor and impenetrable beauty. Her name was Albe.”

Just we, talking about callings at such an hour! The face of time was before us, defying boredom. Boredom of everything that threatens to turn astray or even vanish, if at a given time a sign, a gesture undermining the apathy of hesitation does not come forth. I looked at Albe, and for some seconds, some brief, unspeakable seconds, I felt the just notion of my fatigue. I was truly tired and with no great hope at heart.
I was tired of that tacky Lisbon which smelt of grey uniforms and the sulphur at the piers, whence boats left with recruits for Angola; tired of that Lisbon full of submissive, quixotic situations, and lighter permits; tired of that Lisbon exploding with its canned hypocrisy, where everything was small and feeble, excepting the new Tagus bridge, smooth "Benfica", Joaquim Andrade do "Sangalhos" and the evident miracles of Fátima.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud:“I needed to clear my head, and above all, to escape our national graveyard.”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

EIGHTH EPISODE
(And she stayed laughing outside time …)

The wake of the caravelle makes Edmundo lift up his head to face the then clean sky, smooth in amplitude and daydream.
For an instant it makes him guess the possible silence, in face of the windstorm of asteroids and comets of he that plays hide-and-seek and truth-or-dare. He sets down the detective novel on the towel and steps out of his reclining chair in a slight spleen, going over to the stone edge of the swimming pool.
It was about then that Edmundo’s eyes were transfigured and the harpsichord and pianola were heard playing on the back of that last cloud which looked like a starfish. It was also then that Edmundo, from one moment to the next, forgot about the price of paper, the telegram, bullfighting and even about the burnt-out sparks from his Ford Escort.
Above the swimming pool, from a web of strings, hung little triangular flags, blue and red. And she floated under them, adrift with open arms joined in a clean, pure, ancient ring. Over that pale blue, Edmundo made time come to a halt and proceeded to look at her from above, from the side, with the ubiquity that sends flutters up your esophagus.
A shudder.
She swims to the opposite side of the pool, slowly, in this generous moment of existence, holding onto the buoys and sliding - then suddenly, in slow motion, waves goodbye in Edmundo’s direction. The Portuguese man almost waved back, his shy hand rising; his arms opening out into an embarrassed smile left unpronounced. And she stayed laughing outside time, afar, across the universe; now turning her face towards the water, to Thebes, to Haifa, God knows where else.
Perhaps trying to say that time is spun in the same way in which the moon is liquefied in the enigmatic solstice seas.
It was during that moment of awe, Edmundo confesses to António, “that the man walked up to me. Her father, go figure!”

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “I was tired of that tacky Lisbon which smelt of grey uniforms and the sulphur at the piers, whence boats left with recruits for Angola”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SEVENTH EPISODE
(Edmundo Edmundo seems more stoic …)

The jar is made of crystal, tall and glazed, and looks like a soft flame ready to take on the French window looking out on the swimming pool.
Edmundo strides on decisively, at nine o’clock sharp, his hands stuck in the pockets of stark white trousers, his memory warped by the orders made out to his printing company, by the car breaking down, the bullfight story, and the prodigal presence of clouds on this canicular August day.
Edmundo nails his eyes on the aquarium and afterwards goes swiftly round the table, filled with tableware, strong-colored juices, ice, and a basket full of fresh bread. A smile to the closest waiter imprints the rare eclipse of another morning that, truth be told, seems doomed to pure holiday forgetfulness.
It is one past nine in the morning and Edmundo has already sat at the table, with a napkin covering his Louisiana linen habit, and with the sound of kids out on the lawn invading the world like comets and brutish asteroids.
The peace of breakfast wanders between shapeless silhouettes that go in and out of the room, meandering in sudden agitation. Edmundo seems more stoic, volatile, as if he had disappeared into a typhoon, spun out into the turbulence of this summer hotel.
The heat bites, but Edmundo has already moved out onto the lawn with his dark glasses and moves an obsessively white handkerchief over his forehead. An uncertain morning sloth hangs all around, and the reclining chair ends up hosting the detective novel, even though the occasion is as brief and transient as life itself.
Word after word, scene after scene, crime after crime, and Edmundo keeps remembering the price of paper, the Lisbon telegram, the bullfight and, who would figure, the last cloud which seems to move upon Gerona now.


(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “She swims to the opposite side of the pool, slowly, in this generous moment of existence, holding onto the buoys and sliding - then suddenly, in slow motion, waves goodbye in Edmundo’s direction”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day

"Women have become so fixated on not withering, they've forgotten that there are infinite ways to be beautiful."

Maureenn Dowd (Full Text Article)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SIXTH EPISODE
(One of the most important days of my whole life…)

“Today I realize you were just letting off steam, watching yourself outside your story, at the same time you heard yourself tell it. As if you needed to, how shall I put it… stop confusing your image with yourself.”

António went on:
“Passion often brings along optic distortion. We see the cloud in the loved one and in the cloud we see our own face rhyming with Atlantis… But check this out… I’m here, at the Penta, without knowing why yet, talking to you about passions… What’s going on?”

António lit his cigar, got up and walked up to the window.
Edmundo turned his neck around as far as he could and listened for a sign of explanation.
Here was the first long pause since they had met. António blew out a long and straight cloud of smoke, a kind of zeppelin dissipating in the air and smiled:

“That day, Edmundo, was for me perhaps one of the most important days of my whole life. I realized, for the first time ever, that someone had come to me, not to ask for this or that, not to make some practical arrangement, to have a drink or moan about life, not to try and set me up for whatever reason, to recall or forget some appraisal or bad luck, but just to tell and share, alone, a secret. While we’re at it, did Albe ever know that you told me the whole story, every detail?”

“Well, actually… no.”

“I knew it. Pure intuition. And some things a guy simply doesn’t forget. That’s why I was determined, since last night, to talk to you before anyone else.”

“But tell me, man! Talk to me about what? Spill it out!”

António sat back down on his chair, glanced at his watch and refilled both glasses with more whisky.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “Word after word, scene after scene, crime after crime, and Edmundo keeps remembering the price of paper, the Lisbon telegram, the bullfight…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

The Giant Cloud
A novel in twenty episodes
By Luís Carmelo
(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FIFTH EPISODE

(I never imagined you’d come and tell me all the details...)

Then came the story, one of those rare ones, made out of experience itself, with neither explanation nor reflection to stop or sustain it. António has sat down on the black leather couch and, shaped by his own fresh and decisive role (for there are many that are not), rubs his hands together, remembering what had set off this encounter:
“You were the only guy I know that’s told me, and me alone, a secret.”
“That’s right. It is.”
“I remember it as if it were today. You came from Spain all sparkling with energy, in that Ford Escort - it was blue, right? And you showed up in town, all agitated, telling me about Albe. You weren’t the open-hearted, mushy type, yet suddenly you spilled it all out, all the stuff a guy goes through and that I thought, well, that people live and devour, under certain circumstances, and that then it just all slips by. In other words, try to understand what I’m saying - I never imagined you’d come and tell me all the details of one of those movie-like love stories, that on top of everything, had happened to you. I don’t know if you remember it like I do…”
“You bet I do…”
“It was damn hot that day, the twentieth or something of August, some twenty years ago, and we were both by the river… I was silent and even slightly stunned, in suspense, and you, you were talking like I’d never seen you talk before, with this huge glitter coming out of your eyes, one hell of a poetry, an awesome sense of each particular, it even seemed that the story you were telling me was this thing one shouldn’t touch, fragile, silk-like, and that you were going round it, for once, outside your intimacy with Albe. Wasn’t it?”
“That was ages ago, but yes, that’s how it happened.”

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “Passion often brings along optic distortion. We see the cloud in the loved one and in the cloud we see our own face rhyming with Atlantis…”)

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)

Quote of the day

"The important thing to remember is why the right wants privatization. The drive to create private accounts isn't about finding a way to strengthen Social Security; it's about finding a way to phase out a system that conservatives have always regarded as illegitimate. And as long as that is what's at stake, there is no room for any genuine compromise."
(Paul Krugman)

Iraq

Here you can read "a sampler" of some of the best posts from Iraqi bloggers.

The Brain Floats

(...)
The brain floats on a lake of words
just as once the world was held
on elephant-back above a sea -
subversive rhyme suggests that herds

of metaphors with sharper beak
tear at the silence of unease;
a philosopher feels on his cheek
the tears of which he cannot speak.

(Peter Porter, from "Whereof We Cannot Speak")

The Giant Cloud

A novel in twenty episodes

By Luís Carmelo

(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

FOURTH EPISODE

(Edmundo tried to grasp the euphoria...)

António Romeu was Edmundo’s best childhood friend.
Twenty one years after the radiant summer at the Costa Brava, on the 13th August 1989, he decided to transform his life into a work of art.
The story begins on the day he won the special summer lottery. He requested anonymity and, without warning, discarded his headaches at the wood industry, left his home, wife and kids, turned his back on the local coffeehouse, soccer, his neighborhood and all the routine he had accumulated for years on end. For the first time ever, António was leaving his hometown and settling in Lisbon.
So as not to miss any crack or crevice of his new city, he rented a panoramic suite at the Penta, and in good company.
On the same 13th, António rang Edmundo.

The rendezvous of the stunned print collector with his old paper-boat building buddy - which they sent floating downriver, weir after weir, as if they were traveling to the river mouth of a perfect world where cities are of glass, and airplanes are birds copulating on windowsills -; their encounter in the very real Lisbon still had this immense childlike complicity of dry-mud windmills, cardboard dolls and newspapers made out of tinfoil from cigarette packs; the encounter of these old friends on this sunny day, looking back on glorious others, was sealed with an unexpected and long hug; the host asked for calm and guaranteed the exclusivity of the grand mystery of life, of the great secret, proclaiming it with whisky shinning between pointy ice cubes and gestures shifting the light which extended itself obliquely over the floor.
Across, one would say constrained and still, Edmundo tried to grasp the euphoria, enchantment, and the nothingness that remained after so much obvious surprise.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “It was damn hot that day, the twentieth or something of August, some twenty years ago, and we were both by the river… I was silent and even slightly stunned, in suspense, and you, you were talking like I’d never seen you talk before...")

Continues

(see here portuguese updated version)