sábado, 17 de janeiro de 2009

WHAT THE? (1)


What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone’s heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don’t really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn’t have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.


(...)


My first jujitsu class was three and a half months ago. Self-defense was something that I was extremely curious about, for obvious reasons, and Mom thought it would be good for me to have a physical activity besides tambourining, so my first jujitsu class was three and a half months ago. There were fourteen kids in the class, and we all had on neat white robes. We practiced bowing, and then we were all sitting down Native American style, and then Sensei Mark asked me to go over to him. “Kick my privates,” he told me. That made me feel self-conscious. “Excusez-moi?” I told him. He spread his legs and told me, “I want you to kick my privates as hard as you can.” He put his hands at his sides, and took a breath in, and closed his eyes, and that’s how I knew that actually he meant business. “Jose,” I told him, and inside I was thinking, What the? He told me, “Go on guy. Destroy my privates.” “Destroy your privates?” With his eyes still closed he cracked up a lot and said, “You couldn’t destroy my privates if you tried. That’s what’s going on here. This is a demonstration of the well-trained body’s ability to absorb a direct blow. Now destroy my privates.” I told him, “I’m a pacifist,” and since most people my age don’t know what that means, I turned around and told the others, “I don’t think it’s right to destroy people’s privates. Ever.” Sensei Mark said, “Can I ask you something?” I turned back around and told him. “’Can I ask you something’ is asking me something.” He said, “Do you have dreams of becoming a jujutsu master?” “No,” I told him, even though I don’t have dreams of running the family jewelry business anymore. He said, “Do you want to know how a jujitsu student becomes a jujitsu master?” “I want to know everything,” I told him, but that isn’t true anymore either. He told me, “A jujitsu student becomes a jujitsu master by destroying his master’s privates.” I told him, “That’s fascinating.” My last jujitsu class was three and a half months ago.


(...)


Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore? (...) Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!


(...)


Actually, if limousines were extremely long, they wouldn’t need drivers. You could just get in the back seat, walk thorough the limousine, and then get out of the front seat, which would be where you wanted to go.


(...)


When you look up ‘hilarious’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of you.


(...)


Mom said, “Honey,” and I said, “Oui,” and she said, “Did you give a copy of our apartment key to the mailman?” I thought it was so weird that she would mention that then, because it didn’t have to do with anything, but I thing she was looking for something to talk about that wasn’t the obvious thing. I said, “The mailperson is a mailwoman.” She nodded, but not exactly at me, and she asked if I’d given the mailwoman a key. I nodded yes, because I never used to lie to here before everything happened. I didn’t have a reason to. “Why did you do that?” she asked. So I told here, “Stan –” And she said, “Who?” And I said, “Stan, the doorman. Sometimes he runs around the corner for coffee, and I want to be sure all of my packages get to me, so I thought, if Alicia –” “Who?” “The mailwoman. If she had a key, she could leave things inside our door.” “But you can’t give a key to a stranger.” “We have lots of valuable things in our apartment.” “I know. We have really great things.” “Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know? What if she had stolen your things?” “She wouldn’t.” “But what if?” “But she wouldn’t.” “Well, did she give you a key to her apartment?” She was obviously mad at me, but I didn’t know why. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Or if I had, I didn’t know what it was. And I definitely didn’t mean to do it. (...) “Maybe you could check with me next time, OK? “Don’t be mad at me,” I said, and I reached over Grandma and opened and closed the door’s lock a couple of times. “I’m not mad at you,” she said. “Not even a little?” “No.” “Do you still love me?” It didn’t seem like the perfect time to mention that I had already made copies of the key for the deliverer from Pizza Hut, and the UPS person, and also the nice guys from Greenpeace, so they could leave me articles on matanees and other animals that are going extinct when Stan is getting coffee. “I’ve never loved you more.”



(para ver posts relacionados basta clicarem na etiqueta 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close')

sexta-feira, 16 de janeiro de 2009

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close é o nome do livro que comecei a ler ontem. Agarrou-me logo à primeira página. Resolvi, portanto, partilhá-lo convosco. Escolherei os melhores excertos de cada capítulo e irei postando à medida que for lendo, capítulo por capítulo.
Espero que gostem!
O autor é Jonathan Safran Foer.
Deixo desde já aqui o seu resumo.

******************************



In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key...

The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?

So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writter and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that streches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or even further from, his lost father?

quarta-feira, 14 de janeiro de 2009

The God of Delusion






"O Papalagui é pobre porque vive obcecado pelas coisas, sem as quais já não consegue viver. Quando do dorso da tartaruga faz uma ferramenta alisa os cabelos (...) o Papalagui ainda faz uma pele para a ferramenta e para esta pele faz um pequeno baú e para o pequeno baú faz outro grande; tudo ele coloca em peles e baús. Tem baús para as tangas, para as roupas de cima e de baixo, para os panos com que se enxuga, com que limpa a boca, e outros panos mais; baús para as peles que põe nas mãos e para as peles que põe nos pés, para o metal redondo e para o papel pesado, para as provisões de boca e para o livro sagrado, para tudo mesmo. Ele faz muitas coisas, quando apenas uma é suficiente (...) Destruindo onde quer que vá, as coisas do Grande Espírito (a natureza), o Papalagui com sua própria força pretende dar vida, novamente, àquilo que matou".


"É difícil para Papalagui (Homem Branco) não pensar. É difícil viver com todas as partes do corpo ao mesmo tempo. É comum ele viver só com a cabeça enquanto todos sentidos dormem profundamente.
...Por exemplo, quando o belo sol brilha, o Papalagui (Homem Branco) pensa imediatamente: "Como o sol brilha agora, que beleza!" E continua pensando: "Como o sol está brilhando, como está bonito!" Isto está errado, inteiramente errado, absurdo, porque o melhor é não pensar em nada quando o sol brilha. O Samoano inteligente estira os membros à luz quente do sol e não pensa em nada. Ele recebe o sol tanto com a cabeça quanto com as mãos, os pés, as coxas, a barriga, todas as partes do corpo. Ele deixa que a pele e os membros pensem por si; e certamente eles também pensam de uma forma diferente da cabeça.
...Pensa em coisas alegres, é certo, mas sem sorrir; pensa certamente em coisas tristes, mas sem chorar.
...O Papalagui (Homem Branco) quase sempre vive em combate perpétuo entre sentidos e seu espírito; ele é um homem dividido em dois pedaços."



Comentários de Tuiavi recolhidos por Erich Scheurmann

* Dedicado a Fabulástico

The Focus of Life



O que são mentiras senão eventos fora de tempo?
O que é o tempo senão a variedade de uma única coisa?
O que é toda a tolice, senão vontade?
O que são as crenças senão as possibilidades do eu?
O que é todo o futuro senão ressurreição?
O que é toda a criação senão tu mesmo?
Porque é toda a existência?
Acorda! De pé! De pé, descobre pela tua saude-o-auto-amor.



Imagem e texto de
Austin Osman Spare

Tradução de
André Consciência

"(...) a natureza não gosta de monstros e dá cabo deles com "soluções naturais". O monstro mais monstruoso é o que tem sentimentos nobres (...) A natureza, para o monstro, não é uma mãe carinhosa, mas madrasta. A natureza dá à luz um monstro, mas em vez de ter pena dele, castiga-o... e é bem feito! Os abraços e as lágrimas de perdão cristão, no nosso século, custam caro até às pessoas decentes (...)"

(Fiódor Dostoiévski, O Eterno Marido)