RIP Mercedes Sosa

Luciana — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:52:49 -0700

Beautiful voice, beautiful heart...Como la cigarra Gracias for being part of my youth and my adult life, Mercedes, and for your messages of peace and justice. Descansa em paz.

The Universe Within

Luciana — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:47:46 -0700

Poem Da Minha Aldeia (From My Village) by Fernando Pessoa under his heteronomy Alberto Caieiro., from the collection of poems O Guardador de Rebanhos (The herd keeper). From my village I see the universe.That´s why my village is as big as any other oneBecause I am the size of what I see And not the size of my height. In the cities life is smallerthan it is here in my house on the ...

Gaucho Identity

Luciana — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:29:28 -0700

I´m a gaucho, or gaúcha. In Brazil it means I was born in its southermost state, Rio Grande do Sul. There´s a whole lot of things that people say about Brazilian Gauchos, but they´re mostly stereotypes and, as such, I don´t listen to them or buy into them. You can´t put people into bottles and label them. Each one of us is so much more than a bottle content. Today, September 20th, gauchos ...

I Should Have...

Luciana — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:27:19 -0700

Epitaph, by Os Titãs (originally in Portuguese) "I should have loved more,cried more,seen the sunrise.I should have risked more,and even made more mistakes.I should have done what I wanted to do. I wanted to have accepted people the way they were.Each one knows the joy and the sorrows they bring in their hearts. Chance will protect me if I´m distracted.Chance will I should have ...

I Never Left

Luciana — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:25:08 -0700

(Mozart Lhullier at 15 ; photo taken for his first job) My dad dropped out of school when he was 14. My grandfather had trusted the wrong people with his money, and one day he woke up to find out that the only thing he really owned were the clothes he was wearing. The boys, my father and uncle João, had to start working . Eventually my grandfather was able to recover the Summer house, his ...

Welcome Back Brother!

Luciana — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:10:48 -0700

Our bad manners towards nature have been unbelievable in the last decades. We came to believe that we were colossal creatures, who could control the elements and put them to our service. We thought that language and reason entitled us to bend all the rules and use the planet as a toy. Well, what happened is that our giant, collective ego ended up smashing nature´s soul. We nearly destroyed our ...

Fade Away

Luciana — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:31:34 -0700

Mary´s middle boy says that music is what feelings sound like. I think this is genius. And after reading that, I kept wondering what they would look like. To express something as abstract as a feeling through sounds, images or words requires a high level of sensitivity. My five-year old has been asking a lot about death lately. She witnessed her brother lose his best friend last year, in ...

Father Amaro, or Whom He Thought He Was

Luciana — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:24:20 -0700

Published in 1875, The Crime of Father Amaro, by Portuguese novelist Eça de Queirós is a masterpiece in its criticism of this week´s topic: sex, religion and politics.To escape poverty, young Amaro agrees to enter the seminary and become a Catholic priest. Although not inclined to what a priest´s life would be, he sees in it an opportunity to climb socially and, in a way, to be close to ...

Travel Experiences

Luciana — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:03:48 -0700

Whenever I travel, near or far, I can´t help but think of my Dad who was a sales rep and had to travel a lot. He always said he didn´t like to travel, but loved his job. The only reason for him to leave home and spend days in a row driving in sometimes not so good roads and sleeping in sometimes not so clean hotel rooms, was because he loved the relationship he had with his clients. The same ...

Obcaecare, Pathos and Fixus

Luciana — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:30:09 -0700

Obcaecare. Latin - Ob - going towards / Caecare - to make blind. What makes me blind, figuratively, so I stop reasoning and have to go after it? Some order in the chaos. Gotta have it.Pathos. Greek - sufferWhat is it that I want so much it makes me suffer? Happines. Call it a paradox.Fixus. Latin - immovableWhat is it that gets me stuck and doesn´t let me move on? The pursuit of the two ...

Six Husbands Talk about their Wives

Luciana — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:38:36 -0700

I just read this great article from The Guardian: What´s it like to live with Helen Mirren? It´s always interesting to hear both sides of a story/relationship. What I found wonderful is that not one of the guys said things like pretty face, amazing body, well-shaped legs, great boobs etc., all that gobble...(what´s that word again, Huntington?) that many women think guys only think about. A ...

Love of Reading/Reading for Love

Luciana — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:05:56 -0700

I´m always very curious to find out how people became avid readers. Some time ago I organized, together with two colleagues, a collection of reading memoirs where contributing writers, mostly authors and professors, were asked to narrate their first experiences with reading and how these shaped their future as readers. It was published by UPF Editora (the university publisher) in the Questões ...

Ego, the Food Critic

Luciana — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:31:17 -0700

It´s a fine coincidence that Mary cooked Ratatouille tonight, because just this afternoon I was watching the animated movie that goes by the same title with my children, on their Winter break. I´m talking about children, so you might imagine that this is not the first, or the second, or the third, or the zillion time that I watch this movie. ;-) I know the dialogues by heart, now. And it always ...

Man and his Journeys

Luciana — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:58:31 -0700

This poem was translated from O homem; as viagens, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Man, little Earth animal, gets bored on Earth a place of misery and little fun , He builds a rocket, a capsule, a module takes off to the Moon cautiously lands on the Moon steps on the Moon sticks his flag on the Moon experiences the Moon colonizes the Moon civilizes the Moon humanizes the ...

Hybrid

Luciana — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:45:16 -0700

A delicious discussion about cultural identity went around here at Red Room, in one of Mary´s blog posts. Of course food was involved but we also took it to deeper layers :-) Ellen said something about an expat who returns home trying to fit in, and I kept thinking about that. Without trying to reach an answer, but just for the exercise of reflection, because I know how easy can the use of ...