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About time....

Mais lembranças do nordeste:

Acho que foi o ano em que mais compareci a missas lá no nordeste. Sempre vamos à missa de natal. Mais por respeito às tradições do que por crença mesmo. E mamãe ficava fazendo comentários a respeito dos costumes religiosos e perguntando curiosidades ao papai, que não é muito crente mas conhece muito dos costumes, por ter estudado em colégio de padres. Voltávamos para casa comentando sobre como as orações sempre dizem variações da mesma coisa: "Eu sou um miserável, imbecil e só faço besteira. Não mereço nada porque eu faço tudo errado. Mas me perdoe, me ajude, me dê a vida eterna." Faz algum sentido?

Assistimos à missa de natal, a de trinta dias da morte de Tia Margot e uma missa de ano novo. Três: é mais do que eu assisto durante o ano todo.

Mas foi na missa de natal que eu me peguei olhando para a estátua do Cristo na manjedoura e vagando por revelações surreais. Manjedoura: parece ter radical em um verbo italiano (mangiare) que significa comer. Como se esse objeto fosse um instrumento para animais comerem e esse menino ali deitado fosse uma refeição sendo oferecida. Logo fiz duas associações. A primeira foi com o final da história desse menino deitado na manjedoura, em que ele senta em uma mesa com doze outras pessoas e diz para tomarem um pedaço do pão e comerem pois simboliza o corpo dele. A segunda associação foi entre os animais que comem na manjedoura, normalmente organizados em rebanhos, e a referência aos praticantes da religião católica como sendo o rebanho, assim como a designação dada aos sacerdotes: pastores. Enfim, tudo conectado em uma só metáfora.

Uma lembrança do nordeste

Remexendo nas minhas coisas, encontrei anotações que fiz no nordeste para escrever aqui.
A primeira falava da areia na praia. Eu tinha escrito aqui, há algum tempo (16/11/2003), que me incomodava a fisicalidade das coisas. Sua teimosia em permanecerem imutáveis, sólidas, materiais. E então cheguei lá no nordeste e fui à praia e a areia cedia sob meus passos. Meus pais procuravam areia mais sólida que não cansasse tanto ao andar, e eu ficava a alguns passos para o lado, na areia fofa. Em dado momento, peguei um punhado de areia nas mãos. Ela escorria entre meus dedos: não-sólida. Permitia que eu a moldasse, mudasse. Mas ainda conseguia sustentar meus passos. Ah, se o mundo fossse assim...

Estou fazendo minhas últimas visitas à fundação (eu acho...) para retirar documentos.

Hoje vim retirar meu certificado de conclusão de curso, certificado do estágio na Águia de Ouro e programa de disciplinas para pedir equivalências no curso de publicidade. Papelada, burocracia, comprovação.

A central de atendimento da fundação tem a cara das pessoas que lhe emprestam a reputação: sala bem cuidada, tocando música de discoteca. As garotas são lindas patricinhas. Modelos cuidando de burocracia. Mas quem me atendeu foi Shin Iti: personagem de livros modernos. Porque em livros modernos, ninguém é estereotipado. Todo mundo tem uma peculiaridade. Shin Iti, apesar do nome oriental, tem um rosto ocidental com olhos azul-gelo. Cabelos negros. Um nariz batatudo de italiano ou coisa que o valha. E aquele jeito de quem tem ambição pra progredir na vida. Em sete a cada dez vezes que estive aqui, fui atendido por ele. Adeus.

Eita post inútil... Mas é só pra marcar a época.

I've recently finished reading Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception. Marcela (Methodless) has written to me saying she believes it was this book that inspired Jim Morrison to create The Doors. It seems I've heard something similar.
I had retrieved the book from a rather large collection that my grandmother (the philosopher, not the one from the attelier), was giving away because she can no longer read. The pages were yellowed, but despite that, it was in perfect condition.
The book was divided in two parts. On the first one, Huxley narrated an experience conducted by him, his wife and a few friends, when he agreed to swallow a few grams of a cactus flower called peyote, which contains a drug called mescalin. He described the changes in his perception of the world: he had expected to hallucinate, as if he had taken LSD. But intead of drifting away from reality, he found himself looking at the world around him with deeper attention and amazement. Everything seemed more real. Everything seemed to be one with everything else, infused of something he called "Suchness" or "Is-ness". He described how this new perception of his was still nonetheless affected by distance and time (the drug wears off in a few hours....). He made many comparisons between this new perception of his and the perception an artist has of the world. And indeed, I found myself reading what he wrote and identifying my sickness in some of it: the writhing flesh and it's cravings. Or the amazement I felt towards certain things, certain lighting. The experience of aprehending a human face as mere organic matter and yet painting the canvas as if my fingers caressed skin. All in all, he spoke of that unbearable physicality of things, being what they are and not allowing themselves to be changed...
He also spoke of a feeling provided by mescalin which he could only describe as some sort of relief from selfhood. You no longer care if you have total control over your body. You no longer care for your individuality: something that would really shock capitalist society... But it doesn't mean it alters your behaviour. He remained sober and lucid: only the priorities changed.

On the second part, he spoke of ritual drugs used by Native American tribes to achieve a more fulfilling notion of the divine, of Christianity and it's refusal to acknowledge any ritual drug, along with it's tolerance towards other drugs like tobacco and alcohol in society. He also spoke of mescalin as a less destructive alternative to alcohol and tobacco. The mescalin taker isn't incomvenient like the drunkard and hence can still abide common society and his body isn't overrun with side-effects like the yellowing of the teeth, odours or lung cancer, like the tobacco smoker. Alas, the only downside he saw to mescalin was that it's effects last for hours. Imagine a surgeon high on mescalin suddenly being called to operate...

Anyway, good reading. Strongly reccomended.

Surreal revelations XI:

Late last year, I met with and old friend from school days at the club. We engaged on the usual chatter: "What have you been doing all these years?", "Where are you working?", "Have you seen ****?", "Are you still dating that girl.... I forgot her name....".
And when the subject became dating, personal relations, and such, he told me, ever so carefully, that for the past year he had no longer dated girls. Yes, he had assumed homossexuality. He felt OK in telling me that, he trusted me. Later on, he would tell me that most of the others he hung out with at school had traveled the same road. Not that it would surprise too many people, I`d say.
Out of morbid curiosity, I began to ask him what it was like. Was the homossexual dating system any different from the heterossexual one? He explained to me the little details: the substantial increase in partners, the tendency for casual sex instead of lasting relationships, the underworld in which they seemed to live -- like an alternative society inside the bigger one. Which obviously led to that kind of conversation where he`d say "and you know whom else is in on it?"
When I bid him farewell and went home, I had all these thoughts in my head. The social organization he had presented to me seemed somewhat familiar. I spent the next few days making weird comparisons between what he had told me and what I had once written about vampires.
See, vampires would also be a hidden society within the bigger society. You`d have to know who is also a vampire/homossexual in order to reveal your true nature. Or the few other people you could trust. And gossip as to who is or isn`t a vampire/homossexual would spread naturally. Likewise, there would be the slayers/prejudiced, who would seek out and destroy you. You`d need an increase in partners to keep you "well-fed" and all the matters of "common" life/sex would cease to have any importance or appeal to you. Also, you'd usually need someone to guide into this. To show you around. To "Embrace" you. Very few people spontaneously decide to turn homossexual without previous experiences. Like in the vamp stories, where very few people obtain the curse without being bitten: only those who pact with the Devil and such....
Now read that paragraph again, but choose the other words from the pairs with "/".

Does any of this make sense?

Sonho 1:

No meu sonho de ontem, eu estava sendo intimado a comparecer ao tribunal para me defender de acusações feitas por Bia (Makel). Estava sendo acusado de calúnia e difamação por causa do que eu escrevi no meu trabalho de graduação do curso de artes. Referência óbvia à nossa última conversa telefônica antes da minha viagem para o nordeste. Meu advogado de defesa era o Lebensold (Former Rebel). E minha orientadora (?) era uma amálgama de Dora e Marina Lima.

Makes sense??