To be read in Edward Norton's voice (Or "I am Jack's sense of pointlessness")

You are born in a good family. You are put in good shools. You strive to get good grades. You graduate and get into a good university. You struggle to get your work done and deliver it on time. And all the while, there is this irrational fear in you of what might happen if you don't. You get nervous at the thought of it. At every class you must sit through in which you didn't complete the assignment. You need grades like you need food. Flunking means death. Of all the lesson you've been taught, that one seems to be the most effective. In the pre-career part of your life, your grades define you.

And then at the end of it all you feel this sharp sense of pointlessness. All the other things in life you missed. The people you never knew. The killer parties you never went to. The fun you never had. The occasions in which you weren't at the right place, at the right time. Desperation finally creeps up when you notice out of experience, not out of text books, that all your A+'s and B+'s mean exactly dick to the people who will hire you in the next part of your life. You've been bred to be an academic in a country that underestimates knowledge.

Random literature
It had been a long while since I last felt this. This happy longing for someone who does belong to you, but in the tedious working hours is not at your reach. A desire to be so close to that person, that your own body heat rises a few degrees, fuelled by that other person's warmth. And that pride that overcomes you when you stare for minutes at that photo and can barely believe you are that lucky.
I could spend hours counting the many spots on that white skin. Or unraveling the mistery of the thousands of red, yellow and hazel tones that make up that coppery hair. I'd study meticulously the complexity of those eyes that aren't precisely blue, nor green, or even gray: they shift color, always limited by a thin prussian blue line at the very edge of each iris.
She has taught me well the fury with which she rebels against even the pettiest of injustices inflicted upon her by the lazy, bureaucratic, apathetic people in this country. That and her extreme professionalism when it came to career matters would seem extremely mature, were it not for her sweet temper tantrums, her difficulty to choose proper clothing, the thrill she get out of brightly colored knick knacks. What an endearing little child.

Which brings me to another happy conclusion:

MY BLOG IS TWO YEARS OLD!!


yay...

Skol Beats

E pensar que há dois anos, foi esse evento que começou este blog.
Naquela vez, eu fui e dei de cara com um monte de gente tentando se divertir, mas fazendo cara de quem não estava tendo muito sucesso na tentativa. Desta vez foi diferente: a galera estava animada, feliz. Encontrei um pouco de cada mundinho que freqüento: Amanda, do ateliê das meninas, Luli da universidade, amigas das minhas primas, até a Nana estava lá... De tudo um pouco. Tinha até gente transando no meio da multidão. Loucura total. E ainda assim, por mais que aquele caos tivesse um apelo irresistível para mim, eu não estava me divertindo. Não como eu achava que estaria. E não era o mero fato de minha menina não ter vindo comigo. Era aquilo, aquele tipo de diversão. Eu fui feito pra outro tipo de diversão. Só que eu ainda não descobri exatamente o que é. Anyway, só pra deixar uma nota deste fato histórico...

Aerandir sent me this:

Questions and Answers

Rules
1. Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I'll reply and give you five questions to answer.
3. You'll update your blog with the five questions answered.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed. And it just keeps going, and going, and going...

Here's our little interview...

AERANDIR: How do you view yourself in terms of success and failure?
LION: Oh, there are so many sides to that question! On the overall, I'd consider myself to be a successful guy. I "survived" childhood in a foreign country and even got a few bonuses in the process, namely the languages I learned and the capacity to view my countrymen from a foreigner's point of view. Later on I studied at great schools and managed to get into two of the finest universities in the country. But my greatest pride is in the fact that I found my taste for art at a very early age. I know people in their early twenties who still haven't found what they'd call their "gifts". That driving force in your life. Finding that and living happily according to it: that's what I consider to be success. On the other hand, I know people (some who haven't found their "gifts") who have lived more than I have, even if they never left the country. People more attuned to life and all it's posibilities. My failure in life lies in the fact that most of the time I'm too immersed in burgeoise safety to experience what life has to offer. There's a whole world out there that I feel I'm missing sometimes. Hopefully I'll correct that!

A: Do you think your paintings are going to be worth a lot in the future (posthumously)?
L: Usually this posthumous value is atributed to artworks in one of two occasions. One is when the artist himself has a tragic death realted to his work. Van Gogh died a poor man and his suffering and maddness in his last few days made people realize after his death that he had lived a life devoted to art. Gaugin, his friend, died in the pestilence of Tahiti, where he believed he would find the beautiful tropical paradise he often painted. A great number of artists from the romanticism died in tragic ways that hightened their works. The other occasion is when the artist discovers something completely new, changes the way people see the world. After he dies, it is obvious he can no longer contribute to the way we view the world, so every bit that he has left behind acquires an enormous value. It cannot be replaced by a new artwork from the same artist. I certainly don't intend on being a part of the first group of artists, dying a tragic death. As for belonging to the second group, I'm working on it. Even though it takes a genius to achieve such a thing. In a nutshell: no, I don't believe my paintings will ever be worth all that. But I try. Don't want to get my hopes too high.

A: What is your view on gay rights and the popularity of homosexuality today?
L: *Laughter* Art and homossexuality are inherently tied toghether nowadays... Seems fitting to ask an artist about gay rights. I hear a lot of men say they have their sexuality well defined. How can they actually claim such a thing if they have never tried being with other men? Most of them aren't even willing to try. It's like saying you don't like something without even tasting it. I've never been with another guy. Never been attracted to any man. But I'd be willing to try if the occasion would provide. Anyways, I'm doing well enough with women *grins*. Gay people are just as normal as straight people. Their rights should be the same. Denying them of common rights is just like denying black people their common rights. It's absurd nowadays. We live in a post-taboo era were you're actually viewed as a retrograde in some circles if you don't accept homossexuality. It's the so-called "having an open mind" that has been en vogue for the past thirty to forty years. Some of the 70's and 80's pop culture was all about free love and bissexuality, and I guess that's what made it all popular nowadays. I say carpe diem, live whatever life has to offer. Taste it first and make your opinion about it later.

A:Do you think the entire world is going to be speaking mostly the English language eventually?
L: That's a tough question and you're probably not going to like my answers. I believe we've seen the apex of the english/american culture. The world has been heavily criticizing the US and England, specially with all the present global scenario. I know it is common to criticize whomever is on the upper hierarchy, but I get the feeling such a culture is getting worn out as a global standard. People are starting to turn to their own local cultures or to what could be understood as a globalized culture. One that does speak english, by the way, but mostly due to a lack of an alternative. If another country was to rise to the status of global power over the US, we'd probably start learning their language as well. It's basically a matter of who's in charge. We from the third world countries feel the US's cultural dominance over us weakening. Perhaps a new president might revert the situation. Who knows? We still haven't seen a rival fit to challenge the US.

A: How do you feel about the internet? Gift or curse?
L: A marvelous gift! I was born in a time when letters took at least a couple of days to get to their destination. Now everything happens almost instantly. I have two strong views about the internet. The first one is that it's the last, relatively free space we know. Due to the lack of a decent monitoring, people can and will do mostly anything on the net. From non-governmental, non-bureaucratic solutions to improve life, to new ways to destroy and corrupt. What thrills me most is the possibility of contacting anyone, anywhere in the world: relatives in other countries (way cheaper than phonecalls, may I add...), italians to practice my recently learned vocabulary, even cool webdesigner chicks from Michigan ;P. You're free to move! The other strong view on this is that surreal sci-fi possibility of one day evolving into a hive-minded culture. Imagine finding a way to be truly connected 24/7, even while walking on the street. I don't know, maybe with cybernetic implants or something. You'd be able to get info as soon as it happens and contact anyone you need instantly, on any circumstance. Shocking!


Anyone wants to get interviewed?

Visita ao oftalmologista. E agora estou aqui, tentando escrever com as pupilas dilatadas. Anyway, como já escrevi aqui um dia, escrevo sem olhar para a tela ou para o teclado, coisa que costumava impressionar a Lee. Não escrevo com 100% de acertos, e vocês provavelmente encontrarão uns tres ou quatro erros ao longo do texto.
Cara estranho, esse doutor. Me atendeu em uma sala perpetuamente escura, que me fez pensar como é que a vista dele não está pior do que a dos pacientes. Mostrou-me a foto que tirou de seu filho nos idos de 1970, onde meu avô ator aparece em uma televisão ao fundo. Sempre mostra essa foto, em todas as consultas, como se fosse inédita a cada vez. Sentou-me primeiro naquele aparelho onde um asterisco era projetado na minha retina e ficava saindo e entrando no foco para mapear qualquer irregularidade. Depois, o famoso teste das letras. Detalhe: já conheço boa parte daquelas letras de cor. Resultado: astigmatismo. Um grau ainda pequeno, mas que já começa a incomodar. Mamãe comenta que estou fazendo força para ler as legendas nos filmes. Nem percebo. Mas o que realmente me perturba é o fato de que não reconheço as pessoas até que elas cheguem bem perto. Constrangedor.

Businessworld mithology: The Net of Indra

Father always said that one of the most important things for any business person is what he called networking: meeting people, telling them exactly what you do and what you want and getting to know what they do and want. Even if that person is not a potential consumer of your product/service. Because, eventually, this person will run into someone who needs what you do. And if you have fixed an image of being a decent professional into that person's mind, he or she will tell this potential client about you. The war of personal advertising goes on even on people's minds (specially on people's minds...). It works for almost any kind of business: being hired by an advertising agency, getting freelance jobs as an illustrator, selling shoes... dare I say even protitution (one of the most ancient businesses on the planet...).

It reminds me of the hindu myth of the Net of Indra. The net symbolizes the relations between all living beings. It was said to be a huge net, where every knot had a jewel weaved into it, representing a living creature. And every jewel on the net reflected all the other jewels. Hence, every creature had it's closest entities, represented by the closest knots on the net (direct relationships -- friends, relatives, loved ones), but it was also secondarily connected to every other entity.

In the businessworld, I'd say every jewel, when reflecting all the other jewels, would reflect their different colors. Every businessman, regardless of his area of expertise, would know and tell about other businessmen, from other areas of expertise.

Visiting grandma again...

This time, amidst our great philosophical dialogues, she came upon an insight into my obssession with vampires. She saw it as a love for change. For becoming something. Indeed, I am always in the process of becoming something. An artist, an advertiser, an adult, something. But then again, aren't we all?
No, to me, the vampiric obssession was something else. I replied to her that it was my way of expressing how I felt different from everyone else. Surely every teenager graples with the feeling of being an oddity. But my case was slightly peculiar. When I turned seven, my family moved to another country. Out there, I was a foreigner. Five years passed and I came back to my homeland. But things were different and I had missed the evolution from my childhood homeland to this new homeland. I had to adjust, to learn the new slang, the new customs. And that familiar feeling of being a foreigner came back. I had no homeland now. Took me years to call this my homeland again.
Besides this feeling of being an eternal foreigner, I had amassed , while in the other country, a vast lore of culture from all over the world. Mostly mythology, a couple of languages, much vocabulary and some customs. And when I confronted the people from this land of today, I found they knew little or nothing of these things. And it all felt to me like useless, ancient knowledge. I had become this stereotype of a foreigner with all this occult knowledge from eons past. Kinda like the vampires in cheap american novels. I identified not with the modus operandi of a vampire, but with the mistery that comes with the character.

Random literature:
Nós dois traduzindo letras de Legião Urbana para o espanhol para aliviar o stress do trânsito: poucas pessoas conseguiam fazer-me entrar nessas brincadeiras. O novo corte de cabelo dela que ela nunca teve coragem de encurtar mais: guardo duas madeixas daquela cor de cobre comigo. O gelo que eu não conseguia segurar passeando pelo seu corpo enquanto ela ria como criança: duas pimentinhas. Novos edredons coloridos: cama, mesa e banho by Alexandre Hercovitch. O perfume que ela usava e o cheiro de sexo que ela me impregnava: paranóia de que alguém sentisse e o delicioso fetichismo do consumado.

Ocorre-me agora que estou no que há algum tempo eu considerava ser o inferno, a pior situação possível. Trata-se daquela situação acinzentada, que não é nem estar multimilionário e nem estar na miséria. Porque no primeiro destes extremos, há problemas, mas pode-se pagar por uma qualidade de vida decente e acredito que é só saber manter a discrição que não haverá muitos problemas. No outro extremo, a situação torna-se tão absurdamente desesperada, que nada mais importa: você não tem qualidade de vida, não tem autoestima e não tem expectativas sobre nada. Mas na atual situação de desempergado em que me encontro, há aquela periódica frustração cada vez que vou a uma agência, minha autoestima vai pelo ralo sem que eu possa fazer muito a respeito e quanto ao dinheiro, ainda tenho papai e mamãe, mas isso é apenas cada vez mais degradante à medida em que os meses passam. Além disso, a cada mês eles me olham mais torto... Designo-a a pior situação possível porque é aquela situação de intensa batalha, intenso stress, intensos gastos e muito pouco retorno...

Anyway, apenas um desabafo.

Sugestão de blog da semana
Eu tomo vermífugo

Meio pessimista, como a grande maioria dos blogs que têm algo a dizer tendem a ser, mas bem escrito e divertido.

I read on the internet about this artist from Chile, Marco Evaristti, who lined up in a gallery a bunch of blenders with gold fish in them and encouraged people to turn on the machines. One person did, and lawsuits for animal cruelty followed the next day. It seems feeting to ask if it is correct to sue the artist or the one who turned on the blender.
But to me, what remained in my memory was the figure of the fish inside the blender: the cruel possibility, and even the anticipation of what might happen. In school I studied a poem that compared an egg and a gun, because both of them presented this kind of possibility. One towards life, the other towards death.
I've always thought that poem was ridiculous. But I did like this dark humour vesion of the same concept.
In conclusion, the blenders shouln't be turned on. The mere possibility is worth so much more and it is immediately vanquished once the switch if flipped.