do trapézio e outras coisas

I just saw the last Woody Allen’s movie, a picture in Barcelona with Scarlett Johanson and Javier Bardem. Needless to say I cried over the whole movie. I don’t really know why that. I barely noticed I was weeping, I just was. You should see it, it’s a good movie.

I have this thing of always trying to see the whole, the universe, the secret meaning behind all things. That may be the reason why I thought the movies was about myself, in a distorted and surrealistic way of representing my life. You should see the movie, I’m not going to explain it to you. But after you might ask (if you are curious enough) which of those characters are you, Rafael? And that was exactly my question when I left the cinema. At first, I was harsh to myself. I was the dull girl who choses to live her dull life instead of going after what she desired. But then, I thought to myself that was not quite true. I lived, I tried, I went after my secret dreams. I moved on. And therefore I was the girl who knew what she didn’t want, even though she didn’t know what she wanted.

And that wasn’t entirely true neither. I went after my secret dreams, but not after all of them. I can hardly be considered a crazy person that tries anything. If you look to me, you would picture a pretty normal average person, as dull as any mediocre person you’d know. And even though I would probably surprise you with the reality, I cannot fool myself and say I did everything I could.

That may be the reason why I’m feeling uncomfortable in some days. Always going after something. Always getting it, in one way or the other. Never quite finishing it, getting the last drop, the final bite. Never achieving the 100% mark.

And then I get curious, because I never see people worrying about this kind of stuff.

Let me finish this. I liked the way the movie put it: you might try things to discover what you don’t want. Cristina was quick in discovering what she didn’t want, and after that she was sure about what she didn’t want. I’m not that quick in finding what I don’t want. I see the world with blurred borders, never sure of the exact point where things finish (or where I know things for sure).

Nice movie. Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, interesting storyline, different format, good laughs, happy ending. What else can you ask from a movie?

I had a really complex thought following this phrase, but I got distracted. Now I forgot it forever. Sorry for that.

Update. I remembered. Somewhere before the second wedding, Andie MacDowell starts telling Hugh Grant with how many people she had slept. She starts counting and finally gets to 32 people. Hugh Grant feels miserable because he had slept with only 9 different people.

Let’s go back in time one week. I went to a play about women that are in their thirties. Somewhere in the middle of the play, one of the characters (the most beautiful girl) starts counting with how many people she had slept with. She stops at 31. She was 30 and had slept with 31 men.

Discussing the subject with a friend, she tells me that it is much easier for women to get laid. Whenever a girl fancies the idea, she gets her best lingerie, her best make up, then she goes to any party and starts smiling and looking around. Not long after, she will have a good opportunity to get laid. In her opinion, that’s the main reason.

I was kind of tired. The whole fucking day walking around. I was a hot, sunny Sunday. Everybody in the street wearing shorts. I had walked all along the pier, then I walked around the beach and I saw fake flying machines trying to take off, failing at it and crashing at the sea. It was an exciting moment when some girl with an improvised glider managed to fly for a dozen of meters, but she too crashed at the sea. I got bored and walked back and stopped at the museum.

Stupid museum that was. Nothing special in the special exhibitions. In the permanent collection, some delicate mobiles were kind of beautiful. There was also a interesting movie. One or two other half-interesting stuff and I went to the gift shop to take a look at things.

At the gift shop, lots of stupid little things for we to buy by impulse. I see a postcard. It was green and had just one phrase in it:

Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a severe lack of imagination.

Very true, I thought, and got back to the hotel.

Yeah… definitely nonsense. My blog is much more interesting for me when I talk nonsense here. I’ll try not to be overly imbecile, I promise.

Should I go back to the old style of the old trapézio e start rambling about life again? Should I go back to express my “growing pains” — that by now I understand that will only finish with my last breath?

Hold on. My last breath? I can imagine myself analyzing my feelings to my very last moment of consciousness. Death is slowly covering my body and my mind is spinning like crazy, thinking: “So, I guess I should repent my sins now, but should I repent from the sins I’m proud of?” And so on. If somehow I can still talk when a hipothetical priest comes to give me the extreme unction, I’m certain to start arguing with him.

The idea that I’ll keep on wondering about the world and myself and myself and the world and my friends and my girlfriends and everything else makes me wonder if I should give up trying to talk sense on this blog and simply go to talk non sense again. Whatever comes to my mind. No matter how ambiguous and contradictory it is.

Because that is the way things look to be.

Even though I may simply be tired.

Tradicional hamburgueria americana, P.J. Clarke’s inaugura primeira filial fora de NY em SP

Seguindo grandes redes gastronômicas norte-americanas como Applebee’s, Burger King, T.G.I. Friday’s e Starbucks, o restaurante P.J. Clarke’s chega ao Brasil e inaugura nesta sexta-feira (7) uma casa no Itaim, bairro de São Paulo. A diferença para os conterrâneos-concorrentes: esta é sua primeira unidade fora de Nova York.

O P.J. Clarke’s é uma das mais tradicionais e famosas hamburguerias dos Estados Unidos. Criada em 1884, na Terceira Avenida, em Manhattan, a casa conta atualmente com três estabelecimentos na cidade de Nova York.

Nice. I loved to go to the Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan, see some concert of the New York Philharmonic and complete the night with some hamburger of the P.J.Clarke at Broadway and 63th… Now I can do it in São Paulo.

There is probably something meaningful in nothing. Here I am, thinking I should write something but when confronted with the blank screen it is as if my mind forgot that writing is made of words, not of a sudden willingness to write. Intention is nothing, action is something, and here’s a strange twist to this text. Once I sat down and started typing this very words, with no real idea of what to write about, some kind of idea emerged and my text, that was about nothing, became a text about something.

Of course, this very idea is not particular, nor bright, or even original. Elvis Presley asked for a little less conversation, a little more action. The bible probably makes the very same point somewhere, and I’m sure one or two philosophers do the same, in intricate words. It would be redundant to list them all.

However, for someone that likes writing, reading or listening to music, the idea that action precedes thought is kind of heretical. I’ll leave this thought unfinished.

Some time researching how to insert pieces of music for songs and finally I’ve got it. Take a look in the past two posts. Now you can play the songs I’m whistling lately. If you ever saw me live, you know I’m a whistling person. I like music, even thought I go to fewer concerts than I’d like to. I’m still to get the habit of taking a look in some concert guide and start going to them. I remember going (kind-of) by force to the last Vertigo, but the truth is I was amazed, energized, happy, jumping and everything after the show. Those are good things.

I like music, because I’m curious. I go on discovering things, learning about them, improving my knowledge about the bands. How come I love Happy Mondays today? Simple. Paula told me about Joy Division. Some time later I saw 24-hour party people with the history of the Factory Records, got fascinated and started listening to them. Then Tony Wilson died and I found that BBC One tape with a homage to Wilson. I listened to all songs in this tape and some of them caught my attention. One of them was Happy Mondays.

Paula was amazing in my musical formation. Even now people cannot believe she actually recorded 2 whole cds with some 240 different songs of 240 different bands that had a chance with my musical tastes. I don’t remember why Silvia would say Paula was her mother, but she’s certainly the alma mater of my musical taste, specially for indie, alternative, rock and this kind of stuff.

(and because of that, I’ve had the prize of seeing her actually dancing(!!!) in a Placebo concert, long ago)

I remember now why I started listening to Belle and Sebastian. Paula and I were watching High Fidelity in the theaters and she commented about a song: “Valéria likes that band very much”. After Jack Black actually throws the tape with Belle and Sebastian away, I got intrigued, borrowed a cd from Paula and started liking it very much.

My interest for Os Mutantes (one of my preferred bands today) started in a completely different way. One day, there was the wedding of Cristiano, a fellow colleague from work. Cool guy, cool girl = cool party and they gave away a CD with the songs of the wedding. A very nice selection if you ask, and one of the songs was the energetic Ela É Minha Menina. I had that CD on my car for years. And then one day I was at the movies in the Reserva Cultural and I stopped by the small bookshop that they have. There was a biography of the band. In an impulse I bought the book, read the biography and downloaded the whole discography of the band. Amazing. Few bands were so creative, so free of inventing things. Of course the LSD helped, but anyway.

And then one day I started working in an orchestra. And I had to learn about orchestras, not only because I was curious (again, see the pattern?) but also because how could you work in a bakery and not understand how to make bread? Anyhow… I’ve started watching to every single concert they gave, and I could hear some of the rehearsals from my office. And I’d like to discuss about music with some of the musicians, and learn about their idiosyncrasies and tastes. Now I have a couple of favorite concerts (Mahler First Symphony… Rachmaninov’s Variations of a Theme by Paganini… Beethoven Sixty (especially the second movement), something of Dvořák, especially the one that I saw in Prague and now I don’t recall the name).

Some time ago, having dinner with a girl, she starts talking about music, and I go to tell her some of those stories. I’ve become someone who tell stories. She goes and tells me I have an amazing taste (maybe she didn’t had a unbiased opinion…). And I write this to blame Paula for that.

Long-time readers (really long time readers) will notice the subtleness of this kind of posts has gone up. Some people say it’s maturity, I’d say it’s ridiculous but what can I do? Music is good for our souls, here’s the song I’m whistling today:

A felicidade é como a pluma
que o vento vai levando pelo ar
Voa tão leve
Mas tem a vida breve
Precisa que haja vento sem parar

My mind is wonderful. It always give me a proper song to whistle when I’m feeling something. Sometimes the song is a Bossa Nova. Bossa Nova is always wonderful because they know how to say things. The song I’m whistling today is this, from Vinícius:

E por falar em saudade, onde anda você
Onde andam seus olhos que a gente não vê
Onde anda esse corpo que me deixou morto de tanto prazer

E por falar em beleza onde anda a canção
Que se ouvia nas noites dos bares de então
Onde a gente ficava, onde a gente se amava em total solidão

Hoje eu saio na noite vazia, numa boemia sem razão de ser
Na rotina dos bares, que apesar dos pesares me trazem você

E por falar em paixão, em razão de viver
Você bem que podia me aparecer nestes mesmos lugares
Na noite, nos bares, onde anda você

Sorry international readers. I wouldn’t dare to translate it.

(Update: But now I can put the actual song for you to hear. Just click in the little triangle, close your eyes and enjoy!)