A Maconha é o Doping do Artista
Apoio Picon3
Friday 10 September 2010
Monday 30 August 2010
Recomendação Picon3 - Clube Da Esquina II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNfuzz_jLGE
Amigos!
Vivi minha vida toda no Brasil. E demorei 24 anos inteiros, 12 dos quais quase que integralmente dedicados a música, para descobrir essa jóia. Essa maravilha que é essa música.
Clube da Esquina II por Milton Nascimento e Lô Borges
Escute-a de olhos fechados e experimente uma jornada através de memórias passadas. Ainda ouso afirmar que essa canção, é a mais bela já composta pela humanidade. A mais sublime, mais serena, mais profunda, mais abismal, mais blissful, mais יפה.
E não foi aqui no Brasil que eu descobri essa música não. Tenho vários amigos que gostam de MPB, muitos dos quais até cheguei a tocar, gente de renome, talentosa e ninguém nunca veio me mostrar esse som. Sabe quem foi o broder que me introduziu, de graça? O SeuTubo!
Piadas a parte, fica a recomendação. Escute essa música e me diga se não é a mais bela do mundo? Escute-a como um alienígena, alguém que não sabe nada sobre a humanidade, alguém que acabou de chegar no planeta e quer conhecer a raça humana, apreciar o que ela tem de melhor a oferecer, Escute essa canção como se fosse uma criança, como se fosse a primeira vez. Escute essa canção livre de preconceitos, livre de prenoções, livre de prejuízos, livre de qualquer rótulo ou gênero que venha a mente.
Escute essa canção, com o apoio Picon3!
Abraços
Amigos!
Vivi minha vida toda no Brasil. E demorei 24 anos inteiros, 12 dos quais quase que integralmente dedicados a música, para descobrir essa jóia. Essa maravilha que é essa música.
Clube da Esquina II por Milton Nascimento e Lô Borges
Escute-a de olhos fechados e experimente uma jornada através de memórias passadas. Ainda ouso afirmar que essa canção, é a mais bela já composta pela humanidade. A mais sublime, mais serena, mais profunda, mais abismal, mais blissful, mais יפה.
E não foi aqui no Brasil que eu descobri essa música não. Tenho vários amigos que gostam de MPB, muitos dos quais até cheguei a tocar, gente de renome, talentosa e ninguém nunca veio me mostrar esse som. Sabe quem foi o broder que me introduziu, de graça? O SeuTubo!
Piadas a parte, fica a recomendação. Escute essa música e me diga se não é a mais bela do mundo? Escute-a como um alienígena, alguém que não sabe nada sobre a humanidade, alguém que acabou de chegar no planeta e quer conhecer a raça humana, apreciar o que ela tem de melhor a oferecer, Escute essa canção como se fosse uma criança, como se fosse a primeira vez. Escute essa canção livre de preconceitos, livre de prenoções, livre de prejuízos, livre de qualquer rótulo ou gênero que venha a mente.
Escute essa canção, com o apoio Picon3!
Abraços
Saturday 28 August 2010
Recomendação Picon3 - Filme Heavy Metal
Po, tou nesse momento ouvindo a trilha sonora do filme Heavy Metal. Agora tá tocando Devo - Working in the Coal Mine. Ainda vai tocar Black Sabbath, Journey, Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Oister Cult, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth, Cheap Trick entre outros.
E engana-se aquele que pensa que esse filme é apenas rock'n'roll. Esse filme é na real uma putz viagem muito louca através de contos distantes, vindos de tempos futuros e sombrios. Um tempo onde a humanidade começou a se expalhar pelo espaço. E dessa imensidão incalculável que é o nosso universo, surge uma criatura misteriosa.
Um filme super bacana e surpreendente. De horror e comédia, nessa ordem. Lindíssimas sequências de animação estilo anos 80. Excelente trilha sonora do mais puro Heavy Metal!
Recomendado para aqueles que gostam de Heavy Metal, Filmes de Animação, Video-Games, Astronomia, Fantasias Adolescentes Masculinas, Lindas Mulheres Nuas, Guerras entre Alienígenas Monstruosos, Viajar pelo espaço numa Corvette 1960, conversível. Tudo na segurança e na qualidade insana dos traços dos talentosos desenhistas da revista Americana Heavy Metal. O Filme na real é Canadense.
A minha parte preferida são os créditos, a música é muito boa do Devo, e dá para ver quem participou de que, de qual dos contos. No total são 9 curtas de animação integrados num só filme. Dá para ver centenas de pessoas envolvidas no processo! Dezenas de animadores, diretores de animação, camerman de animação, desenhistas, e sei lá o que mais. Existe de fato uma indústria de animação nos EUA.
E é disso que a gente precisa. Aqui no Brasil. Putz, esse filme nem fez sucesso, acabou só sendo lançado em vídeo 15 anos depois, mesmo sendo um mega sucesso cult entre jovens cinéfilos do mundo todo. O problema judicial foi relacionado a trilha sonora, que está praticamente inteiramente integrada as sequências de animação e não poderia ser removida.
Hoje em dia, graças a maravilha da Internet, e da liberdade gratuita de distribuição de arte, ciência e literatura, podemos assistir a esse maravilhoso registro de uma geração de rockeiros britanicos, conhecida como a New Wave of British Heavy Metal, ser posto ao seu maior teste ao acompanhar essas espetaculares imagens que vão poluir seu cérebro para sempre. In a good way.
Para assistir esse daí, eu recomendo fortemente o Apoio Picon3!
Aqui vai o link da Wikipedia com todas informações necessárias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_%28film%29
Aqui está o link do torrent para os curiosos de espírito: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4618710/Movies_-_Animated_Action_Classics_-_Heavy_Metal_%281981%29
E aqui vai o link do torrent da trilha sonora do filme, que ouço agora mesmo:http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3745399/Heavy_Metal_Original_Soundtrack
Já testei esses links, posso garantir que estão livre de viruses e são seguros e de boa qualidade.
Aproveitem e
Apoio Picon3!
Abraços!
Monday 23 August 2010
Recomendação Picon3 => Badeco - The Damrak Buskers
Olá amigos, venho por meio desta chamar atenção ao mais novo lançamento da música brasileira. Ao primeiro lançamento do selo brasileiro-israelita de música Picon3! Também o primeiro álbum de Badeco, jovem músico de 25 anos de Osasco/SP.
Badeco apresenta "The Damrak Buskers", um relato em forma de canção, da vida de um músico de rua. Dos altos e baixos, do calor e do frio, da dura realidade urbana. Muitas dessas canções que você encontra nesse álbum, foram apresentadas, nesse formato idêntico, nas ruas de Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Eilat, Osasco e outras cidades desse mundo.
Gravado, editado e documentado pelo próprio Badeco durante partes do mês de Agosto de 2010. E lançado oficialmente pelo selo Picon3 em 20 de Agosto de 2010.
O Álbum contem 17 faixas, quase todas apresentam Badeco com o violão. Há algumas participações especiais e também algumas surpresas e curiosidades que ficarão reservadas ao ouvinte individual. O Álbum serve também como registro de algumas das músicas mais famosas de Badeco, recém chegado de uma turnê mundial.
01 - Barcelona Blues - 7:29 %
02 - Sombra da Maldade - 3:41 %
03 - Pain Lies On The Riverside - 6:18 *
04 - 3 AM - 6:15 *
05 - Got Me Wrong - 4:09 *
06 - Queimando Tudo Com Você - 7:51 *
07 - Molly's Chambers - 1:49 *
08 - Karma Police - 4:09 *
09 - Nutshell - 3:19 *
10 - Para Flávia - 9:13 *
11 - Me Chama - 3:38 *
12 - Seven Caged Tigers - 3:13 *
13 - Mais Um - 3:45 *
14 - Spanish Bombs (part.esp. Gui) - 4:15 @
15 - Saudade (part.esp. Barbie) - 3:19 @
16 - Dancing Queen Blues (part.esp. Barbie) - 4:39 @
17 - Eyes Without A Face (bonus) - 3:50 *
legenda
* - Gravado em Agosto 2010
% - Gravado em Julho 2010
@ - Gravado em Junho 2009
O álbum está disponível gratuitamente no site trama virtual (http://tramavirtual.uol.com.br/artistas/badeco) e no youtube (http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=1F0A08014419EC6B) através do canal www.youtube.com/chadner .
Infomações gerais kbadner@gmail.com
Apoio Picon3
Sunday 15 August 2010
Memorable Teaching Moments #1 – The Ripple Effect
By Teacher Caio
It was my first ever advanced group. It was a Book9 class, Saturday mornings, 2006. Wizard Campesina. It was also my first semester in that school, and the coordinator trusted and believed in me so much that he already trusted me with the hardest and most advanced book he had. Back then Wizard had a Book10, but every teacher that has ever worked at Wizard knows that Book9 is harder. Trickier, let’s say.
And the group was kind of weak too! It was these 5 girls, I think. The first was Crislaine, a tall blonde with not much to say. About anything. She would just sit there pretty much in complete silence, the whole class. She would speak only if spoken to, but only the absolute minimum. Still, she had the most amazing smile, like always kind of embarrassed about everything that we talked about. She was cute.
The most talkative and outgoing one was Fernanda. She was daughter to the teachers. She was a party girl that went to English class on Saturday mornings, at 10 am. I mean, hung-over, head aches, pink eyes and that’s when she came. Which was at the most, half of the classes. She had dark skin, she wore dreadlocks and she had these massive boobs. She had great English too, and she always laughed at my stupid jokes. She was hot.
I can only remember the third one, which was this young blonde chick, very cool attitude and looks. She was a bit older than the other girls but I’m sure she dug my style. I remember that once I saw her across the street, near one of the universities in the area, but I didn’t say hi. When I told her the next Saturday, she was like “Oh, no way! You should have gone like ‘Hey there… (fuck, I can remember her name, sorry)… Anyway, she wanted to have met me outside class, and that’s always a positive thing for a teacher, right? She was cool.
The other two students were too shy and pretty much managed to avoid being stored in my immediate memory. Maybe throughout this story, their names will come back to me somehow. Hey! I remember one of them was like a manager in a leather product store in the Super Shopping Mall in Osasco. I don’t know, I have always liked running into my students (or ex-students) around town. That maybe means that I’m proud to have been their teacher at one point. I’m proud to say that I am a teacher. Like we all should be.
I had already been teaching for 6 months, up to that point in time. This is August 2006, I am 20 years old, a computer science undergrad and a frustrated musician wannabe. The first 6 months were only basic levels, a bunch of teenagers, and a heterogenic and misled staff of teachers. Those were training months for me. Then I moved from Wizard Bela Vista to Campesina, and everything changed. I was actually fired from the first school and hired the same day by the second school.
Funny story. The guy who fired me after six months at Wizard Bela Vista was Cléber, a teacher who was coincidentally hired that same January, went through the training course for beginners with me. We were hired on the same day, and six months later, the guy was firing me. Can you believe that shit? Not necessary to mention that there was a lot of ass kissing involved in his sudden rise to power. But that’s a story for another time.
I wasn’t kissing anybody’s ass around there. So I basically screwed up enough for them to let me go on the Friday before the start of classes. I mean, I stayed around throughout the whole month of July, in hopes of being assigned many groups and assure my income for the next 5 months. But they fucking fired me instead! I would have been totally fucked if it hadn’t been for Rodrigo, the coordinator at Campesina.
I had already worked for him a couple of times before, and despite all my screw-ups, the guy was the first to really see the talent in me and believe in my potential. Especially because he as soon as he found out I had been fired, he called me to offer me a job. And the deal was alright too. But I’ll get back to that in a second. Let me first talk about this analogy I like to think about.
An English school is like a Football team. Not American Football, not Rugby with Knight armors, and not Soccer either. It’s called Football, alright? Just ask the world. Ok, English schools can be compared to Football clubs. I mean, you got your defense, it’s your Secretaries, Receptionists, Cleaning Crew. And you got the offense, it’s the Teachers. Coordinators are the playmakers and the leadership of the team.
Some teachers teach different groups and have a different value to the staff. The same way that different strikers will have a different importance to the team. You have your star teachers, just as much as you have star players. You have difference in pay checks, bonuses, privileges and performance evaluation. You have politics, art and even drama in an English school.
In my case, I got lucky. I was just a young player, starting out my career in professional English teaching. I was a nobody. I had studied for like a year in a neighborhood school in Interlagos, just enough to get a FCE, at the age of 13. And the owner of the school hand picked me to study there because she was my teacher at school and she was sure I could get the Certificate. It would look good for me, my mom and, above all, for her school.
So she convinced us, and that year or so, that I studied there, remains to this day, the only time that I spent money on my English learning. Not to mention the money spent on dictionaries and English literature. I was 14 when I left the school and I started teaching at 20. Another funny story.
From Eighth grade at 14 to undergrad teacher at 20, it’s a long story. I won’t tell it in detail now. Let’s just say that the ratio of contact with computers to contact with humans was kind of unbalanced. Little by little, as I grew older, I started spending more time with people, breaking my outer shell and getting into music. My hair grew, I lost my glasses and my braces. In that 6 year period, I went through my teenage years, kissed my first girl, lost my virginity, played my first gig and drunk every drink known to man.
At 20, bored with computers and dismayed at the music business, I decided to listen to the best advice I heard while performing live. I mean, after the show a Carioca came up to us and said that my English was very good. Not necessarily the type of comment you would expect to hear after rocking out with an electric guitar in a trendy bar in Vila Madalena. Yeah, at 20 I wasn’t blowing anybody’s brains out with my music, but my English was good enough to be worthy of an honest compliment. And that wasn’t just something your throw away like that.
So I decided to go after the English teaching money. I mean, how hard could it be? You had thousands of language schools sprouting all over São Paulo. Brazil was in a process of becoming a lead star in the international scene, you probably had lots of people in need of English teaching. And wasn’t I always pissed at shitty translators and voice actors that always seemed to find work in television, wasn’t my English better than those guys’? Guyssus?
And hey, now that I think of it, as I would later learn while teaching that Book9, English teaching was right up my alley! … Right? Book9 Expressions? “Right up one’s Alley”? Oh whatever hehehe…
So English teacher it was. I first sent some emails with résumés. Then I started paying visit to nearby schools to hand out my résumé in person. Then I realized it wasn’t going to be easy. Nobody was contacting me, nothing was happening. That was when I decided to go with the prank phone call technique. And that was how I got my first job teaching English.
Well, I am a foreigner, I was really born in Israel. But up to that point, my life was comprised of 2 years as a Kibbutznik and 12 years as a Paulistano and 6 years as an Osasquense. I was obviously Brazilian. But when I called Wizard Bela Vista, I started speaking perfect English with an American accent, trying my best to sound cool and chill, the kind of guy you can jam, play video games and even discuss philosophy with. That day, on that call, I was – for the first time – Chadner.
And just try calling any English school in São Paulo, start speaking English and listen to the chaos that will erupt. That day, none the receptionists or secretaries in the afternoon shift spoke any English, the one that answered was like “Oh, I’m sorry, just a second… Ai meu Deus, cadê a Sandra? O Cara tá falando Inglês aqui!!! Num to entendendo nada!!! Just a second please!... Ai chama a Sandra por favor!”
When Sandra, the coordinator, finally answered and we started to exchange words in English, I immediately knew that I was cut out for this business. Her English was terrible! And she was the coordinator! I mean, that thick Brazilian accent was everything I needed to boost up my confidence and impress the hell out of her.
We scheduled an interview for the next day, with the possibility of starting immediately. Clear possibility, judging from the telephone call. Yeah, everything was going my way, except the fact that I wasn’t Kyle from California, I was Caio from Osasco. And, I don’t know about you, but lying to get a job, I understand. Now having to lie, everyday, to keep a job is a different story. And I wasn’t willing to pretend to be the random foreign teacher, which is obviously more valuable than the true local talent, having to lead this secret second life, always watching everything I said, no way. I was going to come clean.
So right off the bat, first thing I say to Sandra, as she greets me in English, was that I was Brazilian. I spoke Portuguese too. And the only reason I lied before was that nobody gave a shit if you walk around saying you can speak English. They have to receive a demonstration of what you can do. That way you can impress them with your talent and earn a position in their staff. Their team, remember?
So like I said, teaching is just like Football, and every school is like a football club, each struggling to survive, competing against other clubs at their specific level. Each school is just as big as they deserve to be, as much as they strive to be. Every club is just as important and victorious as they fight to be. Luck is also a very important factor.
And the students are like the fans. They bring the money to the school. They make everything possible. The students are the reason why teachers get out of bed everyday. And what keeps a student supporting the school? Good teachers! Star teachers! Sure, an effective methodology, maybe some cool books and facilities. But every fan needs a star, every football club needs a star and every star has to start somewhere. And that Saturday morning, I signed my first professional contract as an aspiring young player, I mean, as an English teacher.
Now that I’m writing this, I realize again the importance that recreational drug usage had in my life. Curiously, I had just recently smoked my first joint, some weeks before that – let’s say – unusual prank phone call that earned me a job. And as time would show, these substances would continue to stimulate my brain to put together fruitful and effective ideas such as prank calling your future job. Creativity has always been a characteristic of my personality, and psychoactive drugs have only ever helped in that department. This is the truth, deal with it.
After 6 months of learning, practicing and improving, I was ready for a real challenge. A position in the first team. They didn’t need me in Bela Vista, so they sent me to Campesina, sort of speak. One of their star players had just been signed by a bigger school, Cultura Inglesa, and they urgently needed a new teacher to fill his shoes. They needed somebody to teach pretty much only advanced levels, all different books and materials, they needed a fast learner, responsible, experienced and willing to make little money in exchange of a large work load. Maybe an outside hire would have been a safer bet, but it would probably have been more expensive too.
So they decided to go with me. A 20-year old fuck up with an incredible English and a poor tardiness record. That I proudly keep it to this day, hahaha. I was the young player with the amazing potential and the terrible discipline. And what was the most advanced group I was assign to teach in that first semester of mine? None other that the ever so dreadful Book9.
(I thought I should tell you this, but as I write this, I’m listening to ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ by the Kings of Leon and smoking the Picon3)
Book9 was famous for its weird vocabulary. And I was never a big fan of class preparation, I mean, let’s say that 80% of what goes on in my classrooms in improvisation. 10% is reading from the book and maybe 10% is previously prepared activities. Of course that when I say improvisation, I’m talking about putting structured layouts to practice, without having rehearsed before.
Everyone does it. Improvising. We rarely don’t create something new every day. We just don’t seem to realize that even when you follow something by the letter, it still is some overall pattern that was repeated, the words themselves are always new, even if repeated, for as they are enounced, they are uttered with different tones, shapes and colors. Intonation and everyone’s unique language’s accent at the time will make every new register a real new one. And since we rarely play those god damned CDs, cause most of them suck, then most of the English, or whatever language that is being taught, will be created there, live. That’s all new language being produced. Maybe the teachers will have an accent closer to the native speakers, but that is all. The rest is new English, being invented, being tested, being played, being compared, being repeated, being modified and becoming something of its own. And since it’s brand new, it’s just as if it had been improvised. So the second law says.
And when improvising, I thrive.
And I remember vividly, the day when I was first in contact with something 100% new to me, the teacher, in a classroom. It was in a Book9 text, about the Ripple Effect. About whether or not it really worked. Trying to spread money proportionally to every citizen, by giving money to wealthy and letting them spend the money wherever they want, then those people would spend that money with the lower classes, and down and down, until the wave reached the bottom classes and everybody profited from that move together.
But that Saturday morning, when I started teaching that class, I still didn’t know that. I discovered that as the class went along. I defined that new concept improvising together with the students. We read the text together, for the first time, none of us knew what this expression ‘ripple effect’ meant, nor had any of us ever heard about it before. But after reading it, we together, under my lead, wrote the meaning of this new concept, and we explained each other, with examples and questions until we were satisfied with the amount of time we devoted to that new expression.
And that day I realized that teaching could actually be something fun, you know? Something it’s actually fun to do, I don’t know. Not really what people say of work, usually. Do you know what I’m saying? That day, even though the class hadn’t been that wonderful, rather due to the lack of interest of my students, I was finally happy to have chosen to go down this path, of quitting my shitty intern job, as a computer guy in a perfume distribution company, and starting to teach English, a true 180 in my career.
That August started out as an entirely different life for me. I was now a member of the first team, in a medium level school in Osasco. But that club wasn’t happy simply being average, no way, they were in the middle of moving to a new building, in the same neighborhood but with an amazing visibility, they wanted to be worthy of a promotion to a higher division.
And in that campaign, I played first team in the side that ended up winning the championship. I was one of the best players of the tournament. Let’s say they played me in the midfield, maybe left defensive midfielder, or winger. And I was like that player that has a high work rate, is always willing to give all he can, always in a good mood. And consistent too, always delivering his top game. Even in important matches!
Like the parents meeting night, that was like the final between the South American champions and the European champions, when it used to be just one game at the end of the year, in Japan. It’s like you play the whole season against the same type of people, same games, then it’s one match against completely different players, you have to really watch out not to fuck up. A fuck-up in an important game such as a Parents Teachers Meeting, could mean your ass.
But I never choked or underperformed under pressure, not while teaching at Wizard. Not that I can remember anyway. What I did was end up being one of the best players of the season. Surely to the regret of my previous coaches. Maybe not that much, who cares? But I definitely became a better, more confident teacher. And where did this change in attitude came from?
Again, just before August classes begun, I had a preparation ritual set up for me by my girlfriend at the time, Luciana. She was the one to roll my first joint, in a motel room in Santos, sometime around January 2006. She lived in São Vicente at the time and so we were in a long-distance relationship. We had met in Orkut, can you believe that?!
But it was cool, she used to come often and stay with me. We would go out a lot, have great sex and she was the one who introduced me to recreational drug usage as a means of sparkling creativity, widening your senses and, again, having great sex. She was wonderful.
Sometime around June she moved to São Paulo. She was starting her post graduation course in Biology, and she wanted to do it at USP. So she moved to this old apartment in Sumaré, and these 3 old college friends of hers moved in with her. They started this thing we call a ‘República’ in Brazil. It’s when college students live together and share expenses. And since everyone in Brazil pretty much goes to Universities in their cities or states, there’s very little student immigrants spread around the country, most college kids still live with their parents. I’m 24 today, I have already started and quit 2 different colleges and yes, I still live with my mom.
So, going a little bit back in time, all throughout that July 2006, I had very little work to do, I was - let’s say - in-between-jobs and so, I had a lot of free time in my hands. The world cup was over, it had been very disappointing for me. The Libertadores was going to be an ever greater tragedy in my life. So the ground was set for me to embark on this drug induced mind trip. A true journey inside my head that only cost some grams of weed, some of hash, uma bala e um doce. All these drugs together, all culminating in one mind blowing acid trip right before classes started, got my head ready to play in the big leagues.
That August 15th, as Rogério Ceni was fumbling that lousy cross I was turning 21 and learning, the hardest way, that I had to beware of the fact that I was also going to learn how to lose occasionally, but it was alright, for in the greater spectrum of things, I was doing very well. Just like Rogério Ceni, I knew I was going to have to learn how to experience defeat and get something positive out of it. And it was ok, it is ok. It's a part of being in a team, it's a part of teaching English, it's a part of life. Hey, at least we made it to the final, many times, right bitches?
As that Semester went along, the amazing events that followed, the wonderful people that I would work with just assured me that this new path I had chosen to go down, would turn out to be unbelievably adventurous, revealing, emotional and above all, meaningful. Truly memorable moments. Everything has seemed to go my way since then, and most of what I truly accomplished was without much effort or preparation. Just following my gut, my sense of judgment, my voice, my soul, my reason, whatever you call it.
I decided to follow my inner light and I started to make it in this world.
Tell me if that’s not just scientifically proven divine intervention, right there?
...These were some memorable teaching moments
By Teacher Caio
Apoio Picon3
...
Appendix: Society at Work
And yes, I do believe that the ripple effect works. Of course that its inside politics, favouritism and personal choices will influence the way that the money will spread around society. But there is no society, no meritocracy that works without an inner system of politics. And as anything involving merit and recognition, biased this system shall always be. However far it looks, any system that compares value is always a biased system, for any accurate determination of value requires a pattern, a scale, a way to measure the value. And determining such tool is the moment where personal preference enters the formula.
How do you choose what’s best? What’s right or wrong? We follow our instincts, that’s how. Animals we truly are. And from the earliest assumptions, most primitive labeling of good and bad, hot and cold, bright and dark, happy and sad, attractive and scary, interesting and boring, depressing and transcendental. We impose our own biased filters to catalogue all that into our words, our thoughts.
Then we seem to never be able to change that. However hard we try, some of those initial labels won’t ever leave us. Even if we update the feeling, they will forever be written in our history, as evidence.
So giving money to the wealthy is a valid technique, why not? Sure it seems unfair, because they already have all the money and so they are the ones who need it the least, so why should they have even more money? Well, I do see it as an interesting technique.
It’s actually very conservative, if you think about it. I doesn’t change the status-quo. Because if the rich get richer, then society remains unchanged. Nobody knows just how rich the rich are, anyway. We know that they don’t have the same worries as we do, and we dream of getting there one day. But we don’t have money, we just have enough to survive and keep struggling every month, hoping we don’t get fired, or killed, or very sick, or even worse, pregnant. But that’s another story I’ll tell you later.
But the rich don’t have these worries. They have different worries, I’ll give them that. But not those I just listed. And so giving more money to the rich has what effect? You make money seem unimportant to them. You encourage them to spend it. Spend it with other people, poorer people. People like you and me, who need money very much indeed.
And everybody who deserves it, who convinces the top classes to share some of their money with them, will live in better conditions. So, from the top to the bottom, you establish the politics and the economy based around services provided by citizens to other citizens paid with money. Regardless of how or why certain citizens came upon different amounts of wealth. It is a perfectly biased working meritocratical system, like many societies around Earth.
If you give money to the poor people, only, then you immediately break the balance of society. You encourage people to save money to provide for their striving and starving families. Making the whole population more balanced. It’s well intentioned at heart, but not necessarily revolutionary. It will hardly be enough to generate a leveled up society, with no poor or rich distinction. It’s just an attempt at finding middle ground between Totally Biased Meritocracies and Plain Old Communist regimes. And yes it is liberal.
So, in conclusion, I do think that the Ripple Effect works. If you don’t want to see a communist revolution, then let the government give your money to the rich, for they shall give it back to you, eventually. And as the status quo remains unchanged, you will have an equal opportunity to prove yourself valuable and earn that money fair and square, and, one day, who knows, join them in the top. If you ever want to be in there, I mean.
…
Well, that was a rather long text. Even for my standards.
This will hopefully be the first installment in a series of texts about my teaching experiences and the thoughts that arise from revisiting the past, hopefully you’ll like it.
Cheers!
Apoio Picon3
It was my first ever advanced group. It was a Book9 class, Saturday mornings, 2006. Wizard Campesina. It was also my first semester in that school, and the coordinator trusted and believed in me so much that he already trusted me with the hardest and most advanced book he had. Back then Wizard had a Book10, but every teacher that has ever worked at Wizard knows that Book9 is harder. Trickier, let’s say.
And the group was kind of weak too! It was these 5 girls, I think. The first was Crislaine, a tall blonde with not much to say. About anything. She would just sit there pretty much in complete silence, the whole class. She would speak only if spoken to, but only the absolute minimum. Still, she had the most amazing smile, like always kind of embarrassed about everything that we talked about. She was cute.
The most talkative and outgoing one was Fernanda. She was daughter to the teachers. She was a party girl that went to English class on Saturday mornings, at 10 am. I mean, hung-over, head aches, pink eyes and that’s when she came. Which was at the most, half of the classes. She had dark skin, she wore dreadlocks and she had these massive boobs. She had great English too, and she always laughed at my stupid jokes. She was hot.
I can only remember the third one, which was this young blonde chick, very cool attitude and looks. She was a bit older than the other girls but I’m sure she dug my style. I remember that once I saw her across the street, near one of the universities in the area, but I didn’t say hi. When I told her the next Saturday, she was like “Oh, no way! You should have gone like ‘Hey there… (fuck, I can remember her name, sorry)… Anyway, she wanted to have met me outside class, and that’s always a positive thing for a teacher, right? She was cool.
The other two students were too shy and pretty much managed to avoid being stored in my immediate memory. Maybe throughout this story, their names will come back to me somehow. Hey! I remember one of them was like a manager in a leather product store in the Super Shopping Mall in Osasco. I don’t know, I have always liked running into my students (or ex-students) around town. That maybe means that I’m proud to have been their teacher at one point. I’m proud to say that I am a teacher. Like we all should be.
I had already been teaching for 6 months, up to that point in time. This is August 2006, I am 20 years old, a computer science undergrad and a frustrated musician wannabe. The first 6 months were only basic levels, a bunch of teenagers, and a heterogenic and misled staff of teachers. Those were training months for me. Then I moved from Wizard Bela Vista to Campesina, and everything changed. I was actually fired from the first school and hired the same day by the second school.
Funny story. The guy who fired me after six months at Wizard Bela Vista was Cléber, a teacher who was coincidentally hired that same January, went through the training course for beginners with me. We were hired on the same day, and six months later, the guy was firing me. Can you believe that shit? Not necessary to mention that there was a lot of ass kissing involved in his sudden rise to power. But that’s a story for another time.
I wasn’t kissing anybody’s ass around there. So I basically screwed up enough for them to let me go on the Friday before the start of classes. I mean, I stayed around throughout the whole month of July, in hopes of being assigned many groups and assure my income for the next 5 months. But they fucking fired me instead! I would have been totally fucked if it hadn’t been for Rodrigo, the coordinator at Campesina.
I had already worked for him a couple of times before, and despite all my screw-ups, the guy was the first to really see the talent in me and believe in my potential. Especially because he as soon as he found out I had been fired, he called me to offer me a job. And the deal was alright too. But I’ll get back to that in a second. Let me first talk about this analogy I like to think about.
An English school is like a Football team. Not American Football, not Rugby with Knight armors, and not Soccer either. It’s called Football, alright? Just ask the world. Ok, English schools can be compared to Football clubs. I mean, you got your defense, it’s your Secretaries, Receptionists, Cleaning Crew. And you got the offense, it’s the Teachers. Coordinators are the playmakers and the leadership of the team.
Some teachers teach different groups and have a different value to the staff. The same way that different strikers will have a different importance to the team. You have your star teachers, just as much as you have star players. You have difference in pay checks, bonuses, privileges and performance evaluation. You have politics, art and even drama in an English school.
In my case, I got lucky. I was just a young player, starting out my career in professional English teaching. I was a nobody. I had studied for like a year in a neighborhood school in Interlagos, just enough to get a FCE, at the age of 13. And the owner of the school hand picked me to study there because she was my teacher at school and she was sure I could get the Certificate. It would look good for me, my mom and, above all, for her school.
So she convinced us, and that year or so, that I studied there, remains to this day, the only time that I spent money on my English learning. Not to mention the money spent on dictionaries and English literature. I was 14 when I left the school and I started teaching at 20. Another funny story.
From Eighth grade at 14 to undergrad teacher at 20, it’s a long story. I won’t tell it in detail now. Let’s just say that the ratio of contact with computers to contact with humans was kind of unbalanced. Little by little, as I grew older, I started spending more time with people, breaking my outer shell and getting into music. My hair grew, I lost my glasses and my braces. In that 6 year period, I went through my teenage years, kissed my first girl, lost my virginity, played my first gig and drunk every drink known to man.
At 20, bored with computers and dismayed at the music business, I decided to listen to the best advice I heard while performing live. I mean, after the show a Carioca came up to us and said that my English was very good. Not necessarily the type of comment you would expect to hear after rocking out with an electric guitar in a trendy bar in Vila Madalena. Yeah, at 20 I wasn’t blowing anybody’s brains out with my music, but my English was good enough to be worthy of an honest compliment. And that wasn’t just something your throw away like that.
So I decided to go after the English teaching money. I mean, how hard could it be? You had thousands of language schools sprouting all over São Paulo. Brazil was in a process of becoming a lead star in the international scene, you probably had lots of people in need of English teaching. And wasn’t I always pissed at shitty translators and voice actors that always seemed to find work in television, wasn’t my English better than those guys’? Guyssus?
And hey, now that I think of it, as I would later learn while teaching that Book9, English teaching was right up my alley! … Right? Book9 Expressions? “Right up one’s Alley”? Oh whatever hehehe…
So English teacher it was. I first sent some emails with résumés. Then I started paying visit to nearby schools to hand out my résumé in person. Then I realized it wasn’t going to be easy. Nobody was contacting me, nothing was happening. That was when I decided to go with the prank phone call technique. And that was how I got my first job teaching English.
Well, I am a foreigner, I was really born in Israel. But up to that point, my life was comprised of 2 years as a Kibbutznik and 12 years as a Paulistano and 6 years as an Osasquense. I was obviously Brazilian. But when I called Wizard Bela Vista, I started speaking perfect English with an American accent, trying my best to sound cool and chill, the kind of guy you can jam, play video games and even discuss philosophy with. That day, on that call, I was – for the first time – Chadner.
And just try calling any English school in São Paulo, start speaking English and listen to the chaos that will erupt. That day, none the receptionists or secretaries in the afternoon shift spoke any English, the one that answered was like “Oh, I’m sorry, just a second… Ai meu Deus, cadê a Sandra? O Cara tá falando Inglês aqui!!! Num to entendendo nada!!! Just a second please!... Ai chama a Sandra por favor!”
When Sandra, the coordinator, finally answered and we started to exchange words in English, I immediately knew that I was cut out for this business. Her English was terrible! And she was the coordinator! I mean, that thick Brazilian accent was everything I needed to boost up my confidence and impress the hell out of her.
We scheduled an interview for the next day, with the possibility of starting immediately. Clear possibility, judging from the telephone call. Yeah, everything was going my way, except the fact that I wasn’t Kyle from California, I was Caio from Osasco. And, I don’t know about you, but lying to get a job, I understand. Now having to lie, everyday, to keep a job is a different story. And I wasn’t willing to pretend to be the random foreign teacher, which is obviously more valuable than the true local talent, having to lead this secret second life, always watching everything I said, no way. I was going to come clean.
So right off the bat, first thing I say to Sandra, as she greets me in English, was that I was Brazilian. I spoke Portuguese too. And the only reason I lied before was that nobody gave a shit if you walk around saying you can speak English. They have to receive a demonstration of what you can do. That way you can impress them with your talent and earn a position in their staff. Their team, remember?
So like I said, teaching is just like Football, and every school is like a football club, each struggling to survive, competing against other clubs at their specific level. Each school is just as big as they deserve to be, as much as they strive to be. Every club is just as important and victorious as they fight to be. Luck is also a very important factor.
And the students are like the fans. They bring the money to the school. They make everything possible. The students are the reason why teachers get out of bed everyday. And what keeps a student supporting the school? Good teachers! Star teachers! Sure, an effective methodology, maybe some cool books and facilities. But every fan needs a star, every football club needs a star and every star has to start somewhere. And that Saturday morning, I signed my first professional contract as an aspiring young player, I mean, as an English teacher.
Now that I’m writing this, I realize again the importance that recreational drug usage had in my life. Curiously, I had just recently smoked my first joint, some weeks before that – let’s say – unusual prank phone call that earned me a job. And as time would show, these substances would continue to stimulate my brain to put together fruitful and effective ideas such as prank calling your future job. Creativity has always been a characteristic of my personality, and psychoactive drugs have only ever helped in that department. This is the truth, deal with it.
After 6 months of learning, practicing and improving, I was ready for a real challenge. A position in the first team. They didn’t need me in Bela Vista, so they sent me to Campesina, sort of speak. One of their star players had just been signed by a bigger school, Cultura Inglesa, and they urgently needed a new teacher to fill his shoes. They needed somebody to teach pretty much only advanced levels, all different books and materials, they needed a fast learner, responsible, experienced and willing to make little money in exchange of a large work load. Maybe an outside hire would have been a safer bet, but it would probably have been more expensive too.
So they decided to go with me. A 20-year old fuck up with an incredible English and a poor tardiness record. That I proudly keep it to this day, hahaha. I was the young player with the amazing potential and the terrible discipline. And what was the most advanced group I was assign to teach in that first semester of mine? None other that the ever so dreadful Book9.
(I thought I should tell you this, but as I write this, I’m listening to ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ by the Kings of Leon and smoking the Picon3)
Book9 was famous for its weird vocabulary. And I was never a big fan of class preparation, I mean, let’s say that 80% of what goes on in my classrooms in improvisation. 10% is reading from the book and maybe 10% is previously prepared activities. Of course that when I say improvisation, I’m talking about putting structured layouts to practice, without having rehearsed before.
Everyone does it. Improvising. We rarely don’t create something new every day. We just don’t seem to realize that even when you follow something by the letter, it still is some overall pattern that was repeated, the words themselves are always new, even if repeated, for as they are enounced, they are uttered with different tones, shapes and colors. Intonation and everyone’s unique language’s accent at the time will make every new register a real new one. And since we rarely play those god damned CDs, cause most of them suck, then most of the English, or whatever language that is being taught, will be created there, live. That’s all new language being produced. Maybe the teachers will have an accent closer to the native speakers, but that is all. The rest is new English, being invented, being tested, being played, being compared, being repeated, being modified and becoming something of its own. And since it’s brand new, it’s just as if it had been improvised. So the second law says.
And when improvising, I thrive.
And I remember vividly, the day when I was first in contact with something 100% new to me, the teacher, in a classroom. It was in a Book9 text, about the Ripple Effect. About whether or not it really worked. Trying to spread money proportionally to every citizen, by giving money to wealthy and letting them spend the money wherever they want, then those people would spend that money with the lower classes, and down and down, until the wave reached the bottom classes and everybody profited from that move together.
But that Saturday morning, when I started teaching that class, I still didn’t know that. I discovered that as the class went along. I defined that new concept improvising together with the students. We read the text together, for the first time, none of us knew what this expression ‘ripple effect’ meant, nor had any of us ever heard about it before. But after reading it, we together, under my lead, wrote the meaning of this new concept, and we explained each other, with examples and questions until we were satisfied with the amount of time we devoted to that new expression.
And that day I realized that teaching could actually be something fun, you know? Something it’s actually fun to do, I don’t know. Not really what people say of work, usually. Do you know what I’m saying? That day, even though the class hadn’t been that wonderful, rather due to the lack of interest of my students, I was finally happy to have chosen to go down this path, of quitting my shitty intern job, as a computer guy in a perfume distribution company, and starting to teach English, a true 180 in my career.
That August started out as an entirely different life for me. I was now a member of the first team, in a medium level school in Osasco. But that club wasn’t happy simply being average, no way, they were in the middle of moving to a new building, in the same neighborhood but with an amazing visibility, they wanted to be worthy of a promotion to a higher division.
And in that campaign, I played first team in the side that ended up winning the championship. I was one of the best players of the tournament. Let’s say they played me in the midfield, maybe left defensive midfielder, or winger. And I was like that player that has a high work rate, is always willing to give all he can, always in a good mood. And consistent too, always delivering his top game. Even in important matches!
Like the parents meeting night, that was like the final between the South American champions and the European champions, when it used to be just one game at the end of the year, in Japan. It’s like you play the whole season against the same type of people, same games, then it’s one match against completely different players, you have to really watch out not to fuck up. A fuck-up in an important game such as a Parents Teachers Meeting, could mean your ass.
But I never choked or underperformed under pressure, not while teaching at Wizard. Not that I can remember anyway. What I did was end up being one of the best players of the season. Surely to the regret of my previous coaches. Maybe not that much, who cares? But I definitely became a better, more confident teacher. And where did this change in attitude came from?
Again, just before August classes begun, I had a preparation ritual set up for me by my girlfriend at the time, Luciana. She was the one to roll my first joint, in a motel room in Santos, sometime around January 2006. She lived in São Vicente at the time and so we were in a long-distance relationship. We had met in Orkut, can you believe that?!
But it was cool, she used to come often and stay with me. We would go out a lot, have great sex and she was the one who introduced me to recreational drug usage as a means of sparkling creativity, widening your senses and, again, having great sex. She was wonderful.
Sometime around June she moved to São Paulo. She was starting her post graduation course in Biology, and she wanted to do it at USP. So she moved to this old apartment in Sumaré, and these 3 old college friends of hers moved in with her. They started this thing we call a ‘República’ in Brazil. It’s when college students live together and share expenses. And since everyone in Brazil pretty much goes to Universities in their cities or states, there’s very little student immigrants spread around the country, most college kids still live with their parents. I’m 24 today, I have already started and quit 2 different colleges and yes, I still live with my mom.
So, going a little bit back in time, all throughout that July 2006, I had very little work to do, I was - let’s say - in-between-jobs and so, I had a lot of free time in my hands. The world cup was over, it had been very disappointing for me. The Libertadores was going to be an ever greater tragedy in my life. So the ground was set for me to embark on this drug induced mind trip. A true journey inside my head that only cost some grams of weed, some of hash, uma bala e um doce. All these drugs together, all culminating in one mind blowing acid trip right before classes started, got my head ready to play in the big leagues.
That August 15th, as Rogério Ceni was fumbling that lousy cross I was turning 21 and learning, the hardest way, that I had to beware of the fact that I was also going to learn how to lose occasionally, but it was alright, for in the greater spectrum of things, I was doing very well. Just like Rogério Ceni, I knew I was going to have to learn how to experience defeat and get something positive out of it. And it was ok, it is ok. It's a part of being in a team, it's a part of teaching English, it's a part of life. Hey, at least we made it to the final, many times, right bitches?
As that Semester went along, the amazing events that followed, the wonderful people that I would work with just assured me that this new path I had chosen to go down, would turn out to be unbelievably adventurous, revealing, emotional and above all, meaningful. Truly memorable moments. Everything has seemed to go my way since then, and most of what I truly accomplished was without much effort or preparation. Just following my gut, my sense of judgment, my voice, my soul, my reason, whatever you call it.
I decided to follow my inner light and I started to make it in this world.
Tell me if that’s not just scientifically proven divine intervention, right there?
...These were some memorable teaching moments
By Teacher Caio
Apoio Picon3
...
Appendix: Society at Work
And yes, I do believe that the ripple effect works. Of course that its inside politics, favouritism and personal choices will influence the way that the money will spread around society. But there is no society, no meritocracy that works without an inner system of politics. And as anything involving merit and recognition, biased this system shall always be. However far it looks, any system that compares value is always a biased system, for any accurate determination of value requires a pattern, a scale, a way to measure the value. And determining such tool is the moment where personal preference enters the formula.
How do you choose what’s best? What’s right or wrong? We follow our instincts, that’s how. Animals we truly are. And from the earliest assumptions, most primitive labeling of good and bad, hot and cold, bright and dark, happy and sad, attractive and scary, interesting and boring, depressing and transcendental. We impose our own biased filters to catalogue all that into our words, our thoughts.
Then we seem to never be able to change that. However hard we try, some of those initial labels won’t ever leave us. Even if we update the feeling, they will forever be written in our history, as evidence.
So giving money to the wealthy is a valid technique, why not? Sure it seems unfair, because they already have all the money and so they are the ones who need it the least, so why should they have even more money? Well, I do see it as an interesting technique.
It’s actually very conservative, if you think about it. I doesn’t change the status-quo. Because if the rich get richer, then society remains unchanged. Nobody knows just how rich the rich are, anyway. We know that they don’t have the same worries as we do, and we dream of getting there one day. But we don’t have money, we just have enough to survive and keep struggling every month, hoping we don’t get fired, or killed, or very sick, or even worse, pregnant. But that’s another story I’ll tell you later.
But the rich don’t have these worries. They have different worries, I’ll give them that. But not those I just listed. And so giving more money to the rich has what effect? You make money seem unimportant to them. You encourage them to spend it. Spend it with other people, poorer people. People like you and me, who need money very much indeed.
And everybody who deserves it, who convinces the top classes to share some of their money with them, will live in better conditions. So, from the top to the bottom, you establish the politics and the economy based around services provided by citizens to other citizens paid with money. Regardless of how or why certain citizens came upon different amounts of wealth. It is a perfectly biased working meritocratical system, like many societies around Earth.
If you give money to the poor people, only, then you immediately break the balance of society. You encourage people to save money to provide for their striving and starving families. Making the whole population more balanced. It’s well intentioned at heart, but not necessarily revolutionary. It will hardly be enough to generate a leveled up society, with no poor or rich distinction. It’s just an attempt at finding middle ground between Totally Biased Meritocracies and Plain Old Communist regimes. And yes it is liberal.
So, in conclusion, I do think that the Ripple Effect works. If you don’t want to see a communist revolution, then let the government give your money to the rich, for they shall give it back to you, eventually. And as the status quo remains unchanged, you will have an equal opportunity to prove yourself valuable and earn that money fair and square, and, one day, who knows, join them in the top. If you ever want to be in there, I mean.
…
Well, that was a rather long text. Even for my standards.
This will hopefully be the first installment in a series of texts about my teaching experiences and the thoughts that arise from revisiting the past, hopefully you’ll like it.
Cheers!
Apoio Picon3
Monday 9 August 2010
Cadê as liberdades individuais?
Eu não voto nem nunca votei... Só no Emídio em Osasco, Mas aí estamos falando de um fora de série.
Acompanho essas eleições bem de longe, mais por falta de interesse e descrença nesse sistema democrático mesmo. Nem sei o que achar desses candidatos que nos são apresentados. Me parece algo semelhante ao que ocorreu na seleção brasileira de 2006 a 2010, de repente não temos mais quase nenhum nome de pedigree e a coisa toda me parece menos pomposa. Nem sei se isso é bom ou ruim.
Não vi o debate (po, jogo mais importante do ano tava rolando), não acompanho muito de perto as plataformas de nenhum dos candidatos, nem parei para ler nenhum dos manifestos no site do TSE, mas novamente o assunto das liberdades individuais não passa nem de longe pelas pautas de nenhum dos partidos. Nem na imprensa, nem nas rodinhas de bebedouro. Parece ser um problema ao qual só uma minoria se importa, só uma minoria se mobiliza, só uma minoria dá a mínima.
Exemplo claro disso foi "O Povo quer Saber com José Serra" do CQC...
Primeira pergunta - "O que você pensa sobre o Aborto?"
Serra - "Eu acho uma coisa lamentável... Uma coisa muito triste..."
Segunda pergunta - "Você pensa em discriminalizar o uso das drogas?"
Serra - "Não penso não... Eu acho que é uma estratégia que acabaria não dando certo."
Daí em diante as perguntas foram mais ao encontro do discurso já pronto dele e a coisa segue sem novidades (confira na íntegra aqui http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9f6ADRjSFA)
Mas porra Serra, tu não era Ministro da Saúde??? Não tinha uma respostinha melhor do que essa não?
O que me entristece, é ver que em pleno século XXI os tópicos que envolvem liberdades individuais ainda são tabus em nossa sociedade. Não na prática, não no Brasil que faz 1 milhão de abortos por ano,(e perde cerca de 1 mulher por dia), não no Brasil que tem 3 milhões de usuários de maconha, e ainda perde tempo e dinheiro do contribuinte em atos como esse http://blog.marchadamaconha.org/musico-preso-por-plantar-maconha-teme-que-caso-se-repita_2004 . Esses dados e números são puxados do Google, a realidade deve ser muito maior.
Percebe-se facilmente então que hoje, rotular algo de ilegal não significa que esse algo não existe ou não vai acontecer. Simplesmente significa que é algo cuja sociedade decidiu fazer vista grossa e que o mercado negro - pagando os devidos impostos para a polícia (propina) - detém o monopólio absoluto.
Vai continuar a haver uma procura intensa por abortos no Brasil, sejam eles legais ou não. Tristes ou alegres. Vão continuar a existir milhões de usuários de drogas por toda parte, sejam eles Billy Joe Armstrong ou Cheech & Chong. Otto ou Caetano Veloso. Freud ou Bob Marley.
O que me entristece mesmo, muito mais do que o Aborto, é ver essa multidão silenciosa que vê no status quo uma realidade aceitável. Que sabe que o jogo político não é para eles, nem nunca será. É ver um mundo de gente que aceita viver as escondidas. Gente que faz aquilo que quer, ou precisa, sem poder contar com o apoio do governo nem de ninguém.
Quem apoiar numa hora dessas, então?
Eu apoio Picon3
Acompanho essas eleições bem de longe, mais por falta de interesse e descrença nesse sistema democrático mesmo. Nem sei o que achar desses candidatos que nos são apresentados. Me parece algo semelhante ao que ocorreu na seleção brasileira de 2006 a 2010, de repente não temos mais quase nenhum nome de pedigree e a coisa toda me parece menos pomposa. Nem sei se isso é bom ou ruim.
Não vi o debate (po, jogo mais importante do ano tava rolando), não acompanho muito de perto as plataformas de nenhum dos candidatos, nem parei para ler nenhum dos manifestos no site do TSE, mas novamente o assunto das liberdades individuais não passa nem de longe pelas pautas de nenhum dos partidos. Nem na imprensa, nem nas rodinhas de bebedouro. Parece ser um problema ao qual só uma minoria se importa, só uma minoria se mobiliza, só uma minoria dá a mínima.
Exemplo claro disso foi "O Povo quer Saber com José Serra" do CQC...
Primeira pergunta - "O que você pensa sobre o Aborto?"
Serra - "Eu acho uma coisa lamentável... Uma coisa muito triste..."
Segunda pergunta - "Você pensa em discriminalizar o uso das drogas?"
Serra - "Não penso não... Eu acho que é uma estratégia que acabaria não dando certo."
Daí em diante as perguntas foram mais ao encontro do discurso já pronto dele e a coisa segue sem novidades (confira na íntegra aqui http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9f6ADRjSFA)
Mas porra Serra, tu não era Ministro da Saúde??? Não tinha uma respostinha melhor do que essa não?
O que me entristece, é ver que em pleno século XXI os tópicos que envolvem liberdades individuais ainda são tabus em nossa sociedade. Não na prática, não no Brasil que faz 1 milhão de abortos por ano,(e perde cerca de 1 mulher por dia), não no Brasil que tem 3 milhões de usuários de maconha, e ainda perde tempo e dinheiro do contribuinte em atos como esse http://blog.marchadamaconha.org/musico-preso-por-plantar-maconha-teme-que-caso-se-repita_2004 . Esses dados e números são puxados do Google, a realidade deve ser muito maior.
Percebe-se facilmente então que hoje, rotular algo de ilegal não significa que esse algo não existe ou não vai acontecer. Simplesmente significa que é algo cuja sociedade decidiu fazer vista grossa e que o mercado negro - pagando os devidos impostos para a polícia (propina) - detém o monopólio absoluto.
Vai continuar a haver uma procura intensa por abortos no Brasil, sejam eles legais ou não. Tristes ou alegres. Vão continuar a existir milhões de usuários de drogas por toda parte, sejam eles Billy Joe Armstrong ou Cheech & Chong. Otto ou Caetano Veloso. Freud ou Bob Marley.
O que me entristece mesmo, muito mais do que o Aborto, é ver essa multidão silenciosa que vê no status quo uma realidade aceitável. Que sabe que o jogo político não é para eles, nem nunca será. É ver um mundo de gente que aceita viver as escondidas. Gente que faz aquilo que quer, ou precisa, sem poder contar com o apoio do governo nem de ninguém.
Quem apoiar numa hora dessas, então?
Eu apoio Picon3
Monday 2 August 2010
Taylor's Third Class (part2)
So then we started talking about helping people, about giving without expecting something in return. How that would make a better world. And as the evening progressed, we ended up witnessing the very translation of our ideas into reality before our eyes.
In one unforgettable night in Tel Aviv.
When we arrived in Tel Aviv Central train station, the one next to the תחנה מרכזית, I received a call from Menachem. He and Taylor had been to the library the day before, and they were talking about this book about the Warsaw guetto fighters, or something like that. And he was telling me that he had just bought the book for Taylor, as a gift. But he didn’t want me to tell him. He wanted it to be a surprise. And so, right there, the first kindness act that would set the wheels in motion.
I didn’t tell Taylor about the book, at first I said that it was Tyler on the phone, saying that he was in Tel Aviv and wanted to meet up with us later that night. He believed me and then I just totally forgot about it. Completely. That’s the best way to keep a secret, just forget about it. Put it out of your mind totally. Because you won’t forget it for good, whenever the subject is mentioned, surely the memory of the secret will return to you instantly. That’s what the brain is for, right? But the more you think about a secret, the more likely you are to send it, maybe even unwillingly, and reveal it to the outside world. In that moment, I truly put the secret away in a hidden shelf. It would only return to my memory some hours later, in the train station, coming back home.
We then proceeded the long walk to שדרות רוטשילד, where I was used to performing live. My act was simple, effective and, most of all, pleasurable to the audience and to the entertainer. I would simply sit on one of the benches, jam with my guitar, and ask some pedestrians if they wanted to listen to a song. If they wanted to take a 3 minute break in their days and listen to a live performance by a traveling South American musician.
The ones that said no; well, what can I say? You probably had better things to do with your time and chose not to listen to me. That’s ok, that’s your choice, I guess. I understand you, for I have done it many times as well.
The ones who said yes; all I can say is thank you. For you have brought more joy and hope to my heart than I could ever imagine achieving from music. You really ignited a star inside of me. The things I heard from you guys, the people from Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and Eilat, are among some of the best compliments I have ever received in my whole life here in Brazil. It was actually a bit scary, listening to so many people telling you just how talented and amazing your performance is. I wasn’t used to that, you know? But again, thanks to all of you! You ain’t seen the last of me!
So we settled in a random bench, next to a random tree, in front of a random coffee shop, right in the middle of Tel Aviv. After some minutes of slow business, Taylor realized that having a narguila there would really be cool. I mean, we could smoke some, it was kind of chilly out so that would be cool too. And besides, we could offer it to people and make our bench jam session sound a little bit more interesting to the wandering Israeli street-dweller.
I totally dug that idea instantly. But the problem was, we had just got there, we would have to go somewhere and buy one, I was actually thinking about buying a small one for myself, but then walk all the way back. I didn’t know, you know? But he said that he could go, no problem. I could stay there, maybe make some money. And after all, the night was young, having a narguila in hand ended up being a great idea, hehehe.
While he was gone, I suddenly started having amazing luck as a street-performer. Some guy went jogging by, but then he stopped and came back to sing a little with me. He asked me to play some Beatles. I sang ‘Help’, in my traditional rocker overdriven voice. He sang along and some pedestrians turned into by-standers to watch us perform.
Among the audience there were these two girls. One of them was astonishingly beautiful, with black straight hair, and rosy cheeks. As I was singing ‘Help’, she reached into her pocket and poured 30 silver, gold and bronze coins.
Around 50 שח, some US$ 15 at the time. A lot of money to give a street performer for half a song.
I stopped playing immediately as I realized they were leaving. I was like, “Hi, I’m sorry, I can’t just let you walk away like that, what’s your name?”, “(Russian Name).”, “Where are you from?”, “Russia.”
* WAYNE’S WORLD MODE ON*
SHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!
* WAYNE’S WORLD MODE OFF*
Oh too bad that girl had to go away. They were apparently on their last night in Tel Aviv, they were going to a party and they were already late. But it’s alright, she wins the prize of most beautiful and mysterious pedestrian I have ever encountered. And one of the most generous tippers as well.
So the night was going well, I was already at 70 shekels when Taylor came back with the narguila. We lit it up and then the mood settled a bit. It was good, you know. Taylor and I needed a rest before the ultimate test that was to come later that night.
That was when we received the visit from a ghost from the past.
To be continued…
In one unforgettable night in Tel Aviv.
When we arrived in Tel Aviv Central train station, the one next to the תחנה מרכזית, I received a call from Menachem. He and Taylor had been to the library the day before, and they were talking about this book about the Warsaw guetto fighters, or something like that. And he was telling me that he had just bought the book for Taylor, as a gift. But he didn’t want me to tell him. He wanted it to be a surprise. And so, right there, the first kindness act that would set the wheels in motion.
I didn’t tell Taylor about the book, at first I said that it was Tyler on the phone, saying that he was in Tel Aviv and wanted to meet up with us later that night. He believed me and then I just totally forgot about it. Completely. That’s the best way to keep a secret, just forget about it. Put it out of your mind totally. Because you won’t forget it for good, whenever the subject is mentioned, surely the memory of the secret will return to you instantly. That’s what the brain is for, right? But the more you think about a secret, the more likely you are to send it, maybe even unwillingly, and reveal it to the outside world. In that moment, I truly put the secret away in a hidden shelf. It would only return to my memory some hours later, in the train station, coming back home.
We then proceeded the long walk to שדרות רוטשילד, where I was used to performing live. My act was simple, effective and, most of all, pleasurable to the audience and to the entertainer. I would simply sit on one of the benches, jam with my guitar, and ask some pedestrians if they wanted to listen to a song. If they wanted to take a 3 minute break in their days and listen to a live performance by a traveling South American musician.
The ones that said no; well, what can I say? You probably had better things to do with your time and chose not to listen to me. That’s ok, that’s your choice, I guess. I understand you, for I have done it many times as well.
The ones who said yes; all I can say is thank you. For you have brought more joy and hope to my heart than I could ever imagine achieving from music. You really ignited a star inside of me. The things I heard from you guys, the people from Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and Eilat, are among some of the best compliments I have ever received in my whole life here in Brazil. It was actually a bit scary, listening to so many people telling you just how talented and amazing your performance is. I wasn’t used to that, you know? But again, thanks to all of you! You ain’t seen the last of me!
So we settled in a random bench, next to a random tree, in front of a random coffee shop, right in the middle of Tel Aviv. After some minutes of slow business, Taylor realized that having a narguila there would really be cool. I mean, we could smoke some, it was kind of chilly out so that would be cool too. And besides, we could offer it to people and make our bench jam session sound a little bit more interesting to the wandering Israeli street-dweller.
I totally dug that idea instantly. But the problem was, we had just got there, we would have to go somewhere and buy one, I was actually thinking about buying a small one for myself, but then walk all the way back. I didn’t know, you know? But he said that he could go, no problem. I could stay there, maybe make some money. And after all, the night was young, having a narguila in hand ended up being a great idea, hehehe.
While he was gone, I suddenly started having amazing luck as a street-performer. Some guy went jogging by, but then he stopped and came back to sing a little with me. He asked me to play some Beatles. I sang ‘Help’, in my traditional rocker overdriven voice. He sang along and some pedestrians turned into by-standers to watch us perform.
Among the audience there were these two girls. One of them was astonishingly beautiful, with black straight hair, and rosy cheeks. As I was singing ‘Help’, she reached into her pocket and poured 30 silver, gold and bronze coins.
Around 50 שח, some US$ 15 at the time. A lot of money to give a street performer for half a song.
I stopped playing immediately as I realized they were leaving. I was like, “Hi, I’m sorry, I can’t just let you walk away like that, what’s your name?”, “(Russian Name).”, “Where are you from?”, “Russia.”
* WAYNE’S WORLD MODE ON*
SHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!
* WAYNE’S WORLD MODE OFF*
Oh too bad that girl had to go away. They were apparently on their last night in Tel Aviv, they were going to a party and they were already late. But it’s alright, she wins the prize of most beautiful and mysterious pedestrian I have ever encountered. And one of the most generous tippers as well.
So the night was going well, I was already at 70 shekels when Taylor came back with the narguila. We lit it up and then the mood settled a bit. It was good, you know. Taylor and I needed a rest before the ultimate test that was to come later that night.
That was when we received the visit from a ghost from the past.
To be continued…
Sunday 1 August 2010
Dica Picon3: Como secar as Mãos
Eu tenho uma birra com máquinas e utensílios de banheiros de shopping, verdadeiras engenhocas para controlar a distribuição de papel higiênico.
Não da privada, lá é a vontade. Lá você pode abrir o bandejão e jogar o rolo inteirinho dentro da privada. Eles não tão nem aí. Mas quando você termina seus assuntos particulares e vai lavar a mão, aí sim. É lá que vai parar toda a tecnologia higienética do século XXI.
Tem aquele com sensor de mão, só dá papel para mãos. Mãos humanas, se você passar qualquer outra mão aqui eu não vou dar nada. Se bem que você, que não tiver uma mão, pode simplesmente pedir para qualquer outra pessoa lá presente que pegue para você. É, a máquina não distingue se você já pegou ou não. Ela simplesmente segura o papel até que alguém vá pedir. Aí ela só dá um! Só um! Se quiser mais é só pedir mais. Mas é um por vez!
Porra, aí não era melhor pegar o quanto a máquina consome em eletricidade e pagar para um desses pobres coitados tomar conta do papel no banheiro? Pelo menos ele não vai liberar nada quando alguém vier pedir mais que duas folhas! Ai que desaforo!
Isso quando não é um secador! Lembra dos apagões? Dos blecautes? De quando todo mundo de repente teve de se preocupar com eletricidade? Aquele grande golpe orquestrado pela OSRAM e todas outras empresas produtoras de luzes frias? E o que mais torrava eletricidade naquela época? Os chuveiros, torneiras elétricas e... Secadores de cabelo!!! E não é um pouco estranho que alguns anos mais tarde, começaram a pipocar secadores de mãos em todos shoppings da cidade? Do país!
Gente, como que secar uma mão com ar quente é melhor para o meio ambiente do que secar numa folha de papel fudido? Aquele papel pode ser reciclado do reciclado, pode ser jornal cagado e lavado, pode ser qualquer cor ou textura, aquilo vai prejudicar menos o meio ambiente do que um secador!!! Que nem seca porra nenhuma!
Num sei como até hoje tem gente que ainda perde um minuto inteiro queimando os pelinhos da mão. Porra, que bando de gente anormal! Quer um ato a favor do meio ambiente? Que não danifica nem prejudica em absolutamente nada o meio ambiente, e ainda é super eficaz contra mãos molhadas? A calça! Faça como eu e milhares de brasileiros, seque suas mãos na sua própria bunda e tenha um mundo melhor!
Dica Picon3 Um
Não da privada, lá é a vontade. Lá você pode abrir o bandejão e jogar o rolo inteirinho dentro da privada. Eles não tão nem aí. Mas quando você termina seus assuntos particulares e vai lavar a mão, aí sim. É lá que vai parar toda a tecnologia higienética do século XXI.
Tem aquele com sensor de mão, só dá papel para mãos. Mãos humanas, se você passar qualquer outra mão aqui eu não vou dar nada. Se bem que você, que não tiver uma mão, pode simplesmente pedir para qualquer outra pessoa lá presente que pegue para você. É, a máquina não distingue se você já pegou ou não. Ela simplesmente segura o papel até que alguém vá pedir. Aí ela só dá um! Só um! Se quiser mais é só pedir mais. Mas é um por vez!
Porra, aí não era melhor pegar o quanto a máquina consome em eletricidade e pagar para um desses pobres coitados tomar conta do papel no banheiro? Pelo menos ele não vai liberar nada quando alguém vier pedir mais que duas folhas! Ai que desaforo!
Isso quando não é um secador! Lembra dos apagões? Dos blecautes? De quando todo mundo de repente teve de se preocupar com eletricidade? Aquele grande golpe orquestrado pela OSRAM e todas outras empresas produtoras de luzes frias? E o que mais torrava eletricidade naquela época? Os chuveiros, torneiras elétricas e... Secadores de cabelo!!! E não é um pouco estranho que alguns anos mais tarde, começaram a pipocar secadores de mãos em todos shoppings da cidade? Do país!
Gente, como que secar uma mão com ar quente é melhor para o meio ambiente do que secar numa folha de papel fudido? Aquele papel pode ser reciclado do reciclado, pode ser jornal cagado e lavado, pode ser qualquer cor ou textura, aquilo vai prejudicar menos o meio ambiente do que um secador!!! Que nem seca porra nenhuma!
Num sei como até hoje tem gente que ainda perde um minuto inteiro queimando os pelinhos da mão. Porra, que bando de gente anormal! Quer um ato a favor do meio ambiente? Que não danifica nem prejudica em absolutamente nada o meio ambiente, e ainda é super eficaz contra mãos molhadas? A calça! Faça como eu e milhares de brasileiros, seque suas mãos na sua própria bunda e tenha um mundo melhor!
Dica Picon3 Um
Taylor's Third Class
It was supposed to have been the third music class.
It ended up being a night to remember.
I knew Taylor from the Ulpan. He was one of the American kids. I was never real friends with any of those kids until pretty much after the Ulpan ended. Maybe some jams with BJ, maybe some nights out smoking with Josh, but certainly not much with Taylor. But after that night, it all changed.
Wow, it sounds pretty gay so far. Let me just clear out that I’m Caio. One of the Brazilian kids. Maybe that old Brazilian dude with the long hair and the guitar. The one who spoke English so well, that his pickup line was that he was from Baltimore. The salty Balties. Hey, that’s a great name for a band!
And my relationship with Taylor was only that of two friends, school-mates sort of speak. Two guys studying and living in Israel in a six-month Jewish program. And we both, since the beginning, established ourselves within a certain stereotype, we willingly embodied an archetype. I was the guitar dude, with the long hair. He was the raver, with the cool gloves. Some people thought they were lame, I always thought they were kind of cool.
The first time that me and Taylor connected, musically, was one night on the beach. Hannah and Maya wanted to go explore the cool crisp eastern Mediterranean beach vibe, and so some guys decided to come with. And among them, there was me with the guitar, and Taylor with the gloves.
The night was fun. We crashed a 70s style tent party, filled with 30 year olds. Danced a little and then moved to a quieter side of the beach. We then jammed a little with the guitar. I led, as usual, but Taylor, surprisingly was one of the most enthusiastic about it. He actually joined me for pretty much the entire session. We actually liked the same style of guitar rock and so we sang many songs together.
Despite the fact that first jam was a success, the history of the Ulpan would show, if ever re-written, that me and Taylor naturally started moving apart, pledging allegiance to certain groups, naturally sprung around that unforgettable Ulpan.
And the weeks turned into months, Taylor gradually stopped playing with his gloves in public anymore. Or at least that was what seamed from my perspective. So when they put together the talent show, around October, I was the one who really gave incentive to Taylor’s glove act. And even though he was reluctant at first, he eventually sign up in the talent show.
And he did very well. I didn’t do as well as him, when I performed solo. Sure, my duo performances with Jimmy and Etai were pretty good. But when I was alone up there, playing for the first time in my life with the strap on, I wasn’t very good. Shit, I sucked! But Taylor didn’t, he really delivered. And I think that episode had something to do with his participating way more actively towards the end of the Ulpan, especially the barbecue that he and Menachem organized for New Year’s Eve. That was a night to remember!
Well, after the Ulpan, there were only twenty some people left. And that was when those that stayed a little bit longer had their best times there. I’m sure that was my case! And that was when our friendship started to grow stronger.
It all started one night, in Taylor’s room. He, BJ, Josh, Michael and I were smoking, drinking and talking about the Ulpan, the people, Mike, the next move and all those things that we wanted to have done with the people that had already left. Phew.
One of those things was mine and Taylor’s music classes. Once I think he asked me if I would teach him something. Maybe we had a moment or two in the piano together. Maybe he saw me teach something to somebody, I don’t know. But that night me and him decided to have the first music class.
I got so excited that I put a class plan together in a second. A jiffy if you would. The concept was simple. Improvisation, jamming and music theory. Music philosophy, if you would.
The first was class was very theoretical and philosophical. Most of the parenthesis that I opened during my monologue, are still waiting to be closed to this day. I went on and on about what was sound, music, art, language, science and the humanization of nature. The mathematical transcription that we apply to nature. Digitalization, bro.
That somehow led us to western music, its musical notations and symbols. And we almost jammed a little in the end. It were good two hours spent together. I’m sure he didn’t regret sitting in that cold piano room, with a dude six years older than him, listening to that Brazilian guy babble on and on about all that shit that’s way more interesting when you’re high. And that has to be said, in that class, the teacher was high on Picon3. The student too, sure, but in another way. If you know what I’m saying, of course.
The second class was more of the same. He showed me some stuff he had done by himself. His homework, his ideas and his doubts. We jammed some more, maybe played a song of two, and I saw promise in that kid. He was only 18, an electronic music fan. A raver, for crying out loud. And he was my first true music student.
Time then got away from us. We could never find time to have that third class. The one to end things in a high note. When we realized it, January was over and we would have to leave the kibbutz. Oh those were amazing times. The Ulpan at Ma’agan Michael. Highly recommended. Vai com fé. Just beware of Mike.
Then the last day came. Me, him and Menachem were the last ulpanists left. And that last afternoon, I was heading to Tel Aviv, to meet up Avi, Patrick and Natasha. Oh yeah, I was also going to the city to busk and try to make some money in the streets. I was already used to doing that by myself, had made actually a good amount in my busking attempts in Tel Aviv, Eilat and Amsterdam.
That was when we realized. Why didn’t he just came with me, tagged along with a real life musician for a night out in the streets? It was a perfect unplanned ending. The musician wannabe watching the working musician. As any true class should end. With the student actually witnessing the importance of what’s being taught. If the techniques aren’t used precisely in that manner I was taught, then why did I learn it? So that’s why teachers should follow in my footsteps and always try their best to make it clear to every student, the importance of what’s being taught.
I took him with me to Tel Aviv to show him what living from music really meant. At least to me, at that point. I was trying to live from music, make money from it. And he would like, one day, why not? Sounds pretty good. It’s everybody’s dream, isn’t it? Living off of music? I would love to. But it’s hard.
On the way there, we, for some reason, started talking about giving and paying it forward. Helping people without looking for some in return. Oh yeah, I remembered why. It was because we hitchhiked from the kibbutz to the train station and we got a bad lift. I mean, the lady was nice enough to drive us all the way to Binyamina, but dropped us 10 blocks from the train station. I mean, sure, she lived right there, she was home. So she had helped us a lot already. But come on, just take a 3 minute detour in your day and give a 30 minute gift card to a couple of striving musicians!
So that’s how we started talking about being kind and giving gifts to people. Helping people and telling them to pay it forward. Hell, that’s the beginning of all the ramifications that led me to write the Brazilian-Hungarian manifest, in my last night in Budapest, some weeks after that.
But this is already getting too big. I’ll continue it later.
Picon3
It ended up being a night to remember.
I knew Taylor from the Ulpan. He was one of the American kids. I was never real friends with any of those kids until pretty much after the Ulpan ended. Maybe some jams with BJ, maybe some nights out smoking with Josh, but certainly not much with Taylor. But after that night, it all changed.
Wow, it sounds pretty gay so far. Let me just clear out that I’m Caio. One of the Brazilian kids. Maybe that old Brazilian dude with the long hair and the guitar. The one who spoke English so well, that his pickup line was that he was from Baltimore. The salty Balties. Hey, that’s a great name for a band!
And my relationship with Taylor was only that of two friends, school-mates sort of speak. Two guys studying and living in Israel in a six-month Jewish program. And we both, since the beginning, established ourselves within a certain stereotype, we willingly embodied an archetype. I was the guitar dude, with the long hair. He was the raver, with the cool gloves. Some people thought they were lame, I always thought they were kind of cool.
The first time that me and Taylor connected, musically, was one night on the beach. Hannah and Maya wanted to go explore the cool crisp eastern Mediterranean beach vibe, and so some guys decided to come with. And among them, there was me with the guitar, and Taylor with the gloves.
The night was fun. We crashed a 70s style tent party, filled with 30 year olds. Danced a little and then moved to a quieter side of the beach. We then jammed a little with the guitar. I led, as usual, but Taylor, surprisingly was one of the most enthusiastic about it. He actually joined me for pretty much the entire session. We actually liked the same style of guitar rock and so we sang many songs together.
Despite the fact that first jam was a success, the history of the Ulpan would show, if ever re-written, that me and Taylor naturally started moving apart, pledging allegiance to certain groups, naturally sprung around that unforgettable Ulpan.
And the weeks turned into months, Taylor gradually stopped playing with his gloves in public anymore. Or at least that was what seamed from my perspective. So when they put together the talent show, around October, I was the one who really gave incentive to Taylor’s glove act. And even though he was reluctant at first, he eventually sign up in the talent show.
And he did very well. I didn’t do as well as him, when I performed solo. Sure, my duo performances with Jimmy and Etai were pretty good. But when I was alone up there, playing for the first time in my life with the strap on, I wasn’t very good. Shit, I sucked! But Taylor didn’t, he really delivered. And I think that episode had something to do with his participating way more actively towards the end of the Ulpan, especially the barbecue that he and Menachem organized for New Year’s Eve. That was a night to remember!
Well, after the Ulpan, there were only twenty some people left. And that was when those that stayed a little bit longer had their best times there. I’m sure that was my case! And that was when our friendship started to grow stronger.
It all started one night, in Taylor’s room. He, BJ, Josh, Michael and I were smoking, drinking and talking about the Ulpan, the people, Mike, the next move and all those things that we wanted to have done with the people that had already left. Phew.
One of those things was mine and Taylor’s music classes. Once I think he asked me if I would teach him something. Maybe we had a moment or two in the piano together. Maybe he saw me teach something to somebody, I don’t know. But that night me and him decided to have the first music class.
I got so excited that I put a class plan together in a second. A jiffy if you would. The concept was simple. Improvisation, jamming and music theory. Music philosophy, if you would.
The first was class was very theoretical and philosophical. Most of the parenthesis that I opened during my monologue, are still waiting to be closed to this day. I went on and on about what was sound, music, art, language, science and the humanization of nature. The mathematical transcription that we apply to nature. Digitalization, bro.
That somehow led us to western music, its musical notations and symbols. And we almost jammed a little in the end. It were good two hours spent together. I’m sure he didn’t regret sitting in that cold piano room, with a dude six years older than him, listening to that Brazilian guy babble on and on about all that shit that’s way more interesting when you’re high. And that has to be said, in that class, the teacher was high on Picon3. The student too, sure, but in another way. If you know what I’m saying, of course.
The second class was more of the same. He showed me some stuff he had done by himself. His homework, his ideas and his doubts. We jammed some more, maybe played a song of two, and I saw promise in that kid. He was only 18, an electronic music fan. A raver, for crying out loud. And he was my first true music student.
Time then got away from us. We could never find time to have that third class. The one to end things in a high note. When we realized it, January was over and we would have to leave the kibbutz. Oh those were amazing times. The Ulpan at Ma’agan Michael. Highly recommended. Vai com fé. Just beware of Mike.
Then the last day came. Me, him and Menachem were the last ulpanists left. And that last afternoon, I was heading to Tel Aviv, to meet up Avi, Patrick and Natasha. Oh yeah, I was also going to the city to busk and try to make some money in the streets. I was already used to doing that by myself, had made actually a good amount in my busking attempts in Tel Aviv, Eilat and Amsterdam.
That was when we realized. Why didn’t he just came with me, tagged along with a real life musician for a night out in the streets? It was a perfect unplanned ending. The musician wannabe watching the working musician. As any true class should end. With the student actually witnessing the importance of what’s being taught. If the techniques aren’t used precisely in that manner I was taught, then why did I learn it? So that’s why teachers should follow in my footsteps and always try their best to make it clear to every student, the importance of what’s being taught.
I took him with me to Tel Aviv to show him what living from music really meant. At least to me, at that point. I was trying to live from music, make money from it. And he would like, one day, why not? Sounds pretty good. It’s everybody’s dream, isn’t it? Living off of music? I would love to. But it’s hard.
On the way there, we, for some reason, started talking about giving and paying it forward. Helping people without looking for some in return. Oh yeah, I remembered why. It was because we hitchhiked from the kibbutz to the train station and we got a bad lift. I mean, the lady was nice enough to drive us all the way to Binyamina, but dropped us 10 blocks from the train station. I mean, sure, she lived right there, she was home. So she had helped us a lot already. But come on, just take a 3 minute detour in your day and give a 30 minute gift card to a couple of striving musicians!
So that’s how we started talking about being kind and giving gifts to people. Helping people and telling them to pay it forward. Hell, that’s the beginning of all the ramifications that led me to write the Brazilian-Hungarian manifest, in my last night in Budapest, some weeks after that.
But this is already getting too big. I’ll continue it later.
Picon3
Saturday 31 July 2010
Por que a dublagem brasileira é ruim?
Ela não é ruim. Ela é boa. Mas ela está sendo usada em lugares ruins.
A dublagem americana é boa. Pois ela é boa sim e ela está sendo usada em lugares bons. Lugares americanos.
Já a brasileira está sendo usada também, mas só em lugares estrangeiros. Dentre eles, o mais proeminente é o americano.
A dublagem brasileira fica então, quando consumidas pelo brasileiro, uma coisa com gostinho de, sei lá, algo menos significativo. Algo meio feito nas coxas. Algo as vezes exagerado demais, traduzido demais. Algo que não faz parte da arte nacional.
Claro, há os dubladores bons com trabalhos históricos no currículo. A voz de um Quico, de um Scooby Doo, de um Salsicha, de um Homer, de um Batman, de um Robin, de um Coringa falando com a tia do Batman. Aí a gente tem que reconhecer o trabalho fenomenal executado por esses profissionais do mais alto calibre.
Mas quando se pensa em filmes hollywoodianos a gente sempre acabou preso, às mesmas 12 vozes que pareciam fazer todos os filmes. É, e sempre foi, para mim, um contraste muito grande com a produção original. Cada filme eles vinham com um rosto novo, uma pessoa nova, uma alma nova, uma voz nova no mundo artístico, e aqui acabava sempre soando parecido, familiar, sempre uma das vozes veteranas faziam o papel. As vezes com maestria, as vezes com falhas grotescas. Mas sempre sem-sal.
O que a dublagem brasileira precisa, então, é de uma produção nacional à altura. Uma produção nacional de qualidade que utilize a nata da dublagem nacional. E por dublagem englobo todos os ‘voice-artist’ dubladores nacionais, celebridades ou não, nesse grupo. Em produções que precisem da dublagem, tenham na dublagem a única fonte de vozes para suas produções. Sejam, desenhos animados, animações 3d, longas, curtas, para internet, TV ou cinema. Foco tanto adulto quanto infantil e quem sabe até produções originais, com foco na terceira idade. Já pensou? Desenhos animados para os idosos? Um jeito de lucrar nesse mercado adormecido?
Mas algo que seja adptado a nossa realidade. Não traduzido ao pé da letra de uma outra cultura, com piadas completamente diferentes das nossas, impossíveis de serem traduzidas ao pé da letra com o óbvio custo de se perder a graça. Porra, se uma piada é um trocadilho, um ‘pun’ em inglês, então não se pode traduzir ao pé da letra. Exemplo:
“Did you hear about the guy whose whole left-side was cut off?”
“No! How is he?”
“Ah, he’s alright now.”
Tradução, explanação: “Ei, você ouviu do cara que teve o lado esquerdo completamente cortado fora?”
“Não! Como ele está?”
“Ele está bem agora.”
Brasileiro, por favor entenda, essa piada tinha graça sim! O tradutor/dublador é que matou a graça. Mas era não era tão difícil ter tentado manter a piada. “Ele está direito agora.” Seria uma tradução possível, não? E porque você não prefiriu ir com ela e tentar manter a graça?
Numa produção nacional isso não ocorre. O texto seria lido e interpretado pelo ator/dublador e entrado como audio original da obra de arte. Um contexto muito superior ao anterior. Os gringos é que iriam ter que saber se iriam dublar ou não. Imagina se alguma produção nossa vira um south park brasileiro? Um desenho animado que não dá para dublar? E é um sucesso na gringa, no youtube, mas só existe em português. Mas o som é tão bom, as vozes são tão boas, que acaba sendo mais fácil simplesmente legendar no youtube e assistir logo. E também porque os voice-artist deles não são tão bons quando trabalham em projetos assim.
Temos que ter apoio dos grandes canais para produzirmos desenhos animados feitos por grandes times da televisão. Assim como as jóias que foram os simpsons, south park, family guy, todos os infantis históricos como os da ACME, os da Hannah Barbera, Disney, gente de peso que trabalhou na produção de arte na sua forma mais angelical e inocente, e ao mesmo tempo na mais engraçada e inteligente forma de produção artística de video, de todos os tempos.
Cadê a contribuição brasileira no ramo dos desenhos animados? Somos nada! Quase nada, admito que há gente que tenta, Mega Liga de VJs, Charges.com, mas cadê os grande nomes? Os grandes nomes tem que estar associados aos desenhos animados e aí começaremos a ter grandes produções animadas. Coisa que os outros países vão consumir, com certeza. Produção nacional, com qualidade e novidade, no original em português, mas que pode vir a ser dublado na terra deles também.
O que estaria sendo vendido é o conceito, as imagens, a arte dos desenhistas e a criatividade do roteirista nacional. A dublagem caberia a responsabilidade de dar o impacto maior aqui no Brasil. Criar os novos sons, as novas vozes que vão entrar para a história, pelos ouvidos de todos os brasileiros, e ficar para sempre recoando pelos cérebros do país. E essa é a maior de todas as responsabilidades.
E a todos os críticos do país. De qualquer coisa, no país. O desenho animado, institucionalizado, bancado por uma emissora do nível de uma Globo, um SBT, uma BAND, ou qualquer uma das outras. E digo qualquer uma pois pode ser uma pequena, que banque menos mas que garanta exibição nacional e, acima de tudo, estabilidade na produção, com salários de qualidade para toda equipe de produção. Aí você tem o youtube como ótima ferramenta de distribuição. Pois com altas visitas em cada vídeo, você pode mesmo televisionar através dele, ele oferece dinheiro por anúncios. É exatamente como você tocaria um canal de TV aberta ou fechada. Só que só com o seu material. Mas exibição na TV convencional ainda atrai muito mais gente. E, por algum motivo óbvio que eu não sei, gera muito mais grana.
De qualquer maneira, quando a produção artística e animada nacional, chegar aos pés da internacional, aí a dublagem brasileira terá uma base suficiente para finalmente brilhar aqui no Brasil, sair de trás das curtinas e revelar a todos os seu talento.
A dublagem americana é boa. Pois ela é boa sim e ela está sendo usada em lugares bons. Lugares americanos.
Já a brasileira está sendo usada também, mas só em lugares estrangeiros. Dentre eles, o mais proeminente é o americano.
A dublagem brasileira fica então, quando consumidas pelo brasileiro, uma coisa com gostinho de, sei lá, algo menos significativo. Algo meio feito nas coxas. Algo as vezes exagerado demais, traduzido demais. Algo que não faz parte da arte nacional.
Claro, há os dubladores bons com trabalhos históricos no currículo. A voz de um Quico, de um Scooby Doo, de um Salsicha, de um Homer, de um Batman, de um Robin, de um Coringa falando com a tia do Batman. Aí a gente tem que reconhecer o trabalho fenomenal executado por esses profissionais do mais alto calibre.
Mas quando se pensa em filmes hollywoodianos a gente sempre acabou preso, às mesmas 12 vozes que pareciam fazer todos os filmes. É, e sempre foi, para mim, um contraste muito grande com a produção original. Cada filme eles vinham com um rosto novo, uma pessoa nova, uma alma nova, uma voz nova no mundo artístico, e aqui acabava sempre soando parecido, familiar, sempre uma das vozes veteranas faziam o papel. As vezes com maestria, as vezes com falhas grotescas. Mas sempre sem-sal.
O que a dublagem brasileira precisa, então, é de uma produção nacional à altura. Uma produção nacional de qualidade que utilize a nata da dublagem nacional. E por dublagem englobo todos os ‘voice-artist’ dubladores nacionais, celebridades ou não, nesse grupo. Em produções que precisem da dublagem, tenham na dublagem a única fonte de vozes para suas produções. Sejam, desenhos animados, animações 3d, longas, curtas, para internet, TV ou cinema. Foco tanto adulto quanto infantil e quem sabe até produções originais, com foco na terceira idade. Já pensou? Desenhos animados para os idosos? Um jeito de lucrar nesse mercado adormecido?
Mas algo que seja adptado a nossa realidade. Não traduzido ao pé da letra de uma outra cultura, com piadas completamente diferentes das nossas, impossíveis de serem traduzidas ao pé da letra com o óbvio custo de se perder a graça. Porra, se uma piada é um trocadilho, um ‘pun’ em inglês, então não se pode traduzir ao pé da letra. Exemplo:
“Did you hear about the guy whose whole left-side was cut off?”
“No! How is he?”
“Ah, he’s alright now.”
Tradução, explanação: “Ei, você ouviu do cara que teve o lado esquerdo completamente cortado fora?”
“Não! Como ele está?”
“Ele está bem agora.”
Brasileiro, por favor entenda, essa piada tinha graça sim! O tradutor/dublador é que matou a graça. Mas era não era tão difícil ter tentado manter a piada. “Ele está direito agora.” Seria uma tradução possível, não? E porque você não prefiriu ir com ela e tentar manter a graça?
Numa produção nacional isso não ocorre. O texto seria lido e interpretado pelo ator/dublador e entrado como audio original da obra de arte. Um contexto muito superior ao anterior. Os gringos é que iriam ter que saber se iriam dublar ou não. Imagina se alguma produção nossa vira um south park brasileiro? Um desenho animado que não dá para dublar? E é um sucesso na gringa, no youtube, mas só existe em português. Mas o som é tão bom, as vozes são tão boas, que acaba sendo mais fácil simplesmente legendar no youtube e assistir logo. E também porque os voice-artist deles não são tão bons quando trabalham em projetos assim.
Temos que ter apoio dos grandes canais para produzirmos desenhos animados feitos por grandes times da televisão. Assim como as jóias que foram os simpsons, south park, family guy, todos os infantis históricos como os da ACME, os da Hannah Barbera, Disney, gente de peso que trabalhou na produção de arte na sua forma mais angelical e inocente, e ao mesmo tempo na mais engraçada e inteligente forma de produção artística de video, de todos os tempos.
Cadê a contribuição brasileira no ramo dos desenhos animados? Somos nada! Quase nada, admito que há gente que tenta, Mega Liga de VJs, Charges.com, mas cadê os grande nomes? Os grandes nomes tem que estar associados aos desenhos animados e aí começaremos a ter grandes produções animadas. Coisa que os outros países vão consumir, com certeza. Produção nacional, com qualidade e novidade, no original em português, mas que pode vir a ser dublado na terra deles também.
O que estaria sendo vendido é o conceito, as imagens, a arte dos desenhistas e a criatividade do roteirista nacional. A dublagem caberia a responsabilidade de dar o impacto maior aqui no Brasil. Criar os novos sons, as novas vozes que vão entrar para a história, pelos ouvidos de todos os brasileiros, e ficar para sempre recoando pelos cérebros do país. E essa é a maior de todas as responsabilidades.
E a todos os críticos do país. De qualquer coisa, no país. O desenho animado, institucionalizado, bancado por uma emissora do nível de uma Globo, um SBT, uma BAND, ou qualquer uma das outras. E digo qualquer uma pois pode ser uma pequena, que banque menos mas que garanta exibição nacional e, acima de tudo, estabilidade na produção, com salários de qualidade para toda equipe de produção. Aí você tem o youtube como ótima ferramenta de distribuição. Pois com altas visitas em cada vídeo, você pode mesmo televisionar através dele, ele oferece dinheiro por anúncios. É exatamente como você tocaria um canal de TV aberta ou fechada. Só que só com o seu material. Mas exibição na TV convencional ainda atrai muito mais gente. E, por algum motivo óbvio que eu não sei, gera muito mais grana.
De qualquer maneira, quando a produção artística e animada nacional, chegar aos pés da internacional, aí a dublagem brasileira terá uma base suficiente para finalmente brilhar aqui no Brasil, sair de trás das curtinas e revelar a todos os seu talento.
Thursday 29 July 2010
Free Thinking
Today, while watching an episode of the Flight of the Conchords and smoking the Picon3, a thought came to me.
It was that episode from the first season with all the racism. During that scene, towards the end of the episode, where they are exchanging offensive hand-gestures and having an argument with the fruit guy, Jermaine points some differences between their culture and the American culture.
He says, and I’ll quote, “It doesn’t matter what they smell like, or that they spell words slightly differently, some would say, more correctly”. Now I see sheer poetry in these words. Astonishing beauty. But that’s probably because I’m high. But back then, when I first saw it, I saw the past. I had a perfect glimpse of the past. Of our linguistical past.
This part of our past can be written by anyone who chooses to. And whatever it may be, it has the exact same probability of being correct, as any other version that could be written by anybody.
I’m talking about the evolution of our language. Just the same as with the evolution of our species, there have to have been initial bases of formation. Initial sounds, the first ones. The ones that got carried through to today.
Just like with living creatures, where new species became different species by differentiating themselves from the original one. The parent one.
So let’s start thinking about it this way, the concept of ‘word’ now is equivalent to the concept of ‘species’. They mean the same type of thing, that is a thing of its own but contains a lot of different variations. Its possibilities allow for the existence of many of its kind. But that also makes it a part of something greater, not the great apex itself.
And being a part of a larger existence means you are contained inside a larger capsule, that could be itself contained inside a larger capsule, that could be itself contained inside a larger capsule, that could be inside this very dot, I shall invoke with my key.
Sidetracking this whole thing, I’ll bring some differently aimed philosophy and physics to the table. It could be true, you know. Have you thought about it long enough? Well, for all we know, we could definitely be inside just about anything. A nutshell, some goofy colored marbles (or should I say ‘coloured’ hehehe… well, I’ll get to that a bit later), hell, we could inside a quark, couldn’t we?
Time is not infinite, it had a beginning and it will have an end. People are always wondering, oh my, what originated time? We did it! We probably got some help somewhere down the line. But we have it. We care for it. It came with us, we were the first ones to talk about it. It thrives now. But once we’re gone. If nobody keeps track of it anymore, then it will go away too.
What about space, huh? Space is truly infinite. That’s where divine creation starts to mean something. We are perfectly complex, conscious and interacting with our surroundings. Able to even destroy the very star that sparkled us. Yet, we amount to nothing, when compared to the ever widening, breathtaking corridors of space. This vast connection of systems and particles, that frankly, seems to grow bigger every time we look at it! Well, at least every time we make better lenses.
This space that I talk about is the true frontier. If god really planned this universe, the way it is, perfectly suitable for us in every aspect. Then he’d better have some good old mysterious way for allowing us to travel around this thing. Why would he make everything so small? I mean, here we are, his children. Hell, his only children, right? Lost in the produce section of a massive supermarket. Why would God do that to us?
I mean, when the Earth was everything that he created, when our village was everything that we new. Then the Garden of Eden was somewhat similar to our home. That delightful naiveness to assume you are everything in somebody else’s universe, that you are the purpose of His existence. What if God made us, yes, but also made a whole lot of different things, cooler than us? Can’t he leave us aside for one second to show his other godlike friends of His, some cool supernovas that he has been shooting across his Picon3 Universe? Some of the cool black whole effects you can add in the new version. Just a thought, just a thought.
I’m just saying that yes, we are positioned in the three dimensions of space, right here, and in our invented dimension of time, right now. But we are also positioned in the fourth spatial dimension. The scale. Our whole universe is in the same scale. Maybe we are occupying the same place as another entire universe, that occupies the same coordinates as ours, but is in a different scale.
When you assume that the scale is the fourth spatial dimension, the concepts of size, big and small, become more relative. Our universe is big, oh yes. But when compared to the drop of acid that it could be contained inside, then it’s still larger as a concept, if you accept the concept of a universe as something universal, but on a much smaller scale.
Think about this for a second. And then think some more. What is the proportion between our size and our universe’s size? This proportion is the life proportion. We know that, with a universe as big as ours you can introduce and maintain people like us. There’s a whole lot more of things you can get from this type of universe; hopefully, after a complete evaluation of the possibilities of this universe we seem to inhabit, we would still make it to the top-10 coolest things that comes with it.
Maybe it’s gonna come down to, “Hey, download this program, it’s called Picon3 Universe, you can generate a bunch of these bizarre galaxy clusters, and I made a 4 star system with 23 planets that spell out my name. In all the planets I put happy indigenous creatures that are all perfectly happy to exist, they all try to do their best to improve their lives and their environment, always respecting eachother’s differences and helping me making their universe a better place.”, “And what about these guys here, melting their planet?”, ”Well, they are kind of awkward. Can’t really seem to get them to stop destroying everything. You know what? Thanks for reminding me, I’ve been meaning to delete these guys for ages now. Here you gooooOOOOOoooOOOoOOOooOOoOOoOOoOOoOOoOoOooOoOoOo
OooOOOOOooooOoOOoOoOoOOPOoOoOIOOo(*OOolKOOÇOP^`_)PO(ípu´pk´k´plik´p7ulik´plutnkt8ktn798j0b9kj567yi0myhfn5-6gij35v603kgck30-gfx20xf13-01kl3ç3kdzx2dkp´23ockd´po4kf´5kgb9k45=g39k6=h6k=nh94k7=9nk7j´b7kh4okv3´pokvc´po5k2´cxp25´p4ogk2´p5okgv32p´6ob´h397kh39´57khn=437nk479j0kn4=079jk47vk7´h3k6opgck3´p5ogk2´5xm1´4nxf13bfg1v315f850ct29-4vyhugbrkvblkabpefaérfnadvsdvasaçlsjdfsdjfadjfaçlkvnaçdjvkasdvkabç4jna54m5an4.ma4n.fm,nfa;.dkfn;asdfmasdf]ápsdgo[a5e=-009530-4or~]pqelrkaWEF,sd>FAw,erq.3,41#$$,12#:>r,23]rq,we]rqwlker]qlwkerqwlçekr~1oj4k´1j35p134tperhgájreng´qrngfqjdnvasdvnaeoifaneufnesvusnveuveuquerowefãsdfãoskr~qpo3wkaõkja~ejfqowfdqpofpúqwf´qoheije[pfojkd[pfokq[ofk[pokf[´pidu´f´sd~mks~ke´[pfkc[pvok[´rk[´dkv´d[kfsdófskdg[asdfasfamasf[ a[sadpoasodakspdokasdoasdãsçça,dsakçsmdvamda´svmavmasfdvamsdãvm~kbtoa[pov ka[povkapvoksrpoapok[aposkdpoakwdpovkwqd´pjvqrhegpobrgboijrgísbrj´gisbjrgosbijrgoisbejrgisbjrgísjbweeubjbjjesbtobjuhiba´pbkawp[owekbscrekvnéind´pdojop[jfijaíf´fijfijefibjefíobeajfbáiejfbaoiefcocisaosvnjbprab lcxaral apwoirja iowd´iawjdo aiwjd´ijwa´dja´wijdapwndpancaowr´prap apr a´pra prap´rapr apr ap´r parpawraíwjr´iawj´ioajdoi ajwdoi jawdoija wdimas então. Como eu estava dizendo.
Again, the proportion between our size and our universe’s size is the life proportion. It’s related to the larger proportion between our universe’s size and an atom’s size. Or a proton’s size. Maybe a quark’s size. You chemists will take it from here. This proportion is the overall universe proportion. If we start digging deep inside a quark, and we find one step between one structure and the next one, is just as proportional as the step from our universe to us. Then we would have to accept the obvious possibility of having an entire universe, exactly like ours, inside of a quark. But in another scale.
There’s no telling what can be inside of a quark. Let’s say one day we find a type of particle that’s inside of a thing that’s inside of a quark. This particle seems to be completely empty of everything. Until one day somebody decides to look inside again, but now, with much better lenses. And we find that the size of the things inside this particle is in the same proportion to the size of the particle itself, as the size of our atoms when compared to our universe. Wouldn’t that imply that there is an equivalent universe inside every one of those particles? There probably is, but in another scale.
We are positioned in a section of the scale. Our section is like a strip in a giant ruler. We shaped our reality around our limitations, created a limited reality for ourselves, and seem to be completely incapable of reaching outside the barriers of our own position in the scale.
It’s very hard to interact with, or even acknowledge the existence of different realities. It’s even harder to understand the implications of different scales in our actual working life. We are not the only ones around. We are merely one of its vibrations. Watch ‘Horton Hears a Who’, for further reference.
Ver tudo ao mesmo tempo, não é uma benção, é uma maldição.
Saber tudo que acontece, sem intervalos, não há curtição.
Eu que não quero nem saber, só quero quando eu quiser.
Eu que procuro esquecer, esperando o que der e vier.
Mas você vem me perturbar, não para de falar,
Me aperta o peito, me define sem parar.
Actually, all this stuff came to me too. A bunch of stuff that I, by pressing some black little squares positioned in a board right in front of me, I managed to put down to paper, sort of speak, some of this stuff that comes to me.
The original idea that came to me and that inspired me to start writing, is about the formation of our languages. The evolution of words from, the first words uttered by the first creatures that chose to make sounds, to this structured language that we have installed in our brains. What was the first human word? What was the first combination of phonemes that he chose to make come out of his mouth? And who was the first one to agree that he had, in fact, said something? Created something?
Words were created all the time. Some were acknowledged by the community and repeated. Some were incorporated into some form of global vocabulary. Some were banished, cast into inexistence. Some were forgotten, erased from our minds. But they have all made an impact. They have all been steps in this eternal climb towards the divine world. The land of the perfect combinations. Where everything seems to work out fine. There is no unhappiness whatsoever.
This world doesn’t seem real, but yet we chase it. And that’s what true art is, the search for the perfection, the best within our possibilities. That would surely be divine!
What Jermaine said in the episode inspired me to write all this. And better yet, it reminded me of an old idea I had a while ago. It was one of my first one-million-dollar ideas. I actually remember telling my mom, back in 2008 when I received this idea for the first time, just how excited I was, because I had just had a wonderful one-million-dollar idea. I actually used those words.
I proceeded to explain my idea to her, as I did only to a handful of people, and she wasn’t really impressed. Honestly, pretty much no one cared for it. And I let it rest for a while. Didn’t develop it much until today.
The idea basically is this -> A project for the creation of new natural languages. Maybe to study our own languages and their structural limitations imposed by their heritage and natural ancestors. Maybe simply to increase the number of languages around. Why, don’t some people say that languages are dying? They are getting extinct and everything? Well, languages are not like species. They can be very easily created and spread. If having a certain number of documented languages is important, then for sure the ability to create a new natural language is something valuable.
This project would be called, the Caveman Project.
I initially conceived a stylish kind of chat room, with pixilated cartoon cave people just hanging around caves and chatting. Well, creating a language.
Think of true cave people in the original sense of the word, whatever that is. Those guys didn’t have a god-damned language to talk to each other! God still hadn’t planned for that to come about their lives! Imagine that! God thinks you can exist and coexist around your village people, your friends, your married with children. Your nanny. Your Saturday Night Live! Your Who knows what the fuck I’m talking about…
Anyway, God hadn’t given us anything back then. Our great grandfathers didn’t have a selection of words, already catalogued and arranged alphabetically, ready for our plucking and uttering, sure to cause immediate effect on those receiving it.
You say – HEY ASSHOLE! There is a reaction. But try to say – HEY BAPKA LUGRAJO! There won’t be an equivalent reaction. Not yet anyway.
Now go to that place where nothing means anything! That’s hell, right there! I sure am glad we are here, today, where anything means something. This is a wonderful place for my head. Everything makes some kind of sense, and I’m pleased. When things don’t make sense, that’s when you move into lunacy. The moon, in a way. Not quite another planet. Just weird feelings all the time. Things don’t appear to seem to want to be what they were before. They seem to be charged, plugged into the divine outlets you can find growing around this little blue ball. The little one over there, hanging by that faint little star. Just oozing, beeping, glowing around that tiny fireball.
Also, down there, if we really make ourselves incredibly tiny, we can actually visit the tiny blue ball. It’s called Earth. By some of the creatures that inhabit it. I read it was officially called “Terra” by the owner.
Look at these creatures. They are just another type of monkey, which is a common type of mammal. Small sized and nothing compared to those huge reptiles that used to be here. But in a way, they seem to impose more power and dominance to the world around them than the reptiles did. The reptiles that he had first invented wouldn’t give him art. They would just develop into massive creatures, every time he tried to initialize a new species. And they simply wouldn’t do anything interesting to be honest. So he ended them. And check it out, by increasing the size of the brain of this species of monkey, they started to do a bunch of cool stuff.
They are actually all amazed at the sounds that come from their lungs. God modified it, increased it in volume, allowed for some more color in pitch and timbre and listen to it. Amazing sounds! He thinks it’s starting to sounds like a pattern is developing amongst those creatures. He has assembled a team of linguists to tape it, analyze it and try to learn it, so we can communicate to them.
It might be very difficult. They operate at a very small level. This is the part where you have to make an effort to understand.
They really do exist, but on another scale. Their entire existence, their entire physical universe is contained inside this computer. I only have access to the information that comes to me through this interface. But I can tell, by the answers, that this information is equivalent to the kind of information we already receive from different realities and environments. The two universes are equally existent in your universe. Therefore, they exist.
Another example. If your son lives in another city and only once a year sends you pictures and calls you. Then these two events and all the information they generate will represent all the data that your brain will assimilate about your son. That and the occasional visit, that may, sometimes, take decades. If someone were to fake these perfectly, then you wouldn’t continue to assume that your son’s existence is no more. And he has been replaced by a better, more capable son. Me! Hahahahahahahaha
I didn’t like that ending at first. When I was now, rereading. But now I decided to let it stay. Let it live. Show me what it has to offer. Hell, everybody deserves a second chance.
It was that episode from the first season with all the racism. During that scene, towards the end of the episode, where they are exchanging offensive hand-gestures and having an argument with the fruit guy, Jermaine points some differences between their culture and the American culture.
He says, and I’ll quote, “It doesn’t matter what they smell like, or that they spell words slightly differently, some would say, more correctly”. Now I see sheer poetry in these words. Astonishing beauty. But that’s probably because I’m high. But back then, when I first saw it, I saw the past. I had a perfect glimpse of the past. Of our linguistical past.
This part of our past can be written by anyone who chooses to. And whatever it may be, it has the exact same probability of being correct, as any other version that could be written by anybody.
I’m talking about the evolution of our language. Just the same as with the evolution of our species, there have to have been initial bases of formation. Initial sounds, the first ones. The ones that got carried through to today.
Just like with living creatures, where new species became different species by differentiating themselves from the original one. The parent one.
So let’s start thinking about it this way, the concept of ‘word’ now is equivalent to the concept of ‘species’. They mean the same type of thing, that is a thing of its own but contains a lot of different variations. Its possibilities allow for the existence of many of its kind. But that also makes it a part of something greater, not the great apex itself.
And being a part of a larger existence means you are contained inside a larger capsule, that could be itself contained inside a larger capsule, that could be itself contained inside a larger capsule, that could be inside this very dot, I shall invoke with my key.
Sidetracking this whole thing, I’ll bring some differently aimed philosophy and physics to the table. It could be true, you know. Have you thought about it long enough? Well, for all we know, we could definitely be inside just about anything. A nutshell, some goofy colored marbles (or should I say ‘coloured’ hehehe… well, I’ll get to that a bit later), hell, we could inside a quark, couldn’t we?
Time is not infinite, it had a beginning and it will have an end. People are always wondering, oh my, what originated time? We did it! We probably got some help somewhere down the line. But we have it. We care for it. It came with us, we were the first ones to talk about it. It thrives now. But once we’re gone. If nobody keeps track of it anymore, then it will go away too.
What about space, huh? Space is truly infinite. That’s where divine creation starts to mean something. We are perfectly complex, conscious and interacting with our surroundings. Able to even destroy the very star that sparkled us. Yet, we amount to nothing, when compared to the ever widening, breathtaking corridors of space. This vast connection of systems and particles, that frankly, seems to grow bigger every time we look at it! Well, at least every time we make better lenses.
This space that I talk about is the true frontier. If god really planned this universe, the way it is, perfectly suitable for us in every aspect. Then he’d better have some good old mysterious way for allowing us to travel around this thing. Why would he make everything so small? I mean, here we are, his children. Hell, his only children, right? Lost in the produce section of a massive supermarket. Why would God do that to us?
I mean, when the Earth was everything that he created, when our village was everything that we new. Then the Garden of Eden was somewhat similar to our home. That delightful naiveness to assume you are everything in somebody else’s universe, that you are the purpose of His existence. What if God made us, yes, but also made a whole lot of different things, cooler than us? Can’t he leave us aside for one second to show his other godlike friends of His, some cool supernovas that he has been shooting across his Picon3 Universe? Some of the cool black whole effects you can add in the new version. Just a thought, just a thought.
I’m just saying that yes, we are positioned in the three dimensions of space, right here, and in our invented dimension of time, right now. But we are also positioned in the fourth spatial dimension. The scale. Our whole universe is in the same scale. Maybe we are occupying the same place as another entire universe, that occupies the same coordinates as ours, but is in a different scale.
When you assume that the scale is the fourth spatial dimension, the concepts of size, big and small, become more relative. Our universe is big, oh yes. But when compared to the drop of acid that it could be contained inside, then it’s still larger as a concept, if you accept the concept of a universe as something universal, but on a much smaller scale.
Think about this for a second. And then think some more. What is the proportion between our size and our universe’s size? This proportion is the life proportion. We know that, with a universe as big as ours you can introduce and maintain people like us. There’s a whole lot more of things you can get from this type of universe; hopefully, after a complete evaluation of the possibilities of this universe we seem to inhabit, we would still make it to the top-10 coolest things that comes with it.
Maybe it’s gonna come down to, “Hey, download this program, it’s called Picon3 Universe, you can generate a bunch of these bizarre galaxy clusters, and I made a 4 star system with 23 planets that spell out my name. In all the planets I put happy indigenous creatures that are all perfectly happy to exist, they all try to do their best to improve their lives and their environment, always respecting eachother’s differences and helping me making their universe a better place.”, “And what about these guys here, melting their planet?”, ”Well, they are kind of awkward. Can’t really seem to get them to stop destroying everything. You know what? Thanks for reminding me, I’ve been meaning to delete these guys for ages now. Here you gooooOOOOOoooOOOoOOOooOOoOOoOOoOOoOOoOoOooOoOoOo
OooOOOOOooooOoOOoOoOoOOPOoOoOIOOo(*OOolKOOÇOP^`_)PO(ípu´pk´k´plik´p7ulik´plutnkt8ktn798j0b9kj567yi0myhfn5-6gij35v603kgck30-gfx20xf13-01kl3ç3kdzx2dkp´23ockd´po4kf´5kgb9k45=g39k6=h6k=nh94k7=9nk7j´b7kh4okv3´pokvc´po5k2´cxp25´p4ogk2´p5okgv32p´6ob´h397kh39´57khn=437nk479j0kn4=079jk47vk7´h3k6opgck3´p5ogk2´5xm1´4nxf13bfg1v315f850ct29-4vyhugbrkvblkabpefaérfnadvsdvasaçlsjdfsdjfadjfaçlkvnaçdjvkasdvkabç4jna54m5an4.ma4n.fm,nfa;.dkfn;asdfmasdf]ápsdgo[a5e=-009530-4or~]pqelrkaWEF,sd>F
Again, the proportion between our size and our universe’s size is the life proportion. It’s related to the larger proportion between our universe’s size and an atom’s size. Or a proton’s size. Maybe a quark’s size. You chemists will take it from here. This proportion is the overall universe proportion. If we start digging deep inside a quark, and we find one step between one structure and the next one, is just as proportional as the step from our universe to us. Then we would have to accept the obvious possibility of having an entire universe, exactly like ours, inside of a quark. But in another scale.
There’s no telling what can be inside of a quark. Let’s say one day we find a type of particle that’s inside of a thing that’s inside of a quark. This particle seems to be completely empty of everything. Until one day somebody decides to look inside again, but now, with much better lenses. And we find that the size of the things inside this particle is in the same proportion to the size of the particle itself, as the size of our atoms when compared to our universe. Wouldn’t that imply that there is an equivalent universe inside every one of those particles? There probably is, but in another scale.
We are positioned in a section of the scale. Our section is like a strip in a giant ruler. We shaped our reality around our limitations, created a limited reality for ourselves, and seem to be completely incapable of reaching outside the barriers of our own position in the scale.
It’s very hard to interact with, or even acknowledge the existence of different realities. It’s even harder to understand the implications of different scales in our actual working life. We are not the only ones around. We are merely one of its vibrations. Watch ‘Horton Hears a Who’, for further reference.
Ver tudo ao mesmo tempo, não é uma benção, é uma maldição.
Saber tudo que acontece, sem intervalos, não há curtição.
Eu que não quero nem saber, só quero quando eu quiser.
Eu que procuro esquecer, esperando o que der e vier.
Mas você vem me perturbar, não para de falar,
Me aperta o peito, me define sem parar.
Actually, all this stuff came to me too. A bunch of stuff that I, by pressing some black little squares positioned in a board right in front of me, I managed to put down to paper, sort of speak, some of this stuff that comes to me.
The original idea that came to me and that inspired me to start writing, is about the formation of our languages. The evolution of words from, the first words uttered by the first creatures that chose to make sounds, to this structured language that we have installed in our brains. What was the first human word? What was the first combination of phonemes that he chose to make come out of his mouth? And who was the first one to agree that he had, in fact, said something? Created something?
Words were created all the time. Some were acknowledged by the community and repeated. Some were incorporated into some form of global vocabulary. Some were banished, cast into inexistence. Some were forgotten, erased from our minds. But they have all made an impact. They have all been steps in this eternal climb towards the divine world. The land of the perfect combinations. Where everything seems to work out fine. There is no unhappiness whatsoever.
This world doesn’t seem real, but yet we chase it. And that’s what true art is, the search for the perfection, the best within our possibilities. That would surely be divine!
What Jermaine said in the episode inspired me to write all this. And better yet, it reminded me of an old idea I had a while ago. It was one of my first one-million-dollar ideas. I actually remember telling my mom, back in 2008 when I received this idea for the first time, just how excited I was, because I had just had a wonderful one-million-dollar idea. I actually used those words.
I proceeded to explain my idea to her, as I did only to a handful of people, and she wasn’t really impressed. Honestly, pretty much no one cared for it. And I let it rest for a while. Didn’t develop it much until today.
The idea basically is this -> A project for the creation of new natural languages. Maybe to study our own languages and their structural limitations imposed by their heritage and natural ancestors. Maybe simply to increase the number of languages around. Why, don’t some people say that languages are dying? They are getting extinct and everything? Well, languages are not like species. They can be very easily created and spread. If having a certain number of documented languages is important, then for sure the ability to create a new natural language is something valuable.
This project would be called, the Caveman Project.
I initially conceived a stylish kind of chat room, with pixilated cartoon cave people just hanging around caves and chatting. Well, creating a language.
Think of true cave people in the original sense of the word, whatever that is. Those guys didn’t have a god-damned language to talk to each other! God still hadn’t planned for that to come about their lives! Imagine that! God thinks you can exist and coexist around your village people, your friends, your married with children. Your nanny. Your Saturday Night Live! Your Who knows what the fuck I’m talking about…
Anyway, God hadn’t given us anything back then. Our great grandfathers didn’t have a selection of words, already catalogued and arranged alphabetically, ready for our plucking and uttering, sure to cause immediate effect on those receiving it.
You say – HEY ASSHOLE! There is a reaction. But try to say – HEY BAPKA LUGRAJO! There won’t be an equivalent reaction. Not yet anyway.
Now go to that place where nothing means anything! That’s hell, right there! I sure am glad we are here, today, where anything means something. This is a wonderful place for my head. Everything makes some kind of sense, and I’m pleased. When things don’t make sense, that’s when you move into lunacy. The moon, in a way. Not quite another planet. Just weird feelings all the time. Things don’t appear to seem to want to be what they were before. They seem to be charged, plugged into the divine outlets you can find growing around this little blue ball. The little one over there, hanging by that faint little star. Just oozing, beeping, glowing around that tiny fireball.
Also, down there, if we really make ourselves incredibly tiny, we can actually visit the tiny blue ball. It’s called Earth. By some of the creatures that inhabit it. I read it was officially called “Terra” by the owner.
Look at these creatures. They are just another type of monkey, which is a common type of mammal. Small sized and nothing compared to those huge reptiles that used to be here. But in a way, they seem to impose more power and dominance to the world around them than the reptiles did. The reptiles that he had first invented wouldn’t give him art. They would just develop into massive creatures, every time he tried to initialize a new species. And they simply wouldn’t do anything interesting to be honest. So he ended them. And check it out, by increasing the size of the brain of this species of monkey, they started to do a bunch of cool stuff.
They are actually all amazed at the sounds that come from their lungs. God modified it, increased it in volume, allowed for some more color in pitch and timbre and listen to it. Amazing sounds! He thinks it’s starting to sounds like a pattern is developing amongst those creatures. He has assembled a team of linguists to tape it, analyze it and try to learn it, so we can communicate to them.
It might be very difficult. They operate at a very small level. This is the part where you have to make an effort to understand.
They really do exist, but on another scale. Their entire existence, their entire physical universe is contained inside this computer. I only have access to the information that comes to me through this interface. But I can tell, by the answers, that this information is equivalent to the kind of information we already receive from different realities and environments. The two universes are equally existent in your universe. Therefore, they exist.
Another example. If your son lives in another city and only once a year sends you pictures and calls you. Then these two events and all the information they generate will represent all the data that your brain will assimilate about your son. That and the occasional visit, that may, sometimes, take decades. If someone were to fake these perfectly, then you wouldn’t continue to assume that your son’s existence is no more. And he has been replaced by a better, more capable son. Me! Hahahahahahahaha
I didn’t like that ending at first. When I was now, rereading. But now I decided to let it stay. Let it live. Show me what it has to offer. Hell, everybody deserves a second chance.
God is within our reach. For we have created him. We have named him. And associated feats and skills with his name. Unique skills that only he himself could ever possess. He is above us, for sure. But he was defined by us. He definitely is all knowing and all powerful and all seeing and all being. But those are his feats. Those are his skills. Oh, you can add whichever skills you may want to. They will still belong to a list. A human made list. The real god, should he even exist. Would be of a certain nature. That nature could be a completely external and different from ours. And I totally believe it is. And so, by definition, that nature will forever be unknown to us. Maybe that is revealed to us when we die, maybe even while we still are alive. But it certainly will be translated to our languages. Even if perceived first by the feelings and thus, composed of a yet decrypted alphabet. It will, invariably be translated to our languages. Our verbal languages. And so, humanized.
Maybe that’s actually a good thing. But that also means that, probably, due to our own design definitions, we will only ever perceive a humanized nature of god. If and when we do come in contact with him, at all. When we tell someone that we have been in contact, been touched by god, we end up translating that experience to words. And so, our god’s feats remain humanized feats.
Hey, someone’s god actually divided the waters of a large body of water to make passage for his people. “Wow. That’s pretty impressive. Well actually, we humans can do that do, you know?”
”Really? But like, just with the power of your will?”
”Yes,” I replied. “We get together, come up with a plan, and when we have our minds focused on something, we simply work our best until we get the job done. We also like to have fun and enjoy ourselves, you know what I’m saying?”
That’s human nature I’m talking about. Also because I don’t know anything about God’s. Godsuss.
Then came Science… And started walking towards god. And we followed.
Science decided that god wasn’t unreachable. At least not his godly feats. And like the second law rules, if we can reach his feats, then we will have accomplished the same as him, and we will have become of his. Gods ourselves.
Science ruled that everything could be tried at least once. Science said that nothing is impossible and that we could do anything. We believed it and went after our dreams. Our godly dreams. And one by one, believe you me, those dreams came true. We wanted to fly, we wanted to cry, we wanted to get high. And they made all that possible. Science did. Scientists did it, in name of Science.
And Science wouldn’t rest, until all of our dreams became a reality, in our universe. Some of us were still feeling lonely and empty inside, and they did not appreciate all the good that Science has to offer, but it’s alright, as history has shown, they will come around, and embrace our
Philosophies and become model citizens in their own right, Science bless
This great nation.
I mean, this great civilization that we built. And Science will keep working hard, to make sure we keep evolving, in hopes of, one day, we get to meet god. Or at least, be just like him. Gods ourselves.
Maybe that’s actually a good thing. But that also means that, probably, due to our own design definitions, we will only ever perceive a humanized nature of god. If and when we do come in contact with him, at all. When we tell someone that we have been in contact, been touched by god, we end up translating that experience to words. And so, our god’s feats remain humanized feats.
Hey, someone’s god actually divided the waters of a large body of water to make passage for his people. “Wow. That’s pretty impressive. Well actually, we humans can do that do, you know?”
”Really? But like, just with the power of your will?”
”Yes,” I replied. “We get together, come up with a plan, and when we have our minds focused on something, we simply work our best until we get the job done. We also like to have fun and enjoy ourselves, you know what I’m saying?”
That’s human nature I’m talking about. Also because I don’t know anything about God’s. Godsuss.
Then came Science… And started walking towards god. And we followed.
Science decided that god wasn’t unreachable. At least not his godly feats. And like the second law rules, if we can reach his feats, then we will have accomplished the same as him, and we will have become of his. Gods ourselves.
Science ruled that everything could be tried at least once. Science said that nothing is impossible and that we could do anything. We believed it and went after our dreams. Our godly dreams. And one by one, believe you me, those dreams came true. We wanted to fly, we wanted to cry, we wanted to get high. And they made all that possible. Science did. Scientists did it, in name of Science.
And Science wouldn’t rest, until all of our dreams became a reality, in our universe. Some of us were still feeling lonely and empty inside, and they did not appreciate all the good that Science has to offer, but it’s alright, as history has shown, they will come around, and embrace our
Philosophies and become model citizens in their own right, Science bless
This great nation.
I mean, this great civilization that we built. And Science will keep working hard, to make sure we keep evolving, in hopes of, one day, we get to meet god. Or at least, be just like him. Gods ourselves.
Ideia Picon3
Alien art review. Analyze and critique a piece of art as if you were an alien. Like, in this next scene, it seems that the girl has decided to kiss the guy willingly and pleasurably right in the middle of the alien cage full of humans. Dabbling like fish in a fisherman’s net. Like an alien who knows the language and the basic vocabulary, but to whom every cultural and unique aspect of the movie is a new register. Like the god in ‘the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. Or the godlike dude, I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet, just heard about it. But I have bought it on amazon.com.
Ideia Picon3 One
Ideia Picon3 One
Wednesday 9 June 2010
Coffee Shop Poetry 4
I can't be here anymore. Everybody seems to realize that.
Groups, ha! Go figure.
They choose me and cast me out. I'm the misfit.
I get thrown off the ship and into the deep ocean I dive. Two days later I emerge, the same as before. But now I have the
ability to fly, to filter offensive remarks and to sing like a mermaid. Merman, come on. To them I'm still the same, oh yeah, they see me and they don't even mention my awesome achievements. Hell, I'm simply back on track, I'm part of the herd again, I'm nothing but another specimen. Speciman, come on. How could anyone even begin to understand the narrow and complicated paths onto which I have roamed? They would if they wanted to, I guess. I'm no better than anybody else. Point is they don't give a fuck. Nobody gives a fuck. And so they shall pay.
So I begin my revenge. The first down is from the captain's side. His best man, his best friend. The guy who has had one too many sips of the eternal wine, the forbidden kind. As he takes his twelfth I strike. Right on the head. He drops like a rock. Rolls over and explodes. Everybody is curious, everyone wants to know what happened. I disappear and wait for the conclusions to be drawn. Two minutes after that the whole planet is ok again. These people have no memory, they don't seem to process the impossible coincidences that have brought them to this place. How could anybody, anyway?
God calls me on my mobile. I say I'm late for an appointment, make up some excuse, and just fling that bastard into the water. Some moments later I can already spot a fin, he's evolved again and now he's rallying around the ship. Panic increases rapidly. The seaman all start to go overboard. One by one they are eaten by him. In my mind I try to teleport myself to a better place, full of peace and love, but cries of pain and anguish bring me back to reality. This feels like a dream, this
tastes like a dream, it just can't be real. It's too bizarre, it's too mean. I can't be here, I can't! I won't endure this nightmarish reality! All these creatures emerge in front of my eyes, they simply come, one after the other, like fireflies
that don't glow. I try to squish them with my hands, but they don't seem to bother. Actually they penetrate my skin, infect my body and steal my soul. I am now a part of him. I feel like a puppet, a meat puppet, controled by this diety, this fiendish being that doesn't seem to exist. It coexists. It needs me. It needs us. He takes care of me now, he can't spare my life, my existence justifies his.
I created him at the same time that he created me. We too are one.
Groups, ha! Go figure.
They choose me and cast me out. I'm the misfit.
I get thrown off the ship and into the deep ocean I dive. Two days later I emerge, the same as before. But now I have the
ability to fly, to filter offensive remarks and to sing like a mermaid. Merman, come on. To them I'm still the same, oh yeah, they see me and they don't even mention my awesome achievements. Hell, I'm simply back on track, I'm part of the herd again, I'm nothing but another specimen. Speciman, come on. How could anyone even begin to understand the narrow and complicated paths onto which I have roamed? They would if they wanted to, I guess. I'm no better than anybody else. Point is they don't give a fuck. Nobody gives a fuck. And so they shall pay.
So I begin my revenge. The first down is from the captain's side. His best man, his best friend. The guy who has had one too many sips of the eternal wine, the forbidden kind. As he takes his twelfth I strike. Right on the head. He drops like a rock. Rolls over and explodes. Everybody is curious, everyone wants to know what happened. I disappear and wait for the conclusions to be drawn. Two minutes after that the whole planet is ok again. These people have no memory, they don't seem to process the impossible coincidences that have brought them to this place. How could anybody, anyway?
God calls me on my mobile. I say I'm late for an appointment, make up some excuse, and just fling that bastard into the water. Some moments later I can already spot a fin, he's evolved again and now he's rallying around the ship. Panic increases rapidly. The seaman all start to go overboard. One by one they are eaten by him. In my mind I try to teleport myself to a better place, full of peace and love, but cries of pain and anguish bring me back to reality. This feels like a dream, this
tastes like a dream, it just can't be real. It's too bizarre, it's too mean. I can't be here, I can't! I won't endure this nightmarish reality! All these creatures emerge in front of my eyes, they simply come, one after the other, like fireflies
that don't glow. I try to squish them with my hands, but they don't seem to bother. Actually they penetrate my skin, infect my body and steal my soul. I am now a part of him. I feel like a puppet, a meat puppet, controled by this diety, this fiendish being that doesn't seem to exist. It coexists. It needs me. It needs us. He takes care of me now, he can't spare my life, my existence justifies his.
I created him at the same time that he created me. We too are one.
Coffee Shop Poetry 3
Will it ever end?
Has it ever begun?
If I write it here, then I guess that it means yes. It has begun.
He wouldn't agree with that, oh no he would never agree with me.
He would prefer to be caught dead in his sleep, eyes closed, goofy grin, some random teeth showing. The morbid glance of death, cold staring you in the eye. Trying to fool life's own wisdom, the one we can't seem to find anymore.
Where has it gone? Where will it be?
Will I ever cross its path again?
Will it ever choose to find me?
All I got to do now is wait, hope that good things come my way one more time. Oh but just one more time, that's all I need. Oh I beg, please.
He had left his house five minutes before. The phone was ringing. Had he been there to answer, to talk to that person, to interact with another member of his own species. Had he been there to deny the accusations, stop the frustration and kill the vibration, then we would have known. Then we would have been able to say, with total certainty, that he wasn't dead. But as the phone rang, as the world turned, as life evolved, his gloryfied carcass was left behind. He was now nothing more than a footnote. Then it was erased.
All of a sudden a thud is heard. Muffled and distant. Deep in the night, void of spirit. The coffin is scratched from the inside. He knows it's too late, but he goes for it anyway. His nails are painted with blood. Crimsom tools of splinters and skin. The air is slowly being modified, his lungs now work as a backwards filter. For every breath he takes, there will be less oxygen for him to breathe. Anxiety makes his blood pressure sky rocket, he can't stop puffing. He looks around and all he sees is black death, a dark reality. At last he gives up, his brain gives in. His soul is drenched, bones and skin. His muscles are too tired, there is not enough air. There is not enough room, for him to despair. And as he takes his last sigh, draws his last breath, he closes his eyes, nods welcome to death.
The coffin lid flies open. Piles of dirt lie all around the grave. They are one second too late. He is not there anymore.
Has it ever begun?
If I write it here, then I guess that it means yes. It has begun.
He wouldn't agree with that, oh no he would never agree with me.
He would prefer to be caught dead in his sleep, eyes closed, goofy grin, some random teeth showing. The morbid glance of death, cold staring you in the eye. Trying to fool life's own wisdom, the one we can't seem to find anymore.
Where has it gone? Where will it be?
Will I ever cross its path again?
Will it ever choose to find me?
All I got to do now is wait, hope that good things come my way one more time. Oh but just one more time, that's all I need. Oh I beg, please.
He had left his house five minutes before. The phone was ringing. Had he been there to answer, to talk to that person, to interact with another member of his own species. Had he been there to deny the accusations, stop the frustration and kill the vibration, then we would have known. Then we would have been able to say, with total certainty, that he wasn't dead. But as the phone rang, as the world turned, as life evolved, his gloryfied carcass was left behind. He was now nothing more than a footnote. Then it was erased.
All of a sudden a thud is heard. Muffled and distant. Deep in the night, void of spirit. The coffin is scratched from the inside. He knows it's too late, but he goes for it anyway. His nails are painted with blood. Crimsom tools of splinters and skin. The air is slowly being modified, his lungs now work as a backwards filter. For every breath he takes, there will be less oxygen for him to breathe. Anxiety makes his blood pressure sky rocket, he can't stop puffing. He looks around and all he sees is black death, a dark reality. At last he gives up, his brain gives in. His soul is drenched, bones and skin. His muscles are too tired, there is not enough air. There is not enough room, for him to despair. And as he takes his last sigh, draws his last breath, he closes his eyes, nods welcome to death.
The coffin lid flies open. Piles of dirt lie all around the grave. They are one second too late. He is not there anymore.
Coffee Shop Poetry 2
"I believe I have made my case pretty clear, your honor."
"I understand you do so. And should you do so, under my clear warnings, my constant, raving accusations of forgery! Blasphemy! Lies and deceit to come since ever from your filthy mouth! Oh but how I loathe you and everything that you represent! Silence at once! Silent you shall rest! No! No more!
And so the water broke. Ripped the shallow and fragile levee that once withheld. Itself. Out came the surfers. Proud and vicious, skimmering the water, side by side, they sang in tune. Scared and ducked on the corner, we waited on the dune. The wave seemlessly evoked more bubbly effects on our water. We had been hurting the water, that was the purpose of the surfers, the grunge forecasters, the savage battle carriers. United they stand against our awe. Awesome is their power, destructive and plentyful fear. And so, after a moment of silence, the tide calmed down.
Into the water we went. Sunk forever yearnful of better days. Last sips of air bubble away in the green obscurity. The souls begin their chants. Haunting emotions translated into cries of pain. In comes the cult. You are in the middle of it. It is your initiation rite. Your last rites. Into a new life. You understand it and decide to carry on with it. What follows is a mass avalanche of destruction of everything you ever held dear. It is truly the end, the new beginning. The moment you had been waiting for. Served on a platter. Splattered on the floor. Vomitted across the living room. Twirling up into space never changing or decaying. The souls still observe, though now from a longer distance. Waves of different values begin with heavy debate. Masterful tides of sheer volume explode inside of you. You feel it normally now. The yellow now calms you. The feeling now repetitive, generates pleasure, not pain. Will feel better the next times, that's the way it sells itself to you. The next time will be better, in every way. This time wasn't perfect, the perfect hit still hasn't come. I am out to find it, out to get it. It will come one day, it has to. Otherwise life has no meaning, life has no purpose. Well, let me tell you of a big one... Loneliness.
She left at midnight. The egyptian guy still swept the room, looking for some time for himself. And you know what? He got it. I am out.
Produly I wake up in the bar. To not drink and still be welcome there, it is a bluff. It is a try. A mere attempt. Here went nothing. He spotted me in a flash. Started to weave towards me with the smallest of efforts. Eventually we collided. Everything changed from then on. Like it always does.
"I understand you do so. And should you do so, under my clear warnings, my constant, raving accusations of forgery! Blasphemy! Lies and deceit to come since ever from your filthy mouth! Oh but how I loathe you and everything that you represent! Silence at once! Silent you shall rest! No! No more!
And so the water broke. Ripped the shallow and fragile levee that once withheld. Itself. Out came the surfers. Proud and vicious, skimmering the water, side by side, they sang in tune. Scared and ducked on the corner, we waited on the dune. The wave seemlessly evoked more bubbly effects on our water. We had been hurting the water, that was the purpose of the surfers, the grunge forecasters, the savage battle carriers. United they stand against our awe. Awesome is their power, destructive and plentyful fear. And so, after a moment of silence, the tide calmed down.
Into the water we went. Sunk forever yearnful of better days. Last sips of air bubble away in the green obscurity. The souls begin their chants. Haunting emotions translated into cries of pain. In comes the cult. You are in the middle of it. It is your initiation rite. Your last rites. Into a new life. You understand it and decide to carry on with it. What follows is a mass avalanche of destruction of everything you ever held dear. It is truly the end, the new beginning. The moment you had been waiting for. Served on a platter. Splattered on the floor. Vomitted across the living room. Twirling up into space never changing or decaying. The souls still observe, though now from a longer distance. Waves of different values begin with heavy debate. Masterful tides of sheer volume explode inside of you. You feel it normally now. The yellow now calms you. The feeling now repetitive, generates pleasure, not pain. Will feel better the next times, that's the way it sells itself to you. The next time will be better, in every way. This time wasn't perfect, the perfect hit still hasn't come. I am out to find it, out to get it. It will come one day, it has to. Otherwise life has no meaning, life has no purpose. Well, let me tell you of a big one... Loneliness.
She left at midnight. The egyptian guy still swept the room, looking for some time for himself. And you know what? He got it. I am out.
Produly I wake up in the bar. To not drink and still be welcome there, it is a bluff. It is a try. A mere attempt. Here went nothing. He spotted me in a flash. Started to weave towards me with the smallest of efforts. Eventually we collided. Everything changed from then on. Like it always does.
Coffee Shop Poetry 1
The indians have taken over. They waltz in great wagons. The cannons are pointed at the apex. The top of the palace has been protected by a crown of thorns and roses. The locals have adorned this gloomy gleeful tower head with gold and platinum seeds, shining away in the distance. Out come the fire crusade. They charge ever so relentless up against our barriers of human flesh. Ouch cry the soldiers who put the silence back in the track. But it seems to be far from over.
The cease fire will be broken. It comes as a vision, one troubled night in the tent.
The boy suddenly awakens, broken by despair and agony. His mother's hopeless lament is ignored by the now courageous general. His fleet stands tall, untouched and prestigious. From up high they observe the battle field, soon to be drenched in pure native blood.
The cavalry charges, cries sound like thunder, rips of blood that cut like blades, the emperor then decides to join the moment. All hell breaks loose. His voice is like metal saw shapes of cold determination. As bodies silently float, the old ones return to their lair. No more drive, no more air. The sounds of sin that dripped into tears in the old valley.
The ritual commences. The shaman clears the pipe from old smoke, cleans the tube from old dose. puts the powder that gives light, burns the head of the spike. The smoke is fluid and cold. Ice bubbles in red blisters of crimsom blood. Shapes are formed from silver rings that haunt the darkened tent. They are here. They haven't left.
They came looking for the theft. The way out. Their freedom. Where can they go?
If only we could stop thinking about it, we could solve it. If you never remember that you are playing the game, then you will finally win it. Until then, join us... The losers!
Oh how I despise them. How I just wanna see them burn. Cave. Give in. Cry for help. In vain. Give them the gun, put one bullet in, and eventually one of them will shoot the other in the head. Hopefully he doesnt shoot himself. I dont mean suicide is not fun. It just doesnt seem to spearkle any truthfully powerful emotion. Only sadness. And dismay. And dismay is not necessarily good.
I look at you. You just came out of her house. You blush and can't hide the obvious truth. You did it. Together. You are mine now.
I run. I catch. I kill.
The cease fire will be broken. It comes as a vision, one troubled night in the tent.
The boy suddenly awakens, broken by despair and agony. His mother's hopeless lament is ignored by the now courageous general. His fleet stands tall, untouched and prestigious. From up high they observe the battle field, soon to be drenched in pure native blood.
The cavalry charges, cries sound like thunder, rips of blood that cut like blades, the emperor then decides to join the moment. All hell breaks loose. His voice is like metal saw shapes of cold determination. As bodies silently float, the old ones return to their lair. No more drive, no more air. The sounds of sin that dripped into tears in the old valley.
The ritual commences. The shaman clears the pipe from old smoke, cleans the tube from old dose. puts the powder that gives light, burns the head of the spike. The smoke is fluid and cold. Ice bubbles in red blisters of crimsom blood. Shapes are formed from silver rings that haunt the darkened tent. They are here. They haven't left.
They came looking for the theft. The way out. Their freedom. Where can they go?
If only we could stop thinking about it, we could solve it. If you never remember that you are playing the game, then you will finally win it. Until then, join us... The losers!
Oh how I despise them. How I just wanna see them burn. Cave. Give in. Cry for help. In vain. Give them the gun, put one bullet in, and eventually one of them will shoot the other in the head. Hopefully he doesnt shoot himself. I dont mean suicide is not fun. It just doesnt seem to spearkle any truthfully powerful emotion. Only sadness. And dismay. And dismay is not necessarily good.
I look at you. You just came out of her house. You blush and can't hide the obvious truth. You did it. Together. You are mine now.
I run. I catch. I kill.
Tuesday 4 May 2010
The reason why we are the most advanced humans ever
The reason why we are the most advanced human species ever is simple. We just are! Simple like that! We can look back to all other types of humans there were and simply compare your lifestyle and realize just how advanced we really are.
You may say that this that is being stated is obvious as hell! And there really is no point in writing about it with such intensity and glory. And I would agree if I didn’t know that there is still more to be said about it. Be patient, he he he.
I also am talking about the other generations of humans. I mean, I am talking about the different homo sapiens generations we’ve been having on the planet. The generations that preceded us. I’m even talking about your father and mother. Mine.
We are much more advanced than them! Our generation, the people of today, the young people of today. The ones that are most in contact with this new globalized society, we are number one! We are the most advanced people ever to walk this planet!
We have the best of the best, firstly. Best healthcare ever, best nutritional understanding ever, best living conditions ever to be experienced by anyone. Maybe not the cleanest times, sure, but technology definitely makes up for this small loss. We maybe don’t have that classic little crystal-clear creek at the end of the wheat field, or the stone well with spring water. But we do have medical care. Back then, one appendicitis was the end of you, for sure. Here we can go beyond that. Way beyond that.
Here you can last a good long time, fixing yourself. Replacing your parts. Diagnosing with great detail the littlest of problems. Here you own yourself. Here you can sit back and relax, knowing with great likelihood of guessing pretty much everything that goes around you. Even the smallest virus or bacteria that lurks around you. We know that by now. We have that information.
Science has fed us with so much knowledge that we have reached a point never before experienced by any of these animals that inhabit our planet. Sure, we are animals too, just like them. But have come to a point that no other specie has ever dreamed of!
We can duplicate the planet. We can make another one. On a computer, of course, but we can. We can create alternate realities. We can simulate different times of the past. We can project different futures. We are in control.
Sure, the other animals have their own realities, with different understanding of the world around them. But they can’t begin to understand ours. Or anybody else’s for that matter. It would be too much for their little brains. Our brains aren’t anything special by the way. I’m talking about the computers we have created.
The computers that were brought to inhabit the planets by us. Are aliens. They are monstrous creatures. With parts completely renewable and in constant development. These creatures have immense brain space. And their brains is the source of all the power that has recently been given to the human race. Think about it!
Until well recently, I don’t know, less than 100 years ago. If aliens had landed here and given us shit, we probably would have been extinct very easily. Then we developed the atomic bomb. Then we developed computers. We now are a bigger threat to the aliens around, aren’t we?
Maybe not, we can’t be sure. Maybe it’s the same difference to an alien as three cockroaches instead of two to be killed. No big deal. But for us it made the world of difference. All the other animals on our planet now bow to us. Up until very recently some species still had their domain, as men approached with little technology and just a lot of bravery.
Immense packs of Buffalos still roamed threateningly free, the countryside was filled with mysteries and legends and the sea was still a wild obscure frontier. Now those boundaries can’t hold the human spirit. We have conquered all those evils, we have made the world a much brighter and simplified place. Think about it, before us it was everything, the universe was this place. To very recent generations, the world was the universe was this place. Beyond those dark forests there was evil, before our little village it was all evil, and when it comes our time to go there will be evil.
We are the ones who came forth and announced: the world is a tiny blue ball. It flies around like a bug, circling a light bulb in the corner of a dark alley. That’s our world. Isn’t it beautiful now? Maybe we can still find some evil around, but in this scene just described isn’t the little bright blue bug the most beautiful thing around? I believe it is.
And funny enough, our fight now is not to conquer the other species around us, that’s been won. We now fight against the planet! We hurt him, he hurts us back. Maybe the planet itself doesn’t realize what’s going on. George Carlin said that and I believe (in) him. The planet is fine. He doesn’t know what’s going on. For him this is only taking a minute of his ever lasting life. It’s like that evening when you finished the full bowl of chili con carne extra picante. You felt a little stomachache. And then it was gone.
What you didn’t know is that stomachache, instead of simply accepting its reality and going away, has developed machines inside of you, to make sure it would last forever. Maybe it doesn’t want to hurt you, but it is mainly concerned with its own development, for sure.
And that’s what we are. The guys who have the machine at their disposal.
We didn’t create the machines, I mean us, you and me. We were the first ones to be born after the machines. So the machines don’t make us feel strange. Maybe you still have somebody you know who doesn’t like the machines. But just look around you, little by little, everyone is getting used to the machines. Even animals are stimulated to play with the machines. Our cars and means of transportation, we don’t make them ourselves, the machines make them. Adjust them, tune them to perfection.
And we have also invented the personal machine. It comes in different sizes and it can serve different purposes, but everyone now has personal machines. Everybody walks around carrying some sort of personal machine. Machines that can locate you, trace your steps, ask you something, interrupt you, distract you, keep you company and take care of you. Sometimes when we are bored and lonely, even in a place full of people around us, we decide to turn to the machines for comfort. We turn on the machines to make us feel less alone. Even in a crowded bus, coming back for work. A packed subway, everybody interacting with their machines. Nobody looking around, nobody caring for anybody else but their own machines.
But it’s alright. Because from those machines we have art. And isn’t art the most noble and precious of human creations? If it is, then our generation is the first one to ever have free, instant access to every single art form ever to be conceived by man. From our personal machines we can reach pretty much every work of art ever created in this blue ball. And that’s a first! Nobody else before has had this much access to different ideas at the same time.
So the question is, what are you gonna do about it? With so much to choose from, with so many options, what are you gonna put together? What will be your art?
You may say that this that is being stated is obvious as hell! And there really is no point in writing about it with such intensity and glory. And I would agree if I didn’t know that there is still more to be said about it. Be patient, he he he.
I also am talking about the other generations of humans. I mean, I am talking about the different homo sapiens generations we’ve been having on the planet. The generations that preceded us. I’m even talking about your father and mother. Mine.
We are much more advanced than them! Our generation, the people of today, the young people of today. The ones that are most in contact with this new globalized society, we are number one! We are the most advanced people ever to walk this planet!
We have the best of the best, firstly. Best healthcare ever, best nutritional understanding ever, best living conditions ever to be experienced by anyone. Maybe not the cleanest times, sure, but technology definitely makes up for this small loss. We maybe don’t have that classic little crystal-clear creek at the end of the wheat field, or the stone well with spring water. But we do have medical care. Back then, one appendicitis was the end of you, for sure. Here we can go beyond that. Way beyond that.
Here you can last a good long time, fixing yourself. Replacing your parts. Diagnosing with great detail the littlest of problems. Here you own yourself. Here you can sit back and relax, knowing with great likelihood of guessing pretty much everything that goes around you. Even the smallest virus or bacteria that lurks around you. We know that by now. We have that information.
Science has fed us with so much knowledge that we have reached a point never before experienced by any of these animals that inhabit our planet. Sure, we are animals too, just like them. But have come to a point that no other specie has ever dreamed of!
We can duplicate the planet. We can make another one. On a computer, of course, but we can. We can create alternate realities. We can simulate different times of the past. We can project different futures. We are in control.
Sure, the other animals have their own realities, with different understanding of the world around them. But they can’t begin to understand ours. Or anybody else’s for that matter. It would be too much for their little brains. Our brains aren’t anything special by the way. I’m talking about the computers we have created.
The computers that were brought to inhabit the planets by us. Are aliens. They are monstrous creatures. With parts completely renewable and in constant development. These creatures have immense brain space. And their brains is the source of all the power that has recently been given to the human race. Think about it!
Until well recently, I don’t know, less than 100 years ago. If aliens had landed here and given us shit, we probably would have been extinct very easily. Then we developed the atomic bomb. Then we developed computers. We now are a bigger threat to the aliens around, aren’t we?
Maybe not, we can’t be sure. Maybe it’s the same difference to an alien as three cockroaches instead of two to be killed. No big deal. But for us it made the world of difference. All the other animals on our planet now bow to us. Up until very recently some species still had their domain, as men approached with little technology and just a lot of bravery.
Immense packs of Buffalos still roamed threateningly free, the countryside was filled with mysteries and legends and the sea was still a wild obscure frontier. Now those boundaries can’t hold the human spirit. We have conquered all those evils, we have made the world a much brighter and simplified place. Think about it, before us it was everything, the universe was this place. To very recent generations, the world was the universe was this place. Beyond those dark forests there was evil, before our little village it was all evil, and when it comes our time to go there will be evil.
We are the ones who came forth and announced: the world is a tiny blue ball. It flies around like a bug, circling a light bulb in the corner of a dark alley. That’s our world. Isn’t it beautiful now? Maybe we can still find some evil around, but in this scene just described isn’t the little bright blue bug the most beautiful thing around? I believe it is.
And funny enough, our fight now is not to conquer the other species around us, that’s been won. We now fight against the planet! We hurt him, he hurts us back. Maybe the planet itself doesn’t realize what’s going on. George Carlin said that and I believe (in) him. The planet is fine. He doesn’t know what’s going on. For him this is only taking a minute of his ever lasting life. It’s like that evening when you finished the full bowl of chili con carne extra picante. You felt a little stomachache. And then it was gone.
What you didn’t know is that stomachache, instead of simply accepting its reality and going away, has developed machines inside of you, to make sure it would last forever. Maybe it doesn’t want to hurt you, but it is mainly concerned with its own development, for sure.
And that’s what we are. The guys who have the machine at their disposal.
We didn’t create the machines, I mean us, you and me. We were the first ones to be born after the machines. So the machines don’t make us feel strange. Maybe you still have somebody you know who doesn’t like the machines. But just look around you, little by little, everyone is getting used to the machines. Even animals are stimulated to play with the machines. Our cars and means of transportation, we don’t make them ourselves, the machines make them. Adjust them, tune them to perfection.
And we have also invented the personal machine. It comes in different sizes and it can serve different purposes, but everyone now has personal machines. Everybody walks around carrying some sort of personal machine. Machines that can locate you, trace your steps, ask you something, interrupt you, distract you, keep you company and take care of you. Sometimes when we are bored and lonely, even in a place full of people around us, we decide to turn to the machines for comfort. We turn on the machines to make us feel less alone. Even in a crowded bus, coming back for work. A packed subway, everybody interacting with their machines. Nobody looking around, nobody caring for anybody else but their own machines.
But it’s alright. Because from those machines we have art. And isn’t art the most noble and precious of human creations? If it is, then our generation is the first one to ever have free, instant access to every single art form ever to be conceived by man. From our personal machines we can reach pretty much every work of art ever created in this blue ball. And that’s a first! Nobody else before has had this much access to different ideas at the same time.
So the question is, what are you gonna do about it? With so much to choose from, with so many options, what are you gonna put together? What will be your art?
Monday 15 March 2010
Amor
written by Jonatan Ring
Tentadora y muy cautiva
Que me mira y respira
Que me calma y anima
Y en todos lados ilumina.
Se presenta suave como la briza.
Hipnotiza, el sol de mi noche,
La luna de mi día.
La pasión y expresión
En la cama una tentación.
Para que me deje hablando de vos
Dos meses después
mirándoTE ves.
Y si es amor, hay dolor
Si es amor, que dolor
Que si el viento hubiera soplado
Para donde normalmente no miente
Las cosas seria diferentes
Pero eso es parte de la mente,
El ego inconsciente.
Una mente llena de
Visiones, ilusiones
Un amor al todo,
Al no lo veo, lo creo.
Y es ese calor
De los días que paso
Que me deja en la distancia
Sintiendo tu ardor,
Sentimientos profundos
Pero con raíces de ficción
Que desarrollo la imaginación.
Me trataste cono uno más
Y yo como ninguna jamás.
Es el amor, el amor que da mas
Que nunca termina y cuando te
Empuja y te tira, el tiempo es la guía.
Paciente, consciente, sin perder el frente,
Esa dama vestida de emoción,
Que te llega al corazón y hasta en lo
Más oscuro ilumina sin temor,
A ella le llamo amor.
Tentadora y muy cautiva
Que me mira y respira
Que me calma y anima
Y en todos lados ilumina.
Se presenta suave como la briza.
Hipnotiza, el sol de mi noche,
La luna de mi día.
La pasión y expresión
En la cama una tentación.
Para que me deje hablando de vos
Dos meses después
mirándoTE ves.
Y si es amor, hay dolor
Si es amor, que dolor
Que si el viento hubiera soplado
Para donde normalmente no miente
Las cosas seria diferentes
Pero eso es parte de la mente,
El ego inconsciente.
Una mente llena de
Visiones, ilusiones
Un amor al todo,
Al no lo veo, lo creo.
Y es ese calor
De los días que paso
Que me deja en la distancia
Sintiendo tu ardor,
Sentimientos profundos
Pero con raíces de ficción
Que desarrollo la imaginación.
Me trataste cono uno más
Y yo como ninguna jamás.
Es el amor, el amor que da mas
Que nunca termina y cuando te
Empuja y te tira, el tiempo es la guía.
Paciente, consciente, sin perder el frente,
Esa dama vestida de emoción,
Que te llega al corazón y hasta en lo
Más oscuro ilumina sin temor,
A ella le llamo amor.
Tuesday 9 February 2010
4.6 . Transcendental Poetry, The Brazilian Hungarian Manifest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
_"Each of us____________________________________________
____A cell of awareness__________________________________
________Imperfect and incomplete._______________________
_________________________Genetic blends_____________
_________________With uncertain ends____________________
_____________________On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet."
---------------------------------------------------(Freewill - Rush)---
4.6 . Transcendental Poetry, המניפסט והונגרית ברזילאית
_"Each of us____________________________________________
____A cell of awareness__________________________________
________Imperfect and incomplete._______________________
_________________________Genetic blends_____________
_________________With uncertain ends____________________
_____________________On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet."
---------------------------------------------------(Freewill - Rush)---
4.6 . Transcendental Poetry, המניפסט והונגרית ברזילאית
This is the Brazilian-Hungarian Manifest. From Hebrew it could be transliterated as “HaManifestatsia Brazilay veHungarit”. But maybe that needs revision. The people around the office seem to think so.
Anyway, this was written by Caio Badner and it originated from a conversation that Badner and Gabor Füredi had, while watching the snow fall, in Budapest. This happened at the very end of Caio’s trip to Hungary, in February 2010. Good stuff, good vibes, good times!
But wasn’t this the manifest? Yes, it still is.
And what do we state here, through this manifest?
We, the Brazilians and the Hungarians, working together, have discovered the new way. And we realized that this does not belong to us. We had to share it with the world. Nothing this good ever really belongs to just anyone. This kind of stuff has to be shared.
So this way is a new structure for society. A new system for us to use. And live. Live together in greater harmony and justice. In simple terms, imagine a society where you can have everything. Everything you need. But only the things you need.
Everything that you need, you will receive. Just have to fill a form, write a request or, I don’t know, go to the town center and request it. If it lies within the capacity of the society in which you inhabit, to provide you with it, then you shall have it. And use it, for as long as you shall need it.
And everything that you have, but do not need anymore, you should give it away. Just hand it over to somebody that needs it more. Even if they only need it for a little bit, give it at once. For you didn’t need it at all.
We have the need for it, therefore, it exists, this thing called possession. Our belongings will still exist in this new way. But we only get to keep those belonging for as long as we need it. For as long as we really want it.
And only we, the members of the society, can decide when it is time to give something, some possession, some creation, away. Once decided, then, to give it away, the decision does not, necessarily, have to be final. Things may be owned collectively, forever tagged as free.
And if, one day, everyone decides to try this way, for the first time ever, we would have everything. Everybody would own everything collectively. When everything belongs to everybody, when this preceding statement be true, we will have peace on Earth. Peace. Even if just for a second... I think it is worth a shot.
It might sound distant and utopic. Good, because it is. It is a dream. A vision that came to me once. A vision of a place which I visited, one long and cold night in Tel Aviv.
No surprise then, that the idea would be coated with a Jewish belief. I went to Israel for a 5 month study program, but ended up in a 8 month journey. And I am happy to say that, as I approach the end of it all, I feel ready to start anew, fresh and motivated.
But the Jewish beliefs and conceptions are too many, one could argue. And I agree. From it all, I guess I only really absorbed one, a major one.
(Patrick, eu juro que nao sou viado, hehehe)
Give. Give it away. Only keep that which you need.
And when you receive… Pay it forward.
Say it out loud, "pay it forward", so that the one who receives understand his mission. Do it for the next guy. Help as you have been helped. Give as you have received.
And we, together, shall make a better world.
Ps.: This text has been put together in a quite improvised and straight forward fashion. Debates and improvements to this idea are more than welcome. Actually, they are needed and encouraged. Contribute!
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