31 março 2009

Wrong About Japan / O Japão é um Lugar Estranho







O livrinho, traduzido pela Tinta da China,


que anda no Twitter a pedir leitores ;)
















Cheirinho na página oficial em inglês











E encontram-se com Miyazaki!!

Les Droits du Livre - Vive la France



Article 1

Les livres, tous les livres ont le droit d’exister.

Article 2

Les livres sont égaux entre eux, sans distinction d’origine, de fortune,de naissance, d’opinion, d’éditeur.

Article 3

Tout livre a droit à la vie, à sa commercialisation, à la chance d’être exposé
au lecteur, et de donner à son auteur celle d’être entendu et rémunéré
à juste titre.


Article 4
Tous sont égaux devant la loi qui les met à égalité de prix pour tous en
quelques lieux qu’ils soient proposés.


Article 5
Chacun a droit à la reconnaissance en tout lieu de sa personnalité, de
la personnalité de son auteur, de celle de son éditeur.


Article 6
Le livre,oeuvre d’imagination autant que de recherche, s’adresse à l’imagination
autant qu’au besoin de l’homme. Il ne peut en aucune façon
être dévoyé dans sa commercialisation comme un produit d’appel de
consommation courante.


Article 7
Le livre est, et demeure garant de nos libertés. Il ne peut en aucun cas
être soumis à quelque aliénation que ce soit tant sur le plan de la pensée
que sur celui de sa vocation fondamentale qui est de promouvoir le
libre-échange des cultures, des mentalités et des savoirs.


Article 8
Le livre, ouverture de l’esprit, de recherches, de plaisirs, consignation
du savoir autant qu’oeuvre de création doit être traité comme un bien indispensable
à la culture, à la promotion sociale et spirituelle, à l’information,
et ne peut être traité comme un vulgaire objet de profit.

26 março 2009

Wishlist (e viva a Intertextualidade e a Contaminação ;)



Tradução portuguesa na Gailivro

Smashing Pumpkins and Georges Méliès




Let's Open a Cat Café ;)

In Japan, cat cafes have been popping up all over the place, allowing people to relax with a cup of coffee while receiving the purr-fect, relaxing companionship of a kitty.

The Calico Cat Café is one example of a successful cat café business in Tokyo. With over 3 locations in existence in Japan, people are flocking to the unique cafes because they love pets, but just can't commit to having one at home or are restricted by the strict housing regulations in the country. For 800 YEN per hour or 2000 YEN for three hours, animals lovers can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee and find themselves ignored, or occasionally delivered affection by the cats when the mood suits them; just like any pet lover would if they could have cats in the comfort of their own homes.

While there are many strays in Japan, they do not join the furry ranks at Cat Café; however, advertisements for strays that need a home are posted throughout the establishment. To protect their animals from illness, Cat Café requires that patrons thoroughly wash their hands, and any animal brought on the premises is vet checked and vaccinated.

Unlike other pet rental services, the cats at Calico Cat Café are cared for in one location by experienced pet lovers and not passed around from home to home.

Found in Inventor's Spot

25 março 2009

Marked (new translation)



From my translation:

— Acha que eu poderia ter um gato? — perguntei.

— Se um te escolher, serás dele ou dela.

— Me escolher?

Neferet sorriu e fez festas a Skylar, que fechou os olhos e ronronou alto.

— São os gatos que nos escolhem, não somos nós quem manda neles. — Para ilustrar a verdade do que ela dissera, Skylar saltou-lhe dos braços e, de cauda bem levantada, desapareceu pelo corredor abaixo.»


Por outro lado,
gatos e vampiros,
aliás,
gatos vampiros,
não me parece,
por isto:
http://tinyurl.com/cr8abz


All the vampire cartoons from Off the Mark here

The House of Night series website - create your own vampyre tattoo ooh ooh :)

Preview from Google Books

23 março 2009

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Directed by Sophie Fiennes, yes, from that beautiful and prolific family ;)


21 março 2009

Because of Gary Oldman: Beat the Devil

Bela Lugosi is Dead



Latest blog addition, which may very well turn into an addiction ;)

Dia Mundial da Poesia


No CCB:


21 Mar 2009
PARA TODO O PÚBLICO

VÁRIOS ESPAÇOS DO CCB

ENTRADA LIVRE

Depois do enorme sucesso da primeira edição, realizada em 2008, que trouxe ao CCB mais de duas mil pessoas, o programa para 2009, que volta a contar com o apoio do Plano Nacional de Leitura, alarga os horizontes geográficos da poesia feita em português: autores do Brasil, Angola, Cabo Verde e Moçambique, juntarão a sua voz aos seus confrades portugueses para celebrar a língua que todos falam – e na qual escrevem.
Poetas que lêem a sua poesia (e a de outros poetas), espontâneos que encontram o seu espaço para dar largas à sua vontade de comunicar através de um poema, oficinas em que as crianças (e os pais) aprendem a brincar com as palavras, pequenos concertos onde se apura a relação entre a palavra poética e a música, documentários onde se recolhe o rosto e a voz de poetas que já não estão entre nós, uma feira do livro exclusivamente dedicada aos poetas em língua portuguesa, uma maratona de leitura de Os Lusíadas, e mais, muito mais coisas, integram o programa a ser divulgado no final de Janeiro de 2009.


20 março 2009

Natasha Richardson R.I.P.

1963-2009



Her best work (in movies) for me:

Gothic, The Handmaid's Tale, Zelda, Asylum

and of course many more I haven't watched :|

19 março 2009

Edgar Allan Poe read out loud

CD 1 "Burglars Singing In The Cellar"
  1. "Alone" Read by Marianne Faithfull - 1:30
  2. "The Raven" Read by Christopher Walken - 8:30
  3. "The Tell-Tale Heart" Read by Iggy Pop - 14:26
  4. "The Conqueror Worm" Read by Ken Nordine - 3:00
  5. "The Black Cat" Read by Diamanda Galás - 36:58
  6. "For Annie" Read by Gavin Friday - 5:21
  7. "To Helen" Sung by Ed Sanders - 2:29


CD 2 "The Devil's Brew"
  1. "The Haunted Palace" Sung by Ed Sanders - 5:42
  2. "Ulalume" Read by Jeff Buckley - 6:13
  3. "Berenice" Read by Dr. John - 27:42
  4. "The City and the Sea" Performed by Deborah Harry and The Jazz Passengers - 8:04
  5. "Annabel Lee" Read by Marianne Faithfull - 2:24
  6. "The Masque of the Red Death" Read by Gabriel Byrne - 18:13
  7. "The Raven" Read by Abel Ferrara - 1:57
  8. "Mr.Watson, come here, I want you..." Read by Mr. Draeny -5:18
Taken from Wikipedia... sigh* :)

How to Write Poetry

The other posting was not the whole How to Write series, silly me :|

The best poets read widely

What makes a poem?

You need to learn the rules in order to break them

A poem is artificial, artful. It is not simply a mirror

A good poetic structure protects the essence of the poem

Developing & editing

The form of a poem is more dynamic than that of a puzzle

Read your words aloud, even if you have only a few of them

Poems are able to express the things we find hardest to say

The beauty of a poem, like the beauty of an equation, lies in its precision

A poem must contain itself, and all the reader needs

Some forms

Checklist

What next?

Poe and Gothic Creativity



Em comemoração do Bicentenário de Edgar Allan Poe, a Linha de Acção de Estudos Americanos do CEAUL convida-o a participar no Colóquio “Poe e Criatividade Gótica”. Em paralelo, decorrerão diversos eventos culturais na cidade de Lisboa, tais como uma exposição na Biblioteca Nacional, o lançamento de um volume com a poesia completa de Edgar Allan Poe e outras surpresas góticas a revelar. O Colóquio terá lugar na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, entre 18 e 20 de Março de 2009.



Finally a posting about something I get to do ;)

17 março 2009

Existe um Humor Português?

Um ser vagamente melancólico, com predisposição para a nostalgia dos gloriosos tempos dos seus egrégios avós, enquanto acumula pequenas derrotas diárias que aceita com resignação.

Foi esta a imagem do português com que crescemos, a que ouvimos milhares de vezes em cafés, programas de televisão, jornais, livros e no cinema: somos o povo do fado, não sabemos dançar como o irmão brasileiro, não sabemos fazer a festa como o vizinho espanhol, não temos o dom de nos auto-depreciarmos com gosto como o civilizado amigo inglês.


E, no entanto, esta gente ri-se. Assim de repente, e recorrendo apenas a exemplos inevitáveis, riu-se do provincianismo das suas elites (com Eça), riu-se da mesquinhez de, bem, de toda a gente (com Camilo), riu-se do absurdo dos seus atavismos e dos seus ascensores sociais (com Herman), riu-se da sua linguagem vazia (com o Gato Fedorento). No entanto, riu de quê e como? Quantas vezes e porquê? Mais que tudo: riu-se em português?

Ao longo dos séculos temos teorizado sobre o nosso humor, convictos que o devir nacional nos empurra para a desgraça desde que começámos a desbaratar o império graças a um rei adolescente desaparecido em Ceuta. E é com a mesma tranquilidade com que nos atribuíamos uma resignação mórbida que dizemos que nunca houve tanto humor como hoje. Talvez o século XXI ande a correr-nos melhor, talvez tenhamos aprendido como fazer rir os conterrâneos.

Será?

Uma antologia facilita a tarefa de tentar perceber o que terão sido os humores nacionais, pelo menos no que toca aos últimos 40 anos. Chama-se, apropriadamente, "Antologia do Humor Português", é organizada por Nuno Artur Silva (humorista e dono das Produções Fictícias) e por Inês Fonseca Santos (jornalista). Cobre, segundo a premissa dos seus autores, o período que vai de 1969 a 18 de Abril de 2009. Estamos quase lá, motivo mais que suficiente para inquirir o que é (ou foi) isso do humor nacional.

A compilação aponta caminhos, mas tem as suas particularidades. Primeira: devido à escassez de textos especificamente de humor são incluídos textos literários que usam o humor, o que pode levar a uma confusão de género: uma coisa são textos "de" humor, outra textos "com" humor... Por outro lado, esta mistura tem a vantagem de mostrar que certos escritores com propensão para a tragédia também recorrem com eficácia à arma letal do (sor)riso.

Segunda premissa: só estão presentes textos que tenham sido publicados em livro, o que automaticamente elimina todo e qualquer guião de Herman, uma boa parte dos textos usados em rádio, muito bom texto de jornal (e por isso na introdução os compiladores lamentam ter de deixar de fora as crónicas do magnífico Nuno Brederode Santos).

Sobra o quê? Alguma literatura, alguns desalinhados, alguma poesia, algumas obras colectivas, alguns cronistas. É preciso olhar para as escolhas com calma para percebermos se o retrato é fiel à realidade ou não.

Pobrezinhos, linguagem de bairro

Numa primeira secção, de nascidos antes da década de 1950, juntam-se escritores e poetas com óbvias tendências humorísticas, como Cesariny, Nuno Bragança, Dinis Machado, Assis Pacheco, Alexandre O'Neill, Mário Henrique Leiria, Mário de Carvalho, etc.

Numa segunda secção temos nomes inesperados, como João César Monteiro ou o esquecido José Sesinando, nome que Palma Carmo usava nos seus textos "non-sense" sobre música no "Jornal de Letras".

Na terceira secção temos escritores contemporâneos (Alface, Luísa Costa Gomes, Miguel Esteves Cardoso, Adília Lopes, Rui Zink, Jorge de Sousa Braga, etc). Depois há uma secção para as obras colectivas, que une o "Livro da Treta" aos livros que compilam as notícias saídas n' "O Inimigo Público", ao livro do blog Barnabé, ao do Gato Fedorento (etc).

Numa última secção temos uma estranha mistura de "jovens", que vê Nilton emparedado entre Pedro Mexia e Nuno Costa Santos, e junta o cronista Rui Tavares a José de Pina e Eduardo Madeira.

"Quando começámos a ter de delimitar o objecto decidimos não nos debruçar sobre filmes, sketches, jornais porque não teríamos tempo. Por isso ficámos no que saiu em livro - da literatura, rádio, blogs, etc", diz Nuno Artur Silva, justificando a opção, que não é de todo pacífica.

Miguel Esteves Cardoso (MEC) assinala o facto realçando que "é uma antologia feita pelas Produções Fictícias. Não é uma antologia no sentido nobre do termo - e estou à vontade para o dizer porque sou quem tem mais páginas lá dentro. Mistura alhos com bugalhos." MEC deixa bem claro que "o humor é uma nota, uma cor que se dá, dentro de todas as cores. A escrita humorística é outra coisa - é feita para rir, como a escrita porno é feita para dar tesão".

Ainda assim, o livro é um ponto de partida para responder à pergunta: "Existe algum tipo de humor a que possamos chamar português?"

Pode parecer uma questão ingénua, mas a disparidade das respostas diz-nos que não é de simples resposta. Por exemplo, MEC não tem dúvidas que "não existe nenhum humor português". "Existe humor", continua o autor de "A Causa das Coisas", "mas se é feito ou não em português isso é outra coisa". Para vincar a sua posição recorre ao exemplo dos Gato Fedorento: "São nitidamente filhos dos Monty Python", o que lhe permite concluir que "não faz sentido nenhum tentar arranjar uma linhagem humorística portuguesa".

Herman José arrisca apenas dizer que "onde se está mais perto de um humor português é nos filmes do Vasco Santana". Herman explica a ideia: "A partir do 'Pátio das Cantigas' abastardámos, misturando influências vindas de fora. Agora, não há tanta fragmentação no nosso humor como em outros países porque o país é pequeno. Tão pequeno que agora faz tudo de 'gatinhos' como antes fazia tudo de 'hermaninhos', enquanto a revista tenta sobreviver sendo moderninha. E o que percorre tudo isto é sermos pobrezinhos."

Herman, pragmático, entende que esta pequenez, geográfica e comercial (basicamente: não temos mercado porque não temos para onde exportar) determina o humor nacional - não só o produto final como a apetência para rir.

O escritor Mário de Carvalho, que Nuno Artur Silva refere como um exímio praticante do género, também teme qualificar o humor feito cá como essencialmente português. "Para saber se há humor português tinha de o comparar ao holandês ou ao coreano", diz, com graça. O autor do hilariante (e cruel retrato de um certo Portugal) "Havemos de Trocar Umas Ideias Sobre o Assunto" assinala que em Portugal "tem sido predominante o humor da revista, do trocadilho, da graçola, sem atingir nenhum grau de refinamento". Depois aponta factores que influem no humor e podem ser tidos como "portugueses": "Quando se usa a linguagem de bairros populares, com certos tiques de linguagem, certos modismos, talvez aí haja um humor radicado cá. Mas só se for isso. O O'Neill a falar de Campo de Ourique ou de Lisboa com amargura e ironia - mas não sei se isso será português porque não conheço o humor da Dinamarca."

O mais português dos humoristas e as sílabas

O'Neill parece ser considerado - entre os exemplos recentes - o mais português dos humoristas. Nuno Artur Silva considera mesmo que uma das "marcas originais do humor português era a adição de uma certa melancolia, como se encontra no O'Neill, que juntou o melancólico e o satírico". Isso, diz, ainda existe hoje e "está presente num autor como o Nuno Costa Santos (NCS) que pegou na estafeta do O'Neill, com o seu universo de aforismos".

Costa Santos, cujos "Aforismos de Pastelaria" retratam as dúvidas e pensamentos proto-filosóficos de uma série de figuras típicas do imaginário nacional, concede que "há um humor português" e recorre a um exemplo actual para fazer valer a sua tese: "O RAP funde uma linguagem 'non-sense' com - simplificando - a linguagem do MEC, a crónica de costumes, e isso tornou-se especificamente português. Mesmo quando há uma herança dos Monty Python aquilo é filtrado por um olhar português - caso do Herman ou dos Gato Fedorento".

Depois acrescenta que "Bruno Aleixo também representa uma mundividência de Portugal" - curiosamente, Herman considera que o único exemplo de humor a que se pode chamar português desde Vasco Santana é Bruno Aleixo.

Costa Santos introduz uma especificidade no discurso sobre a "Portugalidade", isto é, demonstra como num simples pormenor técnico pode-se encerrar uma ideia de Nação: "Pessoas como o Herman ou o RAP são grandes observadores, têm blocos de notas mentais em que vão registando maneiras de vestir, acentuações - no humor a forma como acentuas uma sílaba ou o 'timing' de uma frase faz toda a diferença e faz a piada funcionar ou não. E é nisto que há a especificidade nacional".

"Se percorrermos as cantigas de escárnio, alguma poesia barroca, Gil Vicente encontra-se muito humor feito em português", lembra Mário de Carvalho. "Não quero ser demasiado assertivo, mas o Camilo e o Eça quase arriscaria dizer que são cómicos", continua. "No Almeida Garrett há um humor fino. E até no Herculano desponta algum humor. Pode dizer-se que o humor não está ausente da literatura portuguesa, quer seja o desbragado, quer o mais solto e popular. E no século XX temos o André Brum, parcerias de teatro e algum Aquilino ("Malhadinhas")". Depois acrescenta a frase fatal: "Mas não temos nada como o Gogol, ou o Mark Twain ou o Wilde."

O francês que se tornou anglo-saxónico

Este é um resumo sintético e possível da herança humorística portuguesa que está ao dispor de qualquer leitor - a herança que os primeiros humoristas profissionais receberam, mesmo que não lhe tenham dado uso.

A tradição disponível era a literatura que recorria ao humor ou, segundo MEC, "publicações como 'A Paródia', e muitos livrinhos e panfletos de morrer a rir" que circulavam desde o início do século. Recorria-se sobretudo, diz Nuno Artur Silva, a uma tradição de escrita "escatológica e obscena. Ultimamente isso já não tem sido recorrente porque já há liberdade de costumes e dizer palavrões não chama a atenção".

Historicamente, recorda Artur Silva, "lá fora, no início do século XX, os humoristas estavam no cinema porque era o meio popular e emergente. Com a TV, nos anos 50, 60, os comediantes foram para o ecrã".

Em Portugal o humor foi gradualmente desaparecendo da literatura, autonomizou-se enquanto género, e profissionalizou-se. Mas desengane-se quem pense que isso é de agora - segundo Herman José, há muitos anos que o humor é profissional por cá, apenas o mercado é que era minúsculo.

Por exemplo: antes do 25 de Abril já se fazia "uma forma de 'stand-up' popular".

Na época, recorda, "um tipo como o Humberto Madeira fazia stand-up que não era popularucho". Já havia companhias de humor e Herman cita as de Henrique Viana, de José Viana e de Camilo de Oliveira. "Era um humor técnico de situações, como aqueles filmes de domingo à tarde, tipo 'Com jeito vai...' ou comédias de enganos - mas não se podia falar em política."

E na revista "havia equipas de escrita muito boas. O Rogério Bracinha e César de Oliveira faziam equipa para a Ivone Silva, tinham coisas muito irónicas. Bastava o violinista ser canhoto para a Ivone dizer: 'Estás a desafinar', o que tinha uma leitura política e era o bastante para arrancar gargalhadas."

Realmente diferente era o acesso à informação: "na província", recorda Herman, "não havia isto: as pessoas eram muito desinformadas. À província iam espectáculos de variedades com o "star-system" da época, as mini-revistas (duos de êxito, melodias de sempre, etc), o Solnado, o José Viana - precursores do stand-up".

Depois aconteceu uma coisa engraçada: "No pós 25 de Abril os gostos pulverizam-se. Percebeu-se que a grande audiência está na novela, que é a grande aglutinadora. Por alguma razão o humor no Brasil é uma desgraça." Segundo Herman, "os escritores de revista", profissionais, note-se, "adaptaram-se e durante muitos anos deram-se lindamente. Os da TV andaram a apanhar bonés - a linguagem da revista que eles adaptavam não servia mais para a TV".

E depois, que aconteceu? Nuno Artur Silva: "Há duas figuras que são muito fortes e quase parece que não há mais nada: o MEC e o Herman, que fizeram uma mudança de modelo - era afrancesado e tornou-se anglo-saxónico".

"Eu importei o 'know-how' de Inglaterra, porque era o humor que mexia comigo", admite Herman, assim contribuindo para a sua tese de que o humor pós-Vasco Santana não é bem português. "Tem a ver com a maneira como se vende a ironia. Quem fizer um bêbedo de aldeia põe toda a gente a rir. Mas um padre a falar contra o casamento homossexual enquanto olha para um jovem em fato de banho..." Herman é realista quanto ao seu sucesso: "Há, em relação a mim, um fenómeno como o das músicas dos Beatles: são coisas que ganharam espaço na cultura pop porque vêm de épocas muito específicas. A altura era pobre. Hoje em dia já não era possível."

Diversidade, informação

Portanto: o humor autonomizou-se da poesia e da literatura, foi para a revista e para o cinema, e daí migrou para a televisão, atingindo o seu máximo, por cá, com Herman. E hoje?

Hoje, para Nuno Artur Silva "os escritores portugueses acabam por ser dominados pela cultura anglo-saxónica. Há uma mudança de modelo, com maior influência dos Monty Phyton. Os miúdos têm referências que não são sequer 'mainstream', mas que os afastam do humor tradicional".

Esta última ideia - de que os miúdos hoje não precisam que os guiem no que toca a humor - é confirmada por MEC: "As gerações com menos de 40 anos conhecem todos os humoristas americanos e ingleses. São muito mais cosmopolitas do que pensamos. Estão a par do último grito do humor."

Há razões de ordem social para isto, como expõe Mário de Carvalho. "Portugal mudou: há mais licenciados e o público é mais exigente." Quando Nuno Artur Silva diz que, "mais que a ditadura, havia um espírito reverencial que fazia com que a comédia fosse vista como um género menor", estará apenas meio certo. O fim da ditadura trouxe por arrasto a democratização do ensino, que, em última instância, faz aumentar a velocidade de transmissão dos gostos.

O que se ganhou nos últimos anos, diz Artur Silva, foi "diversidade de registos". Certos tipos de humor tendem a ficar segundo plano: "O humor transgressor sobre a Igreja já não chama a atenção", aponta Artur Silva. "Os poderes eram mais claros antigamente., Hoje é tudo mais difuso, mais matizado, do poder económico ao mediático", pelo que o humor encontra novos pontos de abordagem.

Apesar de todo este cosmopolitismo, há quem ache que o espectro do humor português ainda é limitado. Mário de Carvalho reconhece que "tem havido tentativas por parte do Gato Fedorento de fazer humor baseado no absurdo e no 'understatement'", mas assinala que "isso não passa pelos humores nacionais". E faz ver que "também não há um humor judaico, baseado nas situações e contradições e absurdos".

Apesar de todo este cosmopolitismo o humor português ainda não tem a dose de agressividade e irrisão do americano. Herman: "É uma questão de tamanho. Há muito mais de 50 Portugais nos EUA. Quando o Letterman faz uma piada sobre o Buch sabe que não vai encontrá-lo ao virar da esquina no dia seguinte."

Herman admite que "agora há mais informação" e que "os temas são mais variados", mas diz que "as coisas estão normalizadas. Como vemos na "Liga dos Últimos" ainda há muito bimbo - mas na Ucrânia também deve ser assim. Vemos cromos maravilhosos mas não é preciso criá-los porque eles já existem". E com maior acesso à informação, há um novo problema: "Os políticos já trazem a sua própria caricatura" e resta pouco ao humorista para fazer.

Humor com influências americanas, disseminado por várias plataformas, numa altura em que parece haver um vazio de poder. Que retirar de tudo isto? Herman, com muitos anos de experiência, é claro: "Estamos numa fase em que ou se tem um fenómeno de moda (como aconteceu com os Gatos) ou só temos novela, que é um bolo de bolacha de emoções que tomou conta das massas. Os programas de humor são satélites. Vivem das migalhas das novelas."

Claro que, longe dos meios mediáticos, há uma "revolução" que "corresponde a uma especialização do humor: os comediantes surgem no meio emergente, que são os blogs e o Youtube" (Nuno Artur Silva). O blog, diz, trouxe "novas formas de humor", mesmo quando não se trata de humoristas puros: há escritores "mais cultos, mais individualistas, com maior diversidade de registos, como o Rogério Casanova (www.pastoralportuguesa.blogspot.com), o Maradona (www.acausafoimodificada.blogs.sapo.pt) , o Mexia."

E algum desse humor é português? Talvez: Costa Santos diz, com graça, que "as disputas de 'one liners' [basicamente: piadas assassinas de uma só frase] no Twitter são variações do fado à desgarrada"

Ípsilon

Texto Editores

16 março 2009

Scientists Claim That "Old Age" Begins At 27

Are you over 27 years old? Well guess what! Your cognitive functioning is now officially in decline. Awesome! Let's see if my 28-year-old brain can complete this post unicorns rainbows marshmallows ice cream!

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia tested the cognitive skills of over 2,000 participants ranging in age from 18-60. "The people involved – who were mostly in good health and well-educated – had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols," the Daily Mail notes. 22 year olds had the best scores; after the age of 27, scores began to drop off, particularly in the areas of reasoning, spatialization, and speed of thought.

"Results converge on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s," wrote Professor Timothy Salthouse, who believes that therapies designed to prevent the aging of the brain need to start much earlier in order to prevent cognitive deterioration.

So in the spirit of being more proactive, here's something to get you started on better understanding your brain:




If only bad news always came in such delightful postings as this from Jezebel ;)

13 março 2009

Magnéticaaaaaaa



Digital magazine in Portuguese and English. Subscribe, for free!

The whole How To Write series




















How to write books for Children posted in Lucas on my mind :)

11 março 2009

The joy of Soy




Food studies is a subject so much in its infancy that it would be foolish to try to define it or in any way circumscribe it, because the topic, discipline or method you rule out today might be tomorrow’s big thing. The inadequacy of our conventional conceptual framework for dealing with this unwieldy child is bathetically shown on the copyright page of The World of Soy, where the “Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data” lists the volume’s subject matter as “1. Soyfoods. 2. Cookery (Soybeans). 3. Food habits”. Thus do our categories of taxonomy reduce the current state of our knowledge about the world’s fourth most important food, measured in terms of calories, and first among legumes. Measured in cash terms, soy (Glycine max) is in some ways the most important crop, and in terms of imports and exports, second only to wheat. The fact that this important book has contributions by seventeen authors reflects more than the circumstances of its origins in a couple of academic conferences; it also shows the vastness of the topic and the large number of disciplines required to make sense of it. Dealing with soy comprehensively requires the attentions of historians, nutritionists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists and specialists in agriculture, plant genetics – and cooks, for if we do not know how soy has been and can be used as human food, and why people would wish to eat it, we lack any fundamental knowledge of it.

Though it was domesticated more than 3,000 years ago, as the editors say in their introduction, “hardly any other food plant is as modern as the soybean”. They might have added, “or as controversial”. For, as press coverage has revealed, the clearing both of the rainforests and cerrados (savannas) of Brazil to grow soy, and the building of dams that are supposedly designed to help in its cultivation, are having dramatic effects on the survival of indigenous peoples and on climate change and biodiversity. There is an important distinction, though, to be made at the outset, between soy as food and soy as feed. In Brazil, some call chicken “soybeans with wings” and, as Sidney Mintz and Christine M. Du Bois, co-editors of this book, point out in their concluding essay, “of the world’s 2004 soybean production, some 93 per cent of the protein was processed into animal feed rather than human food”. But this cycling of soy via animals “is a spectacularly inefficient means of providing human populations with protein no matter how profitable it may be to the producers”. They instance the pig, where less than half the feed ends up as pork – the remainder ends up as the waste products of porcine metabolism, to put it politely.

It is an odd fact that this crop on which human nourishment is so dependent directly or indirectly, cannot be used by us as unprocessed food, except for the rarefied Japanese restaurant treat of edamame – green, immature beans in the pod. The soybean has evolved a number of chemical protections from pests, which range from being annoying to fairly toxic, which (to simplify) is why we cannot eat it raw; and when roasted or cooked in high, dry heat, the proteins form an indigestible tangle of compounds. There are other drawbacks to soy as regular human food: its flavour (which old Chinese sources disparage as “beany” – a consequence of oxidation of polyunsaturated oils by lipoxidase), and the fact that, like other legumes, its carbohydrate components (raffinose and stachyose) cause flatulence. But it was an invaluable crop in China because it could flourish in poor soil, is a nitrogen-fixing plant (which therefore does not further degrade poor soil), and, says Mintz, “was a vital fallback food in times of famine”. Somehow or other, the Chinese discovered that soy is made edible by fermentation – as are many other foods, and not just those of plant origin. In his own brilliant essay, “Fermented Beans and Western Taste”, Mintz cites Geoffrey Campbell-Platt’s surprising point that “something like one-third of all the food eaten on earth today has been treated by some kind of fermentation”, from meat and fish to dairy products and wine, beer and spirits. Though it is hard to document the use of fermentation before the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals, there is some speculation that its use as a means of preserving food (along with older techniques such as drying and salting) may have marked our ancestors’ transition from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturists.

Mintz’s elegantly written contribution is crucial to the enterprise here, and shows why the concrete, particular knowledge of food from a cook’s (or at least, a curious eater’s) perspective needs to be incorporated into food studies generally. It is essential at the outset to notice that, while Western diets include a good deal of fermented dairy produce, especially cheese – of which we have a staggeringly large variety – pickled fish, meats and vegetables, and cereals (just think of the hundred-plus single malt Scotch whisky brands, and thousands of beers and wines), “the lack of fermented legumes in Western culinary traditions seems slightly puzzling at least”.

Eastern culinary cultures also make use of fermented cereals, vegetables and foods of animal origin. Fermented legumes may seem simply to be a bonus, until we explore exactly what they are, and begin to realize that they are central to the cuisines in which they feature. The most important products are soy sauce in China, Japan, Korea and, to a lesser extent, in South-East Asia; the soup flavouring miso and natto in Japan; tempe (or tempeh), the Indonesian main course ingredient, a cake made from boiled soybeans, and the related oncom, which can be made from pressed peanuts as well as from soy pulp; and the soybean paste jiang (or chiang), important not just in China but under its local names in Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines. Soy sauce is the principal flavouring in most of the cuisines in which it features; one cannot imagine the food of China, Japan or Korea without it.

However, there is one soy product even more important worldwide, and that is bean curd, tofu (doufou). Besides processing soy by fermentation, the Chinese also discovered the technique of sprouting the beans, though soybean sprouts did not became popular until the Song dynasty (960–1279). The third Chinese processing technique was grinding the beans (following the discovery of the stone rotary mill in the Warring States period, 480–221 bc). Mixed with water, the milled flakes produced a milky emulsion, soymilk, though this still has the digestive disadvantages of the raw bean (and it was not until the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries that it was learnt that prolonged heating of the milk rendered it easily digestible). Tofu is made much like cheese, in that a coagulant (now usually gypsum) is introduced into the soymilk, producing a custard consistency, which is then drained to produce curd. The difference, as we learn from the essay by the third editor, Chee-Beng Tan, is that the entire “process of making tofu from grinding beans to pressing takes only an hour”. Though a labour-intensive process, it is a major, cheap source of protein. Tan quotes a recent study showing that the soybean “yields more usable protein per acre than other common cultivated plants”, and, of course, it is strikingly more efficient to turn soy directly into protein for human food than to do so indirectly by feeding it to livestock. An interesting form of cooperation grew up around the making of tofu in some of China’s poor rural villages, where every family knew how to make bean curd. When one household produced tofu, the others would either borrow some, to be paid back when it was their turn to make it, or give a quantity of soybeans in exchange for the processed tofu.

Soy is also the world’s most important oilseed crop. The burning issue with soy, as with so many other crops, is the acceptability of genetic engineering. Genetic modification holds out the promise of removing soy’s disadvantages – of doing away with its disagreeable flavour, its flatus-producing properties, its instability problems, nutritional deficiencies in its amino acid profile (though not as good as meat or eggs, it is much better than most plant foods), and of remedying its vulnerability to disease, insect attack or competition from weeds. In the chapter on genetic modification, Du Bois and Ivan Sergio Freire de Sousa summarize the reactions of “control, dread, outrage” raised by Marion Nestle’s work versus the “promise, hope and choice” held out by Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Ebbe Schiøler: “Because the stakes are high, the issues complex, and the stakeholders so numerous and varied, it seems prudent” to proceed, but with caution. This fence-straddling position, however, is preceded by some paragraphs of scepticism (which I share) as to whether GM soy can ever be of benefit to the poorest farmers.

Most of this volume, indeed all but the first four pieces, consists of discussions of the role of soy foods in – apart from the United States – cultures in the non-English-speaking world. Though the US was, until 2006 (when a statistical tie with Brazil developed), the world’s biggest exporter of whole soybeans, it uses most of its own consumption as feed, not food – with the exception that soy oil is now the most important edible fat used in American kitchens. So, for instance, there is a chapter on tofu as a celebratory food in Sichuan (the province that gave us the best-known and most delicious of all bean curd dishes, the fiery ma po doufu, “pock-marked woman’s bean curd”, made with minced pork and plenty of chilli). An appendix to this contains the only poorly edited part of the book, three useless “Contemporary Innovative Tofu Recipes”, which give no quantities at all.

Among the outstanding contributions to this volume (which is part of the University of Illinois Press’s excellent Food Series) is Erino Ozeki’s “Fermented Soybean Products and Japanese Standard Taste”, an anthropologist’s approach to cultural differences in taste preferences. She gives a model of the Japanese “pattern of flavours repeated in many dishes” that represents “the favourite taste of that cuisine”. It is probably a little easier to specify the elements of this pattern for the Japanese “standard taste” because there are only two – the fish stock called dashi, an infusion of dried fish and seaweed, and fermented soy products, namely soy sauce and miso – than it would be for the less uniform French, Italian or, come to it, British taste. This approach could be very fruitful in exploring the differences between similar cultures – the American flavour pattern will have a sweet foundation that is not so apparent, for example, in British taste preferences. Weirdly enough, though, the ultimate question of “Soy’s Dominance and Destiny” (the title of the concluding chapter) really boils down to whether the populations of South America, East Asia and West Africa can learn to love tofu. I’m not optimistic; but this exemplary, comprehensive volume shows the way to frame the crucial questions of food studies.

An A-to-O guide to Japan's obsession with blood types

The Japanese have a passion for filing and categorization that reaches fever pitch when it comes to the always-popular system of classifying people by their A, B, AB or O blood group — "ketsuekigata" (血液型, blood type)." Women, especially, will ask about the blood type of anyone we feel friendly toward (and will eagerly volunteer our own); the topic is regarded as a surefire ice-breaker, the veritable exchange of personality meishi (名刺, business cards), as if to say, "This is me, so what about you?"

On the other hand, after getting acquainted and telling each other about families, birth dates, etc., followed by the inevitable question of blood — "Ketsuekigata nāni?" (血液型なあに? What's your blood type?), it could be that the other person will look a little wary or mildly disappointed. Many Japanese women know, down to the minutest detail, the characteristics of their particular blood group — and more importantly, it's aishō (相性, suitability) with other types. A mismatch of blood types could ruin the buds of a beautiful friendship.

A widely known fact of Japanese blood is that, demographically, there are more "A gata" (A 型, A types) than any other. Key A traits are majimesa (真面目さ, seriousness or gravity) and hatarakimono (働き者, industriousness) — easily believable, judging from most people's behavior in this country. A types are also tayorini naru (頼りになる, dependable) and shiryobukai (思慮深い, to think before speaking and weigh the consequences of actions), which makes them excellent advisers and genuine friends.

Other well-known A characteristics are an obsession with cleanliness and a deep-rooted fear of contamination. The reason behind this (only hearsay, but I'm told there's truth behind popular myth) is that when the country opened its doors to the outside world in the late 19th century, a host of exotic diseases came in (cholera was the biggie), and only those who had notions of hygiene and cleanliness were able to survive the storm. They were, coincidentally, A-type people. The other types, less concerned with security, hygiene and common sense than their fellow A's, became sick and died off in droves. The A's, however, lived to breed and extoll the virtues of cleanliness.

Mori Ogai, a celebrated Meiji Period (1868-1912) novelist and reputedly a raging A, was famed for his staunch refusal to share bath water, even with his own family. He washed himself from four buckets filled with hot water, lined in a straight row in the hallway of his house. He also advised the government to demolish all sentō (銭湯, public bathhouses) in the interests of kokumin no kenkō (国民の健康, national health).

From the A-type point of view, B-type folks such as myself comes off as slobs. The other day, I was caught wiping my hands on my jeans as I came out of the restroom (Is that a crime? Is it? Huh?) and a colleague gave me a long, accusatory look before saying (and his words came out like bullets): "Wakatta. B gata deshō?" (わかった。B 型でしょう? I get it. You're B type, aren't you?) I don't think he and I will be having lunch anytime soon.

Indeed, B types are often seen as the black sheep of the Japanese race, inviting verdicts such as wagamama (わがまま, selfish), maipēsu (マイペース, my pace, or doing things at one's own pace), and kawatteru (変わってる, strange).

Not surprisingly, statistics show that a marriage between an A type and B type is most likely to end in divorce; particularly disastrous is when the woman is B and the man is A. Type O's, on the other hand, are acknowledged as generous, passionate lovers with hearts of gold and wallets to match. Type O's have a talent for financial success, thrive on parties and social engagements and generally sport a Latin temperament rarely glimpsed in the sober Japanese.

The rarest (and therefore most appreciated) blood type in this country is AB. An AB person is well balanced (coming from a masterful combination of the best A and B qualities), clearsighted and logical, with the ability to remain cool in the face of utter pandemonium. It's said that many AB's choose careers in the police force, bureaucracy and scientific academia — they are the shussegashira (出世頭, high-flyers) of Japanese society and beacons of light in times of severe stress.

Interestingly, few Japanese will try to apply these blood-type rules to foreigners. This is probably because of the one trait that applies to all four blood types — meiwaku wo sakeru (迷惑を避ける, an unwillingness to impose).

The Japan Times, and thanx to Andurinha :)

10 março 2009

Which films show us our future?

Among the endless chilling aspects of the ongoing economic crisis, perhaps the most unnerving has been the constant suspicion that this is only the beginning – that the money printing and boarded-up high streets are only the prelude to a far darker second act. The trick, of course, then becomes picturing what that might be – except it's a fool's errand, the mind's eye fogged by the sheer scale involved.

Enter the movies – still for all their flaws a fine device for speculating on the future, allowing us to to piece together a composite of likely scenarios, turning all of us into WALL-Es sifting through the cinematic debris.

Among the most active lately has been Evan Calder Williams's blog Socialism and/or Barbarism, whose musings on our likely fate are based around the filmic motifs we may shortly find spilling into real life.

The thing is, the end of the world thus far has taken most of us by surprise. It's not that at some stage we won't still wind up in The Day After Tomorrow – just that the sudden picturesque eco-calamity that was due to befall us seems to have been gazumped by something less visually immediate. That may be why the ever-familiar Mad Max is now often cited among those of an apocalyptic bent (aside from Calder Williams, it's a favourite over at housepricecrash.co.uk) – but for me, despite the suitably insane circularity of its logic ("one needs gasoline in order to drive around and kill others to steal their gasoline, but in doing so, one consumes the gasoline that one had"), it still always seems too camply histrionic to be much of a blueprint for things to come.

No, here in weary old western Europe, it feels to me that the descent will be a closer relative of Delicatessen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's breakthrough vision of a hungry, dowdy block of flats in which no one likes to ask where the butcher's fresh cuts are coming from. Fittingly, Calder Williams namechecks both that film and its baroque follow-up City of Lost Children – identifying their timeless, flea-market aesthetic as a portent of a world hurtling backwards, an image of our being on the one hand too broke to maintain technology and, on the other, out of space to bury our rubbish, ending up by necessity recycling, repurposing and creatively salvaging. Leave out the cannibalism and it might almost pass for optimism.

Of course, it could go like that. The alternative, one supposes, is Michael Haneke's The Time of the Wolf, a psychically scarring lurch into the darkness. For the moment, however, the shape of the medium-term at least seems to me to lie in two films not mentioned in the original post. The first is the stunning Children of Men, a movie given its power by the sheer ghastly plausibility of its deportation camps along the Sussex coast and murmuring ads for state-assisted suicide. The second is Roy Andersson's deadpan masterpiece Songs from the Second Floor, a grey-on-grey tableau of flagellants and bankrupts, with the city reduced to one vast stationary traffic jam and everyone desperate to get out but doomed to stay put – a scene that feels more like London with every passing day.

But then, everyone will have their own movie that comes closest to reflecting their sense of what lies ahead. It may be La Jetée. It could be Dawn of the Dead. That's the thing about film: its ability to marry what we know of the world and what we believe it is (or could be) in our gut. Me, I'll be seeing that magic at work as my three-year-old son's eyes widen watching Christopher Reeve as Superman – part of me madly jealous, the bigger part just wishing I had the words to apologise to him.

The Guardian

The 20 coolest camp sites in Europe

1 ILHA DA BERLENGA
Portugal

Be brave — the sea crossing from Peniche can be bumpy, but the reward is a hillside camp site with exclusive access to the crystal waters of a small cove on Ilha da Berlenga. Only a dozen fishermen’s families live on the island, which is a protected nature reserve. It’s saltwater showers only, and you have to collect a daily personal allowance of fresh water at the island’s bar (which stocks other drinks, too).

ilhadasberlengas.no.sapo.pt, 00 351 262 789571

2 LUGAR VARZEAS
Portugal

Camp with a clear conscience in the hills of central Portugal, surrounded by the scent of jasmine, eucalyptus and orange blossom. The turquoise eco-yurts have a brass-knobbed bed and retro furnishings, while the owners’ organic allotment provides vines, figs and basil. Their chickens will lay your morning eggs, and you’ll wake up to find your breakfast in a hamper at your yurt’s front door before you skip off for a solar-powered hot shower.

yurtholidayportugal.com , 00 351 235 208562

More from Times Online

How To Write

How to write (by Stephen King, no less)

How to write WELL

How to write a Joke

How to write a Movie

How to write Poetry

How to write a brillliant Essay

How to write a Best-seller

The Guardian

«Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter»



(quoted from Newsweek :)

09 março 2009

Om Nom Nom, Nham Nham Nham ;-9

Board Games Tried and True

Ongoing testing, playing, partying by and from
Baby Toolkit
(so be sure to keep checking for more, same here):






Apples to Apples

Reading between the lines

What choice of reading material would impress you in a potential date - and which book would be a big turn-off?


Young couple reading a book under a tree

Bond over a book ... Photograph: Kevin Mackintosh/Getty Images

We all know we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a date by the cover of the book he or she is holding?

According to a survey for the National Year of Reading, almost one in five people would read a book while waiting for their date to arrive in order to make a good impression. But choosing the right book to be seen with can be a minefield.

To mark World Book Day today, the British Library is hosting a speed book club. Participants take along a favourite book, swap it with a likely looking stranger, and "perhaps find their soulmate", say the optimistic organisers. There will also be games, workshops, and live music in the cavernous entrance hall, so the odds of bumping into a real-life Mr Darcy are rather higher than if you lurk in the dusty archives all day.

The question is, how do you pick the perfect book to confer the desired air of intelligence and approachability, not to mention the combined sex appeal of Brad and Angelina?

An unscientific poll of male readers revealed some alarmingly high-brow responses. "Something that makes you think, like Voltaire's Candide, or Zorba the Greek, would impress me", said one. Others demanded the output of entire nationalities: "Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov. Any of the Russians, really."

Austen got a tentative green light, despite her novels being rather too full of "marriage, petticoats, and ponies". Dickens, Orwell and Hemingway, on the other hand, were met with firm, manly approval.

"And it's a good sign if the copy she has is well-worn - it shows she's not just reading it to show off", said one stickler. Time to 'accidentally' drop those Penguin Classics in the bath for that authentic look.

What about non-fiction? "Something that involves learning a new skill, or shows she's interested in self-improvement", suggested one. Unfortunately, further questioning revealed that this was a reference to the canon of great philosophers ("Nietzsche, for example"), rather than to the self-help aisle.

Female respondents were no less demanding in their literary requirements. "It'd have to be something current, like Obama's life history. Or travel writing." Another went so far as declaring it unattractive to spot a man reading fiction: "It's just a bit girly."

Biographies rated highly, but you may be tarred by the same brush as your chosen subject. According to a survey by ReadItSwapIt, a third of women would be "actually physically repulsed" by a man seen reading The World According to Clarkson. And if you see a copy of Mein Kampf sticking out of his pocket, run for the hills. On the other hand, Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom came first in the National Year of Reading's 'Top 10 Reads to Impress a Woman'.

What books are likely to send men scrambling for the door? "Any of those trashy romance, Sex and the City types", declared one man. "Anything with 'shopping', 'heels' or 'chocolate' in the title", said another. "It's a turn-off when girls are too materialistic."

The women were equally disparaging. "If I saw a man reading Bridget Jones's Diary, I'd be rather disturbed," said one, despite having her own well-read copy at home. "Any of those airport novels, the ones with spies and CIA agents, are a no-no too."

So acquire a library resembling an Oxbridge English undergraduate's Christmas wishlist, ditch the chick-lit or macho reads, and potential mates will be beating down your door.

And if you happen by the British Library on this evening, I'll be the girl with the dog-eared copy of Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts. If you're a man with a copy of Bridget Jones, we need to talk. There might just be a space on my bookshelf for you.

The Guardian

06 março 2009

I haven't watched it yet, and I prolly wont, since this is already making me sick

Post-Oscars, The 'Slumdog' Kids Head Back to the Slums



When we think of child actors, it's easy to think of rich, overly indulgent scenarios like the one Don McKellar outlined in Childstar. But that's not always the case -- especially for the tykes of Slumdog Millionaire. It only lost two of its ten Oscar nominations, but for the young Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubiana Ali, post-Slumdog life isn't coming up roses.

On the heel of news that the kids were getting trust funds and school funding, The Telegraph reports that they are reeling after their whirlwind taste of luxury life at the Oscars. Azhar has been suffering from a 103 temperature and vomiting since returning home, a condition which isn't helped by the fact that he doesn't have a physical home to rest in (although neighbors are trying to build a metal structure for the kid to rest in out of the sun). Meanwhile, Rubina still wears the now-stained gown she wore to the Oscars, wishing to live in America and sleep in "a proper bed and live where the air does not smell of poo."

The piece, which includes a lot of heart-breaking words from the children, points out how challenging it is for these kids to see and experience the absolute opposite of their lives, only to return to it and feel forgotten. So far, there have been no flats for the families to move to, and reports say that Azhar has even been beaten for wanting to sleep rather than talk to a journalist offering his family money.

I can only hope that the promises of money and flats comes to fruition soon, because this story is just heartbreaking. It's also a good reminder that there is a world outside of Hollywood, and as much as we watch films like Slumdog for entertainment, there is a reality behind it. I just hope that in the future a little more thought is put into how children are used on the big screen -- especially when they're plucked out of poverty for the chance.


One of the comments to this Cinematical posting:

Stan Wingson said...

Prediction- in the years to come Slumdog Millionaire will be seen as the ultimate exploitation flick and the Birth of A Nation of the 2000s...

The Future that Never was




Amazing blog about futurology back in the day, and how it didn't come true :|

The Kitchen, the electronic Home, Mechanical Men, the works :)

05 março 2009

How Mickey Rourke became irresistible again


It's best not to hazard a guess as to whether Mickey Rourke will pick up a best actor Oscar for The Wrestler this Sunday night; the odds have him losing to Sean Penn, but it wouldn't be the first time this sly, mercurial, irreplaceable actor has overturned everyone's expectations. As Rourke awaits his big moment (though, in fact, if the portrait of him that's emerged in recent interviews is accurate, he may not give a shit about the outcome—he's just enjoying the ride), I want to revisit the role in which many of us first noticed him and in which I remember him best.

I don't propose to provide a full survey of Rourke's career: Sheila O'Malley has done that, definitively and beautifully, in this chronicle of her long-standing love affair with his work. But for those who haven't had the chance to confirm Rourke's talent via Netflix lately, let me just state that your fond memories of Diner are not wrong. In the 27 years since its release, I'd come to assume that the movie couldn't justify the level of affection I had for it. Diner had congealed in my mind into a kind of feature-length Happy Days, a cutesy time capsule of '50s nostalgia. Whenever I'd think about Diner (or hear any of the songs from its glorious soundtrack, especially the novelty hit "Ain't Got No Home"), I'd feel an almost guilty glow of well-being that somehow never translated into the desire to see it again: I didn't want to be let down, to discover it was never as good as I'd thought.

Something similar seems to have happened with our cultural memory of Mickey Rourke. When he got so embarrassing in the early '90s—if I had to date it precisely, I'd say 1991, the year of Desperate Hours and the deeply unfortunate Wild Orchid—it was as if we had to forget why we once loved him so much, to downgrade his image retroactively in our minds. Adrian Lyne, the director of 9½ weeks, once said that "if Mickey had died after Angel Heart, he would have been remembered as James Dean or Marlon Brando": a gifted young man too beautiful to live. Instead he aged, drank, took bad roles, made stupid decisions, and eventually disappeared from sight. If you've picked up a periodical or clicked on a Web site in the last few months, you know about Rourke's brief, doomed career in boxing, his decade or more on the skids, and his unlikely resurrection in The Wrestler. But the arc of his comeback is hard to appreciate unless you peel back the layers of '90s cheese and look again at what Rourke was in the '80s: the freshest, most vivid, most exciting actor around.

So, then: Diner (1982), Barry Levinson's first and best movie, a wistful comedy about a bunch of young men in Baltimore in the winter of 1959. Though the ensemble acting is perfection (has Daniel Stern ever been so well cast? Ellen Barkin certainly hasn't), it's Rourke's movie before he even appears on-screen: In the opening shot, Modell (Paul Reiser) enters a crowded party, looking for Rourke's character, Bobby "Boogie" Sheftell. "Have you seen Boogie?" he asks as the camera tracks him through the jitterbugging crowd. "Have you seen Boogie?" And then, in the distance, we see Boogie—just standing around like everybody else, but clearly the guy to know at the party. As O'Malley cannily points out, Rourke always plays that guy, the one to know: "We all know guys like that, guys who are not famous, but who have a glitter to them, something 'extra.' "

That "something extra" is apparent in everything Rourke does in Diner: the loving sadness in his eyes as he watches his developmentally arrested buddies bullshit around the diner table, or the strange, almost feral way he suddenly pours half a dispenser's worth of sugar into his mouth as he sits at the diner counter, chasing it with a swig of Coke. By way of illustrating what made the young Rourke such a marvel to watch, it's worth doing a close reading of one of Diner's raunchiest and yet tenderest moments, known among Diner-heads (oh, they're out there) as the "pecker in the popcorn" scene.

The setup: Boogie has made a bet with his pals that he can get local beauty Carol Heathrow to "go for his pecker" on the first date. Unbeknownst to the guys, Boogie has a lot riding on this bet: He owes his bookie $2,000, and things have started to get ugly. So he stacks the deck against Carol: As they sit together in a Sandra Dee movie, he maneuvers his manhood through the bottom flap of the popcorn box on his lap, so that she unwittingly touches it while reaching in.

Like most of the rest of Diner, the "pecker in the popcorn" scene is a single, long-form, punch-line-free joke, and it's irresistibly funny. But the moment I want to show you comes just after (beginning around the 3:30 mark in this clip), when a grossed-out Carol flees to the ladies' room and Boogie follows her. He proceeds to win back her trust with a preposterous (and physiologically impossible) lie about how the pecker got in the box. The multiple and conflicting motivations at work are a Thanksgiving feast for any actor: Boogie must win Carol's affections back by faking boyish vulnerability. But we, the audience, know that Boogie truly is vulnerable; he needs that $2,000, not to mention the esteem of his friends, and he's using every tool in his toolbox—the gentle, self-deprecating smile, the feigned embarrassment at his disingenuous "confession"—to maneuver Carol back into the movie theater and eventually to bed. He's a ruthless manipulator—and yet we still like Boogie so much that we pray he'll pull it off.

That's the thing with Rourke: He always plays the counter-emotion beneath the emotion, the anti-intuitive expression or gesture. (In his lazy midcareer period, this came to look like a reflexive tic—instead of seeming to hold a part of himself in mysterious reserve, Rourke simply seemed to be not trying.) But there were bad movies in which Rourke still managed to be great: 9½ Weeks is muddled and witless, nowhere near as sexy as it thinks it is. But behold the striptease scene, in which Kim Basinger strips to a Randy Newman song as Mickey watches in a bathrobe, eating popcorn and smoking a cigarette. It's such a stylized '80s scene—the silhouetted blonde in a doorway, the white soul on the soundtrack—that it borders on being an MTV music video. But Rourke undermines the slick voyeurism by laughing in pure delight at his lover's performance. A few years later, in soft-core-porn trash like the unwatchable Wild Orchid, Rourke would caress his soon-to-be-wife Carré Otis with a grimacing solemnity meant to be "erotic." In 9½ Weeks, he sketches a whole relationship—a sick one, yes, but affectionate too—with a laugh.

Pauline Kael wrote a legendary review of Diner—legendary because when it appeared in The New Yorker, the studio was contemplating shelving the movie, and Kael's rave was rumored to have helped secure the film's release. In it, she singles out Rourke for praise that, in retrospect, breaks your heart: "The sleaziest and most charismatic figure of the group is Boogie, played by Mickey Rourke. … With luck, Rourke could become a major actor: he has an edge and magnetism, and a sweet, pure smile that surprises you. He seems to be acting to you, and to no one else." Of course, Mickey Rourke never had that kind of luck, or maybe he had it and threw it away. But he's finally becoming the actor those early appearances promised, and his smile still goes right through you.

The New Miyazaki

Gake no ue no Ponyo

The Wrestler

É um filme sobre glórias passadas e queda - Randy, como Rourke, foi "grande" nos anos 80

Mickey Rourke não é apenas o actor de "O Wrestler". É o seu tema, o seu objecto, a sua razão de ser. Diz-se muitas vezes que todos os filmes acabam por ser uma espécie de "documentário" sobre os seus actores. É verdade, e quanto mais o tempo passa sobre um filme mais essa verdade é evidente (como dizia alguém, o destino da "ficção" é tornar-se "documento"). Ainda assim, é raro encontrar um filme que, como "O Wrestler", leve essa ideia tão a peito. O seu acto essencial é ser testemunha de uma presença, da presença de um actor, da presença deste actor. Sem Rourke - e sem a história de Rourke, que está, por assim dizer, "incrustada" em cada milímetro do seu corpo e do seu rosto - o filme não faria sentido, ou faria um sentido completamente diferente.

Claro que a dissociação continua a ser possível, e não só possível como desejável. É um actor e uma personagem, a sobreposição não é absoluta, e a história de Mickey Rourke não é bem a história do "wrestler" Randy the Ram. Mas há ecos de um no outro, ou não fosse "O Wrestler" um filme sobre glórias passadas e, se não sobre a decadência, sobre uma queda, um confronto com a vulgaridade do mundo.

Randy, como Rourke, foi "grande" nos anos 80, e agora deixou de ser capaz de encontrar um espelho que reflicta essa grandeza - não tão longe assim, e é uma lembrança que nos ocorre a certa altura, da Gloria Swanson do "Sunset Boulevard" de Billy Wilder, esse filme sobre "come backs" e sobre o crepúsculo dos deuses... É o mesmo mundo "encolhido", e dir-se- ia que é nisso que Darren Aronofsky pensa quando trata a relação do enorme corpo de Rourke com certos décors. As cenas no supermercado onde Randy faz uns biscates no intervalo entre dois combates, por exemplo: há ali uma espécie de desproporção, como se Randy fosse o protótipo do "leão enjaulado"...

Um mundo vulgar, mas cheio de dignidade. A principal proeza do olhar de Aronofsky está nessa justeza. Consegue filmar um mundo, ou submundo, tão codificado como os dos "wrestlers" sem tombar no grotesco ou na caricatura. E confrontar-se, por sua vez, com uma vulgaridade corriqueira, com uma urbanidade cinzenta e deprimente, sem nunca as menorizar nem sequer julgar, trazendo-lhes uma luminosidade surpreendentemente tocante.

As cenas com Rourke e a maravilhosa Marisa Tomei, sobretudo as cenas diurnas dos seus encontros no café ou nas lojas, trabalham numa simplicidade despojada de adornos que é sempre uma maneira de fazer justiça às personagens. Numa dessas cenas Randy faz o elogio dos anos 80 através do "rock", aquele "rock FM" não muito sofisticado que ele gosta de ouvir ("depois", diz, "apareceu o Kurt Cobain e estragou tudo"). Noutra cena joga, com um miúdo seu vizinho, um velhíssimo jogo de consola, enquanto o miúdo lhe fala dos jogos novos, de que Randy já ouviu falar mas não tem interesse em experimentar. Pequenas reiterações do carácter "perdido no tempo" da personagem de Rourke.

Aronofsky, em vez de filmar para a "recuperar", oferece-lhe a possibilidade do mergulho total nessa "perdição". Mas no último plano do filme (que é, afinal de contas, um "mergulho") a diferença entre uma maldição e uma bênção torna-se uma questão de perspectiva: Randy está destinado a ganhar-se por aquilo que o perde. E isso é muito bonito.

Luís Miguel Oliveira in Público


"The Wrestler" is about a man who can do one thing well, and keeps on doing it because of need, weary skill and pride. He wrestles for a living. Pro wrestling is a fake sport, right? Yes, but as an activity, it's pretty real. I watch it on TV with fascination. It's scripted that the villain sneaks up on the hero, who pretends not to see him, and pushes him over the ropes and out of the ring. Fake. But when the hero hits the floor, how fake is that? "Those guys learn how to fall," people tell me. Want to sign up for the lessons?

Mickey Rourke plays the battered, broke, lonely hero, Randy ("The Ram") Robinson. This is the performance of his lifetime, will win him a nomination, may win him the Oscar. Like many great performances, it has an element of truth. Rourke himself was once young and glorious and made the big bucks. He did professional boxing just for the hell of it. He alienated a lot of people. He fell from grace and stardom, but kept working, because he was an actor and that was what he did. Now here is his comeback role, playing Randy the Ram's comeback.

This is Rourke doing astonishing physical acting. He has the physique of a body builder, perhaps thanks to some steroid use, which would also be true of Randy. He gets into the ring and does the work. Rourke may not be physically performing every single thing we see, including the leaps off ropes and ladders and the nasty falls. Special effects have robbed movies of their believability. But I've seen a lot of F/X, and I have to say it looked to me like he was really doing these things.

Not that it matters. It appears that he is, and his ring performances and the punishment he takes supply the bedrock for the story, which involves his damaged relationship with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and what he hopes will become a relationship with the stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Except for his backstage camaraderie with other wrestling old-timers, Randy has burned all his bridges in life. Stephanie is far, far from happy to see him at her door again. And he doesn't quite believe Cassidy, whose real name is Pam, when she carefully explains that she is not available.

Here is the irony, which he won't accept. Cassidy is as much a performer as Randy. He is a ring worker. She is a sex worker. They put on a show and give the customers what they want. It pays the rent. There is always a chasm between pros and their audiences. That's why so many show-biz people marry each other. Magicians say, "The trick is told when the trick is sold." Think about that.

But Randy has grown a little wiser with the years, less blinded by stardom, more able to admit emotional need. Maybe, too, he was using more drugs in those days, and they always take first place before relationships. (He gets a sales pitch from a fellow wrestler who seems to stock more drugs than Walgreens.) Randy has a residual charm and sentimentality, which helps him and also deceives him. He makes some small progress with his daughter.

And as for Cassidy -- have you ever seen Marisa Tomei play a bitch? I haven't. I don't know if she can. She seems to have something good at the heart of her that endows this stripper with warmth and sympathy. Not that Randy should get his hopes up.

The most fascinating element in Darren Aronofsky's film is the backstage detail about wrestling. He does this so well, yet has never made a film even remotely like this before. In the snow and slush of New Jersey, Randy and his opponents make the rounds of shabby union halls, school gyms, community centers and American Legion halls, using whatever they can find for dressing rooms, taping their damaged parts, psyching themselves up and agreeing beforehand on the script. We learn how they make themselves bleed, prepare for violent "surprises," talk through each match. And then they go out and do it. As nearly as I can tell, their planning only means that they get hurt in the ways they expect, and not in unforeseen ways.

I cared as deeply about Randy the Ram as any movie character I've seen this year. I cared about Mickey Rourke, too. The way this role and this film unfold, that almost amounts to the same thing. Rourke may not win the Oscar for best actor. But it would make me feel good to see him up there. It really would.

Note: "The Wrestler" is one of the year's best films. It wasn't on my "best films" list for complicated and boring reasons.

Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun-Times

Tempos houve em que a aventura narrada pelo cinema se confundia com a aventura do próprio cinema enquanto trabalho específico. Para nos ficarmos por um exemplo de grandes ressonâncias simbólicas, lembremos o Hatari! (1962), de Howard Hawks: o fascínio da selva africana era indissociável do estar lá do próprio aparato que faz nascer o cinema. Há, ou pode haver, um efeito semelhante nas tarefas de composição de um actor: fundir-se com a sua personagem, a ponto de o olharmos como uma prova física daquilo que está a representar. Assim era com Robert De Niro, em Touro Enraivecido (1980), de Martin Scorsese.

A interpretação de Mickey Rourke em O Wrestler, de Darren Aronovsky, pertence à mesma família estética da de De Niro. E não apenas, nem sobretudo, pela abordagem de desportos marcados por formas muito particulares de violência — o que confere ao filme uma tão peculiar emoção, literalmente à flor da pele, é esse poder primitivo, mas sempre presente, de a relação actor/personagem se expor como um ritual de mútua devoração em que, em boa verdade, não há um "vencedor" e um "vencido", mas se assiste ao nascimento de uma entidade que se confunde com o próprio cinema enquanto matriz de vida.
Não por acaso, Rourke vive/representa uma espécie de derradeira variação sobre as ilusões do American Dream e a sua miragem de redenção individual. Veja-se o espantoso plano final: não sabemos qual é o contracampo daquilo que nos é mostrado e isso deixa-nos uma amarga lição de solidão — da personagem e de nós próprios, espectadores.

João Lopes in Sound + Vision

A la fin des années 80, Randy Robinson, dit "The Ram" ("Le Bélier"), était une star du catch. Vingt ans plus tard, il ne se produit plus que dans des salles de gym de lycées ou des maisons de quartier… Brouillé avec sa fille, il est incapable d'entretenir une relation durable avec quiconque : il ne vit que pour le plaisir du spectacle et l'adoration de ses fans. Mais lorsqu'il est foudroyé par une crise cardiaque au beau milieu d'un match, son médecin lui explique qu'il doit abandonner le catch : un autre combat pourrait lui être fatal. Contraint de se ranger, il tente de renouer avec sa fille et, dans le même temps, entame une liaison avec une strip-teaseuse vieillissante. Pourtant, son goût du spectacle et sa passion pour le catch risquent bien de reprendre le dessus et de le propulser de nouveau sur le ring…

CATCHEUR IF YOU CAN

Darren Aronofsky est un malin et un grand cinéaste. Après avoir dérouté la critique et le public avec l'absolutiste The Fountain, il revient derrière la caméra pour un drame indé dans la plus pure tradition du genre, un Rise and Fall filmé caméra à l'épaule, réaliste et poignant sur un symbole fort et déchu de l'Amérique de Ronald Reagan, le catcheur musclé. Au-delà du cas particulier de The Ram, The Wrestler raconte le décalage de ceux qui ont cru aux mirages de la toute puissance de la bannière étoilée dans les années 80, à grand coup de standards de hard rock épique ou de jeux vidéo eighties. On pense à la saga Rocky, bien sûr, contexte sportif oblige, mais surtout aux frères terribles du cinéma belge, Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, quand Darren Aronofsky glisse sa caméra derrière l'envers du décor, ces mobile-homes en fin de vie, qui abritent les fantômes du passé à la marge de la société.

MICKEY ROURKE IN LOVE

Et puis il y a un corps. Celui body-buildé et abîmé de Mickey Rourke, qui tient peut-être là le rôle de sa vie. L'acteur de L'Année du dragon incarne à la perfection la détresse du personnage principal. Comme lui, il a eu son moment de gloire dans les années 80 avant de connaître une lente déchéance. Comme The Ram, il paraît fatigué par la vie, toujours au bord de la rupture, aussi bien sur le plan physique que sur le plan psychologique. Darren Aronosfky ne l'a pas épargné, mais Mickey Rourke sort magnifié de l'expérience, vieux lion prêt à rugir une dernière fois avant l'oubli définitif cette fois. La scène est son ring, le plateau de cinéma le seul lieu de travail possible. Le New-Yorkais s'offre dans The Wrestler un come-back retentissant. La légende explique qu'il aurait écrit ses propres répliques, en concertation avec le cinéaste. Difficile à dénouer le vrai du faux, le discours médiatique et la réalité artistique, mais il est certain que Mickey Rourke, ancien boxeur semi-professionnel, s'est investi comme jamais, conférant au personnage du Bélier une immense humanité et une extrême fragilité.

CORPUS CHRISTI

Même si sa mise en scène est plus sobre qu'à l'accoutumée, le travail de Darren Aronofsky est toujours traversé par les mêmes thématiques. Depuis Pi, son premier long métrage, en passant par Requiem for a Dream, son chef d'oeuvre opératique, le cinéaste entretient un rapport particulier avec la représentation du corps au cinéma, objet de mutilation diverse et variée, de l'enfoncement d'une perceuse dans la boîte crânienne à l'implosion végétale. Dans The Wrestler, il accompagne cette obsession d'une réflexion sur le statut commercial de l'enveloppe charnelle. Ce n'est pas un hasard si la "petite amie" du Bélier est une strip-teaseuse plus âgée que la moyenne (interprétée par la divine Marisa Tomei), si le corps supplicié du catcheur ressemble à une carcasse en fin de vie, dont le moteur interne donne des signes d'épuisement. Le cinéaste n'épargne rien aux spectateurs. La chair est écorchée, vivante, sanguinolente, même, Marisa Tomei plus souvent nue qu'habillée, mais l'amour et la beauté sont ailleurs, dans le combat d'un homme pour retrouver une place auprès de sa fille, dans le regard d'une femme tombée amoureuse d'une brute épaisse au grand coeur.

Yannick Vély in Film de Culte