Leitores, um pedido

Caros leitores,

Alguns de vós sabem que escrevi um conto. Coloquei um excerto dele a concurso num website ontem e gostava de vos pedir que votassem nele. Ganhar está bastante longe, até mesmo graças à minha tardia entrada na competição, mas não é de todo impossível que um grande escritor português (e do meu mais profundo agrado), José Luís Peixoto, o venha a ler. Para tal peço-vos uma vez mais que votem nele.

Muito obrigado desde já,

José Trindade

O link é: http://www.conteconnosco.com/trabalho-detalhe.php?id=1147

Em segundos

"O fim das vidas, sem apelo nem agravo, sem piedade. Como pode algo tão divino não ter qualquer significado para alguns? É curioso como tudo muda em segundos."

em "Bala Santa" de Luís Miguel Rocha

"If you are bothered by the idea of this being real, you are invited to do what the author should have done, and what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time: pretend it's fiction."


in "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", by Dave Eggers

Why I am Portuguese

"Saudade, the mark of Portuguese culture

Among the world's languages, one of the hardest terms to translate is "saudade", the Portuguese word for a feeling, a longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future.

It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.

Few other languages have a word with such meaning, making saudade a distinct mark of Portuguese culture. It has been said that this, more than anything else, represents what it is to be Portuguese.

"The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness." (In Portugal, by A.F.G Bell, 1912)

Saudade is not “nostalgia”. In nostalgia, one has a mixed happy and sad feeling, a memory of happiness but a sadness for its impossible return and sole existence in the past. Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present.

One might say that nostalgia conveys a feeling one has for a loved one who has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one who has disappeared or is simply currently absent. In Portuguese, the same word, nostalgia, has quite a different meaning.

Saudade is what one feels towards people, places, feelings or situations in the following circumstances:

• An old way of life that is gone
• A lost lover
• A faraway place where one was raised
• Loved ones who have died
• Feelings and stimuli one used to have but which one is now tired of
• One’s lost youth

Although it relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of things, people and days gone by, it can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or replacing what is lost by something that will either fill the emptiness or provide consolation.

According to some historians, this word came to life in the 15th Century when Portuguese ships sailed to Africa and Asia. A sadness was felt for those who departed in the long journeys to the unknown seas and disappeared in shipwrecks, died in battle, or simply never returned. Those who stayed behind -- the women, children and old folks -- deeply suffered from their absence. There was the constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that was missing, the yearning for the presence of the loved ones who had sailed."

in "Saudade, the mark of Portuguese culture"

Espécime Civilizado

‎"Hoje em dia sou um espécime civilizado à minha maneira, psicologicamente inteiro devido à frágil membrana que nos separa o triunfo da irracionalidade e do mal."

em "Assassini" de Thomas Gifford

(Bitter)Sweet Irony

Alex Turner - "Matthew Helders, what have you got for this beautiful portuguese crowd?"

Matthew Helders - ("Teddy Picker")

Arctic Monkeys at Super Bock Super Rock '11, 14/ 07/ 11

"Teddy Picker"

"Despair up to the point that they provoke
The punchline before they have told the joke
The sheer desperation to be scene/seen
Staring at the television screen

Despair up to the point that they provoke
You to tell the fucking punchline before you have told the joke
I'm sorry sunshine it doesn't exist
It wasn't in the top 100 list

And it's the thousandth time and it's even bolder,
Don't be surprised when you get bent over,
He told ya, but you were dying for it

She saw it and she grabbed it and it wasn't what it seemed
The kids all dream of making it, whatever that means
Another variation on a theme
A tangle on the television and the magazine
D'you reckon that they do it for a joke?
D'you reckon that they make 'em take an oath?
That says "we are defenders
Of any poseur or professional pretender around"

When did your list replace the twist and turn?
Like a fist, replaced the kissed-on concern
And if you're bothered, I don't want your prayer
Save it for the morning after

And it's the thousandth time and it's even bolder,
Don't be surprised when you get bent over,
He told ya, but you were gagging for it

Lets have a game on the Teddy Picker
Not quick enough can I have it quicker?
Already thick and you're getting thicker
Lets have a game on the Teddy Picker
Not quick enough can I have it quicker?
Already thick and you're getting thicker

Assuming that all things are equal,
Who'd want to be men of the people
When there's people like you?"


em "Teddy Picker" de Arctic Monkeys

"Wake Up" (!!!)

"Somethin' filled up
my heart with nothin',
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I'm older,
my heart's colder,
and I can see that it's a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don't grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms turnin' every good thing to
rust.

I guess we'll just have to adjust.

With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin' to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin’
With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am, go-go, where I am

You'd better look out below"


em "Wake Up" de Arcade Fire