Fado, doce veneno ...

William Beckford, and 18th-century English traveller in Portugal, commented on modinha, but may as well have been talking about fado, which would emerge later ....

"Those who have never heard this original sort of music, must and will remain ignorant of the most bewitching melodies that ever existed since the days of the Sybarites. They consist of languid interrupted measures, as if the breath was gone with the excess of rapture, and the soul panting to meet the kindred soul of some beloved object. With a childish carelessness they steal into the heart, before it has time to arm itself against their enervating influence; you fancy you are swallowing warm milk, and are admitting the poison of voluptuousness into the closest recesses of your existence."

as quoted in Vernon, A History of Portuguese Fado

Slowly, quietly, attentively

Writing an introductory essay on the work of Adriana Lisboa, I can't help but recall this sequence from Ron Fricke's film.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

"If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive movements of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare."

Vira-lata astorguense

Salmon (1997-2009)

You are the light that falls asleep on the leaf.

You have performed no miracle

Yet are miraculous.

Goodbye friend. Thank you for your life with us.

(obrigados, Adriana, pelas fotos, tiradas em fevereiro de 2009)

para Ero -- saudades sempre

Paisagem / Landscape