quinta-feira, 29 de janeiro de 2015

A nora, a sogra e o frederico: Guilty, convicted, and condemned - damned and doomed through time and eternity!

'
How describe the unfortunate Littegarde's horror when she got up, on hearing the noise at the door, from the straw that had been put down for her, her bosom half exposed and her hair disheveled, and instead of the expected warder saw her noble friend, the Chamberlain, enter her cell on Berta and Kunigunde's arms, a melancholy and touching figure on whom the traces of his recent sufferings plainly showed. "Go away!" she cried, throwing herself backward on the covers of her pallet in despair and hiding her face in her hands. "If there is a spark of pity in your bosom, go away!"
"But why, dear Littegarde?" Sir Friedrich said. Leaning on his mother, he crossed the room and bent down, with inexpressible feeling, to take her hand.
"Go away!" she cried, recoiling from him on her knees across the straw. "If you don't want me to go mad, don't touch me! You are an abomination to me; the hottest flames are less dreadful to me than you!"
"Abomination?" Sir Friedrich said in bewilderment. "What has your Friedrich done, my generous-hearted Littegarde, to deserve this greeting?" Here Kunigunde, at a signal from her mother, drew up a chair for him and asked him to remember how weak he was.
"Oh, Jesus!" Littegarde cried, flinging herself down in a frenzy of terror at his feet and pressing her face to the floor. "Leave the room, my darling, and forget me! Let me hug your knees, let me wash your feet with my tears, let me writhe like a worm in the dust before you, only I beseech you to grant me this one merciful favor: leave the room, my lord and master, leave it this instant and forget me!"
Sir Friedrich stood in front of her, shaken through and through. "Do you find the sight of me so unpleasant, Littegarde?" he asked, looking earnestly down at her.
"Dreadful, unbearable, crushing!" she answered, bending forward despairingly on her hands and hiding her face between his feet. "All the horrors of hell are pleasanter for me to look at than the love and kindness beaming at me out of the springtime of your face!"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the Chamberlain. "What am I to think of such violent remorse? Did the ordeal tell the truth, unhappy woman, after all, and are you guilty of the crime the Count accused you of before the court?"
"Guilty, convicted, and condemned - damned and doomed through time and eternity!" exclaimed Littegarde, beating her breast like a madwoman. "God is truthful and never errs; go, my mind is leaving me and I'm at the end of my strength. Leave me alone with my misery and despair!"
At these words Sir Friedrich fainted away; and while Littegarde covered her head with a veil and lay back upon her bed as though taking leave of the world forever, Berta and Kunigunde, with exclamations of pity, knelt down beside their unconscious brother to revive him. "A curse on you!" cried Helena as the Chamberlain's eyes fluttered open again. "May you suffer eternal remorse this side of the grave, and eternal damnation on the other, not for the guilty deed you now confess to, but for your pitilessness and cruelty in admitting to it only after having dragged my innocent son down with you to destruction! What a fool I am!" she went on, turning contemptuously away from Littegarde.
'

"The duel"
Heinrich von Kleist
na versão inglesa editada pela The New American Library 1962
com o título de "The marquise of O- and other stories"
e um prefácio de Thomas Mann

(um livro que custou um euro num alfarrabista do Porto)

segunda-feira, 26 de janeiro de 2015

Numa casa de fados: O mal cozinhado


'Numa casa de fados: O mal cozinhado'
óleo sobre tela
40cm por 60cm
2014
ZMB

Termino a etiqueta 'Guitarradas e alguns fados'
apresentando o trabalho por onde a série começou.

Agradeço à gerência d' O mal cozinhado o convite que me endereçaram em 2014
para desenhar a casa e o seu grupo de fadistas residentes.

quinta-feira, 22 de janeiro de 2015

... and dashed his brains out against the wall.

'
Just the day before, Piachi had buried the unfortunate Elvira, who had died from the effects of a high fever brought on by the episode. Maddened by this double grief, he put the decree in his pocket, went to the house, and, with the strength that rage lent him, threw Nicolo, who was the naturally weaker one, to the floor and dashed his brains out against the wall. The deed was done before the people in the house knew he was there; when they found him, he was holding Nicolo between his knees and stuffing the decree down his throat. After which he got up and surrendered all his arms; he was put in jail, tried, and condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead.
In the Papal States there is a law forbidding a criminal to be executed without his first receiving absolution. Piachi, after he was condemned to death, obstinately refused absolution. After every means that religion offers had been tried without success to make him feel the heinousness of his offense, it was hoped that the sight of the death in store for him might frighten him into a feeling of remorse and he was led out to the gallows. On one side stood a priest who, with the voice of the last trumpet, depicted all the terrors of that hell whither his soul was about to depart; on the other side another, with the Body of Christ, the holy means of atonement, in his hand, extolled to him the abode of eternal peace.
"Do you wish to share in the blessings of redemption?" both demanded. "Do you wish to receive the Holy Communion?"
"No," Piachi answered.
"Why not?"
"I don't want to be saved. I want to go down to the lowest pit of hell. I want to find Nicolo again, who won't be in heaven, and take up my revenge again, which I could only satisfy partly here!" And with these words he climbed the ladder and told the hangman to do his duty. In short, they saw nothing for it but to stop the execution and take the unfortunate man, whom the law protected, back to prison. On three successive days the same attempt was made, and always with the same result. When, on the third day, he again had to come down the ladder without being hanged, he raised his hands up in a fierce gesture and cursed the inhuman law that kept him from going to hell. He summoned all the host of devils to come and fetch him, swore his only wish was to be executed and damned, and promised he would take the first priest that came along by the throat just so he could lay his hands on Nicolo again in hell!
When this was reported to the Pope, he gave orders for him to be executed without absolution; unaccompanied by any priest, he was hanged, very quietly, in the Piazza del Popolo.
'

[ 'The foundling'
Heinrich von Kleist ]
.

terça-feira, 20 de janeiro de 2015

When you understand Jarboe's lyrics you are immune to the violence of every Simone de Beauvoir of this world



In the interim of temporary defeat,
I am not in flame mode.

Building muscle

I will destroy what tries to damage me again

Fearless

You know how I live
By a third of my full force and will
In order to not threaten mere mortals

Don't worry
I am of beast nature after all
And I have let it out of its cage

Even death means nothing







(Gira, Jarboe)
I found you lying where I drowned you
I found you lying where I lay with you
Where I threw you in the water
Where I drowned you in the river
Where I watched you roll away
Where I watched your body roll away
Roll away
Roll away
From everything we think we know
We'll lie down in the warm green grass
And the sun will shine on our pale shape
Our blood will flow black in the dirt
And a black rose will grow where we laid

segunda-feira, 19 de janeiro de 2015

O fado na Fonte Taurina


'O fado na Fonte Taurina'
óleo sobre tela
54cm por 73cm
2014
ZMB

- Atão como passa bom amigo?
- Vai-se andando, nunca pior.
- Beba um trago...
- Obrigado gentil dama.

sexta-feira, 16 de janeiro de 2015

O fado na Sé-Barredo


'O fado na Sé-Barredo
óleeo sobre tela
35cm por 45cm
2014
ZMB

Neste trabalho coloquei os fadistas no arco da ribeira.

O arco da ribeira no início da descida do morro da Sé
fica situado entre as escadas das verdades e as escadas do barredo.
Era antes da construção da ponte Luis I um local popular de passagem.

Considero este trabalho uma miniatura
e talvez no futuro mereça uma tela de maior envergadura.

terça-feira, 13 de janeiro de 2015

O fado no Barredo-Ribeira


'O fado no Barredo-Ribeira'
óleo sobre tela
40cm por 50cm
2014
ZMB

Neste trabalho adaptei a clássica imagem desenhada por Stuart Carvalhais
e coloquei-a num cenário da Ribeira do Porto.

Num antigo programa de rádio da Rádio Antena 2 ouvi há uns anos o seguinte:

'Gosto do que me acontece mas não gosto muito de mim mesmo. 
Recordar é inventar os pequenos milagres que se gostaria de ter vivido. 
Esquecer é querer se convencer de que se é independente. 
Tornar-se um homem é querer se ser inteligente. 
Amar uma mulher é acreditar que se é um poeta.'




sábado, 10 de janeiro de 2015

A sereia do fado


'A sereia do fado'
óleo sobre tela
45cm por 35cm
2014
ZMB


'
A whole line of young Russians now followed the first; and when the Count once asked his wife, in a happy moment, why on that terrible third of the month, when she seemed ready to accept any villain of a fellow that came along, she had fled from him as if from the Devil, she threw her arms around his neck and said: he wouldn't have looked like a devil to her then if he had not seemed like an angel to her at his first appearance.
'

The Marquise of O-
Heinrich von Kleist


sexta-feira, 2 de janeiro de 2015



O modo como nos damos um ao outro
o modo como o nosso sexo é bom
o modo como trancendeamos o nosso corpo
és bela
e o Ravel sabia disso quando escreveu esta esmeralda.
obrigado por me dares plenitude.