A Vida de Tiago A.

Você certamente já sentiu a alegria que eu senti ontem. É o tipo de alegria que sentimos quando encontramos um velho amigo que não víamos há um bom tempo e percebemos que a amizade se manteve latente, esperando apenas um encontro fortuito que a viesse despertar. Momentos como o que eu vivi ontem são invariavelmente marcados pelas mesmas piadas internas e comentários sobre o passado que marcaram todos os encontros anteriores; é como se esses pequenos rituais compusessem o código de um cofre que, se corretamente decifrado, libera o acesso à boa e velha amizade.

Meu amigo não parece ter mudado muito desde a última vez que o vi. Está mais gordo, é verdade, mas não tão gordo assim. A mudança que eu realmente notei parece ter se dado em seu cérebro; ele me pareceu mais sábio. Das muitas coisas que ele me disse na nossa conversa de ontem, uma ainda está ressoando em minha cabeça. O que ele me falou pode ser tido como banal, mas estou certo de que, subjacente àquilo, havia uma outra coisa que me pareceu muito importante, tão importante que resolvi escrever este post a respeito. Acho meio difícil ele ter visto a importância do que ele estava dizendo no momento mesmo em que o dizia, pois a coisa toda foi bem trivial e tranqüila, e, de todo modo, nós já estávamos muito bêbados. Sei, no entanto, que tentei disfarçar a maneira como aquelas palavras estavam me fazendo vibrar por dentro. Se decidi não esboçar muitas reações na hora, foi para que ele continuasse confortável e não se sentisse tentado a me manter impressionado; este meu amigo tem esta vaidade de, ao perceber que está causando um determinado efeito em alguém, querer manter, pelo máximo de tempo possível, a sensação de poder que ele sente nestes momentos. Na maioria das vezes em que isso acontece, a espontaneidade cessa e a conversa acaba ganhando uma artificialidade indesejável.

Eu consegui evitar isso ontem. Tente enxergar a cena: eu e meu amigo já estamos conversando há algumas horas e estamos falando agora sobre um determinado livro que serviu de pretexto para que passássemos a fazer reflexões bêbadas sobre experiências desagradáveis e o modo como nós reagimos a elas (bêbados sempre tendem a abordar grandes temas). Meu amigo e eu, bêbados, volta e meia fazendo comentários parentéticos sobre o fato de os garçons ainda não terem levado embora os restos do tira-gosto que estávamos beliscando, apesar de já termos comunicado que desejávamos que isso acontecesse. Antes de prosseguir, peço licença para registrar um traço de minha personalidade que chama a atenção das pessoas com quem convivo, registro esse que terminará oferecendo um pouco de contexto às palavras de meu amigo. É que (não ria) eu ainda mostro alguma resistência para comer vegetais. Não é que eu não os coma nunca; eu até como, às vezes, mas fazer isso não me dá muito prazer. Meu amigo agora está, portanto, analisando este traço de minha personalidade e, num plano maior, o tomando como símbolo para continuar defendendo seu argumento. Nosso diálogo, se bem me lembro, foi mais ou menos este:

Que porra é essa véi cê não comeu verdura nenhuma só comeu a carne. Olhaí os tomate tudo aí, cebola, come essa porra rapaz. Aposto que quando cê era pequeno cê era daquele tipo de guri que chorava pra comer verdura né não.

É. Mais ou menos. Tipo isso.

Então veja como isso é igualzinho ao que a gente tá falando. Vamo tomar essa experiência como uma experiência que era desagradável pra você. Nessas horas sua mãe devia dizer "Meu filho, come a verdura, tanta gente passando fome", e você, claro, como todo mundo, achava aquilo um saco, já tinha decidido que verdura era ruim e não tava nem aí se tinha gente passando fome ou não, cê não queria era comer a porra da verdura. Pois meu ponto é que você só podia fazer isso porque cê nunca tinha passado fome nem nunca ia passar. Cê tinha condição, vamo dizer assim, de não querer comer a verdura.

Hmm.

Então tá então vamo tentar esquecer a viadage que é achar que comer verdura é uma experiência desagradável e vamo considerar que sim, é desagradável. Então pra você comer verdura é uma experiência desagradável, mas o que rola na verdade é que você pode achar que comer verdura é uma experiência desagradável, pode continuar reagindo à situação dessa maneira. Cê não precisa fazer esforço nenhum pra mudar o jeito como você reage a essa experiência desagradável. Cê pode, cê tem condições, cê pode continuar achando essas coisas. É diferente do cara que já passou fome ou que tem dificuldade pra achar o que comer. Cê não acha impossível um cara desses ser igual a você nisso, que também ache comer verdura um saco, tal. Mas esse cara não pode continuar achando isso ruim porque, se não, ele tá ainda mais fudido, que porra que ele vai comer então? Então a maneira como ele reage à experiência desagradável vai ter que ser diferente da sua, ou ele vai ter que esquecer que a porra é ruim ou dar um jeito de conviver com ela, porque só assim ele vai poder continuar. É mais ou menos isso. A porra acontece, e o modo como a gente lida com ela varia se a gente tá numa situação de conforto ou não, é um ou outro a depender de se a gente tem ou não condição de continuar achando ela ruim sem fazer nada a respeito. O fudido que tem que comer a porra da verdura tem que dar um jeito de passar por cima do que ele acha da verdura, ele tem que fazer alguma coisa disso, não tem muita opção.

Hoje pela manhã, de ressaca, percebi que meu amigo estava falando sobre o valor do estoicismo. Sim, sim, Estoicismo. Lembrei então de um artigo que David Foster Wallace terminou escrevendo a pretexto de fazer uma reportagem sobre um jogador de tênis num determinado torneio. Reli o artigo, que se chama “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness”, e agora vou deixar rabiscados aqui no blog dois trechos que vêm em duas notas de rodapé, para que eles fiquem aqui, prestando homenagem à noite de ontem:

trecho 1

It turns out that a portion of the talent required to survive in the trenches of the ATP tour is emotional: Joyce is able to keep from getting upset about stuff that struck me as hard not to get upset about. When he points out that there's "no point" getting exercised about unfairness you can't control, I think what he's really saying is that you either learn how not to get upset about it or you disappear from the Tour. The temperamental behavior of many of the game's top players -- wich gives the public the distorted idea that most pro players are oversensitive brats -- is on a qualifier's view easily explainable: top players are temperamental because they can afford to be.

trecho 2

It is impossible to get Michael Joyce to give a straight answer on whether he thinks guarantees are good or bad -- it's not like Joyce is muddled or Nixonianly evasive about it, but rather that he can't afford to think in good/bad terms, to nurture resentment or bitterness or frustation. My guess is that he avoids these feelings because they make it even harder to play against Agassi and the rest, and he cares less about what's "right" in the grand scheme than he does about maximizing his own psychological chances against other players. This seems totally understandable, though I'm kind of awed by Joyce's evident ability to shut down lines of thinking that aren't to his advantage.

Então é isso. Minha principal meta para 2008 agora é: comer verduras, shutting down lines of thinking that aren't to my advantage.

Posted by Tiago A. at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Que The Road é um dos melhores livros da década de todos os tempos acho que já não é preciso mais dizer. É também o livro que rendeu mais visibilidade a Seu Cormac, não há dúvida alguma quanto a isso (o sucesso tem sido tamanho que os livros da Trilogia da Fronteira, que pareciam já estar fora de catálogo, voltaram a ser vistos nas livrarias). Vai virar filme etc.

Em junho, falei aqui da entrevista que ele concedeu à inigualável Oprah Winfrey, mas posso apostar que a indolência impediu alguns de vocês de fazer o tal registro lá no site dela para assistir os videozinhos. Sabedor disso, num acesso de utilidade e para que não haja mais desculpas, posto agora uma transcrição da entrevista na extended entry (cortesia do inexcedível AMP). Façam um favor a si mesmos, meus amigos. Leiam-na:

THE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BEGINS:

O: Well you look just like you do on the back of the cover.

C: Yeah, Well I don't know if that's good or bad.

O: That's very good

C: Eh hm.

O: Thank you for doing this today.

C: This is, this is a first for me.

O: I hear that it's a first for you, why have why have you never done it before?

C: Well I don't think its good for good for your head. I mean if you spend a lot of time thinking about how to write a book you probably shouldn't be talking about it you probably should be doing it.

O: Oh really?

C: It's my feeling yeah.

O: So it's nothing against the press or the media or anything like that.

C: No no no

O: No no no nothing like that?

C: You work your side of the street and I'll work mine.

O: That's the way I feel about people too.

O: Did you always know that you were a writer?

C: I think. That's hard to say. When I was a kid I used to write and then when I became a teenager I didn't do much of anything.

O: Are you passionate about writing you know now today when I speak to students I tell them to follow your passion because no matter what it pays you if you're fullfiling what you're meant to do in life that that is the reward that is the payment.

C: I don't know I passion…passion it sounds like a pretty fancy word I like what I do. And I uh, and I suppose um some writers have said in print that they'd hated writing that it was just a chore and a burden I certainly don't feel that way about it sometimes its difficult you know you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve but which you never stop trying to achieve but I think that at the core of it theres this image that you have this interior image that is of something that is absolutely perfect and that's your that's your signpost and your guide you'll never get there but with out it you won't get any where.

O: When you start out to write a book, do you start out with that image.

C: It's not so much a conscious thing I don't think…its just you always you have that hope that today I'm going to something better than I've ever done. Yeah.

O: That is the hope?

C: Hows that for hubris?

O: That's good. So do you write methodically do you have a schedule you know I've talked to many many different writers over the years and…

C: No

O: No um?

C: No uh

O: Does it just come to you and you write it whenever it comes?

C: Its ah, Faulkner once was asked if he ever wrote every day or only when he was inspired. And he said I only write when I'm inspired but I'm inspired every day

O: Hm

C: You have you have to take it seriously. You have to treat it as the work that you do. Some people say do you plot everything out? And I say no no that would be death. I mean you I mean you can't plot things out you just you just have to trust in you know where ever it comes from.

O: When you started the road did you know where it was going to end or did it end itself?

C: No I had no idea where it was going.

O: Where did this apocalyptic dream come from?

C: Well its interesting because usually its you don't know where a book comes from its just its just there some kind of an itch that you can't quite scratch. And my son John about four years ago he and I went to El Paso.

O: He's eight now?

C: Yeah, and we checked into the old hotel there and one night John was asleep it was night it was probably about two or three o'clock in the morning and I went over and I just stood and looked out the window at this town there was nothing moving but I could hear the trains going through in that very that very lonesome sound that I just had this image what this town might look like in fifty or a hundred years. I just had this image of these, hm, fires up on the hill and everything being laid waste and I thought a lot about my little boy and so I wrote those pages and that was the end of it and then about four years later I was in Ireland and I woke up one morning and I realized that it wasn't two pages in a notebook it was a book and it was about that man and that little boy.

O: Is this a love story to your son?

C: Hmm in a way I suppose it is although that's kind of embarrassing. I suppose it is, yeah.

O: I just saw you blush

C: Ah.

O: But, no but it couldn't have …when I called you at first you said I said people want to know where this came from and you said well its obvious it came because my son practically co-wrote this book.

C: Yeah.

O: Had you not had this son at this time this book wouldn't have been written.

C: No. Absolutely not. Never would have occurred to me to try to write a book about a father and a son.

O: What is it like being a father at this particular time in your life. How is it different?

C: I think you I think you appreciate it more. Yeah if you're young and have a child it's you know yeah so you got a kid you know but to have a child when you know when you're older is uh it um wrenches you up you up out of your out of your nap and makes you look at things you know afresh you get it forces the world on you.

O: Uh hm.

C: Yeah and I think it's a good thing.

THE INTERVIEW CONTINUES

O: So tell me about this place why you do you love to come here? To the Santa Fe Institute?

C: Well. It's just full of bright interesting people with interesting things to say and uh, it's that's fun.

O: And you prefer hanging out with scientists. You prefer scientists.

C: I don't know any writers I would much prefer to hang out with scientists.

O: In all of your books I mean in all of the books that I have read Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men theres not a lot of engagement with women uh and so people call you a mans mans writer. Is there is a reason why women are not a big part of the plots?

C: Women are tough. They're tough. Um, I don't pretend to understand women. I think men don't know much about women they find them very mysterious.

O: Still you do?

C: Yeah although…

O: Three wives later, they're still mysterious?

C: Yeah they're still mysterious.

O: I read something that supposedly one of your ex-wives, I think your second wife had said you were so poor at times there was absolutely no money

(quite a big laugh here actually)

O: And that people would call and say come and speak to us and we'll pay you two thousand dollars or whatever and you'd say no everything I know is already on the page.

C: Well I was busy I had other things to do.

O: Ah mmm you were busy. Are you just not that interested in material…

C: I'm really not I mean its not that I don't like things some things are very nice but they certainly you know take a distant second place to be able to live your life and do what you want to do.

O: Uh hm.

C: And I always knew that I didn't want to work.

O: How did you manage that most people would like to do that.

C: Well you have to be dedicated but it was my number one priority and uh...

O: That you didn't want to have a 9-5 job.

C: Yeah, you're just here once and life is brief and if you have to spend every day of it doing what somebody else wants you to do its not the way to live it and um I don't have any advice for anybody on how to go about that except if you're really dedicated you can probably do it.

O: So you have worked at not working?

C: Absolutely. Yeah it's a number one priority.

O: Wasn't a concern at all? Not having money?

C: Well I. I…

O: Cause is it true you were so poor you got put out of a forty dollar a month hotel some place?

C: I did.

O: That is poor.

C: It was in New Orleans. It was a little room.

O: That's forty dollars a month.

C: It was forty dollars a month and I got thrown out. I was very naïve I always assumed that I would be taken care of in some way or another and I was I was always very lucky. Something always happened just when things were truly truly bleak some totally unforeseen thing would occur.

O: Wow. That is amazing. And wasn't there another time that you were so poor and you didn't even have toothpaste?

C: I yeah I was living in a shack in Tennesee and I had run out of toothpaste and uh I went down uh I went down to the mailbox one morning to see if there might be anything there and in the mailbox there was a tube of toothpaste.

O: A free sample?

C: Yeah. A free sample. And but my life theres hundreds of anecdotes like that that's the way my life has been um just when things were really really bleak something would happen.

O: Have people told you this cause I felt this as I was reading it that a sense of obviously sparseness and theres a line where you talk about how just having food and shoes. That the food and the shoes were the most important. And I think when you read it you think about what you really need in life and you're a man who's managed to get through life. You seem very happy with very few things.

C: Yeah but you got to have food and shoes.

O: You gotta have food and shoes.

C: Yeah.

CORMAC MCCARTHY ON WRITING

Oprah: Are we to ever know what actually happened? All kinds of critics and, you know, fans of yours read all kinds of things into it. Some people say it's about the journey of man on earth, it's about a man's spiritual journey here on earth. Is that true or is it just about the man and the boy on the road?

Cormac: Ah well, I like to think it's just about the boy and the man on the road but obviously, you can, you can draw, you know, conclusions about all sorts of things from reading the book, um, depending on your taste. It's a pretty simple straightforward story I think.

O: You know its so interesting I think if we had read this book hmmm 25 years ago twenty years ago it would have seemed futuristic but something about it feels ominous. And real.

C: Hm. I think it is maybe since 9/11 people people emotions more concerned apocalyptic issues we're not used to…

O: I was gonna say, we're not accustomed to it…

C: We're not used to that…

O: Not accustomed to living in fear.

C: No.

O: Being anxious about whats gonna happen…

C: We did it pretty good.

O Um hm.

C: This country has been very lucky just like me.

O: So you know that now people be more its on peoples minds because you were writing it.

C: I think it is.

O: Obviously it was on your mind.

C: Yeah.

O: What do you want us to get from this book in particular?

C: It would be to just simply care about about about things and people and appreciative. Life is pretty damn good even when it looks bad and um we should be appreciative more. We should be grateful. I don't know who to be grateful to but you should be thankful for what you have

O: You haven't worked out the god thing or not yet?

C: Well see it would depend on what day you asked me you know? But um sometimes sometimes its good to pray I don't think you have to have a clear idea of who or what god is in order to pray you can even be quite doubtful about the whole business

O: Do you care if now millions of people are reading your books versus when there were only a few thousand reading your books in the early years?

C: You know, in all honestly I have to say that I really don't I just don't I mean you want you would like for the people that would appreciate the book to read it but as far as many many people reading it ah so what that's okay theres nothing wrong with it…its not going to particularily brighten my day…

O: Well you are a different kind of author, let me tell you. Its such a pleasure to meet you.

C: Well thank you you're very nice.

O: Really an honor you are a different kind of author that's good read it if you want to you know its okay. That's great.

CORMAC MCCARTHY ON PUNCTUATION

O: Lets talk a little bit about your style, I mean when I'm reading I don't notice the absence of quotation marks cause I always know who's talking and I don't really notice I think I saw a I saw a semi once I saw a colon once

C: No semi-colons, no

O: No semi-colons you don't use them yeah why how did you develop that style and why?

C: James Joyce is a good model for punctuation he keeps it to an absolute minimum. And uh theres no reason to you know blot the page with weird little marks …..I mean if you write properly you shouldn't have to punctuate. One of the first jobs I had was when I was going to school on the G. I. Bill and uh I was taking an English class and the professor Robert Daniel I remember his name was writing a text book the text book was part of the text book was English essays from the 18th century. And he handed me a bunch of these he said…re-punctuate these things and and I was getting paid to do this….

O; Um hm.

C: So I took them home, and it was just you know they wrote so well and punctuated so poorly and every few lines…it would be a semi-colon and it was just terrible so I had to you had to rewrite to some extent in order to punctuate correctly and make it simpler but I took the first essay which was I don't know about Swift or someone and brought it in and handed it to him for him to read and he sat and read it he said this is very good this is just what is needed. I thought hm yeah punctuation is important its important to punctuate so that it makes it easy for people to read.

O: And that's why you're not all comma-ed up.
,.
C: That's why.

O: We don't see lots of commas never a semi-colon

C: It's to make it easier not to make it harder.

O: And you just said, you think if you write really well if you write well then you need less punctuation because we can follow who is speaking and what is being said.

C: Yeah its simple declarative sentences.

O: Um hm.

C: Yeah I believe in periods and capitals and the occasional comma. And that's it. Well you can use a semi, not a semi-colon, you can use a colon if you're getting ready to give a list of something that follows from what you just said…like like these are the reasons semi-colon hm, something like that.

O: Yeah because you used something like that at the beginning. He said: if he is not the word of god god never spoke.

C : Yeah, something follows it.

O: Yeah something follows it.

C: Yeah.

O: So this was your immediate style it just became a CormacMcCarthyism

C: Well maybe I don't know the first person the first person that I ever read that didn't use quotation marks…was MacKinlay Kantor now theres a writer that people don't know anymore he wrote a really good book about Andersonville about the

O; Oh Andersonville

C: About the prison you know the confederate prison.

O: I have that.

C: Have you.

O: Um hm

C; But theres you know theres no quotation marks all of the dialogue is given without quotation marks and some people have written books you know I guess based on my having written them in that way but you really have to you really have to be aware that there are no quotations marks to guide people and write in such a way that is not confusing about who is speaking.

LUCK AND MONEY

O: So money has never really interested you?

C: No not really. It's just that, I have friends that are wealthy and have spent their lives making money and they seem to be reasonably happy but um I suspect that they became rich because they were doing what they wanted to do.

O: Um hm.

C: I think it's hard to just set out in the world and say I'm going to become rich.

O: Right.

C: I think you have, as you said a passion and if you do it well then you may get rich in spite of yourself.

O: And so all those years that you were poor did you ever think that um one day or was it a concern at all not having money. You know a lot of people, a lot of, you're a different kind of man because a lot of people have a lot of angst have a lot of anxiety feel a lack of self worth…because they couldn't earn the money.

C: Yeah. Well.

O: You never had that?

C: That's them and this is me I don't know how to answer your question its um, I always very naïve I always assumed I'd be taken care of in some way or another and I was I was always very lucky something always happened just when things were truly truly bleak some totally unforeseen thing would occur.

O: Like?

C: Oh like I was I was living in Lexin Lexington Kentucky once and I was housesititng a friend of mine gotten me this job housesitting so I had a place to live but I didn't have any money I was um I don't mean that I didn't have much money, I didn't have any money but there was still some groceries left in the house so I ate those

O: Uh huh.

C: And uh, then one day someone knocked at the door and I went to the door and there was a guy standing there and he said are you Cormac McCarthy and I thought I don't think there are any warrants out for me and I said yes I am. He said sign this please I said what is it he said it's he said I'm a courier and uh he said thank you and got in his car and drove away and I opened up the letter and there was a cheque in it for $20,000 . And it was from, I was the first I was the first fellow of a new foundation that they had started some people in Chattanooga the Lyndhurst Foundation they had some Coca Cola money and they started this foundation and they were going to give these fellowships to people this you know long before the MacCarther fellowship.

O: Wow.

C: And they were going to give these fellowships to people and you got a you know cheque every year for I don't know for three or four years and uh

O: Do you think you were lucky? Or was there something else going on?

C: Oh I wouldn't get you know superstitious um you know um the laws of probability operate everywhere and that being the case somewhere in the world is the luckiest person.

O: Hm.

C: I mean if you were to go around the world and uh make a record of the luck in the lives of all the people on earth and put them on a chart you'd have a chart like this and there would be the unluckiest person at one end and the luckiest at the other end. Some years ago oh not that long ago there was a guy in Las Vegas I used to know some of the old time poker players a colourful colourful bunch but there was a guy there who uh who just simply won everything and he didn't have any system he didn't know how he did but when he went in and bet big money on a number on the roulette wheel it would turn around to that number and it was so it was so outrageous that the that the casinos wouldn't let him play anymore and he would I think he was finally reduced to trying to go in in disguise .

O:Really

C: And then one day it stopped. And he never…

O: Never had it.

C: He never had it anymore well you know somewhere in the world there is such a person at least for a period of time same thing is true with the stock market I had you know if you look at (barons) and you see this gurus they've done so well in the market and they're managing funds and whatever but you'll notice that next year it'll be a different group of gurus. This should tell us something.

O: Um hum.

C: You know somewhere in the world there are market analysts who are right and its not because necessarily that they know anything about the market that others don't know its just that some people at some time in their life are bound to be in one group and not in another group its simply the laws of probability you don't have to be superstitious about it. Anyway a long way of saying that I just think that I've been very lucky it could stop certainly…and I don't think I'm blessed

O: You don't

C: Well I am blessed because I'm one of the luckiest people I've ever known so that's certainly a blessing but I've done nothing to be picked out for such a …quite the opposite I mean if there were justice in the world they wouldn't have picked me out to be particularily lucky because I haven't done anything to deserve it

O: But you made a choice that you 're not going to be working in your life and that you were going to what you really loved

C: That's right and that obviously has some influence on it yeah.

Posted by Tiago A. at 09:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Esta estranha sensação de que pertencemos a Algo Maior―que todos os que nos antecederam já tiveram―, nós também a temos, às vezes. Esse Algo Maior é algo que, de certa maneira, é feito de tudo aquilo que cada um de nós é―e também é algo que, ao mesmo tempo, nos define, nos informa. E este post é só mais uma tentativa inútil de dar alguns exemplos do que eu sempre quis dizer, mas nunca consegui. (Eu já li o post todo e antecipo que fracassei mais uma vez).

Para nós, é muito natural (tão natural quanto a nossa respiração) pensar no modo como as outras pessoas estão nos percebendo. Nós sempre temos pelo menos duas linhas de pensamento acontecendo nas nossas cabeças simultaneamente. Numa delas, elaboramos as coisas que julgamos que as outras pessoas julgarão ser engraçadas, divertidas, du caralho, quando nós finalmente as dissermos; na outra, antecipamos todas as reações que julgamos possíveis, para continuar tentando nos portar de acordo com elas, como sempre fizemos.

Contamos nos dedos as vezes em que fomos sinceros sem ter medo de ser vítimas de algum tipo de chacota no futuro. O que nos move, o elemento de acordo com o qual decidimos nossas próximas condutas, é o medo de ser vítima de qualquer coisa que soe como zombaria. Nós queremos ser sempre aqueles que riem de, nunca aqueles de quem se ri.

Aprendemos isso nas escolinhas de onde, ao que parece, ainda lamentamos ter sido um dia obrigados a sair. Nós não queremos ser adultos: queremos ser adolescentes, para sempre. Este nosso arremedo de auto-crítica―que queremos muito fazer parecer auto-consciência―é, na verdade, a nossa tentativa de esvaziar toda crítica. Porque nós temos medo de críticas, porque não queremos ser criticados, porque não queremos ser adultos. Queremos continuar adolescentes. Ser adulto é ter que aprender a lidar com o sofrimento, e nós não queremos sofrer. (Nós nos acostumamos a fazer os outros sofrerem antes que eles nos fizessem sofrer, tipo Mortal Kombat). Nós somos hedonistas e descartamos tudo aquilo que nos parece incapaz de nos dar prazer. (Pessoas, inclusive).

Não temos nenhuma aspiração, sabemos que todos os que vieram antes de nós fracassaram de alguma forma―em algum nível, como nós gostamos de dizer. Mas nós também sabemos: nós nunca fracassaremos como as outras gerações fracassaram porque descobrimos o segredo do êxito constante e absoluto―que é nunca tentar. Zombamos de todos os que nos precederam e de todos os que virão depois de nós. Zombamos de todos os que não são nós. Só que, tipo, não há um nós. Nós somos todos eu. Nós somos uma massa de não-indivíduos―mas somos individualistas, somos cool e não nos importamos. O nosso cinismo segue filtrando o mundo para nós.

Nós estamos todos aqui, na net, até esta hora, para não precisar lidar com gente de verdade e, uma vez aqui, na net, ansiamos por algo que pelo amor de deus pareça um pouco humano, mas que nos poupe do sofrimento que o contato humano sempre gera, uma hora ou outra, como nossas poucas experiências de contato humano verdadeiro já demonstraram. Nós estamos cercados de gente por todos os lados―a apenas um SMS, e-mail, scrap (o caralho) de qualquer pessoa―e no entanto nos sentimos cada vez mais desesperadamente sós. Aqui, na net, até esta hora.

No plano maior, não poderia ser diferente: também estamos e continuaremos todos inertes. Seja porque estamos em repouso, seja porque estamos em movimento uniforme em direção a lugar nenhum. Nosso legado será não ter deixado legado algum, as marcas que deixaremos serão todas involuntárias. Subitamente, tudo parece ter ficado ao nosso alcance. Mas nós vamos continuar aqui, sem fazer porra nenhuma disso.

Posted by Tiago A. at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

* Pra você que estava esperando por uma boa notícia, ei-la: a Atlantic acaba de demolir sua pay-wall. Legal hein.

* Quê? Você queria ler um blog que reunisse citações de Nabokov? Por que não disse antes?

* Falando em Nabokov, tropecei numa troca de correspondências entre Richard Lamb e James Wood que a Slate publicou em 99. Nela, lá pelas tantas, James Wood escreveu:

[...] At his best, despite all my strictures, Nabokov is able to wring great pathos from the delicate games he plays. One such moment occurs near the end of Speak, Memory, when Nabokov is describing the Russian-émigré writers he knew in Berlin. He depicts an awkward lunch with the Nobel laureate, Ivan Bunin, then comes a sumptuous sentence about Poplavski: "I did not meet Poplavski who died young, a far violin among near balalaikas." And then Nabokov writes: "But the author that interested me most was naturally Sirin." Sirin was the pen-name of Nabokov when he was writing in Russian in Berlin in the '20s and early '30s. (And notice that Nabokov does not write "interested me most, naturally, was Sirin," but "interested me most was naturally Sirin," slyly, ironically pushing "naturally" and "Sirin" next to each other, when in fact there was nothing "natural" about Sirin; he was an artificial name; invented.) Nabokov describes Sirin's career, beginning in 1925 (the date of Nabokov's first novel), "until he vanished as strangely as he had come," and then writes that: "Across the dark sky of exile, Sirin passed, to use a simile of a more conservative nature, like a meteor, and disappeared, leaving nothing much else behind him than a vague sense of uneasiness."

It is impossible not to be moved by this. It is not merely a game; or rather, it is a game of high beauty. Remember that Nabokov wrote this passage in English, in America, in 1950, having left Europe ten years before. So, it is an elegy for a lost self, a Nabokov who was once called Sirin and who once wrote in Russian, and who did truly vanish "as strangely as he had come." But there is a further delicacy. When Nabokov wrote these words, he was an obscure American writer, still making his way in American letters. Certainly, very, very few of the potential readers of Speak, Memory would have known that Sirin was Nabokov in an earlier incarnation. Nabokov's Russian novels had not been translated into English at this time. His earlier career was a total blank in the States.

So, when Nabokov wrote those words, he was not playing quite the game of recognition he seems to be playing now. Most of his readers will not have got the joke, and Nabokov knew this. As far as Nabokov's American readership was concerned, Sirin has indeed nothing to do with Nabokov--not merely a lost self, but an entirely other self, a different writer completely, an unknown: an absence, filled with Nabokov's gorgeous game. And not a game, but a very beautiful irony. For what an extraordinary self-elegy, what an extraordinary farewell to a lost piece of oneself, to offer that lost piece up to the blameless ignorance of a new American readership, in a new American exile, confident that this new readership will not even recognize that such a sacrifice is taking place! How very beautiful! This is a "game" that almost none of Nabokov's earliest readers would have recognised as a game; thus a game that nullifies itself, or rather fortifies itself, in the very process of being played. For whose eyes, for whose private knowledge, if not his readership's, did Nabokov write the passage about Sirin, I wonder? For Véra's of course.

* Tenho ouvido a junkie da Amy Winehouse mais do que o recomendável, acho. Estava procurando um vídeo de uma perfomance ao vivo na qual ela mostrasse algum traço de sobriedade pra poder postar aqui. Encontrei ontem:

Meu novo conceito de Alegria está contido na dancinha destes backing vocals negões, sério. Simplesmente sensacional, mormente a partir do segundo minuto. E vê se vocês param de rir dela, que ela está sofrendo.

Posted by Tiago A. at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Tenho cinco minutos para deixar registrado que In The Wee Small Hours é um disco que reformulou, para mim, não apenas o que eu entendia por Álbum Conceitual*, mas o próprio conceito de Tristeza. Ele não exige que você esteja triste para criar a identificação que diferencia um disco qualquer de uma obra de arte. Você pode estar felicíssimo da vida: ouça o disco e vai entender perfeitamente o que é ser triste. Ouvindo sem parar há duas semanas desde que um amigo fez o favor de me apontar mais esta lacuna em minha formação. Sinatra canta Fools rush in, so here I am/ Very glad to be unhappy/ I can't win, but here I am/ More than glad to be unhappy e faz você acreditar em cada sílaba. Baixe imediatamente.

* Diz-se, aliás, que este foi o primeiro Álbum Conceitual. Frank Sinatra aproveitou a invenção do LP para― ah, lê aqui, tô com pressa. Tchau, baixe o disco.

Posted by Tiago A. at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Estávamos falando de João Gilberto, não foi? Pois saibam que

João Gilberto não é fácil nem difícil. É uma questão de entender ou não a personalidade dele. Quando você entende, se depara com uma pessoa maravilhosa.

É o que escreveu João Donato, na seção "o que aprendi"¹ da piauí desse mês. Na noite de ontem, ao pôr meus olhinhos cansados sobre² ver a capa da revista, fiz menção de pular de alegria,³ pois dela constava o anúncio:

Amor maior
que o mar
E.E. CUMMINGS

Sim, sim, isso mesmo; também pensei que tinha lido errado. Ao todo, são oito poemas que não, não foram vertidos para o vernáculo por meu cachorro pretensioso, mas por um tradutor e poeta bem mais experimentado.⁴ A revista vale só por eles; fiquei bem feliz e me apressei em vir dar a boa notícia aqui e telefonar pros amigos que não visitam meu blog, avisando-os, e dedicar o último poema a você e―

Euforia acabou assim que abri o site da revista. Os malditos editores de piauí (eles nunca acertam) publicaram os poemas em seu site criminosamente―não contentes por arruinar a disposição gráfica de dois poemas, ainda deram a um tal Silvio Vasconcellos a oportunidade de fazer *leituras* de poemas de Cummings PARA SEU IPOD (sic). Aviso: é de chorar.⁵

Não recomendo de maneira alguma, mas, se você quiser―apenas para ter uma noção do tamanho da atrocidade―, compare qualquer uma delas―a IV, por exemplo (Jesus, que desgraça)―com esta outra, de "let's,from some loud unworld's most rightful wrong", feita pelo próprio Cummings. Fiz isto; suspeito que jamais me recuperarei.

____________

1 cópia descarada do what i've learned, da esquire, mas ok.

2 "pôr meus olhinhos cansados sobre a capa da revista": meu alter ego devia estar dormindo quando escrevi isso, credo.

3 felizmente me contive.

4 o Sr. Vinícius Dantas.

5 (de raiva, claro)

Posted by Tiago A. at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Radiohead have been sending out Webcasts of single song performances since “In Rainbows” was released online, all filmed by stationary cameras in their Oxford studio. The more I see of this exclusive! footage!, the less of it I want. Whether or not the idea was a new model for the music business, the digital release of “In Rainbows” was a thrill in large part because the band was “giving away” something they had obviously worked on.

Exatamente: também já enchi o saco dessa overdose de Radiohead e até falaria mais disto se não estivesse tão deprimido por ter descoberto há pouco que Jorge Ben lançou Samba Esquema Novo quando tinha 21 anos de idade e que, na época, JT Meirelles, responsável pelo arranjo de Mas que Nada, era um pouco mais velho—tinha 23. Numa nota ainda menos relacionada, registro que pensei numa camiseta com os dizeres EI, PESSOAS, QUE TAL VOLTAR A FAZER SENTIDO? e que foi numa mesa de bar que eu ouvi de um amigo a melhor definição para o Politicamente Correto: "O Politicamente Correto é a nova AIDS".

Posted by Tiago A. at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Até onde eu soube lendo Chega de Saudade, João Gilberto mora num apart hotel no Rio, troca o dia pela noite, vive de pijama e não recebe ninguém, nem mesmo o sujeito do restaurante da esquina que, apesar de trazer seu almoço todo dia, nunca teve a honra de cumprimentá-lo pessoalmente porque só está autorizado a deixar o rango no chão, tocar a campanhia e ir-se embora. Se Ruy Castro estiver mesmo certo, quando João Gilberto se sente só na madrugada, que é tipo a parte útil do dia dele, ele liga pralgumas pessoas e fica horas e horas conversando e eventualmente tocando e lá pelas tantas pede uma licencinha pra ir até a cozinha fazer um lanchinho e fica lá meia hora enquanto as ditas pessoas esperam penduradas no telefone, porque, afinal, é João Gilberto, é João Gilberto.¹

Daí que eu acho que só existem duas possibilidades: ou (i) João Gilberto é autista e fim de papo, ou (ii) deu um jeito de criar para si um mito que o permite dar uma entrevista de 5 min em que basicamente se limita a dizer que gosta de Emílio Santiago e mandar um beijo pro Brasil e, ainda assim, fazer a gente (tá, tá, eu) gostar tanto dele. No fundo, no fundo, tendo a achar que a segunda hipótese tem maiores chances de vir a ser corroborada e portanto peço um minuto da atenção de vocês para declarar que, ao menos no que diz respeito ao convívio e à manutenção de laços afetivos com pessoas, é possível vislumbrar aspectos muito convenientes na circunstância de ser, tipo, João Gilberto.

É que ninguém cobra nada de João Gilberto. Por maior que seja o esforço que se faça, a gente nunca vai poder conceber que um amigo de João Gilberto ficou irritado porque João Gilberto não lembrou de uma efeméride qualquer ou que ficou aborrecido porque João Gilberto não foi ao seu casamento ou exigindo atenção de João Gilberto, que, pô, não liga, não dá notícias, que porra é essa. Que batida de bossa nova que nada: defendo que na verdade a genialidade de João Gilberto reside em ter ele conseguido encontrar uma maneira de se relacionar com as pessoas que o permite ser relapso e ausente como só João Gilberto pode ser e ainda mantê-las gostando dele e querendo o seu bem. João Gilberto nunca é ingrato, nunca é ausente, nunca é egoísta, ele é João Gilberto e ponto. E aí basta ele falar qualquer coisa que, fosse algum de nós falando, seria considerada simplesmente bullshit, tipo basta que ele fale qualquer coisa mesmo, como nessa entrevista que eu linquei acima e na qual você provavelmente ainda não clicou, para que os amigos dele perdoem tudo, achem lindo, adorem. João Gilberto teve um filho com uma mulher casada (com outro homem), todo mundo achou bonitinho; João Gilberto levanta e vai embora, todo mundo acha (tá, não todo mundo, boa parte das pessoas acha) que ele tem todo o direito; João Gilberto te liga de madrugada, te deixa na linha por meia hora enquanto faz uma boquinha, e você acha maravilhoso. Tão mais fácil lidar com gente quando se é João Gilberto.

1 Lembra daquela estória do sítio dos Novos Baianos aonde João Gilberto ia, de terno, levando a filha, apenas porque apreciava tocar com eles e porque gostava muito do canto dos passarinhos? Pois então agora você me imagine João Gilberto de terno dirigindo uns bons quilômetros pra chegar ao tal do sítio e ainda levando a filha pequena só pra poder se encontrar com um Moraes Moreira jovem, uma Baby Consuelo jovem, um Pepeu Gomes jovem e um Paulinho Boca de Cantor jovem―só porque é João Gilberto, todo mundo acaba achando Normal^1a uma coisa dessas.

1a Sendo este conceito de Normal = àquele que empregamos quando estamos falando de João Gilberto.

Posted by Tiago A. at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)