Maya Angelou dixit

A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.

Dia de São Nicolau

A woman's love and life

Do dia - 101

Mon père expliquait à ma mère que, dans la société future, tous les châteaux seraient des hôpitaux, tous les murs seraient abattus, et tous les chemins tracés au cordeau. 

«Alors, dit-elle, tu veux recommencer la révolution? 

— Ce n'est pas une révolution qu'il faut faire. Révolution, c'est un mot mal choisi, parce que ça veut dire un tour complet. Par conséquent, ceux qui sont en haut descendent jusqu'en bas, mais ensuite ils remontent à leur place primitive… et tout recommence. Ces murs injustes n'ont pas été faits sous l'Ancien Régime : non seulement notre République les tolère, mais c'est elle qui les a construits!»

J'adorais ces conférences politico-sociales de mon père, que j'interprétais à ma façon, et je me demandais pourquoi le président de la République n'avait jamais pensé à l'appeler, tout au moins pendant les vacances, car il eût fait en trois semaines le bonheur de l'humanité. 

 - Marcel Pagnol, La Gloire de mon père.

Do dia - 95

Peter Paul Rubens, Imaculada Conceição, 1628-29.

Do dia - 92

Frederico Fellini & Giulietta Masina, Veneza, 1955 

Do dia - 91

No dia 10 de novembro de 1958, João Gilberto chegou ao estúdio da Odeon para mais um round nas gravações de seu segundo compacto. Em agosto ele tinha lançado o compacto com Chega de saudade de um lado e Bim bom do outro. Assim se passaram apenas cinco meses, mas já estava na cara. A música brasileira nunca mais seria a mesma. A expectativa para o novo compacto era grande, mas a gravação, como qualquer coisa relacionada com João, estava complicada. Ele implicava com os arranjos de Tom, com o baterista, com o excesso de cordas.... 

O clima era péssimo. Desafinado, a música escolhida para o segundo compacto, tratava-se de uma brincadeira de Tom Jobim e Newton Mendonça em torno da voz de João. Uma piada sofisticada, claro, algo que depois os comunicólogos chamariam de metalinguagem. Como a emissão do cantor era muito diferente, estabelecera-se no país uma discussão de se ele era afinado ou não. Desafinado era a música sobre a música e os seus músicos, a dificuldade de ser entendido e anunciar o novo. Livros já foram escritos sobre ela, mas não se assuste. Hoje, aqui, não tem aborrecimento teórico. Isto é apenas um programa comemorativo daquele momento histórico e divertido da música brasileira. 

Tom e Newton fizeram a composição para que, a principio, ela parecesse sair em defesa daquele "comportamento antimusical". Quem a ouvisse pela segunda vez, no entanto, perceberia. Ela possuía uma complexidade que só os muito afinados poderiam enfrentar. 

(...)

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

Linda and Paul McCartney dancing on Leicester Square, London, c. 1970.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Lembrando Vinicius

Não te amo como uma criança, nem
Como um homem e nem como um mendigo
Amo-te como se ama todo o bem
Que o grande mal da vida traz consigo.

- Vinicius de Moraes

Do dia - 89

NiKias Skapinakis, Paisagem - Bandeira Portuguesa, 2009. 

Sonnets are full of love

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

 - Christina Rossetti, A Pageant and Other Poems, 1881.

28 de Agosto de 1963

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." 

 - Martin Luther King

Do dia - 84

Hinrik Funhof, Maria im Ahrenkleid, 1480. 

Do dia - 75

João Francisco Camacho, Vista do Pico do Areeiro, últimas décadas do século XIX.

No Dia da Região Autónoma.

Do dia - 74

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, St. John the Baptist as a Boy, c. 1665

Do dia - 47

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Virgin Of The Immaculate Conception, 1608-13.

Do dia - 46

Santa Bárbara, s/a, s/d

"Various legends surrounding St. Barbara were attached to flowering branches. One is that flowers blossomed upon her grave on Christmas day; another that, imprisoned in a tower awaiting martyrdom, St. Barbara found a dried up cherry tree branch which she watered and which bloomed, thus bringing her consolation before her martyrdom."

Os meus pais casaram-se há 33 anos hoje.

Do dia - 44

El Greco, St Martin and the Beggar, cc. 1597-99

"While Martin was still a soldier in the Roman army and deployed in Gaul (modern day France), he experienced the vision that became the most-repeated story about his life. One day as he was approaching the gates of the city of Amiens he met a scantily clad beggar. He impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night, Martin dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak he had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me." (Sulpicius, ch 2). In another story, when Martin woke, his cloak was restored. The dream confirmed Martin in his piety, and he was baptized at the age of 18. He served in the military for another two years until, just before a battle with the Gauls at Borbetomagus (now Worms, Germany) in 336, Martin determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, "I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." He was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service. Martin declared his vocation, and made his way to the city of Caesarodunum (now Tours), where he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, a chief proponent of Trinitarian Christianity, opposing the Arianism of the Imperial Court. When Hilary was forced into exile from Pictavium (now Poitiers), Martin returned to Italy, converting an Alpine brigand on the way, according to his biographer Sulpicius Severus, and confronting the Devil himself. Returning from Illyria, he was confronted by the Arian archbishop of Milan Auxentius, who expelled him from the city. According to the early sources, he decided to seek shelter on the island then called Gallinaria, now Isola d'Albenga, in the Ligurian Sea, where he lived the solitary life of a hermit."

Mais aqui.

Do dia - 26

Sobre o Dia Internacional do Jazz que se comemora hoje pela primeira vez há mais aqui.