to ourselves

we can speak with someone else for hours without telling anything to the one who listens to us. for we are speaking not to someone else but to ourselves, and to ourselves alone.

how to disappear completely

that there
that's not me
i go
where i please
i walk through walls
i float down the liffey
i'm not here
this isn't happening
i'm not here
i'm not here

in a little while
i'll be gone
the moment's already passed
yeah it's gone
and i'm not here
this isn't happening
i'm not here
i'm not here

strobe lights and blown speakers
fireworks and hurricanes
i'm not here
this isn't happening
i'm not here
i'm not here

radiohead, how to disappear completely, in the album kid a, 2000 #4

[i'm not here as well. and in the moment you'll see me, i'll be gone already. gone for good, gone beyond the boundaries of your little world. perhaps you'll notice it. perhaps you'll miss it. i doubt it. as i doubt i'll miss it.]

2+2=5

and no, i'm not going to write again about radiohead. i'm just going to mention the blog 2+2=5, which i've discovered by chance, and where i've read one of the funniest posts i've come across to in a while. and i'm dedicating this post (and the mentioned post) to all my friends, enemies and acquaintances who have told me at some point that mathematic is simple. so they see, two plus two might well not be four, but five.

or whatever we want it to be.

hideout

now, i know i will never be able to rewrite those words, to put them all together again, to draw the same picture with them. but i do remember their meaning, it's cristal clear in my mind, just as it was in the moment i've written them down, and just as it was in the moment they flooded my mind, when i was alone in my hideout by the sea. another night there, alone with the ocean and the clouds and the stars and the great and empty blackness of the summer sky. i'm getting used to it, i'm getting quite confortable there as a matter of fact. human beings get used to anything after all. and yet, it would be so nice not to be there on my own. yeah, i suppose it would be very nice to share the hideout, to tell the secrets of those stars i see, to sing the poetry of the crashing ocean, hammering restlessly the wavebreaker and making my heart (our hearts?) tremble. and watch the burning cigarrette tips rolling down the sand and being engulfed by the water, as there is no one else around except perhaps the guy up in the watch tower, tall and cold and distant. there is so much i could tell you, if only you'd care to listen.

weekly playlist (I)

magazine, definitive gaze (real life, 1978)



radiohead, blow out (pablo honey, 1993)



the sex pistols, anarchy in the uk (single 1976)



joy division, transmission (still, 1981)

and i'm feeling so retro. don't ask. from all these songs, the only one produced after i was born was the radiohead one - and i was a child back then. meh.

whisper

i in other circumstances, with other people would
trade and maybe in a different life, i would feel quite tempted everything
if to agree with you. but the way i see it, it's hard to accept it might be only
i could so simple, that simple. for there is a need for love
you, more, and there is room for more, plenty of room and all that's and
if needed. only, i've lost the keys, i'm missing the you
could bloody damned keys, and i can't find them. and so i can't open the door, and so only
love there is no room, and nothing at all. oh, bloody hell. me.

rare bird

the problem is, there is no space between, no nether realm filled with nothing and at the same time containing all the possibilities of all the worlds. there is only the never-tangible reality and the ever-present inner world of my own creation, but not of my own control. there is no place for infinity, for insanity, for daring. there is no life in the void, after all - and it has been long since i've died.

half courage

there is no one brave enough to tell the truth. the whole truth. the simplest truth. the most obvious truth. all the courage means merely half the truth - which, for all purposes, is exactly the same than half a lie.

i won't.

(almost a) suicide note

love can really depresses me when it withers and dies. family can depress me with its troubles and intrigues and general bullshits. friends can depress me when i can't have them around and need them, when they're not around, when they disappoint me, when i feel like having them depressing me (i'm a slaughterer of innocents). work is depressing by nature, so no point going further on this subject. and yet, i think nothing can make me feel depressed, melancholic, lethargic (often nostalgic) as listening to radiohead. and they are so good that it gets almost addictive.





.... oh, forget the 'almost'. they are addictive.

seven years, god damn it (knives out)

five years ago were the years of peer-to-peer for digital music. napster was down (shame, metallica, shame), but software like kazaa and bearshare were more than enough to download musics with a decent quality. which doesn't happen any more, for those programs got worse and worse - basically someone fed them up with crappy porn and corrupted music files - and the torrents became the latest trend (or so i think). still, i've relied on peer-to-peer for quite a long time, with a problem only: if i didn't know the name of a song, it could be hard to find it. take, for example, the song knives out, by radiohead (in the album amnesiac, 2001). i loved the song the first time i listened to it. but i didn't know it's name, so i never downloaded it and so it never made its way to my personal music library.

until now, that is. it took me a couple of days to rip all the albums by radiohead (with a couple of ep's coming along too), but finally found that music i loved so much. knives out. oh, god, thank you.

vanilla and chocolate (how to fry €4.25 without noticing)

there should be a law somewhere forbidding tramcars to stop right before a häagen dazs shop.

alcohol (how not to heal wounds)

another lesson to learn soon: alcohol might help wounds to heal, but it stings like hell when poured over the open sores and blood.

setback

the trouble is, we tend to see every setback as a defeat, as if our armies had been slaughtered and there was nothing left for the survivors but to flee back to the woods. but what seems to be a defeat might well be merely a setback, something that didn't go as we'd planned, but which has no particular meaning, no relevance and no consequence. i should know it by now, to be honest, as i've told it several times to people who were in need of hearing such words; yet it's a fact that while some people really listen to myself, i don't; and that's my mistake, not theirs. of course.

maybe it is about time for me to start believing in my own beliefs. how to do it, however, is a question whose answer seems to be far beyond me.

addicted (as if nicotine was not enough)

disturbed waters

some time ago, you'd probably one of the first (and few) people i'd talk about it. oh, i know what would happen: i'd start a conversation circling the issue, and you'd know i was up to something. then you'd make the right question (you always made the right questions), and we'd talk for hours about it. i can almost guess what you'd say, you'd ask the right question again, and would tell me to be careful, to think it through, not to leap at it at once... but you'd be happy for me, and i dare say that secretly you'd be praying for everything to go right for me.

but not anymore.

now i can't tell you that. i dare not to. and you no longer ask the right questions, or any questions for that matter: the link between both of us has been broken, and where once existed a deep feeling of confidence now lies suspicion, mistrust and a ressentment that's running high and high. whether we have built a stone wall or dug an abyss between ourselves i do not know; but i know we've disturbed the waters too much, and that nothing will ever be the same.

morning glory (II)

well, it was not my morning glory (especially if we consider the night's storm), but to be honest, i think it has been the next best thing.

the reckoning bomb

this will start a little geeky, but screw it. the reckoning bomb was an unintended ability that paladins could make in the old days of the game world of warcraft. "reckoning" means retribution in a sense of revenge, of vengeance; in the game, it was (and still is) a paladin skill that allows to stack attacks (read weapon swings) for some time, and then discharge them all in a fast, often lethal blow. it was fun, but paladins made it even funnier when they found out they could stack a shitload of weapon swings, face a powerful boss called lord kazzak, shield themselves and slay the boss almost instantly. it took a while but was funny as hell - till the game developers found out and made it impossible to accomplish.

the geeky part ends here, with the concept of reckoning bomb clearly understood: the ability of stack hatred and sorrow that can be triggered for revenge. and while the stacking process is unconscious most of the times, to deliver the blow(s) is not; usually, it is thorougly thought and considered, so it can be done with the sole purpose of causing as much damage and havoc as possible. and in a way, i've become a reckoning bomb myself.

ironically enough, my first character (avatar) on world of warcraft was a paladin.

storm clouds

i'm tired of the storm clouds. it's summer, for god's sake. can't the cold wind stop? can't the gray clouds drift away and vanish from the horizon? can't i enjoy one moment of deep, blue sky?

unnoticed

i had no answer for that question. was it so obvious? i couldn't explain. i couldn't say (i can't say) why did i felt like that, and why i allowed it to be so visible. or perhaps i haven't allowed anything to be seen, it simply had to be that way. anyway. is it possible to feel something that everyone but ourselves can see?

morning glory

i'd like tomorrow's morning to be my morning glory. the dawnbreak that would shatter all the shadows, destroy all the ghosts, slay all the demons. the sunrise that would send back all the darkness and cleanse all the evil, after the long night of regret and sorrow. and as the blackness gave way to the light and the stars faded away from the slate skies, oblivion would come quietly, and its gentle touch would wake me up for a new beginning.

i know it will happen, eventually. it's just a matter of time. but i'd like it to be tomorrow, if it isn't asking too much.

on naiveness and instinct

yes, i might be naive enough to miss the obvious. and yes, i know how stupid that is. i can't help it though. i've been waging war for so long that the defensive stance has become somewhat instinctive.

always a stranger

i like to see things change, to see people embracing today what yesterday they considered childish and a waste of time - so what was not worth their time is now the best thing they've ever had. i like to see people changing, walking ways no one ever thought they could walk (not even themselves), and becoming someone so different that who (what?) they used to be. i've seen angels turning into demons, and demons into angels. i've witnessed people falling from grace (as i fell from grace, too), and i've seen others climbing to impossible heights. i am still very young, perhaps too young for my own good; but people can hardly surprise me.

but most of all, i like to see all this from the outside. you know, just as i like to watch the sea: from the distance, on the top of the cliff, or when i'm walking slowly along the sandy coastline, with the waves breaking near my bare feet but never getting into the water. the tide flows and reflows, but i stay away, merely watching in silence, and wondering about the change, about the endless cycle. for in the end, it is not my world. it never truly was.

beyond me, beyond understanding

which makes sense, since now i see that in two and a half years i couldn't see a damn thing, couldn't understand anything. why would it change now, when there is nothing else to change?

still, the approach keeps puzzling me. why do we start something we do not intend to finish? why do we keep hinting at something devoid of any possible meaning? i mean, it does have a meaning, but only we know it - and yet we keep expecting someone else to guess it, as if everyone was some fucking telepath. i don't know about everyone else but me, and i'm damn well sure i ain't no fucking telepath, and i thank god for that. but this to say, i ain't have to guess what it means, if it really means something.

and since we're at it, does it?

think through

i should start to worry about myself when i start to do things before i think them through.

obviously

obviously, what carmex highlights here* is true - and it doesn't take great scientific studies to understand that, for it's so obvious. a love relationship doesn't survive out of air. one might fall in love and do not understand why that happens (why do we love x and not y?). but once a relationship between two people starts, it takes more than love for it to endure. yes, love is the spark. but it's hardly enough. a relationship requires nurturing, patience, dedication, understanding, sacrifice - all this from both parts, in the most even way possible.

of course, professional careers are very important. they've always been, i dare say. but to be quite honest, i don't see what's the point in being sucessful if you have no one at your side with whom you can share your sucess. and don't come and tell me that you can share it with your friends, because you can't. you can celebrate with them, buy them a round of beers in a pub friday night. but your personal success, your personal fulfillment, will only be shared with the one you love. without it, it's pointless.

*by the way, why isn't this blog on the link bar?

readers' blog: envy

i may try as hard as i can - so i have done, i may pretend - so i have done, i may have tried to convice myself - so i have done, i may have lied to myself and been so close to believe in my own lie, i may, i might try again. though, in my inner self - that deep part of ourselves we see every time in the morning before starting to act again - i know that i shall never have your lightness of spirit.

special guest star: anonymous*

note: even though the author of this text is known to myself (of course), she asked to remain unknown for the time being - a request that i will obviously respect, adding only a huge "thank you". and for you alone: in the almost three years of this blog, few things i published here honoured me as much as publishing this text of yours. once again, thank you.

. . .

it's not that it comes as a surprise (if it's really coming, and what i've just read - and won't link because i might be a bastard, but i'm a decent bastard) - is not just some dellusional blog posting. i've been close to them for quite a long time, and i've always been aware that the story was unlikely to have a different ending. there used to be some jokes about it. but watching it becomes "serious" really surprises me - shocks me, even. don't know why. perhaps it's because it's a world so different than my own.

think i've created a minority report

have you ever seen the movie minority report? if not, read no further: there will be spoilers. and yet the post is not about the movie.

anyway: in the minority report movie, a special police unit has been created to prevent murders to happen. for that, they rely on pre-cons, three individuals with a sort of psychic powers that allow them to foresee a homicide. so basically whevener the pre-cons foresee that someone is going to kill someone, the special unit stops it from happening, and arrest the potential murderers.

so far so good, but the problem starts when the pre-cons foresee a murder whose author is john anderton, the leader of the unit. the thing is, anderton doesn't know the guy he is supposed to kill, so he flees while trying to prove that he's innocent, and that the system he believed to be flawless has a flaw after all. knowing the prediction, he tried to find the guy who he was supposed to kill - and ends up killing him. so basically the pre-cons predicted something that could only happen if they predict it - if anderton had never known about the vision, he'd have never murdered anyone.

this to say that i think i've tied a similar knot somehow. i've... foreseen something (and no, i'm no psychic), and by letting everyone involved to know my guess, i made it happen. it's messy, i know. and while it doesn't show that i can predict the future, it shows how "vulnerable" the future is to our present actions.

sleeping awake

it's funny, but that sleepless night of revolving restlessly in my bed was, in a way, a reflection of my recent waking life, without movement and without thought.

to mess the meaning

few things are as pleasant as saying the most ruthless truth while making everyone believe that you're joking. or lying, even.

not to know

i'd like to have never known some things. really. i'd really like that. so those things, and the possibilities they would have opened would remain unknown, and most important, they would remain far, far away from my mind, instead of assaulting my memory now and then. and to be quite honest, i'd rather not to have them coming back. well, i'd rather have never known them at all. they added nothing but sorrow, and if you want me to tell you the truth, i think i'e had enough of that lately.

on change

it's interesting to watch what changes and what does not changes within my inner circle. and to see how someone's individual change causes ripples in the whole sphere, transforming the reality and making impossible things that once were common. it's wrong to think that our changes, our personal and individual changes, concern only ourselves, for they can affect the entire world that revolves around us.

on memories

what i'm looking for now is a place without memories. an empty place, if you like, ready to be filled with whatever mementos i intend to put there. but empty at first, so i can start anew, so i can get there and do not feel my chest hurting in despair. a place that does not bring back to my eyes any picture of my past.

i hope no one will ever tell me this

to love someone for what one writes is to love one for what one is not. we always love others for what we are (for them, sometimes), not for what they are. and since we have eyes, the others are what we are. let's then hope they never write. it'd make things easier.

taken from here, and roughly translated (or killed by myself). oh, and the blog's link is on the right - it's too good to be missed.

on lying

why should we care about the truth when a lie makes everything so much easier? a simple lie generates no concerns, causes no bitter arguments and generates no hard feelings. at least immediately. you might well be dying, and you simply reply "oh, i'm great, thanks" when asked how are you - and mostly everyone will take that as the truth and move forward, thus avoiding possible trouble.

on loneliness

what's wrong about loneliness?

i mean a conscient loneliness - or, if you want, a feeling that we don't need to be with others to do something that we want to do, or that we'd like to do. in other words, independance. i really don't get what's wrong with it. or why do people find it so weird when i say that i don't mind going out for lunch or dinner alone. "having dinner alone? that's so sad!", they usually say. and they repeat the speech if i decide to watch a movie alone in the theatres, or if i go to a music gig or festival alone. just as i did yesterday. "you came alone?!", asked a friend i found there when he saw me walking with my beer and my cigarrette.

what was the option? i want to see a movie that none of my friends wants to see. so i shouldn't go only 'cause i'm going alone? or shouldn't i go and see that gig i so want to see only 'cause none of the nearby companions is willing to pay for something that it's not among his or her preferences? i mean, i wouldn't do it as well. i don't go to the movies just for the hell of it, or to make company to someone (except for flirting purposes, but that's another story, and has nothing to do with loneliness). i don't go to some gig only because someone asks me to. no. i watch a movie that i really want to see - and even some movies i'd really like to see i end up not seeing, for i'm as lazy as a sloth. i only go to a music gig if i like the bands that will play there - especially since the ticket prices are usually sky-high. and i don't stop eating if i have to go out for a meal and have no one to join me.

or even if i feel like it. i mean, since when do we need to have company all the time? is it so frightening to have a steak or to listen to some music having ourselves as the only company?

(wrong) satisfaction

some years ago i used to took great satisfaction from showing someone how wrong he or she was. especially when it concerned me in some way. i don't know exactly what happened, or when it happened, but i no longer get that kind of satisfaction. which is a pity. it would come in handy soon.

to know and not to know

and yet, i couldn't help but notice that weird feeling of "i know something what you should know, but i'm not sure if you know it, so probably i'll do better if i keep my mouth shut". of all the wounds, this is the one who will take more time to heal (if it ever heals at all).

unavoidable

somethings are unavoidable, i guess. it's impossible to go somewhere - anywhere - without stepping on someone from my old university. mind you, i have nothing against my old university mates. but it's funny (and sometimes annoying), since it was quite a small school. all right, sometimes you find people who you like to meet - happened yesterday, and it was nice to see them. you find people who are quite irrelevant. and people that you wouldn't like to meet even if the world was ending and you and them were the last survivors. happened yesterday, too. i thank god for sending that huge crowd to the festival.

i don't even know what title should i write for this

and, as a matter of fact, i don't even know what to say. rage against the machine were definetely one of the best bands i've ever seen in a gig - if not the best. zack de la rocha knows how to energize the crowd, even though the real battery lies within the three other elements of the band: the drummer brad wilk (amazing performance), the bassist tim commerford (great, great lines) and the guitarist tom morello - which is definetely the best guitarist i've ever seen in my entire life. no shit here, i really mean it. the sounds that guy can produce with a guitar are insane. add this with a great presence, and you could probably watch him solo in a stage and never get bored.

anyway. the gig was insane, somewhat violent (got enough bruises to remember it in the following days), and remarkable in every possible way. i know the band dwelves a lot into political activism and other things alike, and my ideias are actually quite different than theirs - which matters not (and provided a good laugh when they dedicated a song to the portuguese writter josé saramago), as long as they play good musics. and they did, and they set the crowd on fire. by themselves, it was worth every cent i've spent on the ticket. and every bruise that hurts like hell today.

the national drink

what to say? when the show started i was thinking "okay, these guys ain't bad, but they have been clearly overrated". i was wrong, obviously. they ended up giving a very good show. awesome songs, awesome performance - but, i dare say, only after matt berninger (the band's lead voice) got completely wasted. yes, wasted. i've abused alcohol enough times in my life to know when someone has drunk too much. and he has drunk too much, even on stage!

anyway, i guess it's time to resume my download activities (or should i say crimes?) and get some songs by the national. they're clearly worth it.

watch these lads, folks

for they gave one heck of a show yesterday here in lisbon. ladies and gentleman, introducing...

... vampire weekend. which are good (very good), funny and very good when it comes to interact with the crowd. perhaps they deserved a bigger stage yesterday (i.e., the main stage), but who knows, maybe next time?

killing in the name of...

see you tomorrow!

silent communication

people should remember that the silence is a way of communication. i think i've written about this before, but apparently it is never too much to remember this simple truth. we always have something to say, and silence is a way just like any other to say it.

murphy's laws applied to atm machines

if you need an atm to get some dough, there will be none in the neighbourhood (or if there is one, it will be broken or out of service). you might know where another can be found, but it will be far from where you are. anyway, you start walking, and eventually you'll get there. there will be a queue - and in a good day, ahead of you there will be this old geezer taking his time to pay all the bills one can imagine. after some time, you get your dough and start walking back - and you'll find at least two atm machines that you didn't know about, and there will be no queues or any issues with them whatsoever.

mud

we have this funny tendecy of forgetting the time when we were down in the ground, crawling in the privemal mud. but we do not forget it entirely: oh, no, we don't. we use it whenever the opportunity comes, in a sentence starting by "i know". but we don't know, because there is nothing to know, and because our own pride blinds us to the obvious: there is no truth out there. or rather, there might be a truth somewhere, but it does not come in a "one size fits all" flavour. for the mud was not the same, is not the same, and will never be the same.

"only five minutes more"

or to cut a long story short: this is quite interesting. a story in six words? yummy. must try that one of these days, even though i'm surely not going to beat any of those written there. among my favourite:

see that shadow? (it's not yours), by jim crace

humurous book: critic died laughing. sued., by alexander mccall smith

"kiss me." "?" "kiss me." "?!!" "oh, sorry.", by jon mcgregor

"apple?" "no." "taste!" "ADAM?" "oh, god.", by david lodge

he didn't. she did. big mistake., by al kennedy

in the end, it simply began., by ali smith

the link for this article was found here, in this most interesting post. and i got quite intrigued about the five minutes. five minutes for what? for a last try? for a last goodbye? for life? for death? oh, i surely could go on and on.

how romantic (?)

that might be modern, all righ, but it's hardly romantic - no, there's nothing romantic about it. it is simply insane. obsessive, even.

and trust me, i know it all too well.

a cup of milk at the gates of hell

i never made it. i never really crossed into that world. i stood at its gates, and met a couple of wanderers who happened to be walking nearby with her. but i never really got into there, never explored its fields, never drank from its brooks, never took any of its fruits. my presence was simply not desired there. it took you quite a long time to create that world of yours - for i remember those early, dark days, when your world was but a smouldering wasteland of ash and dust, empty of any life. back then, i opened the gates of my own plane, granted you entrance and armed myself to wage war on your ghosts, on your loneliness. and once the loneliness was broken, once that world was shining and alive and warm, its gates were closed right in my face. makes sense.

now the question is, why the hell has this crossed my mind when i was drinking my cup of milk before going to bed?

scrying

it was so weird. i left the bus and started to walk down the street with this strange feeling buzzing inside. i don't know where it came from, or why. but somehow i felt it was the last time we've seen each other.

... definetely an aftershock.

on recklessness

sometimes recklessness is the only way out. and even if we don't make it out - we don't care, that's no longer the goal. we know we might not survive, and even if we do, we know we're not gonna make it unscratched. but after so much pain, after so much woe, we're beyond caring - and our last-ditch effort does not have as a goal to let us out, but to cause as much damage as we can. on that regard, i hope i'm a winner, even if the victory is bitter and somewhat empty.

phylosophy out of a friend's messenger nickname (XXIV)

a man with one watch knows what time it is. a man with two watches is never sure. exactly, my friend. exactly.

quoth the raven (XL):

(...)pavese was wrong. what hurts us is not to return to the place where we had been happy. it's to stay in the place where yesterday's happiness was stained by an unforgetable unhappiness.

joão pereira coutinho, artes de roubar, revista atlântico