Wanderlust

Help me I feel like I'm weightless
Floating right out of your hands
And there's only so much I aspire to
Taking one day at a time
And deliverance has many faces
But grace is an aquaintance of mine
Tell me how could it have happened
You know that we're not the marrying kind.
Travel light, don't think twice
We're leaving the shadows behind.
It's given us, yeah
This wonderful wanderlust.
It's given us this wonderful wanderlust
It's given us this wonderful wanderlust
I don't doubt it, I feel it, yeah
Wanderlust Wanderlust
Help me, this waterboys wasted
Falling right out of your sky
And there's nothing that could do without you
Loving the state that I'm in
Between no longer and not yet
On the threshold of some bright affair
The match was struck and I was fired
The embers of a drowning man
Tell me why won't I listen
Or acknowledge that I don't understand
Losing light, a selfish kind
And we're out on the road again.
It's given us, yeah
This wonderful wonderlust...
I don't doubt it, I feel it, yeah
Turn the headlights on full
I want to take in it all
And let it wash over me
The bridge looks so high
From the ledge that we climbed
But we climbed them so that we could be free
Give me no dreams of what the future brings
I need to know when I have gone too far, oh
Repeated lightening strikes
Up and down the spine
They search us out wherever we go
In a world full of lies
That tug at the truth
I'm taking no sides
Now I recognise you.
Wanderlust Wanderlust
It's given us, given us
This wonderful wanderlust
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
Wander---lust
I don't doubt it
No

Home WOW home

Some beautiful ideas of interior design.

* from here

(500) Days of Summer

I am not a fan of romantic comedies. Usually, I put the film on my computer, I watch it and then immediately delete it. It was not the case with (500) Days of Summer. I liked this movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Dechanel. Not in a wow-what-a-great-movie way, but I just thought the manner in which love and relationships were presented were interesting and very close to reality. The notion that it's not a typical romantic comedy is being repeated many times, and although it doesn't succeed to avoid some cliches, it is still refreshing and touchingly narrated story.

My favorite scene of the movie is the representation of how the boy feels after he gets the girl he liked for some time. It's a little bit cheesy, but haven't we all felt like running around and dancing when we've realized we are happy in love?

What i also liked is the retro feel of the whole film. Both Zooey Dechanel's and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's clothes are super-cute.

              

Music I was born with

I was very disappointed to discover that the day I was born No 1 in the UK was this song:



But then, luckily No 1 in the US was this song:

What pisses people off

I have found myself in situations when I would get really annoyed by someone or something, and when expressed my opinion I'd get those awkward looks on people's faces as if I something's wrong with me and not with the person or the fact that has been annoying me. What I am talking about are usually some things completely unnoticed by other people but somehow for me they are the only thing that exists in that moment, occupying all my attention.

I read this article and thought about what are the little things that piss me off..

1. People who chew gum with their mouth open. (I don't have to explain this.)
2. The sound of cleaning your teeth with air. (If you know what I mean, this is a really irritating sound.)
3. Whistling catchy tunes in a room. (I just don't want that tune in my mind for the rest of the day.)
4. People who sit on busy staircases. (That makes me having to skip and juggle between them, an effort totally unnecessary.)
5. People who hold the door open for me when I'm still far from the door. (I have to run so that they don't have to wait for me, when I am really comfortable just walking normally and completely capable of opening the door myself.)
6. When a part of my clothes gets caught on the door knob.
7. Taking a photo of someone and after the photo has been taken having them rush and say "let me see it!!" (I mean, relax, you'll see the photos on your computer afterwards!)

Optical illusion

My photo in the Times online competition :)

I was googling my name (yes, from time to time I do this) and among the Facebook and Myspace results I got this one. And then I remembered that a couple of months ago I sent the photo for the Times online competition but later I forgot to see if it got posted. I like my comment on the photo :)

The Prestige

My No. 1 movie of all time is Memento. I think it's innovative, unique, creative, intriguing, captivating.. Any adjective you can think of attributing to a movie you like I would easily apply to Memento.

I was curious to see something else from Christopher Nolan and having watched Insomnia (which I didn't like very much) and being very sceptical about Batman movies the choice had to be The Prestige.



I was attracted by the great casting: Hugh Jackman (who according to me is the best looking actor at the moment), Christian Bale (loved him in The American Psycho), Scarlett Johansson (one of the best young actresses), Michael Caine (no explanation needed) and David Bowie (amazing!!). So, given the cast I was expecting a lot from this movie, ignoring even its duration of more than 2 hours.
After having watched it I can only say that all of my expectations were fulfilled. All of the actors perfect for the role, a great story which keeps your eyes glued to the screen not wanting to miss even one second, amazing twist making you guess all the way through the movie, and the scenery moody and evocative, easily transporting you into the time period.

I am not going to explain what the movie is about here, you can easily read it here. I will just say that you should watch this movie, you won't regret the 2 hours you spend.

.. And after you've seen it, if you are wondering about the song in the end, here it is, amazingly performed by Thom Yorke:

Satanic Verses

Finally, I finished reading Satanic Verses! I say finally because it was such a hard book to read. The language Salman Rushdie uses, his style of writing takes so much time and effort to understand. I am not going to explain what is the book about, we have all heard of it and the discussions it triggered, I will just say that the book is fiction, and as fiction it shouldn't be seen as anything else. It takes on religion and the all-time struggle between good and bad, but it is nonsense to think about it in any other light except as that of fiction.

Every time I read something, I write the parts that seem interesting to me, so here they are from the Satanic Verses.

* Don't let people get too close to you. Let people through your defences and the bastards go and knife you in the heart.

* Nobody can judge an internal injury by the size of the superficial wound, of the hole.

* Nothing is forever, he thought... Maybe unhappiness is the continuum through which a human life moves and joy is just a series of blips, of islands in the stream. Or if not unhappiness, then at least melancholy...

* The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.

Quotes

La vita

Perché è così che ti frega la vita. Ti piglia quando hai ancora l'anima addormentata e ti semina dentro un'immagine, o un odore, o un suono che poi non te lo togli più. E quella lì era la felicità. Lo scopri dopo, quando è troppo tardi.
Because it is like that when life cheats on you. It grabs you when your soul is still asleep and inside of you it scatters a picture, a smell, or a sound that you can't take off anymore. And that moment was happiness. You figure it out only later when it's too late.

Accadono cose che sono come domande. Passa un minuto, oppure anni, e poi la vita ti risponde.
Things that are like questions happen. A minute has passed, or years, and then life gives you an answer.

La gente vive per anni e anni, ma in realtà è solo in una piccola parte di quegli anni che vive davvero, e cioè negli anni in cui riesce a fare ciò per cui è nata. Allora, lì, è felice. Il resto del tempo è tempo che passa ad aspettare o a ricordare.
People live for years and years, but in reality it's only a small part of those years that they live for real, that is in the years when they succeed in doing what they were born to do. It is then that they are happy. The rest of the time is only time they pass waiting or remembering.

*Quotations from Castelli di Rabbia from Alessandro Baricco

A poem

One of my favorite poems.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H.Auden

Where the problem lies

In order to get to where I am going, I must reach the halfway point...and of that half I have to reach half...and in order for me to move at all, I need to start...and this is where the problem lies...

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. Beautiful thought, captures exactly the condition I am in.. 

Tempo da travessia...

Há um tempo em que é preciso abandonar as roupas usadas,
que já têm a forma do nosso corpo,
e esquecer os nossos caminhos,
que nos levam sempre aos mesmos lugares.
É o tempo da travessia;
e se não ousarmos faze-la,
teremos ficado,
para sempre,
à margem de nós mesmos.

Fernando Pessoa

Ozpetek

A week dedicated to the Italian film took place in the Cinematheque of Macedonia in Skopje with a retrospective to the work of Ferzan Ozpetek, a Turkish-Italian director, very famous for his sexual orientation (openly gay and fighting for the rights of the homosexual).

The first film, with which the "Window to the Italian Cinema" was opened was "Bagno Turco (Hamam)" ("Turkish Bath"). It's a story of a man from Italy (Alessandro Gassman, incredibly handsome!) coming to Istanbul after the death of his aunt in order to sell the property left to him. There, somehow, he starts a new life and a sexual relationship with a young boy, which he chooses over his wife, who has come to visit him, see what has been going on and tell him that she has an affair with their friend. They all get enchanted by the Hamam and at the end, after the man (Gassman, incredibly handsome!) gets killed (by the people who want to build a commercial center in that area) his wife stays in Istanbul and continues to run the hamam.

The second film was "Le Fate Ignoranti" ("His Secret Life") where a woman, after the death of her husband discovers that he had a male lover. Out of curiosity, she wants to meet her husband's lover, but then she continues to see him, and moreover, she makes friends with the other people in his circle.

The third film was "La Finestra di Fronte" ("Facing Window"). It is a story of a young woman leading a more-or-less normal life with a husband and two kids, trying to make ends meet at the end of the month. One day she and her husband meet an old man on the street that seems has lost his memory. With the way Italian bureaucracy works, they can't get him to an institution and he stays with them. Even from here the story seems unconvincing, and it just continues to develop more and more unconvincingly until the end of the film. What is unavoidable in Ozpetek films is that the old man is actually gay and longs for the memory of his long lost lover. Once again, all the male characters are incredibly handsome and I get to think that it may be a good enough reason to watch Ozpetek movies! There is Raoul Bova, a character not developed at all, who seems to be in love with Giovanna (the woman), but again unconvincingly. The moral of the movie would be "live your life, and don't let it slip away" - a lame enough message that when presented like this becomes even lamer.

The fourth film was "Cuore Sacro" ("Sacred Heart"). For once, Ozpetek tried to work on something other than gay people and dysfunctional marriages. However, again somewhat unconvincingly. The plot of the film would be the transition of a woman from a work-a-holic, consumerist, loner.. into a caring, compassionate, pretty much "saintly" person. It was a hard-to-swallow movie and, now that I think of it, I can't really say much about it.

The fifth and last film was "Saturno Contro" ("Saturn in Opposition"). Here Ozperek returns to his usual story: gay couple very much in love and functioning perfectly, heterosexual couples with dysfunctional marriages, the usual smart Turkish female character.. and no point in the end.
When I started writing I didn't think that I disliked Ozpetek this much, but seems that it just came out of me.. Thank you very much, I prefer Tornatore, and even Gabriele Muccino's romantic comedies. Ozpetek is simply not for me.

Bairro Alto

These days I've been going out to bars and clubs (in Skopje) a lot and I've noticed that I missed something. What I miss exactly is a laid-back relaxed atmosphere of meeting people and talking and partying as in Bairro Alto in Lisbon. The quarter is just a couple of small streets showed in this map:

And during the day the streets look like this. Ok, I was there in the middle of July so I think that people that didn't go to work were at the beach, but still.. Who would think that at night it turns to be..

Something like this!! You buy a beer (1 euro) or a cocktail (around 3-4 euros) and you just hang out.
There are all kinds of bars.. even gay bars on the same street, and nobody seems to care.

That's what I miss here.. A place you just don't care!

Intimacy

"Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy."

"How disturbing it is that our illusions are often our most important beliefs."

"A breakdown is a breakthrough is a breakout. That is something."

-Hanif Kureishi

The Reader

I have read the book almost a year ago and I adored it. It kept me thinking for days. I tried to understand the force of love and lust that kept Michael incapable of loving anyone else for the rest of his life. I thought about the force of shame and self-respect. Are there really such people that would sacrifice their life just to avoid shame? Most of all, I was wondering how come an illegitimate love of a 15-years old and a woman of 40 seemed so natural and normal to me. I adore writers that succeed in representing things as though they are the most natural thing that could happen although in reality they would seem improbable.

I saw the film a couple of days ago. First of all, I don't think Kate Winslet was the right choice for the role, even though I truly admire her acting skills and I really think she deserved an Oscar (but maybe for another movie?!). The way I imagined the woman when I was reading the book was someone not so beautiful, a person who has lived and at whose face there are traces of the life she passed. She wouldn't be so slim, and she would have bigger breasts, but these are smaller details mainly part of one's imagination. Now that I think of another actress that would be right for the role, no one comes to my mind.. Is it possible that Kate is the only acclaimed actress who has a few pounds in eccess??? I'll think about this.. However, what I wanted to say is that I rarely watch a movie after a book and really get into it. The only movie that was everything I imagined while I was reading the book was Parfume (I'll say something more on that matter some other time), and I have to admit that The Reader was not far from it. I enjoyed it, and apart from some minor imperfections, I can say that it was an excellent representation of the book. Talking about imperfections, I think that the part of Michael communicating with his daughter could have been a little bit shorter. It was to depict how every his relationship with a woman was unsuccessful, and we got that with just two phrazes spoken between them.

To conclude, even with rare examples of good films I'm going to stick to books. No film can replace my imagination.

Quero Fazer Contigo..

Brincas todos os dias com a luz do Universo.
Sutil visitadora, chegas na flor e na água.
És mais do que a pequena cabeça branca que aperto
como um cacho entre as mão todos os dias.

Com ninguém te pareces desde que eu te amo.
Deixa-me estender-te entre grinaldas amarelas.
Quem escreve o teu nome com letras de fumo entre as estrelas do sul?
Ah, deixa-me lembrar como eras então, quando ainda não existias.

Subitamente o vento uiva e bate à minha janela fechada.
O céu é uma rede coalhada de peixes sombrios.
Aqui vêm soprar todos os ventos, todos.
Aqui despe-se a chuva.

Passam fugindo os pássaros.
O vento. O vento.
Eu só posso lutar contra a força dos homens.
O temporal amontoa folhas escuras
e solta todos os barcos que esta noite amarraram ao céu.

Tu estás aqui. Ah tu não foges.
Tu responder-me-às até ao último grito.
Enrola-te a meu lado como se tivesses medo.
Porém mais que uma vez correu uma sombra estranha pelos teus olhos.

Agora, agora também pequena, trazes-me madressilva,
e tens até os seios perfumados.
Enquanto o vento triste galopa matando borboletas
eu amo-te, e a minha alegria morde a tua boca de ameixa.

O que te haverá doído acostumares-te a mim,
à minha alma selvagem e só, ao meu nome que todos escorraçam.
Vimos arder tantas vezes a estrela d'alva beijando-nos os olhos
e sobre as nossas cabeças destorcem-se os crepúsculos em leques
rodoiantes.

As minhas palavras choveram sobre ti acariciando-te.
Amei desde há que tempo o teu corpo de nácar moreno.
Creio-te mesmo dona do Universo.
Vou trazer-te das montanhas flores alegres, "copihues",
avelãs escuras, e cestos silvestres de beijos.

Quero fazer contigo
o que a primavera faz com as cerejeiras.

(Pablo Neruda)