Doodling Through Out the Obscurantism

This truly yours humble drawer is now part of Gawker Gallery and has a Gawker page! And Gawker artists have a group on Facebook. Thank you Gawker curator!

Beast and the Beauty

Jenny Holzer on the bad feeling (or “spider-sense”). She is so right. Sometimes the evil is a whiff of cool air. The sky is blue and the people are smiling, but “something” is in the air. How to combat such evil? Why not with beauty? Beauty reified. Like Liv Ulman (here acting in Bergman's “Skammen”). Her beauty is so outlandish that remains irresistible even for the evil.

Unspeakable!

There is a new letterpress print from Brian Taylor, from the excellent Candykiller project. Perfect for your home office or child’s nursery (Drawn! blog). Unspeakable! Unspeakable! (Mia Farrow, in Rosemary's Baby).

Dharma Kings

Gordon Ramsay and Gregory House... Who you’d like to have as a boss? Despite the fact of both being almost sadistic, I guess their employees are blessed for having a type of Zen master who break bamboos sticks in their heads when there are daydreaming and no responses for crucial situations. For better or for worse, this is the only way to grow professionally.

Roots

Mississippi John Hurt: the starting point of all this New Weird America stuff. Not quite blues, not quite country, and not quite gospel, is a clearly description of his work, as stated by Tyler, from naturalismo blog (there is an amazing video there also). Actually, I confess the three musical genres quoted are not my cup of tea; but this sort of folk is all I love.

K.I.S.S.

Cyclooxygenase inhibition lowers prostaglandin E2 release from articular cartilage and reduces apoptosis but not proteoglycan degradation following an impact load in vitro. How I wish it were THAT simple!

Sex and the Politics

It is irresistible not to associate Monsieur Le President, I Have No Reason to Refuse You and Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Different times and different drives, I must admit. Therefore, all the elements are there: shockingly conservatives, fluids on the sheets and an urge to publicize a supernatural metrosexuality.

Plinian, by Meredith Bragg

When the stones rained down
And smoke rose above the clouds
Dodging debris
My uncle put his fleet to sea
And as he waived and turned away
Set his sails across the bay
Who could ever guess
My dear Tacitus
The gods were so enraged

And the lightning arced
And dust turned the daylight dark
And the helmsmen cried
Wondered if they'd survive
But through the thickening smoke
They found the harbor choked
Still he urged them on
While he stayed calm
And the ash fell like snow

And the mountain growled
Tearing the buildings down
And for two dark days
Fires lit the Naples Bay
And when it came for them to leave
There was no escape by sea
And his body fell as the vapor swelled
They say he died as if asleep

A lonely ridge
A couple focus in
Their lenses train
On smoke, and fire, and flame
And in unison they rise
As the plume reached greater heights
While around the bend a grey cloud descends
That will be their demise

And with blindingly speed
They are both killed instantly
And the island roars
Boiling the ocean floor
Though their bodies disappear
Mingle with the earth and air
They will echo on through the work they've done
Projected through the years

((This a pop song! Americana! New Weird America! Naturalismo! Call it whatever! The fact is: american pop folk becomes PHD! Their Myspace page))

Virgin Tactics

Not only Virgin is using Flickr photos released under the CC-BY-2.0 licence for commercial aims. I've just received a letter from Emma Williams, managing editor of Schmap Guides, informing the inclusion of one of my photos (actually, the photo was shot by Teca, a friend of mine) in the newly released fourth edition of Schmap Berlin Guide. I'm not complaining. Just observing.

Shackleton Reenactment

Ouch, my dad was cruising aboard that ship last year... Nah. The ship was the Skorpios.

Licence to Kill

A Youthful Form of Plasticity

Somehow the wires got crossed
Communication's lost
Can't even get you on the telephone
Just got to shout about it
I'm losing you
I'm losing you
("I'm Losing You", John Lennon)
Not anymore, John. Not anymore...

High-low Brow

Batman Versus Fyodor Dostoevsky... Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov must be twisting in his grave.

Social Distortion Extended

There is a sardonic expression here in Brazil that makes negative presumptions about a book or a film: I did not read (or watch) and I did not like it. This is exactly my position concerning the new local cultural frenzy, Tropa de Elite, a flick that literally have entailed new "national heroes" embodied by Blackwateresque militias (although they are not private). It only have been increasing the Schismogenesis, inspiring fascist pigs and worsting desperado actions, as police officers spraying pepper gas in the eyes of people complaining about some robbers (Hey, I'm captain Nascimento! Go bother another one!). Sheeesh!

Life Imitates Art

Oh! Doesn't it recall those peevishness Al Jaffee usually did for MAD magazine?

Sensory World

"The Ney is a poison". Jelālu-'d-Dīn Muhammed Er-Rūmī.

New Toy

Finally, I've found a new toy to dive into. Mr. Pynchon has made a favor to write a book as good as the previous ones, a book with a scent of The Hardy Boys, The Rover Boys and Punch, or the London Charivari. Yet, the book has a blog.
UPDATE (11/2): Way better than the (honorable, but not constantly updated) blog, is Thomas Pynchon Wiki: Against the Day.

DIY Chopter

The Nigerian home-made helicopter was extensively boingboinged and slashdoted, but very few know about Mr. Tran Quoc Hai, a 44 year old mechanic of Tay Nienh province, in Vietnam, who in 2004 has created a similar beast to help evacuate people in emergency situations and farming usages. This story turned into a 15 min documentary (and a 3 channel video projection installation) named The Farmers and the Helicopters, directed by Dinh Q. Lê who, in his youth, witnessed the AH-1 Cobras burn entire peasant villages.

Factoring the 300

History repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. But sometimes, the tragedy is recursive, as so the farce. Take for instance the history of Treinta y Tres, a kind of Uruguayan Thermopylae remake. Its past is backed on the history of the thirty and three privates who, commanded by Juan Antonio Lavalleja, insurrected against the ruling coalition that was in charge of Provincia Oriental (today Uruguay). Not that there was a farce in the historical narrative, be it counted by the ones who triumph or not, but the controversy is about the number of men who really were there in the Latin fight.

Princess of Benin

Xeni Jardin, cyber-starlet, is in West Africa. Some readers have made some appropriate traveling suggestions.

The Munster from Minnesota

This service really creeps me the hell out! I don't know exactly what drove me to write THAT name and THAT last name...

Young Landis

Dr Arnie Baker, a friend of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, has the proof that the French anti-doping lab may have "mislabelled" the champion urine sample. I've seen this flicker! What was the name? Abby Normal. You gave me a brain that's abnormal!?

Lovely Lovely Lovely Singers

Hanne Hukkelberg

Henriette Sennenvaldt

Stina Nordenstam

Sarah Assbring

Natasha Khan

Joanna Newsom

Anja Garbarek

Ane Brun

The Six Burgesses of Calais

The blog BibliOdyssey, one which awakes in me a sense of wonder, has compiled The Comic History of England. One of the engravings particularly calls a certain passage:

The Siege of Calais, or rather the blockade (for it was shut up both by land and sea), was the most memorable, as it withstood the efforts of Edward the Third a whole year, and was not terminated at last but by famine and extreme misery; the gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre*, who first offered himself a victim for his fellow-citizens, has ranked his name with heroes.

* Eustace de St. Pierre (1287 - 1371), leader of the six burghers of Calais who, bareheaded and barefoot, with hopes around their necks, presented themselves to Edward III of England as hostages for the safety of Calais; they were pardoned at the instance of Queen Philippa.

From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

Hyper High-Tech

Walter Isaacson is optimistic about the "print" technology, in Edge's World's Question Center. And he is not veering towards a metaphor. Future electric energy outages will be more usual as no wasting water programs. So, books and moleskines should be the new trend in advanced technology. Everybody should stop the machines, sit onto a comfortable chair and, at a reach distance of natural light source, read post-post modern literature, as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (past-post-post, I admit) or the best sci-fi book ever written: Codex Seraphinianus.

Digression

What kind of motivation forces someone to spend hours looking for a supposedly Utrillo’s reproduction which has been shown in a scene of The Last Man on Earth (1964)? I was grasped by the remembrance feeling when I saw it at the first time behind Vicent Price… But the closest the free association of ideas could get was an Eglise de Pont-Saint-Martin: There is the spike, but not the two stories alley.

Nightmare City

Paul Theroux: In India a few months ago, as I was leaving my hotel in Chennai, I noticed a hotel employee shadowing me. He warned me that the sidewalks were so packed with people I would be swallowed up and stifled. He was right. And I was unable to cross the main street in Bangalore, a leafy city of under a million people in 1973 and now a hectically improvised sprawl of seven million. Mumbai’s population of nearly 20 million rivals that of São Paulo, Brazil, and Lagos, Nigeria — nightmare cities. (in The New York Times)

Brazilian Roots

This is the Spanish flu virus in 3D. Spanish? It was a Brazil fan?

Revelation

Daler Mehndi could be Dr Wickramasinghe's proof of concept...

From Kottke to SoAP

Anti-Semite and Control Freak

You are a new Latin American leftist? Then you better to recheck some of your myths. Begin with Salvador Allende, who was accused of being anti-Semite, mainly due to the fact of not taking in a famous Nazi. Thanks to Matt Webb, I’ve discovered that Allende was also a control freak, to the point of call Stratford Beer to develop the spurious Project Cybersyn.

This post is part of my new project: BLOG EVENTUALLY, DIE RESPECTABLY.

VW Bug is a Blobject!

Don Stewart, a visual artist, received a cease and desist letter from a law firm claiming to represent Volkswagen of America. You know why? He has made the following art over a VW Bug.


The VW Bug is an icon of America culture - it is an object. More precisely, it is a blobject. Here is a case of Copyright claim gone too far. Tooooooo far!

Toad Prince

Hey Mom! I'm inside a DECsystem-10, thanks to the PDP Planet, a Paul Allen project. The OS? It is a Tops-20 (Toad-1). It is very cool be personally inside of one of the machines described in the book "Hackers", by Steven Levy.

Unbelievable!

Real Fiction II

Life imitates art, as the evidences abound one more time. At least it is what one might deduct over the group of consultants established by FEMA "to complement traditional intelligence-based threat projections by taking an 'out of the box' approach that is achieved by drawing on the talents of a broad range of individuals, such as best-selling authors, academics, the military, and pop musicians." Well, the fictional character Turner belonged to a group exactly likewise...

Real Fiction

In a dense singularity times, scientists should pay more attention to sci-fi writers, as they seemingly are the only ones capable of previewing to where technology are going to. Take a look at this obscure line, written by an obscure sci-fi writer from the 60's: Heading towards the mountains Drover switched the car radio to YBM*Sonic, which, in the interests of safe driving, transmits a 24-hour programme of shifting electronic patterns ("A Landscape of Shallows", Christopher Finch, Best SF Stories from New Worlds 5, edited by Michael Moorcock, Phanter Books, 1969). This dream comes true almost 40 years after, for Toyota Motor Corp. has announced that it has improved its pre-crash safety system by adding a driver-monitoring function that recognizes the orientation of the driver's face and warns of a collision. The system will be mounted on the new model of Lexus slated for launch in spring 2006. The principle is the same... Instead of a radio station that transmits anti-hypnotic beats in brain waves frequencies, a face recognition system.

Outer Space Pyrites

A catchy briefing of "Piritas siderais", found in "Brazilian Science Fiction: Cultural Myths and Nationhood in the Land of the Future", by M Elizabeth Ginway, thanks to Google Print: In Piritas siderais (1994), the title of which refers to the gold-colored nuggets commonly known as "fool's gold", black American Berzelius Baldwin makes a pact with the devil to be immortal, with his soul to be places in the body of a Brazilian black who happens to be the twin brother of Zé Seixas, the protagonist of the story. However, when that twin dies in utero before the reincarnation can take place, the attempt fails. In order to keep his end of the bargain, the devil improvises a genetic chip which renders Baldwin's body immortal, but only if it is nurtured with a constant supply of gold, an abundant supply of which Baldwin has located on an as-yet-uncharted planet, ruled by an Afro-Brazilian deity. Baldwin believes that he can secretly obtain the gold from the planet by channeling. Maria, the priestess, claims that her chicken, Leda, has the power to provide part of this service by imitating the goose that laid the golden eggs. Zé and his friend Terêncio, who also happens to be an excellent medium, volunteer to go along with the plot. When the Afro-Brazilian god Oko magically appears, Terêncio, in an act of recalling Zeus's seduction of Leda the swan, channels Oko's powers so that the chicken is able to lay golden eggs. Of course, like the god's name, Oko (oco or hollow in Portuguese), the victory is hollow because Terêncio, after his orgiastic night with the chicken Leda, is famished and cannot resist roasting her in order to satisfy his hunger, thus completing this satiric fairy tale and justifying the title, "Outer Space Pyrites".

Sunday's Balsam

Last Studio 360 show was about conspiracies. Kurt Andersen had interviewed the journalist Jon Ronson, who uncovered Daved Icke's horrid tactics of calling Jews as lizards. His books, along with Henry Ford's The International Jew should be thrown into a pyre. NPR's Studio 360 is the best radio show ever; it is not obnoxious and it is not obvious, as a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang miniature. By the way, next week Kurt Andersen talks with Terry Gilliam about why darkness, fear, and the fantastic are good for kids.

Everything Has Its First Time

Well... Resistance is futile. My first podcast is up and running. Thanks to Ourmedia and FeedBurner. Go and listen Renato Carosone, Donald Duck, Monty Python... For now, it is in Portuguese. Adam Curry and Sirius: watch out!
UPDATE (08-07): I was obliged to withdraw my acknowledgement to Ourmedia, because they simply fade away my two podcasts shows. I recognize that nobody is perfect in this event - as my podcasts are not podsafe at all - but I was expecting a minimal decorum of them. Ourmedia is a free service and, for that reason, attracts a lot of freeloaders. As one of them, I can't complain, but I can send to them ketchup packets with tiny holes, as suggests my friend David Blumenstein, who kindly had offered a hosting space for me. Thank you, David!

Good Bye Rock Combat Years

Maybe the years of charity rock concerts are over. Maybe Bob Geldof and the Live Aid concert were just a dream within a dream. But it is impossible be apathetic to "Unplayed Piano", Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan's last song composed in homage to Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner in Burma. It is a honest outcry wrought in pure stanza, as: Unplayed pianos / Are often by a window / In a room where nobody else goes / She sits alone with her silent song / Somebody bring her home. Those are the kind of words that makes me feel relived of having transcended the rock combat years.

The Dictatorship of Objectivity

Much have being said about Joseph Ratzinger's opinions against relativism. For the new Pope, this view epitomizes the cultural confusion of our times, in which a bubblegum pop is placed in the same hierarchic position as a Bach's fugue. Ratzinger prefers the secure harbor of an Aristotle’s universal or an absolute entity that imposes itself through a "winner-take-all" method. I've been scratching my head over this issue for a long time and I'd like to make some points. I don't think, for example, that the relativist position should lead to the idea that anything goes morally, like prejudge the Aztecs because they sacrificed children. The Brazilian historian Boris Fausto had quoted last week, in a local paper, the differences between relativism and pluralism made by Isaiah Berlin. With due respect, I think the two categories are intertwined, because both grant as valid people’s cultural differences. For all matters, it is easier figure out this peculiar concoction in the anthropologic field, specifically in the brawl between Marshall Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere over the death of Captain Cook. For the first, Cook was confounded with a Hawaiian war god, and this clearly reflects an autochthon rationality; for the second, he was condemned to death for have took as hostage the native chief of a tribe, and this reflects a practical rationality. The anti-relativists argue that the so-called "Western" rationality, expressed at least partially by science and technology, is not locked up in itself, differently of, say, Zande witchcraft. This is the typical argument that makes me believe more enthusiastically that different cultures have different rationalities.

Swing Forever

This is the story: A grandchildren asked her grandpa to make rearrangements over classic rock swings from bands as Nirvana, Soundgarden and (how odd!) Spandau Ballet. Lucky us the grandpa was nothing more than Paul Anka. What about the results? "Sonically amazing, musically impeccable, vocally superb".

Sexual Healing

As everybody knows, John Paul II's Holy Spirit has taken Bush and his John Birch Society acolytes. What everybody doesn't know (and when I say everybody I say the Brazilian media in general) is that Pedro Chequer, the director of Brazil's HIV/Aids programme, had rejected the faith-based AIDS funding, a variation of the infamous condom ban promoted by almighty Vatican.

Team Korea

Who'd say that the only cultural product from North Korea would be pansori or films shot by kidnapped South Koreans directors? Cunnilingus in North Korea is here to oppose this silly and somewhat PI thought. This is a smart flash edited by the artist Young-Hae Chang, a piece of animation that mix a Kim Jong Il's discourse about sex equity with a soul music background. It is probably one of the most acid critics to PKR's Dear Leader, widely known for his instrumentalisation of art for political ends. The piece is publicly available in the skybox of Internet, which certainly was not previewed by the great movie buff.

Drones and Droids

The appearance of Lezama Lima in Before Night Falls (with Javier Bardem in the role of Reinaldo Arenas) is absolutely stunning and unexpected. "Dictators hate art, because beauty cannot be dominated". Fidel's pursuers are like Cylon pursuers, as in Battlestar Galactica.

Folksonomy Sartori

As I was tagging my recent photos in Flickr, something struck me hard in the head. I was using the tag "Trips" for the photos of a travel I did in 1998 to Europe. But I've noticed that "Trips" is an ambiguous word, for it can means either "traveling" or "drug driven experiences". Moreover, the tag "travel" has already been released in the wild inside the Flickr universe, so why not be leveraged by it? Immediately, Thomas Vander Wal's spirit descended upon me and put me closer to other folks that are using the same tag. Somehow, I felt a structural connection with others human beings, a relationship created by a common cultural practice. It is as simple as name an imaginary friend, but it gives empowerment to the people. There is a "revolution going on in the art and science of categorization", as said the prophet Bruce Sterling.

Delicious Sin

It must be the most frivolous thing to do in the face of the earth, but Alf Eaton knows how to skin del.icio.us. Install URIid extension, put a small style sheet in a special folder and make a little editing of userContent.css. Presto! The desert of real is no more. Hey, how many of you really believe that Rogers Cadenhead registered Benedict XVI.com just to prevent evil doers from acquiring this domain? Maybe I won’t see he down there...

Rare Word

"ABRUPTIVE CELERATION OF ALL DERVISHES CARRYING BIBUGGISH PYRITES VIA TURMAND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED." (Memoirs Found In a Bathtub, Stanislaw Lem, p.62, 1973). This is the second time I read the word "pyrites" in the literature (in the first occasion I've read it in the title of a book written by a Brazilian schizoid writer). A word so rare, that it should return some gold to the perpetrator.

[ Zero 7 - Passing By ]

Singing Head

WOW!
UPDATE 05/22: Is it a perpetual playlist? Or the music industry put a spell on it, making it round in an eternal recurrence movement?

[ The Jimi Hendrix Experience - One Rainy Wish ]

American Politics Archeology

Robert Drew's Primary (1960) is an example of Americana cinema verité. The ones who are not political junkies will bash it as a great waste of time, but still it deserves some attention span. Using technologies new for the time - portable cameras and sync audio - Drew shows the critical points in 1960 Democratic primary in Wisconsin, between Senator Hubert Humphrey and Senator Kennedy (Nixon is just shadowy referred). Focusing in the urban constituencies, Kennedy anticipatedly conquers the hearth of the swing state. On the other side, Humphrey directs too much his chautauquan chanting towards the folksy people. Remarkable the scenes in which Draw capture the feet of the registered voters inside the ballots choosing the candidate for the party's nomination. Kennedy addressing a sort of Manifest Destiny is another great moment.

Things To Come

David Fenech has quoted a "song" by Wesley Willis: I like audioblogging is fucking good a lot. You can really jam harder like a magicist. Right on brother. About 93300 people like audioblogging is fucking good. AUDIOBLOGGING IS FUCKING GOOD!!! The music industry notwithstanding, their gonna sail. Oh, they will.

[ The Notwist - One With The Freaks ]

Spongy Road Trip

If you can't afford the Miles and Jack Wine Tour in real life, you can try doing it through Google Maps application. Take the push-pins path and get all the add-on information in the info-popups. Probably you don't have a Chateau Cheval Blanc bottle to toast the special occasion, but you can get along with that old Piriquita though. For the braves, Los Olvidos Cafe is charging $29.00/per person (plus tax) for the SIDEWAYS Menu.

[ Interpol - PDA ]

Music From Aether

Introducing to the feint of heart my candid playlist in Webjay... Oh, Lord, in the very day I've promised never touch a keyboard again You'd showed me some outstanding MP3 blogs! How to turn away and ignore this, this and this?

[New Folk Implosion - Releast]

Godspeed, Herr Knopper!

Knoppix is a Debian Linux you can burn into a CD and boot it over any computer. A work of art kittened by a Teutonic guy named Klaus Knopper. Knoppix is really a smart and sophisticated piece of art. Inside it, the guy has packed all KDE and a whole wurlitzer of wonderful open source software, like GIMP, Open Office and the cave of wonders, KStars, your personal desktop Planetarium (I'm tracking Orion now, eh). Thanks a lot, Mr. Knopper. May the Force be with you against the cipayos patent holders!

[ Rolfe Kent - Chasing The Golfers ]

Sincere Toast

Sincere Toast
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

Mauricio and Nando toasting with the genuine Zubrowka. Oooh, Zubrowka, as expressed by Suw Charman.

Odd Couple

Odd Couple
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

Me and Teca in "A Polonesa" (Hilario de Gouveia Street, 116, Rio). Why not? look the word "jibble" in the sub-title of this blog...

The Peirogi

The Peirogi
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

The peirogi. Not the Hungarian, but the Polish one.

The Czekoladowy

The Czekoladowy
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

The Souffle Czekoladowy, one of the most delicious deserts I've eaten in all my life. Basically, it is an airy chocolate mousse.

The Hunting Party

The Hunting Party
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

The after-effect posers showing a genuine satisfaction in "A Polonesa". The waiter, standing strategically in the center, was the proof of our repletion. From left to right: Mauricio, Maria, "DCMOUSINHO", Nando and Teca, my wife.

The Gefildt

The Gefildt
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

The primo piatto in a polish restaurant in Rio: a Gefildt Fish. This restaurant, called simply "A Polonesa" (The Polish Girl), is a must. Very impressive experience for a Slavian offspring.

Taskbar of Hell

taskbar
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

Roland Piquepaille disserts about Durl, the new del.icio.us search tool that has the ability to bear things away from their usual places. In my case, I went from Roland Piquepaille to Alexandre B A Villares, non stop. Great displacements, great discoveries. Speaking of which, Napster ATTENS AP2P has discovered my taskbar. Good grief. Scare the hell out of me.

Mister Szantó, Look and See

I've recently seen András Szantó, director of National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, define culture as something "sensitive to surprising the observer". Surprisingly, he said that Internet was not conferred to such quality. I know that Szantó is a defender of the gate keepers' culture, but say that the Internet is incapable of surprising someone is a crime of, well, lese culture. It is not by chance that the word "serendipity", coined by Horace Walpole in the 18th century, has been gaining scale since the Internet advent! Kublai Khan yesterday and Google Suggest today (by the way, thank you LazyWeb! Some days ago, looking for information about WindowBlinds, I almost lost my head trying to find in plain Google the name of that hatful of graphic software called devianART; my memory were insisting in remember just the prefix "dev" and the word "art". After that ordeal, a thing came into my mind: Why does search algorithms are so dependent of complete words if the mind usually works through fragments?). Please, Mr. Szantó, don't blame me for being an iconoclast! I'm just a poor mortal suffering from "loss of forgetfulness". Iconoclast and, thanks god, atheist. Quoting my new hero, Marshall Sahlins, There is a sure, one word solution to all the world's current problems: Atheism. I'm sure that the great American anthropologist would love Mr. Gruff, OBJECTIVE: Christian Ministries' mascot.

[ Ltj Bukem - Unconditional Love ]

Copy Me If You Can

Hey, MPAA, RIAA, FCC: learn with the Easterners! The Chinese language has two different words for copy, as remind us Alexander Stille in his superb "The Future of the Past". Fang Zhipin is closer to what we, Westerners, would call a reproduction, a cheap copy of something. Fu Zhipin, by the other hand, is a very high quality copy, almost perfect, as good as the original. Few people know, for instance, that the Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta Army that travels around the world is one of the second kind. Marshall Sahlins, in "Waiting for Foucault, Still", tells a likewise story, about the shrine of Ise that is unchanged since the 7th century, better said, has been rebuilt with the same ancient instruments and same materials. For us, it is Ise re-created; for them, it is the same old Ise. Under those same criteria, how long Tinturn Abbey would be considered... Tinturn Abbey? Or a last U2 MP3 rip with a super dupe kbps, a Fu Zhipin U2 copy? This is s good patisserie for thought.

[ Tom McRae - Stronger Than Dirt ]

Ukraine Is Not Here

Where is Lech Walesa? Do you remember him? He is now in Kiev, among the demonstrators in Independence Square. Yushchenko and the National Salvation Committee have given the last ultimatum. Even those who desire a Kofi break are not in the dark side of the force. Le Sabot Post-Modern goes beyond the obvious coverings. I know some brothers here are giving a shit to Ukraine. It's a pity. In that case I suggest to them two links: Astronomy of the Brazilian Flag and Landscapes from Brazil, by Alex Uchôa.

[ Bebel Gilberto - Aganju ]

My Favorite Things

Following the steps of Yoz Grahame, I'm posting more on del.icio.us than here. In fact, I'm plenty adicted to that social bookmark engine. Totally hooked.

[ American Music Club - Home ]

BitTerrorism

Reuters had spread a note asserting that "BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet". Somebody made a fact checking about this? Anyway, Suprnova should take the burden of a part of that traffic, because it is offering trackers of manuals like "US Army FM 5 250 Explosives and Demolitions" and "Atomic Bomb - An Introduction to Nuclear Physics". Where those requests are coming from? Iran?

[ The Futureheads - Hounds Of Love ]

Chimp Evolution

Chimp won. Ok. Hail Chimp! No sour grapes. I've rooted, obviously, for Kerry, but I don't mind. Who are us, poor Brazilian liberals, to know what the best is for US? I’ve been following reds and blues opinions, and I've noticed that all of them have been sold a bill of goods. Sure, Hiawatha Bray, from Boston Globe, pushed a little too hard, but I also don't think that US citizens are losing the American Dream. Many liberals are quoting Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" as a way to explain that the defeat were due a moral values confrontation. Hey, the Scopes trial is history now, people! (Strange that the new sally of the creationists is coming from technogeek gurus, as George Gilder, while the best evolutionist rebuttal came from National Geographic Magazine, a supposedly conservative outlet.) The reality is much more complex than red neck counties and latte drinkers strongholds, and the liberals are wrong if they play the Manicheism game. Against all odds, David Brooks, from The New York Times, has shot a principled view: In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues. Yes, the reality is definitely not black and white or red and blue.
UPDATE: Jim Lindgren, from The Volokh Conspiracy, remembers that John Scopes based his teachings on George Hunter's "Civic Biology" (1914), a book about eugenics and white genetic superiority. Go figure.

[ Paul Westerberg - Looking Up In Heaven ]

Skype Over Beethoven

Now I'm talking with my friend Mark Abene through Skype. He is in Queens, NY, and I'm in São Paulo, SP. This little piece of VoIP tchotchkes made this miraculous bridge happens, I can tell you. I can hear a chain gang busting into Mark's house carrying several bags of tacos now. They are eating and playing Mark's arcade and talking about the World Series that will be over tonight (David Blumenstein, one of the gang, says that Boston Red Sox will sweep the series from St. Louis Cardinals). Meanwhile the gang play and I try to convince Mark that 2600 Hacker Quarterly still put out good stuff, David calmly watches The West Wing on NBC (I guess he has a crush on C.J., I don't know). I'm also trying to convince them to stop the US political quagmire and go to the ballots next Tuesday. C'mon, boys, GWB and Kerry are in a statistical dead heat and every vote counts now. How can you put up with that stalemate? Do you need a stimulus? Then run and watch the last Eminem's videoclip.

[ Czerkinsky - Natacha ]

First and Only

Christopher Lydon was the first podcaster. Period. What Jon Stewart would think about podcast? And Bill Maher? Plus: An opera about the massacre of Muslims by Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica, circa 1995. Hum... Does Bill Clinton play sax in it?

[ Brian Wilson - Our Prayer ]

Duelfer & Ellsberg

The Duelfer Report will rampage likewise Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers? The predicament is if Iraq's embargoes worked out or not in inhibiting Sadam's WMD dream. Thus, one must remember that France vetoed US in UN in exchange for a bunch of oil contracts. I guess that WMD was just a talking point, as mentioned by several credible sources (and how credible!) in the new documentary "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War", by Robert Greenwald. Rather than RAND Corporation, the world deserves the Institute without Boundaries (see Massive Change)

[ Plus Minus - She's Got Your Eyes ]

Semiotic Ghosts

In his last review for Technology Review, professor Henry Jenkins had a whim. The Tomorrow That Never Was is the best review about Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow (a new retro-futurist film) and, at the same time, In The Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman's new graphic novel. And, for the general amusement, professor Jenkins, probably unware, has set off a genuine "when life imitates art" occurrence upon refering to the Zeppelin Hindenburg III. Two times.

[ Gotan Project - Around About Midnight ]

Clampdown!

In one more attempt to grant a technology clampdown, Computer & Communications Industry Association was obstructed from taking part in the meeting on S. 2560, also known as the INDUCE Act, a proposal created for extend the power of copyright laws and debunk innovation. The stakes involved are high, because the law might affect several sort of devices, as VCRs, optical disk recorders, radio receivers, audio devices, IMs, personal computers, iPods (and other personal music players) and online music services. It simply covers every recording, duplication and information technology device today – even the Internet itself.

[ X - Hungry World ]

Mesh in Salvador

ITU TELECOM AMERICAS is to be held from 3-6 October in Salvador, Bahia. I'm almost certain that 3G will be addressed. Yes, because it is supposed to surrogate the DSL and cable broadband networks. For know, the developing countries have been watching the war between GSM and CDMA. But this is the iceberg's tip. In the undercurrents new and exciting technologies start to emerge, as Flash-OFDM and WiMax. Giants as Intel, Nortel and Cisco back the last. But, in my opinion, Wi-Fi mesh networks could be faster deployed in Brazil, instead of WiMax. Time will tell.

[ Guided by Voices - Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud ]

Venezuela From Below

Last weekend I've seen Venezuela From Below, a film by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler, and it made my mind boils big time. It is a well-directed documentary about the revolutionary process by which Venezuela is passing through. The film is absolutely educational and begins with a historic overview introduced brilliantly by the philosopher Carlos Lazo. The ascension of Hugo Chavez, Lazo explains, is the result of a bourgeois process that excluded the left-wing parties from the political decisions. The outcome of this exclusion was inevitable: the reclaiming of a progressive constitution. It is staggering to note how Venezuelan people are politicized and how well they are versed in the participatory culture. The people, supported by the army, refuted two coup d'etat and several attempts of sabotage of the country's main economic asset: the oil production, concentrated in the oil company PDVSA, in Puerto La Cruz. By the way, the army is very embedded into the people environment, and Ressler's documentary has captured the proof of this concept, a show where soldiers and other officers play guaracha before a dancing popular audience. The revolutionary spirit has triggered a broad process of grassroots self-organization in vital areas like education (Mission Robinson, Ribas and Sucre), health care (Barrio Adentro) job generation (Vuelvan Caras) and alternative media (El23.net). Venezuela From Below is highly recommended for Brazilian investigative journalists, left-wing politicians and rappers.

[ Señor Coconut – Autobahn ]

Moog and Theremin

Ok. This is completely irresistible not point out to two thought-provoking documentaries. The first is "Moog" (2004), about Bob Moog, inventor of electronic musical instruments, the most famous one named after his name. The second is "Theremin" (1995), about the Russian inventor Leon Theremin, who created the world’s first electronic instrument, and it also bore his name. Needless say that I’m looking very forward to watch them.

[ Kings Of Convenience - Know-How ]

Je Ne Sais Quoi

Oil crisis is killing giant squids. Who is next? Tiburonia granrojo? Sick capitalism... Some are understanding the Pirate War as a Marxist struggle. Brazil, I'm by your side during the development agenda for WIPO attack!

[ Moss - Semantics is a Bitch ] [ Fantastic Plastic Machine - Beautiful Days (Reprise) ]

AdSense à la Benedict

Congrats, Kuja! Your Google AdSense application has been approved! I know it is a bummer sign a Certification of No U.S. Activities, but, hey, you might even earn some dimes if God help you. Congrats also to Anthony Bourdain, Les Halles chef, for have aroused in Kuja the K-line (see The Society of Mind, by Marvin Minsky) of the Eggs Benedict receipt!

[ Belle And Sebastian - Stay Loose ]

Radioactive Knee

My diagnostic was: osteoarthritis of the knee, result of an ancient war injury. The clinic doctor suggested a different approach of the trivial non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, so we've decided for a new technique known as intra-articular injection of sodium hyaluronate (hyaluronic acid), a product extratcted from rooster combs and filtered at molecular level. This is a natural polymer, breed of the glycosaminoglycans family (note that it is not "shenanigan"), radioactive components of extra cellular matrix. Wow! Feeling like Homer Simpson! :) The doctor had shot rightly on the spot, as if the syringe were an acupunture needle. Bingo! I give praises to him and to Hublog, who have had created the code for HubMed, a repository of papers with topics related with medicine and health. There I've found a curious abstract called Reduction of DNA fragmentation and hydroxyl radical production by hyaluronic acid and chondroitin-4-sulphate in iron plus ascorbate-induced oxidative stress in fibroblast cultures. And the classic Hyaluronic acid in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee, by E. C. Huskisson and S. Donnelly. In this study, they demonstrate that five weekly intra-articular injections of sodium hyaluronate (Hyalgan, in the case; in mine, Polireumin) were superior and well tolerated in patients with ostheoarthritis of the knee with a symptomatic benefit which persisted for 6 month. Beautiful. Hey, folks! I have also survived Service Pack 2!

[ Postal Service - Sleeping In ]

Point-to-Point Tunneling, The Other Way

TeledyN has delighted Ben Hammersley with its "Living Webservices" story. FlickR is really a scale-free network, since it tunnels, somehow, other galleries through RSS channels.

[ Telepopmusik - Genetic World ]

Brighton, 1999

Brighton, 1999
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

My wife, Maria Teresa, shot this in 1999. Before we'd arrived in this Albion gray and metallic coast city, we've stopped at Forrest Row, near East Grinstead. A guy from Scholle Müllerinnenart was returning to an earlier or less mature pattern of feeling...

Black Clouds over the Black Sea

Do you think the caucasian disputes are focused in Chechnya? No. You also have to mention Abkhazia, South and North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagstan and Adigeya. Ah! Don't forget Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh.

[ Chichi Peralta - Un Dia Mas ] [ Sensation Junkies - Ollala ]

Bush Mix

Congratulations to all people who had courageously counterstroke the National Republican Convention in NY. Furtherfield and Anne-Marie Schleiner had promoted live and online multimedia performances - the first jamming the official media channels with staggering guerrilla broadcasts and the former launching the project OUT (Operation Urban Terrain), an artistic intervention of military games played out in public spaces. (This makes me get ashamed of how idiots are some Brazilian media "artists" who overstate their ridiculous public SMS messages as state-of-art interventions.) Yesterday, Bush Jr. had made his address in Madison Square Garden. How loath and nauseating is his overbearing arrogance! I almost puked when I heard this line: Some people think I have the swagger. In Texas, it means walking. Gosh! Who he thinks he is? Tom Mix? If so, Kerry is right when he says that the soul of America is in Hollywood.

[ Talking Heads - Stay Up Late ]

Orion Drooling Features

Orion Multisystems, Inc. is offering a home multi-thread super computer loaded with drooling features: Orion also announced a partnership with Wolfram Research, Inc., which pioneered the modern concept of technical computing when it launched Mathematica 15 years ago. Millions of users on every continent currently use Mathematica technology. The company's gridMathematicaTM combines the power of the world's leading technical computing environment with modern computing clusters and grids to solve the most demanding problems in mathematics, science, engineering, and finance. And Tableau Software is selling google-type databases with graphics a la Tufte.

[ Dzihan & Kamien - Sliding ]

Burnout Case

Robert Bryce has showed that US lost the Iraq war. Imagine Hitchcock's Saboteur crossed with an Arab version of They Might Be Giants (but instead of the oil galore, imagine a burn out field). Iraq today confirms Baudrillard's statement in Pataphysics of Year 2000, in which one can read that "political (...) exchanges have set loose a tempo of liberation whereby we have become removed from the sphere of reference to the real, to history".

[Bossacucanova - Mais Perto Do Mar]

No Pain, No Gain

If you hear Johnny Cash singing "Hurt" you'll feel a kind of bluegrass pain, spiritual or even physical. But what is "pain"? This question has been poking doctor's minds for centuries. Albert Schweitzer, for example, called it "the most terrible of all the lords of mankind". I've found his statement in a website about a medical Symposium which took place in 1998. More recently, a journalist friend of mine had showed to me The Hedonistic Imperative, a manifesto that proposes eradicate suffering in all sentient life by means of genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

[ Beck - Paper Tiger ]

Future of the Past

I've seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" yesterday and I liked. It is a "scriptwriter film", yes, but this is not a problem at all. Because it is also a kind of authorial film well conducted by a known videoclip director. I agree that there is an overacting of twist and turns, but the apparently chaotic narrative mirrors perfectly the to and fro love of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet characters. It is a libel in favor of forgetfulness, an important cultural self-organizing resource, as affirmed by Eco. Nietzsche and Pope almost force the audience into believe that it is possible erase from the brain a sorted out memory. But I guess that Ingram Marshall, American compositor, is right: The all too familiar hymns of my childhood have come back to haunt me ... For me the research into memory is an important tool. We are, all of us, always searching our past in an attempt to understand the present. I’ve recorded his “Steal Across the Sky” piece from Radio@Netscape, which streams in Dolby AAC. Nice capture, if it is saved with a pure FhG codec (not LAME).

[ Unkle - Bloodstain ]

Puerile Dems

I've put some faith in the Blogistanis covering DNC 2004, but this kind of "covering", commited by Dave Winer, is childish and give to the tradicional media types ammo enough to smash them up without mercy: Blah blah blah John Kerry blah blah Kerry Edwards blah blah values values values blah blah John Kerry blah blah blah standing at a crossroads blah blah. There's a din in the room. I had to go get a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee to stay away. Zzzzz. Blah blah K-E-R-R-Y blah blah Kerry Edwards and you.

[Listening to: Jaffa - Star 67]