I´ve Got Nothing To Say!

©LilianaRodrigues

Lately I´ve been into collage. And many of these are a reaction to something I´ve experienced myself, read or listened to. Such is the case here. “I´ve Got Nothing To Say!” is a kick out of several situations:
- “Ask me Anything”, a song I really like by THE STROKES;
- as posted by universaljukebox on YouTube, in this excellent version the song is put together with Woody Allen footage
- and the article Douglas Haddow published on Addbusters on July 29th and which annoyed a great lot of people! I´ve been meaning to comment on it for a while now but never really got around to… well, this post is in its way also my response to it, except for in visual terms.

With these collages I am underlying – as it has been stated enough by others before me – that new content can indeed arise from quotation. Let us get over the same old dicussion on how much “stealing” has been done or how much the authors´ rights have been disrespected to embrace the idea that something as touched you in a way that you just have to do something about it! And the greatest thing is, with the tools available today and for the first time, you can do more than just talk to a couple of close friends about your referencies and how meaningfull you think they are, you can really be trigger to respond or react to something creatively!

Today was just perfect! Here´s some of my pics!

Everyone wants to be found!

Lost In Translation – Bob Harris sings More Than This

A propos..

This week, a propos one discussion about love with one of my best friends, I just remembered and went back to review “Lost in Translation”, Sofia Coppola´s only second but striking film.

Released in 2003, “Lost in Translation” won four Academy Awards and ranks among my list of “changed-mi-world” films. It had a decisive influence on my fascination for Tokyo and is one of the reasons why I decided start learning Japanese.

Against a post-modern Tokyo the film tells the story of two people who accidentally meet and spend some time together. Away from home, their common feeling of displacement is not only agravated by the cityscape itself but also by the lack of direction in their life. More than a case of empathy, a real sense of intimacy and mutual trust strikes them both from minute one. And though they never speak openly about it they both know what´s at stake – as we all do when we experience that in real life! (There´s a name for that which most people fear!)

I recalled the film for my friend has a view on love charged with idealism and fatalism at the same time. She is stubbornly “saving herself” for something meaningfull which, she believes, will take place inevitably without her having to move a finger. While pointing to her the blessing of women having finnaly moved on beyond the Cinderella role, and that anyway there are no Princes to be found these days, the amazing story of the film was playing in the back of my mind.

One of the most increadible moments is the final scene when Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray in what has been seen as THE performance of his carreer) while on his way to the airport spots Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) among a frenetic crowd and jumps out the taxi to reach her.
He embraces her, whispers something on her hear and gives her a tender kiss before leaving again. What short-minded critics have considered to be a cheat on the audience for we are left with the frustration of not knowing if they relationship will continue or not, many think (me included) that that was one of the most magic, painfull and beautifull moments of the film. And exactly what has prevented us to forgetfully – as happens with so many other films – overcome it.

Unfortunately such grandious delight has now been ruined! Bill Murray´s whisper has been decoded by someone and uploaded on You Tube.
But, then again, I feel both disappointed about knowing it and relieved at the same time! It is indeed easier to bare! The point being that it is not about a happy end but about making us recognize how unbelievably easy and a true tragedy it is to completely miss that: “More than this/ You know there´s nothing”…

For J.

Suddenly it strikes me how I´ve lived this moment before. I am looking out of your window, grey sky, stormy weather and dead trees… Except, it used to be in a house by the beach, with walls covered with humidity. I am no near the water now but the peeling white paint of your window reminds me of that other house where, even if late, I used to pretend to be a child, where I was happy.

It is nothing but vague now, the feeling of being home. My nose is cold and that ancient sense of forgetting everything, like dying again and again seems no longer possible. I wish I could follow him around the house once more, into the bathroom which annoyed him so, even more than all the questions I kept asking all day long just to be reassured.

Secret worlds!

I admit. I do have a crush for flanêurs in the Baudelairian sense, enfants terribles and all kinds of troublemakers! Right now, I am very happy to be discovering the world of Miranda July – a filmmaker, performing artist and writer, whose site is worth a visit.

In 2005 she directed “Me, You and Everyone We Know”, winner of four major film awards that year includind the Cannes Film Festival, which I plan to see real soon.
In 2007, and together with Harrell Fletcher, she edited “Learning to Love You More”, a book where several poetical, playfull and often purposeless assignments are suggested to the reader, in order to find beauty in life and learn to love oneself more. In the 11th assignment for example, you are asked to photograph a scar and write about it. Many people have joined in and the experiences of some can be followed in the official blog.

I had heard of this book but didn´t payed much attention, for this sort of thing always makes me very suspicious and sounds very cheesie. Except, last weekend an article in Der Zeit about Miranda and her work made me change my mind and run into the nearest bookshop to buy her short stories book “No One Belongs Here More Than You”, recently published in Germany under the title “Zehn Wahrheiten” (Diogenes Publishing House). Usually I do try to read books in their original language, but this time I couldn´t wait that long! By the way, I proudly admitt my little enthusiasms for other people´s creative worlds!! as this blog testefies. In fact if this would be a perfect world and we all did what we love I could make a living out of it and live happily ever after! The good news is that I just might pull it off!
Anyway, what attracted me was what I consider to be a very simple and yet so urgent motto these days: “Think Less, Feel More” – which by the way, has inspired me to add a new category to my blog.

John Cage

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

DAN PALUSKA – The Holy Toaster

Dan Paluska, a MIT media artist, came up with this brilliant artwork, which he claims to have found in the back of a thrift store in summer of 2005.
For occasion of a show in the Axiom Gallery in Boston, and when asked what kind of reactions he had got, the artist replied: „On opening night, I went through eight loaves of bread and three jars of jam. I was surprised that people were so happy to slather Jesus and eat him“.

DIGITAL killed the professional photographer

I need a picture of myself for an official card. Because I am in a hurry but as I don´t feel like running to the next automaton in the busy subway and sit in it alone while people hush beside to their jobs, I decide to enter an old photographer´s shop in one of Lisbon´s poshest avenues.

The old man escorts me to the room where “it” will happen and gives me a moment to prepare. Suddenly I feel like an actress, I sit before the mirror framed with lights, where make up and brushes are lying around in a small table and think how purposeless it is to prepare; I always look pretty awful in every goddamn picture.

I sit where he tells me to and follow his instructions, head slightly pending to the side, chin up, strait back and looking into a designated fixed point. I think of K. always telling me to smile for photos. Despite the usual result I always enjoy when others take my photo, specially if unexpectedly. I have the theory that if someone likes you as a person this will somehow shine through the picture they take of you. For me it works like a scale. The people that loved me the best have taken the best photos of me.

Surprisingly, we only need one round this time. Usually it takes a lot longer, because I always shut my eyes or look as if I am not right in the head! The old photographer smiles and calls me up to see the result. He is happy with it. And so am I. Though I look so retro. We exchange approving looks and he hushes out of the room to print it meanwhile I collect my things. How interesting that a photo made just seconds ago can look so dated!

While I wait upstairs, I look at old photos from unknown people of every age filling the walls. Black and white photographs, color photographs, families in their best Sunday suits posing, people marrying, children posing, twins, mothers and daughters, people in love. They all belong to a different epoch, I think to myself. The store looks very old and not renovated. I think of digital cameras and computers, it´s obvious that business has seen better days. Albums that no one buys and very old analogue cameras are still available for sale.
I feel sorry for the lovely man. I want to tell him that it is all about PR, that he should advertise his services as purposely retro and traditional in an age where everything happens so fast and has no meaning any more. He is part of the story of the city, he has been registering generations of Portuguese people with his art.
It´s pure poetry, all those faces immortalized in time, seeking to grab a piece of eternity, leave something to be remembered for to the people that love them.

In the end he thanks “the model”, he looks very happy with my photo, and I thank the photographer, and he thanks me again, and I thank the photographer once more. (Goodbyes always take very long between Portuguese). I leave sad, because I know that his son wont pick up his business, he is one of a last kind.

Road Movie

Driving under different weather conditions and having FUN!

The Kitchen Diaries – Leipzig