Zé — Crashing by Design

June 14, 2017

No One Knows for Certain

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they they all came from
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to me
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Some say once you’re gone you’re gone forever
And some say you’re gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour
If in sinful ways you lack

Some say that they’re comin’ back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they they all came from
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to me
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Some say they’re goin’ to a place called Glory
And I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact
But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory
And I don’t like the sound of that
I believe in love and I live my life accordingly
But I choose to let the mystery be

Everybody is wondering what and where they they all came from
Everybody is worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to me

I think I’ll just let the mystery be
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Let The Mystery Be — Iris Dement (The Leftovers soundtrack)

Full version

• • •

June 3, 2017

Asepsis

Streptococcus Pneumoniae

It is all a game. A controlled universe where one mustn’t, can’t, deviate from the well rehearsed script.

This what we’ve come to:

We don’t get bemoan that we don’t know who we, or others, are any more; that is simply the price we pay for the dubious comfort of hygiene, or whatever the fuck we’re now calling this compulsion to scrub our lives clean of every dissonant bacteria, this perplexing assumption of a compromised immune system in compulsory need of an aseptic ritual.

• • •

May 27, 2017

Nowhere

I envy people to whom a quip in their mother tongue isn’t any more worthy of consideration than, for instance, stating their name or address; the result of a lifetime of operating within a specific cultural context.

Fluency without baggage is an illusion, maybe. It sometimes disheartens me to realise that most of my own baggage was acquired on purpose, not by an organic sequence of random accidents.

—

Nowhere. That’s where I’m from.

• • •

May 5, 2017

La Laideur

Jean Seberg on the set of “Bonjour Tristesse” (Otto Preminger, 1958) – Photo by Bob Willoughby.

Sans partager avec mon père cette aversion pour la laideur qui nous faisait souvent fréquenter des gens stupides, j’éprouvais en face des gens dénués de tout charme physique une sorte de gêne, d’absence ; leur résignation à ne pas plaire me semblait une infirmité indécente. Car, que cherchions nous, sinon plaire ? Je ne sais pas encore aujourd’hui si ce goût de conquête cache une surabondance de vitalité, un goût d’emprise ou le besoin furtif, inavoué, d’être rassuré sur soi même, soutenu.

Françoise Sagan — Bonjour Tristesse

• • •

April 26, 2017

Unreal

You can’t be aware that you’ve seen a tree until after you’ve seen the tree, and between the instant of the vision and the instant of awareness, there must be a time lag. We sometimes think of that time lag as unimportant, but there’s no justification for thinking that the time lag is unimportant—none whatsoever. The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality. The tree that you are aware of intellectually, because of the small time lag, is always in the past and therefore is always unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and therefore unreal.

Robert M. Pirsig — Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Rest in peace, Robert.

• • •

March 28, 2017

What We’ll Become

Eros & Psique. José de Almada-Negreiros, 1954.

No matter how clever, sober and magnanimous we think we are, we simply don’t know, do we? Not who we were, who we are, or what we’ll become.

What if abandonment isn’t an elusive purpose at all? What if it is our pervading essence, the one which we routinely disregard?

• • •

November 2, 2016

Right, Yeah

sunset

– So, is this it?

– I suppose so, why?

– Nothing, really.

– It’s about time, no? They’re all gone now.

– Probably. Cheers.

– Right, yeah.

• • •

October 28, 2016

It’s Not That

not-that

I mean, I always thought that the music of a thousand instruments, no matter how much out of tune, would make me assemble a sonata, inevitably.

It’s a little puzzling to discover that it never does and that the fault most likely lies in my own algorithm.

At some point you give up, you owe it to yourself to give up, you have to, right?

Right?

• • •

October 19, 2016

No, Wait

“Ribamar Study” by Mia Fontainhas & Vítor Neto, 2016

No, no, no, no, you misunderstand.

I have no idea of what’s going on, none. That you should think I have, even if barely, says more about about you than it does about me.

My only “choice” was to not have one, to let go.

—

So I did.

• • •

October 12, 2016

The Fever of My Own

img_20161002_163001

There was a time, I think, when I’d sacrifice everything for raising my body temperature by so little as a single celsius degree, were it just to be raised by holding your naked skin.

But I don’t know anymore.

I have of course been repeatedly reminded of my blatant selfishness as if somehow I was unaware of it; I wasn’t, the selfishness is implied, inevitable.

What no one ever told me, what I never considered, is the possibility of there being no fever of my own to return. Not by choice, but rather by design.

—

Don’t look at me, I’m not your kind.

• • •

September 4, 2016

Who I Am Not

IMG_20160821_200953

This is the new fucking normal, isn’t it just?

All the little silent betrayals which you catalogue as inconsequential because you’ve managed to navigate around mentioning them. Little do you realize that the reason they’re so easily discarded is because you’re not actually betraying anything: even the slightest hint of something laudable enough to betray would make them impossible to circumvent.

—

I needn’t play along, do I?

I remember these exact words: “None of this is who you are nor is it who you are not.”

• • •

August 20, 2016

The Immorality of Sloth

IMG_20160723_182445

It doesn’t really matter whether you’re first rate, second rate, or third rate, but it’s of vital importance that the water finds its own level and that you do the very best you can with the powers that are given you. It’s idle to strive for things out of your reach, just as it’s utterly immoral to be slothful about the qualities you have. You see, I’m not fundamentally interested in the artist. I use him to try to become a happy man, which is a good deal harder for me. I find art easy. I find life difficult.

Lawrence Durrell — Paris Review interview

• • •

August 3, 2016

To Not Think at All

IMG_20160803_140312

“The martini felt cool and clean […] I had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel civilized. I had had too much red wine, bread, cheese, bad coffee, and grappa. I sat on the high stool before the pleasant mahogany, the brass, and the mirrors and did not think at all.”

Ernest Hemingway — A Farewell to Arms

• • •

July 25, 2016

Keine Ahnung

keine_ahnung

Noch jede Frau, die er umarmt hatte, fühlte sich geliebt; jede aber, die er wirklich zu lieben begann, sagte ihm früher oder später, daß er, wie alle Männer, von Liebe keine Ahnung habe.

Max Frisch — Mein Name sei Gantenbein

• • •

July 22, 2016

Infinites

room

Listen, listen:

Do you sometimes wonder if it could very well be that inner boundaries don’t change as often as we think, that there’s a possibility of purity in unstudied declarations?

As if not knowing where we’re running to was the only way to establish glorious, infinite epiphanies.

You know, just running on.

• • •

July 12, 2016

So What

IMG_20141130_124909

I think I get it or at least parts of it: it’s mostly about the territory and not necessarily a genuine yearning.

This is all not to say that it isn’t legitimate, it absolutely is.

I just wish it were simpler however unlikely and (maybe) painful that sounds.

—

Someday, who knows.

• • •

July 3, 2016

The Part That’s Not

mirror

It begins like this (I think):

I am not of you. It’s either the other way round or both or none.

You can call it a shitty welcome I suppose, but then again I was just standing here, clearly not longing after amelioration: if at all, that only happens after it’s begun.

• • •

June 16, 2016

Yes You Do

IMG_20160507_102218

It can sometimes be exasperating to yet again find out that reality can’t be forced, even when you try your best to not be aware of either reality, or of forcing it.

As if this obliviousness could transform it all into a charming little equation, one with a soothing moral balance leaning towards fairness (independently of what “fair” means to you.)

Contemplate, rather. Don’t you know that the shapes you assemble aren’t figments?

—

Yes you do.

• • •

June 13, 2016

The Short Night

cascais

Nothing happened yet everything was just right. The night was short but carried with it an intangible melody that no one seemed to notice.

Maybe because we didn’t pay heed to all the tiny twitches of light: we were lost in their lithe concert, more eloquent than any single one of them.

Maybe because it was the first night or the last one or both.

—

Somehow, we were not surprised.

• • •

May 27, 2016

Doubt

Joël Andrianomearisoa — The Labyrinth of Passion

The Labyrinth of Passion by Joël Andrianomearisoa

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Robert M. Pirsig — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

• • •