26/12/2010
27/11/2010
Reflorestação
Nos EUA iniciou-se um processo de reflorestação, usando aviões, que descarregam sobre o solo sementes, que pela velocidade a que caem, se misturam no solo, para depois germinar, e uma nova floresta nascer. in BLDGBLOG
05/10/2010
03/10/2010
07/08/2010
Aviso
Portuguesas e Portugueses, compatriotas queridos. Gustavo Briz regressará a Portugal. Qual Incoberto, numa manhã de nevoeiro pouco provável, ou melhor, na manhã de dia 10 de Agosto do ano do nosso senhor de 2010 pelas 7.30 na Estação do Oriente, depois de uma épica viagem desde a mítica Berlim, atravesando as planícies germânicas, os alpes austríacos, italianos, suíços e franceses, a meseta castelhana e a lezíria portuguesa, até à sua Lisboa natal, banhada pelas águas do Tejo, porta para o mar oceano.
23/07/2010
Prazo de Validade
Tudo tem um prazo de validade. A vida tem sempre um ponto (pode ser de exclamação, mas acaba sempre num ponto, final) A questão é não sabermos qual é o prazo de validade da vida. Há estimativas estatísticas: um homem português vive em média 75 anos e uma mulher 80. OK. Mas de qualquer modo não é um prazo visível, não há uma data marcada no calendário. Por vezes entretinha-me a ver quando tinham morrido pessoas nascidas em 88 de outros séculos. Por exemplo Fernando Pessoa nasceu em 1888 e morreu em 1935. Um jovem, se pensarmos bem nisso. E não me estou a ver a morrer em 2035, com apenas 47 anos. Portanto devo morrer lá para os anos 60; 80 anos de vida parece-me suficientemente bom... Bom, esperemos que a vida não me pregue uma partida, e azede antes do prazo.
Ora, com estimativas ou sem elas, o importante é que vivemos a vida sem ponto final à vista, vamos de vírgula em vírgula, pontos de interrogações e parêntisis. Até que o ponto derradeiro chega, inesperadamente. Mesmo que tudo indique que se trata já da conclusão da vida, o ponto final chegará sempre de surpresa, pondo um ponto final na vida. Ponto.
Vivemos sempre com uma bruma à nossa frente, sem saber o que o futuro nos aguarda, que parágrafos se seguem, que capítulos se encerrarão e que outros se abrirão. Planeamos, sonhamos, mas apenas podemos viver verdadeiramente o momento, o presente, o quotidiano. Esta sucessão de dias vai trazendo alterações à narrativa que é a vida e encaminhando-a, enformando-a. Mas nós vivemos envoltos nessa ideia de um prazo num plano infinito. O final está sempre em aberto, nunca se sabe quando chegará, nem como.
Ainda bem. Seja o fim uma surpresa.
No entanto, este ano que passou foi um ano a prazo. Vim para Berlim, em setembro sabendo que no verão iria voltar para Lisboa. Nos primeiros meses, essa data, esse prazo de validade da minha vida berlinense era longínquo, intangível. E assim vivia pacificamente. Talvez não me ocupasse tanto por não pensar no prazo que chegaria. Haveria tempo depois. (não deixes para amanhã o que podes fazer hoje, que irritação a sabedoria popular)
Enfim, agora, a pouco mais de uma semana do ponto final em Berlim, sinto-me como um condenado à morte (dos poucos seres do mundo que sabem verdadeiramente o seu prazo de validade). Aproximo-me inexoravelmente do ponto final. Não há volta a dar à pontuação. É um ponto. Mesmo que seja um ponto-e-vírgula, o seu significado é o de um ponto. Encerra-se um ano. Não tem continuidade com os próximos, não se confudirá. Venha Berlim a receber-me de novo será um parágrafo, travessão, novo diálogo.
Saber que há um prazo coloca uma enorme pressão nas coisas mundanas. O último domingo, o último passeio de bicicleta, o último encontro, o último despertar em Berlim. Existir um prazo de validade pode ser triste. É-o de facto. É pena as coisas boas acabarem sempre (as más também, pelo menos isso). Mas saber de um prazo faz-nos querer que cada momento seja especial, consumir de preferência antes de... Assim é. E assim não vale a pena deprimir por o dia não ter sido especialmente especial, bastam pequenos pormenores para o enriquecerem. Hoje é a chuva, um filme e um trabalho por fazer. Nada de especial. Mas bom e simples. Simplesmente bom.
Prazo de validade há sempre. E sabendo, vivemos mais intensamente, mas também mais pesadamente, mais nervosos por sabermos que estamos a viver os últimos momentos antes do ponto final. Ignorando o prazo vivemos o presente, projectando-nos no futuro e pensando que haverá tempo depois. Não há. Então vivamos intensamente o presente, mas sem grandes preocupações. O ponto final chegará. Ao menos estejamos felizes quando ele chagar e pontuar a vida.
22/07/2010
13/07/2010
18/06/2010
A Morte Não é o Fim
Morreu José Saramago. Mais uma vida que se expira. Vivo continua o que escreveu. Assim seja. Leiamos.
A ignorância tem alguma inconveniência. Quando se junta à estupidez, não há remédio.
in Público
A ignorância tem alguma inconveniência. Quando se junta à estupidez, não há remédio.
in Público
15/06/2010
12/06/2010
31/05/2010
Utopia?
By Lebbeus Woods
The idea of utopia has all but vanished. The avant-garde architects of earlier generations rarely used the term—its meaning can cut both ways—but still proposed ‘ideal’ urban designs that were, in effect, utopian. Now the avant-garde, such as it is, is focused on pragmatic matters, from innovative computer techniques of form-making to issues such as sustainability. Utopian ideas are conspicuously absent. Why is this so?
The reasons, I think, are complexly interwoven. Foremost, the widely accepted feeling is that we have reached “the end of history” (Fukuyama) and the global triumph of capitalism and ‘liberal democracy.’ While the former is manifestly not the case, it is true that the demise of socialism as a human ideal has left no credible alternative to capitalism’s global dominance. All utopian projects reach not only for formal or technical improvements, but social ones, as well. So, in the current climate, the only possible utopias are those perfecting capitalism and its present, consumerist, forms of order. We can think of Rem Koolhaas as the visionary of consumerist utopias, celebrating its virtues and vices in equal measure. But we can also see shopping mall designers in nearly the same way, regardless or even because of their lack of design originality—very liberally democratic. In one sense, utopia has already been realized. Anyone can get a credit card, everyone can buy and be happy, at least until they max out their cards. So, where is the inspiration to envision ‘another’ utopia? Certainly, the present leaders in the field of architecture have not found it.
Then, there is the ‘green’ movement. Who can argue with its premises? Our priority is no longer to improve human society but to save the planet from human society. Changes to be made to the social system are more remedial than systemic: reducing air pollution and carbon footprints, recycling, refitting, redesign, and the like. Capitalist enterprise, far from being curtailed, is encouraged through tax-incentives and government subsidies of new, green industries to expand its dominant role. Adaptivity is its keyword: anything can be turned to a profit. But who can argue with the goal, and since the very word socialism has become an insult, who would dare to? The green movement is important and necessary, but whether capitalism is really to be trusted with its fate remains to be seen. The lack of green utopias in a time increasingly obsessed with green issues may be due to capitalism’s success and unchallenged dominance.
This idea is certainly reinforced by the ubiquity of information. The instant accessibility from anywhere of information about anything seems in itself a utopian achievement. Information has been radically democratized and with it comes a belief that knowledge has, too. However, information is not knowledge (see the post Ars Brevis, Vita Longa) and indeed it takes knowledge not present in the information to put it to any use. There is a continual stream of new information, with the result of keeping its recipients continually off-balance—we never have enough and must continually return to the sellers to get more: internet sites that in one way or another are in the business of making money. Information is the ideal capitalist product. There is a cheap, inexhaustible supply of it and an insatiable market of consumers who believes it empowers them, and keep buying. How much closer to utopia can we get? We might say that capitalism is a utopia of self-satisfaction and restlessness. Who, then, needs a better society? Alternative utopias would be out-of-date as soon as they would be written or drawn. Ideals and idealism can only slow us down. Utopias can only get in the way.
Then we come to architects themselves. Let us not consider the usual, even intelligent and talented practitioner. He and she have never, historically speaking, been interested in the hypothetical ‘what if?’ as much as the down-to-earth ‘what now?’ Instead, if we think about avant-garde architects who have some visible profile, we don’t find work that envisions a social world widely improved by architecture. No utopias of the sort that dot the map of architectural history up through the post-Modern era of the 70s and 80s of the last century. Today, their aspirations seem to have retreated before the advance of capitalism and liberal democracy.
Have we reached the end of utopia as well as the end of history?
Let us listen to, and watch, the more ambitious and idealistic of the coming generation. Only they have the answer.
LW
The idea of utopia has all but vanished. The avant-garde architects of earlier generations rarely used the term—its meaning can cut both ways—but still proposed ‘ideal’ urban designs that were, in effect, utopian. Now the avant-garde, such as it is, is focused on pragmatic matters, from innovative computer techniques of form-making to issues such as sustainability. Utopian ideas are conspicuously absent. Why is this so?
The reasons, I think, are complexly interwoven. Foremost, the widely accepted feeling is that we have reached “the end of history” (Fukuyama) and the global triumph of capitalism and ‘liberal democracy.’ While the former is manifestly not the case, it is true that the demise of socialism as a human ideal has left no credible alternative to capitalism’s global dominance. All utopian projects reach not only for formal or technical improvements, but social ones, as well. So, in the current climate, the only possible utopias are those perfecting capitalism and its present, consumerist, forms of order. We can think of Rem Koolhaas as the visionary of consumerist utopias, celebrating its virtues and vices in equal measure. But we can also see shopping mall designers in nearly the same way, regardless or even because of their lack of design originality—very liberally democratic. In one sense, utopia has already been realized. Anyone can get a credit card, everyone can buy and be happy, at least until they max out their cards. So, where is the inspiration to envision ‘another’ utopia? Certainly, the present leaders in the field of architecture have not found it.
Then, there is the ‘green’ movement. Who can argue with its premises? Our priority is no longer to improve human society but to save the planet from human society. Changes to be made to the social system are more remedial than systemic: reducing air pollution and carbon footprints, recycling, refitting, redesign, and the like. Capitalist enterprise, far from being curtailed, is encouraged through tax-incentives and government subsidies of new, green industries to expand its dominant role. Adaptivity is its keyword: anything can be turned to a profit. But who can argue with the goal, and since the very word socialism has become an insult, who would dare to? The green movement is important and necessary, but whether capitalism is really to be trusted with its fate remains to be seen. The lack of green utopias in a time increasingly obsessed with green issues may be due to capitalism’s success and unchallenged dominance.
This idea is certainly reinforced by the ubiquity of information. The instant accessibility from anywhere of information about anything seems in itself a utopian achievement. Information has been radically democratized and with it comes a belief that knowledge has, too. However, information is not knowledge (see the post Ars Brevis, Vita Longa) and indeed it takes knowledge not present in the information to put it to any use. There is a continual stream of new information, with the result of keeping its recipients continually off-balance—we never have enough and must continually return to the sellers to get more: internet sites that in one way or another are in the business of making money. Information is the ideal capitalist product. There is a cheap, inexhaustible supply of it and an insatiable market of consumers who believes it empowers them, and keep buying. How much closer to utopia can we get? We might say that capitalism is a utopia of self-satisfaction and restlessness. Who, then, needs a better society? Alternative utopias would be out-of-date as soon as they would be written or drawn. Ideals and idealism can only slow us down. Utopias can only get in the way.
Then we come to architects themselves. Let us not consider the usual, even intelligent and talented practitioner. He and she have never, historically speaking, been interested in the hypothetical ‘what if?’ as much as the down-to-earth ‘what now?’ Instead, if we think about avant-garde architects who have some visible profile, we don’t find work that envisions a social world widely improved by architecture. No utopias of the sort that dot the map of architectural history up through the post-Modern era of the 70s and 80s of the last century. Today, their aspirations seem to have retreated before the advance of capitalism and liberal democracy.
Have we reached the end of utopia as well as the end of history?
Let us listen to, and watch, the more ambitious and idealistic of the coming generation. Only they have the answer.
LW
27/05/2010
15/04/2010
Horas Tardias
Passam já das três da manhã, e há muito que devia estar a dormir, mas, apesar do sono, não me apetece, mesmo sabendo que amanhã será uma tarefa hercúlea levantar-me das profundezas dos lençóis e ganhar força para enfrentar um dia, frio e longo como o de hoje.
Apetece-me escrever, deitar alguma coisa cá para fora, mas na realidade não sei bem sobre o que falar, reflectir. Apetece-me condensar numa só frase, numa só palavra o mundo, a realidade, a vida. Parece simples. Mas não. Peço desculpa pelo total desinteresse destas palavras, coitadas, não têm culpa de terem sido escritas a horas tão tardias, só porque a alguém lhe apeteceu escrever e demasiado cansado se encontrava para se levantar e apanhar um caderno e uma caneta. Até porque gosto mais de ver as minhas letras surgirem, como um desenho, as curvas suaves interligadas que formam caminhos sinuosos de significados, que compõem uma sinfonia tipográfica rabiscada, e, no fim, um todo coeso de uma mancha gráfica que encerra uma ideia, uma história.
Lamento não escrever mais. Por preguiça. E por ter falta de coragem. Parece sempre sair um cagalhoto literário que a ninguém interessa. Uma vez mais peço desculpa. Escrevo para mim... Só porque sim.
Apetece-me escrever, deitar alguma coisa cá para fora, mas na realidade não sei bem sobre o que falar, reflectir. Apetece-me condensar numa só frase, numa só palavra o mundo, a realidade, a vida. Parece simples. Mas não. Peço desculpa pelo total desinteresse destas palavras, coitadas, não têm culpa de terem sido escritas a horas tão tardias, só porque a alguém lhe apeteceu escrever e demasiado cansado se encontrava para se levantar e apanhar um caderno e uma caneta. Até porque gosto mais de ver as minhas letras surgirem, como um desenho, as curvas suaves interligadas que formam caminhos sinuosos de significados, que compõem uma sinfonia tipográfica rabiscada, e, no fim, um todo coeso de uma mancha gráfica que encerra uma ideia, uma história.
Lamento não escrever mais. Por preguiça. E por ter falta de coragem. Parece sempre sair um cagalhoto literário que a ninguém interessa. Uma vez mais peço desculpa. Escrevo para mim... Só porque sim.
13/04/2010
09/02/2010
12 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal
1.Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.
2.Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can’t legally get married because the world needs more children.
3.Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
4.Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5.Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are property, blacks can’t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
6.Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.
7.Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
8.Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
9.Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
10.Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11.Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to things like cars or longer life-spans.
12.Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages for gays and lesbians will.
Fonte/Source
2.Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can’t legally get married because the world needs more children.
3.Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
4.Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5.Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are property, blacks can’t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
6.Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.
7.Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
8.Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
9.Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
10.Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11.Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to things like cars or longer life-spans.
12.Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages for gays and lesbians will.
Fonte/Source
27/01/2010
25/01/2010
08/01/2010
03/01/2010
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