"...raspam a tinta velha das paredes da igreja, como corujas esfomeadas num oásis de cascalho. São bandos singulares, grupos solitários, que tremem como varas verdes a cada rugir daquele telhado podre. Espreitam-se pelas janelas descortinadas, com inveja e nojo do que não puderam outrora ser. Contam as histórias, os velhos pedaços de tinta que lá morrem pela relva seca."

Patti Smith always inspired me. That's because she's also a "Smith", in her own way. And in "Twelve", she sings the most beautiful version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" I have ever heard. She's gone soft, and apparently that's the new tendency! Polly Jean Harvey amazed me with her latest release. It's just like watching a white tiger morphing into a house kitten.

Both are pretty enjoyable.

MIA

Call and I'll answer at home in the lost and found
You say that I'm much too proud
Someone who's taking pleasure in breaking down
Nevermind the mannequins, drunk in their hollow town
Drinking their spoils down, cheap imitations
The revelation is now
You wont find me I'm going MIA
Tonight I'm leaving going MIA
Cause Getting lost in you again is better than being numb
Counting every minute till the feeling comes crashing down
Run when it hits the ground
I'm good at escaping
But better at faking out
Call in unanswered the center becomes blown out
Stuck on the inside now
It's fear I'm embracing
I never could face you down

I had forgotten about how much I loved this old Foo Fighters song, from 1999. I'm currently listening to their new album... but the more I listen to it, the more I want to listen to their old songs instead. So I guess it will take some time until I -only- listen to the new record!

I can't wait for the new She Wants Revenge album, and for the whatever next release of Led Zeppelin will be. Oh, and I finally managed to get my hands on the second CD of "Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk" from Jeff Buckley - I only have had the first one for years. It's simply... wonderful. Without a doubt, the second "Grace". Marvellous!

Let's dance

What a night. I missed things that rocked my world... after going through all the shit I've lived with for the past three months, I was truly needing some good stuff. But that's not enough, I won't rest until I feel I got what I KNOW I deserve.

I decided to post three (rather old) photos I took this year, just another few backstage shots that don't deserve more than a quick snap.

Starting with my beautiful cat, Luna \m/




And a gorgeous midnight snap of a backyard flower:


And a curious eye shot, with a fisheye vision to the entire street.


And yes, that's me in my winter jammies ;D

Moving Units

So everyone is starting to get a bit tired of the classic indie-rock. That's understandable, I am too. Not only because almost everything new nowadays is sistematically tagged as indie-rock, but mostly because new bands are simply reusing old recipees which, they think, is quite tasty for the majority of people.

That's what I feel whenever I'm listening to the new tendencies of this gender. I keep the old sparks alive, but in order to develop new ones, they have to burn and crave their names in fire, in my musical heart. And I believe that's what happening with "Hexes for Exes", the new album of "Moving Units".

I was test-driving new bands, and all of them were somewhat dissapointing. I already had a bad taste of insatisfaction in my mouth, especially after listening to the new album of "1990's". But as soon as my player got to Moving Units, a nice sweet flavor of ice cream invaded my mouth immediately. They are not just indie-rock-period, there's more to it. Hexes for Exes shares an aftertaste of a post-punk theme, reminding us what would be a softcore version of White Rose Movement. The opening track "Pink Thoughts" has an Interpol feeling, which subsequently directs us straight to Joy Division. But far away from being nearly similar, the sound is polished like some diamond waiting to be sold in a disco, straight from the dance floor.
Simple, yet straight, like some old 80's revival effort.

I must confess that a big part of all the atractiveness comes from the Pulp-similar singing. This is what a neo-Pulp band would feel like I'm sure, bathed in some kind of synthetic pop which makes you want both to shake your booty and appreciate the small pleasures of slowcore punk. The album will be officially released in October 9th, and I certainly hope it gets the attention it deserves.

I'm more than happy to rate it as a 7 out of 10.

Movie update!

My cinema sessions have decreased lately, mostly because of the money and time shortage. Time and Money, actually two of my favorite songs from Pink Floyd. I bet they didn't go to the movies a lot too. They couldn't, must have been quite sad.

The last movie I saw was Goya's Ghosts. I got really curious about this movie ever since I found out Francisco Goya's paintings, which are the most both bizarre and horrific... a third classifier would be "magnificent". A truly remarkable and surrealistic vision about the Spanish Inquisition, quite surprising especially for it's own time.

The movie features Stellan Skarsgård as Goya, Javier Bardem as an odd brother (Lorenzo), and the beautiful Natalie Portman as Inês / Alicia (she plays two roles). The main plot begins in a very simple way. Inês becomes an inspirational Muse to Goya, who keeps relating her to an Angel. She represents the state of the art of pureness to Goya. But, the inquisition soon declares Inês to be a heretic, against the wishes and fights of both Goya and her family. But the film is not a story of love... in fact, the sequences are as real as they can get. The plot develops mainly around these three main characters, and Goya does not get a major part of the plot here, like one would think.
Goya's Ghosts is not meant to be told, but to be seen. There is much beauty in all the scenes, as they're easily pictured as paintings. It's harsh like life sometimes is, so justice doesn't play a particular role here. You can find more information about the movie here.

We're going through changeeeeeeeeees!

Nevermind the lame title.

I finally moved today! New home! New bed! New shower! Same carpet tough, it's too fluffy to discard.

There's just something about moving. If there's a thing I hate, is looking for an apartment. Seriously, I would rather having some 12 year old kid kicking my ass all afternoon, than to spend it looking for a new home. By the previous July I was forced to find a new place, and found a neat little apartment about a mile away from where I was living before. It's a really small apartment... I'm used to the big ones, with a large living room to do whatever I want there. Now I dont even have a living room, but the room kicks butts. It's awesome!

I don't like the actual moving, but I feel pretty damn excited about it... today, when all the moving business was over, I didn't want to come home. I wanted to stay there already, try out the new place like some little girl plays with her Barbie house all day long. I know I'll be a little miserable there... I'll be mostly alone, with no one to talk to and discuss the day after the day it's over. I will miss that, and still don't know how it will affect me from now on.

Well, I guess I'll try to find excuses NOT to come home...! But until those days come, there's still a lot of work to be done. You better start wishing me luck now, because I'll be needing it badly for the next weeks.

Grace Range

It's only midday and so far a great day. Got back from the hospital, and my tumor may not even be a tumor! Yay for that. But the realllllllllllllly great news are that I finally got my hands on something I wanted for much long: The Jeff Buckley Live In Chicago concert, and the full discographie of New Order.

As for Jeff Buckley, I can't wait to watch the full concert, when I get some free time. I've seen it a little and it's just beautiful, all the songs from "Grace" are there and it's just... uau, so fuckin amazing. I just know I'll be watching this many times from now on, for sure.

As for New Order, I only had two albums and a singles collection, which is a crime for someone who loves the damn band.

Here's a clip from Jeff Buckley's Chicago concert (Mojo Pin).


... and here is New Order's Blue Monday, one of my favorites.

Dream, brother

The nights are so harsh now. I'm afraid I'll just never get over this.

Don't let the bed bugs bite

A few more bug shots.
This little fella on the left stayed with me during the Air Race competition, too bad he didn't talk much. But he behaved pretty well and we got along nicely.

But unfortunately I had to let him go. I think he's dead now ;P






As for this ugly one, it was just a regular fly who was bothering me while I was trying to have my coffee, in the backyard. But my cat killed it, and ate it after.

I like my cat.

Confissões

A while ago I was searching for an old letter from the bank, I needed my account number, and I stumbled with a lot of personal letters I have received over the years. My desk has always been a bottomless pit for memories, everything just goes and stays there, and altough I only open my own desk maybe once a month, everytime I do it I get caught by something.

This time, I spent half an hour reading old letters. Letters from old pen pals, from old lovers, even those long birthday cards people wrote, everything just rushed up to my head again. And then it hit me - my first love letter I ever received. I couldn't find it. I don't know what the hell made me so eager to find it, I really really wanted to read that letter again. I wanted to feel what was, back then, some years ago, the happiest day until then.

I don't keep in touch with that girl anymore, and I don't care, but still I desperately wanted to read it again and see if I could relate at all to those feelings I remeber having. But I couldn't find it... if I still had it, it had to be there, and it wasn't. Strangely, that made me awfully sad. I feel like some part of me was lost, and I didn't even remembered this "part" until now.

I don't know what she would think if she read this, maybe she just wouldn't care, but I feel like I owe her the biggest apologie in the world... I would hate for anyone to lose a love letter of mine, people always put so much effort on them, it must be both the happiest and painful pieces of paper to write. And I feel really bad. Not only I want to have someone to exchange letters with again, but every single word of those letters means so little now. Then, it meant the world. Now, just memories. It isn't fair, and that's the fucked up side of being in love.

The very same goes to photographs. Unfortunately, a somewhat recent accident made me lose thousands of old memories I had, and I don't believe I've ever cried so hard about losing something. It's akward. But it certainly hits us right on the spot. I now want to do something about those letters - something at all - but it's just impossible, of course. It just doesn't feel right leaving them there, waiting to be found again, someday.

Drops

The last few days have been hard on me, so I'm taking advantage of the little time I now have for myself trying to do something useful. Well, not quite useful - pleasurable will do just fine! Of course, music and photography still ocuppy the largest part of it, so that's where I'll mostly focus on.

Yesterday I spent about two hours trying to capture a single photo - of something I always loved to see, and an art that truly fascinantes me. Water drops photography. If you google it, you'll find dozens of wonderful macro shots, beautifully captured. But it's quite hard, requires a LOT of patience, and a good equipment is necessary. But I dont have good equipment and I wouldn't settle for a "no".

Oh if only you could see the mess I did... I've created a system out of hanging bottles with strings that continuously keep dripping at a certain ratio - at the same spot. That would leave my hands free to the real capture. Buuuuut unfortunately, it took me almost 200 shots and two battery packs to capture a few good ones. But as it got dark, I ran out of light, and I lost all the contrast in my pictures.

Which means, a LOT of noise. But I'll share my first one! I was really excited when I got it, it was really hard. The general flash speed isn't enough to freeze the action, so it was a pretty good excuse for the fully manual mode.



The depth of field is really really thin with a macro lens, and with drops smaller than 0,5cm, it can take a lot of patience, believe me. But I enjoyed the result, altough amateur, and Im looking forward to more experiencies with this. It was fun to create the colorful background, but next time I'll try to add some ink to the water and use milk drops for extra texture.

I was going to post more of the Air Race photos, but I'll leave that to another day.