Morning, partner!

No make-up photos must be uploaded upsidedown. It is the law.

Bangs with flash / Bangs with no flash

http://areyouafeminist.com/

Been missing San Francisco

It was in October, but hey... It has been years blogging! I love my PAWNSHOP

As I like to do, I will repost the very first entry on this blog, uploaded nine years ago:

My dream future is happening right now, just as I speak (or blog). The world may become one nation while I am here trying to prepare myself to understand, be part of, and survive in this historical moment. My writings have become my instrument to conquer my space. I have seen many things in life, but not everything that there is to see. This is what brought me to this practice; the possibility of learning how to play this instrument (writing) accurately and sophisticatedly. I've always believed that writing allows one to live different experiences, breathe in distant drafts, and step on exotic soils. Writing is so powerful. Besides, I am enchanted with this media technology called webblogs. Blogs are useful reading because it is a language that entertains, amuses, and even teaches about new places, cultures, and other people's ways to see life through without killing the magic of the moment. Here, you'll read old letters I received, past emails sent, school and college projects that made me proud of my 3.8 GPA, my mad poems which will be part of a "maybe-book" named THE PAWNSHOP (got the picture?), and other epiphanies. Through my writings, I have gotten the capacity to organize this whole wide world, to plan the chaos, and give meaning to all facts in my life.

Ladytron

Photo taken by Nicolle C. Sartor

I am holding someone's biography.
If you are aware of who this person is, you might also get why I am cracking up.

My funky fringe... I look like a psychopath now and I love it.

Adrienne Rich reads her own poem: "What Kind of Times Are These"

Adrienne Rich: What Kind of Times Are These

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Rich

SOMETHING HAS CHANGED IN BRAZIL: AN INTERVIEW WITH ADRIANA CALCANHOTTO

By Robin Perkins - 29 October, 2013 More than twenty years since the release of her first album, Adriana Calcanhotto has become one of Brazil’s most cherished and well-known voices. It is surprising then that this one-off show, forming part of the very first FlipSide festival, is only her third visit to the UK. While the small, rural Suffolk town of Snape might seem an odd choice for such a concert, there is something very fitting about Calcanhotto’s appearance here. Not only because she was present at the very first Flip, the original Brazilian literary festival that inspired its UK counterpart, but also because of the event’s focus on music and literature. I caught up with Calcanhotto in her rather tropical dressing room after an entrancing concert in the stunning Snape Maltings concert hall. 

How did you enjoy playing at the very first FlipSide? 
It was great. I really love playing in this type of environment and in such a beautiful space. I find my live show really works in this kind of venue. A lot of venues can be very noisy and it just doesn’t work because it is too dynamic which makes the performance difficult but here it was just right.

How do you find playing in the UK? Is it different from Brazil?
This is the third time I have been here. Playing here is very different from Brazil because the audience is so timid! It’s funny, in Brazil where I record my songs I play in a different tonality than when I play live, here for example. So, people sing along but in a different key!

How did you end up playing at FlipSide?
I was invited to play at the very first Flip festival in Brazil because it was in honour of Vinicius do Moraes, so I went and performed a solo concert there. Then I went back in 2009 for the edition celebrating the poet Manuel Banderia. This time I was with the full band and we played in the opening session. Then this year I came back once more to launch an anthology of Brazilian poetry for children and I also had the chance to sing for children as well. Liz (Calder) invited me to come here to FlipSide and said to me: “this place is made for you. It suits your spirit.” As soon as I came I understood what she meant, it is very pretty here and the sea is incredible.

The festival covers music, literature and poetry, something that has been very present in your own music. How do you consider the relationship between these different forms? 
I don’t think there is a hierarchy between these forms, with one being “better” than the other. There exist marvellous lyrics in music and very bad poems. Brazilian music has a tradition of transmitting poetry through popular music, much like what happened in ancient Greece. Vinicius de Moraes was the first to use poetry to make popular music. He changed the history of lyric writing in Brazil, causing a revolution in Brazilian music.

Speaking of revolutions in Brazilian music, was tropicália a direct influence on your music?
Tropicália had already happened by the time I was born. It was something very strong and very intense, it happened very quickly over a very short period of time. However, it went on to influence a great number of people. For me these cultural phenomena and the exploration of the so-called “low culture”, especially everything associated with the clothing, for example, using clothes without meaning, without “fashion”… all of this really interests me. In Brazil there is a moment during your adolescence when you have to choose: rock or MPB. Because I didn’t speak English very well and the rock that was being played at that time was progressive, hard rock I ended up heading towards MPB. I started listening to songs by people like Chico Buarque, Caetano (Veloso), (Jards) Macalé and became just crazy about the lyrics. From then on I started to buy more and more albums, singles and discographies.

So, could you tell us about your own songwriting process?
It isn’t always the same. I did notice that a lot of the time I am playing something I know but then I make a mistake or change a chord. This is the error of something new and from this you start to make a combination that didn’t exist before. Sometimes a song can appear out of nowhere and sometimes it takes 15 years for it to come out.

How did your latest album Micróbio de Samba come about?
The album came about when I realised I had a samba here, another one there, one I gave to someone, one I had in the drawer, etc. So, I decided to record them all together in a studio session so I could keep them on file. I recorded them with Domenico (Lancelotti) and Alberto Continentino with this really old guitar that I had bought that had such an incredible sound for samba. We started talking and thought why do this just to keep it to ourselves? Let’s do it to share, so I ended up doing shows and it was fantastic.

How do you see the music scene in Brazil at the moment?
Something has changed in Brazil – it is so much easier to make music than it ever was before. The music used to be much more controlled by the radio stations who chose the music that people would listen to. Anyone who dared do something else, something different would never survive. I remember during the time when Brazilian rock was really big and I was playing acoustic guitar it was seen to be quite something! With the rise of internet giving everybody the chance to make music, this control has ended and I think this is fantastic. Now artists are trying brand new things – they want to be who they are, instead of wanting to be their idols.

So, what projects are you working on now? You mentioned a collection of children’s poetry? 
Yes, for this project I chose the poets, I chose the poems and I drew the pictures. Compiling poems is very different from composing or songwriting. It is much more like interpretation, transmitting somebody else’s poetry. These are really important poets and such a thing didn’t exist in Brazil before so I kind of feel what I am doing is a public duty! And musically? We just finished an album called A Arca de Noé which is an album of songs for children originally recorded by Vinicius de Moraes and released in the 1980s. This year marks the centenary of his birth so we decided to remake the Arca album with new arrangements, bringing together lots of different artists that were influenced by the album in their childhood. Each artist interprets the song in their own style, all inspired by their own childhood memory of that particular song. Of course, the original will continue to sell because it is still a classic but this is another, modernised vision of the album.

 Do you think you will be back at Flip or indeed at FlipSide in the future?
Of course! If they’ll have me

On the video "A TOOTH FOR AN EYE", by The Knife, a Scandinavian electronic band

Today, March 8th, 2013, The Knife unveil ‘A Tooth For An Eye’ from their forthcoming album Shaking The Habitual released on 8 April, and premier their video directed by Roxy Farhat and Kakan Hermansson. Watch the video below, and read more about the video from Roxy Farhat.

 “A Tooth For An Eye” deconstructs images of maleness, power and leadership. Who are the people we trust as our leaders and why? What do we have to learn from those we consider inferior? In a sport setting where one would traditionally consider a group of men as powerful and in charge, an unexpected leader emerges. A child enters and allows the men to let go of their hierarchies, machismo and fear of intimacy, as they follow her into a dance. Their lack of expertise and vulnerability shines through as they perform the choreography. Amateurs and skilled dancers alike express joy and a sense of freedom; there is no prestige in their performance. The child is powerful, tough and sweet all at once, roaring “I’m telling you stories,trust me” (a quote borrowed from Jeanette Winterson’s novel The Passion). There is no shame in her girliness, rather she possesses knowledge that the men lost a long time ago. – Roxy Farhat

I adore live performances!

October 2013

Happy 15th anniversary, Roberto!

a poem by Laila Chris

Please, check your Emails
Be on time
Apologize and forgive
Give away and receive
Do your laundry
Pay your bills when they due
Whiten your teeth
Wear higheels
Graduate, drive, vote, clean
Enlargen your breasts
Shave your armpits
Eat superfood diet...
But mainly, check your Emails

Sup? I'm Laila Chris Burden. Welcome to My Pawnshop. English isn't my mother tongue, but that's the language in which I best communicate. Besides a blogger, I am a teacher, a poet, a stationery junkie, a married woman, and have four cats. I teach languages, do pilates and therapy, and major in psychology. I speak Portuguese on the daily basis. Brazil is the country where I live and in here people speak this awesome latin language. I also speak German, Spanish, some French, Mandarin, and Japanese. I am a visual arts freak, although I'm very fond of music. I lived in Florida for a while though my trip was part of an exchange student program. I went to the US to achieve another college degree. I studied Liberal Arts in Saint Petersburg, Pinellas County (Tampa Bay area), USA. I had also taken another college degree course in Brazil before moving to Uncle Sam's land. I hold a bachelor's degree in Journalism. Another interesting fact of my life is that my present occupation is not actually based on writing or arts per se. I teach ESL- English as a Second Language. Never would I imagine becoming a teacher in this life. Well, maybe I should have since my both parents are ESL teachers. My husband manages our ESL school, PBF, and teaches English as well. We live along with a Siamese cat called Tibby, a black short-hair one called Pancho Villa, and two others, a grey one called Felino Gracie and a tabby kitty called Lentilha. I am terrible driver but a wonderful chef. Hubby's name is Roberto and we are both from Sao Paulo. We were non officially married for 14 years and have been 2 years officially married. We tied the knots in Vegas, at Graceland Chapel on December 31st 2011. We have been dating since September 1991. Btw, I'm in my late thirties. Hubby and I have been going through gizillions of ups and downs in this life and yet we keep on moving. We work hard to pay utilities including the broad band Internet wireless connection which allows me blog on. We do struggle. We do love what we do. I love my writings, my husband, my kitties, my occupation, my blogs. I love being the kind of monkey I turned out being.

Ms Burden

Your sun sign is Aquarius. This is the sign in which the Sun is in your birth chart. Your Ascendant is in Aries, and your Moon is in Capricorn.

Pluto conjunction MC: A massive push

Beginning of February 2013 until beginning of December 2014: This is an extremely important influence that will affect the entire course and direction of your life and what you will actually accomplish. It is also a rather long lasting influence, whose effects will be manifested over a period of up to two years.

The central issue here is your life direction. Where are you going? What are you doing? How are you going about doing it? This is a time of vigorous scrutiny when you will probably examine everything that you have done with your life up until now and ask a number of questions. First, do you really feel that what you have been doing is valid? Don't think solely in terms of your job, although that is certainly an important part of the question. Many people's true vocation consists of what they consider to be an avocation.

Second, are the means you have used been appropriate to your ends and to your own inner being? This is an extremely important question. With this influence, what is required is not just success; it must be won properly. If you have had to violate the rules of your game in order to win, this influence is likely to bring you crashing down in failure.

Your response to this influence depends on your answers to the above questions. If you discover that you are not fulfilling your true calling in your work or another area, this influence will bring inexorable forces to the surface that will drive you out of your present position. You may leave voluntarily, or you may be forced out by being fired or laid off. If this happens, let your inner feelings guide you in an entirely new direction.

If you have been on the proper course all these years, this influence will give you a massive push to succeed. Only watch out that your push doesn't arouse too much opposition from above that could slow you down. The forces set loose by this influence are often very difficult to handle. Also be careful about breaking the rules of the game as mentioned above, for this can destroy your efforts.

Uranus conjunction Ascendant: True liberation

Beginning of May 2013 until beginning of April 2014: During this period your relationships will alter tremendously, and you will try to break free of the restrictions and obligations that have held you back. You begin to feel very impatient and rebellious toward limitations of any kind. Others will find it very difficult to predict what you will do and may be quite upset by your actions. The people you draw into your immediate environment now may be radically different from those whom you used to associate with.

This influence has its most difficult effects on marriage and other intimate relationships. You may find it difficult to continue living up to the rules of marriage and may begin to look for other relationships. You can anticipate the effects of this influence on your marriage or other intimate union simply by examining your inner feelings about the relationship. If it really feels good, you will not have much of a problem. A husband during this time may become impatient with the standard masculine role of breadwinner with all its accoutrements, as defined by our culture. Similarly, a wife may suddenly become impatient with being merely a housewife and begin to demand a more active role in the world. This influence gives both sexes a desire for liberation.

If you are well prepared, this time can also bring about the only meaningful liberation, that is, the mind being free of its illusions. Many people begin to study astrology or the occult at this time, seeking this very liberation. While these studies may be a useful step on the path, you will ultimately learn that all structures for interpreting the world have the same limitations as your old ones, if you allow them to become rigid. True liberation involves coming to a point where all structure is taken on by choice and your life is self-created.

Jupiter conjunction IC: Your inward needs

Mid-August 2013 until mid-April 2014: This is a time for expansion and growth in your innermost personal life, a time when you will seek security at home and with your immediate family. It may be necessary to reexamine your past life to find out what it can teach you about yourself. But this should not be a source of anxiety. In fact, you should feel quite good about what you learn at this time. Your parents may be able to assist you considerably in this process.

The symbolism of this influence is that you incorporate more and more of the outer world into your innermost life. On the material level, you may buy a larger, more elegant or more spacious home. Certainly it would be a good expression of this symbolism to improve your existing home and make it more comfortable.

At this time you should do everything to ensure that your personal life is as comfortable and secure as possible. You need to have a feeling of inner peace and security in order to continue to move out in the world. In fact you should not think so much about outward success now as about the more personal and inward needs that we have discussed here. And you should realize that your real need now is not land or a larger home, but a feeling of strength and inner growth.

This is the time to tie up any loose ends in your personal life, straighten out any relationships that are not working well, any leftovers from your past life that are still affecting the present adversely. To do this you may have to speak to others very openly about yourself and your innermost thoughts.

So this is a good time to settle and put down roots. The feeling of belonging to a place and a group of people is very important to you now. You don't have to do this in a way that limits your freedom of movement, and during this time it is very unlikely that you will do so. But everyone needs a solid home base so that they can feel at peace in their other activities. If you don't make an effort to construct such a base now, you will have difficulty later when your principal concerns are turning elsewhere.

Jupiter square Ascendant: On the lookout

Mid-August 2013 until mid-April 2014: This is usually an excellent time for most kinds of relationships, but there are some pitfalls. Basically this influence signifies a desire to grow and advance through contacts with others. Probably you are willing to give as much as you get, although in some people this influence triggers a desire for advantages through others without giving anything in return. In fact as they get ahead, such people act arrogantly toward everyone, even those who helped them. This causes others to reject them, and when they hit hard times there is no one to help them out.

But this result is totally unnecessary, and all you have to do to avoid it is to keep a sense of humility and recognize what others have done for you. With this influence you have the potential to become a truly better person, but only if you keep these warnings in mind.

Quite frequently this influence brings a seemingly "lucky" chance through a friend or associate. But it is not luck so much as the fact that you are very sharply on the lookout for opportunities that can benefit you. Your sense of timing is very acute, and your sensitivity to others and their needs is greater than usual. That is one reason why it is so bad to ignore others' needs, because you don't even have the excuse of ignorance.

Benefits can come to you in either your personal and domestic life or in your work. There may be an opportunity to make money or to make improvements in your home that will make it much more pleasant. Or you may meet people who will help you learn more about the world and expand your view of it in various ways. You have to be willing to let this happen, however, which means you must be receptive. This is another area in which being arrogant brings the risk that you will get nothing of lasting value out of this period.

Jupiter square Jupiter: Impending shortages

End of September 2013 until end of May 2014: With this influence it is very important that you keep your affairs from getting out of hand. There is a strong tendency to excess, which may make it impossible to keep up with whatever you are involved in, simply because it is more than you can handle. Be particularly careful concerning financial matters, for you are likely to spend without thinking, confident that there is an abundance of money or other resources to back you up. You may not notice the pinch immediately, but shortly after this period you may experience shortages that will be severely exacerbated if you spend money foolishly now.

But money is not the only area of concern. You may be overcommitted to projects that demand more time than you really have. So in every area of your life, make sure that you really have the time or resources to do what you have set out to do. Do not overestimate the resources at your disposal.

If you avoid that pitfall, this can be a very fruitful influence, because it gives you more confidence and optimism and allows you to undertake projects that you would ordinarily be reluctant to take on. Also your basically positive attitude helps to ensure that your affairs will turn out the way you want.

Under this influence some persons experience a kind of ego inflation in which they have delusions of grandeur or overestimate their self-importance. This can lead to arrogant behavior and inflated pride with little or no real substance behind it.

What this influence does is test your sense of proportion. You have to know what you really can and cannot do and who you really are. Insofar as you fulfill those conditions, this influence will give you apparent luck and greater power to achieve.

Jupiter opposition Moon: The first move

End of September 2013 until end of May 2014: This is a time when feelings and emotions play an important part in your life, and relationships based on feelings and emotions become very important. This influence is usually experienced positively as warm feelings within yourself and from others. You feel emotionally very generous and giving. Relationships are usually quite good and rewarding now, and those that you have been building up for years may begin to produce results. You can now decide clearly which ones are worthwhile and which are not.

But there is a negative side to this influence also. It can make you feel very self-indulgent and undisciplined. You may feel that the world "owes me a living," whether or not you really deserve it. It may also make you feel that others ought to be breaking their back to help you. In personal relationships, you may become very demanding without really offering anything to your partner in return. Instead of reaching out to make things happen in your life, you wait for others to make the first move and become quite angry when people insist that you take some initiative.

Your love relationships and relations with women can be either very good or very bad, probably not anywhere in the middle. It all depends upon your general reaction to this influence. If you are demanding in the manner described above, then your relationships will be bad. But if this influence arouses your feelings of warmth and generosity, they will be quite good. And this is a good way of gauging where you are with this influence, because encounters with others, especially women, will bring out its effects.

Drinking coffee out of a new mug: a present given by Larissa Rech

Ainda

Ainda
havia
a via
Todavia
agora
o anátema
amarga
a alma
antes nunca
atingido
o amálgama
anterior a ela
Há pressa!
Amava
e assim
a tem.
Amparado
ao ato,
à paisagem
Além da vida
aparece então
o átomo âmber
assumido
apalpado
aferido,
mas animado
Acorda para o
mundo refém.
Angústia e vem.