The most recent Lisbon Metro Station and ... Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso and Fernando Pessoa ...

(...)

Having participated in the Portuguese futurist Movement with Almada Negreiros, Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso was to become a semi-forgotten artist for a long period of time, due to the fact (it is said) that he passed away in 1918 at the age of thirty, when his artistic production was just beginning to display "maturity" ...

Equal fate would Fernando Pessoa have, acknowledged (nowadays) as the most outstanding Portuguese poet, who together with them played a major role in the development of Modernism in our country and whose poetry only started to gain a wider audience posthumously ...

 

"Whether we write or speak or do but look

We are ever unapparent. What we are

Cannot be transfused in to word or book,

our soul from us infinitely far.

However much we give our thoughts the will

to be our soul and gesture it abroad, 

our hearts are incommunicable still,

in what we show ourselves we are ignored."

 

(1918) in "35 Sonnets", Edições Atica

Fernando Pessoa - oil on canvas by Almada Negreiros. Replica on the left (1964) and the original one on the right (1954)

As if their lives had not been interconnected enough, Almada Negreiros would later pass away in exactly the same room at the Lisbon Hospital of São Luis dos Franceses where Fernando Pessoa had  passed away.

The most recent Lisbon Metro station ... and Almada Negreiros ...

Three new Metro stations have recently been opened in the Lisbon area - Moscavide, Encarnação and Aeroporto. If two of them are plainly decorated with tiles, the Airport one is profusely decorated with tiles depicting some of the most outstanding characters of our political, artistic and sportive life.
 

We very rarely praise our own unless they have either been praised abroad first or whenever the country has the need to reinforce the fact that the Portuguese people are creative or strong enough to break the barriers of oblivion.

Out of the whole amount of caricatures depicted I would start by choosing the ones connected to Art, not that the others may not be equally important, but  as Art has always played an important role in my life it would only be natural to select the characters associated with it.

 

Almada Negreiros 'caricature focuses on one of his recurrent themes over a period of time - the Harlequin.  I do clearly remember having been fascinated by the various pencil and watercolour drawings of "his" harlequins as an adolescent, though the artistic piece that mostly impressed me were the glazed panels covering the Alcântara and Rocha Conde de Obidos maritime station walls.


 

It wasn't but later that I had access to what he wrote and realised he was a very complete artist, once he displayed his artistry  as a painter, poet, romance writer, actor, dancer, choreographer, philosopher, and whichever he got involved in.

His challenging spirit and innovative attitude associated with a persuasive resilience made him stand in the forefront artistically.


I have recently bought his photo - biography and the more I read about him the more I admire him and his irreverence.

He once wrote -"Portugal may one day end up having its eyes wide open, if its blindness proves not to be incurable"  and although I have freely translated it and taken it out of the context it was written in, I feel it could easily be adaptable to Portugal nowadays ...







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The forthcoming trip to Cape Verde ...

I have been handed a few more birthday presents to take to the children of Cape Verde, as well as the money to pay for the school fees of Justina, Elias, Sonia, Valter, Nolita, Veinilson and Marcio. This money has been provided by the children's "godparents" respectively (Isabel, Gabriela, Telma, Filipa, João and João de Barros, the latest having recently joined our project group).

Among the birthday presents were the ones for Eveline, Jessica Patricia and some extra presents for Justina, who had already been given hers during my last stay at Calheta.

Presents bought by Isabel to be added to Justina's already received ones (left) and those for Eveline (right) bought by Dora.

The birthday presents I have bought for Jessica Patricia who didn't receive any last time I was there, though she was at the birthday party.

Telma has given me the amount of money that was still necessary to ensure Ângela's University scholarship. I should further add that Dina has contributed with an amount of money for whatever might be necessary or otherwise be required, so as to be used in the most adequate way.

Despite the fact that many of the "godparents" haven't yet paid the little they are supposed to, so as to help these children, in all honesty I am happy with the ones who have and are continually asking in which way they could further help.

Marie Hélène, who shall be travelling with me this time has already promised me that she will take some of the extra weight I already have and which might be impossible to carry on my own. She will be travelling in from France and we shall fly out from Lisbon airport together.

It will be a very short visit, similar to the latest ones, but I am sure the children will be happy to see us and know that we still care for them, despite the actual financial difficulties.

I just hope we can continue taking this project forward, which inevitably needs everyone's efforts.

May those who have been supporting me all these years together with the ones who have recently joined in be blessed by their commitment to the project and above all these children.

Mia Farr ... the big star ...

My opinion on Mia's performing skills may sound bias taking into account the fact that most people believe mothers tend to be "permeable" to their children's actions in a rather emotional way and do sometimes idolise them  by putting aside the necessary distance to be able to thoroughly "evaluate" them and their actions.

The truth is that I feel she was born to act ... and even before she walks on stage I know she is going to be the characters she has to "impersonate" ... without forcing her way into them, yet bringing a lot of herself into the personality of those characters, whoever they might be.

Mia's relationship with "Performing Arts" started at an early age, when it seemed more natural for her to express herself with gestures, facial expressions, body language, singing and even long silences, rather than the mere use of words.

From a certain moment on she started calling herself Mia Farr, the big star ... and in no time developed unimaginable skills, she later excelled in, while studying performing Arts at Chapitô, theatrical performance at the Conservatory of Theatre and Cinema, Creative dancing in Liège and ultimately a year as an Erasmus Theatre student in Bratislava.

The world of words, she was not accustomed to before, except in the heartfelt poems she used to write in her teens, gains a different dimension as she walks on stage.

I have watched her play numerous parts in dramas, comedy-dramas, tragedies, historical and even satirical plays both as a major and minor actor and though I personally prefer dramas, there hasn't been a play in which I didn't feel she hadn't acted brilliantly.

Her most challenging part must be the one she has to play in her day-to-day life though, once she is surrounded by people who "act" not according to the same performing techniques, on an ever "moving" stage depending on "roles" deprived of any sensitivity and above all in a "world" where Arts  might soon be relegated to "oblivion" when Government will reduce its financial support to the Arts.


I am proud of her and all that she has achieved, despite having chosen a "volatile" career ... as volatile as the money she is being paid to culturally entertain an ever growing group of Theatre non-goers.

May Theatre and Performing Arts continue to make a difference ... and may my "little" big star continue to shine on and outside the stage of life.

 

Faye ...

It will be six years tomorrow since Faye unexpectedly left us and though we don't mention it regularly, as if the course of life has washed her presence away, she is with us and within us as we learn to accept going on living with and without her smile, her touch and her dreams.

I often remember her for these ... as whenever she smiled she did it in an almost naturally contagious way ... and when she touched us ... we didn't easily forget the way she had done it ...

I do remember her  for the many dreams she had which came true and those which never did ... simply because death took her away so soon ...

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living" according to Marcus Tulius Cicero and so it is and has been over the years ..., despite the fact that it is painful to remember and more often than it may seem ... heartbreaking ...

 

May she and the short life she was allowed to live keep on being an inspiration for those who truly knew her, loved her and admired her for who she was and what she achieved  ...

Julian Barnes and I ...

I don't know what it was that fuelled my sudden interest in Julian Barnes ... but I think it all started when I read  "The sense of an ending" which apart from the skilfully plotted sequence of events made me fall in love with his writing style ... I couldn't wait until I bought a second book and ... a third and a fourth ... and still a fifth ... in what sounded much like an "addiction"...

"Mesmerising" ... "Exquisite" ... "Masterclasses in the form, full of the sidelong wit and intelligence that make the writer one of our most consistently deft short-form stylists" ... "Scintillating" ..."Fiction at its best" ... "A master class in character observation" ..."Irony  and imagery arze deployed with a finesse even Flaubert wouldn't wince at ... consumately  elegant." ... - are just among some of the  opinions on this incredible writer and the books he has written, some of which have been awarded prizes ...

Julian Barnes' books in the order I have read them -

"The sense of an ending" - Winner of the Man Booker Prize - Published by Vintage 2012

"Pulse" - Published by Vintage 2011

"Metroland" - Published by Vintage 2009

"Arthur and George" - Published by Vintage 2006

"Talking it over" - Published by Vintage 2009

The 6 day trip to Denmark and the United Kingdom - the morning of the second and last day - London - The 24th of June 2012

We woke up rather late as breakfast would only be served from ten onwards and we had already realised we would have not time to go to Camden, as we had thought of previously and would be going to Notting Hill and Portobello Road instead.

We photographed the pub  pertaining to the Youth Hostel we were staying at and then its outside. It was almost incredible to consider I had been lying down on those outside benches surrounded by flowers with a strong abdominal pain caused by a renal cyst just the night before.

We walked all the way down the street and turned right towards Notting Hill. I had been used to the old London cabs and it came as a surprise to see they were now rather different, though I must admit they were still nice to look at.

We could see people exhibiting their artistic works along Bayswater Road as we continued towards Notting Hill Gate, upon which we turned right into Portobello Road.

 It started raining really heavily and at one point we strongly considered giving up the stroll altogether, but the British weather was definitely playing tricks on us, once minutes later the sun broke through that greyish-like sky and the heat became suddenly unbearable.

Having bought a few things, amongst which was a ceremonial Indian coat I bought for myself, we felt we should make our way back to the hostel, so as to pick up our heavy packs and get on the bus to the airport. We missed the bus we had tickets for but were fortunate enough to have been allowed to board the following bus.


The "Playtime" was over ... we were getting back home and the ongoing routine we so much dreaded ... but we would at least have a few memories to hold onto ... London was and will always be an interesting city to go back to ...