simples

From today, and for a month, follow me at Alvorada. Até já!

My favourite part of the Delta Airlines flying experience is seeing its inflight security video. Seriously. Inflight security videos (if you ever cared to watch) are the usually ignored safety demonstrations that were once played out by flight attendants. These instructions are now featured in rather forgettable segments with poor amateur acting (such as TAP Portugal) or 3D animations.
Delta’s video is the farthest it gets from that. It’s well shot, well acted (and cast), concise, even… funny. The first time I saw I couldn’t stop watching, and after having flown on Delta four times this year, I still find it seriously entertaining. But the reason I really like this video is not that it’s funny or entertaining, but that it made me care – and in the process told me where the emergency exits are, and about all the safety procedures we all should care about.

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein (from dezeen)

I won’t make it to Weil-am-Rhein for the Fernando and Humberto Campana 20-year retrospective, but its rich catalogue is already on its way to Lisbon. Looking forward to reading the essays from curator Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, Maria Helena Estrada, Massimo Morozzi, and Adélia Borges. Dezeen has a pretty comprehensive coverage of the show.

O Ricardo Hartmann mandou-me ontem a letra deste dueto entre a Rita Lee e o João Gilberto, para inspiração. Entretanto encontrei a música. Beleza. Valeu Ricardo!

Quando Cabral descobriu no Brasil o caminho das índias
Falou ao Pero Vaz para a caminha escrever para o rei
“Que terra linda assim não há
Com tico-ticos no fubá
Quem te conhece não esquece
Meu Brazil é com S”

O caçador de esmeraldas achou uma mina de ouro
Caramuru deu chabu e casou com a filha do Pajé
Terra de encanto amor e sol
Não fala inglês nem espanhol
Quem te conhece não esquece
Meu Brazil é com S

E pra quem gosta de boa comida aqui é um prato cheio
Até Dom Pedro abusou do tempero e não se segurou
Oh! natureza generosa
Está com tudo e não está prosa
Quem te conhece não esquece
Meu Brazil é com S

Na minha terra onde tudo na vida se dá um jeitinho
Ainda hoje invasores namoram a tua beleza
Que confusão veja você
No mapa-múndi está com Z
Quem te conhece não esquece
Meu Brazil é com S.

Brazil - Temperature and Precipitation from Map No. 503241 1977, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Univ. of Texas

When we met a few weeks ago, Susan Yelavich suggested I read Cornel West’s essay “The New Cultural Politics of Difference” (October, Vol. 53, Summer 1990, pp. 93-109), as part of the research for my Master Thesis on contemporary Brazilian product design. I found it truly inspiring, especially this paragraph:

The time has come for critics and artists of the new cultural politics of difference to cast their nets widely, flex their muscles broadly, and thereby refuse to limit their visions, analyses, and praxis to their particular terrains. The aim is to dare to recast, redefine, and revise the very notions of “modernity,” “main-stream,” “margins,” “difference,” “otherness.” We have now reached a new stage in the perennial struggle for freedom and dignity. And while much of the First World intelligentsia adopts retrospective and conservative outlooks that defend the crisis-ridden present, we promote a prospective and prophetic vision with a sense of possibility and potential, especially for those who bear the social costs of the present. We look to the past for strength, not solace; we look at the present and see people perishing, not profits mounting; we look toward the future and vow to make it different and better.

More “Alvorada” (the working title of my thesis) thoughts and notes will be coming to this space regularly from now on.