R.I.P. my dearest TANTE MARLI (Germany – yesterday)

R.I.P. my dearest aunt TANTE MARLI SIEVERS, in Germany who passed away earlier this month and had her burial yesterday. In the picture, Cristina Sievers, my cousin, my dearest cousin, whom I miss terribly (all residents of Berlin)

Is this – perhaps – a good and symbolic message for these white supremacists ?

Hoje é no Texas. Em 2005 eu escrevia essa cronica pra Folha de S Paulo sobre o “Katrina” New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama (até Cuba e Bahamas….)

UM DIA IREMOS DESAPARECER

DIRETOR TEATRAL VÊ EM NOVA ORLEANS UMA EXCEÇÃO DENTRO DOS EUA COMPARÁVEL A NOVA YORK, E NA MÚSICA LOCAL, SEU PRÓPRIO CANTO FÚNEBRE PROFÉTICO

GERALD THOMAS
ESPECIAL PARA A FOLHA, EM NOVA YORK

Eu geralmente me incomodo quando vejo algum dramaturgo usando uma tragédia natural ou uma guerra, por exemplo, para traçar metáforas com o mundo fantasioso e lúdico do palco ou da prosa. Mas o evento Katrina, a partir do próprio nome, e a devastação de uma cidade tão singular como Nova Orleans, me provocam arrepios tão fortes como os eventos de 11 de Setembro em Nova York ou a invasão do Iraque ou o tsunami do ano passado misturado com as fotos que via em criança de Hiroshima. Catástrofes naturais misturadas a política. A miséria humana misturada ao mais puro sadismo e aos conchavos humanos, seus piores preconceitos e fetiches mal resolvidos.

É que em Nova Orleans, assim como em Nova York, “estamos e não estamos” (assim como numa peça de Samuel Beckett ou em Shakespeare) nos Estados Unidos da América. Sim, por acaso essas duas cidades se encontram em solo norte-americano, mas talvez, se perguntada, a maioria norte-americana, digo, o povão norte-americano, repudiaria esses nichos de “alienígenas impuros” (talvez eu devesse incluir aqui San Francisco também, por seu liberalismo sexual gay). Claro, estou exagerando.

Não, não teremos mais uma lua sobre Bourbon Street, como cantava Sting, há vários discos atrás. A cultura “cajun” (crioula-francesa) é algo obscura para a maioria dos norte-americanos. Paupérrima para os padrões primeiro-mundistas, Nova Orleans fala um inglês que muitos norte-americanos (mesmo os sulistas) têm dificuldade de entender. Está além do “jive” ou da “slang” -“It’s as cajun as a mudpie”. Vá entender! É um inglês teatral. Fala-se muito com as mãos. Com a água subindo e subindo, eu imaginei duas cenas. Tennessee Williams completamente bêbado em seu quarto de hotel se “afogando” em mágoas, literalmente (como de fato fazia), e a mais bela metáfora já criada em teatro: o prólogo que Peter Brook encenou para “A Tempestade”, em Hanover, há décadas: colocou uma caravela de papelão na cabeça de um ator africano que bebia e bebia e bebia, até cair.

Não há tempestade mais bem representada e, no que diz respeito aos ex-escravos até hoje numa posição inferior (apesar da “affirmative action” e outras medidas políticas e sociais), os negros de Nova Orleans poderiam ser esses náufragos da encenação de Brook. Ele e Williams, ambos náufragos no teatro, mas secos e bem nutridos. Vamos deixá-los pra lá. Katrina não poderia ser personagem de Beckett, pois Beckett não é devastador, apesar de suas peças destruírem, rasgarem a alma do ser humano com a falta de palavras ou perspectivas. Talvez fosse uma personagem feminina: aquela menina do Paul Auster que procura, na terra esquecida e perdida, um ente querido que não encontra. Sim, voltamos ao mestre irlandês em “The Lost Ones”, uma prosa Beckettiana cheia de nichos; artifício que Auster plagiou, ou meramente pegou emprestado em que seres vagam à procura de outros seres.

No dia em que escrevo, seres em Nova Orleans, seres quase submersos ainda buscam seus entes perdidos, e o número de mortos está anunciado pelo prefeito na casa da dezena de milhar. É realmente difícil para qualquer artista ficar imune -ou impune- a essas imagens. Elas se ramificam porque, em questão de um dia, o homem virou bicho, o ser humano virou lixo e as etnias foram comprimidas a um só sólido bloco de lama e fezes naquele solo onde se berra e canta “God Bless America” mais vezes por dia do que se vai ao banheiro.

Canto fúnebre
Mesmo assim essas interpretações literárias ou dramáticas de eventos catastróficos me incomodam. Estou diante de uma fogueira de vaidades, e os fatos não mentem e… Ver pela televisão corpos inchados boiando, ou gente há uma semana nos telhados sufocadas pelo próprio ar, ou de dor e de peste, confrontadas com o cheiro da finitude, assim como se estivéssemos em plena Idade Média, num total Terceiro Mundo, é imensamente desconcertante. Mas me pergunto se nos sentiríamos assim se isso não estivesse acontecendo nos Estados Unidos e, principalmente, na terra que nos deu o jazz. A identificação com a cultura brasileira se dá por aí. É como se a população que criou o jazz e o Mardi Gras e se apropriou do vodu já estivesse predestinada, já soubesse que em seu futuro algo nesse estilo fosse acontecer. “Um dia iremos desaparecer”, diz Caliban em “A Tempestade”, de Shakespeare (ou será Trinculo?), numa ilha dominada por Próspero e pela bruxa Sycorax. “Um dia iremos desaparecer e portanto vamos criar a música do lamento, do jazz ao blues, e vamos desfilar nossas fantasias ao som de trompetes bem altos pra que todos nos ouçam, nós, os NEGROS MISERÁVEIS do SUL!, com uma batida lenta dos tambores, assim como se faz num FUNERAL!!!”

Pensamento intuitivo e lógico! Mais lógico do que qualquer ciência pudesse prever. A resposta lenta do governo terá sido porque ela reflete a repugnância norte-americana por esses nichos de “outcasts”? A falta de manutenção dos diques terá sido por quê? Porque, mais cedo ou mais tarde, cidades como Nova Orleans já renderam o que tinham que render (ou seja, grande parte de seus jovens está lutando no Iraque, ou melhor, já morreu lá) e sua música se esgotou? Nova Orleans estava mesmo se tornando um “problema criminal”, assim como o Rio de Janeiro, com assaltos a turistas etc.? É, não há mesmo jeito de escapar de um paralelo dramatúrgico. Mas ainda não sei bem qual, já que ainda não há desfecho. Estamos em pleno primeiro ato.

Katrina foi uma mulher maldosa ou um espírito “voduísta” maldito que retornou para castigar a região do rio Mississippi. E como a desgraça ainda está em progresso e não se sabe aonde vai dar, não se pode compará-la a nada, absolutamente nada. Katrina é somente um espírito. Não se compara mesmo ao tsunami que arrastou Sri Lanka, Tailândia e Indonésia no ano passado para o buraco mais fundo da humanidade. Aqui estamos vivendo e presenciando um drama que ainda não terminou, sendo que o Presidente da República está, como sempre esteve, omisso, ausente, atrasado em seu estado de quase onipresença.

Acho que daqui a um ano poderemos fazer alguma coisa disso tudo. Minto. Hoje completamos quatro anos desde os ataques que derrubaram o World Trade Center, evento que vi da minha janela em Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Até hoje não sei o que fazer daquilo ou com aquilo. O mundo mudou de tal forma que o pensador ou o criador está com o mosaico destruído ainda. A iconoclastia e o desconstrutivismo do século 20 não deixou pedra sobre pedra. E, sem esses pilares -coisa de “fin-de-siècle”-, temos a autópsia da autópsia da autópsia de tudo. Estilhaços por todos os lados. Já declarei minha guerra contra esse tsunami cultural chamado “desconstrutivismo”: CHEGA! Quando nos colocarmos moralmente de pé -e bota uns bons dez anos nisso-, quem sabe olharemos para Nova Orleans com melancolia e colocaremos no iPod alguma coisa que lembre o jazz com alguma nostalgia, muita vergonha, e certamente muita raiva e tristeza.

Gerald Thomas é autor e diretor teatral

Memorable moments part (…..) 2017 edition (living in the age of Instagram :) semi nudity at age 63 ha!

This video captured 425 views in a day on Instagram. Semi nudity for a man…strange hey

This video captured 425 views in a day on Instagram. Semi nudity for a man…strange hey

Memorable moments in an ongoing career…..

THREE MOMENTS IN MY CAREER (Julian Beck, Fred Neuman and George Bartenieff – in my “Beckett Trilogy” (La MaMa ETC, 1985) – Philip Glass and I (longtime collaborator and friend, and a scene from “The Empire of Half Truths” (Fernanda Torres and Caca Ribero , 1992)

KIM BODNIA in my Danish production of CHIEF BUTTERKNIFE (Dr Dante Aveny, Copenhagen, 1996)

Bahamas, round 5 !

Fareed Zakaria’s fascinating’s take on Trump’s EMPTY rhetoric on just about everything + Racist events in Virginia

ZAKARIA: But first here’s “My Take.” How did we get here? Why does it appear that we’re on the brink of a war in Asia, one that could involve nuclear weapons?

North Korea has had nuclear weapons capacity for at least 10 years now. Have its recent advances been so dramatic and significant to force the United States to wage a preventive war?

No. The crisis we now find ourselves in has been exaggerated and mishandled by the Trump administration to a degree that is deeply worrying and dangerous. From the start, the White House has wanted to look tough on North Korea. In the early months of Trump’s presidency before there could possibly have been a serious policy review, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the era of strategic patience with North Korea was over.

Trump, of course, went much further this week.

TRUMP: “They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

ZAKARIA: Trump has made clear that the United States would respond to North Korean nuclear threats, rhetoric with a massive military strike possibly involving nuclear weapons.

Is this credible? No. The United States is not going to launch a preventive nuclear war in Asia. Empty threats and loose rhetoric only cheapen American prestige and power boxing in the administration for the future.

So why do it? Because it’s Trump’s basic mode of action. For his entire life, Donald Trump has made grandiose promises and ominous threats and never delivered on either. When he was in business, he frequently threatened to sue news organization, but the last time he apparently followed through was in 1984, over 30 years ago.

In his political life, he has followed the same strategy. In 2011 he claimed he had investigators who cannot believe what they’re finding about Barack Obama’s birth certificate and that he would soon be revealing some interesting things. He had nothing. 

During the campaign, he vowed that he would label China a currency manipulator, move the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, make Mexico pay for a border war, initiate an investigation into Hillary Clinton. So far nada. 

After being elected he signaled to China that he might recognize Taiwan. Within weeks of taking office, he folded.

When the United States watched a Stalin Soviet Union develop nuclear weapons, it was careful in its rhetoric. When it saw a far more threatening leader, Mao Zedong, pursuing nuclear weapons, it was even more cautious. Mao insisted he had no fear of nuclear war because China would still have more than enough survivors to defeat Western imperialists, and yet successive U.S. administrations kept their cool. The world is already living with a nuclear North Korea. It has for a decade. If that reality cannot be reversed through negotiations and diplomacy and sanctions, the task will be to develop a robust system of deterrence, the kind that kept the peace with Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China. Bluster from the president can increase the dangers of miscalculation.

“I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” said Rex Tillerson on Wednesday.

This was an unusual, perhaps unprecedented statement. The secretary of State seems to have been telling Americans and the world to ignore the rhetoric, not of the North Korean dictator but of his own boss, the president of the United States.

It is probably what Donald Trump’s associates have done for him all his life. 

_______________________________________________________________________

They know that the guiding mantra for Donald Trump has been not the art of the deal but the art of the bluff. 
_______________________________________________________________________

These racist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a Confederate monument. The events ended with a terrifying scene as a car drove into a crowd of counter protesters injuring many and killing one.

The president responded but disturbingly didn’t single out the racists, instead condemning, quote, “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides,” unquote.

Let’s bring in a panel. Melody Barnes was director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama. She is now a visiting professor at the University of Virginia. Rick Perlstein is a historian of American conservatism. Also a historian, Tim Naftali was director of the Nixon Presidential Library, and before that also taught at the University of Virginia.

Melody, let me ask you, how much of this is an eruption of something that has been simmering underneath? And I mean particularly simmering ever since the election of an African-American as president. And what did you to notice in the White House? What information were you getting about these kinds of movements and these kinds of currents in America?

MELODY BARNES, FORMER DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT OBAMA’S DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL: Well, first of all, Fareed, thank you so much for having me this morning. And I actually want to go back further than this past election or my time in the White House. And I would say to the nation and to your viewers that we can’t view what happened yesterday as a Charlottesville problem or a Virginia problem.

That this is the American problem, that the roots of what happened yesterday go back to the 1619, to the founding of our country. And we will not only do ourselves a great disservice, but we will inflict more harm on ourselves as a country if we don’t contextualize what happened yesterday in the roots of white supremacy and entitlement that led to a young woman being killed yesterday, but it is a scene that we have seen over and over and over in our country from — through slavery and through lynchings and through the civil rights movement that led us to yesterday.

And until we have a cold, hard, honest look at our American history and the DNA of America, we will not be able to deal with these issues. They were further inflamed, I believe, as people reacted and responded to President Obama’s election in 2008 and re-election in 2012 and certainly President Trump has created an enabling environment through his statements over the last many years. But this is a history that belongs to the ages.

ZAKARIA: Rick Perlstein, you have studied and written a lot about the right in America. Is it fair to say that this has always been to take the modern version of what Melody Barnes was talking about there has always been this undercurrent within some elements of the conservative movement or is that unfair?

RICK PERLSTEIN, HISTORIAN OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM: I think that’s very fair, and I endorse profoundly the substance of what Melody Barnes is saying. Think about this. What the people were marching in defense of in Charlottesville, Virginia, was a statute to a man who led troops into battle and treason against the United States in order defend slavery.

Starting in the early ’60s, when the Civil Rights Movement was basically challenging white supremacy with the power of people’s bodies and religious faith, that movement to basically celebrate the Confederacy enjoyed enormous resurgence in the early 1860s — 1960s. That’s when we began to see these statues being built and Confederate flags being waved.

And ever since then, that sort of lost-cause kind of wave the bloody shirt ideology and the ideology that whenever something goes wrong in your world you can blame a diabolical conspiracy, you know, this is kind of McCarthyism language. Then that’s where Donald Trump comes in. His willingness to kind of blame this diabolical conspiracy of liberal media, the establishment in both parties, jihadists, and all the rest.

[10:10:07] And this is the kind of rhetoric you see in right-wing media, both kind of the bottom-feeding media and Breitbart, but also in places like FOX News and the National Rifle Association, whose basically model is to terrify people to believe that America is on fire, that liberals are out to get you, that both parties are out to get you, that Donald Trump is out to protect you, and that you need to march through the streets with guns, which is exactly what happened in Charlottesville, in order to protect their family, in order to protect your identity.

And when we see Donald Trump saying something like the problem that is revealed in Charlottesville is that children can’t go out in front of their yards and play, this is a direct signal to the worst most corrosive white supremacists who by the way are calling their rally a rally to Unite the Right. They see this as a unifying issue.

So, yes, it’s great that Marco Rubio has denounced the president, it’s great that Ted Cruz has now denounced the president, but it would be great to hear Republicans who don’t have presidential ambitions against Donald Trump denounce the president.

ZAKARIA: Tim Naftali, the extraordinary thing here is how this has really come out, and as Rick Perlstein says, they’re being quite open and blatant about what it is they’re talking about. It used to be quieter, right?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It used to be. But I want to make a point about that statue, OK, because one of the problems we have in America is we don’t deal with our history very well. We have these moment where liberty expands and when a country undergoes real social change, and it’s at those moments that you get this reaction.

That statue is from the ’20s. They were for — I still live in Charlottesville. The four Confederate statues from ’20s, not from 1880. Why the ’20s? Because this was after World War I and there had been enormous social change in the United States. This is the time when you had the second coming of the KKK.

The 1960s we saw the return of the Stars and Bars. Why? Because of a fear among white supremacists that they were losing their country, and we’re getting it again. So the one thing to keep in mind is we have this cycle in this country of terrible reaction. And each time it’s a test of moral courage on the part of our leaders.

Senator Orrin Hatch is not running for president. He showed real courage. President Trump showed moral cowardice yesterday.

There are moments in our history when we need our president to stand up to the reaction and say that is not who we are.

In the 1960s, the Republican Party, and Rick knows more about this than I do, was better at policing the fringe — they called it the John Birch society — than they are today. They are not able to police the fringe. This fringe seems to be mainstream in the Republican Party. That’s the fear for the country. That’s the problem.

ZAKARIA: We will be back in a moment to talk about the big questions of the future. Where do we go from here? What is the way out of this deep polarization in America?
I’m wondering where you see this going forward? How does one begin to re-knit some of these kind of unraveling threads for America?

BARNES: I think that’s the important question of the day, and I would say there are at least three things that have to happen. First of all, yesterday President Trump said that we need to study what happened in Charlottesville. And yes, we have to understand for legal purposes what happened in Charlottesville yesterday, but we don’t need more studies, more commissions, or made-for-television conversations about race.  We know what has happened in this country and we have to have an honest contextualization, and understanding, fact-based of American history 1619 to 2017, and put what happened yesterday in context.  Secondly, we have to deconstruct issues around our economy and around our laws, and that deal with and perpetuate issues of inequity so that we can create opportunity for everyone, and that includes both people of color and Americans who are white, low-income white. Race has been used as a great wedge to divide insidiously and we have to, as you say, knit people back together. And finally, we also have to deal with issues of culture in America and American identity and broaden American identity so that we actually address the founding ideals of our country, breathe life into them, and make this a country for everyone who lives here and deconstruct the issue of — and the myth of American supremacy and entitlement that led to what happened yesterday.

What makes America great is also something that’s quite fragile. It is the American idea of individual rights and liberties, and we have to today go forward to protect that but also to breathe life into it.

ZAKARIA: Rick Perlstein, is there a way you think to get these groups to stop feeling so scared that their world is being overwhelmed? I mean, you know, because it does seem to me this comes from a kind of insecurity and paranoia that they’re —

PERLSTEIN: Right.

ZAKARIA: That they’re being overrun in a country in which, you know, still 75 percent white, dominated in almost every — you know, in every respect. I think of the Republicans who control the White House, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and almost two- thirds of the state legislature acting as if they are in some way kind of a besieged minority.

PERLSTEIN: Right. Well, there will always be an extremist reactionary fringe in America. You’re never going to get rid of that. What you need to do is disempower them.
And I’m afraid to say, you know, it’s fashionable to say we need to knit the country together by ratcheting down polarization, but I think prior to that we have to defeat the anti-American thugs who have taken over operational control of one of our one major political parties. So basically these people are kind of barking in the wilderness instead of being amplified by the president of the United States.

ZAKARIA: Tim Naftali, is this domestic terrorism?

NAFTALI: Absolutely. This is a defining moment for the Republican Party. Let’s talk about domestic terrorism. Let’s talk about our concern about foreign terrorism, ISIS, and domestic terrorism. Let’s not make it seem that we take one seriously as a problem and the other one we treat only as a law enforcement issue.

The FBI has a good record on going against the KKK. What we don’t have a good record of as a people is using our soft power, our rhetorical power to say that this is unacceptable to be a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi in America. It may be legal to express those repugnant views, but it is unacceptable.

It is time to ostracize those groups and also to use counter terrorism methods to penetrate them where it is clear they are considering the use of violence. By the way, I’m willing to say the same about antifa. If they’re going to consider violence, they should be penetrated, too, but right now the big problem is the alt-right.

ZAKARIA: Tim Naftali, Rick Perlstein, Melody Barnes, fascinating conversation. Thank you, all.

Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN (partial Transcript)

Um LINDO email da minha eterna Fernanda Montenegro !

Fareed Zakaria: A MUST ! A brilliant take on Trump !!!!

From the Washington Post

By Fareed Zakaria

Opinion writer August 10

How did we get here? Why does it appear that we’re on the brink of a war in Asia, one that could involve nuclear weapons? North Korea has had nuclear-weapons capacity for at least 10 years. Have its recent advances been so dramatic and significant to force the United States to wage a preventive war? No. The crisis we now find ourselves in has been exaggerated and mishandled by the Trump administration to a degree that is deeply worrying and dangerous.

From the start, the White House has wanted to look tough on North Korea. In the early months of President Trump’s administration, before there could possibly have been a serious policy review, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that the era of strategic patience with North Korea was over. Last week, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said that North Korea’s potential to hit the United States with nuclear weapons was an “intolerable” threat. Not North Korea’s use of weapons, mind you; just the potential.

Trump, of course, went furthest, saying Tuesday that if North Korea did not cease its threats, it would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” When pressed on Thursday, Trump doubled down, saying, “If anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough.” In other words, Trump has made clear that the United States would respond to North Korean threats with a massive military strike, possibly involving nuclear weapons.

Is this credible? No. The United States is not going to launch a preventive nuclear war in Asia. Trump’s comments have undoubtedly rattled Washington’s closest allies in the region, Japan and South Korea. Empty threats and loose rhetoric only cheapen American prestige and power, boxing in the administration.

So why do it? Because it’s Trump’s basic mode of action. For his entire life, Trump has made grandiose promises and ominous threats — and rarely delivered on any. When he was in business, Reuters found, he frequently threatened to sue news organizations for libel, but the last time he followed through was 33 years ago, in 1984. Trump says that he never settles cases out of court. In fact, he has settled at least 100 times, according to USA Today.

In his political life, he has followed the same strategy of bluster. In 2011, he said that he had investigators who “cannot believe what they’re finding” about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and that he would at some point “be revealing some interesting things.” He had nothing. During the campaign, he vowed that he would label China a currency manipulator, move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, make Mexico pay for a border wall and initiate an investigation into Hillary Clinton. So far, nada. After being elected, he signaled to China that he might recognize Taiwan. Within weeks of taking office, he folded. He implied that he had tapes of his conversations with then-FBI Director James B. Comey. Of course, he had none.

Even now, as he deals with a nuclear crisis, Trump has made claims that could be easily shown to be false. He tweeted that his first presidential order was to “modernize” the United States’ nuclear arsenal. In fact, he simply followed a congressional mandate to authorize a review of the arsenal, which hasn’t been completed yet. Does he think the North Koreans don’t know this?

When the United States watched as Stalin’s Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, it was careful in its rhetoric. When it saw a far more threatening leader, Mao Zedong, pursuing nuclear weapons, it was even more cautious. Mao insisted that he had no fear of a nuclear war because China would still have more than enough survivors to defeat Western imperialists. And yet, successive U.S. administrations kept their cool.

The world is already living with a nuclear North Korea. If that reality cannot be reversed through negotiations and diplomacy, the task will be to develop a robust system of deterrence, the kind that kept the peace with Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China. Bluster from the president can increase the dangers of miscalculation or cause a dangerous downward spiral of brinkmanship.

“I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Tillerson said on Wednesday. This was an unusual, perhaps even unprecedented statement. The secretary of state seems to have been telling Americans — and the world — to ignore the rhetoric, not of the North Korean dictator, but of his own boss, the president of the United States. It is probably what Trump’s associates have done for him all his life. They know that the guiding mantra for him has been not the art of the deal, but the art of the bluff.

F. Zakaria.

 

A POWERFUL MESSAGE FROM THE MAYOR OF CHARLOTTSVILLE, VIRGINIA

What we DON’T hear or read about the North Korea conflict:

 

What I read in most of the Western newspapers and view on almost all western TV News outlets is that ALL former presidents were a FAILURE regarding their dealings with the North Korean issues and those lunatic Ian Fleming  inspired enemies of James Bond, i.e. “that family” of lunatics and / or dictators who maintain their own population at starvation level and keep the worst concentration camps in HISTORY – for, what they believe, may be traitors.  

The current TWIT, Kim Jong Un, has just taken it a step further than his dad. HOWEVER, it isn’t STRANGE to notice that – as I write, on this August 11, 2017 – we seem to be on the BRINK of an imminent nuclear crisis with NK ? And who is the president in the WH???? !!!!  Donald Trump, no other !!!! Doesn’t it make you WONDER ???? Doesn’t make you wonder about duality, dualism and dialectics ? And cock fights ? Doesn’t it ?

So, why aren’t the New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, the BBC and so on, addressing THIS issue? Instead of having those endless panels debating that Obama, Bush and Clinton ALL were a ‘failure’? Of course! The threat level has NEVER come this close and Kim Jong Un has never been so enraged!

Food for thought, no? A war of words? Of Egos or …a war of hairdos or possibly even two dudes with tiny dicks having to take it out on HUGE MISSILES ! So damn PATHETIC. Trump, why don’t you invite your meme to a gay bar and make out with him? We’d all be spared a nuclear WAR, damn it.

We may all just disappear because of TWO LUNATICS.

Gerald Thomas

August 11, 2017 NYC

 

Texto maravilhoso de Guilherme Zelig !

Judas na Cruz

a André Gonçalves

Havia muito que não conseguia Auro impressionar ninguém com suas obras. Quando o fazia, refletia consigo mesmo por que estava a ouvir todos aqueles elogios. Perguntava-se a si mesmo se as pessoas – inclusive sua esposa e seu casal de gêmeos – entendiam o vazio e a tristeza que o motivavam a pintar aqueles quadros.

Costumava fazê-lo enquanto assistia aos filmes de Tarkovsky. Ou quando lia os livros de Gide. Ao iluminar-se com as poesias e manifestos de Breton. Sentia-se sempre inspirado ao vislumbrar os caóticos quadros de Pozzo. Sempre punha óperas cantadas por Bocelli ou tocadas por Rieu para concentrar-se com os pincéis em riste.

Auro não era um homem religioso. Tampouco acreditava ele em felicidade. As leituras de Comte-Sponville corroboravam sua visão materialista da existência terrena. Pensava ele ser aquele o papel da arte: transmitir apenas as emoções momentâneas e tentar representá-las da forma que se lhe tomassem forma.

Um dia acordou Auro de sonhos intranquilos. Precisou tomar um ansiolítico para diminuir a ansiedade. Sua esposa, professora, tardou a sair de casa aquela manhã. Precisava ele ficar sozinho, colocar a cabeça no lugar, dispersar a cabeça. O trabalho intelectual lhe estava a incomodar bastante.

Saiu de casa a deixar esposa e o casal gêmeos e pôs-se a caminhar sem rumo. Colocara as mãos dentro dos bolsos do capote, pois estava a morrer de frio naquela manhã. O sol aparecia, mas o vento gélido amenizava a temperatura. Auro dava passos no vazio, a tentar encontrar-se a si mesmo.

Parara defronte a uma igreja – que havia muito sua esposa quisera casar-se ali. Após a insistência de Auro para que apenas tivessem um compromisso civil e não religioso, Laura contentara-se com as explicações implausíveis do marido. Subira as escadarias da igreja, lentamente, e penetrara seus umbrais com certo sentimento de culpa.

Havia alguns fiéis a rezar. Ele aproximou-se o máximo possível do altar onde estava o Cristo e pôs-se a observá-lo. Não sabia orar ou coisas afins. Não sentia a energia que as demais pessoas conseguiam sentir. Apenas vislumbrava aquela tristes imagens a fim de inspirar-se para mais um quadro ou escultura que fosse.

De repente, vira o Cristo – que antes estava a fitar os céus com certo estertor – encarando-o com certa súplica, a dizer:

– Faça o Judas na cruz e toda a tua e sua culpas serão findadas – falou o Cristo, a voltar à sua posição de súplica com vislumbre aos céus.

Auro saiu não emocionado ou encantado com o que ouvira da santidade máxima do cristianismo, mas completamente assustado, estarrecido. Voltou à casa e havia ninguém: estava ele e sua própria existência e o que Jesus lhe havia murmurado havia quase uma hora. Dirigiu-se para seu ateliê e, a seu modo, fez uma pintura diferente de todas as que fizera anteriormente.

A exagerar em tons de vermelho e negro, a memorar as duras palavras de Malraux sobre como fazer arte e a estar embebido do sacro de Mantegna, ele viu sua obra ganhar forma por si mesma. Era a primeira vez que sentira sua própria subjetividade atingir a tela e conduzir os pincéis.

Certamente a figura que saíra não era a de um homem em uma cruz. Havia linhas e traços e curvas que bem definiam uma forma quase mística, um produto de uma ação que não lhe era natural. Ficara boquiaberto com o que fitara e intitulara Judas Crucificado.

Laura fora a primeira a vislumbrá-lo e havia muito que não observava um quadro de Auro por mais de dez minutos:

– O que aconteceu, querido? – disse ela de noite, a deixar o chá esfriar na caneca. – Está de tirar o fôlego!

Auro certamente não conseguiu explicar a ela o que se lhe ocorrera. Passar-se-ia por um louco se lhe contasse a mensagem que escutara naquela igreja e pior seria se lhe dissesse quem lhe havia inspirado a fazer tal obra.

O fato é que aquela foi a ascensão de Auro – que ele nem esperava. Fora processado por alguns católicos e membros de igrejas pentecostais que achavam agressivo o nome da obra sem ao menos entendê-la ou procurar vê-la. Uma galeria canadense oferecera uma nota preta pelo conjunto da obra de Auro.

Auro nunca mais voltou à igreja onde escutara o Cristo – seu ceticismo fizera-o crer que o que vira era projeção de sua mente artística.

Guilherme Zelig

São Paulo, August 9, 2017

The meeting of two geniuses: Ai Weiwei + Zé Celso (in São Paulo)

Vivalda Dula: WOW! (no words necessary !!!)

 

Poster for “DILUVIO” © Gerald Thomas NYC 2017

Sam Shepard and his relationship with La MaMa ETC. (since 1965)