Breaking news: London calling. Gordon Brown will resign: 50 is a number stronger than 300: the anti Darwinism has finally arrived: more on Monday

GREECE is in LONDON (British Museum)

BREAKING NEWS

12:15 PM ET

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Will Resign as Labour Party Leader By September

“When 50 is a stronger number than 300”

Saint Ives, Cornwall: Rocks that don’t roll, Tristan und Isolde, “my vote counts”, “press the hash key, UK – press the pound key – US”, if Britain were to press the pound key, the City would make billions!”  Hash!

Greece is in shambles, in shreds, in tatters, but if you go to the British Museum, you’d see part of the Greek ruins still there where Sofocles played as a child!”. Athens is burning! Atenas ligadas!!!!! Antenna.

“WHEAL DREAMS”

“That time, that last time, were the ruins still there where you played as a child…..When was that?” (Samuel Beckett). It’s amazing. But not many people know who he is! “When was that”. I’m looking at the Scilly Isles and, far away, the coast of Ireland, where Beckett was born and where the ruins are where he played as a child. “When was that?”

Have you heard of “Waiting for Godot”, I ask.

“no, not really”, he answers looking at me with small wide open 20 year old eyes.

“Never heard of Endgame, Godot, etc?”

“no, never”.

Hmmmm.

“In the National Interest, it’s best to move forward”. Not my words. These are Alastair Campbell’s words. This is our man. Blair’s man. Blair’s conspiracy man. The man who is capable of forging words, forging documents and the man who (ultimately) took the UK into Iraq. I can imagine an Alastair as he would be perceived by Andy Warhol. Imagine all the Campbells, all the Elvises and all the Maos and Monroes together in stark pink and yellow. That’s my man! Star Spangled Banner! Rauschenberg has always been a HOAX. Not Jasper Johns but Robert Rauschenberg. Castelli needed a few and made them up as they came along.

I’m writing from Saint Ives, Cornwall where King Mark no longer reigns and where Tristan, Isolde, Kurwenal and Brangaene fought for their lives, love and revenge. Brazil’s emperor, Don Pedro, gave Wagner the idea: and the most incredibly beautiful opera was born. This is where I walk along its very very incredibly very narrow alleyways and look at the ocean, from the corner of my shy eyes:  “The Boat, The Boat (Das Shiff, Das Shiff) ”, as if it where the delirious last scene of a Richard Wagner opera which ends with the transcending of love and death: his Liebestod. Our lovedeath. Our deathlove.

And looking at the low tide with its boats almost capsized, resting its sides on the sands and on its sides as if a collapsed government, I realize that math has played a huge trick on us: Fifty is stronger than 300. Clegg has managed to become a pop star! Wow!

Everyone wants to go to bed with him: he holds THE power, in spite of the small representation he has. Make sense? Does it?

This proportional vote here in the UK must change. And so must the American system of electing officials who form the electoral college, change. I mean, CHANGE!!!!!

D-Day early morning: Great day. Clegg, Cameron and Brown are seen in a “presidential or prime ministerial manner” standing behind the Prince of Wales , Charles.

UNLOCK DEMOCRACY

Yes, we can.

REFORM THE ELCTORAL SYSTEM

Yes, we can.

Harrods has been sold.

Another Fayed is dead.

I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

Terror: London Calling.

Doomed by ASH clouds whether up here in the North. Or down below, in the Gulf of Mexico.

SHAME.

No we can’t!

Gerald Thomas

9 May 2010

some rocks don't roll

FOOTNOTE: Again a reminder: my TWITTER name is
geraldthomas1 (with the number 1 following my name, as you could easily notice)

any other – especially those badmouthing Brazil – is NOT me!

Em Por-au-Gois:

Mais um lembrete: no twitter eu sou

geraldthomas1 (NUMERO 1 atras)

qualquer outro – especilamente um IMBECIL que so fala mal do Brasil, nao sou eu.

MINE HAS MY PHOTO. MY IDENTITY and leads to my blog.
O MEU TEM A MINHA FOTO, MINHA IDENTIDADE, e tem ligação com meu blog

FYI- For Your Information: my ass!

Life is not measured by the amount of times you breathe but by the amount of times that they take your breath away. (George Carlin)

A vida não é medida pela quantidade de vezes que respiramos, mas pelos momentos que nos tiram a respiração.

Claudio Diet (http://www.blog-filho.blogspot.com/) pays an enormous tribute to my (past) work.

the mooning incident in 2003

It’s really moving to see the flashes and crashes of a collage

of things that I’ve written and staged. I’m in a bit of a shock.

That was an FYI (For Your Information, For Your Improvement or For Your Ignorance), or for your eyes only.

In England, Gordon Brown calls a country woman a “bigot”

Here’s the tape:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/28/gordon-brown-penitent-bigot-gaffe-campaign

Poor Brown. All colors are rather shadowy in this forthcoming election. Labour’s election campaign was in disarray yesterday after the “Prime Minister on hold” was forced to apologize to a pensioner and lifelong party supporter whom he had described as “a bigoted woman” for questioning him over the scale of immigration from eastern Europe.

In the US, after days of resistance, Senate Republicans – “Fyied” – agreed to let Democrats open debate on a bill to regulate the financial system. “Senate Republicans”!!!! I’ve always wondered what goes on in their heads. They advocate for a republic. Strange, whereas the Democrats advocate for a democracy. If we live in a limbo, neither, either of the two, which would be the party that truly represents this system???? Arizonism? AriZonaism? Arizo-zionism? Of do we live in an eternal FYI? Hmm.

The photo posted above  has been circulating around the world. It appeared in the New York Times as well as in the Guardian and all other European and Asian publications. Yes, my ass. My arse. My mule. It now seems part of History.

“Which History?”, you might ask. The history of Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Theater: the so called, Rio Opera House. It’s a majestic building and it was projected  by Emperor Don Pedro in the 1800 + something. Oh yes, Don Pedro went all the way to see Richard Wagner, in Bayreuth. And his mission was to com-mission a new opera: based on love, the impossible love: Tristan and Isolde.

Yes, Wagner’s Tristan was paid for with Brazilian money. Strange, you might say. But this is a fact. Brazil, in fact, owns the rights to one of the famous operas ever composed (Wagner ended up opening the piece himself, both in Dresden and in Munich because Brazil was too slow to build its theater). Brazil is slow. That hasn’t changed.

So, I was booed. But this was not the reason why I mooned the audience.

Who might have been sitting in that vast audience? The theater sits 2.500

But you could swear that there must have been over 3.000 people there, on that cold August day, the day when Haroldo de Campos died.

I was in a state of rage. I was in a state of complete let down. His death to me was almost like a personal let down to me. I was left in a state of abandonment. I was left in a state of ZERO percent.

The richest one percent, an imaginary figure. One percent is imperceptible to the human eye, ear, all of our senses. The richest people of this country own half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. This is a strange thought.

One third of that comes from hard work. Is there work which isn’t hard?

Yes, there’s easy work. There certainly is that. But what is it? Please, someone tell me what that would be.

Two thirds of the richest people come from inheritance, interest on interest, and interesting interest on interesting interest. That, if you add the percentage that goes to accumulating to widows and idiotic sons, turns out to be a Mount Sinai of sins and signs.

The news, on TV, printed press or the internet, must – absolutely must, be BAD news: war, no peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip, or clipping the oil clip.

FYI

Quantos construíram um vocabulário teatral?

How many artists have actually built a theatrical vocabulary?

Quantos sequer “pensaram” sua arte?

How many have actually thought art in a philosophical or existential manner?

Estamos sendo traídos pelo sistema: talvez seja hora de pararmos de nos acusar uns aos outros e pensarmos na CENA de ORIGEM. Sim, aquela que os filósofos invocam quando têm de enfrentar a GRANDE CRISE, ou melhor,  GRANDE ARTE, ou seja: a morte!

We’ve been betrayed by our systems. All systems. Who knows, perhaps or maybe or somehow….a word that hasn’t actually been coined or scorned yet will make us think of the genesis of things. All things. I mean, apart from the FYI’s, we should rethink art as the GREATEST form Of ART itself. Not as a fearful act of expression, but as an act of eternal transgression.

And that’s a huge question.

I’ll leave it up to Hamlet to solve.

Gerald Thomas

29 April 2010

Isle-landic repetitions: hostages without a cause

The shortest way (sometimes) seems as if it’s the longest.

An oig rig burning out of control in the Gulf of Mexico sank Thursday morning, with 11 workers still missing and the authorities fearing a potential environmental disaster. What are we to make of such things? A few days ago, if I remember a-right, a ship was sinking off the coast of Australia, leaking hundreds of millions of thousands of dozens of tens of billions  of crude oil. Oil. And oil. Oil oil oil. And “our growing dependency on FOREIGN oil” is on the mouth of every president, prime minister, minister, ter or just on every publicly elected  mouth. Mouth. Monmouth.

Yes, we’ve been witnessing disasters like never before. Since the catastrophe in Haiti, so many others followed that …That what?  What? Yes, and Iceland holding us all as hostages without a cause….Strange days. And there is greed. Oh yes, the greed. Not ending, never bending, never minding, always on the foreheads and the forefronts  of our delicious capitalism. So, after the Detroit automotive industry and a daring Health Care plan, Obama now goes to Wall Street and takes on the money guys.

Pushing an overhaul plan for financial regulation on Thursday, president Obama said, “Unless your business model depends on bilking people, there is little to fear from these new rules.” Meaning, “work with us, not against US”.

Speaking in the bankers’ backyard inManhattan (what is a banker’s backyard? What does it grow? Alan Greenspan trees?), Mr. Obama castigated a “failure of responsibility” by Wall Street that led to the financial crisis of 2008, and he pressed his case for what he called “a common-sense, reasonable, non-ideological” system of tighter regulation to prevent any recurrence. He took issue with the claim that his proposal would institutionalize the idea of future bailouts of huge banks. Let me repeat this: “institutionalize the idea of future bailouts of huge banks”. I wonder what all this really means.

Oh yes, the banker’s backyard and the “natural” disasters that have rocked Haiti, Chile, China…the unnatural disasters that make us smaller and smaller by the day, by the hour: the ash cloud pending over our heads for a week here in Europe: a cloud of ash and TEN straight days of pure (I mean pure) sunshine in London. Not a drop of rain. Just police activity, but not a drop of rain.

As I actually write this, the 3 candidates are debating (in Bristol), on British Television. The very 1^st televized debate here in the UK. It took the Brits 40 years to repeat or to imitate the US pattern of a Presidential debate: now they’re talking about whether or not to get “closer” to the European Union, or stay away from the Brussel sprouts.

What do the 3 have in common?: President Obama.  Obama has become the number ONE reference for the British candidates. It’s amazing, if not funny, how “the buck stops here” (G. Brown) or “guys, you (Cameron) are either anti European or anti American. Again, Gordon Brown’s words against the constant rhetoric dribbling out of Cameron’s mouth: CHANGE ! CHANGE! . Yes, the “Obama era” is here and it’s staying.

Nick Clegg and the 2 others are good performers. There’s something America can certainly learn. American candidates do not perform well. No education. McCain’s morose speeches were based on GOP cheering and nothing else. Oh yes, there was the POW drill, always: “I was tortured in Vietnam and so on….”. Does past torture a good president make?

But here in the British isles there are no women competing. No women since Thatcher. No women since Queen Victoria. Queen Elizabeth…well, Queen Elizabeth. What can one say? Nothing. That she picked a fight with Annie Leibovitz and???

The level of discussion or, say, the argument is far more intelligent here in England. That is a given fact.

“Walk the walk and talk the talk.”

As I was sketching out a column, along with the withdrawal symptoms of the (serious) Topamax effects, I began to write what the candidates then actually said: “Walk the walk and talk the talk.” I don’t walk. I do indeed (seriously now)… talk.

So, please forgive me for any….Well, it’s the lack of Topamax in my system. I’m not on any ‘legal high’ , believe me. Just the wonderful cup of coffee (blended with ice, a sort of coffee shake), from Patisserie Valerie.

Tell me, for real: do we need Jim Cameron  (who makes the biggest fortune with his mediocre films)….do we need him to teach Brazilians just because he spent some days (or maybe more, who cares?), amongst a tribe of Brazilian Indians? How does it sound when a film director  takes on the “save the rain forest” campaign and tells the world what Lula is doing wrong or right?

Everything (or maybe nothing) seems more surreal than a withdrawal.

Zweig. Zweig means twig, branch.

Twig. Stephan Zweig committed suicide.

Branches and twigs, however, is what Beckett meant when he planted a tree in the middle of the set for Didi or Estragon to hang themselves in “Waiting for Godot”.

We have become disaster watchers. Oil.

Change. We have become witnesses to television crews being embedded in tanks in some mountain in Pakistan or something. We’re passive when film directors tell us “what is” and “what isn’t” (remember? Titanic sank!) and when Labour, Tory or Liberal Democrats copy a system which is, as I write, being dismantled. While America is deconstructing its system, Britain is trying to build a version of America (not aversion). An isle-landic version of what America once was. Oh, the colonoscopy! Oh, the colonies!

Is Kafka having a ball? Well, if not, then he should. Is Orwell turning in his grave? Huxley? Are they all meeting silently with Stephan Zweig and talking about the dry tree? The last tree? The last tree on earth?

Sad, very sad update: bombings kill hundreds in Iraq. Why are we there? oh yes, Oil.

Gerald Thomas

London 23 April 2010

Michelle Obama, a nova "royalty" em Londres.

.

As Duas Famílias Reais na mesma Inglaterra

G20 (à distância, de New York): Michelle Obama está se tornando uma espécie de replacement (linda, inteligentérrima e elegante que é) de Lady Diana. Ontem, em Londres, o que se viu foi uma família REAL cumprimentando a outra família REAL. E os tablóides que não cobriam a porradaria na “City” (Bank, etc), comparavam ela à Jackie Kennedy, ou à nova princesa, cuja morte em Paris até hoje é envolvida em mistério.

Confesso uma coisa: não, não confesso nada. Uma convenção enorme dessas não passa de um show. O que importa lá são os pequenos encontros. O “tete a tete”. O resto é a chamada “photo-opportunity”. Não muito diferente do teatro. São aquelas fotos que a gente tira ou que tiram da gente para publicidade: nada mais constrangedor do que foto posada. “A Po(u)sada das Fotos”. Poderia haver uma po(u)sada dessas. Ninguém iria alugar um quarto lá.

Aliás, o mau teatro tem vários quartos na “Po(u)sada das Fotos”. Político não é bom ator. Alguns foram bons e tinham assinatura: Churchill, por exemplo. Outros foram os maiores canastrões da História: Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Pol Pot, etc. Por acaso, canastrão mata, trucida, tortura e tem prazer em ver a morte lenta. O melhor político de todos: Chaplin.

O Presidente Obama, ainda ontem, pediu para que os líderes mundiais focassem numa solução (falando sobre o colapso financeiro), em vez de ficarem apontando dedos ou tentando culpar esse ou aquele (Bush, Reagan, Clinton ou seja lá quem for). “É o sistema em si que está podre, os bancos deveriam nos proteger”, dizia Brown. Ora, Gordonzinho! O sistema é TODO ele baseado em ESPECULAÇÃO, darling, haven’t they told you that? Proteger? Sério?  Investimento é para proteger ou para satisfazer a “ganância daqueles que JOGAM?”

Um dia antes da chegada de Obama, Brown dizia isso. Depois desembarcou Michelle Obama e o Reino Unido se calou, os queixos caíram e Brown (ainda atordoado com os olhos azuis de Lula) desconversou diante de Obama. É, o discurso era completamente outro. Quase um Rei Claudius diante de um Polonius. Já não sei mais quem está tentando abafar as mentirinhas de quem! “UM MERCADO CONSUMIDOR FAMINTO”, falava Obama, dizendo que provavelmente não se voltaria a isso tão cedo. Confesso que… Confesso que nada! Nada.

Na verdade o pau quebrou. O G20 ainda nem havia começado (ontem) e a “Obamatrona” já estava a mil por hora. Era encontro com presidente da China, Hu Jintao, e o da Rússia (estamos em plena guerra fria de novo, negociando ‘redução de armamentos nucleares com os russos’, ai que preguiça!). Ah, sim, claro: o fatídico encontro com a minha queridíssima (bored to death) Queen Elizabeth, a rainha em Buckingham Palace. Mais entrevista coletiva, e uma caralhada de… UFA! Mas quem trinfou mesmo foi a Michelle. Só se falava nela na cidade. Só dava Michelle Obama! VIVA!

E os “street fighting men” (uma adaptação coletiva da música dos Stones mais linda que existe) tentando ser contidos pela riot police no distrito financeiro (ha, ha, o William Burdett Coutts e uma filial do Royal Bank of Scotland aos pedaços!). Uma parte da cidade em pompa e circunstância e a outra às pedradas. Ah, a minha Londres que amo! Tudo começa num clima pacifista.Fantasias carnavalescas e tal, até que um, um único joga um sapato e PUM. Vem todos para cima e a coisa explode. Meio bêbados na melhor tradição do hooliganismo ou do punk rock, o pau quebra, o sangue rola, a pedra rola e estão todos stoned!

Vamos fazer um breve exercício de memória: parem por um segundo: foram os bancos e os especuladores que causaram essa porra desse meltdown em primeiro lugar. Foram empréstimos acima da conta, dinheiro de plástico, passos mais largos que as pernas podiam dar… usando, como instrumento colateral, um instrumento complexo como… ah, deixa isso para os colunistas econômicos! Eu sou mais econômico que eles!

Não tem que ter nada de G20, porra nenhuma! Esqueçam essa besteira. Daqui a pouco cresce para G43 ou G59. Não tem a menor graça. Os grandes especuladores estão certos: agora está na mãos de 2: USA e CHINA.

Então, gente fina: é G2 !

E o resto volta para casa em classe econômica e bebe suco de uva de canudinho.

Enquanto isso, amo ver a Michelle dando banhos de elegância por onde passa! LINDA! LINDA!

Bem, hoje é dia de palestra de Zé Celso e eu no TheaterLab (ler post abaixo, por favor)

M.E.R.D.A. para nós.

E G2 para o mundo, gente intrusa! Deixe o Obama conversando com o Hu Jintao. O resto poderia ir alugar quartos na “Pousada da Foto Posada”.

 

Gerald Thomas

 

 

(Vamp na edição)