L'archeologie du savoir #2

"but he is an intellectual too, who needs the stimulation of cities, imperfect though they are" .                       /Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity/

There is absurdity in stillness. Imperfect as I am, I can only exist amid clouds (moments) of urbanity and euphoria.

Viola da gamba

Improvisando as folies

Porque do insano se faz o nexo

de todas as manhãs do mundo.

/Toutes les matins du Monde - Improvisations sur les folies/

L'archeologie du savoir #1

Disce Doce

(learn & teach)

Further deep knowledge lies always ahead. 

Ah, Cecilia

Este disco é uma jóia que se ostenta em glória. 

(the whole package is luxury, o CD é objecto cultural detalhado, completo, que se escuta, lê e palpa. tudo é encenação, preparada para adoração de Maria Malibran, the public godess of Romanticism. 

Tudo é eco dos veludos sumptuosos dos teatros opráticos, drama trágico da existência de Maria Malibran, a jovem diva tornada mito, cantada pela magnífica Cecília Bartoli.

Cecília estará entre nós amanhã, na Gulbenkian. Malgré tout, não consegui bilhetes para a sala. Esgotadíssima.

Could it be otherwise?

- Cecilia Bartoli - Yo que soy contrabandista - Manuel Garcia - 

The Community of Democracies

The genius of democracy is based on one idea: 

every person counts.
- Madeleine Albright

The Community of Democracies was created in 2000 when 106 nations, meeting in Warsaw, committed to what would become the Warsaw Declaration. Signatary nations agreed to respect and uphold core democratic principles and practices including, among others, free and fair elections, freedom of speech and expression, equal access to education, rule of law, and freedom of peaceful assembly.

This Community has both a governmental component made up by government representatives, and a non-governmental component comprised of civil society organizations.

November 2007's Bamako meeting entrusted the Community of Democracies Chairmanship to Portugal, for a period of two years.

A unique opportunity to set an agenda for the democracies of Europe and the world!

Kalevala

The book cover is blue, not the oceanic blue, but that shimmery blue that surrounds coastal islands and gently meets mainland sandy shores.

I have said it to myself and others many times. Many seas I've seen, many cities I've visited, but nothing nears the uncomparable harmonious link between the Baltic and my Northern spiritual homecountry, Finland.

Finland's collective soul was revealed to me today in this book. It's Finland's epic poem, consisting of 22.795 verses. - KALEVALA     

And surprisingly, I have found the first Portuguese edition, with a Preface of Jorge Sampaio, UN's High Representative of the Alliance of Civilizations.

Finn Elias Lonnrot compiled it from the country's folklore and oral traditions in the 19th century. Romanticism gave it a special aura and helped cementing the conscious of a nation and the strenght of a unique identity.

I'm already driven by the poem's characters. E leio. E sou, na minha memória das ilhas, das praias, dos portos e da cor calma das águas, o velho herói Vainamoinen. Em contínua viagem.

 - Old Vainamoinem, singing and playing his harp. (Halonan, 1897) -