3.xii.95

Guardian Angel, are you still there? Everything's so quiet now. Look, this is not what I want to do. I'm so much better at writing-composing my UNO. Maybe all that I've been writing seems dull to you, and it surely seems dull and fading away to me, since it is all in the past! But how can I get there? Of course, I've still got my UNO, and I've got you, it's just that I can't hear you now, although I know you're there. But I think I can guess what you are saying to me - if I make an effort and learn some more music, I'll be able to sing and then we'll be able to understand each other at a higher level and on a wider basis.

Keine Erinnerung der Dinge als abwesend. Keine Vergangenheit.

Oh, was that you, Guardian Angel?

Yes, I'm here. And I have a complete register of everything that happened in the world while you were writing your text - to prove it all true.

(Finha de Fuga - Flightline - Fluchtlinie. Projecto de filme-cantata a várias vozes)

Imagem: Paul Klee, Engel noch tastend

 

Alvorecer

Agosto de 1992

O pôr-do-sol tinha estado púrpura e a cor ficou longo tempo a confundir-se com o azul-negro da noite, iluminada pelo quarto crescente. Agora, às seis da manhã, um rosado intenso do lado norte precipitava-se no negro-verde das árvores. Por cima do rosa, muito gradualmente, aparecia um azul escuro que parecia querer clarear à medida que se misturava com a cor mais clara. Previam perto de quarenta graus centígrados - o dia ia estar muito quente e, mais uma vez, era outro dia. Durante algum tempo o rosado da noite parecia iluminar-se de um branco que não era já o da noite de luar. Quedou-se o rosa a fundir-se cada vez mais no azul claro acinzentado, enquanto o rosa suave continuava a crescer de por trás dos montes de verdes ainda muito escuros. Mais uns minutos - tudo isto parecia uma miniatura da vida, as coisas aconteciam por vezes num abrir e fechar de olhos - e o rosa tinha desaparecido por completo, para se transformar na luz-luz pura, sem cor, e nos pinhais havia pequenas nuvens de brumas brancas. Apaguei a luz eléctrica, já não era necessária, estava agora a mais. O dia estava a nascer.

Linha de Fuga, Projecto de filme-cantata a várias vozes

Ducts

Saber adquirido - Duct significa conduta, canal, tubo. Para mim, significa passagem. Como a ponte. Também como na música de jazz (terceira fase, B, em AABA). Como na banda sonora do filme Brazil, da autoria de Michael Kamen:

"Hi there! I want to talk to you about ducts. The old ducts seemed old-fashioned, out of date? Central Services's new duct designs are now available in hundreds of different colours to suit your individual taste. Hurry now while stocks last - your nearest Central Services's show - design the colours to suit your demanding taste."

In: Linha de Fuga - Flightline - Fluchtlinie. Projecto para filme-cantata a várias vozes (1996)

Berlin


(...)

The second strange feeling concerns time. Time is for us life-time and indeed the measure of all things, subjectively and objectively. We have time - what a terrible phrase! - it slips from one's fingers, it flies away and I have no power whatsoever against this. The lines on my face - who would ever be able to read them?

The third feeling concerns place: since I came here I totally lost the sense of where I belong. Coimbra had turned into a puzzle with no place for me, and Berlin is a fiction...

Under the circumstances, no wonder that little by little I began feeling outside time and space, lighter and higher as I went down, somehow everywhere, living light years from my aerial perspective as in Velázquez Las Meninas. They mean one almost feels the air as one steps into the painting; for me, it means the perspective of the outsider, the person who's got nothing left except the spectator's part, the situation of someone who is absent, distant, absent-minded - but perceiving movement more deeply, sensing development from the future's side.

Mein liebes Kind, Dein Brief ist sehr poetisch, aber ob wir auf der Zukunftseite sitzen, das bezweifle ich sehr.

Perhaps I should apologize for having written such a long letter; but today I'm not in the mood to be formal. And you know something? People usually think that wisdom comes from grief and sorrow - they are still to discover that happiness can be so much more mysterious and productive. It's happiness that really matters - and life that really is most important and urgent.

I wish you most of all what you most wish for yourself -

Linha de Fuga - Flightline - Fluchtlinie (1995-6)

Cont. do post de 6 de Dezembro de 2010

Imagem: Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas (1656). In: http://www.artchive.com/

Berlin

Maria, jetzt bist Du in Berlin, DDR. Du sitzt jetzt hinter dem eisernen Vorhang. Wie das alles passiert ist, weiß ich kaum. Nun sitzt Du da, aber als Du noch in Portugal warst, schien mir alles so verträumt.




Berlin, Dec. 5th, 1981

 

snow came at last dancing with the west wind a wild dance against my window. These days I have to stay at home and have no permission to speak (nor even whisper) or go out. I really can´t speak and the worst thing is that I can´t sing. I can only write. It seems to me that grey Berlin will soon be white with snow falling as on the first pages of Through the Looking-Glass. So I decided I would write you a letter.

 

I have been thinking how much my life has depended on letters in these last years, how many have probably been open by mistake, enfin combien de lettres portugaises j´ai adressé à l´étranger... It also seems a paradox that I should be needing communication so badly when I can express myself and communicate with people, sometimes even in a very peculiar and strange way - as if I were on the other side of the glass. I have been considering the strange circumstances that brought me here and make me live my solitude so deeply that sometimes I feel I have more in common with the wind and snow or with the sun and the stars than with my own fellowmen, although I do like people and enjoy their company. Sometimes I have the feeling I went so far and so fast towards the future, that noone can reach me where I am and that I write for people who "are not there yet" ("noch nicht da sind").

 

(a continuar)

 

In: Linha de Fuga - Flightline - Fluchtlinie, 1996

 

Fotografia de Luis Mariano Gonzáles, Noa al otro lado