Lagoa Escura, Serra da Estrela

On the highest mountain in Portugal, Serra da Estrela, there´s this natural pond, Lagoa Escura. According to some ancient legends, there´s an underground connection between this pond and the sea (some 200Km away...) This strange legends is mentioned by Herman Melville in that seminal american novel, Moby Dick, as you can see in the photo bellow (in a portuguese translation; in english books the quote must also be around page 223...)

On July 27 I made the hard walk to Lagoa Escura with some friends, and I even took a swim there. Before entering the water I told my friends that in case I wolud disapere, they should go and look for me in the beaches of Figueira da Foz or Nazaré... But I did not disapere, and everything turn up alright.

George Saunders´ PASTORALIA

The short stories in this book are excelent!! Portraits of contemporary America with disfunctional families, the poverty and the competitive imoral work relations, the violence, all served with a great sense of humor that reminds me of Buñuel. The optimists ("Man, what an optometrist," says Jade.) and good and well intended characters sound even more funny and absurd than the mean and desperate ones. On July 7, due to friendship and fate (thank you Resa *****, Alina, Jeff, Iosip, Scott...) I was in a private party, in Lisbon, also attended by George Saunders and other great writers and poets. I had never found myself in the company of so much litterary talent before. I had heard Mr. Saunders read one of his short stories a couple of days before, but I didn´t understand much of it, due to his accent and the many english words I didn´t know ( specific references to popular American culture, tv programs, local characters and brands, etc.) Resa told me he is excelent, stellar, with many stories published in the New Yorker. I already ordered too other of his books from Amazon. His dialogues are amazing, especialy those long parts, more like monologues, imagined or real, with fine irony or sudden changes of opinion. The first time I read something similar was in a small text by Woody Allen; a man feels atracted to some pretty nurse; he starts by praising her beauty, charm, personality, selfishness, etc, but, feeling ignored by her, just two lines below he starts doubting her qualities, suspecting she may even be so stupid she couldn´t find anything more interesting to do than being a nurse... One must know a lot about all shapes and forms of human nature to describe such complex characters with few lines, like Mr. Saunders does.

Down by the river

Today I cut and sanded these two pices of wood. Each has four profiles of my face (with and without glasses). I just don´t have any idea as to what to paint in them, right now. I´ll just wait for inspiration.

Hermann Hesse

I bought this portrait of Hermann Hesse (one of my favourit writers) painted by Akira Beard. I admire Akira´s craft, his loose but precise paint stokes applied with the easyness and precision of a zen master. In my late teens I read most of Hermann Hesse´s books: Narcissus and Goldmund, The Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Peter Camenzind, The Glass Bead Game, Demian, Journey to the East, as well as most of his short stories and essays.

Akira Beard

I received in the mail these drawings by Akira Beard, an amazing artist and an excelent person. Thank you very much Mr. Akira!

Oporto artwalk June 2012