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Acabei de ouvir esse disco, que é uma colaboração de dois caras que eu curto pacas: Ney Matogrosso e Pedro Luís e a Parede. O disco não é nada menos que fantástico. O “suingue” notório do PLAP se junta com a voz do Ney em interpretar alguns clássicos do samba (Disritimia de Martinho da Vila, A Ordem É Samba do Jackson do Pandeiro, etc) além de alguns originais. Eu sempre gostei da colaboração desses dois, especialmente em “Miséria no Japão”, um single que o Ney cantou e o Pedro Luís compôs.

O disco tem uma ginga bem característica do PLAP–é um pouco manguebeat, mas mais pesado na percussão e menos elétrico (se bem que em alguma músicas, como “Inspiração”, tem acordes elétricos muito evidentes). Também tem algumas influências típicas do Ney Matogrosso, como saxofone em “Disritmia”, que eu pessoalmente acho uma aberração que me lembra de Kenny G, mas a música ainda é fantástica. Em compensação a voz do Ney Matogrosso ainda é incomparável.

Agora a música que me fez sentir muito, mas muito saudade da década de 90 foi “O Mundo”, uma das minhas músicas favoritas do extinto Karnak escrita pelo André Abujamra. É uma versão legal, não tão boa quanto a versão tributo feita pelo Lenine com Paulinho Mosca, etc, mas ainda bem interpretada por Ney e PLAP.

Vale muito apena esse CD, muito mais que o CD solo do PLAP, “Ordem e Pregresso”.

ric

My goal for this weekend is to finish reading this:

I got it a full month before it was on Amazon (don’t ask) and yet I still haven’t finished it–this time I can actually say I haven’t had time with a (semi-)straight face.

What’s all the hoopla about?

“…in the space of less than a decade, we converted the weapon that a patent represents from something like a handgun or a pocket knife into a bazooka, and then started handing out the bazookas to pretty much anyone who asked for one, despite the legal tests of novelty and non-obviousness. The result has been a dangerous and expensive arms race, which now undermines rather than fosters the crucial process of technological innovation.”

Non-legalese version of it? We’re issuing patents such as “method for swinging on a swing” and “Method of exercising a cat” and finally, “sealed crustless sandwich”, which amounts for a patent for a PB&J sandwich. So next time you taste that gooey deliciousness of a PB&J sandwich, just remember you might be owing some money to Smucker’s

In my insatiable quest for high-tech yet useless things, I stumbled upon Keyhole. This is a company Google bought which has a satellite map of the entire globe (and Mars too!). It’s pretty well-defined, especially in urban areas (IE: satellite mapping resolution tends to be higher in places where people would pay more to have said resolution.). It’s pretty recent too, as many of you will be quick to notice the Graded titties below.

For those who are not familiar with them, they’re the engineering blunder of our High School, where, in an attempt to fashionably re-do our snack bar area into a performance+snack bar area, they hired the people who did Rock in Rio and their famous tittied tent buildings to build a pair of our own, seen above. Unfortunately, the titty ripped a few times, requiring open-chest surgery and mending. Also, they built it without covering a great part of the seating space in front of the stage.

::groan::

And that’s how it started. I felt like I was watching “The Transporter” again, with Leo, Bira and everyone else, laughing our asses off making jokes at the asinine lines and cheesy dramatic pauses.

Well, this was no different. Only this time it was with Rafael and Marcos. I couldn’t help myself.

“I want to be free… like the wind”
I let out a groan without thinking… it was just a reflex… After that I was gone…

“I can’t, there’s a man who’s saved my life many times”
“Jesus?” quipped Marcos

I lost it there… I know people were laughing during the love scenes (the best indicator of the high manure content of the film), but I couldn’t help myself.

This is the movie made for Mystery Science Theater 3000, with long dramatic pauses and “impact” dialogue… If you’re not watching it at home with friends who have an incisive sense of humor, don’t bother.

ric

Uma que me matou da coluna mais recente do Jabor:

“O que faz o amor tão inquietante é o medo da rejeição, da perda do objeto ou, mais simplesmente, da dor-de-corno.Eu já sofri monumentais dores-de-corno e elas me ensinaram muito. Acho mesmo que o homem só vira homem quando recebe chifres didáticos”

Já dizia meu pai qual é o orgão pedagógico do ser humano…

Texto completo da coluna

This one’s in Portuguese. Feel free to Fish it

Acabei de ver o Arnaldo Jabor na Globo falando com o Jô. Eu estava babando desde ontem por antecipação quando vi a chamada. Eu adoro esse cara. Ele é o cara que eu olho e, com 19 (quase 20) anos na cara, ainda tenho coragem de falar “Quando eu crescer, quero ser que nem ele”. Tá certo que o homem é um renaissance man mesmo–cineasta, escritor, palpiteiro residente e (convenhamos) um bon vivant cultural.

Eu sinto que ele ainda não passou tempo suficiente nos EUA pra “respirar” a essência disso aqui– Achei interessante a troca entre o Jô, que citava Gore Vidal, e o Jabor, que citava vivência. O Jabor tinha mais ou menos aquele respingo do anti-colonialismo dos 60, o que não o permitia ver todos os pontos de vista (especialmente quando se tratava da política americana).

Agora, quem não gostaria de dividir seu tempo entre uma cobertura no Rio e um apê em Manhattan, com sua única profissão sendo digerir e regurgitar cultura? Para cada Jabor, existem dezenas de Adrianes Galisteu e Luanas Piovani (que também tentaram o “correspondente cultural Rio/NY”)–E eu realmente acho que eu não consigo ser gostoso o suficiente pra compensar a falta de intelecto.

Mas em geral eu realmente me senti inspirado. Eu estava sentado no sofá pensando como eu adoraria acrescentar algo à discussão. Não que eu jamais vá virar palpiteiro residente ou correspondente internacional (eu deixo isso pra você, tá Fê?).

Seria uma profissão ideal. Infelizmente eu sempre fui muito egoísta com cultura, onde eu absorvo o máximo possível, mas sempre fui incapaz de retribuir alguma coisa de qualidade. De qualquer forma, ao final desse tortuoso post, eu sinto que eu vou ter que realmente terminar a trilogia do Élio Gaspari para poder recuperar meu português e ser capaz de escrever algo em português sem vergona dos meus erros banais de sintaxe…

ric

Interesting conversation yesterday with Erin about the English language.

Today, coincidentally, I took my INT310 paper (“Should LEGO move manufacturing to India?”) to the writing center at Bentley. I’ve never been the kind of person to go to writing centers (never visited Mr. Michell at Graded)–not because I’m confident in my writing (far from it) but rather because I’m, truth be told, lazy.

It was an interesting experience today, due in great part to my “tutor”, which not only proved to have jewel-blue eyes, but also be pretty damn smart. My command of grammar is practical, and not theoretical (IE: I can figure out what’s wrong with my modifiers without actually knowing what a modifier is), but she proved to be very knowing and just solidly smart. She said she couldn’t improve my content, which scared me–I remembered Johnson saying he couldn’t improve my college essay and being torn between taking the compliment and taking the hint.

Despite that, it was a pleasant experience. Not the reviewing, of course… But to actually get a kick out of having a conversation with someone who didn’t interject their sentences with “like” every 5 words. Like, not that I don’t do it myself, but it sure is refreshing….

ric

I woke up today at 5:30AM (don’t ask) and checked out what was in my DVR. I started watching a documentary called “The Color of Oil” which aired on the Discovery-Times Channel (probably the best channel on TV nowadays–think The Present History Channel). It talked about British Petroleum, which rebranded and renamed itself to “BP”, adopting the slogan “Beyond Petroleum”. They’ve imposed voluntary emission-reduction targets on themselves as well as “investing” on alternative energies. The documentary posed an interesting question:

Is BP really green or has it just been greenwashed? (more…)

On December 3rd, 1904, the Jovian moon “Himalia” was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory in San Jose, California. Due to the extraordinary significance of this event and its centennial anniversary, we all felt compelled to celebrate.

And for the movies:

The Muppet Dance

You tell me…

I wait for Mini.

I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I can’t. On the way back from the consulate (passport renewal et al), something odd happened. Maybe it was just going through BU, but the sights were amazing… Brown-eyed and green-eyed alike, I tell you… Something’s coming up and I’m feeling funny about it…

I’ll post later on my new Lovemark, but I have to say that I’m anxiously looking forward to Mini’s “post-purchase” (or “gestational”) marketing until it gets here (Mid to late February, I’m told). BMW has the highest consumer loyalty rate of its class. We’ll see if it works for the satellite brands.

Excuse me while I widen my “sorrisinho no canto da boca”, as Fê would say, with a tuna steak sandwich at Harry’s.