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This post might be incredibly pretentious on my part, but I had an interesting epiphany recently. I remember awhile back I had written on Sofia’s Orkut scrapbook, for no reason other than having no reason, something that goes like this.

Pois bem, what to say of Sofia? If I were to set out to find the nine muses today, Sofia would be the present-day Terpsichore. And like a muse, she manages to inspire by her presence alone.

I started thinking about the whole concept of the muse–that of someone you admire not in the sense of the desire of posession, but in a sense of aspiration and inspiration. It’s incredibly hard to quantify it. There have been a few people along my wanderings who have actually fit that definition. Sofia’s one, and Erin’s another (Clio maybe?). This is by no means a sexual thing (sorry girls), as the very definition of a muse is someone who inspires but is not necessarily desired or attainable.

It’s hard to describe the purpose and sense of a Muse. It need not be a woman at all. It need only serve as motivation–a source of strength and inspiration in times of need. It can be as simple (and as fleeting) as going to a party, looking at a beautiful woman and feeling so inadequate that you thrust yourself to the gym the next morning in the hopes of being one step closer at having a chance of having a woman which you know is you won’t see again. It can be (as it happened to me) listening to a lecture by Joseph Stiglitz on globalization and being completely leveled by your arrogance in proclaiming you knew what it was, and rushing home to complete a marathon of reading materials in the futile hope of matching your knowledge to his. (Though I have to say, with all respect to Stiglitz, that in the matter of economists, Milton Friedman is still the sexiest.)

So in beginning my twentieth lap around the sun, I feel compelled to invoke my muses, and doing so by quoting from someone who made good use of them when he needed them:

O Muses, o high genious, aid me now!
O memory that noted what I saw,
Now shall your true nobility be seen!
–Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto II

ric

P.S. Gore Vidal wrote a brilliant essay on porn in the Greenfield-Sanders book. It got me thinking: what are porn star if not muses? Are they not a source of inspiration and pleasure, yet unattainable? Something to chew on for the road.

Dirty War – BBC One

I just watched this movie on HBO. It’s a BBC production which aired back in September. I really liked it. It depicts a “what if” of a dirty bomb explosion in downtown London. It’s meticulously researched, and it certainly spews the facts to back it up. The movie, however, surprised me in that it’s not a dramatic narrative. It reads like a docu-drama, really. The line blurs between the drama and the facts, almost as if the movie is just an indictement on our unpreparedness to face this kind of event. Now, mind you, this “blurring” isn’t like it’s reality TV– it’s a very cold-cut narrative, devoid of emotion, really. The scenes of the “crisis center” at Scotland Yard would make you thing that there was no crisis at all–no rapid dialogue, no hesitation in making decisions, etc (oh, so very British!)–the complete opposite of what you would expect if this was the US. To be honest, there was only one scene where I was actually tense (oh, but the tension that was!).

The Boston Globe picked up on the coincidence of the premiere of this movie in the US and the newly “discovered” allegations of a dirty bomb plot against Boston. It reaches back to some interesting questions in the movie about “need-to-know” information, since the Boston plot was quickly dismissed as being “unsubstantiated” and “shouldn’t have been reported” in the first place. (I will say one thing, though– It made me smirk that the tip came from a Mexican “mule” who helped the alleged terrorists cross the border. For some morbid reason I found that funny–and I don’t know why, really.)

The end of the movie, there is a pseudo-”tally” of the damage. Could you imagine the entire Government Center region of Boston, down to Boston Common, being emptied and closed off for 30 years? That’s approximately what a dirty bomb downtown would do. I honestly think (and many will take up arguments against this) that the financial damages to Boston’s economy alone would probably kill more people in the long run than the explosion itself.

Food for thought.

ric

Okay, I hate to beat the marketing drum again, but this one’s interesting (well, it’s a pretty picture anyways).

This image came from Quadstone, a marketing analytics program. Yes, it’s in true 3D–I’m able to spin it around with my mouse to change perspective. When I saw this I went beserk. Maybe it was the little geek in me, but I think this was the coolest thing. For somebody who has been sentenced to “death-by-Powerpoint” oh-so-many-times, this was quite refreshing. More than that, I really like the ease of use of this software.

This graph shows how likely is a customer to switch cellphone providers (“churn”), divided by demographics. The redder the box, the more likely the churn. There are a lot of other cool ways to splice and dice this, including a decision tree (my favorite). Anyways, this program took the fear out of my handling of statistics and conducting analytics.

ric

This an interesting exercise in Marketing which you should enjoy. Want to know who you are exactly to the marketing people? Curious about why you got invited to that Smirnoff launch party or to the new MFA expo? Perhaps you’re wondering why you’re getting mail offering discount shotgun ammo and leather-bound bibles?

The VALS system is used by us, the infamous marketeers, to figure out more or less what makes you tick, and how we can get a slice of your wallet. It takes 2 minutes and no personally-identifiable information stays with them.

You can take it here. Afterwards, post a comment with what you got. Oh, and a tip: If you get innovator, it might be because of your income level, so take your secondary type as a more firm indicator.

If anyone’s wondering, I got Innovator followed by Achiever.

ric

Como diria meu pai, “tracei” o livro do Arnaldo Jabor, “Amor é Prosa, Sexo é Poesia.” Li em 4 horas no avião (uma no voo OMA-ORD, outra no aeroporto e outras duas no ORD-BOS). O livro é super leve (não “beach reading” leve, mas sao vários contos/colunas, perfeito para aqueles com ADD) e bem colorido (não que ele tenha usado Caran D’Ache, mas as historias vão de autobiográficas passando por pseudo-autobiográficas até pseudo-autobigráficas não-autorizadas.)

É interessante ao ler o livro ver uma imagem bem pessoal do Jabor. Muitas vezes ele usa suas anédotas como uma artifício para provar uma tese, mas a maioria na verdade tem um cunho catártico. A historia, por exemplo, dele com seu avô, um “malandro original, de sapato bicolor e chapéu de palha” me detonou por dentro durante o vôo. Do outro lado, a historia sobre o padre casado que ele tirou do bolso quando ouviu D. Paulo Evaristo Arns responder que “celibato para padre deveria ser opcional” foi hilaria. É tambem legal ouvir as reflexoes dele sobre o comunismo na década de 60, e como isso evoluiu pra ele para quase que uma resignacao com o mundo (supreendemente sem amargor).

A Gabi está com a minha cópia do livro. Achei que ela gostaria. Se você decidir ou já leu o livro, sinta-se á vontade de escrever seus comentários abaixo.

“Todo dia ela faz tudo sempre igual
Me sacode as seis horas da manhã
Me sorri um sorriso pontual
E me beija com a boca de hortelã

Todo dia ela diz que é pra eu me cuidar
E essas coisas que diz toda mulher
Diz que está me esperando pro jantar
E me beija com a boca de café

Todo dia eu só penso em poder parar
Meio dia eu só penso em dizer não
Depois penso na vida pra levar
E me calo com a boca de feijão”

That’s the first thing that came into mind as I watched this movie. The Netflix description said “widely considered one of Bergman’s best”. It certainly goes a long way to belittle that description. The movie is phenomenal. While I’m sure some (Rafael, really) are destined to quibble in the difference between the Theatrical and the TV version (It was originally shot as a 6-part TV mini-series and then re-edited for the theater), the movie is nonetheless fantastic.

It deals with a couple with a seemingly perfect relationship, and an equally perfect routine. That routine leads to their undoing, though, amongst other things. The character evolution is second to none–so much so that Bergman makes no mystery of it, actually including reflections on this by the characters themselves. The story, divided in episodes over many years, is also very well developed, with different aspects of the relationship being appropriately explored over different time periods (Which gradually increase from weeks to months to years). It’s also interesting to see Swedish culture at play, where the different cultural norms and stereotypes are portrayed almost unwittingly (the frigid wife, the cold man).

This movie touched home with me over the addictive nature of love, and the sheer withdrawal syndrome it causes–It strips us of self-respect and makes us recalcitrant in every way. It was interesting because after the movie was done it didn’t make me pensive and reflect over my past like most movies do, but rather it just made me savour the silent credits and just realize that this is archetypal. This is what was interesting about the aftertaste of this movie–it kept me focused on the story at hand, and not the greater issue, which doesn’t require an explanation. It also makes for an interesting analysis of the American counterparts to these movies, which almost always preach the issue, when not outright patronizing the viewer.

Go. Watch it. If possible, with your significant other. Not a date movie, but definitely a relationship one.

ric

And we’re off.

As the office leaves for FKOM in Miami, I’ll retreat to Omaha for the week.

Traditionally for these trips I list my books du jour which I aim to devour. I’m making this a “technical” trip. I want to learn a few different computer skillsets this week: MySQL, Python and ColdFusion. I’m obviously not going to be an expert by the end of the week, but always the proverbial “If I look at code I know what I’m looking at”.

Sounds boring? Maybe. I always had the “creator” bug. Not in the painting sense, but in the builder sense. I like to see things that I built grow and serve a purpose. I’m the kid who grew beanstalks on his porch to watch them grow.

ric

To all, my best wishes for a happy 2005.

“Apesar de você, amanhã há de ser um outro dia.” –Chico Buarque

ric