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quinta-feira, 28 de março de 2024
quarta-feira, 27 de março de 2024
Documentary: Nic Young's The Real Noah's Ark (2013)
In 1948, while serving in the Middle East, a British RAF pilot picked up a clay tablet covered in mysterious writing. He brought it home as an intriguing memento, and it sat collecting dust on his mantelpiece for decades. When he died , his son brought it to an expert at the British Museum. The tablet was 3700 years old, and was a detailed instruction manual for building a huge boat to survive a flood - a boat like that recorded in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian tale that inspired the story of Noah's Ark during the Jewish exile in Babylon. This was no ordinary boat. Modeled on harbor freight shuttles used for nearly 4,000 years, it was circular in shape, made of reeds and bitumen, and designed to carry heavy freight, including large numbers of animals. Working with leading boat builders, historians, and archaeologists of the period, a team sets out to visit ancient Sumer and the ruins of Uruk, where Gilgamesh was King in what is now southern Iraq, then on to India to build a replica of the original Noah's Ark.
terça-feira, 26 de março de 2024
E se de um lamento nascer outro fim
que não o do mundo? Um homem daqui
para além – sem bússola no pulso, relógio
como forca, tempo e areia e crime
contra si mesmo, livre
de pecado, o fruto possível –
poderá arrastar-se pela carne viva
do sentido único? Se,
encolhendo os ombros,
os continentes se afogarem em
lava e promessa, debaixo
da pele
(gelada; cadáver),
acima
do espírito, nuvem de
anjos em queda e copos partidos,
vida (alheia) em estilhaços –
será a topografia da fome uma
nota de rodapé nos almanaques?
Se um caminho se fizer casa e não-lugar
de descanso, poderá (de hoje para
daqui a nada) um batimento cardíaco
sobrepor-se ao eco finito da gratidão, da
completude, da palavra inconclusiva e
dependente? Guardo no bolso do casaco
uma mão-cheia de receios pelo bem-estar
dos outros que me olham daquela
margem, não sabem o que lhes reservo
no domínio da desatenção,
do abandono que me faz companhia
nos anos bissextos e às
quintas-feiras, um selo de lacre colado
a cuspo nas paredes do estômago
e no céu da boca. E se amanhã acordar
depois de almoço, preso num bocejo
imaterial? Se levar a mão direita à gaveta,
decidir fechá-la, gritar aos vizinhos
de cima,
decifrar-lhes
os ideogramas chineses,
a tapeçaria do beijo,
a evolução das espécies,
o Último Teorema de Fermat,
a passividade dos zelotas,
a síntese do glicogénio
e o sabor dos figos?
E se não conhecermos nada para
além das nervuras de uma folha
prostrada no pára-brisas do carro
que nos irá atropelar quando
descermos
a última das avenidas?
FILIPE HOMEM FONSECA
(inédito)
segunda-feira, 25 de março de 2024
Documentary: Chema Ramos's Queen of Hearts (2022)
The name Larissa Swirski (Odessa,1910 - Sevilla,1977), is little known, as is that of so many women who have played crucial parts in history. However, this young aristocrat - related to the Romanov family and settled in the province of Cadiz - played a key part in the web of espionage that was woven in Gibraltar during the Second World War and which was christened Spy Row by MI5. Initially as a spy for the Nazis and later, as she became aware of the genocide taking place, as a counter intelligence agent for the Allies, this glamorous female, who spoke 6 languages, was the inspiration for Ian Fleming to create the first Bond-girl in the film Casino Royale. Married to a military officer, a friend of General Francisco Franco's younger brother, Larissa obtained a pass issued by Eleuterio Sánchez Rubio, a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish government's 'Straits of Gibraltar Information Service', to cross into Gibraltar. There, she carried out numerous reconnaissance missions, accompanied at times by her daughter Liana. Although a mother and her daughter tended not to raise suspicion, on more than one occasion, she was almost discovered. Liana - now aged 88 - helps us to get to know Larissa and to give her the place in history that she rightly merits.