Five Days in London

Attractors (4)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:13:09 +0000

Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet (1888-1935), is one of the greatest names of the European Modernism. He wrote under many different names, each one corresponding to a different persona: the heteronyms (i.e. thoroughly conceived, aesthetically and psychologically, different persons). Pessoa even wrote the biography of his main heteronyms and, being an amateur astrologer, he draw the complex astral charts of some of them, according to the imagined place, date and time of their births. For instance, Alvaro de Campos was a Ship Engineer who lived for a while in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. Pessoa had a close relation with the British culture. His step-father was consul in Durban, South Africa, and Pessoa lived there from an early age until he was seventeen. One of his less know heteronyms, Alexandre Search, wrote exclusively in English.

Leaning almost upon thy breast
I heard thy heart’s life – made unrest…

And thy heart’s beating has a sound
That reminds me of aught I heard long ago,
Long before this life, but what
I do not know, I do not know…
‘Twas something going round and round
Something of terrible and of strange
That even now doth shake my soul.
I strive to remember – I fail, I fail
The unmemoried memory doth shake my soul.
‘Twas something terrible and strange,
Going round and going round,
And it had a sound like thy heart’s beat…
The memory hangs on my soul’s darkness
But notion from my mind doth fleet.
I remember but this: it went round and round
And now thy heart hath such a sound.

Alexandre Search, HEART‑MUSIC

[An online archive of Pessoa's work can be found here. If you can't read Portuguese you can still find his English poems under the archive's number 7]

Nocturnes (2)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Sat, 01 May 2010 03:42:16 +0000

For those born in the 60′s or 70′s, chances are that Chopin has had a bad press. Too popular, too melodious, everything but the acknowledgement of Chopin’s marvellous complexity. Time, that mighty sculptor, has now perhaps corrected that unfortunate, ill-formed perception. Or has it? Here is a good test:

Chopin, Nocturne Op.9, N.2, by Arthur Rubinstein

Attractors (3)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:07:25 +0000

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

W. Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge

* * *

In one morning of the beginning of the XIX century, William Wordsworth travelled with his sister Dorothy, from London to Calais. It was still very early when they crossed Westminster Bridge. The early morning sight of the city and the river touched them deeply. Dorothy was a wonderful writer, and the following entry can be found in her diaries [Journal July 31, 1802]:

“It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul’s, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light; that there was something like the purity of one of nature’s own grand spectacles.”

Wordsworth didn’t particularly like cities. He found them too dirty, complex and dangerous. Nevertheless he wrote a marvellous sonet about that moment, when the powerful and dangerous heart of London is still asleep.

I like to think that in the early morning of today’s London one can still have a very similar experience.

[I wrote the content of this post some years ago and it was then published in the blog Abrupto - in Portuguese]

Attractors (2)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:36:17 +0000

The art of painting by Balthus. White Skirt, 1937. The amorality of sight.

Attractors (1)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:59:29 +0000

(…)
At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Excerpt from T.S.Eliot, The Four Quartets, 1: Burnt Norton (II)

Nocturnes (1)

Fernando Almeida e Costa — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:16:29 +0000

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street-
corner; I have outlived the night.
Nights are proud waves; darkblue topheavy waves
laden with all the hues of deep spoil, laden with
things unlikely and desirable.
Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals,
of things half given away, half withheld,
of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act
that way, I tell you.

Excerpt of Borges, J.L. Two English Poems I

Brian Eno’s Music For Airports