Warning: soppy post. On language, on José Saramago, who makes me cry

There are three days I can safely say were the happiest days of my life. The day Saramago won the Nobel Prize of Literature was one of them. I remember I woke up and turned the TV on and there was news in every channel about Saramago. It wasn't clear to me he had actually won. I thought, 'leave the man alone, for Christ sake. He's been nominated for years, we already know he never wins, no need to rub it in!'. When I finallly realised that the reason why everybody couldn't stop talking about him was because he had actually won the Nobel, I felt immense gratitude and admiration. For me, Saramago receiving the Nobel was a victory for the Portuguese language itself and for all the other great Portuguese writers who turn their language into art with every book they write. I will always be thankful and happy for that.

I generally feel very detached from my country. I hate this feeling and I struggle every day to make myself feel connected to this land. However, I've always felt extremely close to the Portuguese language and I think I can safely say that the only Portuguese thing I truly love and would be sorry to live without is the language. It's a funny, sad, sweet, strange, strong language full of consonants and hardly any open vowels which sounds harsh, ugly, wrong (I'm told it sounds slavonic or russian or polish, so on and so forth) and it has just got this amazing strong personality that I simply love. I'm always amazed at how one can feel so detached from the country, but so close to the language. When Saramago won, I felt my language was winning as well, a language not many people speak, not many people know, not many people care about (not even Portuguese people themselves). But for those who do love Portuguese literature and language, the Nobel felt like a great victory.

This video shows Saramago crying after having seen a special screening of Blindness, the film based on his book, which was directed by Fernando Meirelles (the one from Cidade de Deus) and which is supposed to be quite bad, although I don't really care whether the film is good or bad, I'm still going to see it when it opens. Saramago tells Fernando he is as happy after having seen the movie as he was after he wrote the book, and that's when Fernando kisses him in the forehead, saying he is very happy Saramago feels that way.
José Saramago is old and soon he will become a memory. A strong memory - he won the Nobel, his books are already studied at school, he has already received his accolades - but a memory nevertheless. It is nice to know that, while he is still alive, people read his books and comment on his books and make movies out of his books. Ultimately, it is also a celebration of language, and that is really nice to know.

A man with a plan

This is a man with a plan, rest assured.
We all know Jamie Oliver as the celebrity chef with the cute lisp. But Jamie has a vision: some years ago he went against the system of unhealthy school dinners in Britain and has tried to turn it around. In a country that fed its children with bangers and mash and fried fish, Jamie decided to try to change that and make salad appealing to kids.

These days his crusade is to teach poor Northern English townies that survive on doner kebabs to cook. His experiment has been immortalized in this four episode documentary called ministry of food whose premise is simple: if Jamie teaches 8 people to cook, and each of them teaches two friends and each of them another two, then some time in the very foreseeable future the entire town will know how to cook. After a series of unfortunate events the documentary ends on a high note: Jamie organizes a food festival where the entire town joins in and councilors from other neighboring towns promise that they will support the ministry of food in their own towns.

The nicest part of this is that it reminds me that one person can make a difference. I've always believed that it shouldn't be the society that changes the individual, it is the individual that will change the society. Jamie O is an inspiring man: he believes in the power of the individual but he also has a very strong sense of community. He thinks that communities should be together, having common goals, people inside them helping each other out. And this is what his ministry of food is all about. Lonely people with no clear purpose in life, single mothers that had never cooked a meal before in their lives, coming together and finding a purpose, sharing a common goal and succeeding in it. Seeing these people on TV who say that they never thought they could do this, now teaching their friends to cook, is just amazing. People saying how this common cause has given a new meaning and changed their lives, is so touching. People should indeed never stop believing that something inspiring can come along and change things.

So, for Jamie people, pass it on!

Istanbul

Every morning I took the tram and the bus and was thinking what I will write here for this trip. Unfortunately it seems that I only have nice thoughts when I am not in front of a computer.

The story, therefore, will be told in pictures.



First day in the bazaar. I laugh and wish I could take everything I see with me.



The vue from the conference. The early morning with the beautiful light. The sea, ah the sea.



The 'blasphemy'. I loved seeing the arabic inscriptions from the Koran in Hagia Sophia. It looks as if this is a place where anyone could feel close to God.



The night is the same everywhere in Mediterranean: light and loud.



The old and new Istanbul.

I want to come back here soon.

Seeing double

I'm is Istanbul, blogging from me hotel room. When I took the taxi to come here, I thought I was seeing double: I thought I was in Athens! I know it is a tremendous cliché but it's true! We look the same, the greeks and the turks and our cities look the same. And they're in love with my name! It is Turkish so they always ask me if I am from here.

I'll write more about this beautiful city.
For the time being: long live the enemies of the state!

Why I love this country

After a day of pouring rain, it is almost ironic that I'm writing a post with this title, but this is Friday after all and this is the day that I get constantly reminded why I like where I live. It is the day of Jonathan Ross and Jools Holland and tonight the latter kicked ass. If you're not living in the UK, then perhaps you don't know the eccentric Jools with the über eclectic music taste. Tonight started slow, with Coldplay in the studio, who after a slow start played the song of the night: 42, singing...

Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living in my head
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well
Oh..

Time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more

Amazing lyrics, I think, ones that I haven't listened for so long.
And then the true hidden jems of the show step in, Sia and Amy LaVere. Listening to them reminds me why it's important to let yourself be impressed by stuff you've never listened to before. Comfort of the known is nice, but newness, well newness is what it's all about.





Very different performances, but oh so sincere...
So, well done UK, God save the Queen.

Impoliteness

I would like to propose a game to everyone who is interested (I hope that at least Lady V is): what are the funniest/nicest and rudest quotes from movies (or perhaps real life) we have ever heard? I thought of this game because I've always wondered how rude language can sometimes be so strangely interesting and cool (I do realise I'm sounding like an adolescent here. Alas, it's the truth).

Here are some pieces of impoliteness that I've always loved:

- You pathetic rebound fuck, now get your patchouli stink out of my store! Move it, lard ass, now! Dumb motherfucker.. - High Fidelity

- You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny? - Good Fellas, what a classic!

- I'm a mushroom-cloud-layin' motherfucker, motherfucker! Every time my fingers touch brain, I'm Superfly T.N.T., I'm the Guns of the Navarone! - Pulp Fiction

-Dios mio, man. You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger 'til it goes "click." - Big Lebowski (and while we're at it, nobody fucks with the Jesus)

And, if you allow me an ultimate piece of impoliteness, let me share with you a piece of advice that I've heard a Northern English girl say to another Northern English girl in a Northern English pub many years ago: 'I wouldn't shag him if I had your fanny'. Precious. This has made me laugh for at least ten years. Gotta love the English language.

Enough impoliteness for now, I have to go celebrate the day when my country became a Republic. If you want to share your impoliteness with me, though, my linguist soul thanks you in advance.

Labels

It is a universally admitted truth that labels are bad. And I don't just mean clothes that cost thousands and look silly. I mean labels we put on people. It is funny to think that language constraints the way we think: people are labeled as 'nice' or 'nasty', 'clever' or stupid' and more annoyingly the destructively 'sensitive' or 'strong', 'opinionated', 'feisty' and so on. There are two problems with these labels however.

The first one is that they are useless. Nobody is simply 'feisty' or 'shy'. People are multi-faceted beings with a bit of everything. Not to mention the fact that nobody knows one's true character unless put in a certain situation and been requested to adapt. Nobody knows what he or she is capable of, until they face a situation that makes them exceed their own limits. Also there are so many subtle characterizations that cannot fit one label. Being feisty is one thing but how do you call a person who is feisty most of the times but a true wimp in front of their parents? I have a trait that I don't know how to describe: when I am waiting for the bus to go to work, I get quite nervous if I don't know where I am going to sit. I then try to look inside the bus when I'm queueing next to it and find a seat in advance, so that when I get in I can march decisively towards that seat, without looking insecure or something. How do you call that? I guess one could argue that this is a instance of some other clearer trait of my character, but I don't think so.

The second problem has to do with the actual accuracy of these labels. It seems to me that most of them are superimposed on us by others and are almost always wrong. Once, when you're three, someone thinks you're shy and that label chases you around till you die. Actually, sometimes people actually behave according to these superimposed fake labels, they start believing them and consider them the best way to view themselves. They make decisions according to them, that are usually wrong and torment them for life and can perhaps never be reversed. And all of that because some idiot once made a comment about one's character...

I think people have to actively oppose this. People should be forced to reinvent and reinterpret themselves in a daily basis. Otherwise you run the risk of being a label freak, and nobody wants that!