Friendly Floatees

Em 29 de janeiro 1992, um barco Chinês que transportava brinquedos de plástico perdeu parte de sua carga no oceano. 29.000 patos, tartarugas e sapos de plástico chamados "Friendly Floatees" (Amigos Flutuantes), cairam assim na água e ficaram à deriva. Mais tarde as trajectórias aleatórios dos brinquedos ajudaram os cientistas Ebbesmeyer e Ingraham a desenhar as correntes da superfície do mar.

Diz a Wikipaedia:

 "Os oceanógrafos Curtis Ebbesmeyer e James Ingraham de Seattle, que trabalhavam no modelo de correntes superficiais oceânicas começaram a acompanhar o seu movimento. A libertação casual de 28.800 mil objectos no oceano num determinado momento ofereceu vantagens significativas relativamente ao método padrão de libertar 500-1000 garrafas à deriva.

   (...) A primeira descoberta consistiu em dez brinquedos encontrados perto de Sitka, no Alasca em 16 de novembro de 1992, cerca de 3.200 quilómetros do seu ponto de partida.

     (...) Em 28 de Novembro foram descobertos mais vinte brinquedos e, no total, 400 foram encontrados ao longo da costa oriental do Golfo do Alasca até Agosto de 1993.  As visualizações e recuperações foram processadas pelo computador de Ingraham utilizando medições da pressão atmosférica a partir de 1967 para calcular a direção e a velocidade do vento sobre os oceanos, assim como as correntes de superfície resultantes.

     (...) O modelo Ingraham foi projetado para ajudar a indústria da pesca, mas também é usado para prever os movimentos dos destroços ou as prováveis localizações de quem está perdido no mar.

     (...) Entre Julho e Dezembro de 2003, "The First Years Inc" ofereceu 100 dólares como recompensa a pessoas que recuperassem brinquedos em Nova Inglaterra, Canadá ou na Islândia.

     Em 2004, foram recuperados mais brinquedos do que em qualquer um dos três anos anteriores. No entanto, prevê-se que muitos desses brinquedos terão sido empurrados para Leste passando pela Groenlândia e vindo dar à costa sudoeste do Reino Unido."

"Queimados pelo sol e pela água do mar, os patos e os castores foram aclareando mas as tartarugas e as rãs mantiveram as suas cores originais. Escreveram-se livros infantis sobre patos, e os brinquedos tornaram-se itens de colecção, alcançando preços tão altos como US $1.000.   Foram também objecto de uma campanha publicitária da empresa espanhola, Seat." 

Michael Biberstein

Pequenos excertos de uma conversa entre Michael Biberstein, Fernando Calhau e Delfim Sardo: Paint in Black, 1995

"MB: Eu tenho algumas esperanças em relação à minha pintura, que as pessoas parem durante, digamos, dois minutos. A maior parte das pessoas quando olha para a arte é como se fizesse zapping com o comando da televisão. Se eu conseguir que uma pessoa pare diante de uma pintura minha por um... ou dois... minutos... tirá-la desta pressa... já ficaria diferente."

"MB: ... a questão não é captar a atenção do espectador, é fazê-lo parar, torná-lo mais lento. Eu gostava que as minhas pinturas arrefecessem as pessoas por um segundo. Isso seria um bom efeito lateral da minha pintura. Penso que este é um dos papéis da arte em geral, talvez ainda mais que da música. Um dos seus principais papéis sociológicos: dar um momento de descontracção à mente, ao cérebro. Esse é o papel da arte hoje, para substituir alguma coisa que se perdeu no nosso discurso lógico."

Do meu lado podes ficar contente Mike porque eu, não só paro em frente das tuas pinturas como como entro dentro delas e me deixo ir. A tua pintura transmite-me uma sensação de imensidão, serenidade e paz de espírito, viajo nelas e revejo-me, nas tuas paisagem e atmosferas, na tua sensibilidade plástica. Admiro-te imensamente por quem foste, pela tua amizade, o teu saber, abertura de espírito, raciocínio, simplicidade e intensidade de valores. Thanks por me teres ensinado a olhar e a questionar! 

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Conteúdo da conversa

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

Publico este texto escrito pela escritora Kasey Edwards que achei fantástico e que todas as mulheres e mães deveriam ler!!

Espero que a Kasey não se importe que eu publique o seu texto aqui!

Originally appeared on The Daily Life. 

Dear Mom,
I was 7 when I discovered that you were fat, ugly, and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful—in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I’d pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I’d be big enough to wear it; when I’d be like you.
But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ‘‘Look at you, so thin, beautiful, and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly, and horrible.’’
At first I didn’t understand what you meant.
‘‘You’re not fat,’’ I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, ‘‘Yes I am, darling. I’ve always been fat; even as a child.’’
In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:
1. You must be fat because mothers don’t lie.
2. Fat is ugly and horrible.
3. When I grow up I’ll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly, and horrible too.
Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure, and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself.
With every grimace at your reflection in the mirror, every new wonder diet that was going to change your life, and every guilty spoon of ‘‘Oh-I-really-shouldn’t,’’ I learned that women must be thin to be valid and worthy. Girls must go without because their greatest contribution to the world is their physical beauty.
Just like you, I have spent my whole life feeling fat. When did fat become a feeling anyway? And because I believed I was fat, I knew I was no good.
But now that I am older, and a mother myself, I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves.
Look at the example Nanna set for you. Despite being what could only be described as famine-victim chic, she dieted every day of her life until the day she died at 79 years of age. She used to put on makeup to walk to the mailbox for fear that somebody might see her unpainted face.
I remember her ‘‘compassionate’’ response when you announced that Dad had left you for another woman. Her first comment was, ‘‘I don’t understand why he’d leave you. You look after yourself, you wear lipstick. You’re overweight, but not that much.’’
Before Dad left, he provided no balm for your body-image torment either.
‘‘Jesus, Jan,’’ I overheard him say to you. ‘‘It’s not that hard. Energy in versus energy out. If you want to lose weight you just have to eat less.’’
That night at dinner I watched you implement Dad’s ‘‘Energy In, Energy Out: Jesus, Jan, Just Eat Less’’ weight-loss cure. You served up chow mein for dinner. Everyone else’s food was on a dinner plate except yours. You served your chow mein on a tiny bread-and-butter plate.
As you sat in front of that pathetic scoop of mince, silent tears streamed down your face. I said nothing. Not even when your shoulders started heaving from your distress. We all ate our dinner in silence. Nobody comforted you. Nobody told you to stop being ridiculous and get a proper plate. Nobody told you that you were already loved and already good enough. Your achievements and your worth—as a teacher of children with special needs and a devoted mother of three of your own—paled into insignificance when compared with the centimeters you couldn’t lose from your waist.
It broke my heart to witness your despair and I’m sorry that I didn’t rush to your defense. I’d already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I’d even heard Dad describe losing weight as a ‘‘simple’’ process—yet one that you still couldn’t come to grips with. The lesson: You didn’t deserve any food and you certainly didn’t deserve any sympathy.
But I was wrong, Mom. Now I understand what it’s like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalizing these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is more cruel to us than we are to ourselves.
But this madness has to stop, Mom. It stops with you, it stops with me, and it stops now. We deserve better—better than to have our days brought to ruin by bad body thoughts, wishing we were otherwise.
And it’s not just about you and me anymore. It’s also about Violet. Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence, and her potential. I don’t want Violet to believe that her beauty is her most important asset; that it will define her worth in the world. When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can be. We need to show her with our words and our actions that women are good enough just the way they are. And for her to believe us, we need to believe it ourselves.
The older we get, the more loved ones we lose to accidents and illness. Their passing is always tragic and far too soon. I sometimes think about what these friends—and the people who love them—wouldn’t give for more time in a body that was healthy. A body that would allow them to live just a little longer. The size of that body’s thighs or the lines on its face wouldn’t matter. It would be alive and therefore it would be perfect.
Your body is perfect too. It allows you to disarm a room with your smile and infect everyone with your laugh. It gives you arms to wrap around Violet and squeeze her until she giggles. Every moment we spend worrying about our physical ‘‘flaws’’ is a moment wasted, a precious slice of life that we will never get back.
Let us honor and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty, and wisdom. I saw my Mom.
Love, Kasey xx

Kasey Edwards is a writer based in Australia and author of 30-Something And Over It.

The city of London in 1926

London in 1927

from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.

Incredible colour footage of 1926 London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving.

Music by Jonquil and Yann Tiersen.

Estoril Region - One place thousand sensations