CHOVE. É dia de Natal.
Lá para o Norte é melhor:
Há a neve que faz mal.
E o frio que é ainda pior.
E toda a gente é contente
Porque é dia de o ficar.
Chove no Natal presente.
Antes isso que nevar.
Pois apesar de ser esse
O Natal da convenção,
Quando o corpo me arrefece
Tenho o frio e Natal não.
Deixo sentir a quem quadra
E o Natal a quem o fez,
Pois se escrevo ainda outra quadra
Fico gelado dos pés.
06 December 2010
11 December 2009
azur christmas
Nice is trying hard to have a winter. There are (real) pine trees everywhere, stands selling mulled wine in the Christmas market, an outdoor skating rink.But it's hard to imagine you are anywhere but the South of France with the palm trees and 17 degree weather.
(Or Abu Dhabi, you know, with that huge snowman they put outside Marina Mall, facing all the people on the beach at the Hiltonia?)
I just hope the fake snow doesn't melt before Christmas.
04 December 2009
torino
This is the most exquisitely expensive drink I have ever had the pleasure of spending money on.
It cost twice as much as dinner.
But, oh, was it worth it.
The waiter wore a bow tie. He poured the prosecco over the crushed strawberries with grace and submerged the stirrer in sparkling water before swirling it in my glass. Prego, signorina.
I can hardly believe a colour this rich -- not red, not pink -- doesn't have its own name. It deserves volumes of poetry. But rossini sounds right, with rosso and rosa echoing inside the affectionate diminutive.
The disarming beauty of this drink, of this elegant café, of the cascading cadences of this language, is why JE and I came to Turin. Our pictures from the weekend are a catalogue of beautiful food and drink. Fancy treats, like the Rossini, but also simpler ones, like this asparagus pizza at a rowdy focacceria.
Back in Nice, I leafed through that book by Elizabeth Gilbert that you've all read.
"There are so many manifestations of pleasure in Italy.... You have to kind of declare a pleasure major here, or you'll get overwhelmed. That being the case, I didn't get into fashion, or opera, or cinema, or fancy automobiles, or skiing in the Alps. I didn't even want to look at that much art.... I found that all I really wanted was to eat beautiful food and to speak as much beautiful Italian as possible. That was it. So I declared a double major, really -- in speaking and eating (with a concentration on gelato)."
A double major in speaking and eating, with a minor in fancy aperitivos? Sign me up.
It cost twice as much as dinner.
But, oh, was it worth it.
The waiter wore a bow tie. He poured the prosecco over the crushed strawberries with grace and submerged the stirrer in sparkling water before swirling it in my glass. Prego, signorina.
I can hardly believe a colour this rich -- not red, not pink -- doesn't have its own name. It deserves volumes of poetry. But rossini sounds right, with rosso and rosa echoing inside the affectionate diminutive.
The disarming beauty of this drink, of this elegant café, of the cascading cadences of this language, is why JE and I came to Turin. Our pictures from the weekend are a catalogue of beautiful food and drink. Fancy treats, like the Rossini, but also simpler ones, like this asparagus pizza at a rowdy focacceria.
Back in Nice, I leafed through that book by Elizabeth Gilbert that you've all read.
"There are so many manifestations of pleasure in Italy.... You have to kind of declare a pleasure major here, or you'll get overwhelmed. That being the case, I didn't get into fashion, or opera, or cinema, or fancy automobiles, or skiing in the Alps. I didn't even want to look at that much art.... I found that all I really wanted was to eat beautiful food and to speak as much beautiful Italian as possible. That was it. So I declared a double major, really -- in speaking and eating (with a concentration on gelato)."
A double major in speaking and eating, with a minor in fancy aperitivos? Sign me up.
23 November 2009
oh les beaux jours
I lean closer to A-A, who sits next to me.
The best thing about this class -- lips barely moving, eye on the prof -- is the view.
La seule, she whispers back.
Monday morning, third floor of building H, Campus Carlone, on a hill just west of downtown. The November sun is hot, the windows are thrown open. A line of traffic down the promenade, the port behind the hill, a lone sailboat on the water. The blue of the sky melting into the bluer of the water.
Frizzy-haired Mme B and her autopsy of Beckett's Happy Days can hardly compete. I don't have the stomach for literature classes anymore. The dissection of each once-living theatrical moment (word by word, image by image, symbol by symbol) just makes me queasy.
And so I float in and out of her stream of consciousness, in and out of the open window. It's breathtaking, à couper le souffle. She quotes Verlaine: Oh les beaux jours de bonheur indicible and I blink at the azur and I think, exactly.
The best thing about this class -- lips barely moving, eye on the prof -- is the view.
La seule, she whispers back.
Monday morning, third floor of building H, Campus Carlone, on a hill just west of downtown. The November sun is hot, the windows are thrown open. A line of traffic down the promenade, the port behind the hill, a lone sailboat on the water. The blue of the sky melting into the bluer of the water.
Frizzy-haired Mme B and her autopsy of Beckett's Happy Days can hardly compete. I don't have the stomach for literature classes anymore. The dissection of each once-living theatrical moment (word by word, image by image, symbol by symbol) just makes me queasy.
And so I float in and out of her stream of consciousness, in and out of the open window. It's breathtaking, à couper le souffle. She quotes Verlaine: Oh les beaux jours de bonheur indicible and I blink at the azur and I think, exactly.
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