About Me

Friday, April 13, 2012

the soundtrack of contemporary life



Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma & Pa
Not the way that I do love you

Holy moley, me-oh-my, you're the apple of my eye
Girl, I’ve never loved one like you

Man, oh man, you’re my best friend,
I scream it to the nothingness
There ain’t nothin’ that I need

Well, hot & heavy, pumpkin pie,
chocolate candy, Jesus Christ
There ain’t nothin’ pleases me more than you

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you (2x)

La la la la, take me Home
Baby, I’m coming Home

I’ll follow you into the park,
through the jungle, through the dark
Girl, I’ve never loved one like you

Moats & boats & waterfalls,
alley ways & pay phone calls
I’ve been everywhere with you

That’s true

We laugh until we think we’ll die,
barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you

And in the streets we're running
free like it's only you and me
Geez, you’re somethin' to see.

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you (2x)

La la la la, take me Home
Baby, I’m coming Home

“Jade?”
“Alexander?”
“Do you remember that day you fell out of my window?”
“I sure do, you came jumping out after me.”
“Well, you fell on the concrete
and nearly broke your ass
and you were bleeding all over the place
and I rushed you off to the hospital.
Do you remember that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, there’s something
I never told you about that night.”
“What didn’t you tell me?”
“While you were sitting in the back seat
smoking a cigarette you thought
was going to be your last,
I was falling deep, deeply in love with you
and I never told you ‘til just now.”
“Now I know.”

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is whenever I’m with you
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is when I’m alone with you

Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you

Ahh, Home
Yes, I am Home
Home is when I’m alone with you.

Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma & Pa
Moats & boats & waterfalls & pay phone calls

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is when I’m alone with you

Home, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

life lessons that are priceless – obsession

«Waking or sleeping, I dream of boats – usually of rather small boats under a slight press of sail. When I think how great a part of my life has been spent dreaming the hours away and how much of this total dream life has concerned small craft, I wonder about the state of my health, for I am told that it is not a good sign to be always voyaging into unreality, driven by imaginary breezes.

[But] If a man must be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.»



“The Sea and the Wind that Blows”, in Essays of E. B. White, Elwyn Brooks White

life on the hill – a potted history

In the beginning was the View.

Towards the south, there’s Eugaria on the left, Colares on the right and, smack in front, seemingly the whole mountain. From the top of the hill, the sea on the western horizon, Palácio da Pena on the eastern, and glimpses of houses here and there, like jewells on the greenery.


The real-estate agent showed it to us more or less in desperation, after we had successively turned our noses up at her complete portfolio of apparently more desirable plots in the pine forest at the bottom of the hill. «I suppose there’s another one I can show you», she finally huffed. «Up there …» – Dismissively, probably hoping to get rid of us and to return to more lucrative clients.

And she brought us to the Hill.

At first we didn't understand it, kept waiting for the catch – to be shown some dank spot behind a wall, for instance, or a bog on the northern slope with no view and no sun exposure. But she waved her arm and said “This is it”.

“It” was a long, narrow strip of land straddling the hill north to south. And we couldn’t believe it.




It was what we’d been looking for all along. An unimpeded view. Size enough (just under the proverbial “acre of land”) to plant trees, of which there were very few. Isolation enough to give one the illusion of being in the country.

That there was a small run-down vineyard only added to the charm (the road at the northern edge is Alto das Vinhas – Vineyard Heights –, and indeed there remain a few here and there in neighbouring plots).

The catch would come. But at that moment, for the moment, our cup was full. That was in 1999.