The Vineyards

It was a warm early evening in Athens - about 6h PM, local time. We were hungry, so we followed upstairs into a nice little restaurant. Very cozy, had a familiar feeling to it. The owner, a pretty lady in her mid-thirties, greeted us in Greek and in a broken English. She looked a bit tired, but happy. Her husband came from the kitchen to greet us as well, said he always liked to be visited by foreigners. Very friendly couple.

The house was higher than most buildings nearby, and the terrain was inclined. Because of that, we could see the sea from the window by which was our table. I picked the menu and browsed through the names in Greek, following them by the English translation by their side. It was fun decyphering the Greek characters. I love Greek and Russian (Cyrillic, that is) mainly because of the different characters.

Among the very pleasant patrons who formed the group I was a part of, there was a friend proud of his Greek origin, with whom I always wanted to have a certain conversation. He pointed to a name in my menu. "This is the true Greek Salad, much better than whatever you ate back home that was called Greek Salad. This will even beat your favorite Caesar Salad." So that is what I ordered, curious about his certainty. Then I chuckled at the problem with the lamb, the order of the pretty lady who sat across the table from me. "Ternero!", the owner insisted, in Italian. "Lamb!?", she asked. They were saying the very same thing, yet could not comprehend each other. The friend of Greek origin intervened and solved the problem.

My salad arrived, I waited for the other dishes to follow before eating. Then I asked the friend of Greek origin that which I had wanted to ask for a very long time: "Why are you a communist?". I must say he is the only person I know is very smart who claims to be a communist. I was always very curious about that. The lady across the table giggled at the question and made a small disapproving motion with her head, but more in the sense of "You are impossible!" than anything more serious.

The friend of Greek origin was surprised by the question, but found it funny. "No one ever asked me that." "No worries, I will not try to change your mind. I am truly just curious." I looked out the window again, noticed how the color of the sea matched the eyes of the lady across the table - at least for that moment. She noticed me looking and smiled. It marvelled me it was still so sunny outside in spite of the time. It also marvelled me that we were eating so early - I always refuse to eat early.

So he started. "You see, I believe..."

Then the bell rang. Twice. And twice more. And I heard clapping. And the bell rang again. And more clapping. And calling, "Hey, at home! Hey!" More ringing, more clapping, more calling.

Athens crumbled, the Mediterranean vaporized, the Greek Salad turned to ashes, the pleasant company vanished. All that was left was my pillow, the clock, and the ringing, the clapping, the calling.

"Package from Reader's Digest to..."

"Yeah, yeah. Hand it over, let me sign.", said a very sleepy and ultimately angry me.

I will never forgive Reader's Digest.

---

What a very silent day.

No, that needs rephrasing.

Oh, how silent I am today, and how that allows me to hear what little silence there is in the world around me when I look past all the noise.

I had never noticed that, how one can disregard the noise and focus on the silence. Maybe it is not possible, and I am just delusional today. Probably. Fact is, it is delightful.

One noise I cannot by any possible means disregard is the power supply's fan. Of course. They are building a new circle in Hell filled with power supplies to torture people like me for eternity. But I was away from it for most of the time here mentioned, so it is irrelevant for the issue at hand.

While driving I heard it the clearest. When I could reach the 5th gear, and the engine noise became inaudible, all there was left was the sound of the tyres against the pavement - the other cars seemed all quiet today. A very distant echo in my mind murmured some songs that troubled me a bit. It is amazing how I always remember songs fitting to most situations, unwillingly. Bad songs, too. And in this case it was two songs, even. Two bad songs. One for each side of the issue.

What issue?
Eh? What do you mean? We got hundreds of tons of carbon monoxide and other polluting materials being dumped daily on the atmosphere, killing millions of beautiful purple butterflies, and you come to ask me what issue? Pfaw!

Driving is very interesting. Going from one point to another can be completely trivial, ultimately frustrating, or glorious.

It is glorious when the fifth gear is in, the only noise is the tyres against the pavement, and for one brief moment the car ahead is unimportant. It is not a vehicle with a person behind the wheel - it is a target. Maybe the kamikaze pilots felt a bit like that. It is great. For one moment, seeing the car ahead and imagining the target get closer and closer and then the tremendous wreck that would result from the collision, and just pushing the accelerator a bit further down, that is glorious.

Of course, this moment needs to be very short, or I would not be here at all. But a mere second is enough to make the whole process of going from point A to B a pleasure - a very sadistic, unnatural, dangerous, devious pleasure. It always makes my days better.

Today was made better, but no less silent.

---

It is necessary to let it be known that, on this very day, at approximately 7h45 PM, the fourth power supply to be in Asgaard left the land of the living.

Naturally, this happens on a Saturday (when not a Friday evening).

Fortunately, I still had the last one, that did not fully die - it only started making stupid noises and letting out a strong smell of burnt plastic and metal. Nothing serious, as you can see, only a minor risk of death by poisoning and/or fire. But it is 300V, so it will not live long.

On Monday I will have to solve this one more time. But I cannot go downtown and purchase the very expensive Zalman box of 400V with ball-bearing fan - the American thingie, made by people who do not get freaked out when you say "I leave my computer on for more than four hours straight".

No, I will have to call the same guy I called every time since then and say once again that yet another box died. "For the sake of all gods living and dead, tangible and intangible, good and evil, tell me truly, I implore, do you have one single power supply that will not die on me within less than six months? Tell me, tell me, I implore!"

And he will say, "Nevermore". Because in Brazil there is this monopoly of Troni products of extreme low quality because users are far too dumb to know better. So I will invest even more in a box that I know will die very soon, and will make a tremendous amount of noise before death, and cause me huge headaches.

This comes to crown a very dull Saturday. It makes sense, even: after two days of unparalleled grandeur, a dumb day follows. Balance must be kept.

My hatred right now knows no boundaries. But I am in fact sad. Four. Four boxes that die so young. Because the disgraced company that makes them knows it is in a comfortable position providing the least in quality for the populace of this ridiculous country.

Forget the sadness. It is just hatred, indeed.

---

Bed? Bed! I couldn't go to bed!
My head's too light to try to set it down!

For a very long time, my favorite radio station was Alpha FM, 101.7. And I always thought funny how it would confuse me when I looked at the radio, which is also a clock, when it showed 10:17, and I thought it was 101.7. At that time, I used to sleep quite earlier, so the situation was common - I turned the radio on, it showed the station, then switched back to the hour and nothing changed: from 101.7 to 10:17.

Sometime later I noticed I had a tendency to look at my watch at school at 10h17 in the morning - just three minutes before the break was over. I never planned to, I just looked casually and 10h17 it was.

That all intrigued me. I came to like 10h17. Nearly every day, completely by chance, I would see it twice on the clock - morning and evening. So I created a silly superstition around it - seeing it in the morning meant good luck; seeing 10h16 or 10h18 meant bad luck. I just liked to think of it that way - there were not even coincidences to back that up. But the number became meaningful: 10h17, 101.7, 1017, and finally, October 17th. Nothing of importance ever happened on any October 17th, though.

Sleep? Sleep! I couldn't sleep tonight.
Not for all the jewels in the crown!

Some time ago, a friend asked me, "What do you think of girls with braces?". My answer to that was unimportant, to be honest. He later revealed what he meant by asking that - he wanted to know if I knew a band called Whale - specifically, a song called "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe", and its video.

"No, I never heard of that, why?" There was no particular reason, in fact: he was just commenting on it after seeing the clip with an awful quality in some site whose name I forgot. "But surely I can find it."

"No, you can't. I've looked everywhere and never found it. It's impossible. It's very old, it can't be found, it is not available online. You can't find it."

"I just did."

Truth be told, that is surely the rarest file I ever looked for - on Overnet I could find only two sources, and they seemed to show up once every two weeks, for a few hours - and I would fall in their endless queues and not see a single byte of the file before they left. On WinMX I found three sources, but the file is four times bigger, and the people who have it are not too fond of remaining online for long periods either.

But I had been challenged; it would take me endless nights of listening to the stupid multiple noises of the broken power supply, but I would get that file.

I could have danced all night,
I could have danced all night,
And still have begged for more.

Thursdays are usually bad days. When I did not have access to a second car, I needed to wake up at 5h30 AM to be at school before 7h, or I would get a fine (certain license plates cannot be on the road from 7h to 10h AM, and from 5h to 8h PM, on a given day of the week - mine was Thursday). With that, I had to wait in the car for one hour, until the class started, at 8h. Fortunately that is solved, I can finally drive the other car. But that was never the only problem.

This semester's class for Thursday, I refer to as the class about nothing. Supposedly it is about the publishing market, its workings, rules, perils, taints. But we just spend ninety minutes listening to the teacher weave some story about the troubles she had to publish her book, after we copy some numbers that are mostly meaningless. Thursday's class is a true waste of time.

I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things
I've never done before.

I have two copies of "Grave of the Fireflies" in VHS, both fansubbed - one in English, one in Portuguese. The English one has rather low image quality. The one in Portuguese was very good - but in the name of the art I lent it to a teacher, who liked it so much he showed it to the entire school. That one tape was in his hands for a good few years, and the gods know how many times it was played, and how many people saw it. My greatest achievement in the spreading of anime, but it cost the tape all but its last breath.

I'll never know what made it so exciting;

Today I woke up and checked Overnet and WinMX. Nothing to be proud of in Overnet, but WinMX showed a source for the Whale's video, and with a low number in the queue. "Very good, never seen so low a queue place. I hope it actually starts downloading today. But still, so big a file, I doubt it will ever download the entire thing."

As I drove to school, I had some troubles with dumb drivers who refuse to let go of their place in line, no matter how much in advance I give a signal that I need to move to their lane or I will miss my turn. Such a bother. "Bah, bad day for driving, Thursdays are always bad days for driving." Finally I got into the lane where I needed to be, and immediately the traffic stopped. "Bother, bother." Then I noticed the plate on the car ahead of me. The number was 1017.

Why all at once my heart took flight.

I got to school a bit late, rushed to the classroom - the teacher had not arrived yet. Very soon a secretary came to tell us she had called and apologized: she could not make it today, we would have no class about nothing this Thursday.

With that, we waited around for a while, then I went to have lunch with a friend.

As usual, we passed by the big bookstore. And in there I saw what I never expected to see within the territory of this country: "Grave of the Fireflies", in DVD, for sale. Imported, of course, but still never expected. I did not buy it, but I hope to, soon.

I got home, looked at WinMX. The download of the video had actually started. It was going very slowly, but after about a month it had finally left zero. If it held on for another few hours, all would be grand.

I needed to deal with some issues, and they were nicely dealt with. Took a few hours, but all went well. It should prove most useful in the next few days.

Having the few hours passed, I looked at WinMX again. The download was complete. I had proven to be able to find the unfindable, and to have the patience to wait for it to arrive, through fire and rain, day and night.

(Patience, aye, aye.)

I only know when he began to dance with me

"Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor."

The day had been good enough. It would be impolite to ask for anything else from such a generous Thursday.

But I was given something else.

And I found it most regretful that I was out of German champagne to celebrate, for it certainly has greater worth than a cancelled class about nothing, a "Grave of the Fireflies" imported DVD, and a very rare download that reaches its end.

I had a very good day. The night may fall now.

I could have danced, danced, danced... all night!

---

Days go by.

They lack something. Picture the original game "Sonic" for the Genesis - at the end of each level, you would run across a sign with Dr. Robotnik, that flipped around and became a sign of Sonic. It is impossible to picture Sonic without those signs at the end of each level. A level without a sign is not a level from Sonic. That is how days have been feeling lately - Sonic levels without the sign. They just pass, and move on to the next, and feel incomplete. So much it is so, that I still believe we are in September, early days of October at most. Days are not getting concluded, they are never making it all the way there. They collapse near the finishing line. But they never happen again; they are left behind and replaced with another one that will not make it all the way there.

I need to publish a book. Soon. Let me rephrase that. I have an original, by someone who is not me. I have read it, at last, and need to make it into a book. But I had not been able to talk to the author since days immemorial (from when days did pass, and life was simple). This week I finally got his e-mail, and contacted him. And suddenly all problems revolving around the publishing of this book are gone, including the greatest of them all - he is not from Rio, as I was led to believe. At least I believe now he is not from Rio. I will not be surprised to learn he is my neighbor, too. Which means I can finally start to get this thing done, and then tell everyone that I, and I alone, braved the barren fields of fiction, and published a book of short stories - while all the others dared not go beyond the academical books, and the pictures, and the poetry. "These are too hard," the teacher said. "I want to!", I replied, "This may be the sole opportunity ever for me to publish something based solely on personal taste. I will do it."

Maybe this will put the sign back into the end of the levels. I hope so. If that does not, I will have to use the second plan, something I was saving for the case I could not contact the author at all: write my own book.

Or rather, put together something that resembles a book. In the most holy name of Apollo, if any guy can put together a bunch of ridiculous "poems" with no metre or rhyme (and reason) or feeling or quality and have it published under the school's label, surely I can do that as well. The only problem is that I would need another 19 poems or so (9 if I make them all as long as I plan to) and maybe - maybe - include one or two of those three tales I mentioned a few days ago - probably "Ambulance" and "Shutdown". I doubt I would have the stamina for such a project, though; as a result, it would not fill up my days, and it would result in nothing. But I would have a book with my name on the cover and twice inside, and I would forever remember it was written during those days that never ended.

Let the days end. I want days that end. Being outside of passing time is devastating.

---

Once upon an aft'noon dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a...

I could not find the word to finish that verse. What came was not a tapping.

What did happen, however: I was at work, with little to do, so I decided to read blogs. I could not find some that I usually read at home, so I followed links from those I did find. Among the links I followed, one blog I had not visited in a long time. But it was confusing, boring; the author seems to try to emulate another author, and it bothers me - he fails.

So maybe I did nap for two seconds there - although I doubt it. Truth is a song came to my mind, a song I have not heard in a very long time: John Denver's "Dreamland Express". It reminded me of something, and that brought an odd sensation. That moment I knew I could add one more item to my list of epiphanies.

(I love the word "epiphanies". I thought it was the name of an episode from Xena, but it is actually from Babylon 5. I was a bit frustrated by that. I probably made the confusion because the Xena episode I thought was titled "Epiphanies" marks the first appearance of a character called Ephiny.)

Epiphany it was - I believe it helped that I was a bit hungry. "Butterflies in the stomach." What in the name of a tall peach tree could that possibly be? - it troubled me a few weeks past. And precisely then, with that boring blog on my screen and the silly song in my ears I realized what it was.

But immediately "Dreamland Express" was replaced with "I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn't Run". Two passages of it came crashing at the same time, but I knew they were not to be taken together; rather, each one should apply to a different event, two weeks apart. "This would be all there was." "Thank God when the sun goes down I don't blow it."

For a moment I was troubled with those two verses, and what devious trick of mind was being played. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing. Pessimism overcame me; I did my best to shake it off. "Think not of it; think not of anything," I reminded myself - wise words.

End of relevant episode.

With a clear mind, I remembered a mention of Jung from the morning. I always liked Jung more than Freud. I remembered, too, that I read a passage about the Symbolism, a literary movement of a single book. And it occurred to me that the elements from those few seconds - the two songs, the epiphany, the Xena episode - all wrapped up in a tremendously complex system that I just had to put down to paper - or, in this case, bits. So, here be it.

Diversas notas de rodapé serão necessárias para explicar esse post quando algum tolo pesquisador cheirando a mofo de academia resolver decifrar o autor deste Journal. Imagino, já, as letras de ambas as músicas, com alguns versos sublinhados; o nome do episódio de Xena, e sua importância na série e para o autor; e um comentário (fatalmente incorreto) sobre a quote que abre o post. O interessante é que, de fato, para tal fim, este post é dos mais significativos.

"Decifra-me e/ou te devoro."

---

In "Lord of the Rings", Moria was called, in the language of the dwarves, Khazad-Dum. In the mines of Moria, the greatest battle of the first book (and movie) takes place. In it, the fellowship faces the Balrog, a great demon of the ancient world. Deep in those mountains they also lose Gandalf, their leader and guide, who falls into a great abyss and supposedly dies. In the second book Gandalf reappears, and tells the group he was in a place where each day was an era, et cetera.

In "Babylon 5", the homeworld of the Shadows was called Z'ha'dum (pronounced "Za-Ha-Dum"). The Shadows were one of the two Older Races left behind when the other races left the universe, a million years before. There is no major battle in Z'ha'dum, as far as I remember; there is, however, great destruction, when a White Star ship filled with bombs is flown into the planet's core and detonated - later it is said the whole planet was destroyed, in fact. Sheridan, captain of Babylon 5 and leader of the forming Army of Light, jumps into the pit with the White Star (not inside it, mind you) and supposedly dies - that is the season's finale. The following season, Sheridan is alive, and is told he is trapped "between the 'tic' and the 'tac'".

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5, the ultimate source of information about the series on the web, has only this to say regarding this coincidence: A parallel to Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is possible: Gandalf fell into the pit at Khazad-dum with the Balrog, died (as Sheridan will, according to Kosh) and was reborn as Gandalf the White, an even more powerful figure.

Straczynski was certainly not afraid of being accused of plagiarism - but I truly would not do that, absolutely. These are all obviosly not coincidences, but I see them as good references - much as most RPGs in the world have dwarves and elves.

The reason for this post? I am tired of pondering about the meaning of vesper the evening star in accordance to the view of the essay authors who consider the poetical art divided in two poles of conception and construction consecrated through tradition. In other words, I hate Antonio Candido with ultimate passion (and his parallel Bosi, too). Thus I needed a moment of break to ponder on truly important things - and my background music gave me just that.

---

Years ago, there was a time when AudioGalaxy was the best way to download Mp3 files. It was a great service, and not only did it allow trade, it also hosted files for artists trying to get into the market. One day I noticed a nice band described in their main page, and downloaded the two songs available from them. The band was Breech, and the songs where "Charms" and "Awful Spill". I was impressed - no, I was in love. That very week I ordered their CD from Amazon - it cost only U$ 5,95 at the time (fair, since it only has 27'30 of audio). That was one of the longest odisseys in the history of imports - it took this CD three months to arrive, and the one I ordered with it was here six months after I ordered them.

"Breech" is probably the best album in its style, in my collection. I showed their songs to two people, and both liked them as much as I do - actually, one of these cases happened precisely two minutes ago. I am no good at spreading memes.

In fact, I only remembered to mention the album to a second person because I was listening to it, after so long. And I was listening to it for a particular reason. In "Charms" there is a verse that goes like "I realize tonight, two beers and one cocktail later, that you've been that dead now for three months". I remembered that line tonight, three beers and one champagne later.

The champagne was an unusual case. It was afternoon, I skipped work today - oh, really, I can play Solitaire at home without getting insulted. I needed white wine - no, really, I did need white wine right then. In honor of King, partially - although I believe she prefers red wine. But I wanted white. As I hope you know, white wine must be served cold. I looked in the refrigerator for my always present Riesling - and found none. None, none! What bothers me the most is that I know there was at least one bottle in store somewhere - then why was it not cold? Well, there was a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator, but not Riesling. I chose not to open it when I noticed a smaller bottle of what I thought was white wine nearby. I find these small bottles funny and cute - they hold exactly two glasses. I looked closely at it, and all signs pointed to white wine - but it was written in German, so there was no way I could tell for sure. Let me end this paragraph, it is too long.

The label was in German, and naturally I understood nothing in it beyond the "21%", which is obvious. "German, eh? Fitting!", I thought. I would remember to offer my first toast with it to all Valkyries and Norse Gods represented in the Cycle of the Ring (or rather, "Der Ring des Nibelungen") - the other toasts had their subjects already. So I opened the bottle, and it acted like a bottle of soda. I poured it in my glass, and there were bubbles.

"I opened a bottle of German champagne," I shrieked, upstarting. I wanted anything but champagne. Champagne is no good for toasting alone, in the name of Bacchus! I wanted wine! Wine! But it was already open, and the only thing to do was drink it. So it was done. Champagne has never been among my favorite, but it was not bad - I just wanted something else, that was all.

The day went by in a silly way, spent mainly in downloading and listening to remixes from OverClocked Remix. Truly, it was far better than playing Solitaire and/or reading fanfics all day at work! Then night fell. "Are you going out tonight?", I was asked. Why would I, I considered. I was short on money, having spent more than I planned to during the day, and had no company. The one place I could visit was my friend's restaurant, although I was sure I would not get another job this time. But I did want to talk to him, no less; off I went.

Troublesome it is to be a friend of the owner; more troublesome still to be a friend of someone who is a friend of everyone else. I sat down with my beer and had endless minutes to ponder on the situation. I like thinking over beer, but somehow that beer, which I find so good, never tasted worse. Besides, people singing in the karaoke were particularly bad tonight - so bad that I nearly went up there and gave it a shot myself, just so they would learn! There was one good song the entire time I was there - New York, New York. Frank Sinatra is always good, always good.

As I said, the beer was awful. "Maybe it is just the first one", I thought, and ordered another. No better. "Fine, but it is too early to leave." I still had hopes, so I asked for another beer. Gods, what lack of luck, still no good. I stood up and left, mere minutes after I arrived, much to everyone's surprise.

Of course, all was not bad; beer is not too good, either, for toasting alone, but I paid homage to a number of things with each sip. And at the end it brought me the thought of "three beers and one champagne later", which led to Breech - and now I have a second soul who likes it.

Sum this to a good morning, a delightful lunch, and a pleasant afternoon, and we have a very good day.

(Just so people do not think I only write to complain about power supplies - I do the trivial, too.)

---

The fan in my power supply box is making funny noises.

Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!!!!!

I am cursed. These power supplies will probably drive my sanity off faster than anything else. Given the irony of life, I am likely to suffer an accident and get hooked to life support machines, and then I die because the machines' power supply boxes all fail.

And my CD burner will only recognize a CD in it in one out of each fifteen attempts, more or less. And when it does, it will only record at 8x, when the maximum is 16x. And it keeps failing and retrying during burning. But HP's support site enjoys being cyclic and not telling me where I can take it for repairs.

But hardware problems are not the subject I chose today.

I have three ideas for fiction texts. Short stories. The first one that I thought of was "Wind Chimes", the most fantastic one (fantastic in the sense of "fantasy realm"). It would only make sense in Portuguese, though. The second story should be titled "Shutdown". When I first thought of it, it depressed me instantly. I was in fact scared. But to fully reach that effect with a story I would need to do some research and put a lot of effort into it, and probably rewrite it a few times, which I hate doing; therefore, "Shutdown" is not coming out anytime soon.

The third idea is what has been echoing in my mind the most lately. "Ambulance", it dawned on me while driving back home from work one day, when an ambulance came rushing by, I made way for it and noticed I would go through the same street it did. It would, however, need a tremendous psychological side to it to even touch what I want it to be. Therefore, "Ambulance" is the hardest of the three: I keep thinking about it all day and get nowhere.

All in all, these three stories are unlike anything I have ever written. "Dream Debris", "Fireflies", "Elise", those were easy, linear, obvious: I just created the characters, put them in that long gone world of Temuair and said "go, do what you must"; there was next to no intervention from myself - and where I did meddle, it shows, for the quality of the narrative drops - really, two suicides? crying for three days and nights? lesbian incest? "I did it for love"!? I thank the gods for "Four Far From Formidable Fables", which were short enough to prevent me from ravaging them.

"Wind Chimes", "Shutdown" and "Ambulance" could be nowhere near the Temuair three. They are closer to real literature, the kind that I have not read enough of to do it myself. Poe, Salinger, Machado de Assis, all masters of short stories. I have not read nearly enough of them. It is a shame, a shame.

Yet this goes on, unchanged. Maybe soon I will have another idea to archive and regret not putting to paper.

By the way, I am tired of listening to "Thanatos - If I Can't Be Yours", the ending theme of "The End of Evangelion". Yet I can find the will to play no other song. This should not be so.

But the night waned and he sat upon the rock.

---

Hoje escrevo em português.

Cheguei em casa pensando em falar sobre o paradoxo de um botão de elevador. Antes de fazê-lo, por hábito, dei uma olhada nas páginas que visito com freqüência (hábito, freqüência: redundância).

O Alexandre Soares Silva falou hoje maestralmente sobre Buffy e Angel. Eu precisaria assistir a quatro vezes mais episódios do que vi para comentar à altura, então fico apenas com o simples "muito bom". Merece um elogio maior, mas é no mí­nimo muito bom.

O Polzonoff tem dois textos hoje. Sobre o Papa, nada digo. Já o outro texto, sobre o triâgulo lampertiano, vale a leitura, mais pela forma que pelo conteúdo - adoro ver um jornalista que não soa como jornalista. Especialmente considerando que a maior parte dos jornalistas com os quais trombo pelos corredores do departamento seriam os primeiros a citar Chomsky, não importando o assunto.

Voltemos à figura central desta página, aquele que queria escrever sobre o botão do elevador. Por pouco não desisto - face a esses dois textos, como poderia eu riscar umas dez linhas em português sob um título em inglês e chamá-las de "post"? Mas pensei melhor, e decidi fazê-lo. Na pior das hipóteses, esse post fica como caminho aos outros dois.

Ponto-e-ví­rgula.

São Paulo, Zona Sul. Apenas uma avenida separa os Shoppings Morumbi e Market Place. Algum tempo atrás, existia um semáforo nessa avenida. Ele foi retirado ao término da construção de uma bonita passarela que hoje une os dois templos.

Essa passarela, em respeito às minorias deficientes, foi projetada de modo a não ser sacrificante para usuário algum. Possui escadas de degraus largos, e elevadores grandes. Dentro dos elevadores, ao lado dos botões, a função de cada um é descrita em braile.

Os botões não são muitos. T para térreo, S para o nível superior, um para manter a porta aberta, e um para acender as luzes.

Sempre me perguntei: por que o botão de acender a luz tem código braile ao lado?

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