Earl of Proença-a-Velha

Praia Grande, a semi-sovereign State with a unelected monarch we all are loyal to...

Jules Verne

Another failed attempt at witnessing the Green Ray.

Better to read Verne's book or watch Rohmer's film instead

(Praia Grande, off Lisbon) .

Leporello

" la giovin principiante " ..

prime-time girl

The Honourable Reader, undoubtedly a Opera-lover in his spare time, might remember the famous "1003 in Spain" scene from Don Giovanni, when Leporello was spilling the beans to Elvira:

(..)

ogni villa, ogni borgo, ogni paese

è testimon di sue donnesche imprese.

Madamina, il catalogo è questo

Delle belle che amò il padron mio;

un catalogo egli è che ho fatt'io;

Osservate, leggete con me.

In Italia seicento e quaranta;

In Almagna duecento e trentuna;

Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;

Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.

V'han fra queste contadine,

Cameriere, cittadine,

V'han contesse, baronesse,

Marchesine, principesse.

E v'han donne d'ogni grado,

D'ogni forma, d'ogni età .

Nella bionda egli ha l'usanza

Di lodar la gentilezza,

Nella bruna la costanza,

Nella bianca la dolcezza.

Vuol d'inverno la grassotta,

Vuol d'estate la magrotta;

È la grande maestosa,

La piccina e ognor vezzosa.

Delle vecchie fa conquista

Pel piacer di porle in lista;

Sua passion predominante

È la giovin principiante.

Non si picca - se sia ricca,

Se sia brutta, se sia bella;

Purché porti la gonnella,

Voi sapete quel che fa.

The Halloween week-end at The Count's country-house offered us various plots and sub-plots going on simultaneously. This blogger of yours would be extremely happy to recall it and to turn into a chronicle at least the highlights of the most recent gathering of the Praia Tribe. Hélas! the combined devastating effects of incipient "Alzheymer" and post-hangover syndrome are to be reckoned with. One of the undercurrent narratives, though, I do remember alright.. it was like a remake of Bertolluci's "Stealing Beauty", that amazingly poetical elegy of the Young Woman (played by Liv Tiller) at the once-in-a-life-time supreme point of her physicality.. Lonesome wolves us, with Giovanni-like honourable careers, could only witness in awe the freshness of skin, body and mind and mumble about how Time had past. Tabu involved apart ("Thou shell not look with lubricious eyes the dauhgter of a Friend!"), there was a pungent nostalgic tone colouring the rooms, a bit like "The Secret Garden" for adults with no illusions left. The tender flesh of prime-time girls were no longer for their yellowish wobbling teeth.. but the celebration of Youth was sincere and good-humoured.

Luis Silva Dias

LSD, aka " The Parakeet "



Bird Flu Blues

I warned Him. The portrait was too good not be on the net in less than 48 hours. After some digital manipulation, His photo, taken during a separate Halloween private party that took place during this last LongWeekend-long party at the Count's, is about to enrich the photo-gallery of this blog. I'm moving the mouse-guided arrow to the "Publish Post" orange interactive square. One-click and the kite will fly.. That's it..

Carlos da Gale

Post-Summer Blues



Praia Grande, 2nd September 2005


On the water the waiting surfers look like submerged crocodiles. The Green Ray is about to fail us once again. A Girl passes by, with urgent steps. Glasses are scattered around after a missed vigorous toast.

Joao Filipe Osorio de Menezes Pitta

The Count of Praia Grande and His Court met ...



A sunset in Praia Grande, waiting for the Green Ray...

As this blog is also something of a journal, depicting the day-to-day main activities of this blogger of yours, I cannot fail to mention the last weekend in Praia Grande. Very difficult to put into words (how to describe the Glastonbury-like communion feeling when the sun is about to set in the Atlantic and we are all waiting for the one in a trillion chance to witness the Green Ray?). The Praia (as we all say, for short) is about a tribal bond, plenty of booze and a weird and beautiful ecosystem.

What are the little square boxes of the check-list, to tick whenever one returns to the Praia after an enforced separation? The mothering cliff in the end of the beach? Tick. The red-to-yellow flag on the bathing areas poles? Tick. The foaming roaring ocean, with or without courageous surfers? Tick. The poor uniformed sod who tries to prevent parking outside authorized spaces? Tick. The smiling and gloriously inefficient waiters at the "by-appointment" restaurants, waving at us? Tick. The un-Portuguese sky with charges of light brigades of clouds, a threatening halo of mist on the ege of the horizon, and a general sense of weather instability? Tick. The dinosaur fossil steps immortalized in stone ? To tick later. The incredibly beautiful faces of young flowering girls? To keep on ticking. The freshness of the coastal seabass, of the reddish soft crab or of the strangely phalic barnacles? To tick when meal time comes. The ravages of Time, and salt, and white nights on the faces of our Friends? Never to tick. The overwhelming nostalgic taste of Lost Youth? Unavoidable tick.

One's own golden generation of hippie-ish beach boys is approaching the time it will have to gracefully bow out and hand over its place to a new unelected Board. Or, rather, a Court. Our tribal Praia has a near feudal tradition and is neither a kingdom or a principality but an Earldom. The Count of Praia Grande is an honourary title, legitimized by blueblood and by the tacit acceptance of his prominence by us the Barons of the Good Life who until recently could muster the admiration of the Knights-Surfers, and of part of the suntanned female population.

The Count had brought a wild boar from the North, in honour of Lou Parrot, the Jester, the Baron with an unforgiving awkward cannabis-like unfocused humour who was birthdaying this very weekend. As good as a pretext to gather the Court. Some Ladies were present, including Saint Magdalene and a couple of non-Praia Witnesses. Youngblood Baronets were allowed at the High Table, as part of their graduation into power. One of them contributed with an awesome seafood soup, from "navalheiras" (Macropipus prestandrea) , a elongated cockle clam with a knife-box shape (a macho knife is called 'navalha). But all made the time-honored biggest contribution of all. They came armed with Stories, not to lay down as offers, but as precious proofs of their right to be there.

The menu was hyper-deepfried minuscule saurel, we call "Little Joaquins" (we eat the entire 2-inches long fish, head and tail finn and all); followed by the above mentioned wholesome sea soup; followed by the roasted boar served with a fried rice cooked by Philomena. The wines were rich and abundant.. the sunset glorious .. the Stories flowing.

Most of the Stories are drunkenness-related? So what? What about the best anecdotes of the Russian classics, aren't they all cognac (Tolstoy) or vodka (Dostoevsky)-related? Most of it is spoilt-child preppie boys stuff? And your point is? Haven't we all delighted with TeddyBear-carrying Oxford students whereabouts? Not really working outside the non-verbal enchanted aura? For sure.

After the ending bottle(s) of Famous Grouse and the final pyrotechnics of story-telling we all went our ways, journeying into the night. Happy that Praia's magic still marches on. (The Witnesses' smiles attested to it) . And the Court understood that the upcoming generations were almost ready to claim their inheritance.

How many Summers are left before accepting that silver hair and softer bellies will dislodge us, Barons, of our sexual charisma-related prominence? I'll have to ask the Count.

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders' "The Road to Emmaus": "On the third day after Jesus was crucified, two of His disciples walked sadly to the village of Emmaus, about ten kilometers out of Jerusalem, when they were joined by a stranger..."


I've been stepping into Wim Wenders recently, and I can no longer wait to blog about him, since he is one of the celebrities to have actually set foot on Praia Grande (for those who have no clue, "The Praia", is a beach not far from Sintra, on the surfwaved washed Atlantic coast, with an imposing dark cliff where dinosaurs' footprints make strange companions to colonies of barnacles).

Three encounters with the German film director and photographer. First, Uncle Wim did shoot in Praia Grande, among other locations in Portugal (for "The State of Things", 1982) and, of course, he put Lisbon and the music of Madredeus on the map, so to speak, with "Lisbon Story" (1994). Second, in this year's ARCO, a gallery exposed what Wenders himself describes as his own favorite photography, "The Road to Emmaus", taken not far from Jerusalem. (Do believe my three years of Holy Land, please, that photo accurately depicts the paradox that confronts any visitor: "Is that it? Is it for this barren land, for this severe and near-empty surface, but for the occasional rock, dried bush or raquitic olive tree, that so many go on fighting for?"). And third, the article that he wrote about "The Downfall", Hirschbiegel's film about the last 12 days of Hitler under-ground, in Berlin (the article was first published in "Die Zeit", but I've actually read it in "El Mundo", the day of the premiere of "El Hundimiento" in Madrid).

About the photo is worth saying that Wenders, when assuming his photographer's persona, sees himself as a "witness" or an "interpreter", and that he associates the images in his shows to a short text, a Haiku, which de describes as what he would say to a good friend, if they would stood together in front of these pictures. (The caption to the photo above is indeed Wender's chosen Haiku).

About the article, I think one should not see the film without reading it, and vice versa. I intend to blog about the "Downfall" myself, which I saw in the original version in one of the few Madrid cinemas where we are not treated to the dreaded dubbed versions, but let me just consider the "punch point" of Wender's article. Why on earth we were not able to see Hitler's (and Frau Hitler's) death? ("Por qué no demostrarnos que ese cabrón ha muerto por fin?") Why such reserve and discretion, when we were not spared gory war scenes, Mauser induced suicides and plenty of saw & blood amputations? Uncle Wim goes further and talks of descomunal trivialization, engagement in a divinization process (of Hitler), acceptance of the guilty party's narrative viewpoint, benevolous understanding of the "private lives" of Hitler and his fellow travelers in "Der Untergang"..

I know my children read occasionally their father's blog: I hope they see Wim Wender's point.