The High Court of Language

“We all know that the forces studies by physics, chemistry, and biology are powerful and important. People generally do not yet know that the forces studies by linguistics are powerful and important, that its principles control every sort of agreement and understanding among human beings, and that sooner or later it will have to sit as judge while the other sciences bring their results to its court to inquire into what they mean.”
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1940), in M. Silverstein (2000), Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of Nationality, p. 90

Reality out of cacophony

"[When] A calls B a 'liar,' he creates a reverberating cosmos of potential action and judgment. And if the fatal word can be passed on to C, the triangulation of society and culture is complete."
Edward Sapir, The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior in Society. American Journal of Sociology 42, 1937, p. 870.

On the unobvious conventionality of romantic dancing

"Lastly we should realize that dancing in a partner's arms is a product of modern European civilization. Which shows you that things we find natural are historical. Moreover, they horrify everyone in the world but ourselves."
Marcel Mauss (1935), in Richard Parmentier (1994), Signs in Society, page 185.

Two Laughing Girls, II

Jamaica, 1950s. Photo by Lambros Comitas.

Two Laughing Girls

Photo by Lambros Comitas.

Technocracy

As Três Marias do Ceará

Rain

São Paulo, Brazil

Sertão

Morada Nova, Ceará

Colombo Pastry Bakery

Rio de Janeiro

Pigeons

Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Sertão in transition

Sertão’s tortuous geometry

Sertão’s magic

Seco Riacho

Guimarães Rosa, Manuelzão e Miguilim. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 2001. P. 163-4

New York Roofs

Thales by Aristotle by Bertrand Russel

A History of Western Philosophy, p. 26.

Brooklyn Bridge

Alma Mater

Columbia University

Columbia

Rio de Janeiro, II

Copacabana

Rio de Janeiro

Sertão

State of Ceará, Northeast Brazil

Mystic

Mystic, Connecticut

Winter in New England

New Haven, Connecticut

French Roast

New York

San Francisco

Fisherman's Wharf

Columbus Square

New York City

Birds

San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf

Anthropological Halloween in New Haven

Annual Halloween Haunt and Commemorative Toast to
the Ghost of Bronislaw Kaspar Malinowski

Fall in New England

New Haven, Connecticut

Teobaldo

Iguatú, Ceará

The Soccer World Cup Spirit

Jaguaribe, Ceará

La Dolce Vita

Catedral da Sé, São Paulo

Praça da Sé, São Paulo

Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)

São Paulo, II

São Paulo, I

Urubu

Cactusland

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Jericoacoara, II

Fortaleza Cathedral

Mermaids

Jericoacoara

Redfulness

Photo by Ana Laura Gamboggi

America, II

Central Market, São Paulo

Luminosity, II

Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais

Luminosity, I

Bahia

Water, II

Water, I

Good sportsmanship

Soccer fandom in Buenos Aires Series

The blood and sweat of which the sublime is composed, III

Soccer fandom in Buenos Aires Series

The blood and sweat of which the sublime is composed, II

Soccer fandom in Buenos Aires Series

The blood and sweat of which the sublime is composed, I

Soccer fandom in Buenos Aires Series

On the aridity of truth

"The mathematician Hermann Weyl was quoted as having said not long before he died, 'My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.'

Mathematicians, artists and writers may choose beauty over truth. Scientists can only hope that we do not have to make the choice."

Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

New York Times, November 8, 2005

* * *

Sometimes I wonder to what extent we can really distinguish among the two things.

Monday

Rainbow

Signs

World Trade Center, January 2001

Northeast Brazil, III

Northeast Brazil, II

Northeast Brazil, I

Vertical Hopscotch, Montevideo

Duel of Titans

"What rebels against explanation is not proper, as such, to serve as explanation"

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totémisme

“But if you say: ‘How am I to know what he means, when I see nothing but the signs he gives?’ then I say: ‘How is he to know what he means, when he has nothing but the signs either?”

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, section 504

[Respectivamente: “O que é rebelde à explicação não é próprio, como tal, para servir de explicação” e “Mas se você diz: ‘Como posso saber o que ele quer dizer, se eu não vejo nada além dos sinais que ele fornece?’, então eu digo: ‘Como pode ele saber o que ele quer dizer, se ele não possui nada além dos sinais igualmente?”]

America

Delightful torpor

A poética de Maquiavel

O poeta é um fingidor. Finge tão completamente Que chega a fingir que é dor A dor que deveras sente.

Mentiram-me. Mentiram-me ontem e hoje mentem novamente. Mentem de corpo e alma, completamente. E mentem de maneira tão pungente que acho que mentem sinceramente.

Fragmentos dos poema Autopsicografia (em Fernando Pessoa - Obra Poética - Cancioneiro, Rio de Janeiro: Cia. José Aguilar Editora, 1972), e A implosão da mentira, de Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna (em A Poesia Possível, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco, 1987).

* * *

Estará o fingimento para a poesia como a mentira para a política?