Crystallography

Nunca acendia as luzes de casa para que não aparecesse o fantasma entre ela e as coisas lá fora.

sm (ár al'ikshîr) 1 Preparação líquida hidralcoólica, açucarada ou glicerinada, destinada a uso oral e contendo substâncias aromáticas e medicamentosas. 2 Bebida deliciosa. 3 Vinho muito puro, balsâmico e confortativo. 4 Aquilo que há de melhor. 5 Bebida que possui virtudes mágicas. 6 Substância a que se atribuía o poder de transformar metais em ouro ou de proporcionar vida longa ou mesmo eterna. 7 tintura de ópio canforado, que se emprega como calmante de dores intestinais.

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já tirava o cobertor de cima

Borrowed smiles, photography is a sad art

Dear Dad,

I'm puting this in a letter because phone calls have a way of disappearing in whatever it is. I'm trying to put into words what i feel most deeply, not just about you, but about my work and the years of indefinable father and son between us. I've never understood why i've saved the best that's in me for strangers like Stravinsky and not for my own father.

There was a picture of you on the piano that i saw every day when i was growing up. It was by the Bachrach studio and heavily retouched and we all used to call it "Smillin' Jack Avedon" - it was a family joke, because it was a photograph of a man we never saw, and of a man i never knew. Years later, Bachrach did an advertisement with me - Richard Avedon, Photographer - as a subject. Their photograph of me was the same as the photograph of you. We were up at the same piano, where neither of us had ever lived.

I am trying to do something else. When you pose for a photograph, it's behind a simle that isn't yours. You are angry and hungry and alive. What i value in you is that intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people. I want your intensity to pass into me, go through the camera and become a recognition to a stranger. I love your ambition and your capacity for disappointment, and that is still as alive in you as it has ever been.

Do you remember you tried to show me how to ride a bicycle, when i was nine years old? You had come up to New Hampshire for the weekend, i think, in the summer when we were on vacation, and you were wearing your business suit. You were showing me how to ride a bike, and you fell and i saw your face then. I remember the expression on your face when you fell. I had my box Brownie with me, and i took the picture.

I'm not making myself clear. Do you understand?

                    

Love, Dick

Ontem comecei com o corpo em guerra, fortaleza, o som a bater-me, o estômago às voltas, o ar a faltar. Por minutos tirei os tampões dos ouvidos e ouvi. Respirei fundo e prolongadamente. Tudo tremeu e eu.

Descemos poços, escondemo-nos na gruta, perdemos peso, bradámos aos ceús, estivemos num lugar autónomo e plano. Não sei quanto tempo passou mas teria ficado ali muito, mas mesmo muito, mais.