Thursday, May 24, 2007

just an image


posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 11:54 PM 1 comments

How?


Can someone please enlighten me on this: how on earth is this girl considered pretty? And I admire make up artists more and more, and plastic surgeons less and less... look at that girls lips! She is 20 years old, she is not supposed to look like that...

so superficial, I know, I know.

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 10:11 PM 0 comments

Sunday, May 20, 2007

No, no, no

"They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said no, no, no"

No, it´s not Britney. And it is a bit absurd that someone who admitedly has a drug problem can make such success (but yeah, look at Pete Doherty and Kate Moss. Anything before that is still ok). But this girl is just too good. She wants a drink, she doesn´t wanna go to rehab. She would rather stay at home with her boyfriend. So, let her be. Because even though she may sound so so drunk in her CD, it is one of the best things I´ve heard in the last few months.

She sounds drunks, talks about drinking in maybe half of the songs, and cheating - actually cheating and being cheated on - more than you would consider ok for a girl that just got married. But the beats are fantastic, and her drunken voice reels you in. Maybe the first time you hear it it won´t be so clear, but after 2 or 3 runs of the CD, there is no letting go of Amy Winehouse. "Some unholy war", "He can only hold her", "You know I´m no good" and "Back to Black". And rehab, of course.

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 5:21 PM 1 comments

Sunday, May 13, 2007

The fight against mediocrity

So, this is a bit old news, but it I read Sarkozy's "last words", which he sent to a "Le Figaro" the day before the election, on their request. And it is very, very good. Very conservative and right winged, but so clear, so honest - so absurdly eloquent and explicit on his ideas. I don't know much about Sarkozy, but I think his words are worth posting. Even if you may not agree with them.

This is the end of a cycle which started with May 68, when it was proclaimed that there were no more rules, no more standards, no more morals, no more courtesy, that all was worth, that there was no more hierarchy of the values, no more difference between what is good and what is bad, between what is big and what is mediocre, that all was right, that nothing is deserved.
I want to build France which will have broken with this heritage. The idea of France for which I fight, it is France where the values of respect, authority, merit are with the honor. This campaign is about a true ideological choice. A choice which goes well beyond the usual choice between the right and the left. In finishing with the heritage of May 68, it is perhaps the only true choice of company which we have to make so much the values, the principles of 68 impregnated the company, the manners of thinking, the behaviors. In fact the choice conditions all the others. Or we will have laxism, or we will have a morals based on our universal values. Or we will have the assistantship, the 35 hours, the devalorization of work, or we will have the reward of the merit, the incentive with the effort, the respect of work and the entrepreneurship. Or we will have the multiplication of the rights, or we will offer to all those which are ready to want something for themselves the means of carrying out their dreams, their ambitions, their projects. Or we will continue to work less and we will be locked up in a company of shortage, or we will work more and we will have more richnesses to divide us, more means to devote to our social protection, with our retirements. It is the moment or never to break with political practices and practices of thought. France cannot wait any more, it is necessary for us to decide to choose between two social models, between two systems of values, two cultures. If you want it, all can become possible, as for the men of the Renaissance, as those of the Lumières or the Thirty Glorious ones. It is enough for us to want it. It is enough for us to include/understand the nature of the choice well and to take our responsabilities vis-a-vis so that we want for ourselves, for our children, for our country. But this rupture with the system of thought, education, the policy that the ideology of 68 generated, it will not be done all alone. I will not do it all alone. It is with you to make it possible. So that this change is achieved, I need you.

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 6:49 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007

Aaahhh....

No point in this post at all. Just... how can you not post something this cute????

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 9:06 PM 2 comments

Notes from the Underground

Why do we build sand castles just to destroy them later? Why would you build yourself up for something and shoot it down yourself? Why suffer like that?

"Mas é exatamente neste frígido e repugnante semidesepero, nesta semicrença, neste consciente enterrar-se vivo, por aflição, no subsolo, por 40 anos; nesta situação intransponível criada com esforço e, apesar de tudo, um tanto duvidosa, em toda esta peçonha dos desejos insatisfeitos que penetraram no interior do ser; em toda esta febre das vacilacoes, das decisoes tomadas para sempre e dos arrependimentos que tornam a surgir um instante depois, em tudo isto e que consiste o sumo daquele estranho prazer de que falei.".

I cannot translate this if my life depended on it. He talks of how the suffering is all caused by you and you alone, and this pain you create for yourself provokes a pleasure that is indescribible. He speaks, later on, of imagination, self pity, loathe and how this pain is only to annoy himself and others, since they know he is not in so much pain, and still complains. There is no good in it, and still he lingers in it. He and all of us, at some time. Why suffer? Because the alternative is boredom, and that is too dull.

No, I am fine. And yes, perhaps I should read a lighter book. But this is, without a doubt, the best thing I ever read in my life. In the back cover, one author describes it as "the voice of blood - how to call it any other name?"

Book is Dostoievski, Notes from the Underground. If you are not depressed, read it. Otherwise... maybe read it anyway. It is too good to miss.

beijos

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 8:40 PM 0 comments

Spidey

So much stuff going on, and yet the first post will be totally useless. Yes, Spider man 3.
The movie is, 2 and a half hours long, and it has 3 villains and one hero in crisis. His crisis side is quite ridiculous, with hair thrown to the side of his face, eye makeup and weird, weeird dance moves that gave me bad, baaad memories. And still, somehow, all the critics said it was fantastic. Well, not so much.

I liked the 2 previous movies, I really did. Aside from the fact that it is a super hero movie, and if you try and overlook Tobey Maguire's lack of, ahn, acting skills, the 3 movie is still bad. Too long, too much things happening, and you just wanna hit the "to-be-or-not-to-be" out of him, along with the eye make-up.

Topher Grace is lovely, and the black suit is almost worth the movie, if paired with the action sequences - which are amazing, I have to say. But the movie..... too much of not enough.

posted by Julia Moreira Leite @ 7:59 PM 0 comments