Ta, L... what was your name, again?
Sebastián Vizcaíno, 1602
"Quid Rides? De te fabula narratur." Horácio.
For having lived in Westminster-how many years now? over twenty,-one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the up-roar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sand-wich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Publicado em Outubroaqui.
"Well, isn't Bohemia a place where everyone is as good as everyone else
- and must not a waiter be a little less than a waiter to be a good Bohemian?"
Djuna Barnes
Já não se usam os maços de cartas, os envelopes amarelecidos que se guardavam para reler mais tarde o que nos tinham escrito. Agora, há pastas virtuais com milhares de emails guardados sem lacinhos à volta ou mensagens ainda mais curtas das quais não nos quisemos separar na altura e que guardámos no telemóvel ou - para os mais modernaços - no PC para onde as transferimos por Bluetooth. Andava eu nas ciber-limpezas quando me ocorreu: o que será das biografias no futuro? Alguém imagina a correspondência entre Pessoa e Sá-Carneiro transformada em SMS entre os dois? E a literatura epistolar? Haverá colecções de emails trocados? E os SMS, serão capazes de nos contar uma história? Se uma das virtudes da literatura epistolar (especialmente quando recolhe só as cartas - verdadeiras ou ficcionais, pouco importa - de uma das partes) é a do campo que deixa aberto à imaginação do leitor, o valor da resposta ausente, não serão os SMS ainda mais virtuosos na sua concisão? No fundo, a pergunta é - desculpem os puristas, mas só faz sentido em inglês - "Just how short can a short story be?"
Foi o minimalismo narrativo que achei intrigante e que decidi juntar a outra espécie em extinção, recuperada após o abandono pelos jornais: um folhetim em SMS na blogosfera.
Sem dúvida, uma ideia absurda causada pela excessiva proximidade do pólo magnético, mas de qualquer forma aqui fica o primeiro episódio do SMS - Short Message Story? na esperança que, no fim, conte uma história.
Mrning! Still standing at bus
stop outside Watermans with black
lady waiting 4 u 2 return.
Promise u will call.
J.
Remetente:
+44787018XXXX
Enviada:
12:54:00
10-05-04
Esta semana temos o alto patrocínio da Dancake que, enquanto nos deliciamos com as suas tortas hipocalóricas, nos vai distrair com contos do seu conterrâneo Hans Christian Andersen. E, como o melhor é começarmos já a trocar de roupa, aqui fica
The Emperor's New Suit
MANY, many years ago lived an emperor, who thought so much of new clothes that he spent all his money in order to obtain them; his only ambition was to be always well dressed. He did not care for his soldiers, and the theatre did not amuse him; the only thing, in fact, he thought anything of was to drive out and show a new suit of clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and as one would say of a king “He is in his cabinet,” so one could say of him, “The emperor is in his dressing-room.”
The great city where he resided was very gay; every day many strangers from all parts of the globe arrived. One day two swindlers came to this city; they made people believe that they were weavers, and declared they could manufacture the finest cloth to be imagined. Their colours and patterns, they said, were not only exceptionally beautiful, but the clothes made of their material possessed the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.
(...)