Photoshop Magic

Clash cover by Arcade Fire

Lisboa cidade triste e alegre

 Victor Palla e Costa Martins, "Lisboa cidade triste e alegre", Edição Pierre von Leist Editions, 90€

A poem by Álvaro de Campos (an heteronym of Fernando Pessoa), '/ Cidade triste e alegre, outra vez sonho aqui../", inspired, fifty years ago, the title of a classic reference in photo publishing. The original edition had one of its rare copies sold at Christie's, London, for 14 thousand euros. Gerry Badger, one of the authors of "The Photobook: A History", includes "Lisboa, cidade triste e alegre" amongst the most important in the history of photography.
The book was finally republished three days ago, and the blog 5b4 sets it as number one for Best Books of 2009:

 "I applaud this incredible reprint of the classic Palla and Martins book as the production is as impressive as the photographs. An extremely complicated book to do a facsimile and they nailed it right down to the printing, paper and binding. Plus it is very affordable considering how expensive it was to produce each copy. Do not hesitate. These will not last long."

This new edition, by Pierre von Kleist Editions, respects the original format and includes a supplement with a new introduction by Gerry Badger.

Orders to mail@pierrevonkleist.com

the best of scientific photography in Spain

This photo got the first award for scientific photography at the FotoCiencia 2009. It shows 114 different specimens of endophits (a fungus that lives within a plant without causing apparent disease) extracted from a common graminea in Spain, the Dactylis glomerata.

Authors: Dª. Maria Salud Sánchez Márquez e D. Iñigo Zabalgogeazcoa.
Equipment: Nikon Coolpix 4500, objetivo Zoom Nikkor 7.85-32mm, lente 1:2.6-5.1

See all the awarded photos (here).

ten best

Now that it's time for 10-best-of-the-year, let us start with the New Yorker´s list.

xmas card

From Picasso Pictures.

a journey to the stars

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) left us this precious little xmas gift: a 6 minute journey through time and space, from the Himalayas to the distant quasars, the farthest objects we can see.
The film is part of an exhibit - Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe - at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York through May 2010.
The AMNH and the Hayden Planetarium have been involved, since 1998, in a three-dimensional mapping of the Universe. A copy of this Digital Universe Atlas is available for download (here).

Scientists take important step toward the proverbial fountain of youth

From Public Release: 21-Dec-2009, in Eureka:

"Going back for a second dessert after your holiday meal might not be the best strategy for living a long, cancer-free life say researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. That's because they've shown exactly how restricted calorie diets -- specifically in the form of restricted glucose -- help human cells live longer. This discovery, published online in the FASEB Journal could help lead to drugs and treatments that slow human aging and prevent cancer." Cody Mooneyhan, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

(Read more ...)

the honeymoon is over

Two years separate these two photos of the couple José Socrates and Cavaco Silva, respectively prime minister and president. More than a change of mood, it is the start of a gloomy future for the country.

the quasemoto

Kozak Collection, Earthquake Engineering Research Center

Today we had an earthquake, and the Portuguese shifted from the traditional "good morning" to the "did you feel-it?". The world was then divided between the yes ones (the privileged who had a story to tell) and the no ones. That is why the morning was so particularly exciting. After all, it is now common knowledge that the Lisbon earthquake, back in 1757, became the first wide world news event, the most exciting theme of the time. 
I did feel it too: it went through me like a wave, with no resistance, as if god and the devil had passed by. I can't understand this love for fear. If everything has its own purpose - and fear is precisely what keep us alive - how can one understand the attraction for danger? Is there an answer in the biology of fear or should one search for it closer to banks of psychoanalysis?

a night of love

Today the coke sang earlier than usual. He must have been boasting about his night of love. I wish I could speak cokenese.

Commuting

I strongly advise taking a bus to go to work. What a pleasure to revisit the same faces, punctually, until they became silent friends, accomplices of the morning. Today I felt like a bubble afloat in the mist, guessing the invisible Tagus, comfortably sleepy, and almost slipping into obliviousness. Suddenly, as if dictated by the baton of an absent conductor, a polyphony: "yes, yes, over the bridge"; "if you stop listening it's cos I'm out of reach"; "do you get me?", he screamed to my ears. We looked into each others' eyes, but his were looking at the distance, everyone was looking at the distance, like old fools screaming alone on the hills.

you don't know me

I've been longing for Caetano Veloso singing You don't know me. Today I found it, (here).

Brecht

I revisited Brecht's mother courage last night, at the National, with rock&roll, fireworks and Duke Special.