Thanks to Ana for telling me that the Catalan director who attended the Film School Exhibition this week raved about my documentary in a newspaper interview. That was nice. There is little to say about the film sessions. Apparently the Iranian professor who would bring the Teheran University's films was detained in London because the travel agency did really messed up with the visas. It seems if your're coming to Portugal and have everything legal here, you can't spend three hours in a room somewhere else in Megafortress Europe waiting for the next flight because you surely must be a terrorist if you come from a country without direct flights. Pricks.

Nevertheless I watched the films from Spain and Brazil (and also from the ESTC in Lisbon). The São Paulo ones didn't make my cup of tea and I found them very predictable thematically and aesthetically, hence disappointed since they showed to have plenty of resources. As for the Spanish who will always spend mega-budgets and resources in their college films, I found the ones from Madrid a bit bland in comparison to the sexual aggressiveness of Catalan shorts such as Nito (I guess Pedro Almodovar and Bigas Luna are quite important references at the ESCAC). My favourite film in the exhibition though was I Love You, precisely out of the Barcelona school, a very tense vampiresque affair with gorgeous photography. As for the Lisbon ESTC, they really should have avoided sending simple exercises which are not films at all along with the real shorts, among which I liked one which successfully emulated those old 1940s Portuguese comedies.···

A Wikipedia entry for the word 'desenrascanço' is currently making the rounds in Portuguese weblogs. Because it's as scientific and as accurate as the concept of an internet connection (with quality of service!) over carrier pigeons. 'Desenrascanço' (you read that 'the-zen-rascan-so') is simply a slang word for the slacker art of coming up with some last-minute solution for a problem — and as a rule the solution will end up doing more harm than simply avoiding the problem (unless avoiding the problem is exactly that last-minute solution — a very common scenario). What I don't get is the article's connection between 'desenrascanço' and those fake academic 'traditions' which consist in the ritual bullying of freshmen. Unfortunately 'desenrascanço' has far greater scope, and it is a true defining quality of being Portuguese — even perhaps what separates us from the Spanish.···

This compreensive chart of weblog/CMS software features will come in handy eventually, I'm sure.···

May 26th 2004 won't be a day to remember just because it means the climax of FC Porto's two best seasons in History. For me, it also meant my first ever TV interview, in which I went to NTV to promote my work and that academic film-fest which will be taking place here in Porto until Sunday; and also the first public showing of my work, precisely in that film meeting. Of course there was almost nobody there to watch my documentary (and the other short films) since today's session started just a few minutes after Jorge Costa lifted the Cup, and even I had to rush to the Teatro do Campo Alegre to be there on time — so I couldn't join Alex and the other mates for the post-match celebrations. Still, I received a few positive compliments from the few people watching the film, so this has truly been a nice day. Of course, I am now expecting a disaster concerning the essay I delivered early in the morning, since the inevitable Law of Compensations will be enforced by those ninja dogs that run our Universe.

Ah yes. FC Porto won the Champions League final against AS Monaco 3-0 today. The result might have been a bit excessive considering AS Monaco's production, but then again kick'n'rush isn't a nice way to play football and they got what they deserved. Still it was a great match to see, as Monaco's very deliberate attacking style presented a real challenge to the typical dominating style of Porto. Of course that allowed Porto to score two of the goals in counter-attack moves, serving as a good example of why teams that run like hell towards the goal don't win competitions. Monaco attacked well, Porto defended a little better, and there was nobody at their back to stop our players. Meaning that following last year's UEFA Cup victory, FC Porto is now the Champion of Europe. The best. And (just to nail our Benfica rivals) now officially the Portuguese club with most European victories. Which is nice.···

That Wittgenstein essay is done, and as always I managed to throw in a bit of Richard Dawkins for good measure (whoever said atheists can't evangelize?). That and a few other brilliant ideas ought to be enough to boost my Philosphical Aesthetics essay grade to seven or eight... out of twenty. Anyway, this Wednesday is going to be a bit hellish. FC Porto plays the Champions' League final against AS Monaco late in the afternoon — and I'm not feeling as confident about Porto as I was feeling last year — perhaps because we lost the Portuguese Cup final the other day, or because of the eerie feeling the team will desintegrate once Mourinho leaves after today's match. Anyway, I'm afraid I might miss watching the biggest football match in 17 years. Starting today my college is organizing an international film school film-fest at the Teatro do Campo Alegre and unfortunately it seems that documentary of mine will be shown precisely today, so I either watch the game or promote my work. What to do? On top of that, it seems I might have to concede an interview to television channel NTV. Can't life be postponed until Thursday?···

I can also play that game: Who actually reads this? If you do so often, please place a comment saying who you are and where from.

Like Graham said, it also seems to me female readers tend to shy away from placing comments here, which contrasts with the more balanced audience of Cafeína. A theory of mine is that Cafeína is a community blog/zine with generalist topics, while mine tends to specialize in topics that are predominantly male. Besides, I think that generally speaking, ladies might be more resistant to admitting they follow a website done by a single male author, and there's always the glossy factor of a site like Cafeína compared to the rougher stylings of personal weblogs, which no matter how smoothly designed will always be this era's equivalent of photocopied journals. But am I right?···

Do check Alex's Syndicate of the Superheroes, starring our group of friends as superheroes battling against the clichés. Of course, given that Alexander's high standard in his comics is a fact and we visit The English Manager daily, everyone was forgetting to link his latest series. The curse of success, maybe?···

Months later, two posts in two days! Mind you, exactly a month ago this weblog turned three, so now IF THEN ELSE is three years and a month old. Anyway this might turn out to be a remporary fluke since I've got five projects in the editing queued to be finished before July, and right now I'm working in some philosophical essay about Wittgenstein and George Orwell due next Wednesday, consequentely despairing and resorting to Google to find readable explanations of his writings, such as this one. I'm definitely not into philosophy.···

Blog.com is, as you'd expect, a Blogger/Blogspot analog with a very desirable domain name, and it's currently in beta. The interesting thing is, I'm talking about portuguese technology. Thumbs up to André Restivo for making it real. These kind of things don't need necessarily to come out of chic San Francisco or hip New York. Porto will do.···

Re: the Movable Type shooting their own foot thing. A final argument could be that MT3.0-Free is a much inferior product compared to MT2.6-Free. But not only that, MT3.0-PayingNinetyBucks is still worse than MT2.6-Free. Better than it, actually, only MT3.0-HundredsOfBucks. Not worth it. But if you consider that a high end CMS like Typo3 is both free software and Free Software, that really ought to get you thinking.···



Last week I went to visit the Serralves Museum of Modern Art as I usually do every three months or so, so that I can get a grip in the latest crap postmodernist critique has legitimized. This time it wasn't that bad — there were a few interesting installations involving speakers playing glitchy CD skipping unmusic, a truly hardcore sensory deprivation experiment consisting of a very brightly lit room totally painted in bright white and full of white smoke, and a big collection of photos and postcards by late 70s and 80s Soviet artists which as always look like something out of an entirely alternate universe. A few photos I took during the visit are here. The intriguing image you see above is actually a photo of the park surrounding the museum, shot through a window which had been covered with a strong green acetate. My crappy CMOS-based toycam did some freakish compensation, hence the weird result. Now there's some use for those gel filter catalogs I've got lying around.···

Hm it seems the blogging community is burning because Movable Type commited suicide with the announcement of their new licensing plans, meaning now everyone's got to pay for MT. Some say it's fair to pay for good software because developers got to eat, but others point out that there are better alternatives which are both free and Free with a capital F. I agree with this later point of view. Everyone's got to eat, but it's a bit stupid to try to make a business out of selling sand to people in the beach. If communities arise (whose members are not demi-gods and also need to eat) developing good software which is given away for free, what's the point of having a commercial alternative? If they want to sell software, they should worry about making it much better (consider Adobe Photoshop vs The Gimp) and then people will happily pay for it, else forget it. As for me, I keep with my chaotic CMS. When I have the time during the summer, I'll give Wordpress a try since MT is now disqualified, and if I find it too complicated for my needs I'll then go ahead with my Thought Recorder project.···

Also found on The Null Device: SampleSwap. Oh goodie.···

The media are very, very quiet about what'd be a breakthrough scientific achievement: a functional cure for AIDS. Could it be, as acb said, because the cure itself is also a sexually-transmitted virus which preys on HIV, and therefore unmarkateable? And nevermind the religiots which claim AIDS is God's revenge against black homossexual drug addicts, it's a little weird to think a potential way to get cured is having sex and sharing needles.···

Tipos de Portugal, a website devoted to high-end Portuguese typography. A shame the site is the typical Flash-based minimal hogwash which makes my eyes hurt, since the fonts, whatever they are called, look really nice.···

Damn it. As Alex said, our goalie in yesterday's match acted like a prick and conceded that goal in extra time. We were watching the match in a coffeehouse and when I saw Nuno Espírito Santo was playing I thought to myself it wasn't a good idea to leave Vitor Baía in the bench just because it could hurt Nuno's feelings to miss the Cup final. But I kept it to myself, as everyone else seemed to agree it was a fair choice, since FC Porto's 2nd keeper had played all Cup matches. Hm, I guess he showed why he's 2nd the worst possible way. Not that it was all his fault (and Mourinho's for selecting him). The ref was shite when it came to showing cards, sending off Jorge Costa but avoiding showing a second yellow card to Benfica players such as Petit who also deserved it, but in the end it was pure bad luck. FC Porto did play worse than Benfica for most of the first half, but then hit back and even managed to score before half-time. And it was in the second half, in which Porto applied ten men domination that Benfica scored against the trend, and then again on extra time. A very, very nasty 2-1 defeat.···

Lego moviemaking. Yes, again. I wonder how long it will take for the Danish toy manufacturers to sue filmmakers, claiming royalties... Not far-fetched these days, unfortunately...···

There are more Indie Pop genres one could ever imagine. Jangle? C-86? New Optimism? It sure beats that 153-genre Electronic Music Guide I blogged about the other day, because they managed to find a lot of genres in a narrower scope. I think. Anyway I hope this shows how ridiculous this kind of categorization is when taken to extremes. We're almost arriving at the one genre per band threshold...···

Seventeen years later, FC Porto is back in the Champions' League final, after defeating Deportivo La Coruña 1-0 in the second leg of the semis. It's a pity a penalty decided the winner, since these two teams surely deserved to score more goals in both matches. But it's nice — 2004 is the year of the Fall of the Superclubs, as European giants such as Real Madrid, Manchester United or AC Milan all lost to the underdogs. Money-irrigated (and unfortunately very likely to be José Mourinho's home next season) Chelsea FC is also likely to be eliminated tomorrow, and so Porto will meet Monaco in the final. The fantastic thing is that every Porto fan is aware this season the team isn't playing to last season's standard (and still...) and I do hope some players will correct their performances during the next few weeks.···

Graham reinvents Virulent Memes. I must say it's a very good idea to separate rants from small posts if your blogging style tends to revolve around constant ranting. What puzzles me is his decision to limit the amount of homepage rants to three, given that only a sinopsys of the older two is available. Remembers me of Cafeína somehow, maybe because both sites are taking the same path, from one long homepage containing a dozen long rants to a more compact fanzine kind. As far as my blog is concerned, I'm perfectly happy with its structure although I could live with a tidier CMS. But then again, I'm perhaps too lazy to categorize and partition things up. I once tried Kottke-style remaindered links in Cafeína and I almost immediately reverted to Slashdot-style quickies. Anyway, it's an interesting road: Many blogs aren't blogs anymore. They compromise an images section, reviews section, reblogging and maybe even a sideblog. Just like an ever-changing dynamic mutant *-zine. Which is perhaps why I find the attempts to strip a weblog out of its body (read: anything containing the acronyms XML or RSS) doomed to failure, because a personal zine (or whatever they are becoming) isn't just a linear text feed. These websites tend to be far more complex and intricate, and irreproducible in a linear mail-like environment. Feeds are alright for Reuters or your basic Blogspot-hosted political blog, but else, don't fiddle with feeds or things will get fiddly.···



More images. This time, some set photographs I took during the shooting of the First Chapter last Wednesday. The function of a still photographer in a shooting is to emulate the images in the film for promotional purposes, but I did spend an extra-roll with photos of gadgetery. I'll save the proper still photos for later.···

Done. Last Monday I directed the shooting of the Third Chapter of that joint 35mm film I talked about earlier (images here — thanks to Marta for the photos), then I worked as still photographer (images soon) at the First Chapter shot Wednesday and as Director of Photography at the Fourth and Seventh, shot Thursday and Friday. It was fun, it was nervewrecking, and I'm tired. Now it's time to clean up the mess (two more chapters in which I'm not directly involved are being shot this weekend) and start thinking about the editing.



Confusing? It's simple: Everyone wants to direct a 35mm film. So we cut a bigger film into smaller parts and we end up with a seven-part, seven filmmakers plan. Since shooting took place in a newly rehabilitated and still pretty vacant office compound, we ended up with stories that take place in different rooms in a motel or whatever. Which resembles this. I can't figure out a better way to promote a film school class.···