I’m reading a book by Paul Auster called book of illusions, where this guy David is depressed for more than a year, but gets kicked out of it by a trivial mute movie, just because it made him smile – nothing else had worked for him. Everybody has his own small set of simple little things, everyday small details, which have the power to bright up the day. David’s, was Hector Mann’s films.

Mine, it’s postcards (among other things). Doesn’t matter how was my day, having postcards on my mailbox always makes me smile. From family, friends, acquaintances, picture postcards or even silly propaganda ones, has long as they have something written by someone, they all turn my mailbox into a little surprise box. And that doesn’t work just me, as I found out that there are more people with this healthy-kinda-silly-but-inexpensive addiction.

So what does a computer geek like me? Yet another electronic postcards website? Well, no. E-cards don’t have anything to do it – doesn’t have half of the fun nor interest, imho. That’s not how IT should come in, about postcards. I believe the correct approach should be like the bookcrossing project which used the internet, to bond together thousands of individuals and make their experience richer, not the oposite.

Since last December I’ve been working on this idea I had, inspired precisely on the bookcrossing, but to allow anyone to exchange postcards with random people on the world – I’ve called it postcrossing. How does it work? Well, it’s a website and you can find all the information about it at www.postcrossing.com, but the main line is: if you send a postcard, you’ll receive one back. The more you send, the more you receive, but always from different, unknown people that also joined the project.

The website is online since yesterday and it’s still growing so if you like postcards or just want to browse around, jump to www.postcrossing.com and leave some feedback, I really would like to get some comments and suggestions about it.

• learn first aid
• use public transportation
• get fitter, feel better
• shop locally
• brew your own wine or beer
• love a pet
• watch less TV
• cut your own hair
• go to the top of a tall building and look at the view
• take time to listen
• play a musical instrument
• tell someone you love them
• ride your bike
• walk in the snow
• arrange flowers (practice ikebana)
• hold a free concert
• take up culture jamming
• use a mug, not a plastic cup

This are the tips tips :), or on other words, it’s the names of the photos which are (still) being displayed at barcode. Another tip which was almost included was do something you think you are unable to and was meant to be a photo of the exhibit itself, as none of us (me and ana) ever imagined to be doing a photo exhibit one day. It could be one of this.

(more tips photos)

It feels funny, having people looking at my photos. Not just people, but complete strangers, who might have complete different ideals on photography, art or simply decoration. Eitheir way, the small sized photos on their white A4 frames have produced the intended effect and I grin when I see people bending over or strechting to try to have a closer look on them… I can’t help myself picturing white thought balloons over their heads, and judging from their faces, most of them have a ‘?!‘ written on it. :)

Tips has been my most recent pet project, side-by-side with another one I’ve been cuddling on’n off since last december and which is still cooking – I’m just working on the last details and hopefully it should go online in the next few days. As a teaser, it’s called postcrossing and the goal is to allow people to receive postcards (paper, not electronic ones) from random people all over the world, for free. Stay tunned.

You know that feeling when you are working at your computer and you keep thinking on a zillion different things but the ones you are trying to focus on? Yes, that feeling that makes you open every weblink that you come across, but none has anything to do with whatever you were supposedly working with? Ever found yourself walking through the place, with no destination or reason, and not recalling taking the decision to get up – just having the need to do it?

Now imagine this is at work.

Exactly.

Six years ago, simple things like shopping, meeting someone new or calling a stranger on the phone could be from hard to unbearable. I had S.A.D. and I had to have professional help to fight it.

Tomorrow, I’ll be making by myself a four hour talk for a bunch of Porto University system administrators, and I’m mostly worried if I master all the technical issues.

Although most people don’t understand it, winning this battle was probably my biggest achievement in this last years.

Whenever I get the right spare amount of money, I’ll buy one of those polaroid cameras. Polaroid-o-nizer turns pics into those cute little things, try it out.

By the way, tips is going to displayed till the end of the month. Drop by if you can.

Today is a special day because it’s a special person birthday.

My friend nocas, aka miss meiadeleite.com is going to the netherlands soon. I know I’ll miss her.

Hartelijk gefeliciteerd, ana!

A couple of days ago I had a (friendly) discussion with a friend on how dangerous is Lisbon versus Porto and even Braga. I already mentioned a few times here how peaceful Braga is, nonetheless, it has it’s caveats and dont’s and I consider myself a careful person on avoiding exposing myself to robbery and such.
Since I bought a Zen, I became extra-careful – the ipodish white headphones are very revealing so a must will be to eventually replace them by some discrete ones. I don’t fancy the idea myself, but some use a more imaginative solution like the cute altoids case for this effect.

Nevertheless, earlier this week I believe I’ve been quite lucky. Near to my place, there’s a shortcut to the nearest shopping mall which I use frequently, but when it’s getting dark it’s not very nice place to be.
Despite already being dusk, I used the shortcut, happily hearing RUM on my Zen. Two african blokes smoking pot and with a german shepherd dog on a leash wasn’t something I was very happy to see, but I’ve kept going my path and when near them, I’ve tried to cuddle the staring dog. Today I think it was a very foolish thing to do, but I also believe it saved me from being robbed. No prejudice intended here, but they really didn’t seem wanting to be left alone – me not showing apparent fear might had done the trick.
Either way, I’m aware of how lucky I was, and I don’t intend to push it. No more dark shortcuts with my Zen from my now on.

A existir um diabo, diria que ele estaria a piscar o olho a estas duas notícias.

• Incidentes de Carcavelos só deram origem a uma queixa
• Michael Jackson considerado inocente de todos os crimes de que era acusado

For pretty much any Portuguese reading this, the painting on the side shouldn’t be unfamiliar. Although is not just a Portuguese thing like I thought, unfortunately it’s quite infiltrated in our culture.
It seems it all started in the UK in the 80’s, when a Spanish orphan painted the first version which ended up believed to be haunted. The painting is called crying boy and nowadays it even has a fan club. Well, maybe because Portuguese are, in a way, masochistic, the painting can be easily found on open-markets or even at some more classy art shops. This wouldn’t be a problem if a big percentage of Portuguese families (maybe my sample is biased. anyway) didn’t use it to decorate their happy homes. I guess people see in it some sort of beauty to which I’m not sensible to. Well, at least not in the same way.
The whole reason of this post it’s, perhaps, to express my strong hate for this painting. Along the years and unaware of it at start, I developed an incredible aversion to it. With all respect to whom might like it, I think it should be banned from all homes.
There is a good reason for all this and, actually, is quite simple, although as much egocentric. When I was just a kid, even before I knew what a painting really is, my mother had the unfortunate idea of hang one of this things on my bedroom wall. Can’t really blame her, she likes it a lot, and was thinking the best for me, but eventually I started asking her to remove the damn think from my room. Well, some years later she did, but moved it to the corridor wall just in from of my bedroom door which isn’t that different. I can’t precise if the painting is still there, I eventually started to ignore it completely and now I hardly go back to my parents home.

Today, I’m still not very much into painting – that’s an art I still don’t understand, I guess. Anyway, my bedroom walls don’t have any so, to replace it, there are a bunch of photographs, lots of postcards and two huge maps: one from Utrecht – already quite in a bad shape of the use I gave it while in The NL, and a even bigger map of Europe where I tagged small post-its at the places where I have friends at [edit: (the ones abroad)]. Some people think it’s funny, others think it’s strange, while some just think I’m nuts. Maybe I am, but I still find it to be a cool way to tease the imagination when everything else fails to keep me concentrated on whatever I might be doing. Plus, it’s a nice way learn some geography knowledge which I miss a bunch.

Se bem me lembro, isto começou mais ou menos assim.

Era um papelinho pequeno, daqueles que se rasga do canto de uma folha para apontar um número de telefone. No caso era um bocado de uma toalha de papel de mesa do Mr. Jacks, onde uma colega alemã tinha apontado dois modelos de câmaras fotográficas – um da Canon e outro da Nikon: – if you really wanna learn, you can start with an old reflex one. you can find really cool prices for these models on ebay, have a look!, disse-me ela.
Não sei exactamente quanto tempo deixei o dito papelinho esquecido no meio das minhas tralhas, as finanças não permitiam grandes voos e ficou em espera. Um dia (porque tornou-se óbvio que não podia regressar para Portugal sem fotos da experiência erasmus), decidi oferecer-me como presente de natal, a minha primeira câmara fotográfica.
Canon AE-1 Program, com a mesma idade que eu, em bom estado mas com pequeno risco no viewfinder, dizia o vendedor alemão. Chegou até mim alguns dias depois do Natal de 2003, muito embrulhadinha e acondicionada em folhas de um qualquer jornal alemão. O seu meio-quilo de peso impunha respeito e colocar o primeiro rolo foi uma tarefa demorada.

E foi assim que o bichinho da fotografia chegou, calçou as pantufas, instalou-se de mansinho e avisou que não tinha data para se ir embora. Entre as cores e o P&B vou fazendo o gostinho ao dedo, sempre tentando mostrar outra forma de ver o mundo (a minha), muitas vezes abusando da paciência dos amigos que têm que aturar o chato que anda sempre com a câmara atrás.
O que eu não podia adivinhar era que um ano e meio depois algumas das fotos que normalmente descançam nas paredes do meu quarto estariam numa exposição de fotografia. A ideia partiu desta menina que me convenceu a juntar as nossas fotos numa exposição conjunta. Planos feitos, algum trabalho, muitas decisões, alguns contactos e ficou finalmente pronta.

aprenda os primeiros socorros. compre no comércio local. use os transportes públicos. corte o seu próprio cabelo. veja menos televisão. faça desporto, sinta-se bem.

fazer a diferença através de coisas simples, que transcendem fronteiras.

ideias legendadas a preto e branco para ler, ver e saborear. com ou sem açucar.

uma exposição de fotografia por Ana Campos e Paulo Magalhães.

Claro que estão todos convidados :) A exposição vai realizar-se num bar no centro histórico de Braga chamado Barcode. Fica na Rua do Anjo, N.°90A e está aberto todos os dias das 21h às 02h. A inauguração é hoje, dia 30, e deverá ficar cerca de 3 semanas em exibição. Apareçam!