It's scary how much I look like her sometimes.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
lya
(sorry, portuguese this time)
É o fim do mundo
Lya Luft
Fui uma das primeiras meninas a usar calças jeans na minha pequena cidade. Uma de minhas avós, luterana fervorosa, embora fosse uma mulher culta, exclamou: "Isso é o fim do mundo!". Nem o mundo acabou nem deixaram de acontecer coisas bem mais esquisitas, a me recordar aquele episódio, que na hora achei muito engraçado.
Lembro-me dessa expressão com certa frequência. Por exemplo, quando uma criança de 6 anos serviu de atração num programa de TV, eventualmente chorando de medo, nervosismo ou cansaço. Ninguém interveio logo. Se levassem a um programa desses, semana após semana, um filhote de cachorro para fazer gracinhas, as sociedades protetoras dos animais já estariam reclamando. (Quem cuida dos humanos?) Finalmente, uma promotora impediu a criança de exercer esse "trabalho". Parabéns – e que não haja recurso.
Lembro-me de minha avó espantada quando assisto ao sofrimento de mulheres magras, muito magras, constantemente lutando para perder mais uns gramas, olhos ávidos da eterna dieta, sorriso forçado de automutiladoras. Para alegria de quem sempre foi fora do esquadro, leio (eu já sabia) que alguns já arriscam dizer que se pode ser saudável e feliz com algum sobrepeso. Não precisamos nos odiar, mas ser naturais, ser quem nos fez a mãe natureza. Porém, a nova onda é a gente se torturar, por falta ou excesso: a bunda pequena, o nariz grande, a barriga balofa, os peitos caídos, os bíceps insuficientes (o ralo QI não preocupa tanto). Aí nos matamos de fome, ou ostentamos um novo nariz estranho à estrutura do rosto em que foi metido, damos uma lipinho de presente de 14 anos a nossa filha. Nós mal conseguimos falar, com uma boca ginecológica, nada sensual. Um terço do nosso dia transcorremos suando e sofrendo muito além do recomendado em academias: não para ser saudáveis, mas para estar em forma, enquanto a alma passa uma fome danada e o tempo passa, a vida encolhe, nós nos desperdiçamos perseguindo modelos impossíveis e burros.
Minha avó acharia que o mundo está por acabar diante da confusão entre pessoa pública e propriedade do público: agora o normal é querer que o outro baixe até as calças da alma e mostre as feridas. Algumas chamadas celebridades parecem forçadas a anunciar o que fazem na cama, e com quem. Elas nem são "vistas" na rua, são "flagradas": o seu mero existir já é suspeito.
O mundo vai acabar, diria minha severa avó luterana, vendo que a política se troca por politicagem, o jogo de interesses infinitamente acima do bem do povo, a calúnia como ferramenta geral. Gente atirada como bicho (bicho, não, aí viria a defesa dos animais!) em pseudo-hospitais é fato menos comentado do que mosquitos, que podem trazer febre amarela (por isso pessoas assustadas e ignorantes matam saudáveis bugios no interior). Meu amigo atropelou um simpático tatu e quase pegou cadeia; se matasse uma pessoa, sendo réu primário aguardaria em liberdade. Viva o tatu. Abaixo as pessoas. Também se comenta que moradores de rua e pseudocolonos vão ganhar Bolsa Família. Quem ainda vai querer pegar na enxada ou lavar o chão de uma casinha?
O mais novo anúncio do fim do mundo pode ser a recomendação de fazermos xixi no banho. É questão ambiental? Enquanto for só xixi que nos recomendam, estamos salvos. Sou a favor de um ambientalismo sensato, que harmonize o convívio entre natureza e humanos, não dê mais atenção a baleias do que a crianças e aceite o progresso, fomente a educação e a higiene. A gente passa anos ensinando aos filhos: não façam xixi no banho nem na piscina. Xixi no chuveiro (e na banheira também?), sinto muito: aqui em casa, não.
Nesse cenário de absurdos, às vezes falta o botão para trocar de canal. Mas, se a menininha da televisão puder voltar a ser criança, os bugios da minha mata forem deixados em paz, os gordinhos não se sentirem os últimos da face da Terra, a gente não for multada por fazer xixi no vaso, quem sabe o fim do mundo ainda demore um pouco para chegar.
É o fim do mundo
Lya Luft
Fui uma das primeiras meninas a usar calças jeans na minha pequena cidade. Uma de minhas avós, luterana fervorosa, embora fosse uma mulher culta, exclamou: "Isso é o fim do mundo!". Nem o mundo acabou nem deixaram de acontecer coisas bem mais esquisitas, a me recordar aquele episódio, que na hora achei muito engraçado.
Lembro-me dessa expressão com certa frequência. Por exemplo, quando uma criança de 6 anos serviu de atração num programa de TV, eventualmente chorando de medo, nervosismo ou cansaço. Ninguém interveio logo. Se levassem a um programa desses, semana após semana, um filhote de cachorro para fazer gracinhas, as sociedades protetoras dos animais já estariam reclamando. (Quem cuida dos humanos?) Finalmente, uma promotora impediu a criança de exercer esse "trabalho". Parabéns – e que não haja recurso.
Lembro-me de minha avó espantada quando assisto ao sofrimento de mulheres magras, muito magras, constantemente lutando para perder mais uns gramas, olhos ávidos da eterna dieta, sorriso forçado de automutiladoras. Para alegria de quem sempre foi fora do esquadro, leio (eu já sabia) que alguns já arriscam dizer que se pode ser saudável e feliz com algum sobrepeso. Não precisamos nos odiar, mas ser naturais, ser quem nos fez a mãe natureza. Porém, a nova onda é a gente se torturar, por falta ou excesso: a bunda pequena, o nariz grande, a barriga balofa, os peitos caídos, os bíceps insuficientes (o ralo QI não preocupa tanto). Aí nos matamos de fome, ou ostentamos um novo nariz estranho à estrutura do rosto em que foi metido, damos uma lipinho de presente de 14 anos a nossa filha. Nós mal conseguimos falar, com uma boca ginecológica, nada sensual. Um terço do nosso dia transcorremos suando e sofrendo muito além do recomendado em academias: não para ser saudáveis, mas para estar em forma, enquanto a alma passa uma fome danada e o tempo passa, a vida encolhe, nós nos desperdiçamos perseguindo modelos impossíveis e burros.
Minha avó acharia que o mundo está por acabar diante da confusão entre pessoa pública e propriedade do público: agora o normal é querer que o outro baixe até as calças da alma e mostre as feridas. Algumas chamadas celebridades parecem forçadas a anunciar o que fazem na cama, e com quem. Elas nem são "vistas" na rua, são "flagradas": o seu mero existir já é suspeito.
O mundo vai acabar, diria minha severa avó luterana, vendo que a política se troca por politicagem, o jogo de interesses infinitamente acima do bem do povo, a calúnia como ferramenta geral. Gente atirada como bicho (bicho, não, aí viria a defesa dos animais!) em pseudo-hospitais é fato menos comentado do que mosquitos, que podem trazer febre amarela (por isso pessoas assustadas e ignorantes matam saudáveis bugios no interior). Meu amigo atropelou um simpático tatu e quase pegou cadeia; se matasse uma pessoa, sendo réu primário aguardaria em liberdade. Viva o tatu. Abaixo as pessoas. Também se comenta que moradores de rua e pseudocolonos vão ganhar Bolsa Família. Quem ainda vai querer pegar na enxada ou lavar o chão de uma casinha?
O mais novo anúncio do fim do mundo pode ser a recomendação de fazermos xixi no banho. É questão ambiental? Enquanto for só xixi que nos recomendam, estamos salvos. Sou a favor de um ambientalismo sensato, que harmonize o convívio entre natureza e humanos, não dê mais atenção a baleias do que a crianças e aceite o progresso, fomente a educação e a higiene. A gente passa anos ensinando aos filhos: não façam xixi no banho nem na piscina. Xixi no chuveiro (e na banheira também?), sinto muito: aqui em casa, não.
Nesse cenário de absurdos, às vezes falta o botão para trocar de canal. Mas, se a menininha da televisão puder voltar a ser criança, os bugios da minha mata forem deixados em paz, os gordinhos não se sentirem os últimos da face da Terra, a gente não for multada por fazer xixi no vaso, quem sabe o fim do mundo ainda demore um pouco para chegar.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
bluegreen
I saw this over at my brother in law's blog and decided to copy and do mine.
The instructions say you're supposed to type your answers to the questions below on flickr's search box, choose one of the pictures on the first page of results, then create a mosaic.
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your favorite color?
4. Favorite drink?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favorite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love most in life?
9. One word to describe you?
I dare you to find the answers to number 5, 7 and 9.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
28
I was rightfully accused today of neglecting this blog once again. The thing is there is just not enough time in a day to do all I've been trying to do lately and still maintain the decent amount of posts I used to.
So, to correct this absolutely awful scenario, here's my 28th birthday. Today! Yay me! How wonderful is it that I spent 7 years away and I get to come home and gather in one room all my old faithful friends and a few more who I'm growing to adore like family?
Turns out that the right mixture of the friends, family and Lexapro actually works wonders for me. I'm pretty damn happy.
So, to correct this absolutely awful scenario, here's my 28th birthday. Today! Yay me! How wonderful is it that I spent 7 years away and I get to come home and gather in one room all my old faithful friends and a few more who I'm growing to adore like family?
Turns out that the right mixture of the friends, family and Lexapro actually works wonders for me. I'm pretty damn happy.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
jojo
I wrote Jojo a letter before she was even born. Now she's a big girl with her own personality, and she even knows how to play hide and seek with me on skype. Ask me how crazy I am about this little girl? Absolutely crazy.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
good design
What is good design?
This is the question that has haunted the design community for decades. Whenever the conversation comes up, the “eye of the beholder” argument shuts it down. Someone says that good design is design that “works,” and someone else adds that the arbiter of “what works” is the individual user. At this point everyone nods and the conversation ends. But the question is never fully put to rest.
I believe there’s a more universal answer. It’s this: Good design does not depend so much on the eye of the beholder, but on a combination of aesthetics and ethics. Good design is design that exhibits virtues. What virtues? You know, good old human virtues like generosity, courage, diligence, honesty, substance, clarity, curiosity, thriftiness, helpfulness, and wit. By contrast, bad design exhibits human vices like selfishness, fear, laziness, deceit, pettiness, confusion, apathy, wastefulness, harmfulness, and stupidity.
In other words, we want the same things from design that we want from our fellow humans. When we combine ethical virtues with aesthetic virtues, we get good design. The ancient Greeks framed this ideal in the context of knowing, making, and doing: “To know truth. To make beauty. To do good.” Apple’s Steve Jobs framed it this way: “Design is the soul of a man-made creation.”
Soul, like beauty, is one of those evanescent qualities that disappears under the microscope, but it’s clearly visible when you meet it on the street. It’s a quality that’s been missing in a 20th-century business tradition that overvalues narrow, short-term success, and undervalues broad, long-term success. Sumantra Ghoshal, a global business leader and author, called corporate business “under- socialized and one-dimensional.” He said that spreadsheet management has only led to resentful customers, dispirited employees, and a divided society.
Why would this change? Because it has to. In an era when customers are not only omnipotent but omniscient, when over-production leads to an ecological box canyon, a selfish focus on the bottom line is bad design. Good design, in contrast, is a new management model that deliberately includes a moral dimension. It’s a model that not only serves shareholders but employees, customers, partners, and communities. For the first time since the Industrial Age, successful businesses will be designful businesses. They’ll combine knowing, making, and doing to strive for truth, beauty, and the public good. At last, the bottom line will begin to trace the shape of who we want to be.
++++++++
From Marty Neumeier's The Designful Company.
You can download Part 2 of the book here.
This is the question that has haunted the design community for decades. Whenever the conversation comes up, the “eye of the beholder” argument shuts it down. Someone says that good design is design that “works,” and someone else adds that the arbiter of “what works” is the individual user. At this point everyone nods and the conversation ends. But the question is never fully put to rest.
I believe there’s a more universal answer. It’s this: Good design does not depend so much on the eye of the beholder, but on a combination of aesthetics and ethics. Good design is design that exhibits virtues. What virtues? You know, good old human virtues like generosity, courage, diligence, honesty, substance, clarity, curiosity, thriftiness, helpfulness, and wit. By contrast, bad design exhibits human vices like selfishness, fear, laziness, deceit, pettiness, confusion, apathy, wastefulness, harmfulness, and stupidity.
In other words, we want the same things from design that we want from our fellow humans. When we combine ethical virtues with aesthetic virtues, we get good design. The ancient Greeks framed this ideal in the context of knowing, making, and doing: “To know truth. To make beauty. To do good.” Apple’s Steve Jobs framed it this way: “Design is the soul of a man-made creation.”
Soul, like beauty, is one of those evanescent qualities that disappears under the microscope, but it’s clearly visible when you meet it on the street. It’s a quality that’s been missing in a 20th-century business tradition that overvalues narrow, short-term success, and undervalues broad, long-term success. Sumantra Ghoshal, a global business leader and author, called corporate business “under- socialized and one-dimensional.” He said that spreadsheet management has only led to resentful customers, dispirited employees, and a divided society.
Why would this change? Because it has to. In an era when customers are not only omnipotent but omniscient, when over-production leads to an ecological box canyon, a selfish focus on the bottom line is bad design. Good design, in contrast, is a new management model that deliberately includes a moral dimension. It’s a model that not only serves shareholders but employees, customers, partners, and communities. For the first time since the Industrial Age, successful businesses will be designful businesses. They’ll combine knowing, making, and doing to strive for truth, beauty, and the public good. At last, the bottom line will begin to trace the shape of who we want to be.
++++++++
From Marty Neumeier's The Designful Company.
You can download Part 2 of the book here.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
sorry
Dear readers,
So sorry I've been neglecting this blog. Honestly, I'm pretty bored with this whole web 2.0 deal, tired of hearing about twitter, facebook, blogs and all that crap. It suddenly feels very stupid and meaningless to me. I'm trying to discover a new way to relate to the web that feels a little less voyeristic and more refreshing than before. It's been working so far, and I finally feel a tiny urge to write here again.
Things are GOOD in almost every aspect of life.
Last weekend I was in Curitiba for the second time this month. I absolutely love that city, it's one of the cleanest and most organized places you'll ever see. The people are ridiculously beautiful, polite and well dressed. I have the best reception every time I'm there and have made a few good friends. I spent a couple of days in town and went to this beautiful, green campus were I've been attending some classes. Look at that big lake! Unfortunately they have that big geese issue there as well, and, as some of you may know, I'm terrified of geese, so no need to say I didn't go anywhere near the water. Thank God for the zoom in my camera.
go ahead and steal my heart to make me cry again
"Cause when hard work don't pay off and I'm tired,
There ain't no room in my bed, as far as I'm concerned.
So wipe that dirty smile of,
We won't be making up,
I've cried my heart out
and now I've had enough of love."
I absolutely love this.
+++++++++++
the image is from here
Saturday, April 11, 2009
H
- LUCE: [Singing] You've got a boyfriend, you've got a boyfriend..
- H: No, I haven't! Not yet... I can't wait till you get a boyfriend. You probably can, actually. You could even get a husband. You're old enough. Find one like Heck.
- LUCE: H, I should explain something to you. I do believe I will be with one person for the rest of my life... but that person will be a woman.
- H: I understand!
- LUCE: You do?
- H: My best friend is Natalie Curtis. I'd rather spend the rest of my life with her than any boy.
- LUCE: There you go.
- H: It doesn't mean that you're a lesbian or anything.
- LUCE: Come on, let's go.
(from "Imagine Me & You", a dumb little movie I watched today. It has a couple of great hidden moments.)
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
baby boy is now a man
And then one day, he suddenly grew up and made us all proud. My brother is graduating.
I remember a few years ago when I was still living in Indianapolis there was a Tide commercial going on that had this really pretty song and I used to think about my brother every time I heard it. Hopefully he'll find his way here, listen to it and cry.
(And congrats to this girl here, too. Not too shabby!)
I remember a few years ago when I was still living in Indianapolis there was a Tide commercial going on that had this really pretty song and I used to think about my brother every time I heard it. Hopefully he'll find his way here, listen to it and cry.
(And congrats to this girl here, too. Not too shabby!)
on how b-schools have failed
I remember reading "M.F.A is the new M.B.A" while I was a student at Herron and today's New York Times has proved to me again that this is a great time in History to be a designer and a right brain thinker.
++++++++++++++
MFA is the new MBA was published in 2003 by Harvard Business Review's Breatkthrough Ideas for 2004. It's available for download here or you can purchase the article here.
But with the economy in disarray and so many financial firms in free fall, analysts, and even educators themselves, are wondering if the way business students are taught may have contributed to the most serious economic crisis in decades.
“It is so obvious that something big has failed,” said Ángel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. “We can look the other way, but come on. The C.E.O.’s of those companies, those are people we used to brag about. We cannot say, ‘Well, it wasn’t our fault’ when there is such a systemic, widespread failure of leadership.”
(...)
“There is a need to broaden from the analytical focus of M.B.A. programs for more emphasis on skills and a sense of purpose and identity,” said David A. Garvin, a professor of business administration and one of the project’s authors.
(...)
Business education “accentuates the simple technical pieces,” said Ms. Samuelson of the Aspen Institute, and “ignores the real complexity and, frankly, the really exciting opportunities business has to be the driver of long-term prosperity.”
++++++++++++++
MFA is the new MBA was published in 2003 by Harvard Business Review's Breatkthrough Ideas for 2004. It's available for download here or you can purchase the article here.
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