melomanias, etc.

I've moved on

2011-10-18T18:25:00.000+01:00

http://synaptive.wordpress.com

WHY

2011-08-16T00:10:00.000+01:00

If I could have the answer to one question only, it would be: why did you stop loving me?

Portnoy's Complaint #1

2011-08-12T21:42:00.000+01:00

"All I do is complain, the repugnance seems bottomless, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe enough isn't enough. I hear myself indulging in the kind of ritualized bellyaching that is just what gives psychoanalytic patients such a bad name with the general public."

Philip Roth

People say

2011-08-09T22:51:00.001+01:00

They want true friends, and true love. They're liars. Liars!

They couldn't find the time! And even if they did find it, where's the devotion?

(Please read this post like you were Audrey Hepburn - that's how I imagined the words in my head)

Everyone's a geek nowadays

2011-08-05T14:24:00.003+01:00

The only thing at which people do not fail

2011-07-31T21:21:00.000+01:00

Is to disappoint you.

Dr. Oetker

2011-07-22T14:44:00.000+01:00

Thank you for curing my appetitis majoris with your delicious pizzas.

The question is not what makes us like a particular song

2011-07-21T00:00:00.000+01:00

The question is why don't we all like the same song.

"Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me"

2011-07-17T22:18:00.000+01:00

"No hope, no harm,
Just another false alarm."

Why are all the men I love either gay, Jew or somehow rather unattainable?

Are you (still) afraid of the dark?

2011-07-11T19:32:00.001+01:00

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Stephen Hawking in an interview for the Guardian.

We need the eggs

2011-07-02T14:33:00.000+01:00

"Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships – you know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs."

I would vote for him #2

2011-06-30T18:54:00.001+01:00

I'm normally a law-abiding citizen, but:
- Law is not something that applies only to those who more easily get caught;
- Law is not universal or irrevocable (that's moral principles you're thinking of);
- Every citizen should have a say in the making and revising of laws.

"No gene is an island"

2011-06-26T14:05:00.002+01:00

Says George Wolfe, my favorite Biology teacher.

Originality is overrated: Everything is a remix

2011-06-23T12:58:00.000+01:00

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Which reminds me of this great remix:

Summer solstice

2011-06-21T21:57:00.000+01:00

- Today is the longest day of the year!
- Well, that depends.
- No, it doesn't. It's the Summer solstice!
- I'm afraid my clock runs on a SPV.
- SPV?
- Subjective Point of View.
- Of course it does.

Study of the soul, no more

2011-06-18T17:02:00.000+01:00

"Psychology has a long past, but only a short history."
Hermann Ebbinghaus

The real heroes

2011-06-15T21:23:00.000+01:00

The Fantastic How Many? The What-Letter-Team? The Doctor Who? (Oh! That one exists...)

Anyway: forget those pussycats. Because nothing compares to the might and groove of THE IMMUNE SYSTEM!!

É tão bom chegar tarde

2011-06-14T10:43:00.002+01:00

E não chegar atrasada.

Happy birthday, dear Pessoa

2011-06-13T14:02:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid there's no cake, but Google made a special doodle just for you.

Are you afraid of being wrong?

2011-06-12T21:39:00.002+01:00

The invisible hands of a few

2011-06-11T22:57:00.000+01:00

One of these nights I watched the Inside Job and I found myself wishing something for the first time in a long time: market regulation. Yes, Neil, we need "Middle-Class Heroes"* more than ever. But what do those people in the government have to do with that? They're some of the few who're benefiting from this crisis most of us are paying for. And on top of that, I'm supposed to give them my vote (approving of the system)?

* I'm aware that the song by The Divine Comedy aka Neil Hannon says nothing related to the subject debated here. But I can't help the feeling that the middle-class is an endangered species in a world where economic power is increasingly concentrated in a few people. And since democracy isn't working the way it should, I guess yes, we need some heroes with special super hyper powers. So I'll just stick to the title of the song (and to the irony implied, of course).

Disturbed synapses

2011-06-10T22:54:00.002+01:00

(Existential bla bla takes place here. Just imagine it - I feel too lazy to do it myself.)

- Anyway, life goes on. And people change - except that they don't. That is, unless you provide them with a big blow in the head.

I would vote for him

2011-06-09T23:14:00.000+01:00

Music is my prayer

2011-06-08T21:05:00.004+01:00

"Oração

Meu amor essa é a última oração
Pra salvar seu coração
Coração não é tão simples quanto pensa
Nele cabe o que não cabe na despensa
Cabe o meu amor!
Cabem três vidas inteiras
Cabe uma penteadeira
Cabe nós dois
Cabe até o meu amor, essa é a última oração
Pra salvar seu coração
Coração não é tão simples quanto pensa
Nele cabe o que não cabe na despensa
Cabe o meu amor!
Cabem três vidas inteiras
Cabe uma penteadeira
Cabe nós dois
Cabe até o meu amor, essa é a última oração
Pra salvar seu coração
Coração não é tão simples quanto pensa
Nele cabe o que não cabe na despensa
Cabe o meu amor!
Cabem três vidas inteiras
Cabe uma penteadeira
Cabe essa oração"

A Banda Mais Bonita da Cidade (written by Leo Fressato)

No love is puré

2011-06-07T13:18:00.000+01:00

Pardon. No love is pure (the automatic correction tricked me again). Love is the dirtiest thing of all - just look at the fluids going in and out. Makes you more discriminating than ever - there's only one person right for you (yes, I'm assuming you're monogamous). It makes you more selfish - you want him / her just for you. Except when you're mad at him - usually for an insane reason - and then you just want to kill him.

Abstention wins the elections in Portugal

2011-06-06T00:53:00.000+01:00

To be a citizen is more than placing a cross on a vote ballot once in a while. I don't feel like a puppet so I've cut the string and I want, not a new party, but a new system. Democracy? Possibly, if it only were. Maybe technological advances will make it possible for all citizens to take an active role in shaping the society they live in. Until then, abstention is my party.

The opposite of K.I.S.S.

2011-06-04T11:40:00.000+01:00

"Poisson distribution"
That's French to me.

"σ2 = Σ ( Xi - μ )2 / N"
That's Greek to me.

"Statistics"
Can't you make it plain English?

La Palicean heartbreaker

2011-06-02T22:18:00.000+01:00

If her heart was really made of stone
then it wasn't made of flesh and bone.

Two artists, one feeling

2011-05-31T20:35:00.000+01:00

Is it just me or is "Do I Disappoint You" the perfect soundtrack for "De Profundis"?

Goodnight, mon amour imaginaire

2011-05-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

I want to trade logic for wonder
Sleep when I'm awake
And spend my life dreaming
Because dreams - they're real
And reality feels numb - except
When I'm with you

But you're someone else's darling
Or you just don't care to know me
So dreams are my only way
Of bringing us together

So goodnight
And sleep tight

Democratize democracy #2

2011-05-28T20:57:00.001+01:00

Democratize democracy #1

2011-05-28T20:18:00.002+01:00

'Me' is not enough

2011-05-27T00:52:00.002+01:00

I need to do it for someone else.

If this song ain't about an erection...

2011-05-26T21:40:00.001+01:00

just shoot me.

"Happiness is a Warm Gun

She's not a girl who misses much
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, oh yeah

She's well acquainted
With the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd
With the multicolored mirrors
On his hobnail boots

Lying with his eyes
While his hands are busy working overtime
A soap impression of his wife
Which he ate and donated to the National Trust

I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down

Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun

Happiness is a warm gun (bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, mama (bang bang, shoot shoot)

When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm

Because happiness is a warm gun, mama (bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, yes it is (bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm, yes it is... gun (happiness, bang bang, shoot shoot)
Well, don't you know that happiness is a warm gun, mama (Happiness is a warm gun, yeah)"

The Beatles

But then again, it might be about drugs.

If reproduction is the ultimate goal in life

2011-05-25T23:22:00.002+01:00

how come nuns aren't extinct?

I always knew

2011-05-24T22:24:00.000+01:00

there was a lot of ambiguity going on in their lyrics...

Les Amours Imaginaires

2011-05-23T23:52:00.000+01:00

With only two movies (and the first was sufficient, because in art quantity is second to meaning) Xavier Dolan conquered me.

If God is the creator of all things...

2011-05-22T14:00:00.000+01:00

did he create himself?

I like to close my eyes

2011-05-17T21:24:00.000+01:00

and pretend.

"Cathy

I’d like to lodge a complaint
With the relevant authority
With each other’s where we ought to be, Cathy

I’m gonna write to the Times,
Sign it: desperate of Dolphin’s Barn
Shouldn’t we be in each other’s arms, Cathy?

Cathy, it’s at times like these I wish I wrote like you,
You seem to bend your words to suit your needs,
You melt my heart with your imagery, but I don’t know
How to say it better, than darling since I met you
I haven’t been the same

And I don’t know, all the whys and wherefores
But you’re the one I care for and that will never change... Cathy

Oh to be with you tonight, smoke a j and drink a g and t,
Do whatever’s coming naturally, Cathy

Turn the sheets into sails
Turn the bed into a golden ship
Floating slowly down the Mississippi, Cathy

Cathy can you help me please, you put these things more poetically than me
I’ve sang of how love feels but it’s much harder when it’s all real
And I don’t know
How to make it clearer, than honey when I’m near you
It’s like I’m in a dream
And I don’t know if held in stormy weather
But just to be together is good enough for me,Cathy
Cathy
Cathy
Cathy"

Neil Hannon & Rodrigo Leão

All the love songs in the world sound so unreal to me right now

2011-05-02T20:28:00.001+01:00

The right artist in the wrong place

2011-05-01T17:46:00.000+01:00

Dear Neil: "you make me feel something, and feeling something, beats feeling nothing at all". Thank you for the wonderful moments, despite the idiotic context.

As for you, organizers of the Queimas do Porto: I know it's cheaper to bring only Neil for an acoustic show, but in this context it couldn't be more innapropriate. And next time shut up the fucking background "music" from the carnival. Please.

Love synapses

2011-04-21T20:45:00.000+01:00

No one will ever be able to say they know you as well as I knew you. We shared intimacy, but we also shared personality. Someone else may see your underwear and touch your bare skin in places that are profusely innervated, but the real intimacy lies inside the skull.

I am like you, most of the time. Not exactly the same, for I still am mine.

I fell in love with your mind. You seduced me with words that echoed my thoughts (I'm an egotist, I'll pay for my crimes). We didn't always agree, but that is no contradiction.

I am deeply sorry you felt art was killing you. Maybe you thought love was too. But I am not sorry I knew you. Better than anyone. Yes, I'm sure.

What is consciousness? (a beautiful poll)

2011-03-29T23:02:00.002+01:00

Go here and "make up your own mind".

Unintended humor

2011-03-21T14:28:00.000Z

"Watkins (1972) and Watkins and Watkins (1973) reported effects of word length as a function..."

Human memory: An introduction to research, data, and theory, Neath & Surprenant.

Humor

2011-03-13T01:12:00.003Z

Is like diplomacy backwards. Diplomacy is telling your opponent what he wants to hear so he doesn't try to kill you. Humor is telling him what he doesn't want to hear in a way that makes him so puzzled about his own feelings that you actually get away with it.

Shortly: humor is the evolved mechanism that allows us to tell the truth without leading our genes into immediate extinction.

The 'natural' beauty of urban landscapes

2011-03-12T00:16:00.000Z

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

The more I talk about it, the less sense it makes.

2011-02-24T23:12:00.002Z

Well, it's the story of my life.

Kissing talk: the other way

2011-02-22T20:23:00.000Z

"Kisses are a better fate than wisdom."

e. e. cummings.

Kissing talk: the nerd's way

2011-02-22T20:15:00.000Z

The Kiss - Infographic from Marija Vidanovic on Vimeo.

The chicken or the egg?

2011-02-08T19:13:00.000Z

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."

Samuel Butler

In defence of promiscuity

2011-02-05T15:31:00.003Z

There's no bigger exercise of objectivity as the one seen in the Sciences like there's no bigger exercise of subjectivity as the one seen in the Arts. I believe it's their accidental children who might bring us closer to knowing the truth about human nature.

Statistics say

2011-02-04T17:29:00.002Z

the probability of an individual explaining his idiosyncratic life through statistical analysis is statistically irrelevant.

Pavlov vs. Pavlova

2011-02-01T13:54:00.000Z

Meat powder might have done it for the dogs, but for me, nothing less than Pavlova will do it.

The scientific method, revisited

2011-01-30T12:09:00.000Z

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer

There is no God

2011-01-28T22:11:00.000Z

And when I say no God, I mean: none. At all. So don't try to fill the vacancy with a human specimen. We're too flawed and wrong for the concept to be even conceivable.

Thinking without thinking

2011-01-27T20:29:00.000Z

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

Søren Kierkegaard

Who said studying can't be fun?

2011-01-22T22:14:00.001Z

Political science is

2011-01-21T18:18:00.005Z

1. A field of the social sciences dedicated to the study of political practice and theory;

2. Scientific labor, generally speaking, with a few minor exceptions.

Placebo should have thought of hormones

2011-01-15T10:29:00.000Z

"Change your taste in men-en"
Just take some estroge-een*.

*Women's preferred type of mate varies along the menstrual cycle. I wonder what's the phase when they prefer Brian Molko...

So what if we're not (biologically) equal?

2011-01-14T21:25:00.000Z

“There is, in fact, no incompatibility between the principles of feminism and the possibility that men and women are not psychologically identical. To repeat: equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.”

Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate - The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Stretching it a bit too far

2011-01-02T11:39:00.003Z

Guardian: "Political allegiances linked to brain structure, study finds".

I know that science tends to be politicized, but COME ON!

Luck?

2011-01-01T17:40:00.000Z

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

Seneca

If things are too good to be true

2010-12-29T22:16:00.002Z

they probably aren't.

Life as a narrative

2010-12-26T17:56:00.000Z

Fiction isn't only the object of writers. We illude ourselves as much as we need to in order to make sense out of reality.

If I were to learn a new language, it would be Greenspanese

2010-12-23T20:08:00.005Z

"I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

Alan Greenspan

Expectations shape experience

2010-12-18T19:06:00.001Z

I stereotype, so what? (Version 2.0)

2010-12-12T22:14:00.001Z

"A stereotype, after all, is a way of categorizing information, in the hope of predicting experiences. The brain cannot start from scratch at every new situation. It must build on what it has seen before. For that reason, stereotypes are not intrinsically malevolent. They provide shortcuts in our never-ending attempt to make sense of complicated surroundings."

Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational

The happiness formula

2010-12-07T17:48:00.001Z

Happiness = achieved results ≥ expected results

It's not so much a question of what might make you happy as how to make you believe that what's more likely to happen is what you want to happen (or more). And that's not exactly the same as keeping low expectations: I never met a pessimist who was very happy with his life.

Happiness

2010-12-06T14:38:00.001Z

is when everything stops and you look at yourself and wish you could be forever like that or just die before it fades and the clock starts ticking again.

An atheistic kind of spirituality...

2010-12-06T14:34:00.003Z

Dreams are made of lies, but that's ok.

2010-11-28T19:32:00.002Z

Because it's lies we believe in.

"The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one."

Don Draper, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", Mad Men.

The three points rule

2010-11-20T16:09:00.001Z

Go straight to the point; stick to the point; try to make a point.

Rejection, the blessing in disguise

2010-11-14T22:19:00.001Z

Hormones (among other things) can make you want to do things you wouldn't, had you given it a real thought. Specially when you're a teenager. That's why rejection, even though hard as hell to take, might be the best outcome. Or at least, not the worst possible. Good things take time to happen. The best things in life are never too late.

Or, like The Stones would put it: "you can't always get what you want... but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you neeeeeeeeeeeed!!".

Creativity is

2010-11-14T12:54:00.003Z

the courage to pour your ideas into the world facing the great beast of rejection.

Se andássemos todos a falar chinês

2010-11-10T22:19:00.001Z

pelo menos entender-nos-íamos.

An InDesign(er) joke

2010-11-06T21:33:00.002Z

Master A - "Do as I do."
Page 1 - "Yes, master."
Page 2 - "You're not my master."
Master B - "Did anyone call?"

After more than three years together

2010-11-05T19:47:00.001Z

today we separated. He had to go - things just weren't working for us these last few days. For three and a half years he was always there. Reliable, comforting, beautiful and pretty good at everything he did. He helped me with my work. We watched House be brilliant and obnoxious together. We travelled away from and back home. He stayed up late whenever I couldn't or wouldn't go to sleep. He took pictures of me which I then erased. When I was sick, he would never leave my bedside. When I was feeling good, he would put on music for me to dance to. He knew all the songs I love. There was no obscure question he could not answer, except for the normal existentialist what's-the-meaning-of-life stuff. He almost never complained, and when he did, he usually had a right to. Did I mention he was extremely sexy? And stylish too. He remembered every single thing we did together but he cleverly let me put past mistakes in the trash can. I mean, I couldn't possibly ask for more.

I hope my mac comes back home soon.

"She breaks just like a little girl"

2010-11-03T19:23:00.002Z

Wilde, the neuroscientist

2010-11-02T22:54:00.001Z

"I said in Dorian Gray that the great sins of the world take place in the brain, but it is in the brain that everything takes place. We know now that we do not see with the eye or hear with the ear. They are merely channels for the transmission, adequate or inadequate, of sense-impressions. It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings."

Dear Oscar Wilde in his De Profundis.

Dear stranger:

2010-11-01T23:14:00.001Z

Don't say hello, don't talk about the weather. I'm in need of some significant talk.

Regenerative medicine might be happening

2010-10-31T01:26:00.000+01:00

and all they can think about is boobs.

It's all right if you got it wrong

2010-10-31T00:02:00.004+01:00

Human nature didn't evolve from one perfect choice to another. Its mutations were triggered by trial and error. So stop trying too hard to prevent all the wrongs in life; it's some of them that allow us to make it right.

Counterculture 2.0 needed

2010-10-30T02:41:00.005+01:00

Copy & paste,
Erase and rewind,
Remix,
Steal,
Absorb,
Add,
Multiply,
Fight,
Choose,
Focus,
Diverge,
Converge,
Think,
Desiccate,
Defecate,
Create,
Are you still you?

Me, I'm (also) editable. Life would be useless if everything remained the same. But my core beliefs, fears, responsibilities and leitmotifs tend to crystallise.

I hear people say we should adapt. Well, we do - that's why we're still here (in 2010). I hear them talk about how everything is relative. Well, not really. What are basic human needs is basically universal. And please stop telling me how someone (who is being oppressed by their peers and cultural/religious/political context, duh!) denies they need the same basic rights I have access to in the "western world".

It is a fast-growing-and-changing age. But I've yet to be convinced that this is a fast-evolving age as well. Because people want so eagerly the change they think they need, they tend to forget about developing their own conscience. Which takes time. And reclusiveness. And introspection.

Instead, they change their minds as fast as they change profiles on FaceBook, as long as it fits the current trendy topic on Twitter. They are eager to please - online and offline - and their speech reflects just that. Even when they're bitching around.

Yes, I'm editable. But patchwork is for quilts.

Two people are reading this blog;

2010-10-29T16:03:00.004+01:00

one of them is me.

Strikethrough the one that doesn't apply:

2010-10-29T16:00:00.007+01:00

People are much less/more fragile than people think.

Last night I felt so alone

2010-10-27T21:41:00.005+01:00

that I engaged in a chat conversation with Skype Test Call.

I want to live in the place

2010-10-24T15:01:00.002+01:00

where past and future meet.

Why should you be worried with a computer bug

2010-10-24T00:48:00.004+01:00

when you're holding a mouse in your hand?

"The connectome is where nature meets nurture"

2010-10-23T14:43:00.002+01:00

One day I would like to belong to the majority.

2010-10-23T01:51:00.002+01:00

It can be any majority.

Not sex

2010-10-22T15:46:00.003+01:00

Looking back on what I had and don't now, I miss intimacy the most. Not sex.

"Bang bang"

2010-10-16T23:20:00.002+01:00

"my baby shot me down"

Why I'm not on FaceBook (either)

2010-10-10T14:27:00.000+01:00

David Rowan, Wired UK's editor gave his six (pertinent) reasons why he's not on FaceBook. I have not counted my number of reasons since I don't need to write a cool post for a geeky magazine - and vice-versa - but I can pretty much sum it up by saying: I'd rather meet you in person.

Umbíguo

2010-10-05T00:52:00.003+01:00

Este é um blog de um umbigo para outros umbigos.
Os outros umbigos serão sempre bem-vindos, mas o meu umbigo chegou primeiro.

O meu é um umbigo ambíguo, por isso admite-se que:
- 2+2 = 4; 2+2 = 5-1; 2+2 = 2+2 são equivalentes;
- 2+2 = 6; 2+2 = 36; 2+2 = 1543 são respostas evidentemente patetas, mas ainda assim respeitadas, no âmbito das premissas conversacionais relativistas;
- 2+2 = pato com laranja; 2+2 = gatos pretos com creme; 2+2 = Virginia Wilde são formulações preferenciais, de acordo com o código nonsense deliberado pelo Cheshire Cat, autoridade suprema neste canto dedicado a umbiguosidades.

Esclarecidamente confusos, considerem-se convidados para as próximas sessões de desconversação. E façam como se estivessem em casa. Mas deixem o cotão à porta.

If money doesn't bring happiness

2010-10-03T21:55:00.002+01:00

why are critical periods in economic history labelled depressions?

People aren't intrinsically good

2010-09-25T15:04:00.005+01:00

Like dogs aren't intrinsically poodles. People are many things, only one being universal: people are intrinsically human - whatever that means in the current state of knowledge.

I don't mind losing

2010-07-25T22:25:00.001+01:00

but I'm no quitter.

The irony is that..

2010-06-27T20:35:00.002+01:00

Usually, when you have a very active profile on social media, you're either paying someone to do it for you, or you don't really hang out that much with people on the offline (also known as 'real') world. So, social media, huh?

"Keats and Yeats are on your side..."

2010-06-27T18:12:00.003+01:00

"but you lose 'cause weird lover Wilde is on mine."

"Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see Life as a whole: by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, and finely conceived, can feed Love. But anything will feed Hate. There was not a glass of champagne you drank, not a rich dish you ate of in all those years, that did not feed your Hate and make it fat. So to gratify it, you gambled with my life, as you gambled with my money, carelessly, recklessly, indifferent to the consequence. If you lost, the loss would not, you fancied, be yours. If you won, yours, you knew, would be the exultation, and the advantages of victory."

Lyrics from Morrissey's "Cemetry Gates" followed by an excerpt from De Profundis, written by Oscar Wilde.

Will you join me in a game of chess?

2010-06-20T21:06:00.007+01:00

So today I went to see Persona for the second time (yes, I'm in one of those on repeat moods). If Bergman's movies are not what you'd call 'easily digestible', one with such a title as Persona should have you doubly pre-warned.

Anyone who has surprised himself in a state he found irrecognizable, will find this movie disturbing. Others, like a couple I passed by as I was getting out of the movie theatre, will say they need a cup of coffee - yes, Bergman tends to be boring when he goes on talking about the essence of being human, and the basis for personality, and the supposed unity of the self that is really no more than a shattered mask... These Swedish directors should really throw in some spectacular special effects to distract us from all that existential crap.

Anyway, if personality is a narrative we construct in order to make sense of ourselves and to appear coherent to others, what happens when we get writer's block?

PS: I've never learned to play chess. And I'm not sure I would, even if my life depended on it.