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The medium and the message

Marshall McLuhan said once in an interview that he would only read the pages on the left of books. I watch the news with the sound muted.

O Verão Bretão

A poesia é um desperdício

de papel.

Não porque seja inútil,

Não ensine,

Não contribua.

Não.

A poesia é um desperdício

De papel

Porque deixa tanta página

Em branco

Tanta árvore para talhar

Tombada em vão.

O ano na Bretanha é:

Janeiro

Janeiro

Janeiro

Fevereiro

Fevereiro

Junho

Setembro

Setembro

Setembro

Dezembro

Dezembro

Dezembro

Liga a Mariana

Para a roda de samba

Cultura viva ou

Cultura morta?

Qual dos Brasiles queres;

Falar com um morto,

Ou bailar com os vivos?

Neste lânguido dia de

Setembro

As férias acabam antes

De começar.

Rennes, Agosto (Setembro) de 2023

Sources for Slow Journalism

This is a living list of organizations that are paving the way for a more thorough, investigative and reflected (aka slow) journalism.

An illustration portraying two mountain tops, side by side.
Journalism as mountains; slow, solid, made of layers of sediment. Gorgeous art by Joana Batista (Fumaça).

In English

Em Português

En Español

En Français

In het Nederlands

Learn more about how and why to subscribe to RSS feeds. I personally use Feedly as my RSS client (reader).

I have conveniently compiled (and will continue to do so) those sources that do have an RSS feed into a OPML file you can drop into your feed reader (client). You’re welcome!

A running list of RSS feeds inside the RSS client NetNewsWire, complete with unread count badges.
Don’t these feeds look sweet sitting in my NetNewsWire RSS client?

Also, do drop your personal favourite sources of slow journalism, also from your corner of the world, in the comment section below.

Thanks to Margarida David Cardoso (from Fumaça) for her suggestions to expand on this list.

Human Nature

When chatting with my girl the other day I mentioned how I thought the only mental process that was exclusive to us humans was the capacity to dream, fantasize, create scenarios in our heads.

There’s no way to know this for sure, but Laurel Braitman has a similar intuition to mine in this lovely podcast episode.

Via Nuno Viegas @fumacapt .

Do I really know this many songs?

I was about to add a new track to my playlist containing the best songs Mankind ever produced (a humble selection by yours truly) and realized I am at 577 tracks. Five hundred and seventy-seven. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Is that Syd Barrett in the back there?

Do I even know this many songs? Wait, these tunes are only my favorite ones, not even the ones I dig.

I have a feeling my life will be different after this realization. Do you know those moments when someone asks you “so, what music do you listen to?” and you don’t really have any band names or genres you can come up with? “I must be a very banal audiophile.” Yeah, no.

Go ahead and explore the playlist I would send out on an unmanned probe to outer space, shuffle mode on. There are some seriously good tracks in there.

Build your own website and they will (not) come

Create your own website, own your data and display the things you’re into under your domain. When online, be a creator, not a consumer.

I’m all in for this mantra, but this realization stops short of a painful, cold truth; your content is probably going to be ignored. It sucks to keep sharing your content and having no one contribute and add their own opinions / takes to yours. I know because I’ve been doing this for a decade now, ah!

A lonesome tree in the snowy, cold, isolated landscape.
The loneliness of the innovative web creator. Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash.
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Cloud collecting new sounds

A good friend and very talented musician has just started a new project, and we’ve collaborated on his website.

Previously drummer extraordinaire at TrYangle (another web collaboration), his name is now Cloud Collector and it sounds grand. It’s one man and one guitar.

Go check him out and spread the ominous sounds.

Building a simple, fast and elegant web presence

— Hey, I have a domain I use for emailing. It’s for my IT solutions company, we’re doing pretty well. Can you build me a website?
— Sure! Do you have a logo I can use?
— Hmmm, only this scrappy wordart one.
— What about a motto? Any copy at all?
— Nothing.

And this, kids, is how vanguardstripes.pt was born.

In which I created a website from nothing. Well, I had the help of aThemes and a bunch of talented photographers on Unsplash (see footer at vanguardstripes.pt for credits).

A lot of emphasis was placed on web performance, ensuring the website loads and feels fast. This will help not only with professional credibility and findability (SEO juice), but also with email deliverability at the end of the day. This is because spam filters will look at email addresses’ TLDs (Top Level Domains) to sniff for potential spam sources.

Hit me up if you like what you see.

Da calma antes da tempestade

Two girls outside the kyiv metro. Evgeniy Maloletka / AP / Scanpix / LETA

Em Janeiro deste ano o jornalismo do Meduza foi proibido na Rússia. Não só os jornalistas e freelancers que contribuem para o projecto de jornalismo independente foram perseguidos, como a partilha de links das peças passou a ser crime. A coragem e o empenho da equipa – que teve de sair do país – mantêm o projecto a funcionar. Esta reportagem fotográfica das semanas na Ucrânia que antecederam a invasão Russa carrega um peso de calma antes da tempestade.

A realidade dos jornalistas / exilados políticos está bem explicada por um dos fundadores do Meduza em entrevista ao Democracy Now!.

(Originalmente recomendado na newsletter do Fumaça.)

A transparência é a última Fata Morgana

A transparência, hombridade e a anti-hipocrisia são a última Fata Morgana.

Múltiplos demónios, encontrados em Lyon por Madalena Marques. Autor desconhecido.
Múltiplos demónios, encontrados em Lyon por Madalena Marques. Desenhado por um aluno de cenografia da escola de teatro.

Na Turquia descobriu-se que o Governo é corrupto, que a erosão democrática e o neo-liberalismo afinal são um cocktail perigoso, e que assim explodiu por lá a indústria imobiliária. Como por cá (Portugal). Sabe-se que é a forma de fazer dinheiro em quantias grandes, se não tiveres uma mega-corp a rolar na bolsa ou um poço de petróleo no deserto.

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The loop of infinite joy

  1. 1. Listen to Spotify Radio spawned from awesome indie video game music;
  2. 2. Play games in that playlist with great soundtracks;
  3. 3. Go to 1.

Avariada mas não troppo

A casa de banho do Esteves tem escrito “Avariada. Pedimos desculpa pelo incómodo” na porta. Perguntei se podia usar. “Claro, com certeza.”

#Lisboa

Sound gets you there

I keep coming back to the sound design(er) @ Hinterland’s The Long Dark.

Inside a cabin in game the long dark
Staying warm takes effort.

It’s like being in that abandoned cabin in the Canadian wilderness, with the blistering cold wind and the wolves roaming outside.

Pessoal, Twitter is dying

Twitter is dying. É triste, foram muitos anos de dedicação a um serviço. Da comunidade (onde me incluo) e das equipas de design, gestão, projecto, engenharia e muito mais. Uma perda irreparável e totalmente desnecessária.

Abre uma conta no Mastodon para manteres contacto com a tua comunidade que está no Twitter, e que se vai dissolver. A migração já começou e não vai parar. Melhor ainda, recolhe os emails das pessoas que te são queridas. Nenhuma organização pode ser dona do teu gráfico social se este for um simples ficheiro de texto.

Ilustração de Elena Lacey, emprestada da Wired. O senhor de costas pode ser o Elon, não sabemos.
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What’s the name of that party?

In France they call house-warming parties “Crémaillères”, because that’s the metal piece that holds the cauldron over the fire and it was the last part to be added to a newly built household.

Configure GMail to use an email address on your own domain

This is a step-by-step guide on how to start using your custom email address, associated with your custom domain, inside your GMail client, the same way you now use your @gmail.com address.

You should have received an email with the configuration details for your new email address. Refer to that going forward.

All these steps happen inside your GMail settings, on your web browser. Keep reading for how to configure this also for mobile.

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Polishing final details on madalenamarques.com and thinking that the last mile is indeed the least crowded.

Collaboration with Bruno Santos Almmond 3 on brand new song “Calypsol”

Introducing the flashy new Hammond trio with a catchy summer tune “Calypsol”.

After teaming with Madalena, Bruno Santos and Catarina Sobral on a teaser for Contraconto, a play for kids spanning the 12 months of the year, we set once again to give life to another of Bruno’s projects.

The invite to give life to the upbeat song “Calypsol” was turned into a portrait of a chilled rehearsal session, in this case at the home of the main guitar man himself.

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A dialogue with creator, actress and cultural mediator Madalena Marques

A 4-month collaboration with Madalena Marques has just come to fruition, and is now live.

Deep focus, where talent meets purpose

The website conveys the spirit of Madalena’s work, past and present.

It’s challenging to convey so many interests and ideas about theatre (for kids), culture and cultural mediation. But a good challenge = gratifying work.

The final result stems from long hours of fruitful teamwork. So what you see and interact with is a mashup of creative ideas and background. Equal parts Fred, equal parts Madalena.

madalenamarques.com

The difference between Twitter and Facebook is that the former understands and plays nicely with the internet, while the latter wants to become the internet.

Cada casa será um jardim

Andamos a propagar as plantas do nosso jardim, e a oferecê-las aos nossos amigos. Quem cá vem a casa leva sempre uma planta nova. Não há que enganar, a vida abre espaço para o crescimento, interior e exterior.

No site Cada Casa Um Jardim acompanhamos as viagens destas plantas, uma cartografia espacio-temporal verde. Vale a pena assinar e regressar para acompanhar as evoluções imprevisíveis.