Exits

Hurried goodbyes are not my style but I've got a plane to catch... There's a small notebook the agency put together entitled "Don't Leave Lisbon Without" and unfortunately I'm leaving Lisbon without doing almost everything in that book. Sigh. But I'll be back, with my wife, without 40 hours of meetings to attend to, and at that point will savor this experience with more resolve. This is not a place that's forgettable, and it will haunt me till I come back. Obrigado por tudo, LB/Lisboa... I did a lot of things wrong this week - slept wrong, packed wrong, ate wrong (as in, I ate everything put in front of me and then went back for seconds)... I wasn't prepared for walking these steep cobblestone hills or the brisk winds that chill you to the bone... Next time will be better.... Obrigado Marta, Erick, Miguel, e Tura...

The Oldest Film Director In The World

My friend Laurence Klinger told me today about Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal's resident master filmmaker and the oldest movie director in the world. Laurence, a man of impeccable taste, put Oliveira in the same category as Fellini, and a cursory web search seems to verify the fact that the 102 year old director is highly revered... Below is a trailer of Oliveira's latest film, "The Strange Case of Angelica" produced last year... Here's a snippet from a nice interview also...

Euronews: How do you see the future of Europe?

De Oliveira: Europe is swamped by myths, both historic and religious: There is the belief that democracy is the most important thing. People push democracy forward at the expense of religion. The EU has one goal: one single king and one single pope, and that can be generalised as Brussels at the centre of things. I think that is extraordinary, but it is not too difficult to imagine. But, there are competing winds blowing through the regions, idiosyncrasies, languages, traditions. The goal is going to be difficult: to arrive at a solution acceptable to all.

Euronews: What do you see as the most important problems facing society today?

De Oliveira: There are many: television only shows porn and violence against children. Mothers have to work and so cannot be at home for their children, who just sit in front of the television. We have lost our values.

Euronews: Many accept that cinema and culture should not be funded by the state. What do you say to that?

De Oliveira: If I make a film, I work with a whole range of people: I use many actors, many specialists. I employ many small companies, and we all pay tax. Even if the film gets a state grant, I am never sure if that grant is bigger or smaller than the money we pay in taxes. The state always wins. But I work in a whole range of fields – that is what is interesting. If you stop, you die; if you keep going, you live.

THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA: Movie Trailer. Watch more top selected videos about: Isabel Ruth, Leonor Silveira

counting down

exhaustion setting in & eroding my defenses
an unending stream of imagery satiating my senses
i sit & stew as my thoughts wander aimlessly to dead ends
these are suddenly slippery slopes to descend
in the rain my rationales recede & I grow weary & withdrawn
i have to catch a flight home at dawn...

Portuguese Electronica - Clorofila Azul (II)

Portuguese Electronica artist Clorofila Azul has a track called "Herbert Beat." I am a die-hard Matthew Herbert fan, he's brilliant & gifted and everything I aspire to be like as a composed, musician, remixer, & DJ. Have a listen to Clorofila Azul's "Herbert Beat" below...

Cuca Rosetta (II)

More Fado...

Saramago on Subcomandante Marcos

I've become a fan of Nobel Prize winning writer Jose Saramago in the last few weeks. I didn't realize he passed away last year till Erick Rosa told me... That's a huge loss for the literary world, but at the same time, he left behind a huge body of work... Below is an excerpt published online in Reality Sandwich regarding Subcomandante Marcos & the Zapatistas in Chiapas Mexico, a favorite subject of mine in years past. Have a read... Saramago's essay is a biting indictment of the treatment of indigenous population of Mexico by the government of that country, and has all the subsumed outrage of a life-long communist weary of the atrocities of history unfolding all around him. "...It is really only a matter of understanding, understanding the expression in those looks, the solemnity of those faces, the simple way of their grouping together, feeling and thinking together, weeping the same tears in common, smiling the same smile, understanding the hands of the sole survivor of a slaughter that are held like protective wings over the heads of her daughter, understanding this endless stream of living and dead, this lost blood, this acquired hope, this silence of someone who has borne centuries of demanding respect and justice, this suppressed anger of someone who has finally wearied of hoping..."

Eduardo Lourenco & the Relationship Between Portugal & Europe

Found an interesting passage online from Berkley University from Tito.C.Cunha about Eduardo Lourenco, the "quintessential Portuguese essayist." Below is a passage regarding Lourenco's views about Portuguese identity. Have a read...
E. Lourenço stresses the existence among the Portuguese of a "European imaginary" created by the Greeks, which frames European cultural identity in all the European space. The other great cornerstone of European identity, Christianity, makes Portugal an integral part of the European historical and cultural community that old Europe is made of.

As for America, meaning the USA, Lourenço hesitates between seeing its imaginary as almost a prolongation of the European imaginary or with an imaginary of its own "that is becoming an universal imaginary," namely through cinema, because "in America there is the whole world."

Europe, and Portugal with it, is like a civilization of disquietude. Not because of the "same" but of the "other" within. Besides, Europe's imaginary birth turns around a mythology of unquietness, remaining nameless about its own identity.

Turning to Portugal, he argues that his native land has always had a very strong cultural identity but suffered from a lack of external recognition. Portugal was a homogeneous country for too long. In language, religion, and ethnicity, nothing changed. Europe, on the other hand, experienced constant change, from continuous civil war to growing diversity and differences, incorporating "the other" into European culture. Portugal had to experience this "other" from afar. Knowledge of the other was indirect, something we heard of. According to Lourenço, this ancient Portuguese hyper-identity is also at the root of a certain European universality, precisely because of that looking in the distance. It is also something of the past. European integration brought otherness to proximity...that multicultural otherness that America knows so well. As he states "in less than 30 years, the view that Europe has of Portugal and Spain and our view of Europe has changed radically."

Lourenço finishes with a cautious note, writing: "It would be good that we, Portuguese and Spaniards, that were for centuries in and out of the space where the idea of universality was played, as if the idea of singularity should be sacrificed, continue to remember what our most brilliant cultural minds lived as a desert crossing. Our "new identity" inside Europe cannot do without this experience. It is a part of our memory and we are a part of it."

Location

Why is Lisbon so rich in history, and so full of travelers? Take a look at the map below. It's strategically located, facing south towards the Strait of Gibraltar & the Mediterranean Sea, and it's also at the mouth of the Tagus River, which controls trade routes deep into Spain. Ruling Lisbon gives you a prime foothold into controlling the trade routes from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean and up into the Iberian Peninsula. Julius Caesar treasured the city... The Germans wanted it. The Visigoths claimed it, then the Moors took it, and held it for a few hundred years until the Reconquista in the 1100s when the Christians took it back... The history is amazing. This city was crucial for anyone who sought power in eras of the past. This is the home of sailors and explorers, traders & deal makers, & travelers with good palettes & sweet visions...


View Larger Map

A Sonnet by Luis de Camoes for my Wife

Skyped with my wife tonight from a continent away. Hung up and randomly found an English translation of a perfectly appropriate poem by Portugal's greatest poet, Luis de Camoes. Coincidence? I think synchronicity...










Beholding Her

When I behold you, Lady! when my eyes
Dwell on the deep enjoyment of your sight,
I give my spirit to that one delight,
And earth appears to me a Paradise.
And when I hear you speak, and see you smile,
Full satisfied, absorb'd, my centr'd mind
Deems all the world's vain hopes and joys the while
As empty as the unsubstantial wind.
Lady! I feel your charms, yet dare not raise
To that high theme the unequal song of praise,--
A power for that to language was not given;
Nor marvel I, when I those beauties view,
Lady! that He, whose power created you,
Could form the stars and yonder glorious heaven.

Here it is in the original Portuguese...

XVII

Quando da bela vista e doce riso

Tomando estão meus olhos mantimento,

Tão elevado sinto o pensamento,

Que me faz ver na terra o Paraíso.

Tanto do bem humano estou diviso,

Que qualquer outro bem julgo por vento:

Assim que em termo tal, segundo sento,

Pouco vem a fazer quem perde o siso.

Em louvar-vos, Senhora, não me fundo;

Porque quem vossas graças claro sente,

Sentirá que não pode conhecê-las.

Pois de tanta estranheza sois ao mundo,

Que não é de estranhar, dama excelente,

Que quem vos fez, fizesse céu e estrelas.

Keep Walking

Took a long walk home from sushi & drinks @ Urban Beach
Looking to get some time alone away from work's extended reach
contemplating the riverbanks as I walk into the wind
recalling all the people I've been
pessoas diferentes em diversos lugares
nunca parado
i meander up the hill towards Chiado
a escolha de ficar sozinho
pensando no meu sonho secreto
sometimes the safest course of action is to turn and walk
i keep my own counsel apart from the flock...

An AWESOME print campaign for MTV from LB/Madrid

Have a look at these print ads from Leo Burnett / Madrid we saw yesterday. I'm not sure you can see the details on the web, but up close, they're stunningly beautiful to look at and document the journey these artists went on before they released the life-changing song in question. This is art disguised as advertising by musicians who double as creative directors.

The Age of the Aggregator - Media Reflections

One of the panelists passingly mentioned McLuhan today while discussing a campaign, and it got me thinking about where we are with media theory today...

Scrawled into one of my dog-eared notebooks from my early 20's is this cryptic proclamation:
"there are programmers, and there are people who've been programmed."
Ahh, such pretentious, youthful gibberish. At the time I was just beginning to understand the architecture of the web, the nature of HTML and Actionscript code, and how media is consolidated and controlled. In my post-teen angst I believed in such clear delineations between people, such wide, sweeping generalizations... Thankfully I've grown wiser with age and recognize the immense folly of making such self-assured pronouncements. But...there is still a difference between people who contribute to culture and people who solely consume what they're fed...

Although we live in an age where everyone can make media, and we are all capable of charting our own path through the media landscape, the interfaces we deal with still dictate those terms. There is still an immense industrial complex that produces most movies, TV, commercials, music, news, etc...they are the primary manufacturers of cultural content... Everyone else dabbles in uploading YouTube videos of pets , in between picking and choosing what they kind of streams they feed their brain...

I used to think there were only producers and consumers of culture... But no more - people are also living repositories of culture, and traffic in ideas and trade aesthetics for a living... We are living in the Age of the Aggregator, where we are all collectors of culture, with our conscious minds cross-pollinated from the pirated files of countless hard drives. We are mix-tapes in progress, a half-constructed collage of found objects & forwarded links. We have arrived at a confused age where four generations of a family can fight in public on Facebook... Words on a page become relics as people read less and less of substance. The Idiot Box gave birth to a bastard child called the Internet, an ADD-riddled forum of infinite possibilities & bottomless porn. Jeremiads aside, when I contemplate the future, I sometimes find myself unsure about the vast quantities of media we produce. But then I spend a week with friends in Iberia, and realize that I have nothing to worry about. Because it's not whether you produce or consume media that matters... What matters is the quality of what you consume, the integrity of what you share, and the humanity of the stories you tell... we are only as good as what we feed our minds...

Portuguese Electronica - Clorofila Azul

The best thing about being a seeker of sacred sounds is that you find them everywhere you go...

Check out some tasty Portuguese Electronica courtesy of Clorofila Azul. Below is a snippet from his bio:

I could say many things but they all would sound egocentric. We are all full of egos, bigger or smaller, and the belly of some artists its bigger then its body. I prefer to have a small belly and a good clear mind. If you don't like my music, perhaps you won't like me. If you don't like my paintings (www.hugosantosportfolio.blogspot.com) perhaps you won't like me either. Its all the same. Even Plato says that: you know a tree by its fruits. What else is there to say except there is a lot to say?

Hugo André Barbosa Carvalho dos Santos.

Deolinda "Mal por Mal"

Alfama...the Hot Baths

We took a bus tour to the Alfama district in Lisboa… The name translates as “hot baths”, and it’s rather mind blowing to see all the cultures overlaid atop each other… Reminded me a bit of Istanbul, but with a very different feel. The Muslim influence has been overwritten, but all around you are Arab stones from the 9^th century, amidst medieval churches, gorgeous 18^th century buildings, and everywhere slippery cobblestones and narrow steps… We walked down a winding set of stairs (Las Enscandidas de San Miguel), through kids playing makeshift games of street football, past people drinking, and around people doing random repairs to their very old homes. It’s one thing to read about history, and very different to live amidst it. The 17 minute tourist video posted below is very much akin to our experience. In fact, I think they hired the same company of tour guides...

Fernando Pessoa & the Rise of Heteronyms

Ever daydreamed about being someone else? Someone smarter, more successful, maybe a bit better looking? Ever labored under an assumed name? Most of us probably have, in some sense... We have internet nicknames, chatroom handles, avatars... These days we all have both real lives and virtual lives, internet presences that are increasingly diffuse webs of tweets and facebook status updates... 100 years ago, no one could imagine so many of our interactions would be mediated and determined by technology. We are living in an era when anyone can pretend to by anything, without any accountability or consequences. In years past, you had to have a lot more talent and skill to pull that off with any believability...

Have you heard of Fernando Pessoa? This prolific and gifted Portuguese poet invented heteronyms - parallel personas with unique styles and characteristics. He wrote under dozens of aliases, each with a distinctive style. They aren't 'pseudonyms' because they aren't fake - he fully inhabited each of these characters, drew up astrological charts and biographies for each one, and made a name for himself as a masterful writer who could fully explore the deepest recesses of a range of personality types. Today, in an era of blogs and opinion journalism, writers rarely cultivate the kind of range Pessoa thrived on. He's a giant in the Portuguese literary world, and yet I hadn't heard of him before last week. Found myself sitting next to a statue of him just outside the hotel, and reading his work is illuminating. Below are the first lines of his poem "Tobacco Kiosk" - click the title to see the rest. If you don't like it, find one of the poems he wrote using his other 80 names. Based on the volume of his output, it seems like it would take a lifetime of work to really grasp Pessoa's genius...

TOBACCO KIOSK
by Fernando Pessoa

I am nothing
I shall always be nothing
I cannot wish to be anything.
Aside from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world....

Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese poet, 1888-1935

I firmly believe everyone ought to have aliases & heteronyms...so... here's some work I've produced under different names...

A 75 minute DJ mix entitled "Filtered Surrenders & Bootlegged Om" that I released in 2008 as DhakFu

A 9:11 Dylan cover I put out in 2004 as theForger

Roundabouts - Why Europe Drives Smarter

We spent an hour on a bus tour driving through Lisboa listening to a tour guide tell us about the thousands of years of history in this city, and the notable monuments all around us. While observing the traffic, I was reminded of this talk from TED about why more cities ought to incorporate roundabouts instead of intersections. Have a look. It's a pretty compelling argument for driving and designing cities more like Europeans...

Fado @ the Agency

At the end of a looooong workday Marta arranged for a Fado performance on the agency's rooftop deck. She arranged for an up-and-coming singer named Cuca Rosetta to play a short set with her band and all the guys on the GPC panel immediately noted that Ms.Rosetta was both immensely talented and easy on the eyes. Below is a video I took of one of the songs they sung...


Here's what Marta wrote about Fado:
Fado music is a traditional form of urban folk music from Portugal that emerged in the first half of the 19th century. It arose in the city's Alfama district, a socially and economically marginalized area that was a nexus of Iberian, South American (particularly Brazilian) and African peoples and traditions. Ulike rural folks musics, where a single culture is often responsible for the evolution of the genre, Fado is an urban folk music, originating in the port city of Lisboa where many cultures met and merged over centuries. Fado combines elements of Portuguese country folk music with Moorish and African influences, among others...

Leo Burnett Lisboa - Red Cross "Store Plus"

This campaign below was produced by Leo Burnett Lisboa a few years ago, and won just about every advertising award on the planet... The agency was asked by the Red Cross of Portugal to develop a postcard during the Christmas season soliciting donations for the amazing, underfunded work the Red Cross does all over the world. Rather than putting out a simple Christmas card, the agency created a physical retail store in a popular mall, and lined the shelves with 'products', giving people the opportunity to buy "hope." A signature retail experience is what distinguishes brands like Starbucks from any other cafe, and by turning the act of giving charity into a retail experience, LB/Lisboa changed way this organization worked. This Red Cross store is now a global franchise - they are opening worldwide, so that instead of donating money to an organization online, people can now walk into a shop in the mall and buy hope for people who need the Red Cross. Have a look at the case...

Queer Lisboa "Mr.Pink"

This local commercial was on a recent Shots DVD spotlighting the creative output of Portugal... It's a potty-mouthed NSFW parody of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." If you're a film buff or a Tarantino fan, or have the right sense of humor, you might find it as amusing as I do. If not...I'd like to hear you tell me a better way to advertise for Lisbon's Gay & Lesbian Film Festival...

Produced by Fuel / Lisbon, Directed by Pau de La Sierra.

Restaurante Pap'acorda

Dined at Restaurante Pap'Acorda with most of the gang & friends from Lisboa. We were served by a waiter who proclaimed John Malkovich was a partner of his upon hearing that some of us were from Chicago. Exquisite cuisine...strong cheeses, good wine, mussels, melon wrapped in parma ham, shrimp cakes, fillets drenched in herb gravy, lamp chops & a magnificent almond cake to finish... I LOVE being around friends who know what it means to eat well...

Tura the Dog

You know you've arrived at an evolved agency when there's a dog running around like she owns the place. Tura spends the day venturing in and out of the conference room at will, occasionally barking at someone, but I've rarely met better behaved creative directors. Check out the video below. It's always nice to meet a legend...

Tura Scores it a 7+

Executive Creative Directors Chacho Puebla & Tura of Leo Burnett Iberia assess the work. Photo courtesy of Mark Tutssel.

Overlooked Work from Asia

We took a look at all our markets in Asia Pacific today, and I saw some good pieces underscored and overlooked by a jury bereft of delegates from the east. It made me a bit angry that the campaign below, from Leo Burnett Mumbai scored rather low, as I think it's a brilliant outdoor/print campaign that would really capture people's attention in India. The folks at Campaign India understood it. Take a look at the images below. Michael Conrad once said that great advertising makes "simple, authentic, haunting observations of life." The way these billboard pieces address class and money issues through imagery is really quite haunting. A holey sock and ill-fitting pants adorn the man in the first image, but he's got shoes of authority. The second image is entitled "malnourished" and feature a clearly unhealthy woman's feet in some very girly footwear. The third is a thief in handcuffs wearing expensive hiking boots. The tag line on all of them reads: "for the love of shoes." I think it's brilliant work because I can't stop thinking about what these shoes represent in a society that takes status symbols seriously... Perhaps its my liberal guilt twitching, a consequence of living well around wretched poverty for much of my life... I don't know. But if I saw this on a billboard in India, it would stay with me...

Amnesty International "Everybody Against Everybody"

Here's another stunning spot produced by the folks at Leo Burnett Lisbon awhile back for Amnesty International. It features gorgeous animation that someone slaved over for countless hours...

Double MP - Fado Electronica

Double MP is a Fado electronica band. I love traditional textures employed alongside laptop finesse...

Cristiano Ronaldo

Portugal's most famous athlete at the moment is the gifted and infamous footballer Cristiano Ronaldo... Check out the video below someone compiled on YouTube of his highlights on the pitch...it has 31 million views... He's also certifiable man candy, and has left a trail of celebrity girlfriends all over the planet... Kind of hard to argue with abs like this...
He's also one of the stars of last year's Nike World Cup commercial, "Write the Future." Great film...

Ephemeral Museum - Lisboa Graffiti

So one of the reasons I'm here this week is because our Lisboa office produces brilliant work like the Ephemeral Museum case you can see below, created for Pampero Rum. Advertising doesn't have to be annoying, shrill, self-serving crap polluting your programming...instead, it can serve a purpose, enrich communities, and become a purveyor of art and culture in a way that helps both businesses and people. It is possible... Have a look at the way the folks at LB/Lisbon turned street art into a branded museum...



This case reminds me of the Banksy film I just watched last month, the incomparably unique, Oscar-nominated "Exit through the Gift Shop." If you haven't seen it, and have any interest in street art, disposable culture, tagging, and subversive messaging, that movie is essential watching.

Blindness

Jose Saramago's novel "Blindness" is now a movie. It's gotten mixed reviews, and although I haven't seen it yet, I'm looking forward to it. The director is Fernando Meirelles, who directed "Cidade de Deus," my favorite gangster flick of all time... I'll post some more about Saramago tomorrow...he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, and passed away last year leaving a huge body of work I've only just discovered. Some authors should never have their work turn into movies...and he might be one of them...

Fado & Saudade

I was introduced to the Portuguese musical tradition of Fado a couple of years ago via my good friend Brian Keigher, aka the inimitable DJ Warp, who runs the programming for Chicago's annual World Music Festival. Brian got me some tickets to see Mariza in concert, in a nice intimate venue, and I was totally blown away by the emotional potency and the longing coloring every note... It's some of the saddest, most melancholy music to be found anywhere, and at the heart of it is an expression of what the Portuguese call Saudade... I've written about Saudade before, while traipsing through Brazil, and it remains one of the most beautiful words I've ever come across in any language. Below is the definition provided by WordIq.com:

"Saudade: a Portuguese word considered untranslatable. In Portuguese, this word serves to describe the feeling of missing someone (or something) you´re fond of. For instance, the sentence "Eu sinto muitas saudades tuas" (I feel too much "saudade" of you) directly translates into "I miss you too much". Some specialists say that such word has come to life during the Discoveries, giving meaning to the sadness felt by those who departed in journeys to the unknown sea. Those who stayed behind - mostly wives and children - deeply suffered with their absence, and such state has almost become a "portuguese way of life": the constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing. Few other languages in the world have a word with such meaning, making Saudade a indistinguishable mark of the Portuguese culture.

Have a listen to Mariza singing in the two videos below... She has an incredible stage presence & a voice that reaches into the deeper recesses...

For good measure, here is a track called "Tanta Saudade" from Brazilian artists Seu Jorge & Ana Carolinha, covering the same emotional ground in a different way... It's not Fado, but it's working with similar sentiments... (fyi-the live album by Seu Jorge & Ana Carolinha is well worth buying, it's musicianship at its finest...)

the infinite romance of languages you don't speak

This one goes out to my beautiful & patient wife, sitting halfway across the world in wintry Chicago tending to our puppy's irritable digestive tract and enduring the mess I left behind in our apartment. She deals with my perpetual absences with a supportive smile, which is no small feat considering how much time and energy my job demands, and how it colors everything about our life together. I guess that's love for you, an amazing, wondrous phenomenon, that renders even unacceptable absences palatable. An old friend once told me, in a fit of uncharacteristic clarity, that "love is when the sacrifices aren't sacrifices, they're just negligible details." I still mull over that statement occasionlly, but it makes more and more sense as I see it play out in my relationship. So here's a song for my wife, by Brazilian chanteuse Ivete Sangalo, called "Quando a Chuva Passar."

This is the song my wife and I used for our first dance at our wedding...We stood in front of all our befuddled friends and family and swayed softly as this song played in the background. We don't speak Portuguese, and not a soul there actually understood the lyrics, but the moment was still infused with meaning, drenched with potency. Sometimes the languages we don't speak offer us ways to express sentiments that our everyday words can't convey. That's how I feel about this track, and about my wife... Ivete sings it well, and the crowd echoes her with utter devotion: "Eu sou seu e fim, e o meu amor é imensidão..."

Cristo Rei - Almada

Managed to squeeze a quick trip across the water with Rosalie on a public ferry to Casilhas. We then hopped a bus to visit the Santuário de Cristo Rei (Shrine of Christ King.) The statue is enormous and stunning, and looms over the Lisboa waterfront much like the statue of Christ the Redeemer presides over Rio from Corcovado. The view was magnificent. Here's a 360 degree pan I took from the statues' base, and a pic Rosalie took of me doing a tripod headstand against the sunset....

I must confess - I'm a big fan of ponderously large religious statues. Rosalie and I have seen our share in recent years, from the swimming-pool-sized Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok to the immense Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau island we visited last year while in Hong Kong for a work conference. They're all profound and engender a rapturous awe, regardless of the faith you subscribe to. I grew up Muslim, reciting the "Surah Qul hu Allahu", which is a verse of the Koran declaring, among other things, how Allah was not begotten, shall not beget, and there are none like him. It's one of the suras that shapes the Islamic position disclaiming all idolatry. As I grew older, I found that theological position increasingly hard to wrap my head around. I don't see a problem with iconography. In fact, let me offer up this rather cynical axiom from a jaded marketing scribe: a God whose followers employ iconography will always have better branding than a faith that is determined to avoid visual stimulation. I hope that observation doesn't offend anyone...just my small contribution of blasphemy to the cesspool of sacrilege that is the world wide web....

The Pastries of the Portuguese...

Rosalie and I grabbed a quick bite at a food kiosk at the Boat Terminal, we both picked up a ham & cheese turnover for a Euro apiece that we wolfed down while waiting for the ferry across the river... It was something of a revelation...
I believe this is called a "Merenda Queijo e Fiambre", and it was one of the most delectable things I've ever eaten. Wow. The Portuguese are not messing around when it comes to their pastries... You can tell profound things about a civilization by their cuisine, and from this little turnover, you might infer that generations have labored over crafting flaky and refined pastels that are fit for royalty. Here's a quote from Catavino on the subject:

“So how do the Portuguese pump out such a huge quantity of quality made pastries everyday and sell them for low prices? ...A very knowledgeable gentleman tell me:.“The origin of Portugal’s pastry industry actually came from wine!” Almost all the pastries are made from three basic ingredients: sugar, cinnamon and egg yolks. The first two were easy to get from Portugal’s former colonies in Brazil and the like; but as far as egg yolks, the main reason comes from the country’s old history in winemaking. When wine (Port) started being exported abroad, the Portuguese found that wine consumers were preferring filtered wine, which gave a more clear and refined flavor. After experimenting in different filtering techniques, they concluded that using egg whites produced the best results. What was left of course, were all the egg yolks! So what better way to use them with sugar and cinnamon to make some extra money by producing pastries! Another interesting source for the excess egg yolks came from the many convents during that time. The nuns found that using 3 egg whites for ironing their habits made for perfectly pressed linen. So they too started producing pastries and used them as gifts for visitors and charitable donors. From discerning wine drinkers and nunes, pastry production in Portugal is now part of their culinary heritage, with a tradition of recipes passed down word of mouth from mothers to daughters and grandmothers to granddaughters in family-run pastelerias.”

I've had a couple of these pasteis de nata's as well, the famous Portuguese custard tart, and they definitely lived up to the hype.
A man could get fat out here in a hurry, if there weren't so many hills to climb...

ActivoBank "Parkour"

Here's a spot for ActivoBank from MyBrand, a Lisbon-based agency. This was shortlisted at Cannes last year... The line reads: "don't run into closed doors. ActivoBank - Simplify Things."
I'm a sucker for any ads with Parkour in them, like the piece below, which is one of my favorite Nike ads of all time...

Jose Saramago's "Words For A City" - the story of Lisboa

This is from Jose Saramago's blog, a love letter to the city he grew up in. If you're going to read any part of it, read the third paragraph, it's a wonderful evocative passage...

"There was a time when Lisbon didn’t go by the name Lisboa. They called it Olisipo when the Romans arrived there, Olissibona when it was taken by the Moors, who immediately began saying Aschbouna, perhaps because they couldn’t pronounce that barbaric (Latin) word. But in 1147, when the Moors were defeated after a three-month siege, the name of the city wasn’t changed right away; if the man who would become our first king had written to his family to announce the news, he would most likely have headed his letter Aschbouna, October 24, or Olissibona, but never Lisboa. When did Lisboa start being Lisboa in law and in effect? At least a few years would have to pass before the birth of the new name, as they would for the Galician conquerors to begin to become Portuguese….

One might think these historical minutiae uninteresting, but they interest me a great deal; not just knowing but actually seeing-in the precise meaning of the word-how Lisbon has been changing since those days. If cinema had existed at the time, if the old chroniclers had been cameramen, if the thousand and one changes through which Lisbon has passed over the centuries had been recorded, we would have been able to see Lisbon growing and moving like a living thing across eight centuries, like those flowers that we see on television opening up in just a few seconds, from a still, closed bud to a final splendor of shapes and colors. I think I’d love that Lisbon above all else.

In physical terms we inhabit space, but in emotional terms we are inhabited, by memory. A memory composed of a space and a time, a memory inside which we live, like an island between two oceans-one the past, the other the future. We can navigate the ocean of the recent past thanks to personal memory, which retains the recollection of the routes it has traveled, but to navigate the distant past we have to use memories that time has accumulated, memories of a space that is continually changing, as fleeting as time itself. This film of Lisbon, compressing time and expanding space, would be the perfect memory of the city.

What we know of places is how we coincide with them over a certain period of time in the spaces they occupy. The place was there, the person appeared, then the person left, the place continued, the place having made the person, the person having transformed the place. When I had to recreate the space and time of the Lisbon where Ricardo Reis lived his final year, I knew in advance that our two concepts of time and place would not coincide-that of the shy adolescent I used to be, enclosed within his own social class, and that of the lucid and brilliant poet who frequented the highest planes of the spirit. My Lisbon was always that of the poor neighborhoods, and when, many years later, circumstances brought me to live in other environments, the memory I always preferred to retain was that of the Lisbon of my early years, the Lisbon of people who possess little and feel much, still rural in their customs and in their understanding of the world.

Perhaps it isn’t possible to speak of a city without citing a few notable dates in its history. Here, speaking of Lisbon, I have mentioned only one, that of its Portuguese beginnings, the day it was first called Lisboa; the sin of glorifying its name is not such a dreadful one. What would be a grace matter would be to succumbed to that kind of patriotic exaltation that, in the absence of any real enemies over whom to assert one’s assumed power, resorts to the facile stimuli of rhetorical evocation. Exalted rhetoric, which is not necessarily a bad thing, does however bring with it a sense of self-satisfaction that leads to confusing words with deeds.

On that October day, Portugal-still barely begun-took a great step forward, a step so decisive that Lisbon was not lost again. But we will not allow ourselves the Napoleonic vanity of exclaiming: “Eight hundred years look down on us from the height of that castle,” and pat ourselves on the back for having survived so long…Rather we recall that blood was shed, first on one side and then the other, and that all sides make up the blood that flows in our own veins. We, the inheritors of this city, are the descendents of Christians and Moors, of blacks and Jews, or Indians and Orientals, in short, of all races and creeds considered good, along with those that have been called bad. We shall leave to the ironic peace of their tombs those disturbed minds that not so long ago invented a Day of the Race for the Portuguese, and instead reclaim the magnificent mixing, not only of bloods but above all of cultures, that gave Portugal its foundation and has made it last to this day.

In recent years Lisbon has been transformed, has managed to reawaken in the conscience of its citizens that strength that hauled it out of the mire into which it had fallen. In the name of modernization, concrete walls have been erected over ancient stones, the outlines of hills disrupted, panoramas altered, sightlines modified. But the spirit of Lisbon survives, and it is the spirit that makes a city eternal. Entranced by that crazy love and divine enthusiasm that inhabit poets, Camoes once wrote that Lisboa is….”a princess among other cities.” We will forgive his exaggeration. It is enough that Lisbon is simply what it should be-cultured, modern, clean, organized–without losing any of its soul. And if all these virtues end up making her a queen, well, so be it. In our republic, queens like this will always be welcome."

The Hospitality of Friends

Erick Rosa, the ECD of LB/Lisbon very courteously asked to take Rosalie and me out for a drink in the evening. It's a true gentleman that insists on showing impeccable hospitality to two jet-lagged, bleary-eyed travelers. Erick met us at our hotel and then together we ventured up the streets of Bairro Alto towards Chiado to a classy establishment Erick had made a reservation at. Bistro 100 Maneiras served up divine ham (the Portuguese version of Jamon Iberico, which I believe is called "Pata Negra" or 'black footed ham'), herb-roasted cheese, a charcuterie selection to die for, wild game empanadas, and we washed it down with glorious cocktails and good conversation. I am blessed to count gracious, well-traveled Brazilians among my colleagues...
After dinner, we ventured around the block to a lovely wine bar called Alfaia Garrafeira for a glass of moscatel (a dessert wine comprised of a mixture of cognac & armagnac) served by Pedrao, a gregarious, well-informed sommelier & a local institution... Gathered around a small table in the bar, this last delectably sweet drink was a succinct and special conclusion to our first night in Portugal.

On The Waterfront

After dropping off our materials we ventured down to the waterfront for lunch. Lisbon is located at the mouth of the Tagus River, as it opens up to the Atlantic, and the water views are stunning. Ventured down the waterfront, taking in the sights, checking out the graffiti, and eventually ended up at Cervejaria Portugalia, a brewery on the water...


My first meal in the country was a fantastic, sizable piece of grilled Bacalao, along with a nice glass of local stout. Here's an interesting rundown of Portuguese breweries and their offerings...

After lunch we ventured down the river bank till we arrived at a deserted waterfront nightclub called Urban Beach. Looks like quite the spot for a party...

LB/Lisboa - An Agency With A Soul

Arrived at our hotel around noon after a long, sleepless night of travel and a short connecting flight through Madrid. The flight from Madrid was only an hour long, but offered up some beautiful views of what I believe are the Central Sierra mountains, or perhaps the plateaus of the Sistema Central... My geography is a little rusty...either way, the topography in the Iberian peninsula is quite lovely...

We decided to venture out of the hotel to the office, to drop off 3 of the heavy suitcases we had lugged from Chicago filled with workbooks and supplies for our meeting. The office was right down the street, a 5 minute walk, but we managed to completely destroy two of these suitcases by dragging them down the cobblestone streets. Truth be told, these suitcases have probably 500,000 miles on them and were on their last legs anyway, but dragging them down the streets of Bairro Alto was probably not the best idea. These cobblestones are no joke either - I brought the wrong shoes for this city...

The agency was a revelation... Located in a building from the 1500's, it's airy, has high ceilings, and lovely tile and paint work inlaid in the walls. There are less than 100 people working there, and every employee has a headshot located on the wall behind the receptionist. There's a rooftop deck with a glorious water view, where we'll be lunching in between sessions, and the whole place exudes a vitality and youthful energy woefully missing in the corridors of Leo Burnett Chicago. I've grown used to working in a big steel and glass skyscraper inhabited by a horde of people I don't know, perpetually trading cubicles in a building that doesn't have a lot of character. This agency feels much more like a living, breathing entity, and the building itself gives the company a familial feel. I'm looking forward to spending the week here.

Outside out meeting room is a small foyer completely overstuffed with Cannes Lions and countless other international awards, a testament to LB/Lisbon's incredible creative track record. The walls throughout the agency are decorated with amazing and inspiring work, but some of the pieces that jumped out at me are actually from a brilliant poster campaign by a designer /illustrator named Mico Toledo, who used to work for LB/Lisbon before departing to London for other opportunities. Mico created an exquisite poster campaign around song-lyrics, and they're all over the walls at LB/Lisbon. Here's one that jumped out at me, but you should really check out the whole collection at his "music philosophy" site.
Below is a picture of the agency hosting their "portfolio night," an industry event that helps develop and nurture young talent... sigh... I wish my office had an open air patio...

Why Blog?

So I'm off to Portugal, to spend yet another week in a conference room, surrounded by 25 creative directors, analyzing and deconstructing 500 ad campaigns from around the world. My job is to transcribe the group's critiques, and craft their commentary into suggestions that might actually improve the work. I sit on a corner of the table and type at a feverish pace for about 8 hours every day, stewing in silence and growing increasingly withdrawn as the people around me talk and talk and talk... So why should I spend the handful of free moments I have writing a blog? What's the point? Why not rest the aching hands and tired mind?

I write because it's a compulsion, and because it helps me flesh out my own experience and remember who I am... These travel blogs are a means for self-preservation... I spend the other 12 hours a day relinquishing my voice and perspective to the demands of my job, and I need this space to harbor my impressions, my ideas, and my thoughts, lest they be wiped away and over-written by the pressing crush of 25 executives airing out their opinions. I write to understand where I am, to honor and respect the people I'm surrounded by, with the intention of observing and documenting the culture I'm momentarily immersed in. When you travel for business as I do, if you don't distinguish each place from the next, all your experiences start to run together into a polyglot blur of hotel bars and orchestrated business outings. I don't want to sleepwalk through my travels like that. With these blogs, I'm just trying to be fully present, to savor every meal, and to see the horizons around me clearly... I want to feel the pulse on the streets, bask in the poetry of languages I don't speak, and pore over the inherited detritus of every civilization's long history, in the hopes I might learn something. I know this is hubris, and that it's unlikely I can appreciate anything about a place from a cursory week spent in a hotel. But sometimes, in a state of exhaustion and sleep deprived inebriation I might catch a fleeting glimpse of a deeper truth in what's right in front of me, and that single moment of recognition is worth the time it takes to purge these words from my mind. In that moment, you understand that while people may be different the world over, and cultures face enormous obstacles to understanding each other, the human experience is universal, and each place and the people in it have found unique ways to articulate the paradoxes and blessings that comprise the curious state of man. Isn't that what travel is, after all? Seeing the threads of a larger tapestry? Or are these just the confused, unsolicited ramblings of a corporate scribe desperate to find meaning in the destinations he's dropped into?