Flor

Almanaque Ilustrado. ꩜

[Flor @elissa348]

Meu poeta, hoje estou contente. Todo mundo de repente ficou lindo, ficou lindo. ⋆˙⟡

[Flor @elissa348]

https://t.co/nOboQ5LyYG

[Flor @elissa348]

Public Announcement

Edgar Guest, our longtime visiting guest, has been appointed to the permanent position of Secretary of Culture.

Some citizens have questioned the choice, given the criticism of didactic poetry by a certain profound poet, lover of Urania. The Administration has taken these criticisms to heart and has arrived at a final stanza:

Didactic poetry shall be permitted, provided that it rhymes, on account of its mnemonic benefits and its ability to render the mind the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought.

The direct lesson is not always the lesson, but only the bait.

Assessor Wilhelm
Communications Director

[Flor @elissa348]

There are two works I read when I was nine or ten that first made me reflect on time and how inconspicuously it can pass through people, until one day a sudden realization takes place: Ziraldo’s O Menino Maluquinho and Cecília Meireles’s “Portrait.”

https://t.co/bSmIL2tM9m

[Flor @elissa348]

The Therapist

“I’d say this, and he’d say that. Now we just say ‘fine.’ We’re fine with things.”

“Even when we disagree, we agree to disagree.”

“We used to fight a lot more. What happened to us?”

“What happened…” he began.

“…to this marriage?” she completed.

The therapist looked at them, puzzled. The couple sat in front of him dressed in matching colors.

“When did you start completing each other’s sentences?”

They exchanged a look. Then they replied in unison.

“We don’t remember.”

They spoke the same love language.

“We used to sit opposite each other at restaurants. Those were fun adversarial dinners. Now we sit side by side. It’s easier to pass the pepper,” she said.

“And to share the food,” he completed.

“What do you usually order?” the therapist asked, out of curiosity.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” he said.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” she said.

“I see. Any activities that bring the discord out of you two?”

“No. Not really. We even read the same books now.”

“So you’re on the same page, too,” the therapist murmured, taking notes.

“Since you mentioned books, there’s this classic about a boy who wore a pot as a hat and caused all sorts of trouble. Then, one day, he stopped being a rascal. Why, you may ask? He grew up.”

They looked at each other blankly.

“Something similar has happened to you,” the therapist continued.

They waited.

“You matured.”

Another pause.

“You are old.”

(If the Divan Could Talk, It Would Roll Its Eyes: EMDR for Couples, Love Press, 3rd Edition.)

[Flor @elissa348]

Água Fluidificada: a Brazilian radio tradition dating back to the late 1940s, in which a glass of water is placed near the radio to be blessed.

[Flor @elissa348]

Next: Using UFOs and recent UAP developments for the moral and behavioral improvement of citizens, and transitioning old folklore into believable tales for modern audiences under the respectable mask of science.

[Flor @elissa348]

You Should Smile More

“Was dressed in Mechlin.”

The woman heard strange noises coming from the barn. For weeks, someone or something had been spooking the animals. The rooster crowed out of time, and the sheep bleated out of tune. This time, whatever it was, had lingered too long for her to blame the wind.

Her mouth went dry and her lips sealed shut. It didn’t help that a bird had been chirping by the windowsill since a boca da noite, and the chirps seemed to have slowly morphed into a hissing sound. She held her wooden rosary in both hands, very tightly, praying that those dark hours would pass faster. At night, alone, everyone becomes a frightened little child.

Compadre Pedro said it was the Coisa Ruim. He had seen it up close one particular night, when the moon looked larger than on all the other nights. He was late putting his tools away in the shed when he felt a presence just behind him, if not beyond him. It smelled of something metallic, like old blood or cow liver, or rust, if rust were a carnivorous flower. Its warm breath burned against his back like the mouth of a hungry Boitatá.

He remembered what his grandmother had told him back when the grandkids would gather around her just before bedtime to hear her stories. It was a time when people still listened to their elders. After that, she would bless each of them with her hand in the air, making the sign of the cross: “Deus te abençoe, meu filho.”

It was a thing among the old folks to commend the souls of those who had departed before speaking of them: “Que Deus os tenha. I speak of life, not of death,” she would pause to say before mentioning finado this or finado that. Now, it was his turn to pass it on.

“Whenever you feel this kind of presence, run to where you see cows. They are blessed animals that sleep with their legs folded in signum crucis.” He did just that.

Her husband had said he would be late that night, or perhaps so late that it would be morning. He always had business in town toward the end of the week. Hopefully his business there wasn’t another family, she thought, in jest, trying to distract herself.

The sounds grew louder and closer. She knew then that it was time to get up as goosebumps started to rise along her arms. She tiptoed to the small closet where her husband kept his hunting gear. She grabbed the Marlin he used to hunt wild boar. Old Marlin was her man that night. With rifle in hand, she inched carefully toward the kitchen window, plucking up the courage to raise the curtain and face whatever was out there.

She heard the sound of an engine approaching. It was his truck, or so she thought, and the thing fell silent. She panicked, fearing it had gone to meet her unsuspecting husband. She opened the door and sprinted toward the place where he usually parked it. But no truck was there.

It was then that she saw a shadow running at her. She kept her eyes half-open, just enough to keep her bearings, and half-closed, just enough to blur its gruesome form. Then, by luck or blessing, she stumbled into a small tree on the way back to the house and climbed up, tucking her legs in as much as she could. The creature jumped and clawed at the trunk, trying to reach her, biting the hem of her black nightgown once or twice.

At night, fear and shaking hands are the first enemies to be beaten. She held her breath, steadied the rifle, and fired in its direction, into the dark. The thing ran into the woods, and she ran back into the house, locking the doors and checking and rechecking them until she fell asleep halfway through a prayer.

Her husband arrived with the sunrise.

She told him the whole ordeal. He calmed her down and hugged her gently, as he used to. He smelled of grass and morning dew. She felt safe in his arms and softly lifted her head from his chest, smiling at him.

With warmth in his voice, he whispered to her, “You should smile more,” and smiled back.

And she saw a black thread caught between his teeth.

(Trancoso Tales, Causos, and Other Bedtime Stories for Oxen and Moral Improvement, Third Edition.)

[Flor @elissa348]

Forget the pill, age, inflation, and everything else. It was simply a matter of objectivity. New WhatsApp poll shows No. 3 winning unanimously.

[Flor @elissa348]

Breaking

There was some polemic over the weekend in the WhatsApp group about politics.

In the aftermath, the group fell silent for a day, though not completely, since no dog video can pass unnoticed without a heart.

Activities resumed normally after we decided we’d no longer talk about the mind-killer and would instead turn our attention to lighter cultural subjects, such as music, food, literature, art, and even a bit of pro-social gossip. Isn’t this a higher pursuit?

I was in an inquiring mood, so I asked my mother who was more handsome: Socrates or Diogenes the Cynic. She replied, “I have things to do, you know.” I’ll have to get back to her another time, in the name of philosophy.

What’s Dasein? Crickets.

Anyhow, we begin with last week’s news. Who’s the more handsome?

I’ve submitted the picture to several women of various ages, including a group of nuns my cousin works with as a control group. We shall know once and for all.

I may add more variables to complicate matters beyond looks: one stopped to pet a cat in the street while the other did not, the other can play the piano, and so on.

Public opinion so far is that the effect is mostly age-related, or perhaps related to the pill. But we won’t swallow it so easily. Further investigation is required.

You already know my objective and rigorous opinion.

We’ll be back at any moment with the beautiful results.

English subtitles available.
https://t.co/j0M73610Im

[Flor @elissa348]

😞

[Joseph Mallozzi 🏴‍☠️ @BaronDestructo]

Sadly, it's true. Amazon has elected not to move forward with the new Stargate series.

There's not much I can add beyond confirming what's happened. But I will say this...

Creator Martin Gero developed a new Stargate series over two years, ultimately crafting a show that offered a fresh jumping-on point for new viewers while deeply respecting existing canon. It was a series that avoided the pitfalls of several modern remakes and reboots by fully embracing the core of its predecessors: action, adventure, exploration, wonder, heart, humor, and found family. And based on that creative vision, the new Stargate series was greenlit in November of 2025.

As of today, officially, that original vision is no more. We'll never get the opportunity to introduce you to that world and those characters - or reintroduce you to, and check in with, some familiar faces from the past.

My heart breaks. For the incredibly talented writers who worked tirelessly to bring this show to life. For Martin who maintained an unwavering positive outlook throughout despite the challenges, and who always strove to make a show that would honor the fans while welcoming a new audiences. And for the long-suffering Stargate fandom who waited so long and came so close to getting a show they truly would have loved.

[Flor @elissa348]

At least one good thing came out of that latest Wuthering Heights adaptation…

[Flor @elissa348]

A Comedy of Quarrels

Homer’s Odyssey survived two millennia of Christianity. The Odyssey will remain, and we will not. Nothing can kill The Odyssey, except not reading the book. That being the case, most classics have been dead for a long time.

Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights, despite being described as having the appearance of a “dark-skinned gypsy,” is almost always played by a fair-skinned actor on screen. This swap is curious, considering that much of the character’s suffering comes precisely from the fact that he looks different.

We are going to die, and the Heathcliff of the book and the Heathcliff of the adaptations will both remain there, on the heights. More than that: they will continue haunting future generations of women until the wind on the moors stops wuthering.

The spectator today is like the child of quarrelsome divorced parents. One side does something, the other complains. He is always in high-alert mode, eating the popcorn the devil popped, which is, by the way, air-popped, with no salt or butter. But one day the Salle Le Peletier burns down.

Swap everyone for everyone else, or for everything, or for nothing. Make a Beckettian play out of it all. Swap the beginning for the end and the end for the beginning. It doesn’t matter. Current reality is a Nelson Rodrigues play.

At this point, what I really want is the complete liberation of the madhouse.

I want a troupe of Swedish urbanites from Sweden making an experimental play about Indigenous peoples of the Amazon without asking anyone’s permission. A dry fern from one of their balconies plays the Amazon Rainforest, and an actor named Ikea is the chief.

I want Indigenous people to reclaim Norse mythology and make a play about Thor.

I want all myths to pass Nietzsche’s hammer test.

I want to play the Pequod, then catch the big marlin instead, and let it go. I want to be the soundtrack of Gone with the Wind, or the wind, or the things the wind took away.

Come. Let us stay in the audience or backstage, stuffing ourselves with buttered popcorn, rooting for no one, just for the fight itself.

Anyway, the end.

(From Stories Written With a Headache, Tylenol Press.)

[Flor @elissa348]

Sounds Off

Old films had that theatrical, sometimes over-the-top style, which also lent its voice to the radio shows of the era. The transatlantic accent, a learned prestige voice, gives them that instantly recognizable tone to this day.

One can even hear “the voice” in the hard-boiled detective fiction of the time, in the words of Philip Marlowe. His smoky Camel-cigarette voice comes off the page.

When a new generation enters the market with some purchasing power, it requires a new voice to speak for it.

Money can silence voices.

The Office came with that sincerão, or new-sincerity style, after a period of irony and the “no hugging, no learning” principle represented by Seinfeld. The voice then was conversational and warm, as if one were talking to a friend. Ads also started absorbing the more natural and authentic style of millennials.

But now that voice has gone silent. The detached, confessional-but-numb voice of the newest generation of consumers is speaking louder, a conclusion I came to after watching a one-minute clip of Euphoria.

Whatever.

[Joseph Mallozzi 🏴‍☠️ @BaronDestructo]

On This Day in Supervillain History
72 years ago, The Inventor made his diabolical debut in Detective Comics #209, using his electro-magnet to rob banks and his magno-radarscope to track Batman. But in the end, he was no match for Alfred - who incapacitated him with his shoe .

[Flor @elissa348]

Magooboh, which is to say: my good boy, counselor and friend.

[Flor @elissa348]

𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

I wanted to buy flowers for someone in Brazil. But even a few months of not being immersed in an economy can leave your purchasing power disoriented.

I checked one of those stores that sells everything, and to gauge the price of the flowers, my mind went straight to the egg aisle.

By the price of the eggs, I understood the whole economy and all creation.