The Call of Literature

This is my all-time favorite bit of literature:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human
mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance
in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should
voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto
harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge
will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position
therein, that we shall either go mad from the relevation or flee from the
deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

What do you think?

Historic Notes on a Trip to Ilha do Mel

The fortress “Nossa Senhora dos Prazeres” is shown in the photo below, which I took when I visited it a few days ago. Located in Ilha do Mel, district of Paranaguá, the fortress was built by the portuguese in the 18th century, and has seen real action when Brazil was an infant nation and an Empire. There the people of Paranagua plus a token garrison of the imperial army joined battle against England, in a half-hour exchange of fire between the fortress and the HMS Cormorant.

This was probabbly the peak of mounting tensions between the Brazilian and English Empires. Since the passing of the Bill Aberdeen the Royal navy had been raiding and harassing brazilian shipping in order to force the country out of the atlantic slave trading market. The Royal Navy had been capturing brazillian merchants off the coast, but the HMS Cormorant maybe too boldly entered shallow waters, capturing and sinking a number of vessels in the narrow channels between the islands next to the coast of Paraná. The local merchants and the general populace were enraged at such an affront and at the lack of response from the local authorities. A large group of civilians stormed into the almost-abandoned fortress, reading twelve pieces of artillery overnight.

As the Cormorant passed on its way back pulling its prizes, the fortress opened up a ferocious bombardment. The ship sustained significant damage plus casualties, and limped away to Serra Leoa for repairs.

Two months later Brazil passed a law withdrawing from the atlantic slave trafficking in order to avoid a fully-fledged war against victorian England; Fourteen years latter an ambicious Paraguay would attack both Brazil and Argentina thus initiating the devastating War of the Triple Alliance.

If you visit the fortress you’ll find a metal plate next to its gates with the following inscription:

“A primeiro de Julho de 1850 nesta fortaleza da barra de Paranaguá bravos filhos da cidade auxiliados por aderentes dedicados salvaguardaram a honra do Brasil resistindo à passagem do cruzador Cormorant, com as três presas feitas no porto. Em comemoração ao primeiro centenário do combate. Ilha do Mel, primeiro de Julho de 1950.”

(this entry was partly based on an excellent article by Guilherme Poggio, which can be found here: http://www.naval.com.br/historia/geopolitica_poder_naval/dipl_canhoneiras.htm )

CEI-F-3-01 AKA “Spin Doctors”

I know the present perfect often has my students’ heads spinning, but this time I got them to spin in quite a more literal manner; We chose to celebrate the time we’ve been together for the summer course at the Ferris Wheel placed in Copacabana.

The jovial mood of when we decided to treat us to an amusement park of sorts was a little subsided by the inevitable desertions: some were going to travel, others had to work extra shifts, yet another got sick, but a sizeable group still made it to the Ferris Wheel and spread itself over two booths.

It was definitely worth our while. Many screams, laughs and pictures later each of us went our separate ways, inevitable as it would be. I’m sure I’ll certainly run into some of them in the future, as I’m also sure many of them are bound to meet again throughout their future courses.

Until then, I’ll surely miss each person from this group!

Organising your film collection

Are you a movie buff? Have you got lots of films on your shelves so that sometimes you don’t even remember whether you own a title or not?

This happens to me. So I went surfing the net for software which would allow me to keep track of my stuff. Best of all, I reasoned that since movie data doesn’t change accordingly to who owns a copy, a nice program might be able to simply import all relevant info from databases over the internet and fill in fields such as movie director, year of release, publisher, lead actors, cast or plot automatically.

Such software exists. I am trying out something called Movie Collectorz (sic). The trial version is free but limited to 50 movie titles. I have downloaded other free software but haven’t had time to take a look at them all. The very cool thing about Collectorz is that I merely supply the film title and it looks for all information regarding that title over the internet, at sources such as IMDB. If more than a match exists for a given title, it presents me with these options so that I can choose. Saves a truckload of typing, I say. And it also can keep track of those pesky friends who repeatedly borrow stuff from you