Anthony Bourdain and Lobo Antunes
The ones who know me, know well I am not nationalistic. I just think there are things which matter and nations are not one of those things. But nationalism or regionalism are used as proxies to find patterns. And that is difficult to fight against. But this is actually not what I want to talk about. This is only the disclaimer to justify that the reason why I am posting this post is not a biased nationalistic one.
So, I like Anthony Bourdain and his shows. They’re fun and it is interesting to get to know cultures through their food. So, just for that, I could suggest this one about Lisbon. But then, then, we have the food. And even though I would not really eat the pork sandwiches or (no longer) the blood sausages, there is the food. There is the sea food and the delicatessen and, of course, the “ginginha”.
[Anthony Bourdain in Lisbon]
But I have other reasons
to write this post. And one reason is so overwhelming that I feel almost embarrassed.
One of Anthony’s guests is António Lobo Antunes himself. And I apologise
to Lobo Antunes for the boldness here and I know he’d call me silly should he
know about this (not the first time I do it though), but he’s very much my writer.
One of my all time favourites. Probably my contemporaneous favourite writer. So,
yes, I definitely had to post this one. It’s not often that one sees Lobo
Antunes and I feel I need to praise Bourdain’s team to get him to talk to the
world. It’s not often that he talks to the world.
As I wrote, I am not nationalistic.
There are lots of things in which I am not very “Portuguese”. But living abroad
made me understand that there are plenty of things that I was not appreciating
enough and that are, in fact, just delicious. And I miss them. The music, the
music scene, the restaurants, the other arts, the non-stiffness of people. But
of course, now that I am coming to an end of this post, there is something I
need to say about Portuguese writers. My favourite writer was Portuguese,
my favourite poet the same, and no news with my favourite contemporaneous
writer, here in the Bourdain show. Yes, maybe this Portuguese sad soul doomed
writer (or musician) is really true. But either true or false, it can’t get
better than that. And for that I am so thankful.
