Nick Hornby’s top-lists-technique

Há uns anos atrás apaixonei-me violentamente, puerilmente e temporariamente, por uma jornalista catalã que trabalhava na Bloomberg em Londres. Conheci-a numa festa tresloucada a bordo de um barco no Tamisa. Impressionaram-me os seus olhos castanhos e grandes, o seu sorriso único, a sua imersão no auge do estilo de vida da capital inglesa em formato capitalista, a forma orgulhosa como perspectivava o futuro, a gentileza das suas referências dos portugueses e a Barcelona. Enfim, depois de um par de horas passado na companhia dela estava futilmente apaixonado. De regresso a Lisboa, escrevi-lhe uma carta de amor – apenas um excerto, da parte não (muito) lamechas da coisa:

“I guess I’m quite friendly, considered a nice person by most people. My closest friends consider me a bit of an arrogant – they tend to say that I always act as if I have an answer for everything. I’m really timid, at least by portuguese or spanish standards. A seeker of knowledge, an humanist, non-superstitious, a believer in equilibriums who thinks to have found some answers for the big questions.

What else? Adopting Nick Hornby’s top-lists-technique, as a way to get to know someone else – and hoping that you find some references within these. Favourite movies: “Until the end of the world”, by Wim Wenders, “In the name of the father”, by Jim Sheridan, and “Cinema Paradiso” – latest best, “Lost in Translation”. Books: definitively nº1 is “Hadrian Memories”, by Marguerite Yourcenar, then “Focault’s Pendulum”, by Umberto Eco and on the entertaining front, Douglas Coupland’s anarchic stories. Music: I guess I’m a pop fan, James (ever heard of them?), Peter Gabriel, Suzanne Vega (as a sample) and more recently Air and some portuguese bands, I also like it classic, Purcell, Bach and Brahms, or Michael Nyman and Ryuichi Sakamoto. On the cities front: Rome, Lisbon and Barcelona. Countries: Ireland, Italy and China. Art: although my mother is nowadays becoming a professional painter, I don’t have it in my genes and am utterly incapable of drawing an apple, but as a child I wanted to become an architect.”