Paulo Seabra

Ask anyone about the best TV shows of all time and you're very likely to hear either one or the other. Full disclosure, among us fangirls, I'm Team Tony all the way. I think The Sopranos has a pretty huge advantage over The Wire simply because, at its core, it's exceptionally funny, and in my view, all great art ought to be comic art. And though both shows have their brilliant comedic moments, I find The Sopranos wholly superior in that aspect, especially because I actually needed a couple of tries to get into The Wire, perhaps because it's more plot-heavy, which can be good or bad depending on how well you can keep up with all the deep procedural talk. But regardless of my preference, the more I watched either show, the more I realized they were oddly similar. Indeed I've come to think of them as cousins, and though different in significant ways, they probably have more similarities than differences. And as I wrote about the similarities between Berserk and A ...

Like nothing, because it wouldn't exist... I suppose that's the only right answer to that question. Some movies are just so great that they should simply be left alone. They are often the proverbial lightning in a bottle, they can't possibly be replicated. And indeed, they are so good that we can return to them time and time again, years or even decades later. In a word, they simply hold up. However, cinema, and perhaps all art, will always be a perpetual struggle between the art itself, born from the mind of the singular artist, and the vessel, which will always be subjected to human affairs. Or in the words of D'Angelo Barksdale, money be green. For that reason, studios often want to tap into the name recognition that certain movies have, names that will generate hype on their own due to the curiosity we have in knowing what happens next within a story we're already familiar with. And that curiosity really is infectious, it's pretty hard for me to resist such ...

Houve um dia nos meus tempos de liceu em que, como sempre era costume, a última questão do teste de português consistiu em escrever um texto criativo. Então eu dei o meu melhor, se bem que agora já não me recorde de quase nada do que escrevi, e algumas aulas depois, quando fizemos a correção do teste, eu vim a descobrir que o meu texto só tinha único um erro – eu tinha utilizado a palavra “coisa” que a professora considerou ser uma palavra feia... Mas eu não concordei e, no que me foi uma atitude rara, contestei, ainda que muito ligeiramente, e argumentei que a palavra “coisa” é usada constantemente pelo Fernando Pessoa, e que como estávamos precisamente a estudar Fernando Pessoa, fez-me todo o sentido escrever de forma inspirada por ele. Mas a professora respondeu – Ah, mas o Fernando Pessoa é o Fernando Pessoa, tu és tu... E eu, que sou eu, calei-me. De certa forma, a palavra “coisa” não é particularmente agradável, até soa um pouco estranha e talvez não seja assim tão bonita. E para...

Looking back to my past as a militant atheist I actually can't quite remember if I ever asked myself that question, or even if I ever felt this way or that way about it. I ask it now because it has crossed my mind lately, especially, and once again, because of the debate between David Wood and Matt Dillahunty, a debate that prompted me to write some stuff critical of atheism and secular humanism, which you may want to read, in this very same blog, if you find this present article at all interesting. I suppose some atheists won't, they'll find the title downright funny or perhaps even insulting... but as a wise man once said – It's all in the game, yo. “Conversion on the Way to Damascus ” by Caravaggio In the New Testament, in the book of Acts specifically, the apostle Paul, then named Saul, who by his own admission was a horrible man who persecuted christians, was traveling to Damascus precisely on such business when he was suddenly overwhelmed by a bright light, and t...

What a crowd, what a crowd! I tell ya, I'm alright now but last blog post I was in a rough shape, ya know... After the last blog post I wrote, Google recommended me – Hey, would you like to share this to all of your friend?... That's the story of mine life, I get no respect, no respect at all! And my wife, she ain't no prize neither. When we got married she had me take our wedding picture, that way I wouldn't be in it! Are you kiddin', I know I'm ugly. The other day I went for a prostate exam and the doctor shoved his fingers in my mouth!... And health, oh, that's another problem. I told my psychiatrist – Doc, I'm sad, I'm ugly, my wife hates me and I get no respect at all! And he went – Good, at least we know you're not crazy... But it's not all bad, Johnny, you gotta take the good with the bad, you know, and at least I get a little more respect than one man, and that man is Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney Dangerfield was known as the comedian wi...

Nothing in this world is more important than fancy clothes, and nothing is more importanter than the fancy clothes of famous celebrities. And while our favorite celebrities often do look stunning, or at least the fact that they are famous makes it so we all copy their weird looks and hairstyles, thereby turning them into fashion rather than finding them ugly, they can also at times blunder, and to that, no one is immune nor is anyone immune to the internet's all-seeing eye. Because if you fumble, especially if you are famous, the internet will know about it and subsequently have its day. And today our sniper rifles are scoped onto none other than Taylor Swift. Taylor Alexandria Swift, born in Transylvania, 1889 Now, in all fairness, is Taylor Swift known for fumbling? Gucci forbid! In fact, she often looks effortlessly flawless, much like a playful princess nymph frolicking in the waters of an impossible mediterranean sea, or perhaps a stately goddess ever-watchful of her heroic a...