the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt five)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Back in Portugal, Marcelo Caetano’s limited reforms fail to quell the growing unrest among the population. The resistance to the regime and the war hits a new tenor when several of the radical left organisations that sprang up in the late ’60s and early ’70s begin to put their ideas of violent resistance into practice. The country is rocked by bombings of ships bound for Africa, airbases and bureaucratic institutions, organised by the Revolutionary Brigades and the PCP-aligned Armed Revolutionary Action (Acção Revolucionária Armada, ARA). Among the plethora of new organisations undertaking direct action against the regime is the Unity and Revolutionary Action League (Liga de União e Acção Revolucionária, LUAR), a group formed by many of the perpetrators of the hijacking of TAP 114 and led by Hermínio da Palma Inácio himself. LUAR makes a grand entrance on the scene by robbing the Bank of Portugal in the town of Figueira da Foz, proclaiming in printed missives that it intends to use the captured funds ‘For the liberation of the people’ and sparking a continent-wide chase led by PIDE/ DGS and Interpol. The various attacks add another dent to the already stretched infrastructure of the colonial war–but it’s not all explosions and bank robberies. In July of 1972, following another of the regime’s sham elections in which Admiral Américo Tomás is elected president for the third time (and unopposed for the second), the Revolutionary Brigades dress two pigs in admirals’ uniforms and release them in Lisbon, one in Rossio and the other in Alcântara. The pigs are oiled and the police, unable to hold on to the slippery swine, resort to gunning them down in the street. BR follow the stunt by setting off petards loaded with pamphlets decrying the elections in Portugal as a ‘mockery’: ‘Besides that, Tomás’s election is filth. Hence the pigs, symbols of Tomás and the pigs who elected him.’

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt four)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

The high Catholic moralism of the Portuguese state had prevented anything close to a ‘sexual’ or ‘feminist’ movement from emerging openly within Portuguese society. In 1968 an outbreak of student protests at the Superior Technical Institute (Instituto Superior Técnico, IST) had declared, among other things, a ‘sexual revolution’ –an indication that, perhaps late in the global context, at least among the youth the moralist grip of the state was beginning to slip. One of the more dramatic confrontations of Marcelo Caetano’s tenure is the case of the Three Marias, which manages to cause waves across the international community. In 1972 Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, in a window of more lax censorship, publish Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters, or The Three Marias as it appears in English translations). Novas Cartas Portuguesas is hard to classify–it flits between poetry, essays, letters and fragments, but these combine to paint a harsh picture of the Portuguese woman under the Estado Novo, reflecting on the brutality of the regime and the Church, and the female condition in Portugal. It is almost immediately banned–described as ‘immoral’ and ‘pornographic’ by the state censors–and the Three Marias are arrested, placed on trial at Boa Hora Tribunal and sentenced to prison. The resulting wave of condemnation from international feminist movements, which includes protests outside Portuguese embassies in places like New York, adds another uncomfortable layer to the international scrutiny Portugal is already under.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt three)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Setting their ambitions even higher, the DRIL committee in Venezuela concoct what becomes known as Operation Dulcinea. The name is Galvão’s idea–a reference to a 1943 play Dulcinea, or D. Quixote’s Last Adventure. The plan is based around the fact that the Portuguese cruise liner Santa Maria is soon to make port in nearby La Guaira. The ship, a large luxury vessel making a leisurely journey to Miami, carries over 350 crew and 1,000 passengers. In January of 1961, in the ports of La Guaira and Curaçao, DRIL arranges for twenty-five Portuguese and Spanish rebels to secretly board the Santa Maria, including Pepe Velo, Henrique Galvão and his second in command Camilo Mortágua. They also manage to smuggle aboard fourteen weapons. The plan is to commandeer the Santa Maria and sail the ship to the island of Fernando Po, from where the rebels can coordinate an invasion of Angola and establish a government dedicated to overthrowing the Iberian fascisms. The hijacking doesn’t go to plan–the rebels are twitchy, operating in the dark, and in the commotion four people are shot, including the ship’s third pilot Nascimento Costa, who ultimately succumbs to his wounds. The remaining crew are gathered together and told the ship is under the command of a revolutionary force led by General Humberto Delgado, and cautioned not to resist. The Santa Maria is renamed Santa Liberdade by the rebels, but its lofty goals are swiftly put aside. In order to save one of the wounded crew, the revolutionaries are forced to change course for the island of Saint Lucia. This isn’t done for entirely humanitarian reasons–Galvão’s time on the ship leads him to conclude that it is inadequate for launching a military attack, and the mission is better off reverting to a propaganda campaign. In any case, landing at Saint Lucia removes the element of surprise. Within hours of the landing, the world knows of the hijacking. On board the ship, the rebels’ radios are tuned to the world’s news stations as the navigator plots an unpredictable trajectory, making their journey more difficult to track by anyone giving chase. For the passengers, apart from the initial shock of the piracy, life on the ship goes on very much as before–only a few days after the hijacking, the orchestra is back to doing its evening performance, and the pool is once again full.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt two)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Galvão’s escape becomes PIDE’s number one priority for several weeks. The nurses at Santa Maria hospital are brutally interrogated, the captain’s family is tailed and even his former lovers are pursued through Lisbon on the chance Galvão might try to reignite an old flame. The fugitive, however, moves quietly between flats in Lisbon, ferried around in secret by a network of loyal friends. A few weeks after his escape, Galvão makes his way into the Argentinian embassy disguised as a delivery man, and formally requests asylum. This causes a diplomatic furore, but one that the Argentinian government is willing to bear. Galvão stays in the small embassy for several weeks; granted access to a typewriter, the old captain spends his hours writing letters and pamphlets that he is convinced will do serious damage to the regime if they are given a proper airing, and distributes them to fellow conspirators throughout Lisbon. As much as Galvão is eloquent and charismatic, he is also somewhat of a fantasist–as well as circulating his pamphlets, Galvão insists that his associates should distribute a collection of his poems (which he claims will galvanise the youth), as well as photos of himself standing at the window of the Argentinian embassy, looking sombre in a suit and tie, accompanied with snippets of text against Salazar. Galvão would happily spend his days fomenting a rebellion against the regime from this small room in the centre of Lisbon, but this is clearly untenable for the Argentinian diplomatic staff. After days of furtive negotiation, the regime allows Galvão to travel to Buenos Aires under Argentinian protection, on the condition that he be prevented from continuing his political work in Argentina. This decision, one arrived at from diplomatic necessity, plagues Salazar–in a conversation with his foreign minister, the now elderly dictator fumes: ‘We’re going to regret this a thousand times. He is much more dangerous than Delgado.’ On 11 May 1959, Henrique Galvão is put on an Argentinian Airlines flight, beginning his 29-hour journey to Buenos Aires. Left behind are his wife, his adopted daughter Beatriz, his pet sparrow and a trail of broken-hearted mistresses. He will never see Portugal again.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt one)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

The resulting workers’ mobilisation turns out to be explosive, literally. On the morning of the 18th, a PCP activist lobs a bomb onto a railway line on the eastern outskirts of Lisbon, causing a train to derail and immediately alerting the government’s military forces that the action is under way. The capital is rocked by more explosions, on Travessa do Cabral in central Lisbon and underneath a tram on Avenida da Liberdade. These actions, however, are not the triumphant herald to anything that could be described as a general strike. There are hubs of action in some Lisbon neighbourhoods, as well as in various towns and cities up and down the country–but the total participation doesn’t rise above a few thousand. In the town of Marinha Grande, workers manage to occupy the town hall and the GNR barracks, but a lack of organised leadership and a real plan for what to do next means the police take control of the situation in a few hours, scattering the armed strikers into the surrounding pine forests. Syndicalists in Almada and Barreiro, south of the Tagus, bring the railways to a halt, and in the town of Silves the cork manufacturers hoist a red flag above the workshops. Ultimately, however, this first salvo from the workers’ movement meets the same end that befell the various republican uprisings: failure, arrests, increased government repression, death. This is the first real test of Salazar’s mettle as de facto head of state, the first glimpse into how the Estado Novo deals with dissent. His answer to 18 January is the creation of the Tarrafal penal colony, its construction proposed in 1934 and the first prisoners shipped out in 1936. Of the 152 men imprisoned when the Swamp of Death is inaugurated, over a third are there due to their actions in January 1934.

The particular brand of fascist authoritarianism implemented by Salazar notably differs from the regimes in Italy and Germany in a few key ways. The violent goons that put Mussolini and Hitler in power are not required for the creation of the Estado Novo, and Salazar remains opposed to an independent paramilitary force–or street thugs outside of his control. Yet the Portuguese far right are itching to imitate the Brownshirts. Salazar sees an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, directing the ebullience of the would-be street fascists against what he sees as the real enemies of the state. In the mid-1930s the Portuguese press is awash with articles decrying the dangers posed by next-door republican Spain, as well as the increasing influence of the Soviet Union. The year 1936 sees the creation of two organisations designed to combat that influence: the Portuguese Legion, a formal militia integrated into the state through the Ministry of the Interior, and the Portuguese Youth (Mocidade Portuguesa), in essence a youth extension of the former, modelled partly on the Hitler Youth. With these two organisations the Estado Novo can keep a close eye on the more extreme fascist elements in the country, and has another tool of repression against what Salazar calls ‘the great heresy of our time’: communism. From late 1936 public servants are required to make a statement under oath that they repudiate ‘communism and all subversive ideas’.

the last book I ever read (Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music, excerpt fourteen)

from Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards:

I was always fascinated by the famous closing section of Ulysses, where Joyce dispenses with conventional punctuation. There are pages and pages of what a junior-high-school grammar teacher would call run-on sentences. But it works. And as a reader, when you realize that it works, it can feel transformative. Magical. There’s a thrilling defiance of the conventional rules, a bold transgression of the way things supposedly have to be done. And yet you encounter order and sense anyway—maybe even new or redoubled layers of resonance and meaning, because it isn’t done the same old way.

the last book I ever read (Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music, excerpt thirteen)

from Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards:

My research drew on an eclectic range of sources. But the thing that opened the door for me was studying the music of Edgard Varèse. Going back to my time in college in Chicago, I had always been interested in his music. What was fascinating was that he was thinking about musical organization in innovative ways that didn’t emerge from serialism, which was the dominant experimental vocabulary of his time. Varèse didn’t follow the twelve-tone model of Schoenberg and Webern and their acolytes. He went his own way.

Varèse spent a great deal of time thinking about development techniques: ways to build and extend musical structures out of initial configurations. He writes about a technique where he flips the intervals between two notes to create harmonic derivations. In the major/minor world of diatonic harmony, one starts with a given tonal center—G major, say—and then the music proceeds through a set of operations in relation to that, moving to the relative minor, modulating up a half step, creating tension and release by resolving back to that center. But this isn’t what Varèse was after. Neither was he simply doing an inversion, where, for instance, you have a C major triad and you can flip the lowest note in the chord to the top, so that rather than C-E-G you end up with E-G-C and you’re still maintaining that C major tonal center.

The derivations Varèse was experimenting with aren’t the product of diatonic harmony, the product of extensions or substitutions of a given tonal chord. Instead, they were solely a matter of the intervals. He called the variations of this procedure “infolding” and “outfolding.”