ELOGIO DA ERUDIÇÃO

  

Exemplo típico de quanto uma pitada de erudição pode ampliar significativamente a forma como desfrutamos de algo: é perfeitamente possível ver Moulin Rouge, de Baz Luhrmann (2001), ignorando totalmente a história e a proveniência das várias canções que ocorrem ao longo da narrativa e, ainda assim, considerá-lo um belíssimo “musical”. Mas não se duvide que muito mais de metade do prazer que dele retiramos se perderá para quem não se aperceba que o hino dos boémios parisienses "fin de siècle" é "Children Of The Revolution", dos T. Rex, que o poema com que Christian/Ewan McGregor seduz Satine/Nicole Kidman é, afinal, "Your Song", de Elton John, que o nome do corpo de baile do “cabaret”, Diamond Dogs, pisca o olho a David Bowie, mas, sobretudo – num inesgotável mil-folhas de citações que vai de "Material Girl" a "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Like a Virgin", "Roxanne" ou "Heroes" –, o saboroso anacronismo de, com Toulouse-Lautrec por testemunha, assistirmos ao nascimento de The Sound Of Music, numa mansarda de Montmartre, em 1900. 

Coisa muito semelhante se passa com Wide Awake!, dos Parquet Courts. Logo a abrir, "Total Football", começa por exigir que, para entender o manifesto de luta colectiva (“Rebels, teachers, strikers, sweepers, workers, authors, poets, stoppers”) contra as tiranias contemporâneas, se conheça a táctica criada pela selecção holandesa dos anos 70. Depois, o texto da “ponte” – “Hesse total football, Twombly total football, Tzara total football, Mina total football, Panthers total football, CoBrA total football, Dada total football, Beatles total football” – obriga a investigar quem são (ou foram), pelo menos, Eva Hesse, Cy Twombly, Mina Loy ou o movimento CoBrA. O remate final (“Fuck Tom Brady!”), esse, leva-nos à descoberta de um ídolo da NFL desgraçadamente apoiante de Trump. Não está lá, preto no branco, mas todo o album nos poderia conduzir aquela citação da feminista e anarquista Emma Goldman, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”: de uma ponta a outra, neste magnifico festival de art-punk politicamente carregado (“Violence is daily life, a cause, an effect, a rejoice, a regret”, “Adapt to the void then if you must, into this perverted status quo, what if I've grown tired of being polite?”, “What becomes of our demonstrations? To which fate these gatherings fell? Which walls echo all the chants we yelled?”), George Clinton – “Free your mind and your ass will follow” – não foi esquecido.

“Apenas o mastro em que a bandeira é hasteada e o vento. Nenhuma bandeira” (III)

"Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit" ― Emma Goldman

"In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people" ― Eugene V. Debs

"Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes" ― Bertolt Brecht

"How does one hate a country, or love one?... I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is the love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing" ― Ursula K. Le Guin

"There has seldom if ever a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots" ― Iain Banks

"I'm no more modern than ancient, no more French than Chinese, and the idea of a native country, that is to say, the imperative to live on one bit of ground marked red or blue on the map and to hate the other bits in green or black, has always seemed to me narrow-minded, blinkered and profoundly stupid" - Gustave Flaubert

"Man is the only patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth” - Mark Twain