Hey City Zen!

Growing up in the 80s it was tough to find like-minded cultural partners and products, in a media that was completely dominated by an obsession with authenticity a la 1969. Living in the most postmodern decade of them all was often frustrating because you had to dig hard to find the best of the cultural products of the time, instead of what older hippies told you to like. Old-fashioned social networks were so important to curate the amazing things that were being produced: records, tapes, fanzines, obscure radio, movie festivals were traded hand to hand and from word of mouth among family and friends. Only now do I realize that we got to sample and experience an urban America that most Americans didn't, and the construction of a European cosmopolitanism that many Europeans now reject. All this to say how much I love the Portuguese Blog a Máquina de Escrever. Every post resonates with a Portuguese, post-nationalist cosmopolitanism that defines me, and apparently many others. It's as if they are written from my own mind, only made much more intense as only resonance with a like-minded community can achieve. More human than human. These people must have grown up with me. Obrigado pela grande Máquina! We can be us.