I share here my speech on the occasion of the opening of Alice House of Curiosers, which you can also listen to through this link .

Saturday, January 14th, 11 am and there I was, sitting in a cafe in the silent company of my book, determined to live like people I didn't know and in times I didn't live, but read about. I'm doing my best to make this moment my own version of Hemingway.

In "A Moveable Feast," the author describes the scene of reading in a cafe at the beginning of the chapter titled "The Cafe de la Paix," in which he describes the atmosphere of a typical Parisian cafe, with its vibrant and eclectic movement of people, the aroma of coffee in the air, and the atmosphere charged with lively conversations and creative inspiration. Hemingway portrays the feeling of immersion in the culture and literary life of the city while enjoying the positive influence that these environments had on his literary process.

It turns out that this is not exactly what I'm feeling as I try to live my own version of Hemingway and I almost start to feel a little ashamed of how easily I get distracted and consequently find flaws in this cafe I chose to read my book. But in my defense: did the Parisian cafe have that infamous door that is exactly opposite me and slams every 7 seconds with a dry, loud and... irritating noise?

What am I doing? 103 years separate me from that Paris of Hemingway. I'm not in Paris and, truth be told, I don't even like coffee.

I rarely see people alone reading or writing around here, the people around me talk much louder than necessary, and to be honest, I'm starting to suspect that Hemingway only said what he said because he didn't live the almost anthropological experience of reading a book in a cafe in 2023, read: while the table next door watches a video or listens to an audio at maximum volume, without the slightest ceremony.

Well, nothing here looks like the Cafe de La Paix and I give up trying to recreate my own version.

I was at Ottolenghi on Pavilion Road in London. At the door, a considerable queue of people and there I am, sitting alone. And that door, my God, that keeps slamming, would it be a reminder that I haven't consumed something in a while and maybe it's time to free up my table for one of the many people in line who are now staring at me? The bench I'm sitting on is far from comfortable but, still, I'm there almost every day when I'm in London. Why do I insist on reading a book here? The Heming-way, I know. I like to watch the movement and the people between one page and another, I like the food, the sweets but... everything else distracts me too much.

I can change establishments but what good will it do? I know there will be at least one inconvenient cell phone. I could go to the London Library, but what if I get hungry? There's no service and it's still far from everything.

And it was observing that everyday and somewhat noisy ballet for someone who wants to read a book on that Saturday morning that I caught myself thinking: this place wasn't made for reading. How do I read with all the good things here, but without the bad things?

"Follow my reasoning at that moment: if we want to watch a movie, we go to the cinema, if we want to dance, we go to a club, if we want to see art, we can go to museums and galleries but...and to read a book? where exactly do we go?"

Follow my reasoning at that moment: if we want to watch a movie, we go to the cinema, if we want to dance, we go to a club, if we want to see art, we can go to museums and galleries but...and to read a book? where exactly do we go? Please don't tell me a bookstore, that hidden armchair at the back of the store is far from being the inviting and ideal place. And going back to the Paris of the 20s is not a possibility, unfortunately.

Before I knew it, my head was singing Djavan on repeat: I already had the cold day, I just needed the right place to read a book.

My head was racing and at that moment I just needed to tame my Arian anxiety and wait for Monday to come to communicate the idea in the work group, after all, Brazil was sleeping and it was still Saturday. As I had already given up my attempt to enjoy a la Hemingway and, excited about my ideas, I started my own version of another famous writer to map and devour London on foot, after all, the city stimulates, makes you walk, move, think, and if this movement helped Virginia Woolf find inspiration, the noise of my steps in London would also help me tune the idea that had sprung up in my mind.

I arrived in Notting Hill and my fingers were typing messages in the work group with all the ideas that came in overwhelming waves. Well, I couldn't wait for Monday to come and suddenly I find myself buying pillows on Portobello Road which, coincidentally or not, reflected 100% the spirit and climate that surrounded my idea. Or did the environment shape me? Either way, anxiety, obsession, and passion are some of my middle names.

January is the month when I need to think and define what the theme of the Trent Planner for the following year will be, and to the delight of my business partner, I usually use the entire month and even resort to the last seconds to make a decision. But this time it was different, because the literary universe was already an idea that had crossed my mind, first out of passion, second as a manifesto and especially after all this epiphany that I just told you about. I forgot to mention the manifesto:

Some time before all this, while strolling/procrastinating on Instagram, I came across a video in which the guy thanked for the book he had received as a gift. In the thank-you, endless praise for the aesthetics of the book and an insistent recommendation that it was a perfect object to decorate the house. A perfect book to decorate: when did everything turn into an exhibition? When did books stop being opened to become, at best, an object of decoration? What a waste of a book, what a waste of an opportunity. Knowing how to read is in itself a position of great privilege, even though those who know it don't think much about it. Not making use of this "luxury" is to close the door to a universe of imagination.

In moments of boredom, when I needed to acquire knowledge, critical thinking, when I wanted to travel but couldn't leave the place, when I wanted to learn something new, when I needed repertoire in conversations with people with whom I had little intimacy, when I needed to distract my mind from a broken heart, how many times a book saved me.

So many things I could say in an attempt to catechize more people to (or back to) this world of infinite possibilities. And even though this seems so obvious to me, I found myself lost in so many thoughts and arguments. I started walking. And that's what I do every time I need to think, expand some idea: I walk, because, in a way, it's like reading. And if it worked for Woolf, it would work for me.

And it was thinking about how to put the arguments into words that suddenly I saw my head fly to the most famous of all Alices, the English girl who managed to access Wonderland. This famous novel by the English Lewis Carroll inspired so many artists in the most diverse areas and, indisputably, it is a work that inhabits the imagination of all people of my generation. And I am no exception.

Many people know this Alice, but few see the example she lends. 

Alice is a book that can be read in two keys, as a book for children, by the story, as a story in the world of fantasy, but it can be read in another key, a book within which the question of meaning is fundamental, not for nothing have specialists been trying to decode all these layers of meaning that Alice brings for 150 years. 

In other words, Alice is much more than a children's novel, the work confronts the world of logic and nonsense, in the words of Virginia Woolf herself it is a book through which adults can become children again. Alice is a girl who only discovers Wonderland after following the White Rabbit that passes by her hastily in the forest. On a journey of surprising discoveries, Alice deals with the most diverse characters and, little by little, shapes her thoughts and attitudes according to what she sees, hears, and feels. 

Curious and without thinking about the consequences, Alice enters right after the Rabbit and ends up discovering a world of dreams, magic and some strangeness along the way, teaching those who are willing to read that curiosity makes us discover incredible worlds and without even needing to leave the place. 

It was thinking about all these possible journeys that books provide that I invited him, the best asset of my resume, my former intern, the most literate man on the networks and my dear friend, Pedro Pacifico, to design a literary journey throughout 2024 through the Trent Planner, which will take you through 11 countries through 12 authors. All this without having to pack a suitcase or go through X-ray.

We are constantly changing and we are what we see, learn, and read. The variety of themes and stories under the sky is incredible and some universes are impossible to imagine! Even if these universes are unknown to us, all this framework of knowledge and thought has a decisive weight in our ability to think, create, criticize, perceive, interpret and, perhaps even more importantly, imagine the world around us. Without knowledge there would be no imagination. And it is only through the things we know that we can begin to imagine different things and tell stories.

Our own stories.

 And I believe that the only life worth living is one in which we are able to imagine. And so Alice House of Curiosers is born, my dream place to read a book, to bring curious people closer and also for those who wish to allow themselves to be led by curiosity, to travel without leaving the place, to open the book to read and not just decorate, all in a conducive, inspiring, interesting environment with equally interesting people.

I invite you to allow yourself to be led by all the white rabbits that are around you in 2024. The exercise of curiosity is a faculty of our own and, at the end of the day, it is the curious who move the world.

Signed by Maria Helena.