December 30, 2010

Clouds and worries

I was driving pretty worried and thinking about an email I got recently. I dropped my brother at the airport, who is flying this very moment to Cancún, tuned a violin concert, but I couldn't get rid of my thoughts... When I saw for the very first time in my life a lenticular cloud. Not only one, but three at a time!

They were behind our Cerro de la Silla. And although they didn't wipe my worries, it was a magical moment, since I had been "chasing" these clouds for a long time. Unfortunately I had no camera with me. So I sped up, came back home, took my camera and drove to a nice spot.

After a minute, a Jeep came towards me, three ugly bodyguards with suits and sunglasses came to me and asked me to leave, since allegedly that was private property. "No, it is not, I am on the street, and this is public". We had an argument, and I just cannot understand this people, either extremely rich and stupid guys or drug dealers (who are also as stupid as rich). So I moved my car two meters back, changed the lens, and my clouds were gone...

There is this instinct of taking pictures to hold a moment. But sometimes is better not to take that picture with the camera, but with your mind. Today's clouds and violin concert were a nice gift.


Foto: Big lenticular cloud close to Mount Rainier, Washington, by Kevin Ebi

December 27, 2010

Un homme et une femme

These are two clips from Claude Lelouch's "Un homme et un femme" (1966). The first one is a monologue of a man driving his car, the second one is a dialogue between this man and a woman plus a selection of her memories (also, a hommage to samba). The first one represents a man with his plans to surprise a woman he is in love with; the second one is the dream of such a man: a woman who is absolutely in love with his guy.


Monologue


Dialogue

Via JMP

December 26, 2010

Gone with the wind

Armando Salas Portugal is the best photographer of Monterrey. Like Juan Rulfo, he succeed in capturing the most melancholic stamps of the Mexico which doesn't exist anymore. Today's Mexico is wild, urban, violent, the old one belonged to the campesinos, the honor and the "ahí se va"...

I have the ability of looking for what is gone with the wind. I cannot find that Mexico, which I love, but I still hold on to it. That is the state of melancholy. Like Armando Salas Portugal's pictures: that forest was chopped down, that field is now producing tequila for export, the beach sports now hotels for gringos, the next field is a marihuana plantation, the last tree fall down to make room for a new road. Like Atget's Paris!

The same seems to happen with Love. You grasp it, and it's gone again. You touch it, and you contaminate it. You want to understand it, and you rationalize what is not to be understood but received. You receive it as a gift, buy you get afraid of it. You have it in front of you, but you are busy with your past. When you realize, it is gone with the wind.






December 23, 2010

German Christmas

The last years I have been observing myself getting less and less involved in the Christmas spirit. I feel increasingly distant and skeptical. All those masses buying frenetically go on my nerves, and the absurd of so many "traditions" seems odd to me. The better I understand Germany, the more I feel that Christmas is a German export, where "Gemütlichkeit" the keystone is. Besides "posadas", which are truly Mexican by origin, the rest is a hotchpotch of Italian (the Nativity Scene) and German (Tannenbaum, Adventskranz, carols, etc) delicacies with a lot of American consumerism.


Good for the Germans, who developed their own festivity. And the rest of the world? Shopping, Kitsch, pre-ordered feelings of peaceful joy and happiness... A new book tells the cultural history of German Christmas, read a review on The Times.

December 18, 2010

Foot, feet

Adolph Menzel, Fuss des Künstlers (1876)
Ricard Avedon, Rudolf Nureyev, dance, "en pointe" (1967)

Fussverrenkungen (2010)


Eberle & Eisfeld, Füsse des Künstlers Unthan (?)

December 17, 2010

Wartime books (1944-1945)




Nothing as disgusting as war. I had never thought about it, but obviously it also has an impact in books: "Books are weapons in the war of ideas".

December 16, 2010

Valentín García Yebra

Valentín García Yebra passed away last Monday.

He was a philologist and translator, who became 25 years ago member of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua. As far as I know, he started translating from German (Gertrud von Le Fort), later he translated also from Latin, Greek, Portuguese, Italian and French. His edition of Aristotle's Metaphysics is still the best one in Spanish.

Funny thing is that, being an ultra catholic who even worked for Franco's censorship, he translated one of those books praised by ultra Catholics: Charles Moeller's Littérature du XXe siècle et christianisme. As it happens, the book gained big interest in the conservative sphere because Moeller was the only one reading and commenting forbidden authors. García Yebra's translation of the book was read both by Catholics as well as by non-Catholics because that was the only access to forbidden literature in Franco's Spain.

El Blog de la Redacción de Letras Libres publica hoy una notita necrológica.

December 15, 2010

TV face


"Just before dawn Richard had got out of bed and moved towards the bathroom with unusually intense disquiet. Sure enough, his face was the shape of a television" (Martin Amis, The Information).

Those two lines reminded me of these pictures by Friedlander and Weegee, whose name reminds me always of Twiggy and a nice picture I saw in this book, but I couldn't find online. At least I found another pic of Twiggy by famous photographer Bert Stern.

Weegee, Spacepatrol

Lee Friedlander, Florida

 
Bert Stern, Twiggy 

December 14, 2010

The richest calamity in the world

When I left last Sunday the Blockbuster, a very old indigenous woman asked me if I wanted to buy a chewing gum. "No, thanks". I felt bad and asked my little brother to go back to her and give her some money. It was very cold, it was late, she was alone. And through the warm window of my car I could see her not reacting to my brother. He then told me that she was sleeping... while standing.

I just get angry when I see these poor people looking for a living while Mexico "shows off" with Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world. And unfortunately, a big calamity for Mexico, since he has shown poor interest for poverty in the country. He doesn't care of Mexico, he cares of his wallet.  He is now getting control over Ciudad Juárez (water supply, highways, bridges, estate), instead of helping solving security problems, for instance. And since he also partially controls the New York Times, they say nothing about it.

Yesterday, I had to wait more than half an hour, so I found shelter in a bakery, El Globo. I was reading, but it was impossible not the overhear a conversation between the manager and her supervisor next to me. She was complaining that the air conditioning is way too cold, specially in winter, and that all of them are forced to wear jackets at work. Not only that, but also that all of them are getting sick, and they still have to work, and customers complain because a sick baker means a sick bread-eater. The supervisor just repeated over and over again: "Well, dress up warmer". But after ten minutes, he accepted that workers from other El Globo bakeries are also rather unhappy with their jobs, etc.

Eating bread, drinking water, driving on the highway, using the phone... whatever you do in nowadays Mexico, you are making Slim richer. He laughs and shows us his middle finger! How can we stop him?

December 10, 2010

"As cool as Behlín": Young, wild and free

Zürich-based duo "Boy" street-performing As cool as Behlín, good pop by cute Valeska Steiner.


December 8, 2010

Nouvelle scène

I love French music (and this neck), I follow daily Filles Sourires and every now and then other music blogs specialized in French music. Today, DIE ZEIT publishes an interesting text on nouvelle scène. I cannot agree with this guy in everything he writes and he is also missing some crucial names, but still I want to draw attention on his piece, which starts with a very stimulating idea:


"Die Sprache ist das impressionistischste aller Instrumente. Es reicht ein Wort, seine Andeutung, bisweilen gar dessen Erwartung. Ein paar Brocken Arabisch, und die Flughafensicherung meldet Alarmstufe drei. Zwei Silben aus Holland, und wir fühlen uns benebelt. Etwas Kiswahili, und unser Helfersyndrom erwacht. Nirgends aber schaltet die Assoziation schneller auf Automatik als beim Lieblingsnachbarn: Ein Hauch Französisch, und alles wird Musik".


Voilà!

Foto: Vanessa Paradis

December 7, 2010

Vargas Llosa in Stockholm


Vargas Llosa gave a speech today prior to the Nobel Prize ceremony, and he also talked about his wife. I wish I could be sooo in love with my girl after so many decades:


"El Perú es Patricia, la prima de naricita respingada y carácter indomable con la que tuve la fortuna de casarme hace 45 años y que todavía soporta las manías, neurosis y rabietas que me ayudan a escribir. Sin ella mi vida se hubiera disuelto hace tiempo en un torbellino caótico y no hubieran nacido Álvaro, Gonzalo, Morgana ni los seis nietos que nos prolongan y alegran la existencia. Ella hace todo y todo lo hace bien. Resuelve los problemas, administra la economía, pone orden en el caos, mantiene a raya a los periodistas y a los intrusos, defiende mi tiempo, decide las citas y los viajes, hace y deshace las maletas, y es tan generosa que, hasta cuando cree que me riñe, me hace el mejor de los elogios: Mario, para lo único que tú sirves es para escribir".

December 6, 2010

Those tragic last years

The woman was getting sicker and sicker. Because he loved her, he took her to Florence, a more friendly place for her health, and took care of her, until she eventually died. Then he came back to his old place and got a new house. He became bitter, even irascible.

Secretaries are supposed to keep secrets. His secretary's secret was her love for him. She managed to get rid of the sick daughter who was now occupying most of his attention: she put pressure on him, till he decided to put the daughter in a sanatorium. But he was not in love with her, and the relationship did not developed from the desk to the bed. Soon he realized her motives, fired her, and the sick daughter came back home.

But she was hurt and angry on her father. The relationship was hard. Soon after, she had one of those terrible epilepsy attacks while taking a bath on Christmas Eve. She drowned.

He was devastated: the death of his wife was still present, and this was the second of three daughters who had passed away. Four months later, he also died.

There is a single clip of the family, shot by Thomas Alva Edison himself, who visited them short before the tragic accident of the daughter. She is sitting in front of him drinking tea.

 

December 5, 2010

Russian charm

Today I attended a tennis match between Sharapova and Zvonareva. Maria is really tall and powerful, Vera is very fast. Sharapova won, and that encouraged even more the wolf-whistling.

I got lucky and got a first-row ticket, and was able to see Sharapova quite close. Despite being so tall and having a huge back, she looks cute and feminine, has delicate features and eyes. She is charming.

No idea what is going on with these pretty girls, but as Adriana Lima, she is also getting married to a Serb.

(Here, an old sosias: Caravaggio/Sharapova)

December 3, 2010

Mark Twain dixit


The more I read Mark Twain, the more I admire him, in many different senses!

In 1876, a couple visited him and his wife, and they had dinner together. The woman invited wrote on her diary, quoting him:

"Every man feels that his experience is unlike that of anybody else and therefore he should write it down -- he finds also that everybody else has thought and felt on some points precisely as he has done before, and therefore he should write it down".

Exactly! Nothing else to add!

Graffiti


A cool video clip by Twin Shadow with a lot of graffiti, including Banksy in Israel.


And this is a new graffiti I found in the Quartier Latin last weekend, sort of the tree-version of the Great Wave.

December 2, 2010

Technology & Entertainment

Nothing like tech to entertain yourself after crossing Germany by train. We had -9ºC yesterday and today in Berlin, my 4am train was canceled, the next train delayed, the next one didn't leave me at the airport, no S-Bahn coming, took a taxi. They had mercy of me and I managed to take my plane.


Now I am in Houston and just logged in on Veetle and I am waiting for the Final Game Rayados vs. Santos. Mark Twain and Martin Amis can wait.

At Montparnasse


I spent last weekend in Paris and at some point I found myself alone in the train station of Montparnasse. It was freaking cold, Monday, most of the museums were closed, my family was already gone and my friends were at the office working. Suddenly, an illumination! Serge Gainsbourg is buried in Montparnasse. So I went to visit him. His tomb is full of souvenirs, plants, metro tickets, cigarettes, teddy bears. I wonder what would Charlotte feel when she goes there to visit her father, if she ever goes.


I was touched by some kisses on the grave of (Paul Sartre and) Simone de Beauvoir. I was unable to find Camile Saint-Saëns and Marguerite Duras. I was not expecting Porfirio Díaz. Samuel Beckett is rather alone. While I was looking for Man Ray, an old man and two young girls asked me if I was Italian because of my accent while speaking French. They were those kind of people -- like me -- who do grave tourism with their camera at hand.


And I found Cortázar as well, together with his love Carol Dunlop. That is a name I fall in love with when I heard it the first time, as I fall in love recently with two other names: Eliette (von Karajan's wife) and Constanza. Some names are just pure femininity.


The last tomb of my tour was Jean Seberg's, another girl impossible not to fall in love with. Poor girl. And tomorrow is Jean Luc Godard's 80th anniversary. I will definitely watch again A bout de souffle!

November 30, 2010

Finished is better than perfect

I just received the stamp on my ph.d. thesis today. What a relief! It is still not the very end, but I am able to see it now.

Making a ph.d. is like running a marathon. G. reminded me that in my first marathon I decided to give up (as I had done two times before at 30K and 24K). That time, I was on the 25K. And I stop running, sat on a bench and thought how uncomfortable that stone bench in Reforma was. So I laid down and had a nap, at least half an hour. When I woke up, I started walking back home. After 10 or 15 meters I noticed that all my pain had disappeared, so I made up my mind, turned around and started running again. I was in the middle of the cars, since the last runner had seen me already sleeping my siesta (yes, I was in the last group, not at the front). I kept running and feeling great till I reached the end.

That was my first marathon. The second one was in Berlin. And now this Aristotle thesis.

The project lasted for almost ten years. First I had to learn German, Classic Greek, to un-learn all those misleading interpretations I had learned in Mexico, read around 200 or 250 titles (books, essays, articles, chapters of books), learn how to write properly in German, tolerate Germans with their food and awful weather... But then I fall in love with  this Germany full of pretty girls who are unaware of their beauty and their awful food and their awesome country, all of which makes me a bit angry.

Veni, vidi, vici.

There is nothing else I can do now except wait for a date for the defense. And defend my thesis and proposal.

Alea iacta est.

You learn too many things about your own self while training for and running a marathon. The same with the ph.d. There are several difficulties, specially if you are in Germany. But a special factor is that your old friends left centuries ago the university and think of you as some sort of fossil. And the new people you meet in the university are either ñoños dedicating their life to their field in order to became the best researchers of the world, or are younger students who are funny but not your peers. In either case, there is a gap. Of course, there are many exceptions and nuances.

Other difficulty is the pressure from outside, say family, funding institution, friends, etc. As I wrote before, asking for the status of the thesis is like asking for the exgirlfriend. That makes you only sad, if you are still dealing with it, and that is exactly when people ask, since people stop asking just when it is really over. A. is the only person I have met all these years who really knows how to talk about the thesis: she never asks, never shows surprise or disappointment if you get stuck, she just unconditionally supports you. That is the only right thing to do.

Today I am happy.

Foto: Aristotle, Musée du Louvre

November 25, 2010

"Nichts", von Nils Minkmar

[Erschienen am Sonntag den 21. November 2010 im "Feuilleton" der FAS]

Am vergangenen Donnerstagnachmittag schlichen schwerbewaffnette Polizisten um den Wiesbadener Hauptbahnhof und suchten mit einer Taschenlampe nach Aufklärung der Gesamtlage. Die ist, zumal im November, düster. Unser Feind? Die Leere. Mehrere Polizeieinsätze haben es in der vergangenen Woche herausbekommen – also nichts. Eben. Am Donnerstag gegen 16.15 Uhr hatte ein Zeuge an der Strassenbahnhaltestelle Holterheide bei Meerbusch-Osterath einen „herrenlose“ Koffer entdeckt und der Polizei gemeldet. Gegen 18.45 Uhr durchleuchteten Spezialkräfte des LKA den Trolley. In ihm fanden sie: Leere. Nicht nur die Spezialkräfte, auch der gebildete Augenzeuge erinnerten sich an Martin Heidegger: „Wovor fürchtest du dich? Vor Nichts“.

Terror kommt heuer als Horror Vacui daher. Gerade auch in Hannover. Da war es am 12. November so weit: Gegen 10.45 Uhr bemerkten Passanten einen herrenlosen Koffer auf dem Ernst-August-Platz (und nicht etwa Herrn Ernst August kofferlos, das kommt dort öfter vor). Jedenfalls: „Gegen 12.15 Uhr durchleuchteten Spezialkräfte den Trolley mit einem mobilen Röntgengerät und stellten fest, dass er komplett leer war“.

Die Terrortrolleys wollen uns fertigmachen mit ihrer Leere. Es ergeht dem ganzen Land wie einer lieben Kollegin, die kerngesund war. Aber sie wähnte sich krank. Sie war daher oft beim Arzt. Und die Schulmediziner machten sie fertig, fanden weder Symptome noch Erreger noch sonst was. „Die Ärzte finden nichts!“ Totale Gesundheit – das klang grausiger als eine Pestdiagnose! Da kann jede Krankheit jederzeit ausbrechen. In dem herrenlosen Koffer, der am 31. Oktober um 17.30 Uhr in Fulda entdeckt wurde, befanden sich immerhin „Bekleidungsgegenstände“, wie 13 Beamte der Landespolizei und sechs Beamte der Landespolizei erleichtert feststellten. Nihilisten, die leere Koffer auf Strassen und Plätzen abstellen oder leere Päckchen oder gleich Leergut aufgeben, denen droht – nichts. Hier muss ein neues Gesetz her, Leerverkäufe sind ja schließlich auch verboten. Wird nun „Leertrolley“ oder „Realtestkoffer“ das Wort des Jahres? Andere Frage: Was sind das bloß für Menschen, die einen leeren Trolley durch Hannover ziehen? Oder durch Meerbusch-Osterath?
Foto: Wahlers / Photocase

November 24, 2010

Winter: Pieter Bruegel, Agnes Tait

It has been snowing a bit in Prenzlauer Berg all day long. I was skeptical about the weather forecast, but of course German scientists know more about weather than Mexican guys sitting all day long at home working on Aristotle. But the first snow of the new winter reminded me of this sosias I had been postponing for some time now.

Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap (1565)

Skating in Central Park (1934)

November 21, 2010

Congratulations, you've reached the end of this internet


I got this page some days ago and clicked on the link, and then clicked on the following link (is there any known name for this disturbing disease besides Zeitverschwendung and curiositas?)... And I got Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the internet, talking about the future of intergalactic internet (5 mins).

November 20, 2010

I'm not a journalist

There is a funny, cute story (a scrap) found by Mark Twain in Times, which had already been published in older, partial editions of his Autobiography, which I just read in the new, complete edition (pp.440-441). The story is well told and he uses it to say that he is not a journalist, and to elaborate on the difference between journalist and author. It was interesting for me, since I also work for media as a journalist, but I am not a journalist either. And yes, of course, I do not pretend to be Mark Twain.
 
Mark Twain giving a press conference while being sick in Vancouver


 

 BABY ADVICE IN A CAR
OLD MAN GOT IT, FIVE-YEAR-OLD GAVE IT, MOTHER SAID, "SHUT UP"


A benevolent-looking old man clung to a strap in a crowded Broadway car bound uptown Saturday afternoon. In a corner seat in front of him huddled a weak-looking little woman who clasped a baby to her breast. Beside her sat another child, a girl perhaps five years old, who seemed to be attracted by the old man's kindly face, for she gazed at him and the baby with her bright, intelligent eyes opened wide. He smiled at her interest and said to her:
"My! What a nice baby! Just such a one as I was looking for, I am going to take it."
"You can't," declared the little girl, quickly. "She's my sister."
"What! Won't you give her to me?"
"No, I won't."
"But," he insisted, and there was real wistfulness in his tones, "I haven't a baby in my home."
"Then write to God. He'll send you one," said the child confidently,
The old man laughed. So did the other passengers. But the mother evidently scented blasphemy.
"Tillie," said she, "shut up and behave yourself!"

"That is a scrap which I have cut from this morning's Times. It is very prettily done, charmingly done; done with admirable ease and grace -- with the ease and grace that are born of feeling and sympathy, as well as of practice with the pen. Every now and then a newspaper reporter astonishes me with felicities like this. I was a newspaper reporter myself forty-four years ago, and during three subsequent years -- but as I remember it I and my comrades never had time to cast our things in a fine literary mold. That scrap will be just as touching and just as beautiful three hundred years hence as it is now".

November 18, 2010

Snake: Eve, Truman Capote

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman (Genesis 3, 4).

Cross reference: "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11, 3).

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1528) | Horst P. Horst (1973)

November 17, 2010

Guns & Love: Twain, Hemingway


I started Twain's Autobiography already, which he asked to publish 100 years after his death. A real man, Twain lost his love also in Firenze where his wife died after a long disease. He loved Literature.

Ernest Hemingway at the age of 5, sort of Huck Finn (1904)

A real man, Hemingway loved women and Literature, and lost his life through his other love, his rifle. Here he poses with a break-action Markham King air rifle then sold for about 75¢. An ad of that time says:
“Every live, healthy boy wants a ‘King’ Air Rifle. It’s boy nature to want a gun; to want to get out in the fields and woods, nearest to nature, and enjoy youthful life to its fullest extent. Get your boy a ‘King’ Air Rifle. It will mean health and boyish happiness — and steady nerves, keener eyesight and well-developed powers of observation”.
No surprise that he looks like a little Huck Finn. Many years later, Hemingway said: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn".

November 14, 2010

Cute Aufklärung

Videos for liberating girls from ignorance and machismo some decades ago. Really cute!










November 13, 2010

November 12, 2010

Nemesis: your personal Waterloo

One of the very first words of Martin Amis' The Information is 'nemeses':

"Women -- and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses -- (...)".

I checked up that one in the dictionary and found this:

nemesis:
1. something that a person cannot conquer, achieve, etc.
2. an opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.
3. Classical Mythology: the goddess of divine retribution.
4.  an agent or act of retribution or punishment.

170 pages later, Amis wrote: "Pain and fear were waiting for him, as they waited for everyone. A whole hospice of pain and fear, patiently waiting."
 
Then back to the dictionary. As a synonym of 'nemesis', it adds something quite funny:

downfall, undoing, ruin, Waterloo.

Nemesis. Waterloo. Invidia. Succumbing to the gods. Femme fatale. Implacable executrix. Sister of the Furies. Daughter of the Night.

Night, right. Back to Amis: "At night, as he prepared to enter the forests of sleep and temptation (...)".

Waterloo, nemesis. Clue words: 'ex' and 'diss'.

I had to think of F making a comparison in a 1970's bar in Bonn some weeks ago: People hardly understand that your ph.d. thesis is like your ex. Both are a 'she'. Never ask, never tell! She is so hard to overcome: you still love her, still you like her, but you started to detest her already, you are tired of her, it's over but she is still present, work in progress, they are in the caves of oblivion, are nightmares that wake you up in the middle of the night, for sure you don't want to go back there. But people hardly get it and they keep asking: 'How's the thesis doing? You got a date already for the defense? What's taking so long, can't you just move on? Say, would you like to meet the sister of the cousin of my wife? The only thing is that she lives in Cardiff, but you know, with Skype and EasyJet...'

Damn it!

Dissertations are like exes, nemeses, your personal Waterloo. I had to think of a stone in an unknown park of San Ángel (payed visit with my ex, hélas), and of a cushion found online, and of Don Alfonso Reyes:

"Vale más la gracia de la imperfección que la perfección sin gracia"

"Finished is better than perfect"

"Se publica para dejar de corregir" (memory quotation)

Upper foto: Nemesis, Roman copy, Louvre

November 11, 2010

Berlin for peace: Yoko Ono

I interviewed Yoko Ono in the bar of the Hotel Kempinski a couple of months ago, and published the text in Mexico's Letras Libres and in Germany's Weltkunst.

Cheers to that!

Visitors