July 29, 2011

Gmail is becoming totalitarian

We all love and depend on Google, but this absolutely-knowledge is just too much and, we have to admit it, absolutely lovely.

But the new campaign of Gmail is just totalitarian in its spirit and missionary in its motivations.

Is there something more discusting? Beware of it.



To show off or not to


Recently I met two people who are extreme opposites to each other. The one is very humble and easy going, has no great wishes, is always ready to be thankful for a glass of water or your opinion or advice, has never demanded something for himself, is ready to help and show understanding. His life is not easy, he has been fighting for some time.

I met the other person just recently and for the second time in my life, but I was shocked by his strong desire to show off and give an artificial impression of himself. He was not acting as one acts among normal people, but pretending to impress in a positive way to take advantage of it. He was indiscreet, uncomfortable, asking too many questions and pretending to be funny, although he was giving me a headache.

At some point, I prefer to ignore him and turn around. 

Why do people try so hard to impress other people and use a mask instead of being themselves? And why the mask of success, charm and intelligence, when you are talking to a guy who is complaining exactly about it. Maybe the first measure is to have a better control of ourselves on networks (Facebook et alia), where we are all nervous and anxious about presenting ourselves taller, thinner, smarter, funnier, more interesting and sexier than we actually are. That's the game. Play it and have fun, or detect it and retreat.

July 28, 2011

July 27, 2011

Oscar Niemeyer dixit

 František Drtikol
 


"It is not the right angle that attracts me,
Nor the hard, inflexible straight line, man-made.
What attracts me are free and sensual curves.
The curves in my country’s mountains,
In the sinuous flow of its rivers,
In the beloved woman’s body". 

As quoted by Ángel Gurría
"It is not the right angle that attracts me.
nor the straight line, tough, inflexible,
created by man.
what attracts me is the free, sensual curve.
the curve I find in the mountains of my country,
in the sinuous course of its rivers,
in the waves of the sea,
in the clouds of the sky,
in the body of the favourite woman.
Of curves is made all the universe". 

As quoted by the Museum of Contemporary Art at Baia de Guanabara


July 20, 2011

Black & White


 Robert Mapplethorpe, White Gauze, 1984


Herb Ritts, Versace (Veiled Dress), 1990

Shame!

I attended today the Mexican version of TED. It is called "Pase Usted".

I don't want to be pessimistic or negative, but I just became very depressed while being there, and left.

Pase Usted has the lowest level you can dream of: it worked today as a platform for stupid politicians who came to show us how marvelous Mexico is. Bullshit. The other part of the speakers concentrated their efforts to show us how fucked up Mexico ist. Yes, brilliant!

Where is the creativity? Where is the conversation and debate of ideas and solutions? Where is the struggle for being objective and pursue a common goal? 

Nothing! There was no dialogue, just monologue, and I am fed up with this.

Mexico needs a civil society open to dialogue, debate and objective seek of common projects, not a bunch of vain and conceited speakers throwing boomerang-words in order to give false impressions and to take care of their egos.

If the organizers of "Pase Usted" represent the wealthy, educated class, I reckon there is still a veeeeeeery long path to walk before I can feel proud of being Mexican.

Today, being Mexican is for me a shame. And I miss Berlin and my German friends, where you don't need to fake who you are, what you think, where you are as you are and you say what you think, and you call "der Hammer" what you think that is awesome, and you dub "Mist!" what is a fraud. But this Catholic-Barroque-twisted way of trying to impress the others with bullshit goes on my nerves.

Why is it so hard to focus on something and work?


July 19, 2011

Lux Feininger


The art of equilibrium...



July 16, 2011

The real DDR

A couple of months ago I visited the Zoo in East Berlin (Tierpark). Not the popular one, with famous polar bears and millions of tourists. No. The other one, which is the largest in the world according to the surface. It is such a nice park to visit and stroll around: it is a huuuge green area in the middle of the city (a 10 minutes ride from Alex, even closer than Zoologischer Garten).


If you want to have an impression of how the DDR was, it is hard to get it in Berlin. I had heard many stories, visited many places, talk to many people. And from all this, my conclusion is: the most authentic relic of the DDR is the Tierpark: the aesthetics and, above all, the people! It is worth going there: you will travel back in time. And if it happens that you are an Ossi, you will become veeeeeeeery melancholic. I'm telling you.

As melancholic as I am now in Berlin. (You can't come back to your own people without having a cultural shock. The worst part: where are the pretty girls?!?!?)

Foto: Willy Ronis, Tierpark (1967)
 

July 15, 2011

Farewell to two artists

These days, two artists passed away.

Cy Twombly: I never liked his paintings, but his sculptural work was for me a bit more interesting. Now that he died, I have been reading more about him (don't miss the spectacular piece by Niklas Maak on the FAZ), and it seems that he was an artists for philosophers (such as R. Barthes). For me, that means that he became even less interesting than he was already for me.


This is one of my favorite Twombly. Read the story, if you don't know it.


* * *

Zdeněk Sýkora: He was a modernist from the Czech Republic, and his work is stupendous: between Pollock, op-art and a neat Kandinsky. Look at -- admire! -- this joy and happiness.





July 14, 2011

Haben will!

I would love to have such a statue at home!


This one hangs in a refurbished building from the 1920s in Prague: St. Wenceslau.

July 13, 2011

The pursue of happiness




Being a maverick means being happy: freedom, challenges, you are on your own.

...

I have no credit card.

No debts.

I have no cell phone.

No stress.

I have no car.

I'm happy.

Blame me!

July 12, 2011

Logorama

This awesome clip won the Oscar for best animated short last year. It is a burlesque critique to wild capitalism.

Do not miss it!


July 10, 2011

Lips

By Straulino and others...




July 8, 2011

Menotti on (not using) cell phones


When I told my friend TS that I am interested in not having a mobile phone, he replied to me with a beautiful football story.

Antonio Ubaldo Rattin, Boca's captain, said once that his team was loosing in La Bombonera, and the fans were very negative on the players. Rattin told Menotti: "Flaco, run, otherwise they'll kill us all". And he replied: "Since when do you have to run in order to play football?"

TS elaborated on this: "The same happens with the cell phones. People think that they are more productive, but that is not necessarily the case. It is about thinking. It is not about running, but about thinking, that's the issue".

True, true!

July 6, 2011

Timing: Love story

A love story shoot with a Nokia cell phone.


July 5, 2011

Héctor Aguilar-Camín, Felipe Calderón



Götzen-Dämmerung





Think of idols: former, others', venerated, yours, trendy, successful.

Remember -- read -- Nietzsche's Götzen-Dämmerung (Twilight of the Idols).

Delete idols.

Start again, just in case.






 

 

Humans fall and fail. Sic transit gloria mundi...


July 3, 2011

Metropolis aesthetics


This week I drove for the first time on the second floor of Mexico City's Periférico, the longest "slow-way" in the world.
It has a resemblance to the aesthetics of Metropolis. In that sense it is nice to see/use it, since you feel being in the wrong futuristic movie, remade 80 years later.




Dalí also took advantage of Metropolis. And Vogue. And Greg Gorman. And George Lucas, and everybody else...






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