Covers: Máquinas de vanguardia, Electri_City

Pietro Bembo, Kazimir Malevich

Rafael di Sanzio, Pietro Bembo (ca. 1506)

Kazimir Malevich, Selfportrait (1933)

Bathtub: Angelina Jolie, Rihanna

Annie Leibovitz, Angelina Jolie (2005)

Sophie Muller, Rihanna, still of Stay (2012)

Clint Eastwood, David Beckham

 

Stefan Lorant: the father of sosias

Well, this was matter of time. I started working on the sosias project after reading Proust's similarity between Odette and Cefora, back in 2005.

Today I just "discovered" (the most subjective verb with pretensions of objectivity) Stefan Lorant. He even has a biopage on Wikipedia. The foremost genius, from Budapest, as it should be: filmmaker, photographer, editor and a man of images.

There is currently an exhibition in Berlin, curated by Udo Kittelmann, focused on Trier, the guy who designed the covers of his magazine called Lilliput, focused on political satyr. It ran for 162 issues, and the largest collection might be Kittelmann's, who has 142.

The first "parallel" or "yuxtaposition" or "photographic jokes" – as he calls them in a generic way, since he coined no name for it – was one of Rockefeller and an old poor woman. Then he started looking for more, as he was starting a new, independent magazine with few resources but a lot of creativity.

The "idea behind the idea" became "to show how stupid pomposity, how silly self-importance is".

Michael Hallett has written his biography, which I want to get right away. He dubbed him the godfather of photojournalism, but the was more than that: he also invented the photographic sosias (pace Lawrence Weschler).

Whistler's mother, Virginia Woolf

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother (1871)

Gisèle Freund, Virginia Woolf smoking, London (1939)

Balotelli, Ronaldo

Balotelli (2012)

Cristiano Ronaldo (2014)

Hollywood, Ayutla

Hollywoodland sign (1923)

Ayutla, Jalisco

Entonces mi papá las corrió a las dos. Primero les aguantó todo lo que pudo; pero más tarde ya no pudo aguantarlas más y les dio carrera para la calle. Ellas se fueron para Ayutla o no sé para dónde; pero andan de pirujas.
– Juan Rulfo, Es que somos muy pobres

Adobe flat

I am posting these pics of my flat as an answer to some comments posted on Apartment Therapy's Small Cool Contest.

 Adobe wall (terrace)

Main entrance from patio

 

Kitchen and studio

 Bedroom

To do list (bench: orange crate from the 50s)

Studio upstairs

Ceiling

Bathroom

 Duchamp in Mexico

Ingres, Souza

In his most recent book, The News, Alain de Botton suggests this funny sosias: two powerful men playing with kids.

Ingres, Henry IV recieving the Ambassador of Spain (1817)

Pete Souza, President Obama gets caught into Spider-Man's web (2012)

Bauhaus Dessau: Herbert Bayer, Enrique G de la G

Herbert Bayer, Bauhaus Dessau Balcony (c. 1930)

Enrique G de la G, Bauhaus (2013)

Wolfram von Eschenbach, "Parzival"

«A brave man slowly wise –
thus I hail my hero –
sweetness to women's eyes
and yet to women's hearts a sorrow,
from wrongdoings a man in flight!»

"Mergers and Acquisitions", by Edward Hirsch

Beyond junk bonds and oil spills, beyond the collapse of Savings and Loans, beyond liquidations and options on futures, beyond basket trading and expanding foreign markets, the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's stock index, mutual funds, commodities, beyond the rising tide of debits and credits, opinion polls, falling currencies, the signs for L. A. Gear and Coca Cola Classic, the signs for U.S. Steel and General Motors, hi-grade copper, municipal bonds, domestic sugar, beyond fax it and collateral buildups, beyond mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers, beyond the official policy on inflation and the consensus on happiness, beyond the national trends in buying and selling, getting and spending, the market stalled and the cost passed on to consumers, beyond the statistical charts on prices, there is something else that drives us, some rage or hunger, some absence smoldering like a childhood fever vaguely remembered or half-perceived, some unprotected desire, greed that is both wound and knife, a failed grief, a lost radiance.

Walter Leppers en Playboy

Playboy México publicó este mes el texto en el que narro mi encuentro con Walter Leppers –un alemán que le da la vuelta al mundo en bicicleta– y los días que pasé con él rodando por la ciudad de México.

Mexico City 1883

In 1883, Julius Popper published a commercial map of Mexico City's downtown, which is a jewel.

The David Rumsey Map Collection has it online. It is worth checking this collection of almost 50,000 maps and images, if you are interested in the topic.

The site allows you to download all images in high resolution.

Palabras regias

En 1996, al mudarme al DF, mis compañeros universitarios se burlaban por mi manera de hablar –acento y vocabulario– y por mi forma de vestir (sneakers negros y chanclas: había que usar necesaria y obligatoriamente zapatos de piel). He estado anotando algunas de las palabras que considero típicamente norteñas y que en el DF no se conocen, no se usan o tienen otro significado.

chinola: limpiador de zapatos; procede de una marca gringa, Shinola.

mirruña: algo pequeño

zacate: pasto

manejera: volante

perrón: fregón, padrísimo

calzonudo: valiente o mayor

jale, jalar: trabajar; también: estirar una puerta

namás: nada más

bañársela: exagerar, pasarse cierto límite moral

cucaracho: cucaracha
chaqueta: chamarra

work in progress

Chris John DeWitt

It's hard to have a favorite photographer, but after perusing some of the pics of the Brit Chris John DeWitt, I could say that his are my favorites regarding Berlin together with Willy Römer's.

DeWitt's pictures have an eternal beauty, both in black and white and in color. The Berlin pics from the 1980s show the abandoned state of the city, the sadness and its the chilly, indifferent Wall. All this might sound nostalgic today, but life back then wasn't that easy. DeWitt used a lot the red filter to capture the dramatic clouds. He is not only a consummated street photographer, but a witness of the city I love the most and of an era I missed.

"Berlin is a dramatic place, the pivot point of a pretty dramatic century", he writes. Indeed! A city impossible not to fall in love with.

I LOVE that graffito verse on the upper right: Sei schlauer, zerstör die Mauer!

I used to go around this corner for many years, every day

The same here: I crossed this bridge millions of times. One day they closed it and it was substituted by a new one, after many decades. No punks here with dogs asking for money

Death in literature and on internet

There have been a few deaths in literature which have been very, very touching.

I just experienced that a couple of minutes ago, as I read how P died in this roman I have been perusing for a few months now. Today's technology makes it even more vivid or authentic. This guy is dying, and his brother sings a spiritual. There I go, and I found it on YouTube. As I am listening to it, I keep reading. Until he dies.

This is a beautiful possibility we now have.

Sartorialist's girls

The Sartorialist's blog is a good place to fall in love with random girls. These are some pics I have downloaded. No blondes!