Translate

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Adbusters: a great magazine

Finally, I found a magazine worth to read and re-read. I was checking the magazine shelves at the Tate Modern shop and I was curious in between the excess of styling and post-post-modern-super-contemporary magazines, I saw this one, Adbusters...
The style is very original, approachable, entertaining and cool. The articles are very enjoyable about current issues and also I would say daring as they use a different language from other art magazines that seem to be written for being understood for just a few brains in the world.
I don't believe that is the purpose of art nowadays. Contemporary art is already a challenge to understand (and accept) to even make it unaccessible in the article review world. I'm glad to say that Adbusters, not only fulfills the entertainment talent but also dares to exchange attitudes and general thoughts of current issues which are over-generalized. Like when you say a word many times it seems it loses its meaning, some issues in the world are reviewed in such a way that have become unimportant. Definitely, you have the opposite effect reading this magazine, released in a very witty way, with a very interesting visual layer and with a variety articles from a wide source of either art forms, fashion, style, current world issues and involving social issues.
A New Aesthetic for a new reader dulled with the ordinary elite of unreadable magazines.

Thursday 25 June 2009

Finding Angels in London


How many times had happened the chances to say something that soon after it comes back in a particular way...

I was talking to a work colleague about life, and the cuts on shifts and the strong individualism needed nowadays in the city to keep maintaining the routine going... I said metaphorically I was needing an angel half joke half serious... but more focused on the fact of a dead tight routine not willing to keep as it seems boring... equals 'bring me some action!' or at the least interesting stuff... as some sort of adventure in the cage of routine...

So there I was the next day to an important appointment 1h earlier without me realizing it at those moments... I scanned my oyster card on the reader and started to walk down the escalators of the tube station... Waiting in the platform for an average of 2 minutes...

Tube arrives. I stepped in, and I saw a couple of seats available. One was free, but in between 2 random people. The other was free but with the bag of a person. Normally, I would have gone straight away for the free one, but for some unknown, subjective reason, I wanted to seat in the one occupied by the bag... A few seconds of non sense. The man makes the gesture of removing the bag for letting me sit there... And my reason and logic sense comes in, 'WTF? Stop being fool, Sit on the free one! Don't bother people with that!' ...

So I smiled the man, and made a gesture that meant 'Don't worry, I'll take the free seat', which he, obviously, understood perfectly, and smiled me back.

So I sit and looked at the ads on the top of the tube, as there was no LondonPaper available neither anything good to read. 'God damn! I couldn't find anything interesting to read... I read all the books I have at home...' I looked at the man's bag which was a reusable plastic bag full of documents and folders... He was also looking at the top of the ads from the opposite position...

Our sights met a couple of times, and we smiled each other again.

At some point, he took a few folded papers from the bag and looked at them proudly, picked up one of them and folded it carefully, then made eye contact with me and with a smile he handed it to me. I grabbed the paper, unfolded it and read:

'Make Capitalism history... WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO DREAM' At the back of the paper was a mini review, which sounded interesting and said: read it online at www.wilfsangels.co.uk

I have ordered a copy, but actually you can read it online!!! And they are poems!!

Wao..

I love London.

Autorretrato


Soy un enigma intrascendido, vanal y confuso.
Ilusa chiquilla solitaria transeúnte entre sombras,
con un corazón cansado, latente,
regenerador del día, del alma.

Vientos que me llevan y me traen,
me menean y me sueltan de golpe
en extraños lugares...
Desconocidos e inexplorados.

Incomprendida, inalcanzable y sin respuestas.

Absolución.

Another Sun

The Feather - 2

The Feather - 1

Leaves and branches creaked under her feet while she trudged through the shrubs towards the noise. She kept calling Shila more in an interrogation tone than in a determinant instruction. She stepped in a clearing where a ray of light pointed to the centre of a green grass space. She looked around but she could not see where Shila was. There was silence apart from the sound of the leaves in the trees being moved by the breeze. There were no singing birds or any other sound apart from that. All of a sudden, one of the bushes shook and Shila jumped in the clearing directly to the spot of day light in the middle. She run towards Shila, pleased she found her finally. Shila wagged the tail and sniffed a particular spot on the floor. When Luna got closer, she stroked Shila, but the dog kept with the attention in the grass sniffing anxiously. Luna observed that the subject of scent was a strange bright object hidden in between the grass, with the form of a feather. She crouched closer to the object while Shila looked at her like expecting something. It was like metal made and the soft part of the feather looked alike part had the appearance of metal yet it looked soft like a bird feather. She grabbed the feather and put it in a vertical position in front of her eyes so the light reflected on the material.

'Shila! You found a treasure!', the dog barked and wagged the tail. 'Is it a metallic feather?... I didn't know there were metallic birds at all'.

She started hearing something else, apart of the leaves in the trees eing moved by the breeze, it was something different, but with Shila barking loudly she couldn't distinguish very well.

'Shila, shhhhhh..., quiet', and she stroked her neck to calm down the dog. Shila stopped barking and started panting, until she calmed down. Now she could hear well... there was a soft kind of music... and it was coming from the feather!!

The feather was softly moved by the breeze as well, and the light reflected on its surface was showing a sort of iridescence she had never seen before, but the soft sound was really engaging, it was a bit hypnotic, and she stared and listened to the feather for several minutes until Shila barked loudly awaking Luna from the stillness.

'We should go back home now. Let's bring it home, I'm sure mum and dad can tell me what is it, they will be amazed!'

Holding the feather in one hand, Shila and Luna trudge back to the bushes towards the path. The feather kept emiting the sound all the way back. When they arrived, she stepped in the house and shouted:

'Mom! Dad! Look what I found!'

To be continued...

Thursday 11 June 2009

The Feather - 1

Luna was the only daughter of a happy marriage. Her parents were loving and worked both as scientific researchers in a laboratory dedicated to study fallen asteroids on a remote village of Alaska. It was summer times and they had a cottage house close to her parents work. She had no friends as school didn't started yet and they were new in the place.

That day she left home to walk her new puppy to the park near by. She was so excited that finally her parents brought her the puppy she asked for so long. She remembers asking for it since she was about 5 years old, and they always put many excuses and reasons, including the fact they used to move house quite often, but now her parents told her that they were expecting to stay there for longer, and the house was suitable for having a pet. In her 9th birthday, just 2 months after moving to the new place, her parents brought this tiny puppy, it had long hair, was soft and loving. She called her Shila and spent the last week playing and caring for her. She was double excited because it was the first time she was allowed to walk Shila on her own. She head to the park where the trees where high and lush.

They were walking side by side accompanied by the music of the leaves being waved by the afternoon breeze. All of a sudden, Shila stepped out of the path and disappeared in between the bushes. Luna called her but Shila didn't appear. She stared at the bushes wondering what to do. Her parents told her not to leave the path as a condition to go on her own. She stepped on the border of the path and shouted Shila's name. A moment later she could hear something inside the lushed vegetation and saw some bushes shaking. She thought that might be Shila, and stepped out of the path to look for her. She guessed Shila was still to young to obey human orders and if she was were the bushes were shaking, she would have no problem to grab her and return safely to the path.

She entered the vegetation and started walking in between the bushes towards the shaking leaves...

To be continued...

The Feather - 2

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Hello & Goodbye at The Breakfast Club


Today I had a 'brunch' at The Breakfast Club near Hoxton Square with a friend I haven't seen in 6 months, and before that, I haven't seen him in about 8 years. More friends to say goodbye, he was going to Berlin, and then to south east Asia. You get quite used to do it here in London. Just 2 weeks ago I said goodbye to another friend who went back home for good. I imagine her in the beach flirting with hot guys in the paradise island.

It's not a sad thing any more, well maybe the first day it's kind of melancholic, then life goes on.

I had the biggest poached egg on toast I've ever imagined I could have, with rocket salad and a sauce made of sun dried tomatoes, and the best thing of the place, it was served by a gorgeous guy, an Adonis, who will be probably gay. Nowadays, straight Adonis are endangered species. I asked him not to put butter in my toasts, which he probably said to the chef, but forgot it... Is not because of getting fat, I may be one out of 1000 people who doesn't like the butter's flavour at all.

We talk about many things my friend and I.
- About the credit crunch
- About one of our friends just had a baby 3 weeks ago, and is very happy
- About we've never dreamed of having a wedding day... he said he had nightmares about it
- About cleaning and old basement full of useless stuff, referring to an old friendship I had with a common friend, and my complaints about why I have to be the one to make the approach all the time, bollocks.
- About that I may prefer not to open the basement at all and leave it as it was left, because I don't feel to have the energy to clean it.
- About relationships, how energy consuming is patronizing...
- About work, work, work...
- About how huge was the breakfast portion... like in USA I'd say... I'm still digesting it
- About the fact that not knowing what to do with one's life may be the right feeling after all...
- About how stocked is Spanish's mentality, how square... and how much we love to be here or travelling with like minded people...

We left a little tip. GREAT place. I'll come back.

We said goodbye, and walked in different directions.

Sunday 7 June 2009

Too Many Kids

Ladies & Gentlemen, I don't want to sound cold, but there's too many kids growing up already... it looks like a plague. Only in Camden, 133 kids have been left without primary school due lack of places in the schools (Camden Journal). There's not enough of everything for all of us. And in a few years time... what about work vacancies?? And at the Tate there's thousands and thousands of kids everyday. There's families they even got more than 4 children. Is irresponsible. Is being blind about the world's issues. Is questioning how are we gonna feed them all, considering that there's still huge unbalances in countries in development were people live in extreme poverty. I find it very pretentious. And there's still loads of women getting pregnant, still they can't manage to get the reins of their lives in terms of economy, work independence, properties or even succesful marriages that don't end in divorce... and they become mortgage slaves to be inherited by they children pushed by the fairy tale of having a family, a house, etc. And all those mortgages that have contributed to the credit crunch, and people losing their jobs and all the drama.
And we are not recuperating a population from a war with millions of loses, we are a lot already, and the system we have is not prepared for the good quality of life for everyone, as it has never happened, due some countries are rich and others so poor. It's time to open the eyes, and the brain, and demonstrate a bit of intelligence. It may not be that important to leave your genes to compete for such a survival in a planet gnawed by the exploitations of resources for the western world. And now, that others are catching up in this race in this plague, what are they gonna have left to enjoy. Please world, wake up and speak to your neighbour.