La sangre venosa y parcialmente desoxigenada toma un color rojo oscuro y opaco. Sin embargo, debido a un efecto óptico causado por la forma en que la luz penetra a través de la piel, las venas se ven de un color azul.
Aside from a few clothes, there's nothing I really want or need to send down to New Orleans. Good because I'm about to spend a whole lot of money (I think) to fix my tablet.
It can't cost more than a thousand, though... right? If that's what I paid for it? *worries* Gotta call the N.O center again, too. It'd just stink to not find a provider when I'm not even ten shots in. Next shot is on November 27th. I wonder how the heck that'll work out...
Take a look at this strip from Jim Davis' "U.S. Acres" comic strips. It's too bad this strip didn't make it past book five.
To get totally into the themes on my 2000-recorded, 2001-released Folktronic album I should really be an urban ethnomusicologist with a robot assistant like the one you hear in my hour-long audio documentary Fakeways: Manhattan Folk, made just before the album and still the best piece of scene-setting for it. This Alan Lomax figure would probably have to start with the basic facts: Folktronic is an album made by a 40 year-old Scottish musician who moved to New York in March 2000. He records the album at 38 Orchard Street, at the Chinatown end of the Lower East Side. He's been in New York just a couple of months when he starts, but already he's absorbing a lot of the local zeitgeist, and particularly the idea that America is a nation with plastic roots where you can be whatever you want to be -- as long as it isn't authentic. He lives with his Japanese girlfriend.
Books and people influence this record. The people are new New York friends like Steve Lafreniere, a journalist who interviews me for Index magazine, the singer Stephin Merritt, or the multimedia designer (and friend of Fischerspooner) John-Robert Howell. As for the books, just as the prog-medieval direction of the Kahimi record I'd made in 1999 (most of which is glommed onto the end of Folktronic) was influenced by Paul Stump's book The Music's All That Matters, the "Fake Americana" material that comprises two thirds of Folktronic is influenced by Nicholas Dawidoff's book In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music. But a much more important source is a copy of German sexologist Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis I buy at the New Museum bookshop.
In a website thought published in April 2000 I have "a great idea": "Why not make an album of folk songs about sexual fetishes, set to synthesisers? Folk songs are usually about mining disasters or clipper mutinies, but why shouldn't they be about archaic hysterical sex fetishes too? The songs should have a childish gaiety, be light and celebratory... They would play with the associations of the words Folk, Fake and Fuck. The Folk (ballads, reels, laments, shanties, forebitters) would be Fake Folk, of course, played on early monophonic synthesisers. But the Fuck would also be Fake Fuck, because that's what fetish is. It's an evasion of the 'real thing', which is fucking. It's a fake fuck... A world in which the authentic was not prioritised over the fake, and 'healthy' fucking had no precedence over fetish, would be a rather splendid one, it seems to me."
And so I set to home-recording, alone in my tiny apartment, and often naked. In proposing inauthenticity as America's authenticity, I was making Manhattan -- a city of Jews, gays, Chinese and the art world -- the centre of all authentic inauthenticity, and in proposing deviance as the most universal sexuality I was merging Alan Lomax with Alfred Kinsey. Steve Lafreniere -- who heard most of these songs before anyone else did, and was in a sense their ideal listener -- started referring to me as "the Heliogabalus of Orchard Street". Other people influenced the album: Gavin Brown, whose art gallery in the Meatpacking District featured Jeremy Deller-like garage sales and a great scenester bar called Passerby. Spencer Sweeney's distortion-noise band Actress, which I heard at Passerby, blasting over the speakers. A conceptual folk band called Centuries, who came in from Coney Island to play weird gigs in tribute to Bruce Haack and Klaus Nomi. The records of Raymond Scott, which I'd buy from Other Music or Kim's. The bizarre school operas of Ford Wright. The scene around Fischerspooner, Bobby Conn, Ukrainian and Polish folk rituals in the East Village and Williamsburg. Thrift stores and painted Easter eggs.
In a few weeks, the first 10 from the 21st century will be complete. Looking back, and with almost no distance, I would say that, excepting for some fires shots, this is the decade where all the cliches and mediocrity established as rules in art, politics and society in general, and cinema was no exception. In the decade that directors like Steven Soderbergh (and other indie or industrial "revelations" like him) assume the completion of a charismatic and very creative artist, one must not forget João de Deus / João César Monteiro and say: “vai e dá-lhes trabalho”, “go and give them work”.
It’s still the ancient opposition: cinema versus art, commercial versus alternative, the popular and easy going movies against the infamous intellectual stuff. Critics are just a small part of that system, maintaining all the joyful banality against the few and their happy few.
So, when thinking about which films I raved about this last 10 years, I hadn’t many difficulties to chose, even though, as usual, some really beloved had to stay aside, waiting to exhale in another day or will. And now that, while i’m writing this, i’m making a copy of Raymonde Carrasco’s “Gradiva”, from vhs to dvd, i’m thinking think that NO way this decade had such purity and look or easily allows it to become reality, a look that’s many steps beyond all the hypes and discoveries of this poor poor beginnings of the new century.
But, and fortunately we have buts, even if not like the prodigious years of the 1960’s and the 1970’s, there are many films to admire, which come and go round and around and we, the spectators, with them. As always, my choices depended of all i could see and what we can see out of the mainstream became lesser and rare: a list like this is always made of everything I didn’t see.
And the same question again: how many? 10? 21? Since i’m 45 years old, that’s the number i choose. The films are by chronological and alphabetical order.
- “Branca de Neve” / “Snow White”, João César Monteiro, Portugal, 2000
- “De Grote Vakantie” / “The Long Holiday”, Johann Van Der Keuken, France/Netherlands, 2000
- “Time and Tide”, Peter Hutton, USA, 2000
- "Looking at the Sea", Peter Hutton, USA, 2000-01
- “Werckmeister Harmóniák”, Béla Tarr, Hungary/ Italy/Germany/France, 2000
- “L’Anglaise et le Duc”, Eric Rohmer, France, 2001
No livro de Arturo Pérez-Reverte que estou a ler, A Rainha do Sul, a personagem principal é uma jovem mexicana viúva do narcotráfico, que se refugia no sul de Espanha e acaba por se tornar a dona do tráfico de haxixe e cocaína que, vindo da América do Sul através de Marrocos, atravessa o estrito de Gibraltar para entrar na Europa.
De vez em quando batem à Mexicana, como é conhecida Teresa Mendoza, umas saudades do México, de Culiacán, no estado de Sinaloa, e do homem cujo assassinato a obrigou a fugir, El Guero D’Ávila, um piloto ao serviço do cartel de Juárez. Num dos capítulos do livro, Teresa está num quarto de hotel da cidade de Jérez a ouvir CDs de José Alfredo Jiménez. Conheci a música de Jiménez através do disco La Cantina, da Lila Downs, que trazia quatro versões de temas daquele que é um dos grandes autores da chamada canção rancheira mexicana.
No trecho do livro de Pérez-Reverte, a Mexicana recorda que o Guero lhe contou que Jiménez morreu bêbado, e que as suas derradeiras canções foram escritas em bares, com as letras anotadas pelos amigos, porque já estava incapaz de as escrever. Às escuras no seu quarto de hotel, Teresa está a ouvir Tu Recuerdo Y Yo, uma das canções de Jiménez que Lila Downs cantou, no CD e num concerto fabuloso dela, a que assisti na Casa da Música, no Porto.
Durante três ou quatro páginas, num momento crucial da narrativa (não são todos?) em que os fantasmas do passado regressam, Teresa vai fazendo um balanço da sua vida, da sua situação actual, e no texto vão aparecendo frases da canção. Termina assim:
«Olhou para cima, para o tecto escuro, e não viu nada. Já me estão servindo o último copo, dizia nesse momento José Alfredo, e ela dizia-o também. Ora… Agora já só lhes peço que toquem outra vez La que se Fue. Estremeceu novamente. Sobre os lençóis, ao seu lado, estava a fotografia rasgada. Dava muito frio ser livre.»
É fantástico cruzarmo-nos nos livros com coisas, neste caso músicas, que fazem parte da nossa bagagem na vida real. Parece que as narrativas se cruzam, a nossa e a literária, e de algum modo sentimo-nos mais próximos das personagens, quase que nos conseguimos relacionar com elas.
Claro que se impõe pôr aqui um clip com esta rancheira de Jiménez, que é uma das minhas preferidas, e da qual, de resto, já tinha posto aqui a letra (sim, o innersmile é de um tempo pré-YouTube!). Como não consegui decidir qual das versões pôr, se a da Lila Downs se o original de Jiménez, ficam as duas. Escolhi clips só com as músicas. Mas aqui há uma versão ao vivo da Lila e aqui há um clip de um filme com o grande Jose Alfredo.
Estoy en el rincon de una cantina, oyendo una cancion que yo pedi, me estan sirviendo ahorita mi tequila, ya va mi pensamiento rumbo a ti.
Yo se que tu recuerdo es mi desgracia, y vengo aqui no mas a recordar, que amargas son las cosas que nos pasan, cuando hay una mujer que paga mal.
Quien no sabe en esta vida, la traicion tan conocida, que nos deja un mal amor, quien no llega a la cantina, exigiendo su tequila, y exigiendo su cancion.
Me estan sirviendo ya la del estribo, ahorita ya no se si tengo fe, ahorita solamente ya les pido, que toque otra vez 'La que se fue'.
La onda como fenómeno físico: - Onda mecánica. - Las ondas sísmicas. - Onda electromagnética. - Microondas. - Onda gravitacional. A la representación vectorial denominada Función de ondas. La localidad de Onda, en la Comunidad Valenciana (España) La empresa de transporte uruguaya ONDA, actualmente desaparecida y que tuvo influencia importante en el país. La cadena de radio española Onda Cero. Los premios a artistas musicales denominados Premios ONDA. El fenómeno atmosférico conocido como onda de Rossby. La más conocida técnica de combate de Dragon Ball, denominada Kame Hame Ha y que en España suele mencionarse como Onda Vital. Literatura de la onda, movimiento literario surgido en México.
Ayer llegué caminando hasta el imponente hotel naranja, su neón azúl reflejado en el mar parecía un largo barco hundido que se resistiera a dejar de brillar. Estuve en el aparcamiento vacío, y en el chiringuito cerrado donde ingleses y rusos hacían fiestas de cerveza en la orilla de la playa. Nos usamos muy suciamente, entonces. Fue tan estúpido sucumbir a las palabras bonitas, que nos esforzabamos por creer. Gestos absurdos para personajes solos, patéticos, acostumbrados a fingir. Ana me llamó, la madre de su novio los había pillado follando. Dios, mi madre va a llamarme guarra, va a llamarme guarra, me dijo. El residuo de lo que no nos hace falta se acumula por todas partes. Me salió la fuerza, me salió la emperatriz, el mazo está manchado de salsa de yogur. Lo falso jamás, puede ser igual de bueno.
I'm fascinated by ideas, and how they change the lives of the people who come up with them. It seems to be an interest that runs in the family; my mother once had a flirtatious correspondence with Cyril Parkinson, a man made famous by the simple observation that work expands to fill the time allocated for its completion.
The other day I came across another such idea, one I hadn't heard before. It's called The Peter Principle, was first described by Dr Laurence Peter in 1969, and states that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Basically, the principle states that people get rewarded for things they can do well by being promoted to the point at which they're doing something they can't do well. At that point the promotion stops, and there they stay.
There are some corollaries:
1. In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties. 2. Work is carried out by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. 3. Anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails.
This has mind-boggling ramifications; it could account for a world in which everyone is basically incompetent, because they've all been promoted to "the position of first failure", and left there to keep failing.
As often happens when you encounter a new idea like this, I immediately started applying the Peter Principle to real world situations. I happened to watch a documentary called Kublai Khan's Lost Fleet, which examines how a Mongol navy with superior weaponry and 4500 ships was destroyed while attempting to invade Japan in August 1281, with the loss of 130,500 Mongol soldiers and sailors.
Now, the main reason was that, just as had happened the last time the Mongols attempted to invade Japan, a kamikaze or "divine wind", in the form of a massive typhoon, whipped up and destroyed the invading navy.
But there were other factors. Kublai Khan promoted a general called Arakhan to lead the naval invasion. He'd distinguished himself in great on-land campaigns, but on the sea he was... all at sea. In terms of the Peter Principle, as a nautical commander Arakhan had reached his "position of first failure". Not just because former successes had led to his promotion to a post he was incompetent for, but because geographically Japan was the Mongol Empire's "position of first failure".
For Arakhan, though, "failure was not an option". He couldn't head home, having failed to crack Japan, and report his failure to Kublai Khan. He'd have been killed. So the biggest single maritime loss of life in the history of the world unfolded off the coast of Takashima, produced by a timely typhoon, samurai bravery, poor boat design (in their impatience the Mongols had seized flat-bottomed river boats to supplement their navy; their indentured Chinese boat-builders had also done deliberately shoddy work on the sea boats)... and the Peter Principle.
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