Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts

Sunday, 26 January 2014

LA PLATEA ESDEVENIA LLAC

En la xerrada donada pel Lama Thubten Wangchen en la seva visita a Granollers (23 de gener de 2014, al Centre Cultural La Caixa), els darrers moments van compactar l’auditori i, alhora, el van fer fluid, com si ja no fóssim éssers diversos amb alguns interessos comuns. Els 2 mantres que es van cantar van fer que aquell espai esdevingués una mena de llac. Ulls tancats per percebre una altra claror.


Mantra de la compassió (
Avalokiteśvara)

Oṁ Mani Padme Hūṁ









Mantra de la saviesa (Mañjuśrī)

Oṃ A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhīḥ


Una sala de butaques.
Canviaven els cossos i canviava la percepció de tot plegat. 
Sense temps, sense espai. 
Un llac.

Thursday, 28 November 2013

ORDINARY LIVES REACHING DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS

Talking with a friend about movies made me remember scenes from classical Japanese movies. I didn’t expect to be exchanging opinions with somebody about Ozu Yasujiro’s movies and, in general, Japanese cinema in the 1950es. I remembered some characters and the atmospheres portrayed. I kind of liked the aura of simplicity that transcended the story, as well, as some kind of beauty that scented the daily lives of the characters. I wonder if the same stories, filmed in western culture settings would have been the same. I don’t really think so.


Then, these days the media talk about Tokyo Kazoku (東京家) in cinemas. This modern film, by Yamada Yoji, was described as a remake, very positively by many critics (and not so positively by others, obviously). It all made me think again about the feelings mentioned above. Even though the action takes place in modern Tokyo, I do believe there’s still something that can reminds us of the atmospheres and characters in the classical Ozu movies. I sort of idealise the 1950es simplicity in general because, from today’s perspective, people seemed to give a different value to things and to other people. True... Societies  back then were much more conservative, but there are many precious things beyond conservative-liberal values (much more beyond prejudices, inequality, discrimination, etc.) which are hard to find nowadays in the way we treat things and people. Those old movies brought always to my mind the expression “物持ちがいい (ものもちがいい, mono mochi ga ii), which refers to handling and keeping something carefully.  I’d say that there’s some of it to be found in the film by Yamada...but there’ll be for sure a lot that reminds us of rush-throw when useless-replace-violence-shallowness coming from the younger characters and the westernization since the context is radically different. Would Ozu have kept the essence of his films if he was to film something nowadays? What a hypothesis. I guess I’ll end up watching Tokyo Kazoku...

Monday, 24 March 2008

whirl, whirl, whirl...


How long had I waited for this movie?? How many months? It was summer when I discovered Bab 'Aziz but had to wait until I could go to see it. On 7th March it was finally possible to watch it...but didn't go then. Waited. Something told me it was not the moment. Then the first afternoon session faded away the following week (living outside Barcelona it was a bit too late to go for the second/last session). But last week...again the early afternoon session...and at another cinema, in the centre of the city.

And I wasn't at all deceived (sometimes it happens when we expect lots from something or after waiting for a long time for something we want). Wonderful words, great music, incredible images. And then comes the creative side of the one who watch the mo
vie, especially in the case of films like Bab 'Aziz. It's not just a story to see, to follow. The film continued (and continues) after leaving the cinema. Part of the melody of one of the songs kept in my mind and danced around my steps and my eyes.

A blind person across the desert. Would we really need our eyes to go across a desert?

how many deserts? where?

I found and created so many metaphors...I was lucky to have been reading about Ibn' Arabi and Farid Ud-din Attar and their works. If i hadn't I might have never been so interested in that movie. The circle is drawn: some texts in
Bab 'Aziz come from the works by those sufi wise men (some other are from works by Jalal al-din Rumi, and other great figures)

The street looked so different after the film. It was cold but it wasn't cold. The movie had stepped out of the screen and wandered around, outside, not far from the path I followed and follow.

A few days ago I had been exchanging a few words about Sufism with Arief, but just a few words, as a proto-discussion via email (will continue? I'm interested in your point of view). it was when I felt I had lost the chance to watch this film. The self, God...

And then, soon afterwards, came the movie....or did I walk toward it??

And now...trying to meet again some words, some sentences in
Bab 'Aziz...

Friday, 29 February 2008

豆腐i el blues...i les qüestions ontològiques

I en aquesta transició d’ermitana (bé, no se’n perd l’essència) a consultora, irromp l’amanida de tofu (豆腐) en solitud en un indret ple de gents (ja em coneixen al Kiku-chan, crec). I falta...falta el blues, les darreres troballes, de la Bessie Smith, en Robert Johnson a Asakawa Maki (浅川マキ, quina veu!), tot i que en realitat no em feien falta. No em fan falta. Els trossos de tofu estirats a sobre de les algues, a sobre de l’enciam, amb un desordre harmoniós esborren les gents del voltant, la taula. Bé, a mi sempre se m’esborra tot amb facilitat, cada cop amb més facilitat, per sort. També per sort m’esborro amb facilitat. El tofu allà ajagut, inert, en certa manera fa l’efecte que melodies de blues dels anys 1920s i 1930es. Que és ara. Ara mateix. Deixa d’existir tot el que es creu que existeix. Bé, només es fa evident que no hi era. En un instant. Sempre instants, com el moment de sortir al carrer. Tornar al carrer. Però tot el mateix. No hi ha carrer, no hi ha restaurant, no hi ha plat d’amanida de tofu ni tampoc hi ha blues...i acabo al final entre qüestions ontològiques, com de costum..


Tuesday, 4 September 2007

HAMSAFAR (Iran, 1974)

great Googoosh...


yet another scene, with Behrooz Vossoughi:


One day I might find the movie...What a pity not to understand farsi...

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

NIWEMANG

There was full moon but we watched "half moon". And the next time we met, there was half moon. I guess it was the movie we had to see. Things had to happen that way. We might meet in the next full moon.

About the music in the movie....parallel to the sound of traditional string instruments, the cd with traditional instumental music of Turkmenistan I copied has to find its owner. The sound of a dotar being played, overlapping days. The sound narrows the time until you come back.

The desert came whispering. The most beautiful side of the desert came, unexpectedly. Will you stay? Have you covered everything with sand?

Saturday, 21 April 2007

Soy sauce wants to trick you

Beware of soy sauce. You may think you are going just to buy some of it, but then something happens. Soy sauce tricks you (uhu!). You hold the bottle and something unexpected happens. I was holding the bottle.

And many things can be soy sauce.

Something suddenly clearly reawakens.

Monday, 26 February 2007

URGA en vermell lluminós

De 25 a 26 de febrer, en el mig, un somni estrany. Tren cap a Urga. Un renfe-tren, vermell, com els regionals vells (estil dels que van cap a Cerbère). Lletres vermelles del davant que deien “urga”. URGA en vermell lluminós. No era el tren que esperava però alguna cosa em deia al somni que aquell tren cap a Urga també em duia per on havia de passar. Jo feliç en el tren que anava cap a Urga.

УРГА

I a mig camí el tren esdevenia autobús. Conductor amable. Vaig baixar del vehicle en aquesta ciutat (perquè jo no anava cap a Urga en el somni) i el vehicle desapareixia no sabent si arribava a Urga. I començà un altre somni que ja no recordo.

Urga que no era Urga i tren que no era tren.

Tuesday, 26 September 2006

John Wayne, Genghis Khan and the last days

After having watched several western movies, telling all kind of stories, with different settings, I got surprised by one precious western: The Shootist” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075213/ (1976, D. Siegel ). There’s always some risk to come across precious unexpected things. I started to watch it thinking “let’s watch Mr. Wayne’s last movie”. But it ended up being a movie to add to my list of favourite films. After having seen THE movie, I looked for some information and there were more things to come.

John Wayne (playing the role of John Bernard Books), Lauren Bacall and an unknown actor, who happened to become a famous movie director (“a beautiful mind”, “the da vinci code”, yes, Ron Howard is the young Gillom, the son of Bacall’s role of Mrs. Rogers, the guy who admires Mr. Books)...ah, and the horse Ole Dollor, as Ole Dollor. All of them in a film that seems too short but actually isn’t.

Mr. Books and John Wayne are both in the shootist” in their last scenes, both of them because of stomach cancer, not a typical subject to appear in western movies. No more movies with John Wayne, no more John B. Books in any other movie because Mr. Wayne wouldn’t play him again. It’s said that the cause of such disease in Mr. Wayne dates back to the mid fifties, when he took part in the movie the conqueror http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049092/ (1956, in Spanish it was translated to “el conquistador de Mongolia), a bad movie (well, it could be useful to see how distorted images of Mongolians and Genghis Khan could be), filmed somewhere in Utah were previously some nuclear tests had taken place (actually there’s some controversy about all this). In that movie John Wayne played the role of the Mongolian leader, not easy to believe, but in fact nowadays most movies are worse than this one may be.

I would have never said that there was some link between John Wayne, Genghis Khan and last days. Neither would I have thought of linking John Bernard Books and Mr. Kanji Watanabe (Shimura Takashi’s role in ikiru”, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/ 1952, , Kurosawa) and their attitude in the last days. That ability to transcend the screen, transcend expressions, all the silly things we and the characters in movies worry about. Something in the way they uttered words and what they said transcended the screen and shake our contemporary silliness vigorously, our pretensions to be superior thanks to a progress that is taking our society a bit backwards, our belief in permanence and pseudo-eternities. Meanwhile, Ole Dollor ran away, weeping. Ole Dollor keeps running across minds. Ole Dollor will keep running and one day will become a winged creature.

Monday, 21 August 2006

Lanas de colores, Asia y la política

Inmersión!!! Sí, nuevamente entre lanas, hilos y colores. Revistas de la biblioteca municipal con ideas (las de casa son muy viejas y las tengo vistas), y webs varias con patrones e ideas, así como direcciones. Retomé las agujas de ganchillo (porque nunca acabé de llevarme bien con largas agujas de hacer punto...)y ya empecé antes de ir al pueblo con algunos ensayos de cosas, y luego con algún regalo para gentes majas y para mi persona. Y qué grandes los chinos del bazar oriental de mi calle!!! Con lanas e hilos preciosos para tejer, ganchillo y demás, que ¡¡nooooo!!!, NO son de mala calidad!!! Ovillos caricias, de servimex a 0.60€ 0.75€....de colores varios y calidades diferentes (no tenían el Verde Ansiado q perseguía)...y los hilos perlé y egipcios (2€ ovillos grandes y 0.75€ ovillos más pequeños), qué colores!!, ahí entre el pasillo de las velas, aceites aromáticos, cosas de costura y artilugios para el cabello y el pasillo de juguetes mutantes (me pido un sweet pony para reyes, junto al prosikito y figuras de la gran peli turca “dünyayi kurtaran adam”, si existen....uoo!...los monstruos rojos de peluche!).


Indagando por la red y cabalgando con la mula topé con perlas y sorpresas. Collares mezclando cuentas de colores y ganchillo(!!!) e informaciones diversas. Las webs norteamericanas son grandes....los “afghans” activaron mi tendencia a asociar cosas y sacar teorías. Vi a Laura Bush o la madre de G.W. Bush haciendo afghans que a los señores Bush no les gustaron...y los afganos (personas) a sufrir...que no tuvieron bastante con las 2 guerras con rusos y británicos de por medio tiempo ha...y el Great Game. En medio como los miércoles....Miercolestán. Que Bush hijo, de pequeño, quizás tenía una idea rara de los afganos...pensando en los afghans de colores que seguro que alguien de su familia tejía felizmente. Y es que en la infancia se hacen asociaciones surrealistas que a veces nos marcan para el futuro.

Y siguiendo por asia, me emocioné viendo calidades/modelos de lanas de la marca Katia: Himalaya, Tíbet y Nepal...Si según leí sobre la historia del ganchillo, la gran técnica había llegado al Tíbet nosécuándo....ya me imaginé al VI Dalai Lama también enfrascado haciendo obras de ganchillo, con sus ropajes de colores vistosos y brillantes, y sus poemas a jóvenes damas. Porque el ganchillo se daba en China antes que en la vieja Europa o en los EE.UU. Y en Mongolia??? Queridos mongoles...que vi una gran foto en El País Semanal, de una tele dentro de una ger...y encima del aparato había un tapete rosa de ganchillo con patos de goma encima (aceptamos patos de goma como sustituto de los toros de peluche o las muñecas con faralaes, claro, que yo pondría pollets de mona de Pascua o mi Trabi). Por Asia central algo habrá...Veo a la hija de Akaev en sus ratos libres haciendo ganchillo....o al mismo Turkmenbashi haciendo leyes al respecto en el gran Turkmenistán. Efigies de Niyázov a ganchillo, o variantes en punto de cruz o en encaje de bolillos (la sofisticación)...y Niyázov repartiendo patrones y esquemas entre los ciudadanos de la patria turkmena. Más chulo él que un ocho verde pistacho, retratado en labores hechas por los turkmenos. Labores con elementos subversivos en el reverso!!! uuuuh!

Larga vida al ganchillo y al punto de media!!! Un legado por mantener otras cuantas generaciones.

Saturday, 29 April 2006

A DeLorean and Bhutan

Today I went with a couple of friends to see a documentary film on Bhutan , “the dragon house” (check: http://www.baff-bcn.org/film.php?id_pelicula=92&lang=eng). It wasn’t a typical documentary and there was many more people there than we expected. And the movie was greater than I expected.
The documentary basically depicted life there and the way people felt about the changes taking place in the country. And there was the voice of some scholar, giving a different point of view. I guess the idea people normally have of Bhutan is related to distance, mysticism, mystery and other adjectives of this kind. In fact there’s something true in all those ideas, especially in a traditionally isolated country as Bhutan.
The idea of the Gross National Happiness instead of GNP was something I liked. It makes us wonder, as the westerner in the documentary said, how good the ideas of those westerners trying to export western models are, which aim to make poor countries richer. Some countries are already rich, in many cases richer than wealthy countries. People looked happy out there, happier than most people we meet everyday in most places in the west...and nobody has any right to break their peace, and set conflicts which lead to unhappiness. Why should things that work be changed?. The king wisely tried to preserve Bhutanese culture, with all its traditions, by isolating the land in a very characteristic way, carrying out some isolation from negative influences coming from the west. But in the late 90es internet and TV reached Bhutan. Who can fight against Tv and internet? One of the guys who starred the documentary was a DJ, the first DJ of Bhutan. He wanted to make some revolution in the country, by introducing different music styles, other than commercial pop. He tried to introduce house, techno and trance...aimlessly because at first people didn’t really like such music and preferred dancing to the music they heard on MTV and so on. Is it possible to carry on some selective “modernisation” (I know modernisation is not the word)? It’s like the most commercial side of it found its way easy toward the conquer of Bhutan....but when somebody like that guy tried to introduce something “modern”, “in” in the west, he failed to succeed. His idea seemed to be as strange as a DeLorean nowadays. DeLoreans taking you to the future, like the ideas of that guy, for whom we felt rather sorry. But nowadays DeLoreans also mean something from the past. Bhutan is somehow a bit like a DeLorean: the past and the future meeting. Those three discos in Thimphu: the HQ, the Dragon Club and the Xplode. Men and women dressed in a traditional way and young people wearing jeans. and dancing in the above mentioned discos. Japanese cars, Japanese TVs, blue jeans and soda drinks. I know it’s pretty odd to compare a mythical car (it’s so for me and so it is for many other people) and a beautiful and amazingly interesting country...but I’m prone to do this kind of comparisons. As with Bhutan, not so many people know about DeLoreans. Both have some different beauty and interest and both imply thinking both about past and future, what remains and what will fade away.

Friday, 28 April 2006

anant al BAFF

ai...per fi aquest any sí es donen en el meu cas les circumstàncies per anar a alguns passis de pel.lícules del BAFF (Barcelona Asian Film Festival)....després d'anys que bé els horaris, bé el fet d'haver d'anar sola em feien enrere. oh que bonic, el meu primer BAFF. Demà dissabte ja ens arrepleguem uns quants per anar a veure una mena de documental sobre el Bhutan, gran país, i un gran oblidat al màster, pobrissó. I la setmana vinent un film japonès però tractant sobre Corea del Nord. Digueu-nos frikis, però frikis positius i motivats, defensors dels oblidats. I això perque no hi ha films de Mongòlia, de països de l'Àsia Central (que se'n sap del cinema Kirguís, per posar un exemple???), de Corea del Nord, de Laos, de Brunei...No estaria malament crear una mena d'associació o agrupació estil amics dels països que normalment són oblidats, per promocionar-los. Potser l'anar a veure aquestes dues pel.lícules, i d'alguna altra, ens inspira definitivament.

Saturday, 4 March 2006

Too old for decorer style, too young to keep being a kind of modern hermit

Hermit girl killing Sundays, killing Saturday afternoons by means of reading, heavy metal and co. (I’m not that poppie, Sesinürén), diadems, thoughts to create micro-cosmos and surrealist cosmogonies, observing realities and kitsch worlds. Here I am, while everything keeps going, rolling, running. Forward. Forward. Fast forward. Sometimes I dwell in dreams or in some anachronic space, inspired by the 60es or the 80es. I guess I’m not the only one. Moreover, the nationalists in this State (all of them) make me feel I’m misplaced and that I can’t belong nowhere. Thinking about such things I feel I’m too old to adopt some decorer style, mainly because of the colours and freedom it implies. Too late to express that sort of freedom, maybe. About to turn 24 this month...I’m too old for decorer style...but not to keep adding some elements of such colourful style into daily life. Golden shoes, violet, green socks, happy-blue tights (pantyhose), flowers, polka dots, pins, hairpins, diadems...some odd make-up on the eyes and lips from time to time. After all, I’m looking for some freedom I can’t reach by leading some kind of modern-hermit life. Too free inside, but only inside, like most of us. And several constraints don’t let me have a peaceful and repairing sleep....just one or 2 nights of decent sleep per month...or each 2 months. Maybe that’s the physical reaction to my hermithood at a wrong time...too much time alone thinking about too many things...and too poor sleep to compensate too much thinking and hypothesising. Sometimes I think I’ve gotten used to it...ah! but I’m wrong, indeed. It all makes me become a bit more surrealist, having lost notions of time and space, of me as a real person, sometimes, having written strange poems to the wrong person, being grabbed violently by events and memories from the past, grabbed and then thrown against a wall. Then comes a bunch of nightmares and nauseas...and realising the problem comes from a lack of sex (no more months, please), which for me is therapeutic...inner chemical stuff, another kind of communication. My mind misses it (even when it was surrealist...hehe.. that voyeur-funky-red lamp, M., and the sillage of the night of the bikes...well, that story was kinda taken out of some movie and was a bit murakamian, actually it was better when things were unreal around, than all the times the context was normal)...my unbalanced brain taking refuge in death metal and kitsch music from the 80es. That’s it, too young to lead a kind of hermit life. Getting old, maaaan, but at the same getting young. I might end up developing some sort of schizophrenia...

Friday, 24 February 2006

Tibetans on my street

Tibetans in a town/city like Granollers? Yes! Strange but possible. I fist spotted them last X-mas in a square next to one of our 2 local libraries, selling Tibetan things in a stand, besides the stand of an Argentinean man selling mini-books (there was also some stand of Brazilian people selling jewellery). I had some short talk with these tibetans in Granollers (a young woman and 2 men), and they confirmed that it was their first X-mas selling stuff in Granollers. They talked to me about the high prices of everything in Barcelona and how expensive it was to have a shop there in the big city. Then X-mas craziness of buying-buying-buying faded away in early January (it’s Spain and people have to buy presents till 6th January) and so did these 3 tibetans, until one day, having a walk with a friend (Sandriiiii!!!), we saw them entering some stuff into some building. Oh! Tibetan people living in Granollers (I think there were already a couple of them living in this town, according to some report on local TV). Some other day I came across one of the Tibetan men while walking around the town/city centre (I said nothing, thinking he and the other Tibetans might not remember me and in fact, I had just had a short conversation with them). The day I had to take the exam on introduction to Tibet and Mongolia, again, I came across these tibetans, but there was a new one, a baby with them! Then, every 2 Fridays, these Granollers-tibetans have a stand placed on the main square, in front of the Town Hall, beneath the Porxada and sell a few Tibetan things, fewer than in X-Mas time...and stay there morning and afternoon together with Argentinian, African, Brazilian, Spanish and Catalan stands selling many kinds of things. And the last episode took place today, about an hour ago. I had lunch with a friend (Dr. Karl!) at a Tibetan restaurant in Barcelona and we spent most of the afternoon having a look at some shops and visiting Casa Asia....on the train back home I met another friend (who I hadn’t seen for aaages). And some meters before reaching home, I saw 2 of the Granollers-tibetans....in front of DIA autoservei i descompte!!! Tibetans buy at DIA supermarkets!. But why the one in my street? Here come my hypotheses concerning their residence. Do they live in that building Sandri and I saw them entering some stuff??? If so, why coming to a supermarket here, when they have a Caprabo supermarket close to that place...and I think also a mercadona (is it there where you can find that brand named Hacendado, which I find really funny...but I do respect it, since Sandri praised the quality of some hacendado products). Maybe it’s useful to be able to speak some Tibetan and to be studying it...

Thursday, 2 February 2006

Trabaru and momos

Finally yesterday took place the dinner (dinnersession v.0.1 beta, since one person was missing due to some illness) we had been trying to arrange for some time. And this time, escaping from the lunch menu at the tibetan restaurant we went to, we could find a wide range of dishes willing to be tasted...including momos, which i hadn't tasted yet (momos weren't in the lunch menu the other times i went to that restaurant). Ah...the world of momos...momos, gyoza, pierogi (polish), ravioli, and the less unknown variants. There are always variants ready to appear at the less expected moment, just like another polish version of something...well, not exactly a version but an hybrid, the trabaru. Basic Mathematics: Trabant+ Subaru Impreza= Trabaru (impreza). Quite obvious, but it didn't come to the mind of Germans (East Germans in this case), who gave birth to Trabant in Zwickau. I can affirm so on the basis of the results for trabaru in Google (uuuh...so scientific!), which on the whole (well, almost) show links to pages in Polish...Sites of, by or for trabaru or any kind of customised trabant lovers...The possibilities of a Trabi are almost as many as those of momopierogigyozaetc. A Trabi can be used as a car, obviously, but also, as a sculpture/decorative structure for your house (i've heard of one case of somebody having a trabi inside a room, lucky one), as a charriot, as something for unknown purposes, like an image of a trabi, in oblivion, somewhere in Mongolia, next to some ger..how did a trabi reach Mongoliaaaa??????!!! i'll place the link here when i find it), as a place for some lost stork to build its nest, as work of art, as nomad garden, or static garden, as a tool to give all sorts of messages..a trabi can be media...infinite possibilities. After the fall of the iron curtain, the possibilities of a trabant in society and in art multiplied themselves, i'd say, from what those pictures showing forgotten trabis tell.
And the trabi in the image above shows some communion between trabi and momos. A cardboard trabi (badly painted, by the way), moving across some printed e-book talking about Nomads in Tibet. And momos come from Tibet. And trabis from Zwickau...and, as ideas they both are, they spread their possibilities, their different possible faces across the world. momos and trabis, or pierogi and polski fiat 126 (customised or not), ravioli and fiat 500...and so on.

Saturday, 10 December 2005

Plastic People of the Universe

aaah....A couple of days ago i couldn't help having a drawing-need attack. My hand moved unconciously and started drawing, like some time ago. I've always loved drawing and i've never given it up (although it means sometimes drawing in books, which i could never lend to anybody, to reuse them...sorry). The picture above of the consequences of my having-to-draw that day. He's a Professor at University. uhm...i don't know whether i should give names here. And why drawing him? spontaneus drawing impulse (SDI). Since there’s not much to say about this SDI, I’ll build, this time, a multi-topic article, with no connections between topics.
Wanting to be like Beckham or so??? Beckham ist Quatsch mit Soße! (¡naranjas de la China!..nonsense in English, but it's not as funny, that's why i didn't write it first in English). Beckhamhood and all related fashiondelamuertehood is something temporary. Oh! tree leaves turning yellowish and falling sadly onto the ground of drowsy parks and forests, when the night has told stories about the coming hard winter. That's the death of beckhamhood.
By the way, Plastic People of the Universe (Milan Hlavsa,Josef Janíček, Vratislav Brabenec, Jiří Kabeš) was a band from the former Czechoslovakia. I once (quite a long time ago) heard about it in some TV report (i think it was in "sputnik", on canal 33) about music and political events. They talked about these people (they made interesting music, with mysterious sounds...some kind of rock, close to psychedelic rock, sometimes), Václav Hável and the Velvet Revolution. I liked the name of this music band.

Sunday, 27 November 2005

ELEIKEKELEI y el gran Kitajima Saburo

¿Un grito de guerra? Quizás...pero no, es una especie de estribillo en una canción de Os Resentidos (aunque yo la descubría via Siniestro Total, otros de los grandes del género), que habla sobre Brezhnev(Леонид Брежнев. La foto, de Wikipedia, con esa especie de auréola luminosa, no tiene desperdicio). Quien la escuche, que quede advertido de lo pegadizo que es el eleikekelei. Estás cambiándote de ropa o en la ducha, e inconscientemente no puedes evitar entonar un eleikekelei. A saber si quiere decir algo en algún idioma de algún lugar remoto de estos mundos...que seguro que sí. Veo a chukchis por ahí por la otra punta del continente este, atravesando Siberia enterita, con términos parecidos a eleikekelei. Que conste que no tengo nada en contra de los chukchis. Bueno...chukchis, Rusia, antigua URSS, Brezhnev... tampoco está todo tan alejado.

Desde que descubrí las obras maestras de Os Resentidos y, sobre todo, de Siniestro total, me gustó un surrealismo subyacente (como no) en sus letras y ritmos. ¿¿¿Temas recurrentes para hacer la elaboración de las piezas más rápida y fácil??? Para qué! Si hay temas tan suculentos como: Brezhnev, discos de los Shadows y las Shangri-Las y otros utensilios musicales que aparecen en “bailaré sobre tu tumba” como objetos de un crímen hipotético, Bryan Ferry y la hipótesis sobre su aliento, Assumpta, Polonia y Karol Wojtiła, elefantes rosas, Vietnam (“fuera las manos chinas del Vietnam socialista”), la higiene personal y un largo etc., y sin caer en vulgaridades...ahi, los componentes de Siniestro Total muestran disimulandamente sus amplios conocimientos en áreas diversas y variopintas. Qué majos estos gallegos.

Y otro de los grandes es Kitajima Saburo,
un personaje sin traducción posible a otras latitudes. No hay un equivalente español para este japonés...como tampoco hay un equivalente para el Enka, estilo musical en el que está ubicado felizmente desde hace décadas y décadas. Tan grande es su figura que hasta tiene un museo con su nombre...ponte a contar cantantes con museo propio... Bueno, y el merchandising que se puede ver gracias a esa web...si palabras. Que puntazo el poder comprar galletas (o similar) con la efigie del señor Kitajima (Sabu-chan para los fans más acérrimos y para sus allegados, supongo). Nada...840 yenes y uno/a se va tan contento para casa con sus Sabu-chan cookies...Ay! pero eso de comerse efigies de Kitajima, no sé yo. Que creo que a muchos les dará una pena enorme...como también grande la pena que puede dar que las galletas se te estropeen con el tiempo y el chocolate (o sucedáneo, llamémoslo pocholate), se deshaga y se desfigure la majestuosa efigie del artista sólo por no haberse comido las galletas en el momento adecuado. Yo no me comería un Sabu-chan de pocholate...Casi que mejor las camisetas, que, por cierto, son un poco feas, con el juego que podrían haber dado (con lo larga que es la carrera musical del bueno de Kitajima....). El merchandising textil no me acaba de convencer por estar alejado de la figura de Kitajima y su estilo. Pero lo mejor viene cuando una servidora descubre los colgantes/adornos para móvil (no sé si tienen ya un nombre más concreto, bueno, una especie de equivalente para strap tendría que ser) con una banda de tela con el nombre del cantante y un muñequito representando al maestro Kitajima. No veo yo a los seguidores más fieles de kitajima, con más de 50 años seguramente en la mayoría de los casos, con figuritas de Sabu-chan colgando de sus teléfonos móviles. Pero muchas cosas extrañas son posibles en Japón, pienso. Pero que si alguien les da la idea de la Mona de Pascua, (pastel con huevos de chocolate o figuritas/complejas construcciones de chocolate que se les compra a los niños por Semana Santa...Lunes de Pascua, creo –no soy una adepta de las mones ni nunca lo fui sino sólo de los pollos amarillos que se suelen poner como decoración-), van los japoneses, que habiéndoles fascinado la idea y el juego que da....ya está, mones de Kitajima Saburo y todo lo que se pueda imaginar. Y lo de la Pascua será ya algo superficial y, puesto que por San Valentín, las mujeres regalan chocolate a los hombres...¡¡¡anda que no quedarían bien regalando una mona de Kitajima Saburo!!!

Pero yo soy feliz con lo que me evoca “Hakodate no hito”; un mundo en blanco y negro,una película de los años 50, un drama, otros valores. Y también me quedo con el eleikekelei. Nada....a ver si alguien hace un bootleg de “cuando Brezhnev...” y “hakodate no hito”...o una versión dance...o chill out, que viene estando muy en boga. Creo que el resultado sería algo parecido a poner una canción al revés (uuuuh!). Quizás hasta hay mensajes ocultos y hasta que no se mezclan ambas piezas bien no se obtienen. Seguro que es algo catárquico y bueno para la felicidad de las almas. Y si no, pues siempre nos quedarán las galletas de pocholate.

Friday, 7 October 2005

masters of the universe and bureaucracy

Finally... After asking via email and phone to 3 different places about the final part of the enrolment process...today they replied properly (on the phone), with a beautiful affirmative answer. The course begins next Monday (yes!!! finally!! how exciting)...and that bureaucratic stuff will take place once the course has begun....that's not very normal to pay a course after it has started, especially when it has to do with university courses. But finally, worries faded away and i'm ready to begin the course. If there wasn't so much bureaucracy, delays, different "modus operandi" (or should it be "modi operandum/operandorum" in plural?) depending on the university and studies...it wouldn't be Spain.
I'm really looking forward to being back to university life and beginning with something i'm really keen on....Master on Asian and Pacific Studies. No other word would describe what i feel towards it but "dream"; it's like a dream for me to have found such Master and even more, to begin with it so soon. I don't know what could happen after the 2 years the master lasts....but i have a really positive feeling about it and, moreover, i'll be enjoying it no matter how hard it might be (i'm choosing subjects in the fields of politics, economics and languages).

Saturday, 6 August 2005

HIROSHIMA...60 years have passed

august 6th 1945. 8:15
Secos e molhados/ Ney Matogrosso
(lyrics by João Ricardo and Vinícius de Moraes)

“ROSA DE HIROSHIMA”


PENSEM NAS CRIANÇAS
MUDAS TELEPÁTICAS

PENSEM NAS MENINAS
CEGAS INEXATAS

PENSEM NAS MULHERES
ROTAS ALTERADAS

PENSEM NAS FERIDAS
COMO ROSAS CÁLIDAS

MAS OH! NÃO SE ESQUEÇAM
DA ROSA DA ROSA


DA ROSA DE HIROSHIMA

A ROSA HEREDITÁRIA

A ROSA RADIOATIVA
ESTÚPIDA E INVÁLIDA

A ROSA COM CIRROSE
A ANTI-ROSA ATÔMICA

SEM COR SEM PERFUME
SEM ROSA SEM NADA

**********
Georges Moustaki
“Hiroshima”

Par la colombe et l'olivier,

Par la détresse du prisonnier,
Par l'enfant qui n'y est pour rien,
Peut-être viendra-t-elle demain.

Avec les mots de tous les jours,
Avec les gestes de l'amour,
Avec la peur, avec la faim,
Peut-être viendra-t-elle demain.

Par tous ceux qui sont déjà morts,
Par tous ceux qui vivent encore,
Par ceux qui voudraient vivre enfin,
Peut-être viendra-t-elle demain.
Avec les faibles, avec les forts,
Avec tous ceux qui sont d'accord,
Ne seraient-ils que quelques-uns,
Peut-être viendra-t-elle demain.

Par tous les rêves piétinés,
Par l'espérance abandonnée,
À Hiroshima, ou plus loin,
Peut-être viendra-t-elle demain,
La Paix !