SOBER-EIGNTY

At social gatherings, parties, discos and other kinds of social events people wonder and ask why I don’t drink. It should be normal to find people who choose not to drink, like it’s also normal to find people who love black colour, skirts, a certain kind of music...yesterday I was asked again about my reasons not to drink. I never say all the reason because they seem a bit odd and it’s a bit long to explain...especially to people who is already a bit drunk. Let me share the reasons...so as not to be asked, so as to make you think a bit of the rare side of people.

1-I don’t need alcohol to feel fine, to say what I want, to have fun with people.

2-my stomach doesn’t want alcohol...neither my mood. The sudden poor management of the idea of the Void I suffer from time to time, making me fall in a sharpened nihilism neither opts for alcoholic drinks.

3-I’m not a hedonist...I must see something behind so-called pleasures (including sex)...like mental benefits, health benefits, catharsis, purification to go into such pleasures. That’s rare nowadays...but I don’t care whether I’m understood or not. I can’t help thinking of positive side-effects of some pleasures. I’ve found none in alcohol, or they’re fewer than the negative ones...so no need to drink.

4-I prefer feeling and facing things being sober. It’s also interesting to see the changes in people around, as they go drunk...I don’t want any substance to interfere in my perception...but inner chemical substances and inner processes of the body.

5-My perception sometimes goes for other ways and alters itself when he/she (is perception feminine or masculine) likes. Besides, by laughing and some mental control one can change one’s perception.

6-if I have chosen to life and I’ve been given life, I prefer to keep it in good conditions. Besides I want to have a healthy liver so as to be able to give it to someone when I die, when it happens or when I decide it to happen (that’s another topic I might talk about...death, healthy organs and death and so on).

I am the sober-eign...hehe...but just of my body and senses, and perceptions.

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.

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.

and 20 years ago...

That was the last day of life. The last day many children played on the parks . That was the last day, because on 26th April 1986 —tomorrow it will be exactly 20 years ago— the time stopped around Chernobyl area. No more children playing, no more birds chirping. Many lives ended physically but also metaphorically. The places with their houses and everything inside them remained there. The toys and photographs were covered with dust and death and the layers kept growing till today. I’ve not see the scenery but through some pictures I can figure it out. However, my mind builds some darker scenery, inhabited by even more ghostly shapes...millions of ghostly shapes behind every single thing that stands up and under every single thing that went down and remained so for 2 decades. And what is worse, these images I build in my mind might not be worse than reality, since, although it might sound topic, reality is too often worse than we can imagine.

Time stopped and the only thing that seems to move are the quantities of radiations, varying from one place to another, and some lost animals. Also vegetation seems to keep growing, invading all kind of places, replacing people. And maybe, from time to time, some radiated fruits from some trees fall down. It feels strange to be conscious about the presence of gravity in such an area. It seems that it could have disappeared with the people that left the area, and the absence of life. Time stopped somewhere as history kept following its path, as communism approached its fall. I guess there are really many places that are somehow like this, in the sense that the time flows differently.

And lately we hear that nuclear power, together with less dangerous types of sources of energy, will definitely be important to keep our world working. What world? This world with many shades of modernity, boasting about its so-called progress. I write so-called because it’s a very partial progress that affects just some aspects of lives and affects/benefits only a proportion of the inhabitants of the Earth. A generalised use of nuclear power scares me, personally, and I guess I’m not the only one with such feelings. Now people remember the disaster in Chernobyl 20 years ago and at the same time talk about the role of nuclear power in the future, but also about nuclear weapons in several countries. I wonder why the powerful ones, and many of us, didn’t act and live in a more responsible way towards the environment all these 20 years to preserve our natural resources and sources of energy? Instead, on the run toward progress, we took a rather destructive path, a rather suicidal path because progress and self satisfaction and a pretended-to-be-happier world and benefits, of course, were more important. Consummerism, production, spend-spend-spend. And yet spend and then lose. If the world’s dynamic had been more responsible for these 20 years, just to say a period of time, we might not be talking of the urgency of the seek of alternative sources of energy. And we might see the catastrophe in Chernobyl as something really distant in time, unlike what happens. It’s 20 years ago and it doesn’t seem to be that long ago since many ghosts of nuclear power keep alive. I was just 4 years old in 1986, so I remember nothing, but I think of all people born that time, all those who were children at that time, that day. Some are still alive and the generation following theirs might suffer the consequences of radiation too. The time is still stopped. How many generations will be needed? How many centuries to get the clocks back into working there? How long do we have to wait until the presence of radiation begins to fade away? Maybe, by the time that takes place, we’ve already destroyed the world and other kinds of deadly radiations pollute our bodies and souls. With the kind of people in powerful positions we have, it’s wouldn’t be that strange to see that happening.

I recommend you a couple of websites by Elena Filatova, with pictures (don’t expect “yellow” pictures...for such contents there’s nowadays tv. Pictures here depict sceneries and measurements of radioactivity) Worth seeing and reading:

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/journal/articles.html
http://www.elenafilatova.com/

Hey love crrrusaderr, i want to be yourrr space invaderrr!

Strange days and strange fixations on odd, kitsch but also dark things. Why do we like or feel like we can’t take our eyes off some kinds of things,? I’ve been wondering for years why do I keep thinking of some elements of a book by Oe Kenzaburo (Man'en gannen no futtoboru, 1967...i have no idea of the title in English. in spanish it's translated into something very different, as El grito silencioso) that inspired darkness and madness to me. I don’t drink alcohol because of several reasons (philosophical basically) and sometimes, seeing people drinking and certain attitudes towards drinking, besides thinking of the ideas that brought me to take such a decision, I think of some character in that novel by Oe. That character, morally a bit odd, repeated over and over, that one must face life being sober. Those words pop in my mind from time to time, normally together with images I mentally created when I read that book. I didn’t like that book but it’s present in my mind, and now I’m reading another novel by Oe Kenzaburo, (Memushiri kouchi, 1958, in Spanish: Arrancad las semillas, fusilad a los niños) which shares some points with the one I mentioned, but which I feel is less negative.

Another negative thing I keep in mind is the cover of some cd (Wrath of the Tyrant) by the black metal band Emperor . Dark cover (but not such much) with some element I don’t know which attracts my attention. Maybe the colours, the hair of the man/woman that a certain point becomes snake, the eyes. Who knows? I guess we all have some dark or, at least, hidden side that makes us pay attention to things we don’t really consider positive for us, thinks that our subconsciousness seems to like more than ourselves (I’m not talking about universal moral values nor crimes...i’m not talking about scatological things, nor wicked things...i leave them for the news on tv and the yellow press and so on, because reality is worse than the worse and most macabre black metal lyrics). Fortunately it’s just the cover of that cd that I think has something interesting somewhere, somehow (I’ve just listened to their song “curse you all the men” and I don’t agree with their “black” ideas...though they seem to be more moderated nowadays and they don’t burn any more churches, fortunately). But there are more so-called/considered normal people who listen to this sub-genre within metal...like a guy on a train wearing a t-shirt of Opeth, another metal band....peaceful face and attitude on his way back home. (curiously, his wearing that t-shirt and his kind expression made me feel safer on the train and I didn’t sit very far from him...i thought and felt that better close to that guy, which didn’t seem to be that strange---at least I knew his musical taste--- than close to some of those weird/wicked men in trains in the evening)

On the other side, there come kitsch things and people, like Zlad!, an Australian creation (Molvanîa doesn’t exist, of course!!!) singing things whose lyrics have verses like the one in the title of this post. There also something lying beneath such kitsch creatures wearing silver clothes and wacky hair styles...i guess i like people displaying freedom, colours. i guess i can't help liking surrealism. And those dark and kitsch fixations are like my spontaneous dreams.

But I and my brain remain on a middle path, a middle point. Somewhere where bright sides and darker or hidden sides keep balanced. And these days i'm focusing on the way i breath, pathing a rhythm and some depth, like that of feet on the shore of some imaginary beach.

..'coz i'm the doctor...!

MOTÖRHEAD
album: Iron fist (1982)

I'M THE DOCTOR

I know the way you feel I know it ain´t too good
I know it feels like there´s detergent in your blood
But don´t you worry, gonna make you feel alright
I´m gonna lift your black depression, help you through the night
I´m your man, you know I´ll help you if I can
Cos I´m your Doctor

I know you´re desperate, I really sympathise
I see the morbid horror flicker in your eyes
But rest assured I´m gonna help to ease your pain
I´m gonna put a thousand tiny implants in your brain
I´m your boy, I´ll make you undulate with joy
Cos I´m the Doctor

Don´t get too depressed, I´ve found a way to help your case
A little hypodermic sends you into outer space
You´ll feel much better when you take these little pills
I´m gonna give you 60 bottles, I believe in overkill
Heart attack, you know you´re never coming back
Cos I´m the Doctor

http://www.imotorhead.com/index2.htm

spontaneous single people brainstorming (SSPB)

ho ho ho! yesterday a great great evening came to the life of some of us. It was that kind of unexpected great evenings talking and saying silly things mixed with deeper thoughts.

The main brainstorming session (SSPB) within the evening-chatting-session (until the people at the bar-bakery were closing) was about ideal partner/candidate (for either weekend/long relationship) of the opposite sex. Hard times to believe ideal candidates exists or, rather they won't come across our way....

The Candidate to whom i'll put a cross in my ballot (or write the name, depending on the kind of electoral system....): good person (in extinction), with a healthy sense of humour (the more you laugh, the happier you are and the less problems there would appear in the relationship, no matter what it is like), interesting and somehow a bit odd/freak (in a good sense), respectful, with interiorised sense of democracy and justice (sounds weird...), somebody with whom i share some interests...not much more... None of us demanded too much.

SSPB...we felt somehow positive and less worried about our singlehood afterwards. And if not, at least we laughed a lot.

transvallesà exprés

Vet aquí la RENFE...el pa nostre de cada dia. Ahir els usuaris vesprencs vàrem poder gaudir d’una ruta alternativa, la transvallesana, per motius desconeguts (que sempre són aliens a la pròpia RENFE). En comptes d’anar directes, com cada dia, per la línia entre Bcn i Girona, Maçanet, Sant Celoni i demés...no pas! Més estona al tren pel mateix preu (el comentari d’alguns viatgers era que ens donaven l’oportunitat d’aprofitar el preu del bitllet de tren estant més estona voltant en tren per la xarxa de rodalies). Bé, la qüestió es que vàrem recórrer totes les estacions de Montcada i Reixach, potser menys l’habitual de la nostra línia, Montcada i Reixach, pròpiament (què boniques Montcada Bifurcació i Montcada i Reixach Sta. Maria o similar...sobretot de nit, que no es veia res, com aquell que diu..). Des de les Montcades se suposava que haviem de tornar a Mollet St. Fost...i d’aquí prosseguir el trajecte amb normalitat (bé, la pobra gent que volia anar a la Llagosta havia d’esperar un tren direcció Vilanova/Bcn...). De sobte una estació desconeguda, una mica semblant a la de Mollet St. Fost...però nooooooo!!!! Érem a Cerdanyola Universitat...Amb la tonteria, 1 hora per anar de Pg. De Gràcia fins a Mollet St. Fost. Però vaig estar llegint i mirant uns apunts de japonès...tot i que era una mica difícil de vegades, perquè s’establí comunicació entre els desconeguts que anaven en els seients més propers: la dona equatoriana (que hauria d’haver agafat un altre tren de no haver anat a enviar diners als fills a Equador), una dona gran amb el nét, que no parava quiet (cantant la mítica cançó “Una plaaaaata d’enciaaaam, ben amaniiiida, ben amaniiiiida, una plaaata d’enciaaaaam, ben amaniiida amb oliiii i saaaal...”, fins que s’adormí profundament), i l’home més aviat gran parlant amb tothom i oferint carmels halls (fa por que els desconeguts ofereixin coses), frustrat per no haver agafat un tren semidirecte cap a Cerbère. És una habilitat de la renfe quan no funciona bé o hi ha problemes aliens a la companyia (mal temps, alguna cosa a les vies, accidents, suïcides que opten per llençar-se als trens...)...la gent estableix alguna mena de comunicació i sembla per un moment que hàgim sortit de la fredor de la vida urbana d’incomunicacions i desconfiances.

pastelito pantera rosa 1966-2006

Por casualidad encontré en el diario Metro del pasado jueves 9 de marzo, perdida por la tercera página, la noticia de que el pastelito rosa mutante de la pantera rosa (mítico) cumplía 40 años (otra cosa a sumar a las entradas de este blog con referencias al año 1966). Me pregunto si en los inicios el rosa era igual de mutante que décadas más tarde...(quizás fuera demasiado agresivo para aquellos tiempos) y estoy segura que el packaging tenía más encanto que los últimos, con una pantera rosa con walkman y auriculares. Rosa chicle chillón que reclama todas las miradas. A partir de los años 80 ya empezamos a estar más curados de espanto por las cuestiones cromáticas de los alimentos y además eran los tiempos del auge del horterismo, pero en los años 60 y 70? Pues bien, como una servidora, el pastelito en cuestión nació en Granollers (qué honor!...tendría que ser un hijo predilecto de la ciudad/pueblo ya...pero ya y los lugareños tendríamos que decir...soy del mismo lugar que el mítico pastelito casi-radioactivo...corriendo el riesgo de ser mirados de manera extraña)...y los nacidos en el 66, lo mismo..."nací el mismo año que el pastelito pantera rosa" ...dándose la ventaja de parecer más jóvenes pues no es fácil creer que tal "manjar" haya cumplido 40 años.

En los últimos años siempre pensé que había dejado de existir tal creación “gastronómica”, pero hasta que hace mucho, unos pastelitos de la pantera rosa me guiñaron un ojo desde su estante (era un caprabo y hacía sol). Pensaba que habían desaparecido como los dibujos animados de la pantera rosa de los domingos por la tarde, hace bastantes años. El reencuentro. Fíjate!..aún los venden! Pero ya queda poco de aquella cultura de los pastelitos que eran intrusos en dietas sanas...de la que viví, al menos, a mediados-finales de los 80. Pastelitos para casi todas las series de dibujos, con cromos y otras pijadas, como las manos pegajosas de los phoskitos (aquellas manos de colores que se quedaban adheridas sobre todo a los cristales)...pijadas que se acumulaban con las que regalaban con los packs de yogures, por no hablar de los huevos de chocolate kinder y los que eran imitaciones..ah! y las calcomanías de los diminutos que recuerdo de algunos chicles...Y con cuatro cromos y cuatro tonterías ya nos entreteníamos ... y con el color rosa del pastelito de la pantera rosa, ya nos emocionábamos.

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...