La Liberté Guidant le Peuple

For today's cultural post:

La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, 1830
Eugène Delacroix

Y vuelve el flaco

This was just very dear and near to my heart, so I had to post it...

“Hice un solo desafinado con las cenizas del amor, las verbenas del pasado gangrenan el corazón”
"Virgen de la Amargura, devuélveme la vida, sin ti todo es usura y noches perdidas, facturas, calenturas, heridas sin sutura; caídas, conjeturas, sacudidas, cerraduras… despedidas de locura y callejón”
“A los quince los cuerdos de atar me cortaron las alas, a los veinte escapé por las malas del pie del altar, a los treinta fui de armas tomar sin chaleco antibalas, Londres fue Montparnassse sin gabachos, Atocha con mar”
“Cuando el flautista de Hamelín sacó un ratón de su bombín, Polichinela se fugó con Arlequín. Hay mariposas de arrabal que nunca aprenden a volar, vinagre y rosas a la hora de cenar”
“Ya ves, llegar a fin de mes no era con ella asunto de dinero. Se trataba más bien de merecer un tren de pasajeros, el tsunami de un mar hecho mujer, dispuesto en cada ola a renacer. Se llamaba Herejía, cómo voy a saber si me engañaba cuando me mentía”
“González era un ángel menos dos alas, González era un santo por lo civil, un dandy con un ojo a la funerala, tan rojo, tan Oviedo y tan zascandil”
-Joaquín Sabina

From JoaquinSabina.net

Of the risks of poll dancing

It is nice, sort of, when people go around and tell you about their poll dancing parties. They tell you how they did it, who they did it with and how it ended, usually the last part is the most unpleasant one. But you know poll dancing is just not for everyone, well it actually is, you just think some should wait when the time is right. Because with this too there are very different opinions, people who poll dance since they are 13, and people who say they never will (who then you find in New Year's in a restroom after all the poll dancing), it's all matter of tradition.

And you know it has its risks, you know some people even end up in the hospital after a wild one, others even end up knocked up, or without their virginity. But you also know everyone's doing it and so you think you will end up doing it one of these days, you just hope with all your heart there will be no pictures or videos of you after that; because that's the worst possible consequence, you think.

So once you get the right place, the right time and the right people to do it with, you decide to go for it. At first you're shy, you get up in the stage and play with the poll, make a few turns and walk around. But then that song that's been in your head all week starts playing, the lights are on you and you know everyone looking only at you. So you dance, you dance like there is no tomorrow, you shake all that can move, and vibrate with every high tune, and you have the best time of your life and dance like a beautiful dance whore. Because up there you are it, you take that poll and make it yours, that song will never taste the same for whomever sees you dance, and your friends are all with you doing it too.

In the stage nobody can do you no harm, you forget any inhibitions and free yourself from whatever might have locked you. If it is the first time you do it, it is that moment when you remember what people say about poll dancers, how it almost never ends well, and you disagree, you know there are few things better in life. If you are already an avid dancer, then you surely no longer think of what they say, you know how it ends and you love it, every single part of it (well... maybe not the mourning after).

Then you're off the stage, and the ground moves because of all the dancing, and you're dizzy and talk a lot. For some that is the time when they lock themselves in a restroom and throw away all their sins and lamentations about the poll dance. Some others just go and sleep soundly in the first bed they can find. But all reactions lead to the same unavoidable future, the morning after.

It is in the mourning when they warned you it would all go bad. And for once you recognize their wise words. Your feet are sore, you're trough can't take anything else, the ground can't stop moving, and most painful, there are drills taking your brains out. And it is not until you are lying next to the electrolyte wishing every sound and light was gone, and that you can't feel yourself when you promise for everything that is good that you will never, ever in the rest of your life will poll dance again.

And you swear it.

And you convince yourself.

Until next weekend comes and the stage claims for you.

You'll have time to swear later...



[here at bffs we don't support vices, but analogies instead]

Oh, this was different

I remember that about a year ago I was here, sitting in this same place and looking at the empty water bottle. 'Never, ever again' I said to myself as I saw clothes, sheets and people on the floor. This had gone to a different level. It was one thing having your cousins staying over to have some fun, it was quite a different thing having a pseudo-gipsy camp in your room, with people you once called cousins, laying in the floor, nearly dead: The Misunderstood, The Drama Queen, The Outsider that carries the last name and The Typical Jeune. No surprise they told everyone the next day...



[ So this is both a rant and a nice reflection. A rant about the 'fictional' thing that didn't happen about a year ago, and the nice reflection... you'll get it :) ]

Ads

It would be rather easy to infer that we (I) are (am) against advertising, given its consequences and the fact that it exists with the sole purpose of creating needs and false images of how things should be. Well of course in that case we (I)'d hate it. But then there is the art to it.

Because to convince you of something perhaps an essay would do it, or an exposition. But obviously you don't have the time, or will.

So instead these people have to convince you in less than a minute, 20 seconds exactly for radio, 10 seconds for TV and less than five seconds for the traffic ads. Regardless of what you think of publicity, you must agree that telling a whole story with one single image is work of great magnificence, even if all that story aims is for you to buy a new shampoo conditioner (which also moisturizers your hair).

You might bring up all the so called consequences, and then I'd have to answer what I normally do with matters of such class: people bring themselves to believe what they want to believe, and as long as they have a good education and critical thinking, nothing bad should happen caused by advertise. And if they don't have that, then publicity would be the last of my worries.

And well, every now and then you find publicity that is actually good for you, so just enjoy this week's fun

Hey Jude flow diagram

By Love All This, I just thought it was amazing

The Octopus Project

The Octopus Project: An Evening with Rthrtha from Double Triple on Vimeo.

So, now that we are officially alive again, any thoughts for the photo or video?