Pieces of paper

I have many things written for these chronicles on random pieces of paper, notebooks and the like. But I've never taken the time to transcript them for all of you to read them, for me to read them in a few days, months or years. In a way, they are lost in the midst of my life. But in a way, too, they are a part of my life. A temporarily lost part, but a part after all. Our artificial sense of order makes us think that disorder equals lost. Big mistake. Few things are more pleasant than finding a piece of paper temporarily lost in the midst of our lives, and meeting there a thought we once had in the train, as we contemplated the beautiful hair of a young girl reading another piece of paper.

I would like to...

I would like to laugh with you now. I really feel like laughing.
(well, the truth is that ever since this morning Choche told me how he was trapped in the middle of a gay pride demonstration, and how he couldn't scape from the gay crowd there, I've been feeling like laughing all the time - Choche, it's ok to be gay, I say)

Anthropology

Today I read in the newspaper that the first word humans spoke was "no". And I ask: "no" to what? That's the interesting question, I think.

Santoral

My friend Pere celebrates his saint today, i mean the 29th of june. Greet him, and drink something good with a thought for him.

The crackers of fire

The noise of the fire cracker's almost completely gone. This year, though, there wasn't as much noise and annoyance as another years. Maybe people are becoming more civilised, maybe they look for other kinds of crackers (those who know Spanish will understand me) And speaking of crackers and spaniards, here's how google translates my page into spanish. It's google's translation of my post of the 23rd of June- A bit of nothing, and it's hilarious:
"Me aburren. Bien, no realmente agujereado. Soy pero no soy, soy justo alrededor y soy alrededor justo. Es hoy San Juan (Santo Juan) y en Barcelona usted tiene que salir, comprar porciones de galletas del fuego y hacer que se agrieta todo sobre las calles y las plazas y los lugares toda la noche larga... y que terminan encima de tener un baño en la playa, los alrededor 7am. De alguna manera, no arreglé cualquier cosa para la esta noche, y se parece que no. Somedays apenas sucede: usted no puede arreglar cualquier cosa... y así que le hacen frente con un día de fiesta el día después de que, y una noche virginal a explorar, pero él sea los 8pm y usted es hogar justo que espera algo que apenas no vendrá. ¿Necesito un cierto sueño? Quizás. Ahora apenas quisiera que el día cambiara."

Lack of inspiration

Whenever I lack the necessary inspiration to write, the adequate muse, I translate something. Here are the results. It's a poem by spanish writer Vicente Gallego, to be studied in Spanish departments in some 50 years.

"In those dark hours
that keep growing in our lives
like the night grows in the winter,
in those hours, quite often
a beautiful and relentless image reassures me.

I come back to a beach of another time,
still close. It’s a startling day
of the end of September, and the sea glitters
with its slow structure, exact and suggestive
like a knife.
There are still some bathers at this doubtful
time of the evening, and a group of young girls
tells me I am not alone.
The sea tans their seventeen year old bodies,
and the breeze is fresh, and in their necks
the humidity intensifies the smell of perfume.

The evening goes by sweetly,
the young girls laugh and give me their joy,
even though I love none of them
and there’s a flair of farewell everywhere:
in the summer, in the bathers,
in the girls I don’t know today,
in the light of the beach.

I enjoyed that welcomed moment
just as a present is enjoyed,
quiet in its wonder, doomed to be forgotten
behind the frequent happiness of those years.
And now I realize that in that evening
something more than beauty was hiding,
because its light saves me, many times,
in the dark hours.

In the dark hours I am reassured
by a relentless image of happiness.
And I wonder why it comes back,
and what is it that I lost in that beach."

Prisons

I've been thinking of writing something about the prison two blocks away from my place. Some days ago, I somehow realised how weird it is to have a prison two blocks away from my place, and to just have accepted it as another element of the landscape for over 24 years. Is my mind evolving? I guess I try to question more things now, but find fewer answers than before.

A bit of nothing

I'm bored. Well, not really bored. I am but I am not, I am just around and I am around just. Today it's San Juan (Saint John) and in Barcelona you have to go out, buy lots of fire crackers and make them crack all over the streets and plazas and places all night long... and end up having a bath on the beach, around 7am. Somehow, I didn't arrange anything for tonight, and it seems I won't. Somedays it just happens: you can't arrange anything... and so you're faced with a holiday the day after, and a virgin night to explore, but it's 8pm and you're just home waiting for something that just won't come. Do I need some sleep? Perhaps. Right now I just want the day to change.

Spain

We lost. Portugal 1 - Spain 0. Portugal and Greece pass to the next round. We go back home. I am listening to the radio, they are now just saying that ours is a team with a good future. Optimism, we have. A lot.

Buying cigarettes at night

I just went down to buy a pack of cigarettes. It's past midnight and yet I could choose from 3 different bars within 30 sec walking distance... and I live in a quiet neighborhood, believe me. The thing is that as I walked there, this thought came to my mind: I could just get there and ask for a couple of beers and several shots of tequila, and get completely drunk. That would be legal. However, it's not legal to get a nice joint of nice pot. Ah, Amsterdam, mon amour.

Buuuuusy

Well, these days have been (and actually ARE) completely crazy for me. I am preparing a presentation for the PhD class I'm taking this semester, I am preparing an article based on my MSc dissertation, I am learning Information Architecture and Usability, I am working ten hours a day on my (official) job as the-guy-who-does-everything-from-design-to-marketing-to-traslating-to-visiting-clients AND... I am preparing a masters course proposal for the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona which I should be able to teach in a year or two... The course will go something like "Production, management and distribution of cultural content in the digital era". Would you register for that course? .... then read the description:
"During the last ten years, a new paradigm of cultural content production, management and distribution has emerged that leverages the potential of the ever more pervasive and powerful information and communication technologies. This course seeks to analyse the socio-technical environment where these technologies have developed. In particular, the course explores some of the new tools and channels for cultural content production, management and distribution, as well as the economic, legal and social regimes that regulate its implementation and use."

I should...

I should really write something... what about this? Ay, I miss somebody on my bed, I am tired of using my extremities :)

Back ache and US presidential elections

My back hurts. A terrible pain. Therefore, I decide to take a look at John Kerry's and Bush's websites. And I come across Bush's Environmental Photo Gallery. A bit of laughter. Pain slightly released.

Good life

Every Wednesday (I always wondered why you pronounce it "wensday") I watch this catalan TV show, "Afers exteriors" (International affairs) There's this guy with a great personality (his name is Mikimoto, but he's not japanese :)) who every week travels to a different country, and tries to show it to us through the eyes of catalan citizens who emigrated there for one reason or another. Two weeks ago he did California and I was overwhelmed by my memories of it as Mikimoto spoke some wise words overlooking the Golden Gate bridge. My mom said I looked so melancholic, I said no but obviously I did. Anyway, today's turn was Venezuela. Mikimoto focused on Caracas and some island named Las Rocas. In Caracas, he spoke to a successful catalan entrepeneur who runs a successful advertisement agency. The guy tried to look rather modern-leftist, as most of the guys who work on the advertisement industry do. I wonder why, since they are (after consumers) the most loyal servants of the market, whatever form it takes. Mikimoto also spoke to this woman who earned a living making and selling cakes. She emigrated from Catalunya 40 years ago (escaping from Franco's dictatorship, of course), and now her worse nightmare was how to get sugar in Venezuela. The woman explained to Mikimoto how she would have to buy sugar in the black market, that is, in a street market. Apparently, supermarkets cannot sell cheap sugar. If they do, the police takes it away from them. Then, the police sells it really cheap to sugar dealers, which in turn sell it to street sellers who make it available to the people at a high price. And illegally. Society, you know.
But in Venezuela you can also find an island named Las Rocas. There, Mikimoto finds Joan, a catalan guy who stopped working and escaped from Catalonia some 10 years ago, and moved to the island. Joan does absolutely nothing there, except from fishing for lobsters and eating them grilled everyday, and eventually taking some tourists sailing around the island: "Not really very often", he says with a permanent smile on his mouth. "I really wouldn't know when it's Sunday, except for the fact that there's more people around". "But there's a church". "Yeah, but there's no priest".
"What is Las Rocas for you, Joan?". "Good life", he replies.
And Mikimoto closes the show with a deep reflection, as he always does: "As I prepared to leave Venezuela, I wondered what it really was. Was it Caracas and people demonstrating and striving to survive on the streets? Or was it grilled lobsters and transparent waters at Las Rocas? What defines a country? Its people, or its landscape?"

Problems with comments

My friend Choche reports that on my post "tWenty siX" (24th of May) there are three comments you can see only if you view this page with Netscape/Mozilla. They don't appear with Internet Explorer. It's so weird I don't know what to think or do anymore. I can just say I'm sorry, and that I was quite happy to see three comments to that post (Choche, it was actually quite deceiving that you forgot my birthday, but since it's only the first time you forget, it's okay :)... there's always a first time for everything... or there should be, at least ;)!)
The thing is I can't just change to another commenting system, since first I have to figure out how to keep all the old comments. And since I still don't host this blog on my own webspace, it would be quite useless to change to another free hosting comments system that I'm sure would also fail as much as the one I have now. Ok, no more of this for today. Better systems will come that will make this blog more democratic. Until then, I'm afraid complete democracy on this blog will be constrained by lack of resources. Just like in the real world.

One cigarette

I only have one cigarette left. This means I won't be able to write anything tonight. Sad life the life of a smoker.

Terror

For some very long ten minutes, i've been quite terrified, if you let me be a bit shallow. I thought the comments feature of my blog had dissapeared, since i couldn't access any of them nor i could access the webpage that hosts them. But the fact that I could have lost the comments, though painful, was not as painful as what i'd have had to stand from joaquin if this had proved true. Luckily enough, the comments came back. You'll have to wait a bit longer to make wood out of the cut tree**, dear joaquin.
**to make wood out of the cut tree=hacer leña del árbol caído, typical spanish expression that means to humiliate even more those who have already fallen really low.