School friends

Seems like I am starting a new series of posts about my past, but it's just chance that brought me here, nothing premeditated at all. Today I had dinner with some old friends from primary school, we've been good friends since we were seven or eight; pretty amazing we almost have twenty years in common behind us. I looked at them like I've been doing for the last few times we've met: I don't belong in their world anymore, but it's just alright to repeat the same stories once or twice a year; and even though our friendship is sustained by the same old anecdotes, by beliefs I don't share anymore. But it's ok, we love each other because of no particular reason, because we were kids and played in the same playground. That's nice.
However, I sort of feel I have escaped from my past faster than they did, if they ever did. It's not bad, even though it seems petulant to write about it now. Will they think the same about me? Will they think they have escaped but I'm still there? I don't think so, I think they just feel it's the way I've always been when they remind me of some anecdote I have no memory of.

A gin-tonic with Torjman

I just had a gin-tonic with Torjman. I came back home by bus, and passed by my dear high school where I grew up for the first time (several "growing ups" have come later on, but I didn't know it at high school)
I have passed by my school a good deal of times, since its so close to my home. But today was different, of course. Today, for the first time, I have felt a sort of nostalgia while looking at the walls of the building where I entered with only 14 years, and left with only 18. I have felt the same I used to feel when I went back to my school, where I entered with 6 (I think) and left with 14 (I'm sure). I remembering walking into the school, and seeing everything very small: the classrooms, the dinning hall, the play ground... shit, how small it all was, or how big I thought it as a child.
Yes, the street entrance of my high school seemed smaller today, and the walls were not as impresive as before. The high school, my high school, has become smaller. And as I think of the years I had there, the women I loved there, the teachers I hated and the first cigarretes I had on the corridors, it becomes very difficult to picture a bigger building, to return to the size of my 14-18 years. The thrill is here for me to play with it, and yet the thrill is gone. Do you remember, Tais, when you used to play with my thrill? How young you were, I think now. A girl I would never look at now. And still, how young I think I was. And it's strange because you know, I'm the same guy I was back then, and yet I am so fucking different. The same but not the same at all. I see traces of the one I used to be, but they only become apparent in little details, little roads leading nowhere that I still take sometimes.
Maybe I need your presence, I'm not sure what your presence would bring me. We could make love, this time, sitting at the stairs of high school we would kiss like we didn't and I would say bye, go home. And then the building behind me, and then my turning back and my looking at the building face to face. I think I would think of running back after you, but finally I would walk back home, like I walked back today . And I would write.

Frontpage

I read the frontpage of several newspapers this morning, and I can't just entertain myself with the details of the devastation of the tidal wave in South East Asia. It just seems not fair to read all those articles with all those details about everything... as if you could possibly understand anything by reading them!
No, I don't read. I rather close my eyes and think, think that life is such a bitch, and nature its pimp.
How exciting it sounded when we studied tidal waves at University... forty physicists-to-be all entertained by the perfect workings of ressonance to make giant waves possible for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers, as if the absence of friction was effected and eternal movement thus possible.
Now I understand, once more, what a big lies it all is when you separate it from your heart and soul. Even tidal waves are not eternal: buildings and bodies are there to stop the magic of fricionless movement. You know what? Fuck frictionless movement and the magical, so beautiful equations behind it.

New Year's Eve

Writing about new year's eve with jojo has definitely installed one thought on my mind: what should I do, that night? I don't know. It's every year the same story... is it? What does it mean that I am twenty six, and still I don't know what the hell I will do for new year's eve? See, Landiman? In a way, it's your fault. In another way, it's nobody's fault.
Because you have dinner with your family and bum! it's 1:30 or 2am, and what you do? You don't have a friend's place to go, so you have to meet at the disco, or at most at a bar and then the disco, inevitable. And what you do, at the disco? Just another other night? No, you know, it's new year's eve. But what? Does it only mean you have to be happy, and stay up until 8am? What do you think, when you go to bed at 8am, the sun shinning outside, and it's first of january, 2005, and you're drunk but conscious in bed?
Maybe you should get a woman. Should you? I don't know, new year's eve... you're supposed to have your woman already. Or do you? Ah, lo ves, you see? It's complicated. It's the kind of trouble you have when you can eat four times a day and have a place to sleep warmly.

Smoking with a sore throat coming

I'm smoking and I shouldn't be, because I can tell I have a sore throat coming very soon, and very soon new year's eve is coming too, and though I still haven't made my mind about what to do on that sacred night, I don't want to have a sore throat when it comes. In a way, it's Ensiamada's fault, the woman of Croissant. Tonight she lighted one cigarrete after another and, so, I had to light one after another too, because I'm a gentleman, you know. Women should never smoke alone.
Ok, suddenly now I think it would be nice to spend it with jojo, but he's far. We would smoke (I'm a gentleman, and you know, gays should never smoke alone either) and dance, and we would talk about what those three years have operated on our souls, and we would see how our faces have changed. I wonder what would be the first sentences we would pronounce. "Joder, hola, tío, qué tal, cómo estás?" I don't know: what would be that first sentence, jojo? But I can tell we would go out of the last pub together, and we would walk back home, completely drunk and gay. And still, I know I would miss a woman by my side, and he would miss a man by his. That's life. The sore throat's definitely crawling up my neck.

Yes

For those of you who were wondering... yes, the f comments are down again.

The meaning of la cosa

There's no meaning, lo sé. La cosa grows, y I don't know porqué pero yo me find myself metido inside, y allá estoy, totally dentro, without a way fuera. Difícil de explain, si no lo han vivido before. La cosa te atrapa y ya no te deja escapar, y eres consciente de ello pero ¿qué puedes hacer? Irte a dormir no es solución, porque al día siguiente despiertas y sigué ahí la cosa para interrogarte, para preguntarte. Y no encuentras respuesta porque no hay ningún meaning, lo sé, pero me incomoda mucho vivir con la cosa. Es terriblemente incómodo y, sin embargo, así seguimos, con la cosa a cuestas, y a vivir que son two days!
No puede ser, tienes que sentar head, que ya vas para los treinta y te preguntas las mismas cosas que a los dieciséis. La cosa, insidiosa, ahí sigue. Por cierto, felicidades, -f. Fue ayer pero sabes que me pongo a escribir tarde.

Talking

I have just talked to my sister through the messenger. Suddenly, I realised I talk to her like any other of my friends, though she is much younger. It's something I have experienced this year: she is not a kid anymore, now it's talking to someone equal to me: honest, straight talk.
It's good, it's really good: when you have a much younger sister or brother, you get to see how they grow up, and it's such a wonder. And you see and understand many things you didn't see and understand when you were younger yourself. I have understood many things about myself through my sister's growing up. I'm glad I got to meet her, to have somebody there, forever, even if it's only through the messenger. A sister (or a brother) is to me the closest thing to a friend in a family, or that's the way it should be. Everybody should have a brother or a sister in their lives. Life's not complete otherwise.

La cama vacía

He buscado en las palabras escritas la respuesta a las palabras que no sé decirte porque no quiero herirte. La cama está vacía, pero puedo verte durmiendo: los ojos cerrados, el enigma de tus sueños alimentando mis deseos. Me estiraré junto a tí, y acariciaré tus mejillas y tu pelo, y quizá despiertes y me digas que te deje dormir, abrazándome hacia el fondo de tus sueños y tu carne más íntima.
¿Qué voy a decirte, entonces? ¿Que ya no te quiero, que he mirado por la ventana y las brasas del crepúsculo ya no arden con tu aliento?
No diré nada, y te besaré otra vez, buscando en tus labios la felicidad de estar muerto y sentirme tan vivo.

Where's my English?

For the last four days, I've been posting in Spanish. I needed it. I said things I don't know how to say in English, and it helped to ease my mind. I am glad I haven't blogged much in Spanish, because believe me: it's too addictive to write in your mother tongue.

Testamento en vida de una relación

Sentado ante la noche de mi pequeño mundo, trato de sentir lo que sentía cuando contaba apenas veinte años, y los versos de Cernuda me mostraban la vida, y Neruda frecuentaba tu cuerpo junto a mis ojos adolescentes. ¿Recuerdas? "Libertad no conozco sino la libertad de estar preso en alguien cuyo nombre no puedo oír sin escalofrío..."
Del sol cae un racimo en tu vestido oscuro. Las raíces de la noche crecen de súbito desde tu alma, y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas, de modo que un pueblo, pálido y azul de ti recién nacido, se alimenta.
De ti mujer, luna mía, recién nacido. ¿Lo recuerdas? Un hombre le regala un anillo a su mujer en el día en que ella da a luz. ¿Qué más puedes pedirme? Apenas sé si escribo para amarte o para olvidarte, porque no puedo amarte y olvidarte a la vez. No, el olvido llega antes para condenarme por haberte amado.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche, y sin embargo no puedo sentirte lejos a mi lado, alimentarme de tu ausencia como el ciego se alimenta de destellos.

Desamor

Hace unos días he empezado a escribirte otra vez en castellano. Apenas recuerdo los trazos exactos de tu cara, tu cabello desarmando mis manos en el caos de una tarde junto a ti. Me dijiste que nunca te había sucedido algo semejante, y yo te creí porque éramos jóvenes. Sí, yo te creía y tú sabías decir las verdades piadosas. Ahora ya no te creo, ahora ya no creo en nada y por lo tanto nada me queda. Esto es lo que has sabido hacer conmigo, vida mía.

Abrazos II

¿Por qué dudo si abrazarte para siempre? ¿Por qué dudo si es el tuyo y no otro cuerpo el que quiero sentir junto a mí, respirando en la noche del alba, cuando la luz dibuja en tu piel la textura de la felicidad? Junto a otros labios me han despertado hoy las lágrimas que por ti lloré. Y parece que ahora esa tristeza me ha abandonado para siempre. Esa tristeza que tanto odié con toda mi alma, y que sin embargo tanto necesita mi alma ahora mismo, cuando estás demasiado lejos para ofrecerme las frutas del árbol que una vez plantamos en nuestro jardín. ¿Recuerdas? Era un jardín de tomillo y basílico, y una rosa azul y el color de la luna.
Esas lágrimas me han despertado, y he caminado hasta el baño a secarme la cara. Ahora, sentado junto a la cama, observo el cuerpo extraño que sueña bajo las sábanas. Aún no lo conozco tan bien como el tuyo, aún no sé donde se ríe más cuando le acaricio los pies antes de hacer otra vez el amor. Aún no reconozco en mi cerebro el olor exacto de su sexo y el tacto de sus muslos en mis labios.
Sin embargo, mis manos arden aún desde que entraron bajo su falda hace apenas diez horas.

Sabina, translated

"...nosotros que queríamos
vivir sencillamente
hermanos de la lluvia,
del mar, de los amigos,
pronunciar las palabras que
vencen a la muerte
buscar bajo tu falda,
alimento y abrigo..."

"We, the ones that wanted
to live a simple life,
brothers of the rain,
of the sea, of friends;
we the ones to pronounce
the words that win over death,
looking for nourishment
and shelter under your skirt"

I still remember your skirt, wherever you are.

Donde habita el olvido

Cuando se despertó,
no recordaba nada
de la noche anterior,
"demasiadas cervezas",
dijo, al ver mi cabeza,
al lado de la suya, en la almohada...
y la besé otra vez,
pero ya no era ayer,
sino mañana.
Y un insolente sol,
como un ladrón, entró
por la ventana.

El día que llegó
tenía ojeras malvas
y barro en el tacón,
desnudos, pero extraños,
nos vio, roto el engaño
de la noche, la cruda luz del alba.
Era la hora de huir
y se fue, sin decir:
"llámame un día".
Desde el balcón, la vi
perderse, en el trajín
de la Gran Vía.
Y la vida siguió,
como siguen las cosas que no
tienen mucho sentido,
una vez me contó,
un amigo común, que la vio
donde habita el olvido.

La pupila archivó
un semáforo rojo,
una mochila, un peugeot
y aquellos ojos
miopes
y la sangre al galope
por mis venas
y una nube de arena
dentro del corazón
y esta racha de amor
sin apetito.
Los besos que perdí,
por no saber decir:
"te necesito".

Abrazos

El abrazo de la mujer apenas conocida, abrazo en el sofá al fondo de un bar con la música y el alcohol mezclados en el aire cargado de humo y noche oscura. Sentir por vez primera una carne distinta que seduce a nuestras manos y las confunde en su geografía abstracta y concreta a un tiempo. La mujer ríe y se esconde entre tus brazos y tu pecho, y apenas puedes abarcar todo su cuerpo. Cuánta felicidad renacida en ese instante, esa felicidad que creías ya olvidada para siempre.
Pero aprendes de nuevo, y dudas pero al final hayas el modo exacto de cogerla dulcemente, de apartar un cabello de su cara y acariciar su mejilla derecha con tu mano derecha, de decirle las palabras bellas del amor que agoniza apenas invocado. Te creías muerto, y unos ojos ansiosos de tus labios te han devuelto al mundo de los vivos. Y sin embargo deseas morir de nuevo.

Law

While the neighbours are screaming like stupid animals downstairs, I am writing in front of the computer and smoking pot. I am doing something illegal, they are not.

Landiman

Landiman commented that my last post was rather hard. And he adds a worse tragedy: he had his moment in life, and yet he didn't enjoy it to the most.
I remember when I first saw Landiman... How much we have changed, Landiman? A lot, much more than we are able to understand. But we are doomed to be friends now, you know? We are, forever. And that is a moment. A tragic one, if you want. We both have worlds we wish to come back to. We both have places far away from our physical hearts. Places we would like to inhabit right now. Fuck, what if suddenly I went to bed and tomorrow I woke up in Berkeley, California, and you Landiman woke up in Vienna, so close to old Europe and the naked body of an ivy goddess? I don't know, Landiman. I have a map of the places I've been, but I lack a map for the places of my brain... it's all messed up, it's all too quantum mechanical. I just want the million eyes I used to look at, and the million skins I once touched and felt, handfulling my hand.

After watching a documentary about the Actors Studio, you know, the Stanislavsky method

What if we already lived what we had to live? What if the best moment of our lives, its meaning, has already happened? What if it happened three years ago, and you know that was it, and you knew even better afterwards, and now you can only lie to yourself in order to enjoy? There's no enjoyment when you know that. There can't be. It's gone, what is to come is just the remainings. Nothing else will matter as much as it mattered back then. Now, just the remainings... figure out how to avoid too much suffering till the end comes.

JJ

Jojo cooing, cooing jojo. I can't take this image out of my head. Damn you, jojo!

Mong Kong

This is a picture I took in Mong Kong last summer. I like the colors and the sort of impressionist style.

My pigeon

For the last few days, a pigeon comes to sleep by my window. I can hear it singing now (well, making noise or whatever you call what pigeons get out of their throats) I heard it singing, and I thought I had to write about it. For it is really strange that suddenly, in the middle of the night, when you are reading and writing around in complete solitude, when you think you have to sleep because tomorrow you gotta work, and shit how much I hate that sort of thinking; then, suddenly, a pigeon makes noise. It's there, by the window. You can't see it but you can hear it. Maybe if you stand up to see better. But no, better just go straight to bed, without going much further into the life of the pigeon and your own.

Some quotes

Miss Onekell is one of my favourite reads around. From her livejournal I took the following quotes:

"I have more faith in divine humour than divine justice (...) Divine is fair in the way in which it dishes out humour, or humorous in the way it doles out justice, you know what I mean"

"Cognitive dissonance is more enjoyable as an intellectual concept than a personal experience"

Do you also love Woody Allen?

Second hand emotions

In some ways, writing a diary is like running a second hand shop of emotions. I live my world and translate it here, for my readers to find something of their own in what I write... second hand emotions trying to re-live again in your brains and hearts.

Things I need to remember

This is an unordered list of the things I need to remember in order to reconstruct in the form of a short story the night I just had:
1) A woman in her late forties, sitting by the bar of a pub, drinking a lonely whisky in a tall, tube glass with just one ice cube on the bottom. Just one like her. Young people dancing around her.
2) Four young guys dancing on the top, bellow four women they are looking at. The thought of getting one woman each of them, an spending the night fucking in the four bedrooms of some flat in the city center. The morning after, a gorgeous breakfast with naked bodies.
3) The light flashing animated cross pattern of a pharmacy sign.
4) A pigeon making noises by the window.
5) A bingo.
6) Many people dancing inside a musical bar: they look like people that are going to feel rather old and depressed when they go out of the bar.
7) An amazing body moving amazingly, with a very low t-shirt that shows how beautiful a young skin can be.
8) A guy that wants to write but doesn't dare to be honest about the night he just had.

They will never get tired

The mexicans strike back... lots and lots of noise coming from downstairs. I guess my mom will be going downstairs to scorn them really bad at any moment... Meanwhile, they screw me because i won't light my joint until she sleeps... mexicans, always the mexicans...

Purpose for 2005

One of the things that makes me wonder whether I should go on with these english chronicles is that my English level remains the same. I thought maybe writing every day could improve my style, but at most I can only maintain my style, prevent it from getting worse. Yes, I got a little bit faster writing, but the bad thing is I think I am assuming mistakes by repeating them over and over (there's nobody to correct me!)
Anyway, all these leads me to a purpose: during the year 2005, I shall read and read and read and read the Collected Short Stories by Vladimir Nabokov (thanks for that marvellous book, -a). I shall read and read and read and read and read until I shall know the meaning and use of all the words that appear in the book. Then, I'll be prepared to die in peace... or to write better chronicles.

The essence of art

Lately, we've been discussing with Croissant whether there exists an essence in art, for instance in cinema, our closest ally. For essence I mean something essential that remains somewhere in the work of art, and that no matter at what time in history, makes us thrive. Croissant is a cultural relativist: for him, there's no essence, for art is a social construction. As for me, being a little bit more romantic as I am (though everyday less), I still think there's something in Casablanca that will touch my children and the children of my children the same way. The eyes of Ingrid Bergman as time goes by, you know, aren't they inmortal? Are they only a product of their time, or there's something religiously eternal in them? That's my reflection for today.

Getting a job, getting a life

Yesterday night I talked to Ann, and found out she doesn't really enjoy her job. I though being in the media industry rocked, even as a video-editor-assistant-that-gets-paid-very-very-very-low. But turns out it's not that cool, and she's thinking of getting a job at a bank (I think she was pissed when I said: "come on, you want only 1500$ a month for your entire life?" ... but I still think a job at a bank is only that)
Anyway, I'm sure Ann won't even look for that bank job, even if I put it in front of her to grab it, I think she wouldn't take it. Because getting a job is getting a life. As sad as it sounds, but hell I wished I was taught that lesson earlier in my life. Because I was sort of educated to the idea that, as a mother would put it, "what you do is you get a job that pays enough to let you do what you really like after work ... because son, you like expensive stuff, so you'd better get enough to pay for it". Ultimately, this is a catholic-educated-woman statement. It's that moral of suffering in order to get pleasure afterwards. That sort of thinking has caused me a lot of pain and suffering, to the point that right now I feel completely lost about my future employment life. I cannot tell what I like from what I don't, what I'm good at from what I'm not. I have studied so many things, I have seen so much pain in the world,... that the right choice has just vanished. My right choice does not exist anymore. Anything I could do has an inconvenience. Even my dreamed life as a writer or a cinema director is starting to disappear from the shell of wanabe things. I finally got where I was walking to: absence. The dark hole I so much thought so far away has already eaten me. But you know what? I light a cigarrete and start a small bunfire to try to see clearer. I have to. I am not a loser. Not me.

I used to be a young writer

Phase 1

And I would win each year the literary contest (of course, in catalan) at High School. Each year, except one: the year I wrote about love (you know, it's no good to talk about love when you are a teenager and are in love: you win no contests)

Phase 2

I grew up, and had no contests to win: I stopped writing. Actually, I kept on writing, but I couldn't be satisfied with the results, and so eventually I stopped. Many begginings, many projects... no results.

Phase 3

Actually, it came along all together with Phase 2, but I have no time to construct a better theoretical framing for my writting life. And what came along was the Internet: yes, with the Internet I wrote more and more: emails, msn messenger conversations, yahoo groups,... and eventually, this blog.

Phase 4

The Fruitman decides to be a young writer again, and restarts an old short story he found today inside a folder from language school. You guess what phase 5 will be all about.

Life's boring

According to google, life's boring has a lot to do with my blog. Ah, this has been a strange weekend, a weirdkend.

Done

Today I finished my series of lectures at university: I'm happy. Happy, because I think I did quite a good work, because I learnt valuable lessons and, last but not least, because I'm going to get paid a good amount of euros. Yes, for one month I was Professor Fruitman, as some students addressed me. Good job, good life. Satisfaction.

Light

Light, light, light... can you give me a definition of light? Do you know what light is? Tell me, please. For I believe light is God, a material God, and thus feel restless.

Frío

Nos sentamos con Jorge en la placita: ya no quedaba ningún bar abierto, pero la noche no parecía querer terminar tan pronto. Quisimos tomar algo en un hotel de cinco estrellas, pero el piano bar estaba ya cerrado: pensé en el piano bar de Lost in Translation, espacio indiferente al tiempo en donde Scarlett siempre nos espera dispuesta a seducirnos con su belleza perfecta. Jorge dijo que querría ser rico para poder pedir una habitación en el hotel y vaciar el minibar a base de tragos y una borrachera tremenda.
El banco estaba muy frío. Nos sentamos, y el frío pareció freir de frío a las palabras que querríamos decirnos. Es difícil hablar con el frío tan frío. Mencionamos a Torjman y su cinemascopas, el nuestro, esa revista imposible en donde definir la crítica cinematográfica de los próximos cincuenta años. Estuvimos de acuerdo en que la línea editorial debería ser estricta: sólo los mejores textos poblarían las hojas binarias de nuestro cinemascopas. Hablamos de la edad que tenemos, sin grandes frases o pensamientos que ahora pudieran aliviar la pesadez de este escrito con toques de genialidad y suspicacia mágica, belleza pura, palpable, sentida en la palabra al instante. No, no existieron tales palabras entre nosotros en aquél momento preciso. Y volvimos otra vez a mencionar a Torjman, y a Cahiers du cinéma, y a Film Ideal y a Lamet, gran Lamet. Recuerdo que Jorge decía que Lamet decía en una entrevista: "Sí, bueno, esta película, para el espectador de la calle, es brillante, perfecta, conmovedora. Sin embargo, para el intelectual, la película es un bodrio." Y el entrevistador respondía "Lamet, es que yo admiro esta capacidad que tú tienes para ponerte en la piel de lo que llamas el espectador de la calle" Y Lamet remataba: "Bueno verás, es que yo como Lamet, cuando veo una película, puedo desdoblarme en varios Lamets: el Lamet espectador de la calle, el Lamet intelecutal. Puedo hacerlo, me desdoblo sin problemas". Y nos reímos y yo me reí, imaginándome a Lamet en Qué Grande es el Cine, desdoblado en dos Lamets, así, independientes. Tendrían que ver a Lamet y me comprenderían al instante. Qué gran hombre, Lamet, cómo voy a hecharlo de menos cuando falte. De Prada promete, pero es que Lamet no puede sustituirse. Ay nada, que todo esto empezó tan sólo por explicarles lo que más me gustó del frío de la placita. Y es que de repente, nos dimos cuenta que teníamos el culo helado, y nos levantamos muertos de frío, como si de repente fueramos verdadera(mente) conscientes del alcance verdadero del frío. Así que comenzamos a andar y Jorge dijo te acompaño a buscar el taxi, y mientras íbamos a por el taxi al lugar que Jorge sabe por experiencia que siempre hay taxis, mientras íbamos a por el taxi decía, Jorge de repente me suelta "sí, porque yo de todo lo que me he planteado que estudié en la carrera de física, hay una cosa que de verdad no entiendo para nada: y es la luz. Nos colaron la falacia esa de la onda y la partícula, pero luego con la cuántica ya es que se lío todo y yo ya no entiendo nada de la luz. Y es muy fuerte que seamos físicos y no tengamos una idea clara de lo que es la luz, ¿no?". Y bueno, otro día les cuento lo que respondí. Porque yo creo que sí sé lo que es la luz.

No pyjamas

I came back, 4:36am, and I'm writing in front of the computer on my street clothes: no pyjamas. I always write on my pyjamas before going to bed: but today I didn't bother to change clothes. The fruitman without any costumes. Just the fruitman, as straight as it sounds.

Stoned

Like a rolling stoned. That's how I am now. Of course, I didn't grade the projects of my students: they waited for 8 days, they can wait one more day (shit: how i hated that late graded course project when I was a student... growing up is the story of a betrayal) Y qué bonito suena betrayal. Un torrente de agua, suena betrayal. Como Rayuela suena betrayal. Como una Rayuela modesta, tímida, nunca majestuosa. No, eso sería traicionarla. Buscar el adjetivo puro en lo impuro, la belleza incontestable en cada oración. Porque Rayuela es orar, no escribir. Y lo digo yo, que tambien suena betrayal, que no la he leído. Yo, rayuelo betrayado, que distraigo las horas (hu)(s)meando en mi cerebro con el humo del tráfico y del chocolate. Qué poco betrayal suena chocolate. Escribo en castellano en pos del inglés, de betrayal. Escribo, y debería orar: ¿cómo? Orar: el aluminio de la ventana se clava en mi pecho derecho, mirando al corazón. El corazón no siente nada, y sin embargo la lanza clavada en el otro pecho provoca dolor. ¿De dónde viene, dónde nace ese dolor si el corazón no siente? Quizá el corazón nada tenga que ver con el ese dolor. ¿No es entonces el dolor, aún, más terrible, cuando ya nada puede hacer el corazón? No sé que digo, y sin embargo siento la punzada de aluminio terrible en mi pecho derecho. Sí, ustedes tampoco tienen ahí el corazón, cerciórense tocando, ya verán. Todos tenemos el corazón a la izquierda: esa es la verdadera asimetría del mundo. Por esta razón tan simple, y a la vez tan compleja, la ciencia nunca podrá desvelar el misterio del mundo. Todos los latidos nacen del mismo lado. Y sin embargo, qué superior la sonoridad exquisita de derecha frente a izquierda. Porque la sonoridad de izquierda es absolutamente horrorosa, más aún si tenemos en cuenta lo importante que es la izquierda, el corazón a la izquierda, en este mundo: nada más y nada menos que la única asimetría verdadera. Qué jilipolleces digo y, sin embargo, cuánto me cuesta desmentirme, cuánto me cuesta parar de escribr, de orar. No puedo, no quiero. Ya te lo dije hoy, Torjman: tenemos que escribir ese libro. Te lo dije y me contestaste Rayuela, maldito betrayal. ¿Qué puede enseñarme que ya no sepa, que ya no pueda saber, no quiera? Es tarde y me dices aún que lea. ¿No ves que ya debería dormir mi sueño? ¿No ves que mañana I have lots of stuff to do? Really, I don't know. Beauty is in the shape of a tree leave, but we just can't retain it forever. One day it goes and... pluf, you never get it again. The story of a betrayal.

Grading

22:47 pm
I am about to grade my student's projects. The night is completely silent, so silent that only the breath of the computer can be heard. Absolute concentration on nothing: that's my current state of mind.

Good morning, lazyness

[current status: very high]
That's the book I bought today. The premise of the book is clear: we all hate working, most of us work only to see the size of our bank account increase at the end of each month. Thus, until today, companies have been taking advantage of us. Today, it is time to start taking advantage of companies: in other words, being as lazy as possible at work, without getting fired. The book the emerges as the perfect handbook to achieve complete lazyness without getting fired.
I don't know anything else. Specially, I don't know why it is that it is today that we should start changing our relationship with our employers. Why not ten years ago? Why today? I don't know. But I'm intringued, or I was intringued at the moment, and so that was enough for me to buy the book. And I am still intringued: yes, maybe for a different reason: I am maybe now, more intringued at why I was intringued when I decided to buy the book. Anyway, I'm too high. I go to sleep: I am going to dream a lot tonite, I can feel it.

Choche sentence

Even though he will not say, Choche is a true philosopher. And he is in Paris. And he told me that today, after I thanked him for being so nice to me:

"Since I cannot be optimistic about myself, I try to be optimistic about other people's lives"

(or, in the language of Choche: "Ya que yo no puedo ser optimista conmigo lo intento ser con los demás")

Berkeley

Bent made me think of Berkeley once more. I thought: why did I like it so much? or... did I really like it? What was so special about having a hot dog at Top Dog? About walking along Telegraph? About hiking up the hills? About eating meat with peanuts at a thai place? Nothing, really. Nothing I cannot find in Barcelona. And still, there is something about Berkeley... The past, always the past.

On the edge of madness

That's where I've been walking for the whole day, and still am... I am trying to get an hour of silence for the whole day, but it seems it's impossible. I still have to hear somebody speaking on the phone from the kitchen... fuck! Isn't it over 11pm? Do we still have to call at 11pm? Does the fact that I have not smoked for the whole day have anything to do with my madness? No, it has not.
Really, when you leave home at 8am and feel that at 11pm you cannot still feel some quiteness, something is wrong with your life. I am really stressed. I am. Yes. Plus I was rejected for this job I was really looking forward to. Fuck it.

The revenge of the mexicans

A month ago, four mexican guys rented the appartment downstairs. Today, my mother couldn't stand the noise anymore, and so, at 1am, with the rancheras playing really loud, she decided to go downstairs and ask them to turn off the music. They didn't reply when she rang the bell again and again. Instead, the turned off the music, and then sang a short song themselves, before complete silence took over. They were singing "No pasa nada": "It's alright". My mom thinks they were making fun on her. Anyway. Good thing is they didn't dare to open the door, so they can't know who was ringing their bell (unless they looked through the eye hole, which I doubt considering the amount of alcohol and pot on their blood). I've been told mexicans can be quite violent. In fact, I experienced mexican violence once. Belive me, you'd better take rancheras at 1am.

Songs are made of memories

I was finishing the lecture notes for my last lecture, and I received this email from Mr. Bonapster, with a link to the complete Songbook of The Beatles, with the lyrics and chords of all their songs to play on the guitar. Instinctively, I looked out for "While my guitar gently weeps", took out my old spanish guitar from the case of the past and started playing. I sang this:

I look, at you all, see the love, there that's sleeping,
while my guitar, gently weeps.
I look, at the floor, and I see it needs sweeping,
still my guitar, gently weeps.
I don't know why, nobody told you, how to unfold your love.
I don't know how, someone controlled you, they bought and sold you.
I look, at the world, and I notice it's turning,
while my guitar, gently weeps.
With every mistake, we must surely, be learning,
still my guitar, gently weeps

I don't know how, you were diverted, you were perverted, too.
I don't know how, you were inverted, no one alerted you.
I look, at you all, see the love, there that's sleeping,
while my guitar, gently weeps. Look at you all...
Still my guitar, gently weeps.

And then I tought, again, of Berkeley, and how I played that song on my computer hundreds of times, a version with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. Then:

Option 1) I felt nostalgic, I was sad, but I couldn't help putting the guitar away and going on with the preparation of the lecture.
Option 2) The song was too long and complicated, so I started playing a blues, got excited with a guitar solo of mine, and finally put away my guitar to go on with the preparation of the lecture.

Life is a combination of uncomplete(d) options, and songs are made of memories.

Gone with the smoke

It was there, it was there for me to grab it, to make it mine, to mould it my way... and I am still wondering how it escaped, how I do not remember at all what is it that I wanted to write two days ago that was so brilliant. Gone, gone with the smoke of the endless joint, friday night, gone... Only the memories of your faces are still alive.

Fences

"He has sat on the fence so long, the iron has entered his soul"
-- Lloyd George on Sir John Simon
(gently provided by gentle -a)

Wanting to

Yes, I really want to stay up all night writing: one of the cheapest, and yet less common pleasures in this modern world that absorbs our identity through total freedom. But see, I have to lecture tomorrow, I have to be fresh and ready to entertain my students... from 7pm to 10pm... man!
On the other side of this blog, Joaquin has taken a break from blogging: an excellent opportunity to go and (re)read his amazing path to the outer parts of the closet, and the deeper parts of himself. Good night, sweet dreams, sweet life.

Daily routine

"The activities that I find harder to get used to are the ones that I perform on a daily basis."

Googling around

Some of the last Google queries that lead to my blog:
1) Bertol Brecht Engineering
2) Fruitman of the year
3) Elizondo's Flower Shop
4) Grandma tits (this last one by msn, always so dirty...)
However, I assure you this is a serious blog.

Just a note to Joaquin

Maybe you're coming from his blog: then you know him already. Anyway, jojo man, I will change my quote on the blog when I find somewhere I belong, just as the cat in Breakfast with diamonds finally does. At least, I already have a name.

Friday evening-night

[current status: unfortunately, not high at all]
I slept from 8 to 9pm, while my mother was getting ready to go out. I thought of eating something and going to watch, all by myself, Melinda and Melinda. But finally I stayed home, and did what I have done so many times:
1) prepare a big pot of pasta with tomato, green pepper and courgette
2) eat the whole thing in front of TV
I zapped around betten two movies: Cast Away and Smoking Room. I was touched by Cast Away, the moment Tom has to let Wilson-the-soccer-ball go. I thought "why I am toched?" and yet I was touched. I couldn't help thinking of myself being Tom, how many times I've done the things Tom does in the lonely island. I've lived in many desert islands myself, that is the answer. It was 1am already, and I sat on the sofa to watch more TV: time for the light porn movies and the political debates. Ever since we started having local stations here, there's a lot of porn going on friday nights. And heavy one: seems they have to compete for the audience now.
Anyway, you see, it's 2am and still I keep the night alive. Very lightly, though. I think I am going to bed to embrace my Wilson pillow. My mother should be coming back soon. Good night.

Poem

Other, deeper lives will dry out my nostalgia,
the gift of courage will be granted to me.

Love will grow loyal and ever lasting,
unknown landscapes will preclude my sadness.

Oblivion and death, time and pain,
will stay for one night with those who were defeated.

We will turn off the lights, and a cinema
will make us alive with a short lie in the dark.

free, five minute version of "Invocacion" by Spanish poet Carlos Marzal.

Relief

I was talking to my mom how after a big intelectual effort, I do not feel hungry at all. Instead, all I want is rest in front of a movie, with pop corn, crisps and coke. And my brain just relaxes and expands again, leaving behind all the stress. Ah... happiness in relief is great.

Finished!

[status: not yet high]
Yes, I am done with the preparation of my first lecture at university. It was a pain, but it's well done I think. I wonder whether I should give the students the address to this blog... or maybe better create a new one. The blog of the perfect professor. :)

Hair-loss lotion

[current status: high]
I spend around 30 euros on hair-loss lotion every month. Last night, I thought that for 30 euros a month, you could probably feed a child or two. Inevitably, I thought whether I should stop buying the stupid hair-loss lotion and instead spend the money on the proper NGO. However, I thought, is that the way to go about global development? Of course, that was the eternal, rethorical question of all the students of human development (and I am one of them, even though I also lecture on e-business, God forgive me, I will also talk about the digital divide and what e-business can do to help erradicate it). The question is: do we first make sure we can all eat in the planet, or we go for a more balanced, global and self-sustainig development? Because if we all stop taking hair-loss lotion, then by induction, why not stop taking anything but food, helter and water? I tell you, I even thought of a whole new NGO that convinces bald people to be proud of their baldness, for they, without hair, help thousands of children eating something to survive everyday. And those with hair, yes, I know there are plenty of them out there, you readers I know you, yes, those with hair will have nothing to be proud of but a bunch of stupid hair on their heads. You know what, I think I go for the NGO. Or do I? Shit, I cannot lie. I hate meself. Or do I?

Please confirm you are a human bellow

[current status: high]
I just left a comment on a blog, and in order to confirm publishing the system asked me: "Please confirm you are a human bellow". I looked bellow, and there was an image of a strange combination of distorted characters and numbers. I was not confused because I am an experienced internet user, and so I just typed on a field underneath the combination of characters and numbers, and after clicking "publish" the comment was posted.
But then I thought: Isn't that TOO strange? I mean I am high now (sorry Joaquin I cannot send pot through email) but THIS is still TOO strange. What the hell does it mean "Please confirm you are a human bellow"? Because I tell you, I looked bellow and I couldn't tell whether it was human or not. Do they mean there's people who's not human bellow, and these are precisely the ones that are not human? Bellow what? Bellow my belly? Oh man, that's truely human.
But those characters... I mean I wished I was an expert on computer image patterns, just to devise a software who could interpret the distorted characters of the image. Shit. At least, they are quite considered, though: there's a link for the visual impaired, so they can pass an alternative, audio test instead. I wonder whether they ask you to touch bellow and type what you feel. I will have to try. Oh man, this world is getting weird. I just left a comment on what a beautiful metaphore for beauty was "Beauty smells like a heady mix of lavender and alcohol", and then they asked me to please confirm I was human. Still, beauty smells like a heady mix of lavender and alcohol.

Global Frienship [current status: high]

No, this is not a post about how nice cultural diversity and global understanding is. This is a post about the last four days I've spent preparing a presentation for my first university class as a "Professor" (on a one-month contract, though). I've been mostly in front of the computer, and so inevitably, I've talked to Joaquin about it. He's given good advice, as usual, and also a link to a 1st-day-of-class presentation by my best (and only ;) Russian friend -a. Then -a has popped out the MSN messenger, and I've asked him for a 1st-day-of-class trick to avoid shyness and stress altogether. His answer: "BE PREPARED, I wasn't".
Of course, there was also Choche. We met yesterday at his uni, and I during two long hours Choche listened at my first university class as a "Professor" (on a one-month contract, though). And Choche gave some good advice and meaningful critiques, too. On the way until today I also received an email from a japanesse friend: she will for sure overcome and repair the mental and physical mess after the terrible earthquake very soon. Another email came from southern-spanish -j and his trip to Paris, and from Hong Kong-based -g with the story of the sales person who reminded her that today was "all the saints" day.
All in all, a network of emotions, laughters, tears, advice, concern,... has been surrounding and filling me continuosly, providing the feeling of a net wisely placed under my void to prevent me from falling apart. Thanks you, and thanks me.

Preparing a lecture

I never thought it would be such a pain to prepare a lecture. I am sitting here in a chair that makes my back suffer so much (I once spent 6 hours shopping for a suitable chair: found none, and ended up with the worst pain in my back in years, so much sitting I did) I sit in front of the power point, move my ass to find THE comfortable position (because there is only ONE), look at the screen, move a little bit more, put my leg on the table, it still hurts but a bit better, i can start thinking of the lecture now... Ok, back to business. I have 30 mins already prepared, just 150 more to go... for the first of three lectures. Man, I should have asked for more money. Or a chair. Chairs in university have it all (what an awful joke, sorry)

My first post in Spanish (don't worry, there are still plenty of them in English, just scroll down)

Tras este largo título, supongo que sólo habrán quedado los que realmente merecen la pena. Según Joaquin, este título es una mierda, y sólo porque estoy high me parece brillante. Me parece brillante que sea brillante sólo porque estoy high, y me parece brillante que sea una mierda, y por sí mismo también me parece brillante. Miento: no me parece nada. Así que a lo que iba. Que me voy a cenar, que tengo hambre.

Nobody knows you when you're down and out

I got an email from -a saying this:

"perepere!
nobody loves me and I can't even play it...
I want these chords, my soul needs them, man!
-a. "

And so I replied:

"Here you have it, I hope it works for you.
You don't really need to make all the chords to make it sound nice.
It's more or less like life is: the beauty is in how you play it, not in
how it is supposed to be played.
I miss you around, man. Nobody wants to have chocolate here.
See you soon."

And the song is:

"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
(Eric Clapton Unplugged)

C E A7
Once I lived the life of a millionaire
Dm A7 Dm A7
Spending all my money didn't have any cares
F D7 C A7
Took all my friends out for a mighty good time
C G
We bought bootleg liquor, champagne and wine

C E A7
Then I began to fall so low
Dm A7 Dm A7
Lost all my good friends, had no where to go
F D7 C A7
If I get my hands on a dollar again
C G
I'll hang on to it, till that old eagle grins


Chorus:
C E A7
Because nobody loves you
Dm A7 Dm A7
When you're down and out
F D7 C A7
In your pocket, not one penny
C G
And as for friends, you don't have many.

C E A7
When you get back on your feet again
Dm A7 Dm A7
Everybody wants to be your long lost friend
F D7 C A7
I said it straight, without any doubt
C G
Nobody knows you, when your down and out."

Everybody should play this song at least once in their lives.

James 2

To honour James, I go have some little wines and sleep. Good night.

James

James provides little wines** to the wanderers of Plaza Catalunya that approach him. You look at James, James looks back and starts following you. You know why he follows you, because you've gone there just to have him follow you. At one point, James will ask you to sit down, and wait for him. In five minutes, he'll be back and ask you to stand up and walk, and again he will be stalking you. Do you have the dough? Yes, here. Ok, smell. Good? Yes, good. Ok. Bye James. Bye.
**little wines: jojo-mexican aception for grass.

Skin

This morning on the tube I found my face at just 20cm away from the face of a girl with the softest skin. It was the texture of a Godess, it was a skin that invited to bite the meat it covered so elegantly. It was a sculpture by Rodin suddenly claiming to be alive, ignorant of the world around it, and yet capturing it all. I wish I could only write better to describe how full of life I was when I felt the impulse of leaning towards her and touch the magical smell of the music of her face. But it was all in vain, as it is now, fourteen hours after.

Back to (virtual?) reality

I am now back. The drop that made the glass of my absence pour was when my dad told me last weekend "hey, I visited your chronicles and saw that you took a break". It seems to me like an eternity since I last sat in front of the computer to type some words on the Blogger interface, so slow that I almost gave up after waiting for 240 seconds for the page to load. Many things have been going on, among them a deep rethinking of myself and my coordinates on the network of chaos of this world. I have no conclusions, only confusion. And a list of things:
1) Choche is leaving us for Paris next week. The sentence "we will always have Paris" is now truer than ever.
2) I am giving six lectures at university during the month of November. I have yet to prepare the first one. Alyosha thinks I sold my soul to capital, since I will be talking about e-business.
3) Today I surprised myself singing La Cucaracha at the office.
4) Gay couples can now marry and adopt children is Spain.
5) I have the busiest month of November in years, and yet I decided to restart this old vice of writing.
6) I am still a fruitman, a fresh, impolute fruitman.

(a break)

after some days without finding a good reason to write, i have decided to take a break from blogging. nothing serious, no trauma or anything, just a break. see you soon.

New blog on the kids

With this ridiculous play on words, I announce you that I have just finished designing the draft of my second blog, des[h]uso (which is also a play on words, this one quite decent) It's a blog in Spanish (you have to learn Spanish! :) mainly focused on Sustainable Human Development. It's part of a project I proposed to my PhD classmates at the end of the last academic year, so we all would be able to post about events, articles, thoughts, pieces of news, etc. related to the topic above mentioned. Therefore, it will hopefully be an enriching, collective blog.
(on the superficial side of the thing, what do you think of the design? i didn't use a single table, everything is semantic markup!)

Developing Nations Creative Commons license

So today I learnt about this new and stupid Civil Code that is soon to be approved in Spanin, but I also learnt about the Creative Commons license for Developing Nations. The CC Developing Nations license allows you to invite a wide range of royalty-free uses of your work in developing nations while retaining your full copyright in the developed world. A developing nation is any nation which is not in this World-Bank list of high-income economies. For example, you might be a musician, writer, photographer or researcher that wants to maintain full copyright in North America and Western Europe, but welcome use by others in the country of Brazil.
To mark your work with the CC Developing Nations license, just go here.
To learn about Creative Commons, go here
Funny PS: CC licenses are protected by a CC license as well.
Serious PS: it's still not very clear how CC licenses work outside the US, though there are several projects to adapt them to as many countries as possible, and eventually the whole world.
Naughty Fruitman PS: i still haven't taken the time to copyleft my blog with a CC license.

They are getting there

So now it turns out that it is illegal to make your own copies or remixes of CDs for personal use, according to the new Civil Code of Spanish Law. The thing is: it is illegal to break any anti-copy mechanism of a CD. Therefore, since all CDs are nowadays protected in some way, any copy of a CD is illegal.
Paradoxically, the SGAE (the Spanish equivalent to the RIAA in America, the organism responsible of protecting the rights of authors) introduced last year a tax on every virgin CD sold on Spain, no matter whether you used it to store your drawings or to copy music, to "compensate for the loss of money due to CD piracy". Ever since last year, they've made 36 million euros. Now they think this tax is compatible with the new civil code, which makes it illegal to copy any protected CD. What do they want, law or market? You cannot have control over both. You cannot make people pay a tax to compensate for an illegal activity. It would be like charging a tax for guns, to compensate for the victims of murders (which is actually quite a good idea, by the way ... just that is screws my reasoning. anyway, you know what i mean)

Back to Woody Allen

I am now heading off to read an interview with Woody Allen. Every year, Woody comes to Europe to present his new movie, and gives an interview to El Pais, the best spanish newspaper. This year, he presented the movie at San Sebastian instead of Venice, something which has made all the Spanish film lovers very proud of their country.
It's a tradition that I particularly like to follow: on wednesday, Woody presents the movie. On Friday, you have the comments about his new movie (always the good ones) And to finish the week, the Sunday newspaper has an interview with Allen on the magazine. He will have a couple of sentences to make me think and laugh. I love him, I love the people who make me think and laugh, and don't ask for anything but thoughts and laughters in exchange.

En Guerra

Today I visited the exhibition En Guerra (At War) at the Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona. It was an amazing exhibition, both at the content and form levels (you have until the 26th of this month to see it, don't miss it!)
Of all the data I was faced with, a simple fact particularly striked me: the main difference between the latest wars and the "traditional" wars is that the number of civil deaths is now much greater than the number of deaths of soldiers. Wars are now suffered mainly by those who don't fight them, quoting a text from the exhibition.

Old writing

I've been just re-reading the literary stuff I've been writing for the last several years. I've started a couple of novels and several short stories. The stuff just doesn't look as what I would write now, even what I wrote last year. I suppose it means I don't have a clear style yet, or maybe that I just start random things without thinking much about it. I am afraid my life is a bit like this also, and I am entering a period in life when I am seriouly thinking about where I am going, or at least making the effort to think about it. But I don't really arrive at any conclusions. The most clear effect, though, is that I don't dare to start anything big. I don't dare to sit down and start writing my PhD project, because I'm not quite sure about the PhD I'm taking. I don't dare to start as a freelance web designer, because maybe that's not for me. Maybe now, but not in ten years time. And the same with any other ideas that ramble down my mind. Maybe this is what thinking about one's life is. (this is the natural end of this post, but I'll keep writing something else, trying to get my unconscious part out. you're free to stop reading here, furthremore, I strongly recommend it)
So you kept reading, and I kept writing. See? I am even lazy to make something good out of this post. Maybe something big is not for me. Maybe I am too old and too afraid of life to start thinking it all over again. Maybe I am ok like this, and I resist to accept it. I don't know. I told you it was not worth to keep reading.

Hypertext

Today I went to a conference by Ted Nelson, the creator of the original project of hypertext, also known as Project Xanadu. The man was quite cool (he started the conference by singing republican songs from the Spanish Civil war, and eventually almost cried) but frankly speaking, I didn't understand what he was trying to explain. Appartently, the web is just an infantile and quite simplistic version of what hypertext really is about. I will think about it.

Network society

Exxonsecrets.org is an excellent website that exposes the connections between the giant oil company Exxon and the funding of organizations that challenge global warming. The website's interaction system (done with Flash) is amazing, as well as the loads of information you can find. You will be able to pick up from a database of hundreds of people and organizations, and start building connections between them. A truly interesting project funded by Greenpeace, materialising the metaphore of the network society we live in.

Carlinhos and Bebo

I am just back from a concert by Carlinhos Brown and Bebo Valdés. It was a pity because you could hardly hear Bebo's piano, but appart from that I had some fun trying to dance brazilian music. They say you can't help moving when you listen to it... can you, Bernie?

Template

I've done some changes to the template, so it should look OK with Firefox now. I've found out that I've you mistakenly write an extra "}" in the stylesheet, Firefox will not interpret the styles correctly. Internet Explorer does. Which one is better? Talking about styles, the blog definitely needs a facial wash... don't you think it looks too blue?

Kerry way ahead

A new poll shows Kerry leading, 46 percent to 20 percent, marking an incredible turnaround from the latest polls, which have Bush up by between 7 and 11 points.
PS There's something fishy about this post, I know. Find out yourself.

Quotes from my readers

I've been re-reading my blog (one of the best things of keeping a blog is being able to re-read it) and found two quotes from my readers lost among the comments. I should keep another blog with the comments. Here are the quotes:
"Everyone has to make himself, otherwise you are lost" by Choche.
"Luck is irrelevant to live life" by Joaquin.

Nothing better?

Now it turns out that the New York Times has published a letter where Bush Jr was accused of disobeying some orders while at the army. But the story does not end here. The story is that a bunch of geek bloggers have discovered that this letter is a hoax, and that it was actually written with Microsoft Word. They printed the same letter with Word and, alas!, it matched perfectly the one of the New York Times. An explanation of the whole process of letter matching can be found here. Really, is it that people have nothing better to do? Who cares about Bush and the army, when the guy actually started an illegal war? I don't really understand what kind of games are we playing lately.

Truth?

I was going to download a piece of software. Before starting the download, I had to choose one my operating system. My option was this one:
"Windows installer (If you don't know what you want, you probably want this)."
I felt sort of insulted by the comment, but I guess it's the truth.
Goodnight, the fruitman is going to get a well deserved, long sleep.

No to Edinburgh

I had been preselected for a three-year, full PhD scholarship at Napier University in Edinburgh. Finally, after a lot of thinking, I said I wouldn't go. I hope it was for the best. I think so, at least.

Ianwalk

I just wrote about Ian and his trip from Argentina southern to Alaska on foot. He's done Argentina so far, a year walking. The site's really worth checking. Here are a few words from the homepage:
"My destination? Alaska. That's a physical goal, and it'll happen. I've found another, a better destination: being who I am at any given moment, in any given place, with any given person"
You can also find the answers to the fourth questions he's been asked more often so far:
"Why in hell would you want to do that?"
"Why don't you just drive, dude?"
"You're gonna die, man!"
"Is there a cause? You gotta have a cause
And so from the textlinks you get "In hell, just drive, die, you gotta have a cause". Nice sentence (I insist, this blog is experimenting with a circular, postmodernist attempt to metaliterature)

Travelling man

Ktur (only in Spanish) is making his way around South America, where he met his friend Ian (who once had dinner at my place, and said it looked quite smart to be a students' flat... he was quite embarrassed when I answered it was my mom's place). Ian is trying to travel from the southest of South America to the northest of North America on foot. Yes, on foot, many thousand kilometers. Commenting on Ian, Ktur believes that to live life as intensely as possible, you should walk it on foot. Interesting thought that I wanted to share with you, my dear readers (Ktur included, so this blog starts experimenting with circular, postmodernist attempts to self-deconstructing metaliterature inspired by the nietzchean concept of the eternal repetition of the soul)

Perino

I am thinking of baptising my computer, following the tradition joaquin has of naming things. Options are:
1) Perino: that's my two italian flatmates in London used to call me, a sweet but rather melancholic name to me, since I will remember London each time I read perino.
2) FruitPC: I think I reserve this name for when I have a Mac - FruitMac is so much cooler.
3) Mr. Bancroft: a rather aristochratic name, with berkelenian connotations.
4) CAS: from Ctrl Alt Sup, the combination of keys to restart Windows with an spanish keyboard.
5) Felangi: I like the exotic flair of that name.
6) Byteman: a variation of fruitman, maybe too geek to be good.
Anyway, I think I suddenly lost my inspiration after the second name. I just hope naming my kids will be easier.

Thanks again, Oscar

I think this sentence is going to be my motto for the next few years, at least until I finally achieve that independence of the soul that I so badly need. I will also make my beloved mother and father learn it by heart, word by word, sound by sound, letter by letter.
The sentence had to be from Oscar Wilde, of course:
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes"

Fear

Ok, I think the system's up and running again. However, I can't help being afraid, afraid that it will sooner or later crash. I guess it will be some months since I trust you again, dear winxp.

Result of trying to install Linux

3 hours of my friday
5 hours of my saturday

Free

Not without sadness, I'm installing Windows all the way over again. I installed Linux, played with it for a while, and then decided to install my wireless internet connection. After downloading the drivers from another computer, I found out that I need an masters of science on Linux just to be able to set up the thing. I asked Choche for help, but there was nothing he could do. Let's see whether Windows preserved some of the Linux, because I just partitioned the hard disk so many times I don't know anything anymore. Ok, no more geek posts for a month.

To good to be true

The burning failed. Start again, fruitman, and be patient. For pacience is the medicine for a happy life.

Last CD

Ok, last CD burning already... just 10 mins to go, and I will format the whole thing... Sorry for the boring follow up of the events, but this is my life today at 4:50 am. I wonder how many people are making love right now, just as I finish this post.

You should be able to copy-paste time

Yes, that's exactly what I think now. It's 4:29am, and I am so happy copying things from my HD to CDs, reviewing my old short-stories, surfing the net and just being solitary, but not lonely. However, I'm going out to have lunch with my granpa tomorrow, so I should think of going to bed right now. Then, after lunch, I will have some 3 hours I really won't be doing anything at all... so why cannot I copy-paste those hours to give me more time to enjoy now? Ah, we need an Einstein, but with an engineering degree. I'm sure he (ok, also she :) would make it possible.

Cleaning up

Yes, that's what I'm doing with my PC, cleaning up... and transferring all the files to CDs... man, so painful it is!
After that, I plan to install Linux and free my computer from the blue screen, now appearing to me around 10 times a day, seriously.
PS Though I think the best thing would be to buy a brand new Mac... I was at A's house today, saw hers, and couldn't help but salivating. It's not that it's a great interface or ease of use, but man, it's so good to be able to work without crashing the operating system whenever you want to burn a CD, work with dreamweaver and check out some webpages...

Reply to the misterious MSN gay guy

So I replied to him... "I think I am not"
Then he signed out. After four hours, though, when I had just came back from lunch, the guy attacked back with a "Why do you think you're not?" (I wonder whether he needed four hours to figure out the reply)
I replied with a rather obvious sentence, and then asked him how he had found my email address.

Auto-destructive art found its way...

When is a bag of rubbish not a bag of rubbish? When it's an integral piece of a high-profile exhibition at one of London's most famous galleries.
Sadly, though, the distinction was lost on a cleaner at Tate Britain who chanced on the bag - part of an installation by Gustav Metzger called Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art - and promptly threw it out.
Read the whole piece at The Guardian

Intermission

Today, a guy got into my MSN messenger's contacts list and asked me whether I'm gay. It was 9:06am, I had just arrived in the office and turned on the computer.

Naked Blues

Yesterday, I learnt that walking naked around Barcelona (including public buildings) is a right we the citizens have. It's legal.

Being geek

I came across www.stopdesing.com and couldn't help looking at its source code. I learnt about the "inline" CSS property, which allows you to basically forget about tables whenever you think of coding a navigation bar again. I had my geeky minutes. I wonder why I'm not already in bed reading Soldiers of Salamina, the only novel I haven't put down after 100 pages for the last three months.

Revenge

Part of my work consists of sending "informative" emails to thousands of people, "asking" them to sign up for very interesting educational courses. Some people like to call it spam, we at our company call it e-mail marketing. Well, the thing is that those thousands of people are taking their revenge, and they are doing it through my computer at home. For the last two days, I've been constantly getting pop up windows urging me to ask for information precisely about the educational courses we at our company promote. Computers are becoming too intelligent. And too annoying, for intelligence is the first step to annoyance.

Give me a good poem

So I was about to go to sleep, but thought it'd be nice to put a poem on the blog. I couldn't think of any, so I told google "give me a good poem!" Here's what he replied, after two clicks of the mouse:

I like a good poem
one with lots of fighting
in it. Blood, and the
clanging of armour. Poems

against Scotland are good,
and poems that defeat
the French with crossbows.
I don't like poems that

aren't about anything.
Sonnets are wet and
a waste of time.
Also poems that don't

know how to rhyme.
If I was a poem
I'd play football and
get picked for England.

Roger McGough

How long should a hug last?

On my way to work, I saw a kid waiting in front of the doors of prison. A man came out the doors. The man and the kid hugged. I passed by them, they were hugging. I turned my head back: they were hugging. Before going down the stairs to the subway, I looked at them for the last time: they were still hugging, as if 54 seconds were not enough for a hug. I thought of the man and the kid for some time. I thought I'd write about them here. I do it now, 16 hours later, before going to sleep. With nobody to hug, and yet, nothing to complain about.

Entropy

Physicists like to invent new concepts. If they don't, they do not enter the History of Physics. One of the concepts that I used to admire the most when I was a physicist is entropy. The concept is easy and straight forward (just as every concept in physics has to be): entropy is something which always increases or remains the same, just the opposite of my savings. That said, I go to sleep.

Shaved

With my left hand still hurting, today I shaved my face and made my way into a week of deep philosophical thinking about how the coming months will change my present life. An indian guy told me in Hong Kong that the next three months will be very important to me (according to someone, though, he was only trying to get some money from me... so I left the indian guy, not without fearing that he would curse me) Whenever I shave, something is going on. The state of the art is basically this one:
1) I have a job that's not really satisfying, both at the material and philosophical level. However, it's a job and if I work hard I might get a raise soon.
2) I cannot really figure out a job that's satisfying enough (options include: content management at an online newspaper, web usability at a consultancy company, online marketing at an advertising agency)
3) I started a PhD that is now demanding a dissertation plan, but about what? And with what funds? And with what energy, time and willingness given that there are no funds?
4) There's a 1000 euro postgradutate course on online journalism, web usability and content management: looks attractive and the possibilities of getting employment contacts are high... but is that the way I want to walk? Will I also get bored of that working field? (as you can see, 2 is directly related to 4)
Anyway, the thing is that it is monday, the beggining of my deep philosophical thinking week, and after shaving the progress to some tangible results has been awesome. I now have 4 options. I hope tomorrow I have many more. I am still not excited enough.

The fruitman in Hong Kong

So here you have me, in front of the skyline of Hong Kong, on this picture that makes me kind of dizzy when I look at it.

But we only live once...

Yesterday night, Jorginho said something that made me think: "you know, I would like to do many things in life... if we had seven lives, I would even have one as a politician; but we only live once, so you gotta choose". Maybe that's my main problem: I want to be so many things.
Here's a list: harmonica blues player, cinema student in Cuba, short-stories writer in Barcelona, millionaire traveller, photographer in Brazil, anthropologist at Berkeley, journalist at Lamma island, editor in New York, chinese teacher in Barcelona, pizza master in Toscana,...
Ok, writing that list was very helpful. I can see myself beign each an every item of the list, and still feel as sad as I am somedays like today. Good relief.

Bored, sad, etc.

Today I feel like saying that life's boring and sad, that blogging is boring and sad, that everything is boring and sad. And it's all because I hate being so far from the person I love, I hate my work and I hate hating. The hatredom somehow finds its way through every corner of my inner and outer world, corrupting it very subtly, so that I in fact think that life's boring and sad. Really, I cannot see myself in two years time. And that kills me.

Back to daily routine

I am back from some of the best three weeks of my life. No, back from the best three weeks of my life. In Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Lamma island. With the one I love. With lots of amazing urban and rural landscapes, but also lots of talking, food, movies and lazy hours just on bed, looking at each other, kissing each other, caressing each other.

Fruitman super star

The fruitman was seen yesterday night wandering around Lan Kwai Fong, a popular nightlife area in Hong Kong. A girl approached the fruitman and asked him whether he was interested in doing a casting for a commercial. The fruitman was suprised. The girl said the fruitman has "character". The fruitman was flattered, and accepted. The fruitman is going now for a casting in Hong Kong.

digital pics

mmm today i got on this bus around hong kong, and took literally hundreds of pictures... colors and movement everywhere, my camera capturing it all... i am sure among a hundred pics, there will be a masterpiece. or sort of.

If you ever

If you ever see this Movenpick ice-cream, creme brule flavour, buy it, eat it and thank the fruitman. It's heaven taste.

Just a week

It's a week for me to leave Hong Kong and get back to work far from my love. From now on, it will be our last monday, our last tuesday, our last wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday.

Curry

Today I had one of the best curries I have ever had. Man, it's so good when curry is good.
Plus, I also got an harmonica that has me playing it around all the time.
Bad thing: I went to the cinema to watch Collateral, with Tom Cruise. Just another crappy american movie (but the sweet popcorn was sweet, indeed)

do it with one hand

for the first time, i write a post with just one hand. why? cause i fell. i climbed a big rock to take a picture. i got all excited because it was a great picture. i forgot i was on top of a big rock. i walked back. there was no floor to stand on. i fell. i hit my hand. it hurts. i am in hong kong with a hand that hurts. i can't write capital letters.

Keep on

The marathon of sensations kept on for the last two days. So many things that I have to sit down for a while to organise them inside my brain, and then write. Now, I'm off to China. To the real one. I will be crossing the border in two hours. On foot. Like I did from the US to Mexico.

Hong Kong, day 1

It's been one day in Hong Kong, and all I can say is I'm confused. Sizes, densities, faces, tastes, smells, paces... everything so different and yet so familiar at the same time. I'm too constrained by the jet lag. I need more time to get some conclusions about the overload of sensations and information I am getting.   

Falling asleep and the meaning of life

I am falling asleep, but i need to keep myself awake, so that i'll be really sleepy tomorrow, and when i get on the plane to china late at night, i'll finally fall asleep like a baby.
That reminds me of my childhood, when my cousin and I, before our yearly trip to the Alps, tried to keep ourselves awake so that we would be able to sleep on the car the day after, and therefore avoid the boredom of a seven hour car trip. Of course, we kept ourselves awake, but didn't manage to sleep a minute on the car the day after.
I guess I didn't learn anything from my childhood.

China

That's where I am heading off tomorrow. For the next three weeks, I'll be in China.
For the next three weeks, the fruitman chronicles will become the fluitman clonicles.  

Reading and sleeping late

I've been reading a lot lately to prepare for something BIG. Actually, I'm just trying to figure out what I am going to write for my thesis, how can I connect it with what i did, how can i connect it with the course i want to teach, and how can i, after all, connect it with a decent life. Man, i go to sleep.

Machado and the use of thirst

This is adapted from what I remember of a quote by Machado:
"Everybody knows that water's use is to calm your thirst down. But what is the use of thirst?"

Loft, feng shui, orchata, ping-pong

Today I visited my friend Al at his new appartment. It's a 40m2 loft
with a lot of light and a cute bar separating the kitchen from the
living-bed room. However, Al wants to separate the bedroom from
the dinning room, because it turns out that the "loft" concept is now
outdated. Nowadays, it turns out, you have to look for the feng shui
concept, and that implies capturing the "chi" around us. So, maybe
putting some curtains between the bed and the living room might achieve
a better chi balance. I don't know. Maybe he could check with these feng shui consultants.

After this loft-feng shui debate, we had a walk around the neighbourhood and drank an excellent orchata
at Sirvent, and then we started talking about how Al has been lately
playing games he hadn't played since childhood. I was happily surprised
by Al's confession, since lately I have also been playing lots of games
long forgotten since childhood. We didn't quite find a reason for this
common feeling of ours, and thus made an appointment to play ping-pong next week.

New tools

Following the steps of the wise Joaquin, I installed Mozilla Firefox (browser) and Mozilla Thunderbird (email client). To my dissapointment, I discovered that I cannot get my hotmail messages on Thunderbird, because they use "proprietary protocols"... This is quite terrible for me, since I like to have total power over my accounts with a single email client software... Let's see.
As for the rest, everything is perfect, though I still have the tendency to click on the "e" of internet explorer... How long will it last? How deep is microsoft rooted into my brain?
Another thing: these Mozilla guys make all the information about their products so easy to find... you feel as they were not hiding anything, as they wanted to make your life so much easier with tech stuff... is it that difficult for microsoft to understand that this is what users want? Why is it that a decentralised project like Mozilla gets such a good centralisation of all the necessary information? I guess these are the geeky questions that I need to ask myself every once in a while, just to feel that the masters degree in information systems actually taught me something...

Leaving

My friend Joaquin is leaving Berkeley right now. I know it since some days ago, but it wasn't until today, before having dinner, that a strange sadness penetrated every single muscle of my body. A part of myself is also leaving Berkeley. One day, on the hills, we had the bay at our feet. The grass was green, the soul was blue. You were holding a note book with your hands, and I was trying to read some political economy paper. But the bay was stronger. The bay, always the bay.

Names...

Following the wisdom of ethno-queer, I took a walk into the Ethnic Stud Name Generator. All this name means is: you go to this webpage, you introduce your name, and you get a sexy Spanish name in return... I tried "Fruitman" and got "Francisco Amante". I tried "Bonapster" and got "Beatriz Amante"... so you see, bonapster, we are brother and sister after all. And you're a woman.
p.s. trying "choche" gives you "Consuela Sanchez", for those of you who were wondering...
p.s. (II) there's also a japanese name generator... so Mr Fruitman in the island of Japan is known as "Saruwatari" (monkey on a crossing bridge) and Choche is known as "Sachiko" (child of fortune)... life is wonderful.

Merchandise

Reading Queerecology, I saw that Spencer has his own T-shirt designs, and bags and stuff. It's all made by an online third party, and if I'm not wrong anybody with a good (or bad) design can set up an e-commerce site selling her/his own designs. What about "fruitman t-shirts"? It should read "fc" on the front (heart height), and on the back it should say "I am a proud reader of the Fruitman Chronicles". Another t-shirt would read "I am not Choche, but I know him". What do you think, Bonapster?

Done!

Finally I finished my last (I hope) PhD course... I gave the presentation today and feel sooooooo free. Everything worked fine, now I just have to get an "official" stamp to convalidate my studies in the States. Bernie, you'll have to help me with that, pleaaaassee. Ah, whenever I finish some hard work, I feel like I don't want to sleep.

Brrrr

It's f 45 minutes I am trying to send out my presentation for tomorrow to my dear classmates... Hotmail does not want to work today. My other account does not want to work today. My other other account does not work either. All full of spam. All full of shit. I hate it, cause I can't even delete the stuff. Ay.

Finetech did what it had to

Yes they did. And fast. The comments are up and running again.

Flash game

If you have some 5 minutes to spare, check this flash game out.

I was there from 08/2001 to 06/2002

Isn't it nice? The background is so much like a film set... I just felt nostalgic once again when I looked at that picture. I wonder how long nostalgy for a place does remain within ourselves... As long as we are living alive, I suppose.

One more quote for the road by Jose Alfredo

My friend Jose Alfredo says this when writing about some piece of code he is developing: "No te preocupes por ellos si todo funciona; si hay algo que no va, entonces el error dirá qué es lo que falta."
... which should be something like this in English: "Do not worry about them if everything works fine. If something doesn't work, then the error will tell you what is lacking"
Ah, if we could always know what the "error" is! ...
Where is the "error" when I look for him/her? (interesting: is error male or female?)
And when I find him/her, why doesn't he/she seem to speak with clear, understandable words, or just speak at all?
Interesting thoughts attack my mind whenever I take a sentence out of its original context... You are very inspiring to me, Jose Alfredo! Yes you are!
**Free sponsoring space: Gata, the ultimate Linux websites generating tool, by Jose Alfredo Cañizo Rincon, a really smart guy** (I am so good at online marketing... **Pere Rovira Samblancat, online marketing expert, a really smart guy too, in a way**)

Paying the cost to be the boss

A song by BB King as the title of this post.
I finally did it. Lazyness and lack of time made me pay for the commenting system I had been using for free until some days ago. 21,57 euros go to Finitech Consultants. I hope this post will help me remember the day when I payed, so that next year they don't automatically bill me for one more year (in a year, I will surely have built a super blog with a super commenting system, everything with movable type or wp or whatever, but for free:) )
p.s. i also payed because, otherwise, I was going to loose all the comments that you my dear readers had been writing so patiently... the real raison d'etre of this blog... you see, at least i love you as much as 21,57 euros :)

Random stuff

Yes, it's more the title of a section than the title of a post, but it came out like this. I finally finished my PhD presentation for Thursday: "ICT and Sustainable Development". I am very proud of it, specially for the play on words I invented and put as a conclusion of the presentation: "from bytes to bites". It's true: we should move, many times, from bytes to bites. Reality bites.
(Nnow I wonder why I titled this post "random stuff", and then I remember what I wanted to write, and how just now I have censored myself because I don't want the things I was thinking to appear on this blog... yes, I wrote them and deleted them, and wrote this instead)

Mosquitos

They are coming. As i write this post, the light attracts them. One stops on the wall before me, just by the window. I catch a supermarket brochure to kill it, and he flies away, as it could hear me. I keep writing, more of them come.

No comments

It's confirmed: the commenting system doesn't work anymore. I have to pay 20 euros for it. Don't know what to do. The bastards didn't even send me an email to tell me about it. But I don't want to loose all the comments....

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.

Just a note

(May is almost over... and so is the month of my 26th birthday... happy birthday to me, and to all of those who want one!)

The Catcher in the Rye

That's one of the first novels that really got me sticked to it until I finished it. I've read it three times, never the English version, though (I've seen it a couple of times at this bookstore I go once or twice every week, so I guess it won't be long until I get it in English) I read it first when I was 15, and for a couple of years you could endlessly find in my short stories the "I mean" that Holden Caulfield repeats every now and then in The Catcher... Anyway, I was looking for the begining of the novel on the internet, so you could share it with me, but I ended up finding this other quote that I found somewhat interesting:
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." ~ Chapter 22, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye.