Ibane’s ramblings
“The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc is bound to be noticed.” S. KierkegaardA decade of emptiness…maybe?
The other day discussing with some friends about music, art and Tiger Woods, I raised the question ‘What would they consider the movement including music, fashion, art,…that could define the last decade? As for example punk did in the 70s’. The answers were vague and there was not for example a band that we could agree to be like the band of the decade. A bunch of good bands but not the band that you will listen to them in 20 years and you will say ‘that’s so 2000’.
I have done this exercise with different groups of friends and people from different backgrounds and the answers are as different as individuals. My first thoughts were that the inability to find what would be the cultural movement that represent the decade means that we have left behind a decade of emptiness and decadence in creativity. Later, thinking about it a bit more, I thought that this decade is the decade of the facebooks, twitters, myspaces, blogs,…it has been the decade where everyone feeling some creativity inside could share with millions and millions of people almost instantly, and if something cool is happening it gets old-fashion as quick as it gets trendy. So it might be that we have lived some good moments during this decade, it might be that we just missed it because we were busy with facebook.
In any case, there are still some days to end this decade so there is time to have some band of the decade and all that. Oh no…Enrique Iglesias singing again. I guess not then.
memories
Going through one of my messy drawers I found an old wallet that I used to have as teenager. In there I could find some old ski passes, old movie tickets and a note from my father. I had forgotten about these things, and being honest, I don’t remember why I decided to keep them in first place. I was not surprised about the ski passes and the movie tickets, since these two things I love to do, I smiled when I discovered that in the movie tickets that I had written down the title of the movie, the date and the people who I had gone with, anticipating that the time would erase the original printing in the ticket as it had hapenned, now you can’t read anything but my handwriting. Among the people were friends, people did not mean that much, family, friends that are not here any more,…it was a little journey through my memories in that Madrid that seems gone forever. However, among the things found in that wallet, what it really surprised me was the note from my father. He is not very emotional person, it can look even a cold person to the outsider’s eyes, but I always remember that in birthdays and special occasions he used to leave to me and my brothers a note with some quote or poem carefully chosen. This one that I kept is from Antonio Machado, it is not very known poem, or at least it was not known by me, and I don’t know why I decided to keep this one. The only explanation I can imagine is that it talks about dreaming…activity which I am very grateful because it has kept me floating in the absurd reality. I wonder why my father chose it. I will never ask, probably. Here it is anyway.
Yo voy soñando caminos
de la tarde. ¡Las colinas
doradas, los verdes pinos,
las polvorientas encinas!…
¿Adónde el camino irá?
…
Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
my first marathon
I run my first marathon some weeks ago and I never thought that I would spend so good time running it. Being honest, I was having serious doubts about finishing it because I had not trained as much and as good as I have wished. But once I was there, late, and I started to run I understood that the race was not going to be about how much training or preparation I had done. It was, at least for me, a real challenge for my mind. Facing myself and pushing my limits. I knew it that I would not give up.
I do not remember what I was thinking along the 42km and 195 m but I remember the joy of the challenge, the trip that took me to face with my fears and an unexplored parts of my mind. Someone said:”If there is no risk, it is not worthy”. I subscribed that.
achievements
The other day I woke up with the story that for first time in history there will be more than 1000 million people hungry in the world (according to World Food Program). This kind of news always puzzles me and leaves me in shock. No because of the dimension of the tragedy, which it is, startled because next to that story you can read things like how many millions of euros/dollars bankers will distribute in bonuses or similar. I know, I can be accused of demagogic thinking, not seeing the global picture, that it is more complicated than that and all that crap. But the fact is that despite of having several organizations like UN, UNICEF,…with very important people leading them, in addition to that, hundreds and hundreds of non-governmental organizations fighting against admirable causes and having as contributors a lot of westerners with bad conscience, despite of Bono and his friends with their concerts, Angelina with her programs and Madonna adopting children, despite of all that, we are achieving that today people are dying because of hunger, as of the beginning of the times. Here the word evolution lost its meaning.
So I think that there is no more left that congratulate everyone because of the good job. Good morning and good luck.
P.S.: Please Bono another concert no.
western spirituality
Last night I watched a documentary from Louis Theroux, a very funny British journalist, which always deals with extravagant topics in his documentaries with a lot of English humor. Last night it was about India and the westerns going there looking for spirituality, healing their souls or similar. When I was watching it I couldn’t help to have uncomfortable feeling that something was not right. Seeing all this western whitey people practicing some type of yoga with fancy linen clothes and few meters away there is some slum without the basics needed for having a decent human life.
We, westerns tend to think that we are really good people, in most of the cases, except maybe George W. Bush and the plastic surgeon of Nicole Kidman, and with our actions we do no harm and even we do good. But I wonder if all these people that are looking for something doing some fancy crazy shit in some remote location in the Third World would get back to their countries and demand something serious from their governments like stopping weapons trade, better distribution of wealth or similar instead of doing some bullshit yoga in some lost beach with some guru crazier than a coconut. I wonder what would happen.
Anyway, see you next post, I need to go to yoga.:)
the less option
Nowadays when we need to make a choice the options available have really become limited. Today I find myself choosing between a horrible movie or horrendously boring one. So I always try to choose the one I think that it is going to be _less_ boring. And this is exapnding to other areas of my life, I am choosing the politician that I think that will be _less_ incompetent and will steal _less_ from public funds, I am choosing the bank which will ripped me off _less_, the mobile network operator that will abuse _less_ with their roaming, and in that way we can go on and on…so I am not sure if it is me that my state of mind is troubled these days or it is just that the world has become a really _less_ quality place. No doubt it must be the first reason…or _less_
old-fashion industry
I have been after a DVD movie for some years and I finally found it, but due to an old fashion business model where our music and entertainment industry is stuck with, I can’t buy and enjoy legally. Either I move to the country where I would not have the region restrictions or I pay the rights to produce the DVD in the region where I live. It sounds everything so last century.
I really hope that change come to these guys and understand that internet and people moving around the world is a reality. In the mean time I will have to find an alternative way to get that movie….
Bottle shock…
I just watched “Bottle Shock” (2008) and it has been disappointing it. I remember to read the contreversy with the rights on the true story and all that. The journalist tried to frame the movie in some kind of “Sideways 2” flavoured it with some independent film maker shit.
The movie is just bad. Some scenes are embarrasing, and it is a shame that something so honourable like wine is involved in this movie. I almost felt to stop drinking…well…it was not that bad.
I am fixing it now with some episodes of “The Wire”, excellent tv show. Surprisingly, it is in the tv shows where creativity and quality seems to be right now.
Oh no…a new film of Pedro Almodovar is screening in my city…why?
5 Reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook
Here they are my reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook:
1. Twitter is not bothering you with ads to sell you Viagra or some other shit.
2. People in Twitter usually have more interesting posts than in Facebook. I am not interested in how drunk you were last night or how cool you feel in Japan. Just say something interesting please.
3. Poke application, are you serious? after being poked is that suppose to make you feel better or something?
4. Twitter does not have stupid and wasteful applications. Do you want a virtual Gin Tonic? Do you want an egg or bunny? No,I don’t. Thanks.
5. Twitter founder is not wearing flip flops and jeans. Mark, really, it is not that cool to wear them.
Obviously tomorrow I will change my mind.
Modern Times
Retiro Park
The other day discussing with a friend about the different books that we have been reading along our lives we realized that we had many in common, but also we reached the same conclusion about the current literary scenario. That the more you read the classics more difficult you find to read one of these “wonders” of the modern literature that nowadays they are flooding the bookstores. It is often that I have thought who has time to go through the ridiculous amount of new books, I don’t but I can be doubted about my time management skills. Also every month there is a new Dostoevsky of our century, or the young Proust or any other absurd adjectives or tricks used to sell. I have been wondering when these guys, Dostoevsky, Henry James, Thomas Mann,…were writing and publishing their books how they were reaching the people, I mean, were they using the same annoying tricks or they were just writing for the sake of writing with no expectations. It would be interesting to know because currently the marketing machine has taken over the content. So it is more important to have a nice package and someone able to say that stupid things without sounding too stupid, so you can make sure a big junk of sales, than the content itself. But in an exercise of innocence and naiveness maybe with this crisis everything changes…
Ibane's ramblings 