I saw the light(ing)

I plan to see Wolfgang Tillmans' exhibition next Sunday just to feel again in a space where each picture is a window on a dimension where the spectator can go from the abstract amazement to the intimacy of the photographer's friends. How to describe Tillmans? Okay, from the technical point of view he can do studio, journalism, landscapes, portraits, and uses all possible angles. He uses black and white, filters, natural light, flash light, reflectors... not an Annie Lebovitz who is specialized in one thing and is very good at it, he gets stimulated by almost everything and succeeds to put it together in a close-to-random 'order'. I want to be inside of his head just once more, to see if I get to understand mine.

The B word, revisited

Renée Flemming (opera singer) is just... divine. Now tell me something I have not heard; she has won Grammies and recorded for The Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Yet being there, at Bellas Artes, watching her all dressed in red and surrounded by a symphonic orchestra made me think how much beauty there was in the way she felt all the songs.

Once my brother told me about a Russian violinist we were watching: 'He is really good', I asked why and he said: 'Can't you see how he feels the music and closes his eyes, how he is passionate about what he's playing?'

So Renée Flemming was beyond 'really good', she made people feel like crying, even (or specially) when she sang something in Czech - a very sentimental tune of Dvorak on God knows what. My friend Alex also thought the song was amazing; needless to say neither of us speaks Czech (well... I can say 'Ahoj!'...). How does the collective art appreciation reach an agreement on what is beautiful?

I went with JB once to this exhibit on pictures taken by a very aesthetic photographer at the morgue; there was one I particularly liked of a lady who died on her sleep and looked as if she were asleep, just that she had the 'Y' of the autopsy across her shoulders and all the way down. You could buy original prints at the Museum and they were priced differently - I found out that the one I liked was exactly the most expensive.

So coming back to my opera evening, the collective agreement on beauty resembled my own. And Mrs Flemming will always be worth to watch as passion transformed in musical notes flowing through the air to the very core of the spectator's soul.

The perfect day

There's this fixed section in Vanity Fair where they ask certain celebrities about their favourite gadget, hair-care product, underwear brand... and their description of a perfect day. Since I am not a celebrity can also indulge from/into perfection from time to time and move freely between the world where nobody is looking and the one where everybody is.

-So, Miss Linares, what is for you a perfect day?

A perfect day for me is the one where I am overwhelmed by beauty and there is somebody there to see how I am the real me.

I am thrilled to find out on this Sunday night that I had three awesome days in a role and a couple of perfect hours. Perfection came when yesterday there was Eurojazz all over and then there was him smiling when he found me, and sat close to talk. He got the happiest me. And I got to see him happy too. What an unexpected allure.

El colorista

Andrés Mérida es un malagueño a veces cubista que puede tomar un azul y darle forma, textura, volumen, propóstio, hasta hacerlo parte de una escultura en segunda dimensión.

Qué hora más bien aprovechada y qué buena idea la de que él pintara el cuadro y el chef (vasco) lo cocinara.

El arte debería transgredir barreras sensibles más frecuentemente - sólo así se parecería a la realidad.

La idiotez de lo perfecto

I found out I have a favourite song. Doesn't matter in which state of mind am I, the deceivement of the week, or the flavour of the ice-cream; the song reaches me.

It is a bit of a guilty pleasure to say I heard it on a mixed CD that Rasmusmyex mailed me. Almost everybody liked Jeff Buckley when he drawned (+2 million copies of 'Grace' sold post-mortem), and as happens with García Márquez, one should sometimes surrender to the massive demonstrations of common sense.

So my idiotic perfection is 'Hallelujah'. I got chills this morning on my borrowed car when I heard that love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it is a broken hallelujah. From the 15 verses that supposedly L.Cohen interchanged, just some of them have made it to the washout of the covers by practically anyone with a guitar and a voice with an ample register. I just love the song in all colours and shapes - Old Testament, sex, and the holy dove was moving too.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord,
but you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall, the major lift;
the baffled king composing Hallelujah!

Your faith was strong but you needed proof.
You saw her bathing on the roof;
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you.
She tied you to a kitchen chair
she broke your throne, she cut your hair,
and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah!

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

http://www.lastfm.es/music/Jeff+Buckley/_/Hallelujah

General Theory of Relativity (for blondes)

So I have been wanting to take a shower for the last two hours and am hooked up reading about Julian Barbour, then Mach, then Einstein, then the black holes (small break to see when Scrubs stopped being aired). Time is relative. Uh-huh, we know. But I like the idea of measuring life by changes.

I have decided to better count my success in life by the instants when I've said 'mmmmhhhh', the number of non-necessary things learned, the smiles back, the cakes baked, the minutes spent seeing one flower out of the bunch, the skies I have photographed, the kisses with eyes closed... the kisses...

But still Einstein is Einstein. I like.

You like too: http://whyfiles.org/052einstein/

Cloudy day

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only.
Do not say 'I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day'
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so.

-E.B. Browning.

About the spring equinox (and my cleavage)

So right on the spring equinox it was exactly ten years since I met Brida, the sweet, red-haired witch who told me to the ear that everything was gonna be alright. Not to be misunderstood, I do not follow wicca, or believe in tarot, or have EVER read Coelho. I by now have no plans to start dwelling in a multi-dimensional world. But I do respect there are ways to think and to understand this (and any other) reality.

I thought about Brida because -funny thing- I met a warlock at this spring equinox. Another amazing being; he's a psychologist, paints, and has a really exquisite taste in kitchenware. Additionally, he owns all the art books I plan to have in whatever house I settle in.

This post is just a wink to all the people who open themselves to believe and that understand how one should go through life listening, letting go and not harming others in the way. Who says there's only one truth?

It is funny that the spring equinox shares the day with the most painful of all Catholic festivities - too much energy around I guess...

Since I suck at understanding invisible worlds, have to say that this Latin American reality is the one that has me longing for meeting more witches and warlocks. See, they really listen, and try to understand what is in my heart (although in both cases I did not say anything and they knew.) They leave aside me being single, living alone (OH MY GOD), and actually not being afraid of using the brain instead of/in combination with the cleavage.

This world would be in a better state if there were more 'witches' telling narrow-minded people to the ear that everything is gonna be alright.

And btw - as per the warlock, I am magically destined to have two kids (hooray!) and should've studied Mechanical Engineering as I wanted. Numbers do not move.

PDA (Part 6)

Yanín siempre ha sido la más bonita de mis amigas. Y ya van veinte años, y han habido amigas, pero ninguna como ella, que es elegante porque la belleza externa refleja la interna. Yanín es la persona que más sueños tiene y que más sonríe. Todo es posibilidad. Ella ha sido mi vínculo al mundo donde no se deja de creer.

My kind of people

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: the ones who understand binary and the ones who don't.

Three microstories (very, very short stories)

It was October and once again trees wondered why crowds and cars came to watch them grow old and die.

When Albert Einstein awoke and found he was a cabbage, he knew he had made an error somewhere in his calculations.

The May moon could hold itself no longer and fell, crashing through the private boarding-house of Mrs. Murphy.

-Rick Walton

Start spreading the news...

New York City boy, I knew you would be reading this. Now I think that at this moment you are taking the metro to Manhattan, and thinking how bloody dirty it is, but doesn't matter, a cab is just a waste of a possible ticket to the MoMA.

Darling, dearest JB, I'd love to erase the four hours of airplane and be there when you stand in front of the Klein's blue and tell you that Pollock said that if you wanted to see a face, you should go look at a face.

You know I forget things easily, right? Well, although I met you in winter, spring reminds me of you. Peut être oui. And there's you at the Planetarium, there's you at Café Klimt, there's you right in front of Trentemoller, there's you pushing your bike and bitching about Tarantino's film, there's you in the dark goodbye kisses, there's you at the photo exhibit, there's you borning in 1969, there's you giving me thoughts I didn't know I had.

Could withdraw today with all of this. Take a bow and thank life for having you, and death for not seeing you yet.

You zen that.

Kind of 'Bleu'

Ben, Jerry, and Kieslowski's 'Bleu' tonight. We all agree it is beautiful, like looking at sunset in motion. But it had two moments I hadn't noticed before, perhaps because when I first saw it, I had not fallen in love yet.

One is Julie sleeping with Olivier, the guy who was crazy about her. It was not out of pity or sympathy, it was to let him free. If he found out the object of his obsession was human, it would make him realise she was not a goddess; she says: 'I cry, I cough, I have caries... that will make it easier for you to let me go'.

The second is Olivier actually making her react by upsetting her - she was so 'blue' that all her life passed by without attachments, emotions, passions... only one big love (the kind that only exists in the movies) can pull someone to the multi-colour life again.

Do we really need to touch rock bottom and living life in blue to realise there's actually music all around?

I hope not. Life in the 'bleu' should only last a bit to realise there's a shiny ever after. And then smile for the unwritten pages again.

Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing.

I don't want any belongings, any memories.

No friends, no love. Those are all traps.

-Bonne et genereusse Julie Vignon, 'Bleu'.

Little V

Valentina, te conozco desde que eras una historia sin empezar. Ayer que tenía tus bracitos en mi cuello pensé que no tienes el corazón de tu mamá ni los ojos de tu papá, tienes los tuyos llenos de miel y de ideas, de cuentos que te cuentas, de pasto, de sombra, de mar.

Yo vivía muy lejos, ¿sabías? y no entendí en quién te convertías con cada cumpleaños porque no estaba ahí. Pero ahora me impresiona que sabes más que yo. Sabes que las cosas en realidad no importan si no sirven para bailar con ellas, cantar con ellas, encontrarles razones para ser feliz. Sabes ponerte de verdad triste porque al patito feo no le va bien. Sabías antes que yo que una cama es buena sólo si sirve para brincar. Sabes que las cosas se piden dulcemente, pero mirando a los ojos como si fuera lo único en el mundo que hay.

Niña que duermes bajo la mirada de Dios, me perdí tus deseos y bendiciones, así que te tengo que hacer más. Te deseo la luna y el sol al mismo tiempo, te deseo que la imaginación te siga siempre, te deseo muchas horas de ilusión, te deseo voluntad para seguir los impulsos, te deseo a tu mamá y a tu papá... te sueño feliz.

It's eaaaaasy...

Weird thing to say, but I think I am in love. I love the people in my life. I love talking to Valentina 'coz I understand life from someone who has been around for only three years. I love listening to smart people while drinking a 'tini. I love looking back and not regretting my choices. I love daring to say I like art. I love surprises and how life ahead is a blank page with infinite possibilities. I love taking chances and enjoying what I have, not what I don't.

See, it all boils down to let yourself surprise and to be an illusionist. Or ilusionee. Or however it's called, I mean that having an illusion is by itself my favourite allure.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done. It's easy... all you need is love.

The Nomadic VIP

The Nomadic Museum happened to me recently and I am not certain yet on how to sort out all the thoughts that came to my mind. On the first place, I was before a bit discouraged to attend due to the thousands of people that were queuing up in Mexico's main square (I have a selective crowd-phobia) and on the second, I hated to think that it became a common place. You know, the kind of exhibit that everybody finds 'nice' and becomes a no-brainer.

But then the VIP pass came and I was there sipping white wine, walking in hills and taking my time in front of each picture. In addition, Carlos met the photographer and told me that he went away for months, carrying a backpack and his camera, and then re-emerging again with tons of films to develop; his publisher then could start breathing again.

So what actually makes me think and write is not really the artistic/non-artistic value of Gregory Colbert's work (it has been a bit polemic), but how different an art exhibit might look depending on if you are a VIP or not. I always considered myself a VIP in museums because seeing the picture/photo/sculpture I loved in the real life is quite a privilege. But this kind of VIP was different; I mean that different dimensions/realities can co-exist and do not even come close to each other.

T told me this week that one's brain creates reality; that and the possibility to be for a while one in a million, change the perception of the world we see. Take for example standing in front of one of the exhibit pictures. Does it feel the same to have queued up for three hours under the sun and take a small look at it than to have walked through the open gates and then hang out in there as in a cocktail lounge? How much does the desire to see something takes part in loving it or not? Despite having had a terrific time, the Nomadic Museum was about me and Carlos looking great; usually when I go to a Museum I stop existing and seeing the works I longed for give me a rush very close to cry.

Coming back to the art I saw, although the Nomadic Museum took its name from the travelling part, I had a feeling of loneliness when I saw Colbert's work. His pictures are technically perfect, but the closed-eyed expressions of all his subjects makes them being very far away from the spectator. Modigliani was another one that did not have eyes in portraits, his motto was 'I will paint your eyes when I know your soul'. But in Colbert's photos there are no souls.

I thought about this book I read - 'The Kite Runner'; there was a character that compared himself to a flower that had roots on water - he never settled down. That is very close to my own definition of a nomadic life.

There are days when I miss my life in Denmark as something that should be there and is not. And in those days I'd give my kingdom for a kiss upon his shoulder/all my blood for the sweetness of his laughter. But on those days I think as well that coming back to where my roots are was a choice that can only make me better. I had to stop being a common nomad to become a happy VIP.