Walker Art Center

Big [B]Other HOW LATITUDES BECOME FORMS

February 02, 2003

already feb 3rd in iberia

hi is already the 3rd here.
Tomorrow i will have to begin thinking about working, so i might not have time to blog...

I live in a small and old town in the south of spain, not far from seville. It´s ancient for american standards. But not in an italian-tuscanian way, it´s kind of raw and severe, white and stone. Had breakfast at the market, an open & sunny square surrounded by columns. Quisco, a regular at the bar, is a young man with down sindrome. Today he was practicing some flamenco. Really loud. It was funny, if only too loud before coffee.

In the sunday paper i got to learn about condoleeza rice. is she a nexus 9 who loves electric sheep or what? Made me happy not to be in the states... - a country i do love-

Later in the afternoon i went to visit my grandmother in sevilla. Cool lady. She is a countess. A real one... you see i live in an exotic world here. Everytime i go see her i think she might die soon. Makes me sad for her. Eventhough we all are gonna die... But when we meet old people that we love it becomes more... true. She used to be the most beautiful woman i have ever known. Today she told me i was very handsome. Made me happy of course! A bunch of family was around. This is the way it still is here in the south of spain. It´s nice.

However, i decided, already many years ago, to become a zapatista and a proletarian, with cyberpretensions. Never mind. We do get along well. I might change my mind sometime... who knows... Sometimes i am afraid of becoming old myself...

Eventually, i went to the movies. Just by myself. Lazy to make plans with anyone. I watched Ciudad de Dios, a brazilian movie about favelas-gangs in Rio. Very beautiful movie. Probably too violent, and probably a very partial picture of the favelas, the poor neighborhoods in the brazilian megalopolis... Apparently the directors couldn´t cut down the movie to two hours. No way. Eventually they decided to put lots of it in fastforward. I liked those parts a lot. The movie made me wonder about Tatiana in the blog.

going to bed now, really need to get rid of my anxiety this week... so long _ osfa

Posted by osfavelados at February 2, 2003 07:13 PM
Comments

Hola Osfa.
Te leo y vuelvo a preguntarme por qué algun@s sienten miedo a envejecer...

No sé si en alguna parte de mí hay anhelo de morir o la fijación infantil de crecer sigue ahí y por eso no me da miedo envejecer...
Al menos no todavía.

Besos

Posted by: Cindy Gabriela on February 2, 2003 08:32 PM

Cuidad de Dios is on my must see movie list. It came out here in San Francisco last week.

I just saw my grandmother today also. My parents brought her up to San Francisco and we all went to a Taqueria on Mission & 29th. I know your feelings regarding death all too well mi hermano.

Posted by: Tony DuShane on February 2, 2003 09:45 PM

Gracias osfa. Quería ver la peli de Ciudad de Dios, pero no me terminaba de convencer la publicidad televisiva y creo que el doblaje no es muy creíble, de todos modos iré a verla. A ver si posteo algo cuando vaya.

Saludos a 12 km de tu casa.

Posted by: Pedro Jiménez on February 3, 2003 04:39 AM

hola osfa,
yo también tengo a mi abuela viva. Es un regalo. me pasa lo mismo. Una noche me desperté con esa certeza que dan los sueños, sabiendo que ella era a quien le tocaba morir. es una sensación extraña.
Hace muy poco se cayó y se abrió la cabeza. estuvo en el hospital. ahora está mejor, pero su voz ha cambiado. Ahora tiene voz de niña pequeña, como mimosa...no la habia oido nunca así.
Cuando estaba en el hospital me sorprendí pensando que,si ya estaba cansada, era mejor que se muriera ... Parece que la muerte de los viejos de algun modo es un poco eso, desear apagar, casi un acto voluntario...o al contrario, apagar la voluntad que te hace vivir...
en cualquier caso a mi lo que me da miedo de envejecer es ser dependiente, no valerme por mí misma, y eso tiene que ver sobre todo con cómo te llegue el cuerpo y la mente a ese momento...
bueno,
pues mucha salud pa envejecer bonito, siendo flexibles e independientes...
Teresa

Posted by: Teresa on February 3, 2003 09:42 AM

hi, here is Tatiana. The thing about City of Gods is that it' s so real it hurts, all facts were true and based on the brilliant book by Paulo Lins, but of course favelas are not only criminal guettos.

The funny thing is that the film is being highly critized as an esthetization of hunger by the community, which is partly true but it's also a merit anyway to bring such a painfully real subject to the world's eyes. Which is much more that, for example, the main brazilian media is able to do.,,,

Posted by: Tatiana on February 3, 2003 12:46 PM

Cindy...

Cindy entiendo perfectamente lo que dices acerca de envejecer. No comprender en absoluto ese miedo, no sentirlo, y creer que asumes tu destino cargado de fuerza y entereza. Tomar la vida como te viene en la creencia de que nos reconoceremos y disfrutaremos de nuestros momentos sea cual sea nuestro estado. Es precioso, es la fuerza de la juventud. Pero un día cualquiera, por una nimiedad, una tontería sientes el sudor más frío que pudieras imaginar. Eres joven aún, aunque ya no tanto, sin saber muy bien como, puede que por alguna experiencia, se desliza en ti la certeza de la muerte, como nunca antes la habías tenido, tan nítida y tan fría que la vida será a partir desde ese momento diferente. Sólo distinta, seguirás tan fuerte (al menos lo intentas) seguirás tan convencida, pero para ti la vejez tendrá otro sentido. Y es algo realmente interesante, por que solo entonces se es capaz de encarar realmente la vida como un viejo, un viejo interesante, lúcido, payason si quieres, incluso guapo pero un viejo conciente de la muerte.

Posted by: François Cheng on February 3, 2003 03:43 PM
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