Another year

Egypt

delicate shop window, close to the cathedral

Indignation 5_Spanish Election, election?

Next 20th of November there is election in Spain to choose a new government...

A recent study of select provinces revealed that more than half of conservatives and one-third of Socialists on the list were being investigated for corruption.
...
A youth protest movement has been decrying the unresponsiveness of the political class with twin slogans: “The politicians don’t represent us” and “They call it democracy, but it’s not that.” Recent polls found that only about 55 percent of these “indignados” turned out to vote in municipal elections (10 percent less than the national 
average). Of those who did, 15 percent cast blank ballots.


From The New York Times (November 4, 2011): The Aging of Spanish Democracy by Jonathan Blitser.

Is your life real?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/23/police-spy-tricked-lover-activist

Give Peace a Chance in the Basque Country

The New York Times (link): Separatists Halt Violence to Advance Basque Goals

I feel that this is just g'bye for now

As I see this film (BIG FISH)I feel so good...
You can say happiness, quietness, peace,... thanks for being alive

Please, listen to...
Man of the Hour

What do you feel?

The Death of America

The traffic problem is
merely that cars by the
millions enslave us to
new city systems requiring
hours of driving to & from
needs, on "congested" arteries,
naturally- where once 
you'd-a walked- There 
are all conditions pointing
to the imminent cancerous
death of America,...
               Book of Sketches
               Jack Kerouac

Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts

Have there been any no addict writers? If so, I guess they would have some kind of mental disease. What I mean is that in my opinion it is not possible to be a creative person if you are an ordinary one.
Thanks for destroying your lives to open the doors, the perception doors, and going through them and exploring new and amazing worlds for all of us.

http://www.life.com/gallery/38742/famous-literary-drunks-addicts#index/0

Rolling In The Deep

Adele performing Rolling In The Deep

Another World is Possible

http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky.html

Indignation 4

Sculptor

My friend is an sculptor. Inside this mountain...

... he is able to find this idea 

silence

Film on The Doors (Jim Morrison)

A shy boy writes thoughts and feelings in worn notebooks. Most of the time he looks at what other people do. He listens to their music, reads their poems and watches their films. Then somebody asks him for going up the stage. He is on the stage but he avoids looking at people. A hypnotic melody is sounding while everybody is waiting for him. Then: This is the End, my only friend, the End, beautiful friend, the End…

And the crazy flight starts. They only were fifty weeks. This was time enough for making a legend.

   

Amy Winehouse_2

From Life Magazine Web: Amy Winehouse healthier days

Amy Winehouse

Beach of Love, Anglet

One sunny day on a beach in the Basque Coast thanks to the hospitality of a couple of friends who have invited us to visit their house.
Although I love the sea, I do not like beach... my skin is too white for the sun rays and in a few minutes I get sunburnt. It is the same how much solar protection cream I put on my skin is.
Besides, after a day on this sandy beach I know that I am going to have sand for days...  hidden within clothes, inside our car,... in my body (in spite of taking a lot of showers).
Our friends have a long ritual before lying on their towels. They use suntan cream, lotion and oil. They are really suntanned.
As I am not used to go sunbathing, my beach wear is old fashioned and it is in a bad condition. I appear to be a poor boy.
All the group decide to go to swimming in the sea but I prefer to read the book by Haruki Murakami which I am currently reading.

This small village, Anglet, is in the North side of the Basque Country. It is between Biarritz (Miarritz in Basque language) and Bayonne (Baiona in Basque language).

From my town, Pamplona (Iruña in Basque language) there are only an hour and twenty minutes by car.

This is a beautiful and quiet place. I guess in winter time it might be too quiet.

Nude

Only pencil lines on paper

Amazing video I think you like it

After - Moby from Alberto Gomez on Vimeo.

Broken Sky

Indignation 3_19J demonstrations in Spain

Photo taken from the Wall of Berlin

I do not recover, 1.1

Something Beyond the Wall

It was found drawn on a wall

Walking Alone Among the Connected Crowd

I walk along crowded streets but people are not there with me but connected with other people through mobile phones which allow them to talk or send messages.
They should have strong feelings with these people. Maybe somebody is making some of these pedestrian cry.
I know that some couples are being broken and new lovers are starting their relationships. I can imagine business which are closed and people who are hired or fired. Probably, some of these messages informs about a beloved person's death.
A lot of universes in this bustling avenue.  

Indignation 2_ Time For Outrage!

I think all of us can learn a lot from this old man who fought against the Nazis, helped to build the French democracy and took part in the writing of the Human Rights.
I think you must read this small book (originally written in French but available in English, in Spanish,...).

Pina, a film by Win Wenders

The way Wenders makes his films, his poetic view of urban landscapes. While you are listening to the excellent music by Jun Miyake, you are hypnotized by the elegant movements of the dancers who play the Pina’s choreographies. This film is made up for so many sensations... The others as loads on our shoulders. The difficulty for being understood and for being able to understand the others. The happiness of being alive.

Sunset over Brussels

no words

Sun and Music, Brussels

Musica Instruments Museum, Brussels

Indignation 1

Very interesting documentary about the current crisis. It is in Greek but subtitles in English and in French are available.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xik4kh_debtocracy-international-version_shortfilms

A streetlight with bowler hat?

Art Without Money

Definitely this is a right wing town. Not only because it was the hearth of the coup d'etat in 1936 but because the conservative politician are always in office.
Next Sunday this can change, can it change? I don't think so. It would be a revolution and it is not a good time for revolutions.
Right wing government are apparently bad for urban culture. They prefer to have a total control of the art movements. However the creativity of the artists has to increase thanks to this suffocating atmosphere, so maybe there is a paradox here. Maybe a lot of prohibitions and cuts of money are good for real art.

Mad Man

In the past I occasionally drank. Nowadays I need some beers every day. Until now I have achieved to avoid drinking whisky. It is hard to let time goes by. Another cloudy day. How many cloudy days can a little person endure? 
I think it is the government who makes the free days are raining and cold . It is for productivity. More money for the wealthy people.
How do you say 'desquiciado' in English?
I guess something related to madness. Mad man?

Jules et Jim

An excellent French film directed by Fraçois Truffaut. The plot is about friendship. It is also about the different ways of loving and how dangerous some people can be. People who manipulate, people with limit personalities, people who are egoist. Fascinating people who destroy people who love them.

Avoid the void

How many times a little smile is able to avoid the void?

Notes On Haruki Murakami Style, 08052011

Haruki Murakami always stops the narration to describe new characters as they appear first time. These descriptions are apparently physical and make the Murakami’s style very visual, filmic. I think that thanks to these physical descriptions (which implied the choice of suitable adjectives) and thanks to the description of the way they dress, the author gets a excellent way to describing their personality. Prejudices are not good but everybody have them. What I have found is that prejudices can be a effective literary tool for sketching characters.

Desperate Warning

First a fact: the bloggers sometimes disappear.

Then a question: where do they go to?

Do they want us to believe they have a kind of life apart from the web?

It is a non-sense.

But I think that a funeral will be the more appropriate in those cases.

Or will there be a serial of kidnappings?

Please, if you are still alive give me signal (a comment in this post will be enough)

Where Julio Cortázar Was Born

As a 'cronopio' (if you do not know the meaning you should read Julio Cortázar) I have visited the place in which the great Julio was born. 

Unfortunately, the cronopios prefer small and caotic things rather than rigid and serious monuments (see the picture) it is really strange that somebody thinks that this (horrible) sculpture can be a homenage to Julio Cortázar. On the bottom you can see another picture. It is the inscription placed in the gate of the house where this magic writer was born.
At least the city, Brussels, is a surrealist place.

PEACE

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
(in the Basque Country)

Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden is dead.
This afternoon I swam. 
(Kafkian way of life)

Life, a User's Manual

Some years ago I read a review on the novel ‘Life A User’s Manual’.

That was the first time I heard about its author, the French writer George Perec.

The idea of that book fascinated me. All the book is about a building in Paris. The building actually is the background and what is really important is the people who inhabit it. The book describes who they are, how they live, how they earn their lives. It is about what they feel, what they hope.

It is a book on the time and the way the time goes by.

All around us is a big scenario and we are only ephemeral actors.

Definitely this is an excellent book. I recommend you.

HOPLA! La fête des arts du cirque de Bruxelles

Remember Pripiat

Japan government has put the catastrophe of Fukushima on par with the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl.
These are some pictures taken in Pripiat the ghost town. It is kept frozen in that crazy moment when humanity remembered we are not gods. 
Now again.

At the back of the town you can see the Death. It seems that the Death was spying, from the tops of its high smokestacksm, the ordinary lives of people.

Korrika

Every two years people who love the Basque language take part in a run 
pro-this language. This run goes along all the Basque Country and is divided by kilometres. Each kilometre has a value depending on if it is in a lonely road in the countryside or in a big city. The first ones are cheaper than the others. Kilometres are bought by local governments, by TV channels, by newspapers, by cultural associations, by schools, by groups of friends, etc. The collected money is used to improve the learning system (material, facilities, teachers’ salaries, etc.) of the AEK (a group for teaching the Basque language).
Some pictures of the current edition (it started on 7 of April and is going to finish on 17 of April):

http://www.korrika.org/

Suddenly the summer

We are accustomed to short days, cold, snow, rain, frozen wind, no leaves on the trees, only a few of birds, bodies hidden by clothes, people in a hurry looking for a warm closed place, desert streets, …

Then the weatherman on the TV said that in the next days we were going to enjoy a kind of small summer.

So we went to the beach (Donistia, the Basque Country) and these are some pictures: