klavaza blog

Zona Roja (Red Zone)

2010-10-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Mariadolores Castellanos (Boston, MA) returns to the gallery of her first exposition, with a twofold concept: paintings and sculptures that stem from the same source: experimentation with light and shades. First, she paints them, and secondly, she sculpts them. The result is an enticing set, unquestionable of her craft. There is, however, a new ingredient: translucent red pigment, used to highlight the heart and arteries of her works.

This is a first in her internationally recognized career, but it was difficult to find the right ingredient. She had to look for it in a foreign country (her atelier is located in Guatemala), and then she had to experiment with it in order to obtain the desired results: an intense but translucent shade of red that seems to flow inside her sculptures. Some of her figures have just one heart in their entrails, while from others it sprouts with vigor. Some, instead, have many hearts, like fruits in a tree. Her work is also multifaceted, it can be interpreted from many levels. And it can induce different feelings, according to whom is looking at it.

When surrounded by the public's brouhaha, her sculptures stands idly, almost innocent. But if you look at them closely they begin to tell a different story, one that will rest of course on the ideas of every particular onlooker.

"Angels to some, demons to others", even sometimes enigmatic, in my own volatile imagination they posses an intrinsic sinister beauty, suggesting eerie feelings would I look at them at the wee hours of the night.

There are 15 sculptures and 10 paintings, from medium to big. "I began experimenting with lights and shades since April", says Mariadolores, backed by her solid knowledge in both techniques. "Classical painting had been paramount to develop the tools I have used to surmount the many riddles of Art", she says.

Inside the gallery, 12 midsized sculptures encircle two bigger ones, one in front of each other (Anabella Pensabene thinks they are self portraits of Mariadolores). 12, says the artist, is the number of half hours of the day or the number of months in a year. Certainly this is a number with kabbalah: the result of multiplying 3 by 4 (a triangle by a square), a sort of numeric representation of basic, but deeply rooted, concepts in our own culture. Then, she comments, "everything in art can be reduced to self portraits in the end".

There is another first here: the publication of her first book, comprising her rich artistic career, an indispensable reference for art historians, collectors, critics on art and art lovers. In its cover you will see headless bodies from whose necks fly away dragonflies, beautiful but lethal creatures. Perhaps a very valid symbolic way to unmask the true double nature of mankind, something her art mirrors in a very creative way.

Mariadolores Castellanos Zona Roja will be at Galería El Túnel,16 Calle 1-01, Zona 10, Plaza Obelisco, in Guatemala City, until Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010 (all images: klavaza, 2010).

Estefanía Valls Urquijo's A*las

2010-09-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

Jorge Morales, for Revista Amiga / Prensa Libre.

A*las comprehends the most recent works of this Guatemalan artist. Set inside a black box (the Galería Ana Lucía Gómez painted its walls black for this exposition) to highlight the rich colours and textures of the beautiful cats and birds cast in glazed ceramics, and ships made with fine metals and bronzes, with accessory Italian glass. "Glass has a life of its own, it has a quality similar to ceramics, since both come from Earth's minerals", she explains.

klavaza, 2010.

Cats are the most conspicuous. In several shapes and postures they look evocative, sensuous and are winged. If you look at the bottom of the bigger one reflected in a mirror conveniently installed beneath the sculpture you won´t see a cat anymore. Instead, an imposing insect seems to look at itself candidly. Or so it seemed to me. Explains the artist: "It is not that I have a passion for felines. For me, animals are an instrument I can use to represent what I am questioning or exploring at the moment. However, cats do link here to animal instinct and their butterfly wings means liberation, evolution and detachment from earthly ties". And concludes that "going farther, in any artistic work there should be a philosophical path". Talking about the ships, she says that they are just a glimpse of a future exposition, albeit their ease integration with the rest of this one. Finished in gold, silver and bronze, they stand motionless and suspended as a "remainder of those masks and figures placed in ancient ship's bows to avert sea monsters".

klavaza, 2010.

Estefanía Valls Urquijo barely has three years diving in the deep waters of art. In that short term she has made a valuable career for herself, backed by very good critiques both in her country, Guatemala, and abroad. Recently her works were exposed at the Renault Salon ARGR in Paris, with honours, also at the Galeria Primmo Piano in Venice and at the Cotemporanea Salon in Ferrara, both in Italy. Also in Spain, at the Patrick J. Domken Gallery, in Cadaqués. She will return to expose very soon in Europe.

Setting aside the many technical goods of her works and the very well crafted surroundings, from the black walls to the lighting designed by an expert (Mr. Carlos González, who works for Guatemala's Teatro Nacional); I felt like transgressing a sacred space while being carefully watched by guardian cats, animals which I love with passion. Walking by inside the Gallery I began to wonder if by chance I was entering in a dimension created by Estefanía, a place of her own where she commands points and lines until her ideas get their artistic bodies.

A*las can be visited until early October.

(Taken and modified from my text, published in Weekend, 08/27/10).

Ana Lucía Gómez, a new art gallery in Guatemala

2010-05-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Galería Ana Lucía Gómez opened back in 2004 in Guatemala City. Just six years later it is not reinventing itself, neither undergoing a simple transformation. Instead it is leaping in a quantum fashion. After a year in the making a new building emerged, so well designed that it would fit well in New York, Boston or Chicago.

It has two tall crystal doors which give way to an elongated space designed to devour very big art works. In its inaugural exhibition a big cat sculpted by Estefanía Valls Urquijo was crouching like a mythological beast stemming from an abyss of time, with enough space to jump if it would have wanted to. Far back, a three meters tall statue, by the Mexican Javier Marín, combined in itself the Classical School with a Postmodern conception. It looked like the Venus de Ille (a horror tale by French writer Prosper Merimée). But it was not fearsome, instead it was inviting thanks to the Gallery's allure.

It is a 1,000 meters building, 700 of which are for exhibition, however, it feels very light and warm, even the enormous Roberto Cortázar's paintings looked unconstrained. Of course it is ideal for recognized masters but it will also could be the launch pad for unknown talents, if they are worth. In its second floor an open space would be fit for many activities or just to be there, hanging and thinking.

If we accept with Vassily Kandinsky that all creative act comes from the fight against chaos, the Ana Lucía Gómez Gallery would be likened to a 3D canvas inside of which an artist would be able to do that. There are few places for it in Guatemala, even in America. Congratulations Ana Lucía, for this achievement and for your efforts, and also for the dedication of this place to one of the highest aspirations of the human spirit: Art.

Images: klavaza, 2010.

Korn in Guatemala City

2010-05-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

We move quickly to the aisle where we’ll face The Monster. A security man verifies our Press credentials, let us in and we get as close as possible to the stage in a kind of tight trench. Crowded, hoping, with a roaring mass behind us we had to wait for what seemed to be a very long another while. Someone from security passes by, barking us to leave a wider free space between the public and us, shoving us at the same time. We crowd ourselves even more. Considering some past experiences with Security and the Press, I have to concede that this time they were not the worst.

A big Korn sign emerges in the back of the stage, working as a kind of slow precursor. Our anxiety ceases and the first song blasts through. The stage is in twilight, darker than gray. A strong flash blinds my eyes –I am looking through a tiny camcorder while carrying heavy analog photo equipment. I loose attention for a second because a young girl cries in cathartic bliss. I turn my head back to the stage and now I can see clearly. There, in histrionic attitude and white masked, still like a column just watching to the public, is Munky, like a priest of a new cult, that of the consecration through Rock. I begin to meditate and I remember Hellraiser (the collection of saints comes to my mind). Suddenly a strong, powerful bass, striking like the hammer of Thor pushes me back, compressing my body and deafening my ears for a moment. The jolt takes my obsessions away dragging me without mercy back to the concert. An hour, an hour and a half of total indulgence follows, raising me to a dimension known only once when, in the same stadium I was in communion with another crowd, or perhaps with the same one of today, with the bewildering Macumba of Sepultura.

Well, there was no Macumba with Korn, instead, a sound Tsunami engulfed and dragged me to what Aldous Huxley called the antipodes of the mind. For me, it was an almost tactile, sensual, concert without fantasies or imaginations, but full of the dreaded beauty of a primitive Kraken.

“Have you ever been in a rave or a Football game?” asks the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper. “They will be the religions of the future”, he explains. But you are wrong dear sir, since I believe that Rock will become the future of religion. Have you ever been in a Rock concert Mr. Popper?
Images: klavaza, 2010.

Avatar, an Allegory of History

2009-12-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

It’s difficult to find high quality Sci Fi, a too much ado without masters genre BTW. If it focuses on FX it forgets to offer a good story, or it flourishes in a B Movies budget with very imaginative ideas of very little artistic or commercial value. This is not the case of James Cameron´s Avatar, an unstoppable stream of images, intelligence, political and anti war manifesto and high end technology.

In Pandora, a moon of a planet near Alpha Centauri, the Na’vi and their culture live in perfect harmony with their ecosystem. Horselike in appearance, agile as felines and with a very enticing beauty, they could have come to life from an early image of Heavy Metal magazine or from a page of one of Gulliver’s travels. Beneath their soil rests a levitating mineral, the Unobtanium, very expensive in a far away planet, the Earth. From there a mining company and a private soldier of fortune army arrives to mine it at any cost, be it ecological or Na’vi.

The CEO of the branch of the company in that moon (Giovanni Ribisi) is a rude executive, focused only in getting better revenues and results and with him comes an ex marine with the soul of a killer (Stephen Lang, with an excellent performance) focused only in one thing: war, i.e. money and weapons conjoined to get the mineral: “This is why we're here, because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo”, he says.

If you can’t catch it, you have been living outside of this world all your life, since Gold, Platinum, diamonds, Petroleum, wood, and many other goods, are extracted from the Earth that way, without any consideration to humane or ecological cost. The only important thing is money, nothing else matters. Our ways are dirty and with them we will travel to other worlds in the future, seems to be the conclusion of Cameron.

We are in front of a film that takes itself seriously and, therefore, offers a solid set of ideas, with very well defined characters and excellent performances of Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourne Weaver (magnificent in this, her return to Sci Fi), and Michelle Rodriguez. There is a strong use of violence (not gorish), but very well justified by the argument and development of the story.

This is Sci Fi for all, for the fan and for the casual moviegoer alike: it has a soul inspired in the teachings of the ancient American Indians with some additions taken from Zen Buddhism and the best New Age. But certainly it will remind us that war, conquests and the brutal exploitation of resources are one of the smelliest legacies of History. And please, if you can, by all means watch it in Imax 3D, you'll love it!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T12:37:00.001-07:00

Phot: Thunder Cloud.

May all The Hollows bring peace of mind, prosperity and happines all year long. Celebrate Night, as Rilke said: "Night Rules!".

Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett 1947 - 2009

2009-06-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Foto: Cybertown.

"Farrah had courage, she had strength, and she had faith. And now she has peace as she rests with the real angels". Jaclyn Smith.

Obama as Super Hero

2009-06-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

I can't think of any president since Kennedy, as charismatic as Obama. Let's hope he will be up to the expectations. In any case, the man knows how to attract people's sympathy.

Steve Rogers is Back

2009-06-15T20:01:00.001-07:00

As I knew Steve Rogers is back from the dead. A major event in the Marvel Universe coming in the first issue of Reborn.

Thinking in Summer (v.2K9)

2009-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

Image: The Bankruptcy Litigation Blog.

2009 tastes the end of an era for the US automotive industry. Those days of glory, when General Motors Company reigned supreme as the world's foremost enterprise are over. How big can be measured by the fact that its revenues were bigger than the Gross Income of some nations. I recall one particular year, when it was larger than that of the Netherlands. GM's logo is known almost by everyone and it is likely that few people have not got a ride in one of its vehicles, or at least in one made under another brand belonging to that company.

When Nikita Kruschev visited the US in 1959, then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower welcomed him to IBM saying ”you will see a true American company”. Movie director Stanley Kubrick took to the future the icons of that American industry in 2001, A Space Odyssey: Pan American would shuttle people to space; IBM would go on governing computing technology and telephones would be run by Bell (Ma Bell). Only GM was absent in that film (BTW some DVD transfers lack all those logos today).

Now GM is 60% in the hands of the US Government (Where are You, Adam Smith?), though it promises a short term intervention. However, Bell is gone as an empire long ago, as long ago some other covert monopolys went over too. Although IBM is still powerful, it is no longer the tycoon it used to be. I don't think that we are to witness the end of GM, I believe it will reinvent itself to come back like a Phoenix. Would it be possible to think that GM is a herald of a new age, the signal of the end of entrepreneurial megafaunas?

Or perhaps it is exactly the opposite? That we are seen the raise, not of magafaunas, but of petafaunas, capable of eating whole markets at once? Could it be possible tha Nikita´s Prophecy is on its way? Would Eisenhower greet Nikita with so much pride today, like in 1959?

I have never been a big fan of US cars. But I do love some of its finest ones. Like Mustangs, Cobras or Corvettes, which would have been impossible to develop in other markets. Also, I am fed up with the sad and loud GM farewell: Amidst convoluted negotiations,occult agendas and only God knows which other sordid manuevers. History, perhaps, will tell the whole story some day.

Perhaps some day someone will seat in front of the descendant of the Wikipedia just to read it all: "Then President Barack Obama, advised by the Nation leading banking staffs, decided to save the Company by investing billions of dollars taken from taxpayers in order to...".

So, the Saudis goes to the movies...

2009-06-07T22:26:00.001-07:00

Oh! I am so happy I was born in the West: "Fayez al-Malki, star of the movie, Menahi, poses in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia late Saturday June 6, 2009, in front of a poster of his film, which became the first movie to be publicly screened in Riyadh in more than three decades. Women were banned from the show because organizers could not get permission for them to attend. Still, the decision to show the film, produced by a company owned by royal tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, at the government-run cultural center was a daring step and a challenge to the more conservative elements of society". (AP Photo)

Thank You, Kodak!

2008-12-03T20:02:00.001-08:00

I will try the samples so kindly sent by Kodak. As a lover of B&W film this is a great opportunity.
Image: klavaza, 2008.

Hábitat Imaginario

2008-11-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

Claudia Cirici is a young sculptress from Guatemala. Her most recent exhibition delves deeply in one of the most persistent myths in Fantastic Art and Literature, that of lost, forgotten or secret cities, some of which, it is said, were perfect, built by mythical beings, but others found their doom due to their mundane proclivities.

"Morbus is an ancient city... It was built in prehistoric times by a people who are now extinct... I discovered it. I have remodeled and rebuilt it, but largely upon the foundations of the old city, which was splendidly built", tells Edgar Rice Burroughs, of Tarzan fame.

Borges in El Inmortal wrote: "Before any other trait of that astounding monument, I was stoned by the antiquity of its construction. I felt that it was older than men, older than Earth. That notorious antiquity (in a certain way terrible for the eyes) seemed to me the proper work of inmortal masons”.

Nobody, however, has been as able as Lovecraft to further the myth: "Remote in the desert of Araby lies the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It must have been thus before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked".

As Marco Flaminio Rufo (Borges inmortal) did in the lost city of his tale, I wandered through Claudia’s sculptures, idly at first, but increasingly attentive thereafter. I left the Museum premises but her works permeated my mind and came with me, directing my steps to other creators whose idealized cities were left in comics, books or illustrations. Hers, instead, are primordial maquettes, archetypes of what could be called Fantastic Architecture.

Maybe her works are fantastic in nature, but they steam from quintessential art inspired in Escher’s labyrinths, in the bold ideas of Erik Desmazières and in Borges words. Every work in this exhibition has a personal, unique, mark, identifying the hand of Claudia Cirici as her creation, something apparent in the superb patina, finishing and even in the title of every inch of every single marvel of this beautiful collection.
Hábitat Imaginario took place between Oct. 8 and Nov. 9 in the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Guatemala.
Bibliography: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars, 1940; Jorge Luis Borges, El Inmortal, in El Aleph, 1949; H. P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City, in The Wolverine, 1921.
Images: Abyss of the Four Moons; Infinite Palace C; Windows of the Gods and its fragment, by José Carlos Flores, by kind courtesy of Claudia Cirici.

China 2005

2008-08-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Peta, via anonymous mail.
I don't think things have changed since then.

SD ComicCon 2008

2008-08-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

As usual, the future releases, the ridicule of fans and friends, the boldest and the most beautiful girls and goddesses. Enjoy the full presentation, 135 imges, right here. Au revoir!

Hints of Paradise

2008-02-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

Art and Architecture share many things in common, in fact the first one nurtures the other. In many cases, however, we find them conjoined in a very casual way. This never happens in the works of Claudia Cirici: Architect of British School and artist from the bottom of herself. I met her art at Cantón Exposición, a Guatemalan gallery of art, two or three years ago. The female angels I saw there were rendered in clay with a masterful hand. Later, I found her again working hard in a monumental sculpture called Rostro del Tiempo, a 1 Ton clay figurative creation done for a Guatemalan high end watches boutique, Relojería En Hora. From the original, scaled studies, precursors of that monument, she created a new collection of smaller panels, human figures (a continuing exploration of the artist) and towers. Oh towers! They made me remember the writings of the great Julius Caesar. Every piece is a beautiful study of formal aesthetics composition, masterful handling of clay (a difficult material) and inspiration. Watch-like parts pervade the whole concept, so much, that they become essential for this related series of sculptures. In a sense they remind us that Time is that elusive fourth dimension intertwined in every aspect of our lives. From money to how long we will live. Besides, they talk to us of long gone eras deeply rooted in ancient, arcane cultures. Her art does not make me shiver, as H. R. Giger’s does. However, hers is the quantum of solace that ignites the fire of my love for Art. For her creations are the kind of essential concepts devoid of any frills that takes me instantly to Paradise. Watch the collection, if you can.
Claudia Cirici’s Rasgos del Tiempo will be on display at Relojería En Hora during Feb., at Centro Comercial La Pradera, Zona 10, Guatemala.
Images, klavaza, 2008.

The Art of Estefanía Valls

2008-02-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

In Topâzu, the erotic masterwork of Ryû Murakami, Ishika says that the Nazis knew very well that in a woman´s hair resides her beauty. Ugly for some, essential for others, for this young Guatemalan painter hair is the central core of her first big leagues exposition. Paintings, sculptures and the gallery itself blend to become a unique work of art. Hair is an indicative of many things, she says, when white it marks the end of youth, it becomes a nuisance if it appears in certain undesirable spots of the body, it reminds that a child is becoming a teen.

Estefanía has attended art schools in Barcelona, New York and Guatemala, but her interest in art stems from her early age. For me her sculptures are the stars of the exhibition: She conjoins parts of known animals to create a new one. One with mythological overtones, part fantastic art, part a dream like creature taken from the entrails of the Jungian Collective Unconscious. Over the walls, you will see severed human-like heads, letterings and intense colours. From everywhere you will see hair, sprouting, adorning, infesting. In her paintings they are apparent when viewed from a lateral side. Some of her paintings were originally photographs, but now they are so exquisitely overworked that you will see in them deep volumes, rich colours and subtle suggestions.

Estefanía is not a rookie to art. However this is her debut, a very firm and inspired one into the serious, erudite, art of Guatemala.

A Pelo, esculturas y pinturas de Estefanía Valls Urquijo, is open from Feb. 8 to March 8 at Galería Ana Lucía Gómez, Avenida Las Américas 19-30, Zona 13, Guatemala.
Imagess: klavaza, 2008.

Testing Rodinal 1:200

2008-01-24T08:41:00.000-08:00

These images are part of my next expo's making-of, scheduled for Sept. They have no relation with it thematically whatsoever, but are rather a test for the technique I want to use (perhaps my farewell to the excellent HIE stock since Kodak will stop producing it soon). I read in Photo.net that Rodinal (actually Orwo R09) diluted to 1:200 wouldn't go as far as developing the highlights. Since in such sites you will find lots of opinionated people saying anything about everything, I decided to give it a try. Results: the opinion is false.

The first shot, an industrial set, as well as the second, of an antenna set in a Government building in Guatemala were taken between 23:00 a 02:00 hours with a Cat. 500mm lens. Then, with a 1000mm one. Expositions went from 8 to 24 min. The fourth one, an urban landscape in daylight was taken through a glass window. The Moon used 0.25 sec. at f/11 (the reddish hue is a mismanagement of the scanner). You can see detail in the textures, wires and the tonal range is excellent. So, only the highlights, eh?

Film: Efke KB25, ISO25; 17 min. developing time, 0 initial agitations and then one of 2 sec. every 30 secs. @ 20° C. Your opinions will be apreciatted.
Images, klavaza, 2007.

Elen Reveals Herself as a True Artist

2008-01-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

Elen:

Few things in life are as good as finding the secret treasures a friend might have. It was not until now that I had the chance to go to the Courier service and grab the beautiful, lovely gift you sent to me from the heart and the entrails of South East London. When I think of the former head of the British Empire I usually see images like these ones: deprived of every bit of grandeur and past glories, yet fascinating and deeply moving.

Your ability as a photographer and as a designer is beyond dispute. You hunt the very essence of that city in a way that also transmits not its people's feelings, because they are absent, but its very essence and loneliness, its deepest feelings, those that are there but which to the casual onlooker never exist. But also its miseries, albeit in a very abstract and aesthetic way.

Deep inside you dwells art, you transpire it, from mesmerizing Saxo notes to imaging. I am really happy being your friend. This small, yet revealing and magic scrapbook is one of the very best homages of my whole life. Thanks forever.
Images: Elen Le Foll, 2008.

Guatemalan nudes banned in Geneva

2008-01-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

Guatemalan photographer Daniel Hernández-Salazar was invited to expose his photographs at the Palais des Nations, See of the United Nations Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Hernandez's images expose in an artistic and metaphoric way the horrors left by the civil war that devastated that Central American country during more than 30 years. One of his aims is to preserve the usually fragile memory of such events, in order to prevent its recurrence. In Guatemala, I am aware, many people would be glad to forget all that happened. However, History has the tendency to remember, like Borges Funes el Memorioso character.

Three of the works included by him depicts naked males and are widely recognized as works of art by critics and public alike. However, some members of UNO staff found them inappropriate for exposition, since they could be offensive to some members of the organization, like some overly sensitive Islamic groups. The bottom of the situation is pure censorship, as I see it, since, I suppose, if the photographs were of nude females nobody would have had any complains whatsoever.

It is fairly logical to imagine how difficult it must be to find a central point of agreement between the many representatives, officers, clerks, visitors, ambassadors and all such fauna, from a worldwide acquisition that conforms the UNO. But this is Art, Western Art if that matters, the same that has been a landmark of aesthetics since time immemorial. Therefore, it is impossible for me to justify UNO censorship, even after its officers accepted to expose three void spaces, to signal the missing images, and to send the visitors to this web site, where the images are in a permanent, albeit virtual, exposition. I advice to you to please visit that site, You'll enjoy it.
Photos: Daniel Hernández-Salazar.

¡Ah the 70s! and the Southwest Scandal

2008-01-03T18:07:00.001-08:00

Many memories come to mind watching this image posted by Ben McConnell in Church of the Customer blog. He did so to remind Southwest its unabashed corporate history. It happens that in Sep. 07 a then Hooters employee, Kyla Ebbert, was flying clothed in a way that someone in the airline considered too lewd or provocative. After asking her to cover up, and telling her about good flying ways for clothing, she was permitted to seat and finish her 70 min. fly. This lunacy ended with an apology from Southwest and the creation of its Miniskirt Fares. Oh, I was to forget, the black and white image shows the uniform donned by Southwest stewardess back in the 70s.
Images: Church of the Customer and Ebbert web site.

Russian ICBM: two versions

2008-01-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

Ver. 1
ICBM launched from Barents Sea hits target in Kamchatka - official

MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Tula nuclear submarine of the Russian Northern Fleet commanded by Captain First Rank Anatoly Kovalenko launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday from the Barents Sea to the Kura test site in Kamchatka, Russian Navy Spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo told Interfax-AVN. "The ICBM was launched from the underwater position under a plan to check the readiness of naval strategic nuclear forces," the spokesman said. "The reentry vehicle arrived at the test site at the designated time," Dygalo said. Russian Navy Commander Vladimir Vysotsky hailed the high professionalism of the commander and the crew of the submarine, the spokesman said.

Ver. 2
New RS-24 ICBM lands on target at test range in Kamchatka

MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - A new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), which was launched from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk region on Tuesday, has successfully hit all hypothetical targets at the Kura Test Range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN) told Interfax. "Experimental warheads arrived at a planned area at the Kura range on Kamchatka Peninsula after flying about 7,000 kilometers. The launch purposes have been accomplished in full," RVSN spokesman Col. Alexander Vovk said. The launch was carried out as part of program of trials for the new ICBM. The first test launch of a prototype of the new MIRV-equipped RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile took place at the Plesetsk space center on May 29, 2007. According to unofficial information, an RS-24 missile can carry more than three warheads.
Image: China Daily.

Poetry's historic place vandalized

2008-01-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

A group of what Police believes was an underage pack of party goers destroyed historical artifacts and damaged one the houses of poet Robert Frost, of The Road Not Taken fame, which is preserved as a museum. They got into the property through a window and left behind empty beer cans, vomits and other better to forget memories.
Note and image, Yahoo! News.

450 F-15s grounded by tha US Air force

2007-12-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

According to this Yahoo! News the US Air Force grounded 450 F-15s warplanes because of "possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems". It is not clear if they will fly again or when. Meanwhile some F22 Raptors are doing the F-15s chores while some possible home security holes are now being filled by the Canadian Air Force in a time when Russian military aircrafts are flying with more frequency near the US air space. Perhaps the US Air Force wants to replace the aging F-15s with the Raptors at a fastest pace or the problem is real.

Image: AP/Yahoo! News.

Poor Rich Paris

2007-12-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

According to Yahoo! News Paris Hilton's expected inheritance will be far less than calculated since her grandfather decide to donate just 97% of all his wealth to charities. That means she will be just a poor millionaire instead of the wealthiest billionaire she belived was to become someday. I am sorry for her.

Photo: Paris and her sister at a charities, 2007, according to Yahoo! News.

AvP Reqiem, the Web site

2007-12-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

Something must have these creatures with Central America, since Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, a novel about a South American fictitious country, inspired in Nicaragua, christened the ship of the first Alien film. And in the first one of Predator the action takes place in Guatemala's jungles. But now, Alien vs Predator: Requiem, takes place in a US small town. Before seeing the film, visit its website, an incredible amalgam of posindustrial graphics that seems inspired in Shinya Sukamoto's, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It contains also excellent colour combinations, sound effects and a minigame that will let you create the henious creature spawned by the crossing of both aliens. As Pinhead said, when you are in the website, "be free to explore".
This post refers to the US English site only.

Texas slaps a tax on strip clubs

2007-12-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

"A dancer performs at a the gentleman's club in Dallas, Texas, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007. Beginning New Year's Day, Texas will require clubs to collect a $5 per head tax on customers of the state's 150 or so strip clubs. Much of the money will go to help sexual assault victims. Club owners and some of their customers say that's a noble cause, but they argue the tax is unconstitutional, will drive some bars out of business and unfairly links their industry to sex crimes".
Text: Yahoo! News. AP Photo/LM Otero.

Family adopts slain son's military dog

2007-12-21T12:57:00.001-08:00

"While waiting for a live shot during a morning news show, Lex looks for attention from new owners Camryn Lee and other family members, from left, Rachel, Jerome and Mady on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007, at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. The adoption of Lex, an 8-year-old German Shepherd, by the family of fallen Marine Cpl. Dustin Lee marked the first time the U.S. military has granted early retirement to a working dog so it could live with a former handler's family, officials said".

I wonder what happens to other US Mil. dogs after retirement...
(AP Photo/Walter Petruska).

Got fleas? Get the vacuum

2007-12-21T12:50:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Vacuum cleaners kill fleas just as well as any poison, surprised researchers said on Tuesday.

They said a standard vacuum cleaner abuses the fleas so much it kills 96 percent of adult fleas and 100 percent of younger fleas.

So no need to worry that a vacuum cleaner bag may turn into a fleabag breeding ground for the pesky, biting creatures, said Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University.

Needham studied the cat flea, or Ctenocephalides felis, the most common type of flea found in households.

"No matter what vacuum a flea gets sucked into, it's probably a one-way trip," Needham said in a statement.

Writing in the journal Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, Needham suggested that the vacuum brushes wear away a waxy outer layer on insects called the cuticle. Without it, the fleas, larvae and pupae probably dry up and die, he said.

The findings were so surprising that the researchers ran their experiment several times.

"We didn't do a post-mortem, so we don't know for sure. But it appears that the physical abuse they took caused them to perish," Needham said.

Fleas spread diseases such as plague and can transmit worms".
Text and image: Reuters.

Maria by Cecilia Bartoli

2007-12-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

I had never heard about Maria Malibran as the Romantic era is not of my taste. However, knowing of Cecilia Bartoli's magnificent voice as well as her keen academic researches, I bought this set as soon as I could. It delivered far more for me than I expected. Not only the performances were astounding, eight world premieres included, but the DVD was informative and the book excellent- Now, I know about Malibran, who she was and something about a fantastic era in the history of music. No music lover should be left without one. You can buy the CD alone, but you will miss the DVD and the excellent book which comes with them. Both shows Bartoli's deep interest in Malibran, her times and voice capabilities, as well as her interest in the history of music and the role of women in it. As they used to say in the old stereo magazines: it is highly recommended.
Image: Amazon.

We Can Stop HIE Death

2007-12-12T20:01:00.000-08:00

Recently in an IR related forum a long feared peril finally took shape: Kodak decided to cease the production of its HIE film. HIE is the only infrared film capable of recording into the 900nm range. Farther than its nearer competitor, Efke's 820c. The deadline was set by Kodak by Jan. 2008. For most photographers like me, using film mostly for artistic purposes, and especially for the b/w creators, HIE has become a fundamental medium. It is impossible to attain the same results with digital imaging and the remaining films are not as good, though each one has its own strengths. Amidst all this secluded turmoil, James C. Williams, a photographer from Winston-Salem, N.C., is determined to persuade Kodak to go on with this stock. I wholeheartedly adhere to his efforts, since my main photographic emulsion is HIE. Thanks James, I hope Kodak will hear.

If you are into analog imaging and like Infrared, please write to Mr. Patrick Hamilton, of Kodak, asking politely to suggest to Kodak to reconsider its decision.
Image: Antenna, 2007. Reference: Amateur Photographer.

Gorf Forever!

2007-11-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

How wonderful! Qué Hijo de Pooh found this emulator, for PC and Pentium. It also contains a pirate's treasure chest: the sacred Gorf's sounds, one of the earliest attempts of voice synthesizing. It is a pity but, as José Antonio Chajón, once commented, "they were propietary technology and there were no derivatives from them". Maybe, but for me as well as for many fans around the world, they sound like music to our ears.
Image: Wingorf.

Please, Meet Nick...

2007-11-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

It's really fantastic to get in touch with people like Nick. Just look at his face, it shows that he is a happy person. After watching this video, I solemnly vow never to complain against my life again.
Video: anonymous.

Exquisite connossieur rats and roaches

2007-11-15T18:48:00.001-08:00

Health inspectors close popular NYC restaurant Serendipity 3

New York (AP) — "While serendipity may be the art of finding pleasant things by chance, what health inspectors found at celebrated eatery Serendipity 3 was not very agreeable.

Officials closed the restaurant Wednesday night after it failed its second inspection in a month. An inspector spotted a live mouse and mouse droppings, fruit flies, house flies and more than 100 live cockroaches. "Both inspections revealed rodent and fly infestation and conditions conducive to pest infestation, including stagnant water in the basement," the department said.

People stand in line for hours outside the Manhattan restaurant, known for its extravagant and expensive desserts. Its $25,000 Frrrozen Haute Chocolate features top-grade cocoa, edible gold and shavings of a luxury truffle and was declared the most expensive dessert in the world by Guinness World Records. The eatery also offers a $1,000 sundae named Golden Opulence requiring 48-hour advance notice".
Yahoo! News.

Japan Against the Whale

2007-11-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

These are are very sad news from Japan: some pro-ecology groups fear that the next whale killing season, approved by the Japanese government, will kill Migaloo, the only known albino humpwhale, a male. When they called to the Japanese authorities that supervise such henious activity, to ask if Migaloo would be killed, the only answer given was a "no comment" response. I have said it before, and I am forced to repeat it again: The Japanese are mean, SOB people.

Imagen: Yahoo! News.

Laika (?-1957)

2007-11-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

Laika (barker) was a stray dog taken from Moscow's streets by the Soviet Space Program for training to send her to orbit the Earth. She became the first cosmonaut dog in history. A very well known one, celebrated in novels, songs and even brands. Her story is so moving that in Julian May's novel, Intervention, an alien race rescues her. The truth is that the soviets never considered her return. "The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog", said Oleg Gazenko in 1998, one of the leading scientist that sent her into orbit.

Today, 40 years after her death, thousands of laboratories and secondary and college students around the world, continue maiming, torturing and killing any kind of species, from insects to primates, in the name of Science. And, like in the case of Laika, without getting any useful information from them. Frankly, which end may have for a 15 year older to dissect a frog if he or she will later complete studies in Architechture or Economics? Just for his/her information, of course, if they say so...
Image, Wikipedia.

De Senectute (On Old Age) and Internet

2007-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

I remember, reading this post written by 95 years old blogger María Amelia, Norberto Bobbio's De Senectute, a rich, complex and excellent academic essay about getting older. Well, not even him, with all his strong academic background, could have written in a better way how much awe is left for the golden years and how much discovering Internet potentials can enhance a 95 years old woman perspective of the world. I should not say it, but her statement deeply moved me. However, it is best to let her tell it to you (the translation from Spanish is mine, and I apologize for any fault):

"Narrow Heads!

My father used to say to me: You were born trying to look what you cannot.

Yes. I always had this idea of traveling and knowing other countries. And, of course, I didn't had that liberty, because my parents could not let me going freely there by, or earning my living as everybody does these days. We, females, were subjected to our parents will.

And I wanted to dance, wanted to live, wanted to know what was life all about. If I would have had Internet those days, always respecting my parents of course, I wouldn't be that obedient because Internet teaches me how to live. And to choose.

Why they say that Internet has bad things? You have to be a person and don't choose the bad ones. I advice to all young people to choose the good. This Internet shows all. Right now I have seen countries that I have just heard of, but just that. This Internet is something that has no explanation of what it is.

If several years ago someone tells me that this Internet was to come, not my father or anyone else would have believed me. This was a great evolution. Grandiose.

Why a lot of people laugh at it? And don't believe that they are... no... some of them are barristers and medical doctors. They find my interest in Internet a motive for funny. How narrow are their heads! Internet teaches. In Internet you travel to all the world, with the Internet. I am astounded. Newspapers, music, everything, everything... I am deeply sorry for all the people who dies without enjoying this Internet.

I feel 40 years younger thanks to Internet. I was falling and it made me feel anxious for living and learning. And I tease people more and more with questions that they sometimes has to investigate. Because modern things surfaces today, and they should be prepared for them.

I advice it: with 60 years old, one is young.

Now I am smarter than before, because Internet opened my senses. Yes, yes, yes, you could laugh thinking that at 95 years old Internet gave me more capacity to understand things".
Image: María Amelia, according to her blog. Text: María Amelia López Soliño, 2007.

The Lords Prayer in 11 century English

2007-11-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4

Never Wear Mom Jeans!

2007-10-27T11:00:00.001-07:00

Hehehe.... read about it here.

Another US Nuclear Failure

2007-10-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

According to a note published by Military, crewmen of the USS Hampton Nuclear Submarine, failed to perform the daily tests that monitor the sub's nuclear reactor safety. Furthermore, they tried to cover their failure by falsifying records. Though there were never any possible dangers both to the crew or the public, it is a situation to take very seriously, specially after the B-52 nuclear bombs mini scandal (see below). And if you like near Apocalypse situations, please watch this video, on the US nuclear deterrent capabilities, fast response, and horrendous, but enticing, consequences.
Image: US Navy.

Miss England, to fatten up some pounds

2007-10-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

"But I'm going to eat, you know, healthy fats such as nuts and avocado, oily fish, things like that", said Georgia Horsley, Miss Englad 2007 for the Miss World Pageant, since the organizers asked her to fatten up a few pounds before the contest takes place in China, on Dec. 1. She is currently size 4, certainly far away from the ideal size 0 so eagerly sought after bay many models.
Note and photo: Yahoo! News.

Puerto Rican Horror Against Pets

2007-10-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

According to Yahoo! News, San Juan, Puerto Rico, imposed a no pets policy to all people living in a place known as Barceloneta. To compulse it, the Mayor offices hired a certain, Animal Control company, whose duty was to take our furry friends to a shelter. Instead of following those directives, Animal Control employees, after taking the pets with sedatives, in front of children, throw them away from a bridge to their deaths. Some pets, severely hurt, even tried to get back, but died. I am really astounded, how can people be so hard against animals? The words of a Buddhist monk come to mind, "if a sole creature remains suffering, the universe will never evolve". Righteous words, but, as a friend of mine uses to say, "now, go and tell those people to see if they can understand". The city paid a $60 fee per pet cleared from Barceloneta. The CEO of the company just said that those animals were not theirs. I was not to write this, but these people deserves to burn in hell.
No photo, I am mourning.

Kim Jong Il, an Internet expert

2007-10-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Seoul, South Korea: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il called himself an Internet expert during summit talks with South Korea's president this week.

The reclusive leader made the remark after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun asked that South Korean companies operating at an industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong be allowed to use the Internet, Yonhap news agency reported, without citing any source.

"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired," Kim told Roh, according to Yonhap. "If that problem is addressed, there is no reason not to open" the Internet, Kim said.

North Korea is one of the world's most closed nations, with the totalitarian regime tightly controlling outside information and tolerating no dissent. Radios and TV sets in North Korea can only receive state broadcasts and ordinary people are banned from using mobile phones, let alone the Internet. However, the country's ruling elite appear to have regular access to outside information.

Kim reportedly asked former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for her e-mail address when she visited Pyongyang in 2000. A North Korean general cracked a joke about President Bush during high-level military talks with the South earlier this year, saying he read it on the Internet. The North's leader is also a big fan of South Korean movies and TV dramas, and Roh gave him a bookcase of South Korean DVDs as a gift this week. Text: AP. Photo: APImages.

A not so clean McJob

2007-10-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

A jury awarded $6.1 million Friday to a woman who was forced to strip for a search in a McDonald's back office after someone called the restaurant posing as a police officer reporting a theft.

Louise Ogborn, who was 18 during the 3 1/2-hour ordeal, was forced to undress and perform sexual acts with the boyfriend of a former assistant manager at the restaurant while the man was on the phone with the bogus caller, according to a surveillance video shown to jurors during the four-week trial.

Ogborn, now 21, sued McDonald's Corp., claiming the fast-food giant failed to warn her and other employees about the caller who already struck other McDonald's stores and other fast-food restaurants across the country. She sought $200 million in damages, but McDonald's argued the company was not responsible and was being sued because of its deep pockets. The jury award $5 million in punitive damages and about $1.1 million in compensatory damages. McDonald's was evaluating whether to appeal the decision, a spokesman said.

The caller to the Mount Washington restaurant impersonated a police officer when he gave a description of a young, female employee accused of stealing from a customer, the lawsuit said. According to testimony, Ogborn fit the description, and the caller instructed an employee to conduct the search.

Donna Summers, a former McDonald's assistant manager who also sued the fast-food chain, led the strip search at the direction of the caller. Summers and Kim Dockery, another assistant manager, were named as defendants in Ogborn's suit, but the jury ruled they did not have to pay any damages.

Summers was placed on probation for a misdemeanor conviction in the case. Her former fiance, Walter Nix Jr., is serving five years in prison for sexually abusing Ogborn during the ordeal.
Text: AP. Photo: APImages.

The Spice Girls Return

2007-10-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

Whilst Britney loses her children custody, due to her high octane drugs and alcohol lifestyle, according to a US Judge; the Spice Girls sells all of their next London concert tickets in just 38 seconds. My heart aches because I really dislike seeing Britney going down that way.

Photo: Yahoo! News.

Salad á la Giger-Arcimboldo

2007-10-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

These images were created by Till Nowak, a digital artist from Mainz, Germany. They are so cluttered with details that you can almost look at them with a magnifying glass. Vibrant colours, lifelike textures and a master 3D rendering can almost send this Alien to a well dressed table, albeit one prepared to serve extra galactic delicatessen, obviously an eclectic fusion between HR Giger and Giuseppe Arcimboldo creations. The latter was an Italian painter from the Renaissance, recognized as a forefather by 20th. c. Surrealism. The Making of Salad, in PDF format, can be read here.
León Ricardo, thanks cor the tip. Images: Framebox.de.

Elizabeth Hurley: Ah, My Goddess!

2007-09-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Photo: MacAddicts.

Cheeta, 75 years old

2007-09-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Who, at older age, can forget this great friend and mascot of Tarzan, who saved him from many woes? Well, this chimp is doing well and thriving. He is 75 since April 9 and enjoys watching his old movies with his grandson, paints and plays the piano but cannot eat sugar, due to a diabetes condition. C.H.E.E.T.A., a sanctuary for primates in CA. cares for him, as you can see in the photographs. According to Guinness he is the oldest known chimp in the world, exceeding the life expectancy of his species by 25 years. Cheers!
Images: C.H.E.E.T.A.

Ars Tatuandi

2007-09-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

"Luis Francisco Alfaro Orozco, aka El Smurf, of the 18th. Street gang, and Carlos Alfredo Guzmán (not in the photograph), are held in custody at a precinct in Colonia Alameda, Zone 18 of Guatemala. Both young men were detained at El Cerrito slum". Over his chest and shoulders the tattooed lettering reads, "I do not trust anyone, least in whores!".
Prensa Libre, 01132007, image, Kattia Vargas.

The incredible art of Carlos Thomas de la Cerda

2007-09-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Mesoamerican artist Carlos Thomas de la Cerda (Chiapas, México, 1985) knew since his childhood that art is his way. But it was not until two years ago that he decided not to try it but to explore it. After a brief period studying Biotechnology, at the prestigious Mexican Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, he continued with his true passions: Architechture, Humanism, and History, albeit in an informal fashion, as he has developed his art so far.

The result is an impressive array of sculptures, made from wire and aluminium, deeply rooted in the traditions, mythology and history of the ancient cultures of the peoples of Mesoamerica. Also, in his work, we can see details that suggests the inevitable cultural sincretism between them and the legacy left by the Spanish conquerors.

I found two things specially enticing in his work: The meticulous, baroque and realistic details in each sculpture, and the big dimensions. Per instance, to use an ancient way of saying it, Lord Pacal, of Palenque, can be clearly seen in the big jaguar head, and in Tecun Uman´s headdress (Guatemala's national hero, but probably a mythological one), a small Christian cross perhaps suggests the fatal destiny of his people (they became slaves of the Spaniards and their culture was destroyed to impose the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church).

Thomas de la Cerda knows his personal history, his roots (he is a descendant of one of Guatemala's former presidents, Manuel Lisandro Barillas), and loves Manga and Anime, as well as the Moon and its symbolism. He also knows which way he has to take in order to go on. His work, however, shows an undeniable pristine side, a nubile kick I find very difficult to define. When I asked him about HR Giger or Arcimboldo, without hesitation denied knowing about them. So, if you try to find something similar between them and Carlos work you will fail, as I did, because his work flows spontaneously from him, and that's the way to look at it, to get the most from his beautiful volumes, his intricate quasi baroque detail and his love for the ancient Maya, as well as his love for the environment, another one of his passions.

Raíces y Mallas will be at the Guatemalan Museo Miraflores until the end of September (María Li, thanks for the tip). Images, 2007.

I shan't be perplexed

2007-09-05T10:11:00.001-07:00

Not at all. The Army Times revealed that a US B-52 bomber carried an unnoticed cargo of 6 cruise missiles armed with nuclear bombs across the US. Now, they say that this will go up even to The President of The United States. Good, I think the highest authorities will deploy a vast operative to catch what happened and why the mishap leaked to the Press. As chilling as it is, I frankly don't believe this is the first time for such an event. It is even possible that nuclear devices are routinely moved from one place to another within the US, as easily as you can take carrots from the grocery to your home. Only that this time it went to the news.
Image: Defense Industry Daily.

Hillary Carol Cruz: Miss Teen USA 2007

2007-08-27T20:38:00.001-07:00

"The judges for this year's competition included: Coty Beauty Vice President, Jay Clarke; Victoria's Secret model, Selita Ebanks; William Morris Agency's Senior Vice President, John Ferriter; actress, Melissa Joan Hart; former Miss Teen USA 2004 and "Days of our Lives" actress, Shelley Hennig; actor, Joey Lawrence; Warner Bros. Records Vice President of Artist Development, Nick Light; professional skateboarder and MTV's "My Life of Ryan" star, Ryan Sheckler; "Friday Night Lights'" actress, Aimee Teegarden; and President of YMI Jeans, David Vered".

Obviously not one judge is a Latino or a Hispanic. So, it is refreshing to see that this Miss Teen Colorado, of Hispanic descent, was the winner of this pageant in a country where, according to one of the questions asked to another competitor, following certain Statics, one of five citizens is unable to find the US in a world map when asked to do so.
Photo and quote, official site.

Justice was served

2007-08-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Reputed Klu-Klux-Klan member, James Ford Seale, now 72, was sentenced to three life terms for the murder of two black teenagers that took place back in 1964. During almost four decades Seale eluded justice, until a 20/20 investigation, led by reporter Harry Phillips, forced Police to reopen the case and take Seale into custody, thanks to the confession of his accomplice, Charles Edwards, a protected witness. Things have changed since then in Meadville, Miss., since now, a black US District Judge, Henry Wingate, sentenced the criminal saying, "justice is ageless". Mr. Seale suffers from a serious Cancer condition. I am not personally pleased seen an ancient going to jail but if something I do admire in the US is its ability to impose the Law, even when it seems that a crime is fading into oblivion. That´s why I find hard to justify the stubborn mojada Elvira Arellano stance, since she was violating the law staying in the US without a legal permisson. But this is, of course, another thing I want to discuss in another posting.
Image and data: ABC News.

Nikon Closes the Circle

2007-08-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Finally Nikon steps into it's own tradition with the release of its newest D3 DSLR. With a FX CMOS sensor, 12.1 MP, and loaded with many pro options, but the most interesting feature for me is its ability to mount old AI, non chip, lenses. Some of those oldest ones are the best ever made by Nikon and some of them, like the famed Nikkor O F:1.2 were never made again. As Macro and IR are my main photographic passions, I welcome this fav machine, a true heir of the unforgettable Nikon F. As its price tag goes to USD $7,995 I will have to settle with the humbler, made for the poor D300 at USD $1,799.95. With the same features, only with a DX 12.1 MP CMOS sensor. Thanks Nikon!
Image: Nikon.

Joan Jett vs. Brtney

2007-08-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

Mostly female friends have said that I like tomboys, several times during my life, perhaps because I liked girls like Stephany of Monaco, Grace Jones, the bald Sinnead O'Connor or the attitude of Deborah Harry. Besides, life is hard, and have spared for me only strong women.

Then, there comes my love for Joan Jett, whose I Love Rock N'Roll was and is a fundamental song in my life. Several days ago I saw for the first time the colour version of the video, that was changed into B&W because Joan found distasteful the red clothing she was wearing during the filming. And she was right, because in B&W it looks fantastic.

Perhaps as an homage, Britney's cover changes from colour to B&W and flashes red hues several times. Although she sings with enthusiasm, the poor direction, lack of creativity and the vulgar dancings chages this classic into a table top dancer's rehearsal. This said, I am sure that my friends will find another argument to point that I like girls with attitude but, isn't it true that Rock'N'Roll will never admit weak performers?
Images: Daily Motion.

Aurora is Back

2007-08-02T20:22:00.001-07:00

"The Return of the Return of Things to Come" titled Famous Monsters of Filmland, back in the 70s when the mag was still in the hands of Forrest J Ackerman. This obvious parody of a work by H.G. Wells, came to my mind because the famous Aurora Plastics Corporation announces its return almost 30 years after closing in New York, and because both, mag and factory, are closely related in my memories.

Once I finished the whole Renwall visible line (from Visible Man to Visible Insect, from Visible Cow to Visible Dog), the next models I did were the Atomic Power Plant (Revell) and the Andrew Jackson sub. One day I saw a Frankestein Flyvver, got it, assembled it and a Universal monster fever began for me: again, from Dracula to the Mummy, from the Wolf Man to The Forgotten Prisoner of Castle Maré (coproduced between Famous Monsters people and Aurora) were assembled at least once by my hands. It was sad to say good bye to Aurora, almost at the same time when my interest in modelism began to wane. One of my latest efforts was the replica of a witch, which, of course, didn't got a good look, because my inspiration was over.

Some of these models became classics eagerly sought after by hard core collectors, in spite of the fact that both Polar Lights and Monogram reedited them. Therefore, they have been in the market ever since, however, some of them can command very high prices in auctions, although it is necessary to find them in mint or pristine condition in order to appeal to the collector´s wallet.

Aurora was created by Joseph E. Gianmarino in 1954. In its web site, BTW, as spartan as its former models, you will find the history of the company as well as the real destiny of its original molds (urban legend wanted them destroyed from long ago). For every lover of modelism, visiting Aurora´s site is a must. Please do so, you will enjoy it.
Image: Frankenstein Flyvver. Modeler: Liquid Metal.

Ernst Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

2007-07-30T19:07:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the greatest and perennial achievement of this Swedish director was his ability to take movies to the highest rankings, so equaling it to any art. If someone's work would justify movies as the Seventh Art, it would be him. Most reviewers and movie historians underline his masterful way to take Theology, Psychology and Philosophy to the theaters, with a strong philosophical point of view. He left this world today in his home in Fårö, Sweden. With him passes an entire era of movie making that spawned and inspired hundreds of other creators. I don't think we will ever see another of his likings (neither of Kurosawa's too), in part because his career developed during a very special period of movie making history. Even when alive, he had become a classic, however, he never became dogmatic. Personally his movies helped me, during really difficult times, to steer to better directions thanks to his way to translate to the screen Absurdism and Existencialism to help explain human maladies so common as loneliness, anguish and sexual conflicts. Farewell great Master!
Photo: Bergman and Sven Nykvist, take abreak during the filming of Through a Glass Darkly in 1956; Wikipedia and his official Web Site.

Farewell

2007-07-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend, You were the only survivor. When you and your siblings infested a house, its people fearful of your scorpion-like tails, exterminated all of you. My friend Juan Carlos, knowing of my love for insects let you in a little pouch and handed it to me. There, in a small tree, dangling upside, your days went eating and eating leaves. I loved to watch your slender figure, the way you touched my hands and, above all, how silent and an ineffable companion you were, as was the Moon for both of us, to which you seemed to stare once in a while. Today I found you dead. I don't know if time, the pesticide or if confinement were the killers. But, looking to your stillness and peace inspired in me the urge for transcendency again.
Image: Phasmid, 2007.

Me, as a Simpson?, TryForTwice

2007-07-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Image: Simpsonize Me.

Me as a Simpson?

2007-07-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

Image: Simpsonize Me (changed due to severe criticism).

Drunkard to the Stars

2007-07-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk. The panel, also reported "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members.
Frank Morring, Jr./Aviation Week & Space Technology Image: DaVinci.

Oscar, for a good farewell

2007-07-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live. "He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Read it in toto, here.
Image: AP Photo/David Milne.

Talks the Genius

2007-07-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

As Harry Potter's latest book sold over 8 million copies in 24 hours, or 5,000 units per minute, and his real world archenemy is the notorious scholar Harold Bloom, read here what he thinks about the series (not for the fainted of heart or the hardcore fans of the series, you were warned!).
Imagen: John Abbot Photography.

Now, That´s a Hangover:

2007-07-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

"Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells". John Paul Getty

A high-rolling businessman woke up with a bar receipt for £105,805 in his wallet after he treated a group of friends to a lavish night out at one of London's most expensive nightclubs, it was claimed yesterday.

Over the course of seven hours at London's Crystal nightclub, the Middle Eastern banker is alleged to have splashed out on numerous super-sized bottles of champagne and vodka.

It total he is said to have bought an astonishing 102 bottles-worth of champagne and 11 bottles-worth of vodka.

Included in the liver-busting round was a Methuselah of champagne (equivalent in size to eight normal-sized bottles) costing £30,000 and a single super-sized bottle of vodka costing £1,400.

But at least the party didn't go too over the top: they also ordered six cans of Coca Cola and some Red Bull as a mixer.

Crystal is no stranger to high-living.

The nightclub was launched last year with the help of Prince Harry's friend Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe and notorious party-girls Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Victoria Hervey.

And in recent months it has played host to the likes of Kate Moss, Pete Docherty and rapper P Diddy.

However, staff at the Marylebone basement club said they have never seen a bar bill as large as this.

The businessman, who is believed to be based in the oil-rich Gulf state of Dubai, arrived at the club last Saturday with a group of around 15 male and female friends.

The group started by ordering one of the more modest drinks on the menu - a bottle of Pinot Grigio costing £25.

But the party-organiser obviously decided that was no where near enough, reportedly telling bar staff: "I want the drinks to be flowing all night".

Staff at the Crystal club were told to keep the alcohol flowing.

Unsurprisingly, as more and more bottles of alcohol appeared, the original group of 16 were joined by many more people, until a 'full-blown party' was taking place in the club's VIP area.

It was nearly 5am on Sunday when the businessman finally called it a day and stumbled out of the club. Total cost of the evening, including service charge: £105,805.28, i.e., USD $210,000.

It's not known if he left a tip.
Data an images: ThisIsLondon.

Princess Anne visits Guatemala

2007-07-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Invitation No. 93 arrived without problems. I wrote it down in my agenda, so did the Press photographer that was to go with me, and voila. Just a few days before the event, a lunch that was to take place at Museo Miraflores in Guatemala, I received a phone call from Her Majesty's Embassy to explain that, regrettably, my invitation was canceled. After all HRH was not interested in interviews. The photographer, however, remained invited. Princess Anne went to Guatemala to attend the annual meeting of the International Olympic Commitee. I would have thought strange for an embassy to withdraw an invitation after issuing it, but, as a friend told me, “18th. Century diplomacy is dead”. But we had to attend another meeting with her at Save The Children facilities in Guatemala.

We were scheduled to arrive before 2 PM since once the royal visitor went inside the building we would not be admitted, for security reasons. As we understood British Time, we rushed and barely arrived just five minutes before 2 PM. She did so two hours later. Meanwhile we were delighted in the company of Security Officers, dogs and certain British diplomats who always look to locals with contempt, sometimes even without finesse.

Finally and without a red carpet HRH Anne of England arrived. My first impression was that she is a worthy person, frank and of course, uppity. I did not talk with her but her style and the way she talked with everyone confirmed my theories. I also noticed the absence of bulky jewelry (unlike Camilla, Prince Charles wife, who recently went to Africa with a diamond necklace valued in USD 10 million). There was not a second impression, because she did her chores relatively fast and went away.
Images: HRH Anne of England, 2007.

Transformers, a pseudoanalysis

2007-07-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Since its inception back in 1984 the Transformers have become many things, even dinosaurs, gorillas, bees and rats (Beast War Transformes). Now, guided by Michael Bay, they become actors in a full featured, 144 min., GMC commercial. Aided, BTW, by the US Government helping hand, which provided military paraphernalia and certain between the lines texts (that’s why, I suppose, they used the Hoover Dam instead of Nevada’s Area 51, for a change).

The TV Series legacy has its importance in the popular culture. However, Bay seems not to know it. Like when the former alter of Bumblebee, a VW Beetle, is seen rotting while Shia LaBeouf convinces his father to buy a Camaro instead. Also, the only non GM car in the film is a Ford Mustang Saleen, a Decepticon and a patrol car flashing a 911 number: a reminder of a Porsche 911 of the former series. Both Megatron and Optimus Prime are ultrahightech robots, but their brains seem to be 386 processors, capable only of generating stupid dialogues. Instead, I found a good idea to transform Megatron into a jet, instead of the Walther P38 pistol of before (a request made by Hasbro, because they can’t sell toy pistols).

Bay has a very interesting movie career: Bad Boyz II, Armaggedon and The Rock, amongst others, directed with varied degree of expertise, as well as music videos and two Chevy commercials. However, Transformers seems to me not his best moment. For example, he uses every known cliché available: from slow motion to underscore dramatic moments, to showing off the beautiful body of Megan Fox (to our delight, that's true).

John Turturro plays an official of a Secret Agency, but his character is so simple and deeply stupid that it is impossible to believe in his existence. Furthermore, Turturro is unable to perform him with credibility and, I think, that to any person with a hint of criteria it detracts from the only possibility of intelligence in the film.

However, I can with confidence advice to you to go and watch the film in the theater, for its fantastic sound, visual effects and action deserves it. It is pure testosterone and the combats are magnificent.

Also, the soundtrack is impressive, as it includes music by Linkin Park, Smashing Pumpkins, Disturbed, Goo Goo Dolls, The Used, HIM, Taking Back Sunday, Styles of Beyond, Armor for Sleep, Idiot Pilot, Julien-K and Mutemath.
Images: GMC, Official Site and Transformers Album.

Tooth pulled ... from rugby player's forehead

2007-07-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

BRISBANE, Australia - Rugby player Ben Czislowski kept competing for more than three months despite the headaches that started after a clash with an opponent. Czislowski was playing for Brisbane team Wynnum during the April 1 incident involving Tweed Heads forward Matt Austin. He had a head wound stitched up afterward, the Australian Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Czislowski later suffered an eye infection and complained of lethargy and shooting pains in his head.

Then last week, his doctor found a tooth imbedded in Czislowski's head.

"I can laugh about it now, but the doctor told me it could have been serious, with teeth carrying germs," Czislowski said.

"I've got the tooth at home, sitting on the bedside table," he said. "If he (Austin) wants it back he can have it. I'm keeping it at the moment as proof that it actually happened."
FoxSports. Image: Bulldogs.

Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet

2007-07-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

So says FoxNews today but that’s an undestatement because what this 75 years old Swedish living in Karlstadt got is an optical 40 Gbps Internet connection, i.e., she can download a fullmovie in just 2 seconds or enjoy 1,500 HDTV channels simultaneously. Ms. Sigbritt Lothberg’s son, Peter, who lives in CA but works for Cisco

Sweden

decided to wire his mother while proving that there is no limit for the SuperHighway speed. He achieved such feat using two routers, located 1,240 miles apart, but avoiding transponders in between. Hafsteinn Jonsson, who worked with Peter in this project, thinks that this could be the world’s fatest home Internet connection to date. Ms. Lothberg, who haven’t had Internet or PC before uses it mainly to read the papers. Along with them came a message, quoted in SiliconNews. Gregory Sullivan wrote to her: "There are many obstacles to our relationship. You're 75 years old, but age doesn't matter to me. You live in central Sweden, which is kind of a long haul from New England. I'll commute. Both you and I are already married, which might be an impediment as well. But, Sigbritt, you have the world's fastest broadband connection, 40 Gigabits per second, and boy do I want that”.
Photo: Peter Lothberg, from his Website.

Doom for all the senses

2007-07-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

Life is Wasted on the Living, says KingZombie, a company selling a board version of Doom, with board (LOL), and 66 figures: 3 marines, 3 cyberdemons, 3 archviles, 6 demons, 6 knights of hell, 6 mancubus, 6 trites, 12 imps, 12 zombies (one of them, The Son of Pooh knows, worked with us in the only posh days of Compulandia) and 6 dice. Along with cards (á la Magic The Gathering) to asses the Marine's skills, and instructions, of course. At 28mm of height, you will feel the pieces, probably will smell them (although they won't smell as bad as the video game's images suggests) and, as they come in just one colour, it will be a delight to paint them with Testor's, as if a plastic model they were. The history is based on the video's one, not in the stupid version taken to the movies.

Finally, it also has an expansion pack, like the video game. At USD $43.96, for the board game, and USD $31.96, for the expansion, (plus S&H, bla, bla, bla), respectively, you will find it worth to buy one set to play and another just to keep. Or, what? Aren't you collectors too?
To Mario Soto, who suffers at the hands of costarican girls. Images, KingZombie.

Cloverfield

2007-07-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

This is the famous Cloverfield trailer. The film is produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves. I think it is scheduled for 01182008. Enjoy!:

CloverField TT
Uploaded by anil31

BTW, I also find the cry that is heard from afar, very similar to that of Godzilla in the American version of the monster.

Buddha in China

2007-07-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

"A human-shaped shadow in the middle of a rainbow halo appears on Zushan Mountain after a heavy rainfall in Qinhuangdao, North China's Heibei Province, July 1, 2007. The vision, which many tourists believed to be the Buddha, stayed for more than an hour". So, says a Shanghalist capsule, about this beautiful optical effect. In the West, though, many would have preferred to see there a Jesus or a Virgin Mary image or, here in Guatemala, the most fanatic Christian fundamentalists, a threat from Satan.
Image: China Daily.

Chinese villagers eat dinosaur bones

2007-07-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

"Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers. Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as ‘dragon bones’ at about 50 cents per kilogram, scientist told.

One of the scientists, named Dong, said that when the villagers found out the bones were from dinosaurs they donated 200 kilograms to him and his colleagues for research. “They had believed that the ‘dragon bones’ were from the dragons flying in the sky", he said.

The calcium-rich bones were sometimes boiled with other ingredients and fed to children as a treatment for dizziness and leg cramps. Other times they were ground up and made into a paste that was applied directly to fractures and other injuries. The practice had been going on for at least two decades, he said.

Dong was among a team of scientists who recently excavated in Henan’s Ruyang County an 60-foot-long plant-eating dinosaur, which lived 85 million to 100 million years ago. Another two dinosaur fossils were being excavated in the area, which is rich in fossilised dinosaur eggs, Dong said.
Note and Photo: Daily Times.

On Luis leaving Prensa Libre...

2007-07-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

Marce,
I am leaving Cronica and this is my final (albeit beta version) of my very last days there. I think I will miss a lot doing the movie and book reviews, and even interviewing people, which was perhaps the most boring thing I could think of in the normal days.

It was no surprise for everyone that Cronica was sold out to a consortium of businessmen. What was indeed a surprise was the fact that the new CEO and General Editor of Cronica is now Mario David Garcia -of Aqui El Mundo (un)fame-, and it is said that behind him is all the money that the PAN government can spend (via Eduardo Castillo, aka el vice alcalde) to ensure that they will win the next Presidential elections. When this information was verified chaos ensued: in almost every quarter of Cronica everybody was shouting "Abandon ship!", safeguarding themselves in their own emergency probes and firing them off into space as the invading forces marched fearless in. In less than a week the mag’s premises were deserted.

Only some toady soldiers of fortune and me remained on deck (I was asked to stay just to act as a double agent against the malignant Imperial forces). To be fair with the new CEO, I shall tell that when he arrived and met me he said ha was very happy since he knew my father. But added that it would be very good for him if I stayed as member of his news staff doing alone the job, that was formerly made by five people, earning only my present wage.

The new people that Garcia brought in with him (with the exception of a very [...TEXT INTENTIONALLY BANNED...] who was a former close friend of mine and whom I called) can be described with two Spanish words: mucos or nacos, and all of them can be called faferos (newspeople who bribe for personal profit).

Although I have been really careful, some coworkers have begun to suspect that I am not as loyal to the new status quo (something I have never implied) as I should be, moreover I think my services are no longer needed, since war is over and we (my team) are, in the short term, the losing ones. So, last week, I also got into my exit probe (i.e., I quitted), and programmed it to launch itself out of Cronica on Jan. 5, 1999, when I hope another big mothership, this time Prensa Libre, will pick me up into safety (I will be in charge of Suplemento Bit). There the future seems bright since another coworker’s probe (with whom I conduct a radio program) will land there too: Claudia Navas, the most [...TEXT INTENTIONALLY BANNED...] girl in the world. And now, thanx a lot for your patience, support and time. Leon

Image: Wikipedia.

Any Title

2007-06-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

To You:

2007-06-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

"There was a time we’d both agree,
That I was you, and you were me.
What has happened to us two,
Now I am me and you are you?"

Indian poem
Image: Old Providence, 2007.

Holger Czukay

2007-06-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

I only knew the impressive, The Boat Woman Song, composed by this Free City of Danzing composer, founder of the German band Can and foremost figure of the KrautRock movement. Now, thanks to a double folded gift from my friend Craig, I have two albums: Holger Czukay - Movies, and, On the Way to the Peak of Normal CD. From my first hearing, I hear beautiful sounds, textures and a very special blend of electronica and acoustica. Craig, thaaanx a lot, am enjoying both while midnight approaches with its most desired child: sleep.
Images: Amazon.

A One Wing Landing

2007-06-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Incredible!

This astounding video shows how an Israeli pilot lands his F-15 after losing a wing during a military exercise, a feat that, as the narrator says, shows how much punishment can be inflicted to this plane in the battlefield. Obviously, not all from the History Channel is crap.
Link from: Military.com.

Ghost Rider, back again

2007-06-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

"Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and Peter Fonda directed by Mark Steven Johnson filmed one of the most intense stories of the Marvel universe. Sadly, they got one of the worst from comic to movie efforts. Now it surfaces in a two DVD cut, specially offered to those who love to watch the worst films ever made".
Translated from, Suplemento Weekend, Prensa Libre, 06/08/2007.

Would you like to be her partner?

2007-06-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

Tania is now looking for a partner to be with her in a new porno movie, to be produced by IP, or Intellectual Porn, a project of NEE, the political party that wants her as a Belgian senator. Both male or female applicants will be considered. If you want to star in the film with her, just fill a form in their Web site.
Image: IP.

Jail no Hilton for Paris

2007-06-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

"I did have a choice to go to a pay jail," Hilton said Sunday, without giving details. "But I declined because I feel like the media portrays me in a way that I'm not and that's why I wanted to go to county, to show that I can do it and I'm going to be treated like everyone else. I'm going to do the time, I'm going to do it the right way". Meanwhile, Madame Tussauds Museum dressed their Hilton manniquin like a toon con, with a black a white stripes suit. It will remain so until Paris leaves the jail facilities.
Quotes: Inside Bay Area; Photo, Id.; Heading: World News Australia.

Cindy Sheehan leaves...

2007-06-02T12:21:00.001-07:00

This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

This entry recently published in Cindy's blog is moving and chilling. Read it and ponder, think, think twice and then do, positively do.
Photo: Military.com

Fred's Last Dance

2007-06-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Phil Blissitt, according to the Anniston Star, bought a 4 months swine as a Christmas gift for his wife Rhonda in 2002. They never imagined that the cute pet would reach an staggering 1,051 pounds, 'nough to nickname it Hogzilla 2 (after another giant, killed in Oregon). But later, as they decided to get rid of all the hogs in their place, Fred (its real name) was sold to an Alaba farm, the Lost Creek Plantation (a hunting preserve), where the big circus like curiosity didn't survived even for two days, since on past May 3, an 11 year old redneck boy, Jamison Stone, with his father, shot it to death with 12, .50 cal., handgun shots. Both hunters thought it was a feral animal, and chased it for 3 hours before the killing. Or so they said.
Photo: Washington Post and AP Photo/The Anniston Star, Stephen Gross.

The Dragon speeds it's breath

2007-06-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

According to this study of the Defense Department China is racing towards a better war technology in order, first, to prepare (si vis pacem, para bellum) war, both defensive and offensive, against the US; and second, against its own neighbours. The implications are chilling and, together with the recent succsesful launching of the newest Russian ICBM, the RS-24, it is obvious that the world foremost countries are, again, engulfed in a new kind of Cold War. If reincarnation were true, and we would come back here 100 years from now, no doubt we would watch, and worst, live future wars fought with better and more letal weapons. Meanwhile, I suggest you to visit this place, you'll find an excellent slide show prepared by the Navy in order to help the younger ones to join the Naval Air Force.
Photo: Summer Palace, Beijing, National Geographic.

Cheers with Giger’s Absinthe!

2007-05-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

"What is there in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? ... Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men". Aleister Crowley (1875-1947).

"What difference there is between absinthe and sunset?". Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).

The spirit that soothed the spleen days of the French poets of the 19th Century, which, it is said, made Van Gogh sever his ear, that inspired the finest writings of Baudelaire, Coleridge, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Wilde and Crowley, comes back lavishly dressed by H.R. Giger, himself a magnificent outcast of our times.

Of highly alcoholic contents, this anise flavored drink stems from Artemisia absinthium, long ago considered a concoction of black alchemists, an arcane predecessor of modern day psychedelics, a generous instigator of the so called green madness: a delirious, verbose condition, that ends in terrible, lucid nightmares. It is said that it pays its victims drowning them in their own abysses of self indulgence, after years of addiction.

Thanks to the increased demand, the European Union, backed by strong scientific investigations, that suggests that this brew is no more dangerous than any ordinary spirit, lift the centenary ban imposed on its sales.

Therefore, Lion Absinthe Distribution, a German vendor, sells it freely, and announced recently the launch of its product catalogue number 1148: the Brevans H.R. Giger, distilled according to the formula left by J. de Brevans in his, La Fabrication des Liqueurs, a 19th Century formulary. “Only the finest wormwood and aromatic plants are used for its distillation and coloration. The result is an internationally acclaimed liquor that reflects the true spirit of the best absinthes of the Belle Époque”, says the brochure.

The label is something very special. Designed by Giger, it reproduces two of his most known works: Brain Salad Surgery II and Brain Salad Surgery I. Both originals were stolen in 2005 during a retrospective held in Prague (the Giger Museum offers a USD $5,000 reward for information about them, and a paid weekend in its facilities).

The Giger label not only embellishes the black legend that goes with this beverage, but makes it a very desirable collectable object. I advice you to buy two bottles, one to keep unopened and the other to cheer with friends.

I hope that, upon enjoying it you will not be tormented by the demons sealed inside the bottle. Like the ancient djinn of the tales of the book of One Thousand Nights and a Night, they are anxious to spread their green madness spell upon you, with its terrible but delicious deliria.
To: Claudia Navas.

Narciso Yepes

2007-05-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Narciso was one of the greatest lute masters of the 20th. Century. Here you can watch his ability with a 10 string guitar, one of his inventions. He was also an able composer, in fact, one of his compositions, Romance, was recently covered by My Chemical Romance. Therefore I don't fully understand why recent history ignores him, instead of honoring his career as is the case with the Marqués de Solobreña, aka Andrés Segovia. His interpretations of almost all of J. S. Bach works for lute comes along with my teen memories, when I found one of his albums, a double Archiv (2708 030), in which he played a 16 strings lute; never released in CD format as far as I know. There is a similar one, a Deutsches Gramophon, but with this same 10 stringed instrument. Generally, it is hardest to find his music in digital format, something that does no happen neither with Segovia, nor with the organist, E. Power Biggs. Luckly, YouTube saves his legacy, albeit in a very small quantity. Enjoy!

Yeees!!! I was selected!!!

2007-05-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks Tania, your Japanese assistant is very able and I, as a true believer in virtual reality, am more than happy. But I am waiting for you! Meanwhile, you'll keep me in a perennial morning wood like condition!

Oral Sex for Votes in Old Belgium

2007-05-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

She will perfom oral sex on you in her quest for a place in the Belgian Senate. At least, that's the promise of NEE, a political group supporting her endevours. You can apply, visiting their webpage.

NEE, says their leterature, is an impartial protest movement running for senate in the Belgian elections of June 10th 2007: NEE works around political awareness and offers voters in Belgium the option to vote 'NEE' if they find that none of the parties deserve their vote. NEE votes would simply go to empty seats in parliament, resulting in a loss of income and power among the other parties and giving the voters the power to sanction politicians if needed.
For further questions, you can e-mail us atmailto:info@nee-antwerpen.be

Farewell Mother

2007-05-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

I cannot find words to say bye
I do not need them
You are not away
You are in me
flowing through my veins
in the kernell of my bones
Dee, deep, embedded in my memories
from my earliest years to my latest adulthood
I will carry You in my heart, in my brain, in my soul
As You carried me, deep inside Your body
Months and months before my birth
As it was great news for You when I was born
So it was great, beautiful, wonderful and a exultant pride
To be along with You
to see how life
(a mystery, a secret unveiled)
found a channel, a passage, an embodiment
to Express itself just once with blissed grandeur
Image: William Blake

The importance of being a cocodrile (Tough choice, II)

2007-04-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

"In his defense, every primitive culture known to man deified them. Ancient China, Egypt, Australia, Asia. Going back in history, crocodiles have been more worshipped than Jesus".
From the film, Lake Placid, 1999, written by David E. Kelley, directed by Steve Miner. Image, 2docstock.

Astounding:

2007-04-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

The astounding art of Mati Klarwein

2007-04-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

While reading about H. R. Giger, I found the name of this artist, totally unknown to me before. When I saw this painting, The Annunciation, I recognized one of the most beautiful LP covers ever seen: that of Santana Abraxas. In Klarwein's website, it is stated that, "Behind the world-famous painting Annunciation, used by Santana for the cover of their album Abraxas, hides the incredibly rich, but little known, universe of Mati Klarwein. Although Mati produced some of the most iconic images of the 60's and 70's, his name, and much of his work, remains unknown to many".

On this work, the artist comments: "Annunciation is the first painting I painted after my initial New York awakening. I was 28 years old and at the peak of my molecular bio-energy. You can feel the sudden burst of the Big Apple's electric zap in the composition after all the early years of adolescent brooding over potatoes and eggs and the romantic nostalgia of the preceeding Flight to Egypt. In those days I had an obsessional passion for the female body that lasted deep into my thirties (to be replaced by rocks 'n' stones)... Years later Carlos Santana saw a reproduction of the Annunciation in a magazine and wanted it for the cover of his all time best selling Abraxas album. It did me a world of good. I saw the album pinned to the wall in a shaman's mud hut in Niger and inside a Rastafarian's ganja hauling truck in Jamaica. I was in good global company, muchissimas gracias, Carlito!".

If you are old enough to remember Santana's Abraxas, or you are a student of art, please visit Klarwein web site. You'll discover an incredibly rich and fantastic creation: just look at his bold conception of the Virgin Mary and where he placed a dove, symbol of the Holy Ghost.

Virginia Tech: After thoughts

2007-04-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

There is something disturbing in President’s Bush words, as cited by Yahoo News: “One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look”.

At first I didn’t realize it, but, moments after, I began to wonder what would happen to those persons, younger ones above all, if everybody begins to point their fingers against them. Then, it is inevitable to ponder what is abnormal and who can predict if someone will become a criminal. Italian writer Giovanni Papini, in his satire Gog (published in 1931) takes this dilemma to the absurd, and concludes that, in order to prevent crime, it is imperative to jail all citizens before they become a criminal, because, potentially, no one is exempt to left normality behind.

President Bush, however, also said: “If you are a parent and your child is, you know, doing strange things on the Internet, pay attention to it and not be afraid to ask for help and not be afraid to say, I am concerned about what I am seeing... I think it's very important for us not to comment until it's all said and done, but that other cases there have been warning signals — that if an adult for example had taken the signals seriously, perhaps tragedy could have been avoided”. This is more tempered. But the cloud of discrimination is set against anyone considered different, by who knows what standards: just remember the McCarthy era.

Also, this attitude is dangerous, because it asks to look just to the surface and never to dig deep to reach the roots that makes America one of the very nations where serial killers, and now shooters like Cho Seung-hui, thrieve bringing tragedy to many homes.

He, he, he...

2007-04-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

A fishing boat sits stuck in the ice off the coast of Newfoundland, April 18, 2007. The ice that caused havoc with this year's seal hunt has trapped about 100 boats.
REUTERS/Canadian Coast Guard/ Handout (CANADA).

H. R. Giger's Sanctuary

2007-04-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Documentarians Nick Brandestini (Return to Florence) and Steve Ellington (March of the Children) take a 19 min. tour into Giger's Museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland, and offer an interview with the master surrealist painter and sculptor. Giger speaks freely about his museum, art, Alien (his creation) and, most importantly, on his view of the future. Don't miss it!
IMDB and Ifilm

Frank Miller's 300

2007-04-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

"Go, tell the Spartans, passerby, that here, by Spartan law, we lie". So, in the Thermopilae the Spartans celebrated one of its mightiest battles. Frank Miller, inspired in The 300 Spartans (Rudolph Maté, 1962) recreated it in one of the finest comics of the past decade. Then, director Zack Snyder took it to the movies, and, after Sin City, transliterated the visual impact of Miller's work to the screen. The result: a visual explossion of violence and fastuosity with beautiful oniric overtones (just watch a Persian envoy blanding an array of crowned skulls, those of kings defeated in battle, or, the lavish court of the tyrant Xerxes, where a Baphometh, a total anachronism, is true, represents the evil of the place).

With a linear script, minimalistic dialogues and awesome images (the Ephors, for example), the film desecreates any religous belivings and the atrocity that is treason, but affirms the supremacy of Spartan women, the terrible destiny of the warrior, almost any warrior, and, above all, the idefatigable power of will. Nobody should avoid this film but, to enjoy it to its fullest, the Imax format is, no doubt, the best way to unfold its majestic might.

Thanks to this film, Western Martial Arts are respectable to me again. I am, once again, after the Stoics trail and I felt like mine the Glory of those 300 braves that were able to stop the advence of an army that historians say comprissed between 200,000 to 2,000,000 persians. Real history of course was not like the film's one. It was more Spartan, as it should, but its grandeour deserves to be told by the art and fantasy of Miller images, now to be considered one of the very finest story tellers of our time.
Imagess: Revsa/Warner Brothers
BTW the film's soundtrack is really fantastic.

Tough choice

2007-04-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Was it really necessary to kill this magnificent animal in order to free it's Vet's member? The whole thing is here. This is certainly a terrible image, but as Ximena (Veterinary student) said, "these are tricks of the trade". Once again, we see how the people called to protect these creatures, by definition severed from their environment, end as their killers. Obviously, they are as disposable for most people as a can of soda or as an old electric appliance. But they are alive and in danger of extinction.

De Arte Venandi cum Avibus

2007-04-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194-1250), King of Sicily, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, King of the Romans, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, was one of the very few brilliant minds of the Middle Ages who opossed the Pope and the teachings of the Church, even, it is said, declaring Jesus, Moses and Muhammad as frauds. Patron of arts and Science, warrior and writer, founder of the University of Naples, it is also said that he spoke nine toungues (in an era when most members of the highest nobility were unable even to read). He was known as Stupor Mundi (Astonishment of the World), a Pope declared him to be the Antichrist, was twice excommunicated, and Dante sent him to the fires of Hell in the Divine Comedy.

This book, about one of his passions, hunting with falcons, should therefore be in the shelves of every learned reader of the world. It is a fantastic source of information for falconers, historians (both of the Middle Ages and of Science) and for everyone interested in the history or the life of this great King, who, when crowned, wore a robe with this inscription wrote in Arabic: "May the Emperor be received well, may he enjoy vast prosperity, great generosity and high splendour, fame and magnificent endowments, and the fulfillment of his wishes and hopes. May his days and nights go in pleasure without end or change". So be it.

Images: Wikipedia and Amazon.

Rammstein, Oh Rammstein...

2007-04-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

To the shitty Canadian Government

2007-03-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

This year the Canadian Administration will be as insensible, cruel and stupid so as to grant the killing of over 350,000 Harp Seals, Phoca goenlandica, specially the younger ones. It is really insulting, if you consider that Canada sells itself as a foremost member of the Developed World. Yes, developed that country may be, but inside, in its innemost entrails, there lies a criminal heart and an Administration obviously unable to find a decent way to feed that part of its population. Far from there, in Russia or China, some stupid rich bitch, or a man, will use the seal's fur as a valuable prize, a sign that they are the dons of the underworlds where they dwell.
Please help PETA fight this insensible and cruel slaughter
Image: Orange Room

We all know you will come back...

2007-03-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Image: Marvel.