once upon a time...

new culture, nice to meet you!

2009-05-09T14:55:00.004+02:00

I would like to tell you something, something I'll tell you just now. I hope everybody who read this post don't discover anything new, and I also hope everybody get bored with the video I'm attaching. In fact it is not very common to want your post to bore the readers but I’ve got a reason, a reason that deserves your boredom. I’ll tell you the reason later. First, please, watch the video. Then you can continue reading. Thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwsNKkVPog

And the reason is simple: if videos like the one I post weren’t necessary for our society, if people didn’t need to read that kind of message, it would mean we are responsible and good human beings. It has nothing to do with moral: it’s a question of loving everyone who is like us and in the same way, or even more, the ones who are different. It’s a question of being ourselves but realizing the world is watched by thousands of eyes. It’s not a question of sharing or letting other cultures be like us, is a question of everyone acting as the person he is, having his own place and doing all this next to other people who do the same. It’s a question of growing up once and for all.
I'm not against this kind of videos being made, but wouldn't the world be much great if they weren't completely obvious?

Is this art?

2009-04-27T19:54:00.008+02:00

Today I want to introduce you to something I've just discovered a few hours ago. Before the weekend we were talking in class about art, creativity, museums... and one of the most "polemic" points in the debate was "what was art for each of us". Well, obviously it depends on the person, but it has nothing to do with age or sex or... It's something we all have inside and we have to discover. After today I thought I like impressionism painting such as Manet, Renoir or others but now I know that I love many of those pieces of beautiful art which are inside the Centre Charles Pompidou, in Paris. There is the most important and famous collection of modern art and, despite the fact some of you (and I could say "some of us" until today) don't like that kind of intelligent uses of objects which aren't apparently art, I ask you to have a look at least at one of the pictures which the web page below shows. Please. Perhaps you don't like them at all and perhaps you already know all of them but just in case there is someone like me who hadn't already tried, or just to see, because we have to see everything, and then love or hate but see, because it doesn't cost any money, does it?

http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Pedagogie.nsf/0/651D33F89AE541E0C1256D9C00529708?OpenDocument&sessionM=3.3&L=2&sessionM=4.3&L=2
(sorry, the links don't work properly, you'll have to copy the adresses. If you have some idea of how to solve this, I would thank you tell me)

The picture above this post is an sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, a French artist who was born in 1887 in Blainville-Crevon, Seine-Maritime and died in 1968 in Paris. He's known around the world and if you didn't know him because you had heard his surname because his brothers were famous painters and sculptors too. The work is called "Roue de bicyclette" (Bicycle Wheel) and it was created in 1913, although the one in Pompidou is a replica by the Schwarz Gallery in Milan (1964).

Here you have the technique description:

Roue de bicyclette (Bicycle Wheel), 1913/1964
Duchamp created the (since lost) original in Paris in 1913. The Schwarz Gallery in Milan produced this replica under Duchamp’s supervision in 1964. It is the sixth version of this readymade piece
A bicycle wheel assembled onto a stool
Metal and painted wood, 126.5 x 31.5 x 63.5 cm

Now let's open the debate! Who is for having a bike wheel in a museum? Who is against it and says bike wheels have to be spinning in the street? My opinion is bike compounds have lots of things to say in art galleries, and I've realised it today, perhaps you already have your idea or perhaps today you are having a new one like me!

Would you say three white panels hanging on the wall are art? If you want to read more, I've found an interesting blog post which talks about the feeling of visiting Pompidou and seeing things like these panels, which annoys you or change your art concept, sure!

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/06/euroupdate_2_is_science_art.php

(I'm waiting for your artistic answers!)

2009-03-27T23:42:00.003+01:00

Long time, no see! Sorry for that.

Today, I'm afraid of something that happened to me yesterday. It could seem a bit strange, even very strange. In spite of that, it's true. I don't know if I should share the story with us because then you'll be afraid too, and that could be terrible, isn't it? So, then, let's find a solution: I need to write it, just to get it off my chest, and perhaps you get afraid, so I'll post it and if you are easyly frightened people, stop reading my post just here!
Now, to those of you who are already here, let's start the story: my uncanny story.
My grandfather died in 1997. That's the first thing you have to know. Yesterday, I got home at 7 o'clock in the evening, I had a shower and then I started tidying my room, something I should never have done. You have to know this too because otherwise you'll get lost. It was a quarter to 9 when I came to the kitchen to put a pot on the cooker to boil water and have some pasta to dinner. I went upstairs again to my room and kept on tidying. Then it came. A photograph where all grandsons appeared with our granfather, that one who died in 1997, just fell in front of me. First I was sad but when I looked carefully at the picture, I was sad and scared. Even more scared than sad! A light line passed above the head of my granfather, as it was pointing to him. That light had never been in the photograph before because I had watched it so many times... but then there was! And it is already there now! Then I just remember somebody telling me a story about a grandfather and a photograph strangely illuminated. The story finished with the grandfather getting home as he had done the same thing every day before.

(You can be scared now. If you don't, congratulations. In fact, that's an uncanny story so I guess it's not tecessary you got scared but, well, we could laugh together if you were!)

Once, by Morris Gleitzman

2009-02-23T17:13:00.007+01:00

Today, let's introduce you a book written in such a good way that compltely defines children's mind, and adults crazy world too. That's "Once", by Morris Gleitzman. The time is the second world war; the atmosphere, the nazism walking across Europe and reaching everyone's life; and the place, Poland. The main character couldn't be better chosen: Felix is a child who lives in an orphanate and decides to scape to look for his parents, who are jews and run a bookshop, so you can imagine that the reason why they are not answering his letters is not that they are selling books around Europe but something really different. And here the story starts, in such a nice way, with the innocence of the eyes of someone who believes in people, who believes in goodness, and who will progressivly discover sometimes people and goodness don't come together and then suddenly you are frightened. A story that talks about the nazism topic in a different way, that shows us how parents are important to child and what a little man can do to get his dream and make the world a bit better in times when the world is being distroyed.

Here you have the sentences written in the cover of the book and the text in the back. If, after all, you are interested in it, go to the link below and Gleitzman will read the first capter just for you... You'll see is from an infantile web page because, in fact, he writes to children but that's not an infantile story, trust me and enjoy it!

Everybody deserves to have something good in their life.

At least once.

Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.

Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.

Once I made a Nazi with toothache laugh.

My name is Felix.

This is my story.

http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/books/fst_once_audio.html

2009-02-01T23:26:00.002+01:00

Today just some opinions mixed. Lets talk about independence. Oh, yes, that fantastic word which reppresents thigs so different deppending on who talks. There's people who hear "independence" and immediately think about countries, states, having their own borders, showing the ID to get into the next country. There are others who think about personal freedom: saying what you want, not deppending on anyone else, giving opinion, criticizing evrything they want and correcting things they have said, they have done. That could be the most subjective meaning. Then we have adolescents, for who independence means being alone at home, or leaving from their parent's house and having their own one. Finally, I'm sure there are many, many other different ways of feeling independence. So you can add your opinion, if you want! Let's mix!

a bell, but not a christmas one

2009-01-10T00:20:00.003+01:00

Some people live being fed by any moment, by any feeling, by things which happen by chance. Perhaps that's the best way of taking life. Or perhaps not. Everyone has his point of view and one idea is as acceptable as another one. The man who I'm going to talk you about today was not borned to make people argue about how to face life, but to show us how important is every step we make, without forgetting in a drawer anything that had happened to us. Sometimes details are much more difficult to remember, and the evidence is that you know you had lunch yesterday but you don't remember exactly how many slices of bread you ate, or the exact quantity of salt you added to the soup. But some other times, little things are much more memorable than big events. That man was borned to be an example of this.
One day, when he was a child, someone hung in the door of a hen house a bell to warn when someone opened it. The hen house was in her aunt's field house. Since then and until three years ago, this bell has been in the same place where someone put it the first time. It has rang many times, and many times in the ears of that man of the story. During his childhood, and his adolesence, and his life until his fourties, so half a life is what the bell and the man have sung together. Four years ago, the hen house was destroyed because there weren't hens any more and the house needed some tidying task. That day the man took the bell and saved it into a box. And the box into the car. And the car took the way home. And the man, and the box and the bell on the car. And the box arrived at home. And the man has kept the box into a drawer since today. And today, by chance, he's found it and a life has rushed outside the drawer. And he's felt all those moments in his ears again, and has remembered himself playing, and running, and laughing around that sound. The sound of that little bell that represents half of his life.

a piece of thought

2008-12-16T17:18:00.009+01:00

Definitely I have to get used to write more often on this blog but I have already past a difficult work situation. I had to finish many aticles by the end of last week and, moreover, I had already started writing a novel! Yeah, I know I told you I was a frustrated writer and that doesn't really match with the loads of work I'm doing right now, but things are going like this. I don't know if is chance, or the destiny or something else but the fact is I'm receiving a big number of phone calls for different projects. I hope they won't be canceled the day I write the first line!
Well, the thing is I didn't really want to tell you my pains because you are going to be up to your eyes in reading thing about my life. So today I would like to introduce a topic, which I want to start with a sentence someone has said to me today: "The more words we invent, the more things we can perceive". I think there are two different ways to see how humans think and keep our brain working. On one hand, you could have the impression that we see, smell, touch, listen, and taste whatever that is in our lifes, I mean you can think everything exists and we catch all this and start finding a word to call that thing. That could be one way. The other opinion is what this sentence in commas expresses: we invent words, and we assign one word to one thing, so we can feel the same number of things as words we have invented. I'm going to tell you my opinion one of this days, but I'd like to listen to your ideas!
Food for thought could be the name of that post, don't you think?
Keep your brain entertained, then!

OH! AND RELATED TO BRAIN BUT IN ANOTHER WAY: remember La Marató! You can give money until the end of January or beggining of February, I'm not sure! Each euro counts! Please join the task for people who suffer from mental illnesses!

some painting!

2008-11-21T20:01:00.008+01:00

Can you imagine the big amount of things you can learn sharing your time with children? These last days, I've ralised that people who are sixty centimetres from the floor can see much more things than adults, who are a bit taller, and now I'm completely fascinated by the brainstorm children have always in their mind. They don't know what is real or what is not, what has already been discovered or wheter they are the latest famous inventors in the world. They can mix yellow and blue and see another light, that we call green, and perhaps they create a new word in their mind and they think we are crazy when we say frogs are "green", for example. An why am I telling you all this? Where does all these ideas come from? Well, in fact, the only thing I have done this days is having a little holidays with my son. Do you remember him? The little James of that story of secrets books, and secret under-beds, and secret life. Well, here's is my best experience: I saw him bringing a pote of painting to his room, and, as you can imagine, as children do what they want and they don't see things which are wrong (or actually they prentend not to see them), I hurried behind him. And I waited behind the door so that he couldn't see me and because, on the other hand, I don't really want to embarass a future artist with my eyes watching at him. So I let the minutes go on. And in a second he had opened the pote, he had taken a big brush he had prepeared before and he had started writing a story in the wall. Blue words on the previous yellow of his bedroom. It was nice. When he had finsihed, he walked up to me -then was when I realised he had known I was there all the time- and he started reading to me what he had written. And that was still nicer than the blue words in the yellow background. And why didn't I told him to stop painting as he was destroying the beautiful style of him own room? Because of that, because that's his own room, his own world. If I don't let him beeing free in there, how will he learn people need freedom? Don't you think my son has learnt loads of thing from my story of the secrets, although he was asleep?

Paint you room, then!

Oh, my boss, my boss...

2008-10-25T20:12:00.003+02:00

I've just come back from a voyage related to work (although I've been having more fun than working, but don't tell him) and he's already shouting at me because he says I had to write an article for friday morning and I didn't. Well, poor boy, he's not wrong because in fact I dind't but... you know that the intention was there. Don't you? So, my idea was to start writing it now, first thinking about one interesting topic, then developing it, and showing the onclusions where I had arrived at the end. Then I would send it to him and he'd open his e-mail and realise that the article he had been waiting for, for more than 24 hours, had arrived; and he would smile and breath free. But... you know, intentions don't always become real, and my one's tend to hide from the reality so you can imagine what had happened. Yes, he's still waiting some piece of news from me. Oh, yes, I know I should be more reponsible and... but if I was, then I end up not being a pain in the neck of every boss I have, and that could be really boring. Don't you think?
In fact, perhaps I have to wait until he tells me: "you don't have to come tomorrow". Well, thinking about it... perhaps I can send him all this I'm writing to you. In fact, he's used to my style. Hmmm... yes, I'll send this hole post to him. Well, first, what do you think I should do?
I'd like you to answer me, my friends. If you don't... "jumm", "jumm", that's gonna be the crazy life of a crazy writer! Terrible!

one story to my son

2008-10-18T20:06:00.008+02:00

- One day there was a little blue house in the middle of a beautiful landscape. All you could see was divided in two parts: the house, and kilometres and kilometres of high mountains. A little man called James lived in that special country where everybody had a secret. Yes, that was the particular thing in there: the mystery. That's not an horror story, and that's not an strange one either. My little baby, that's just life. Some years ago, James went to the closest city in there and bought a book written by a famous writer, his first book. But he knew her father didn't want him to read because he said that when he stopped working and sat down in the grass to put his eyes on that fantastic words, he wasted time, and if he wasn't reading, he could be helping his mother in the kitchen, for example. Therefore, little James decided not to tell anyone about the book he had hidden under his bed, and night by night he pretended being asleep when his parents went to bed, and then he switched on the light, and read ten or eleven pages, which were a chapter more or less. And, in that way, James created his own secret. And he smiled every time he thought about it.
Most stories would finish with James' mum looking for anything under the bed and founding the book. And then, you know, it would come the argument between the mother and the son, and all this kind of things. But in life, my little baby, people lie and they are not caught so I'll tell you what really happened: James has lived all his life with books under his bed, getting back to the city every month and buying a new one. His life always has had a secret, his own secret, and nobody has looked under the bed, and nobody has seen him reading at high hours at night. And he has never told the truth because, although mum and I say to you that you have to tell us everything, actually you don't.
So now you are asleep and perhaps I'm lucky because I don't know what you'd do if you had listened all this, but always remember you have to dream, and to have illusions, and save your secrets only for you. Because they will be one of the most important things in your life, my baby. Perhaps the only one thing which is really yours.
Now I'm going, that's my story for tonight. Good night, James.-

(And the little baby, who had been sleeping since the story had started, opened an eye and said: "Good night, dad")

And here you have one of the stories I told my son when he was a little baby. Now he's thirty-two. It's possible I tell you more one day, but not them all because they are the secret between him and I.

Hats and shoes? Start writing!

2008-10-02T22:24:00.002+02:00

Hello. I think I don’t know you. And you don’t know me either. Well, in fact that’s a question of time. In a few days we’ll know each other as if we had talked for years and years.
I don’t really know what to write in here because it’s my first day at work and my boss has told me to write something you could like, because otherwise you won’t buy that magazine anymore, but that’s difficult. Actually I think my boss has no idea of the kind of texts I like writing, so perhaps some day he has a surprise!
Well, now you know what my job is about, and perhaps it’s a good idea to introduce myself. Isn’t it?
I’m an old man who likes wearing hats. Yes, that could be my best description. But don’t worry, I’ll tell you more things: I’m quite short and I’m pretty thin, I’ve got little ears, a little mouth and a very little nose; and my eyes are grey and have the size of nearly two oranges. Well, perhaps that’s too much, but what I mean is that they are enormous. I’ve got such long fingers that seem that I’ve played piano all my life (you know pianists use to have long fingers), but I’ve never played an instrument. Perhaps my fingers have grown in this way because they know I love listening to piano melodies and, on the other hand, I don't play them, and they are so confused that they have though perhaps I would start playing it if I saw my fingers were as the pianists’ one’s. Well, it’s not a bad reason.
Going on with my description, I can tell you’ll easily recognise me because I’m always wearing colourful shoes, although they sometimes don’t mix with the clothes I’m wearing. My shoes and my hat: that’s me. Now you know much more about who I am. But after finishing today’s story I want to tell you one secret: I’m a frustrated writer. Yes. I’m not joking. Many years ago, when I was a child, I started writing. At the beginning I wrote things which were not very good, and then I continued with the same tendency. Yes. I’ve never known how to write. I’ve read a lot and I’ve tried to copy many different writers to learn this art, but I’ve realised it’s something you have to be born with: the magic of inventing stories and making people laugh, or cry, or smile, or hate with them. So, don’t tell it to my boss, but I think I’ll be his ruin, because every time I start working for a new magazine, I end up without a job again because people say they don’t like my texts. And I’m sure it’s true. But I don’t want to stop writing. So, you know, if you notice there are horrible stories in this magazine, don’t panic. It’s my lovely art of writing!

Now yes, I’ve finished for today.
Apart from all I’ve told you, in general that’s a good magazine so keep having a look at it, and perhaps one day you are a testimony of the first good text of a frustrated writer!

Somesketh