La cordura del loco

Vincent Van Gogh
Autorretrato dedicado a Gauguin
Óleo sobre lienzo 60.5 x 49.4 cm
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

El impulso que llevó a Van Gogh a cortarse parte de la oreja la noche del 23 de diciembre de 1888 marcó también la precipitada huida de Gauguin, que se encontraba en Arlés con él desde finales de octubre. En los duros días de su recuperación, Van Gogh seguía pensando en Gauguin y se preguntaba con dosis parejas de lucidez y perplejidad: «Supongamos que yo estaba todo lo perturbado que dicen, ¿por qué entonces no se ocupó mejor de mí?»*.

Las palabras de Van Gogh están tomadas de
Locos egregios, de Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nágera
(Barcelona: Argos Vergara, 1980, p. 213).

Thinking of you

The cracked soul

C.C. Baxter: The mirror... it's broken

Fran Kubelik: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

The Apartment
Billy Wilder, 1960.

I'm melting! Melting!

No one mourns the wicked

Now at last, she's dead and gone

From Wicked. The musical
Music and Lyrics
by Stephen Schwartz

Fancy some candy, my dear?

What shall I wear today?

Home

There's so much world to see!

A ray of sunlight to tickle your soul

Inner landscape

«It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell upon my head - and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation».

«Silence - A Fable», by Edgar Allan Poe.
Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
Hertfordshire:Wordsworth Classics, 2000, p. 252.

Aporía* de la ausencia

Now that you’re gone you’re everywhere.

Maintenant que tu es parti tu es partout.

Hay agujeros negros que devoran el espacio y el tiempo y tornan la ausencia en omnipresencia.

*Del gr. ἀπορία, dificultad de pasar.

Vertigo (or a plummeting heart)

The million-dollar question

La de arena

Life (or another wild goose-chase)

«She remembered she had opened the diary at random about a year ago, and had winced at something written when she was twenty-two. The more recent entries were apt to be about moods and thoughts. Such as one she remembered quite well written at least eight years ago:

‘Isn’t it safer, even wiser, to believe that life has no meaning at all?’

She’d felt better after getting that down on paper. Such an attitude wasn’t phony armor, she thought, it was a fact that life had no meaning. One simply went on and on, worked on, and did one’s best. The joy of life was in movement, in action itself».

(Edith’s Diary, by Patricia Highsmith)

Worse than tilting at windmills...

«non fuyades, cobardes y viles criaturas,
que un solo caballero es el que os acomete»

Parte I, Cap. VIII

Waterproof memories

Some memories are as hard to remove from our minds
as the imaginary blood from Lady Macbeth's hands.

(Don't?) Play with your food!

Take this picture as a little present, as a reminder of the boundless powers of imagination. If you liked it, you'll find some more nutritious pics here and here (though I like the first link better). Bon appétit !

Silence shall avenge me

Silence. Silence renewed day after day, month after month, like a promise, like an oath. Revenge is nothing, but the fulfillment of a vow. Silence shall avenge me. His hope to see it broken shall be the means of my vengeance. His thirst for words, my dutiful friend. Silence. Silence renewed day after day, month after month, like a promise, like an oath.

Casablanca (in 30 seconds)

Casablanca

This video might verge on blasphemy, but it's an awfully bunny, err, funny remake of Casablanca. I strongly recommend the website where I found it: www.angryalien.com. Of course, you miss a lot with this version. However, their remake of Titanic is quite an improvement! And it saves a lot of time too!

Epiphany

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long...

They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race
Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two
There's the one staying put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.

No, we all deserve to die
Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I.

It's sooo true

No comments, just a suggestion, follow this yellow brick link to find many other brilliant cartoons. This one was originally titled 'The slippery slope', he, he, he. Enjoy!

At long last

(Re)presentación

Sin ánimo de rebajar la palpitante verdad de 'Casa de Muñecas', muchas veces he pensado que lo más apasionante del argumento propuesto por Ibsen comienza justo cuando termina. La infinidad de posibilidades que el portazo de Nora inaugura, los mil interrogantes resumidos en el estruendo final y que se prolongan y multiplican a su vez en otros mil, según las vibraciones del eco, es para mí su enseñanza más valiosa. El destino de Nora suscita nuestra curiosidad porque es una imagen de la indeterminación y apertura de nuestra propia vida. Por eso quiero comenzar cada día bajo la resonancia de ese portazo fundacional, y recordar el impulso que guió a Nora Helmer: "Quiero pensar por lo pronto en educarme a mí misma". Para ir dejando constancia de este aprendizaje, abro hoy este blog*
*Originally posted on August 2006.