Saturday, December 25, 2010

A very day

     Today is a very important day for everyone. Some may take me for an idiot, or try to attribute a certain segregative feel to this day of the year, wich has not. This day is a day of unity for people of all ideologies and beliefs who know to love and be loved, and who enjoy it, to express that love they feel that maybe it's hard to express the rest of the year. Today is the day we can all get together and celebrate a historical event of incalculable value, a birth like no other in the whole of humanity.
     Yes, my readers, you guessed it: today is my birthday. No, wait... My birthday was yesterday, the twenty-fourth. ¿Now what was it? ¡Of course, today is my father's birthday! No, no, my dad's was the twenty-third. But the twenty-fifth was something, ¿right? ¡Oh, yes! ¡Hellboy's birthday, how could I forgot!
     A day like today, sixty-six years ago, on the outskirts of an English church, Anung Un Rama was invoked in this world by the gloomy Rasputin, in an operation financed by Hitler that secretly hid much more destructive objectives of... Well, I don't remember the whole story, but it goes something like that.
     Although now that I think of it, Hellboy was born the twenty-third as well, so his birthday is already over. ¿Wasn't I told that something happened the twenty-fifth? Well, it's alright, surely it wasn't that important.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The beautiful imperfections of Tim Minchin

This is what happens when an Australian as funny as Tim Minchin wants to make another funny song of his, fails, writes some beautiful lyrics and we all end up crying.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Discursive contradiction

I made these three vignettes to represent something that happened to me in college this last semester. While all are based on real events, each of the three is less strict with reality than the previous one. At first I thought it had too much text, then I realized that it represents so well the university situation and then I left it as is.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Today I die

¿Can it be that I never write about videogames on my Notebook, they being one of the great loves of my life? Today I put available to you Today I die by the Argentinean Daniel Benmergui (from ADVA). While it seems most literally translated to Today I die, I translate it to Today I die because it is as it appears on the official translation into Spanish, from which I gather that is the closest to the original intention of the author1.
For less knowledgeable (ie, those who spend their time in more productive things, such as Facebook) I write some brief instructions that almost ruine the whole experience:
1. The whole game can be completed solely using the mouse, clicking and dragging things around on screen. Most visible elements are sensitive to the pointer.
2. The poem that appears on the screen can be modified by replacing the words with the ones that appear, and modifying it modifies the game. As a player, eventually, you have power only over the last word of each of the three verses2, which are respectively an adjective, a noun and a verb. A word can only be replaced by another of the same species.
3. To be able to use a word, it must come to have a bright color (green or yellow), which is usually accomplished by holding it safe from a certain danger for a certain amount of time.
It may not be the greatest thing in the world, but it was the first online game that made me respect this format, tiny and pixelated, as a possible means of artistic expression. The protagonist is a girl tied to a big rock that's sinking into the depths of the sea. To complete game you have to save her, and near the end there's a choice to make, more or less, which leads to one or the other of the two possible outcomes. Except for those who surrender, those who feel really frustrated and the cold-hearted, it is quite difficult or impossible to reach the ending without getting a lump in one's throat.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I give up

I give up. ¿You hear me, mother? You were right: the man sings well. The song sucks, the video is ridiculous and all together is a big fat musical goods, but the man can sing, that I no longer deny it.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Snuff and creation

¿What is more disgraceful: selling a deodorant by promising sex to the buyer or selling cigarettes by promising artistic inspiration1? Many things changed from 1948 to here.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Metropolis, a Peronist film

     I was forced by school reasons to see Metropolis, by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. Forgive my prejudice, but I still can't believe a film so old is so great. The technical achievements are innumerable, and the plot unfolds at an excellent pace. ¡The dance and death scene, Mother of God, is so good! And Brigitte Helm is also very good, maybe too good1: it was not necessary to touch herself so much while preaching peace.
     I saw Eva Perón and the trailers of Bombita Rodríguez movies and I can state unequivocally that I had never seen a more Peronist film than Metropolis. More than anything because of the conciliatory moral, the demonization of the bourgeois oppressors, the hope in the young bourgeoisie and the demonization of the violent and easy to manipulate workers. Hardly anyone outside Argentina can understand how loving, sadistic, legendary and comical looks Perón from my eyes. Even more with the infamous fame the phrase Third Position has in the world. Oh, and Thea von Harbou was Nazi.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Keys to the easy life

     It seems appropriate that I, having a very useful and practical information, should share it with the world. They're a couple of very simple to abide basic rules that guarantee an easy life. I tried them myself, kind of, and attest that they work. I list them below in no particular order:
1. Complacency: Where your dreams and ideals come into conflict with the moral standards of common sense or the people around you, ignore the dreams and the ideals. Do not follow the desired course and under no circumstance confronte with authority.
2. Indecision: Relegate important decisions on others and do not object them. Learn their correctness and incorrectness criteria for later and automatic use in small daily decisions that can not be consulted.
3. Sublimation: Practice one or more activities that function as depositories of the anger and depression arising from the easy lifestyle, to stay sane and not disturbing peace.
4. Discrimination: Point at the people who do not respect these rules and make fun of them, to convince them to obey or to convince the obedient ones not to disobey.
Warning: Easy life is guaranteed, happiness may not happen.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Bicós ai biliv ai can

     I'm sleepy. Thirty-nine hours awake by now. If I start talking nonsense let me know: I don't drink, so drowsiness is the only opportunity I have to say nonsenses. Well, to say nonsenses deliberately, because I always talk nonsense, but usually because before saying it I feel it is pure genius.
     ¿You know what I thought? I should make a parallel version of my Notepad, all in English. I guess that would expand a little the readership. But it would also feel like betraying Spanish, which is the most beautiful language in the world, mostly because the best thing of all time was created with it.
     Well, anyway, if you don't like the idea you better start complaining because the thing is already done and is called A sort of notepad (and you are actually reading it right now). Come on, it'll be me, a crapy translator and my desire to test my language skills. Basically I won't expand any content, I'll translate the entries done from now on (leaving untranslated the opening question and exclamation marks, because I'm a rebel), and perhaps some older entries as well. But I doubt it. The only thing I might add will be some translation notes at the untranslatable puns and other situations that require specific clarification. And here I stop, before I fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.