Strindberg Baby

One of my favourite imaginary boyfriends is August Strindberg, (yes, I said no more, but here I go). I remember I told V, who lives in Malmo, that I loved his misanthropy, and she told me it's not his misanthropy, it's Swedish people's misanthropy. But still I think he's sweet. This is my problem; I find sweetness in bitterness. Inferno, is a great autobiography, and he loves to punish himself with guilt about past wrongs. Right now I'm reading A Dream Play, and I want to share this with you:

Daughter. Human beings are to be pitied.

Officer. Do you think so?

Daughter. Yes, life is hard, but love conquers all. Come and see!

And talking about Scandinavians, Marie's coming to visit me today, so I'm very happy...she's my first guest...

Momentos de laceración

Acabo de perder un tren hacia Nottingham y debo confesar que ya no es gracioso esto de llegar tarde a las citas, olvidarme de dejar cartas, de dar recados, de hacer llamadas... esta vez no fue mi culpa, el underground se paraba en cada estación porque había una alarma de bomba. Mientras me angustiaba en el camino iba leyendo la obra de teatro de Martin Crimp que fui a ver ayer -sola otra vez- al Royal Court, Fewer Emergencies, dirigida por James Macdonald y actuada por una de las actrices de Le Costume, que dirigió Peter Brook hace un par de años. Me impresionó mucho el manejo de voz de los actores. Eran dos mujeres y dos hombres con un gran trabajo de ritmo, que el texto indica desde el principio. La conversación se interrumpe, las preguntas se repiten. Creo que es la repetición de ciertos patrones lo que da paso a la musicalidad del texto. Ayer me di cuenta, de pronto, viendo al público y oliendo el perfume, de que el teatro aquí es completamente upper class, y no sé por qué me dió miedo verlos lacerándose mientras se reían en el espejo. Y pensé obviamente en Aristóteles, y su definición de la catársis. Este es un fragmento de la obra, que me parece súper sajona:

I Why shouldn't her guests laugh?

2 I'm sorry?

I Why shouldn't her guests laugh? Why shouldn't her guests enjoy themselves under the tree? Haven't they worked? Haven't they sttrugled to extend this table? Haven't they screamed at each other in private? Punched each other? Haven't they broken each other's skin to open this, for example, bottle of wine?

3 Oh?

2 Of course they have.

I Of course they have.

2 Used the word bitch.

I Used the word pig. Used the phrase ----hmm... What's that phrase?

3 'Say that one more fucking time and I'll break your fucking neck'?

Caídas

Como nuestros zancos en el Community Center son muy rudimentarios, ayer tuvimos varias caídas que me dolieron personalmente, ¿y cómo no? soy la prof. Es increíble la responsabilidad que se siente estar a cargo de un grupo de gigantes. Yo misma me caí como tres veces, pero fue muy divertido porque nunca me había subido a unos zancos de 50cm y con ellos puedes hacer muchos trucos difíciles. Como te sientes más segura no te da miedo; te pones a pelear y a dar patadas al aire y ya está, te caes. La disciplina es un tema difícil entre los chicos, pero cada vez se salen menos al patio trasero a fumar, fumar y fumar. Son tremendos locombianos, se caen y se vuelven a subir sin miedo. Los adoro. No puedo evitar acordarme de mi primer curso en el Circo Volador en el D.F. y pensar en el Tío, mi maestro, colombiano ilustre que fumaba, mas no dejaba fumar. Donde quiera que esté, gracias.

And talking about cities Francis Alys is opening an exhibition called Seven Walks today at the National Portrait Gallery. I remember my ex neighbor Hector Falcon told me Francis Alys walked kicking a big big ice cube somewhere in Mexico and took pictures on the way. Funny ways of walking in the cities.

Following ernesto's poems about cities I find myself walking in dreams. I specially enjoyed the Rome poem, as I remembered Treni, and the pigeons and the cats walking at night in dark alleys. I find it difficult to think of Rome in singular. We were there after december 24 and the streets were ours. We were completely lost in the middle of the mattatoio and the gypsies helped us find our way. We loved our morning coffee and walked the old old city drinking sweet wine.

I had been waiting to see if this other city would have her poem (though I never thought of it as a she). It still hurts to realize I never felt at home there. I used to dream I moved to a new flat and discovered a new big room I hadn't notice before. Funny how I learnt to love the monster under the bed.

Tenth City

You
were here
before I could

understand
what cities
do to people.

I
used to
play baseball in

cornfields
now condos
with tennis courts,

and
soon you
became the monster

under
everyone's beds
waiting, breathing, grey,

enormous,
fierce, beautiful
yet horribly impossible,

full
of possibility
and still sad

and
so frustrated,
infiltrated by fears

you
yourself cannot
properly define. City

of
lost corners
and savory folklore,

full
of tastes
and noises and

overt
chaos controlled
by god knows

what
call it
quantum physics or

divine
intervention but
you are everywhere

like
a weary
fury deciding futures

of
those who
lived within you.

Here
every inch
is replete with

stories
of unrequitted
love & hate

of
aspiration &
reconstruction & the

abduction
of dreams
& everything else

for
treinta pesos
al día sobrevives

if
things go
well, remember that,

city
of lost
origins & horizons,

of
ambitions &
claxons, of ghosts

under
the fallen
buildings and tents

under
the wealthy
fantastic urban landscapes

of
non-existent cities
that are not

&
could not
but still are.

Unnamable
city, breathing
still, in spite

of
everything you
are because you,

city
where skies
have forgotten all

skies
were meant
to be remains,

loved
and hated,
populated by spectres,

seeking
justice, or
just some peace,

without
hiding behind
self-imposed jail bars.

In
my dreams
I see you

always
from above,
from the sky

or
from an
illuminated cloudy hill,

seeing
you shine
as an artificial,

sick
heart, counting
pulses before finally,

tragically,
silently, turn
out your lights.

Home II

I spent five days in the countryside near Worcester and was completely eager to come back to my flat in London in spite of the ponies and the sheep and the crows and the morning walks fresh air. Somehow I've started to feel home here. Home? Where's home? One of the questions people asked me the other day at Crumpleberry Farmhouse was do you feel homesick? I said: I always feel homesick, even when I'm home.

Y ayer

¿Se han fijado que los argentinos siempre empiezan la cosa in medias res? Y nada, sin darme cuenta -obviamente- ayer fue un día muy felíz, sólo porque di mi primer clase de zancos. Así es, ayer di mi primer clase de zancos a un grupo de locombianos divinos. Nos divertimos burda y ya estamos planeando el numerito. ADORO andar en zancos, estando ahí no hay nada más que eso.

I lie in my bed totally still my eyes are open I'm in rapture I don't believe this I'm in love

"Oh mother I can feel the soil falling over my head..." you have to hear Jeff Buckley's version of THIS song, he mixes it with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It is be-au-ti-ful. And Jeff too. I'm in lo-ove again.

And from the original Smiths song:

"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?"

Ok, ok, I got the point. This song hurts man!

Picture

Después de oír tu voz no supe dónde empezó
Este querer alcanzarte

Y colgamos sin saber por qué o a qué hora sucedió
¿De verdad piensas que te creo?

Have you seen again the picture you took of us
at the station, just before you let me go?

I asked can I lick your cheek? while you took it
Just to cheer you up a bit

You looked embarassed
-I don't think you ever understood me

You said I always looked pensive
While I thought fuck I still love you

Strip

I've been reading Phyllis Nagy's Strip and I know it is a sin not to finish a play once you grab it but I always start reading it in bed and I fall asleep very quickly -oh! yes, I'm having some sleep at last! What I love about the play is not its content but Nagy's reinvention of full stop.

Viva la patria!

Mi cruel madre me contó ayer que hablamos por teléfono que estaba preparando unas chanclas bien picantes para el día de hoy. Felíz cumpleaños a mi hermanito Beto que tuvo a bien nacer este día hace treintaytantos -a!- años. Je t'adore ... y que viva México puesn!

Y cuándo dejaré de ser una groupie?

Escribo en un cuaderno feo la experiencia de venir al Royal Court Theatre por primera vez en la vida. Lo que me emociona por supuesto es pensar que Sarah Kane escribió en este lugar, se tomó una cerveza como yo en este bar y vió como la gente se salía de Blasted en el Theatre Upstairs.
Vine a preguntar sobre un curso de dramaturgia pero la amable señorita de la entrada me ofreció formarme en una cola una hora antes y comprar un boleto por 10p para ver Harvest de Richard Bean en el Theatre Downstairs.
El ambiente del bar del teatro me recuerda al del Institut del Teatre de Barcelona. Yo creo que es porque los muros son de concreto, la música es como de antro de polanco y los meseros sonríen y son buena onda.
Subo por mi ticket, doy 20p porque no tengo cambio, y veo a Mark Ravenhill, un dramaturgo muy famosos que era amigo de Kane. Pregunto cuánto cuesta su obra, me dicen que £15. Dan sólo tres funciones, así que qué mas da, compro el boleto y bajo al bar otra vez porque la obra empieza en dos horas. Me siento en una mesa con una luz cenital y a lo lejos veo a un señor de edad idéntico a Peter Brook bajar las escaleras con un poco de dificultad. Pienso: Es Peter Brook, es él. Pero nadie voltea a verlo, en la oscuridad del bar. Cuando pasa junto a mi mesa no puedo evitar mirarlo. Los chicos que están sentados junto a mi lo miran y cuchichean. Pido una Guiness porque el momento lo amerita; acabo de ver al autor de The Empty Space.
Pienso que estar aquí es como estar en Disneyland, y curiosamente la obra de Ravenhill, Product, habla de un atentado terrosrista en Disney Europe. Descubro que es un excelente actor.

Wondering about Stevie

Marie -with Danish accent, Magurie- lived in front of the flame in El Borne, -Bac- and we used to sit barefoot in the balcony, painting our toe nails fluorescent pink. The soundtrack of those summer days of shit estrella dam beer was Stevie Wonder. I couldn't understand Marie's fondness for 80's music. I found it completely out-of- date -even though Kbn's teenagers think there's nothing more fashionable than the 80's. They were babies at the time for god's sake! The've no idea of what it was to see women dressing and putting make-up like clowns on the street.

When my loved cousin A. Petchi turned 15 her father called her and played I Just Called to Say I love You. She told me this story with tears in her eyes almost 16 years ago -oh, i'm getting old. I never forgot her face. She was very happy and sad, -I never got to know why...

For me the song is a very sad one -but there's something i love about it right now. i wish i was brave enough to play it for someone i love on the phone one day. and i mean it from the bottom of my heart.

My baby don't care for high tone places

Five years ago I was in the drama school and I had to prepare a song for the next play we were creating. I asked Ferniboy, who's a brilliant pianist, to help me play My Baby Just Cares for Me. He knew a version by Michael I want your sex guy, and loved it, so we had great fun rehearsing for hours in his boyfriend's house.

When we were finally ready to perform the song he came to my school and we went to the music room that had a piano. I sang and danced and put a special outfit, and felt like a queen. Fernando closed the piano, took his bike and left the room. Finally the director talked; the only thing he said was: I jut loved the way the pianist took his bike and left the room.

Densidad

Probar la densidad del cielo inglés no es facil, especialmente en domingo... domingo 11 de septiembre. Hay una foto donde salimos Pillo y yo en Aniceto Ortega viendo las imágenes de las torres en la tele. Recuerdo que la noche anterior habíamos tenido una fiesta que para mi terminó en sangre y lágrimas. Sangre porque rompí un espejo, lágrimas porque no me gustó lo que vi en él. Y todavía no me curo la cruda moral de esa noche.

Fe de ratas

Oh no, Nina Simone didn't write Mississippi Goddamned in 1932. Brecht and Weil wrote the Alabama Song that year. No Andrea, Nina Simone wasn't Brecht's contemporary, though she loved the Mahagonny songs.

I read Georg Buchner's Woyzeck yesterday. Agustin Meza told me he's going to direct this play in Mexico City. Good choice, specially after his success with Waiting for Godot. I still feel escalofríos when thinking of Woyzeck, and I can't help relating his sense of Man with Brecht's. It was very sad to read wunderkind Buchner died at the age of 24. Why? because he had a great sensitivity for drama.

Woyzeck: Yes Captain, Vrtue -I don't have that problem. We ordinary people don't have any virtue, we just follow our natures. But if I was a gentleman and had a hat and a watch and a long overcoat and could talk nicely then I'd like to be virtuous, it must be nice to have virtue Captain, but I'm a poor man.

Captain: Good Woyzeck, you're a decent man, a decent man. But you think too much. It wears you down. You look so hunted. Our discussion has quite upset me. Go now and don't run so. Slowly, nice and slowly down the road.

Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddamned!

I just saw Nina Simone's dvd, Live at Ronnie Scotts that my dad gave me as a present before I came to London. She says music is her god, well, she's mine. She performs the Mississippi Goddamned song she wrote in 1932 along with Weil and Brecht's Alabama song. You are so right Nina, everybody knows...

dear summer

so, today it all started well, il fait beau, j'ai pensee, a la matina -et j'ai pensee without an accent, because i have an english keyboard of curse. and just in the afternoon, coming back from shopping -i swear i needed it, i'm in the capital of capitalism- the storm came through with thunder. ok... it's only a storm... but please, it's been so shiny and so bright and damned beautiful and hot... please, stay! don't leave me dear! i beg you, stay...

(so many times... i wish I could have said these words to people I loved... and didn't dare... i blush with the sole thought... sharam!

I love this city!

Hoy en la maniana venia llegando al trabajo, y de pronto me acorde de algo que olvido no-se-por-que y es que cada vez que camino del metro a la oficina paso frente a Westminster Cathedral, y por ahi hay varias obras en construccion. Justo en el momento que cruzo los trabajadores toman un descanso y un refrigerio. Bueno, pues estos hombres de verdad, que trabajan con sus propias manos, son unos Kens, que vienen de todas partes del mundo a Londres. Ver tanta belleza es altamente motivante y es una de las razones por las cuales amo esta ciudad.

Dream Boy

Acabo de descubrir una foto maravillosa en el Flickr de Bookless de Devendra, otro chico que se me fue por llegar dos dias tarde a Londres... pero ya sera un dia, seguro!

Impasse

I've been thinking a great deal about what I want to say in this blog, and there's a big question in my mind: Why?

The question is related not only to this blog itself but to life, conflict, natural disasters, war. I've been reading several stories of survival, reconciliation, and peace building. One big globalized world unable to understand itself. Why? I wonder.

"How and why and when and where to go? How and why and when and where to follow?" says Belle and Sebastian's Stuart in If you're feeling sinister. Am I feeling sinister?

This why? paralizes me, and takes my sleep away.

(By the way, my own personal little stupid silly shakespearean tragedy is that B & S will play in London at the end of this month, and the concert's been sold out for ages...)

Cincue minuti

I could hardly wake up this morning, weekend was wicked! good word that. I took a shower, ate some cereal, put some make up -not to look so tired- and black clothes. I rushed to the tube station and as I passed the kiosk I smelled beautiful coffee. Aaaaa, all I've had these days is herbal tea. But it doesn't work. I pray Yoga should help. Pray... it's been a long time since I don't use that verb. Please, Gods of this world -and others- let me have some sleep. Cincue minuti! At least...

the ache of past tense

These have been days of memories, dreams I can't interpret and things I can't cope with; like death. Because I lost two very young cousins, the last three years have not been easy. I always thought I had loved deeply, but just today I realized I never loved enough. My hands so small. My arms minute.

I Loved You

I loved you; even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know,
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerily,
I pray God grant another love you so.

Alexander Pushkin
translated by Reginald Mainwaring Hewitt

Devastacion e ineptitud

En una entrevista del dia de hoy en La Jornada, Carlos Monsivais nos recuerda que algunos presidentes -Arbusto & Co- son en si mismos, desastres naturales:

LJ: ¿Qué se derrumbó y qué no con el terremoto de 1985?

CM: Lo que se derrumbó fue la idea de que el presidente de la República sabía lo que pasaba en México; que era la primera sabiduría omnisciente. El presidente resultó ser, en casos de emergencia, un ciudadano más, lleno de escalofrío por su ignorancia.

The Carnival is Over

Last weekend I was walking down the streets of Nottinghill's Carnival with some friends, and one of them wanted to share a shot of rum with me. I said ok immediately. But we didn't know which rum to choose since we didn't know the brands. A kind young woman told us the differences. I saw a band on her head with the legend Trinidad and said, oh, you're from Trinidad and she said, YES, the Carnival in Nottinghill was created by us, people from Trinidad and not by Jamaicans! Oh, I said, I can imagine there's a large population of your people living here. I read Half a Man, by Naipaul and the protagonist lives in this neighbourhood. YES she said, V.S. Naipaul, Jeannette's father! I said, so do you know his daughter and she said YES we dance together. She was so happy to see I knew Trinidad's most famous writer that she gave me a double shot of rum for a single one! I was happy to see literature can be of practical use.

Masoquismo puro

Hoy desperté de humor masoquista; con antojos de comida mexicana, ganas de ir a Mazunte, ganas ir con el malo de la película (si, el que no soportó las bromas de su hermano Abel) a un barcito pequeñito en el centro de Puebla que tiene las cervezas mas selectas. Con gusto cambiaría el olor del metro Merced por el del metro a las 6 de la tarde en Londres pensaba temprano en la mañana.
Es hora del lunch... por primera vez en mi vida no siento una increíble emoción de saber que voy a comer. Mi mamá me malcrió, eso está claro. Frecuentemente me pregunto, por qué nací en una familia de buenas cocineras. Pareciera ser un privilegio, pero no lo es. Después de comer tan rico es muy difícil adaptarse a lo no bueno. Y a lo malo aun peor.
Sentir que besar a alguien a quien amas es imposible es la tortura mas horrible que existe. Pero a esta tortura le sigue la de saber que comer un platillo de tu pais es imposible. En resumen:¡Mi reino por unos chiles en nogada!