Delikatessen" - gorgeous French movie. The images look like vintage color photos. The plot? In a building owned by a butcher, where he also had his shop; the butcher killed people and he with the others inhabitants of the building eat the human flesh. He would hire a helper in the house, like a guy that can do all the job, fixing electric wiring, plumbing, etc., and at one point he would butcher him. But the butcher has a daughter, that wears glasses, is blonde, and plays cello. One day a guy answers his add in the paper for hiring a help; he's used to work in a circus, as a clown and had a partner (that proves later to have been an ape) named Livingstone. And, of course he and the butcher daughter fall for each other. She tries to save him, so she goes for help to these "troglodites" - people that lived in the sewage underground system of that town. And, of course, after a hard struggle, the 2 manage to escape the butcher and his knives. The butcher dies, and the couple live happily ever after.

The movie is absolutely charming, with all that macabre and dark humor. And greatly done. A symphony made of the noises created during daily activities - a girl playing her cello, a couple having sex on a squeaky bed (the butcher and the slut of the building), a work shop creating stuff for telephone receivers, an old woman knitting, and former clown doing some repair, another guy blowing condoms - I think he was trying to recycle them or something, etc, and he was checking to see if they inflate without breaking. Or a wonderful duo of cello and saw. Or the guy that lived in a flooded apartment with frogs, toads and slugs and listening loud to fanfare music. Or the two kids that did kids stuff, like stealing lace undies of the building's tramp, or trying to steal toads from the guy that lived in the flooded apartment, or pouring nitro-glicerine in the gun of the post-man that was coming to their building daily, bringing parcels sent by the butcher to his daughter, and also having a crush on that girl.

What time this take place? By the way they dress, it looks like in the '50s, but there's this period of economic low, people don't use money anymore, they exchange goods like in the last years of WW2 and first years of its aftermath, but they have TV sets, with a full TV programm, and also walkie-talkies, which, as far as I know, have been widely spread in the 1980s.

"The Hunger" - book by Knut Hamsun. I discovering the Norwegian literature, and it's a great one. A hidden gem really. Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize for "Hunger", but... now he's almost forgotten because he sympathized with the Nazis and was friends with Hitler and admired him. But he's an awesome writer. "The Hunger" is a detailed presentation of what goes through this really poor guy, a diagnosis and a description of the symptoms of his "illness" - the hunger. He's almost homeless, a vagrant, but in the same time he has this pride, he wouldn't beg for money, for example. He does a lot of silly and foolish stuff, in exchange. He almost loses his mind because of the hunger, ending up doing all the crazy things, from talking to himself, to giving away his only money to random strangers. The story has some sort of happy ending, because he gets a job on a ship going to Liverpool.

And I'm currently reading "La Pelle", "The Skin", by Curzio Malaparte, a story placed in WW2, in a Neapole "freed" by the Americans and their allies debarked in 1943 to free Europe of the German occupation. Malaparte wrote against Mussolini and Hitler, and done some jail time because of this, time during he started writing. After the war he even joined the Italian Communist Party. I'll talk more about this book when I'll be done reading it. For now I'll say only that I'm very much into his style of writing. He combines sarcasm, irony, with this very rich description, almost dreamy. The misery of a conquered town and of people drove to do the most atrocious things out of poverty, are turned into this very beautiful drawn image, in the best colors, with magnificent metaphors.

Labels: books, curzio malaparte, delikatessen, film, France, Italy, knut hamsun, Norway, reading, WW2

Did you read this? So, basically some US Navy barracks built in the 1960s when not many were able to fly above and see it, are placed in such a manner that they form a Swastika. Funny, a bit. But in these days, with Google Map and satellites, practically can be seen by anyone, and some even noticed. Some were amused. Others (many) even filed complaints about this. Complaints? Complaints! WTF??? The world is in such a deep shit pit and suddenly the worst thing is that some barracks form a lousy Swastika. I'm sure that that's the reason of AIDS, famine, wars, ass warts, hair falling and women's sterility. C'mon now!

But, when you say that there can't be bigger idiots, life rushes up to prove you wrong. US Navy is actually investing money to fix the problem. I'm sure all the other problems that needed financing have been solved, so they should put some money into fixing this problem now too.

I have a suggestion to them. They should arrange those barracks following this pattern:

......................... /´¯/)
......................,/¯ ..//
...................../... ./ /
............./´¯/'...'/´¯ ¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../... ..../¨¯\
........('(...´(..´...... ,~/'...')
.........\............... ..\/..../
..........''...\......... . _.·´
............\............ ..(
..............\.......... ...\

Currently listening: Saul Williams - Coded Language

Labels: Army, news, Swastika, USA Navy

Click on the picture for larger version.

I assume everyone has their dream place in this world, a place they love so much, but not really to move there and live. A place they love to visit. I didn't know anything about Dion, in Greece, but when I visited it, it became one of those places for me.

This isn't the most artistic or expressive or whatever picture in the world. It's doesn't show much actually. Just that field (with a brick lane), the amphitheater and the mountains behind. On this field, though, thousands of years, Alexander the Great brought all his generals with their armies before setting in their campaigns in Asia, against the Persians. They set their tents there and they had this huge celebration (apparently Alexander was doing his best to persuade them to go to these campaigns). Of course, as any respectable Greek huge celebration, they had to have some entertainment, besides the heavy drinking and whatever, so they built an amphitheater where they held some theatrical representations. Now, the original amphitheater is long gone, but they built this replica, to give at least an idea about what it was like back then.

The mountains - Olympus mountains. All the Greek civilization in those ancient times was built on, revolved around all those myths and beliefs regarding the gods that lived in these mountains. And these gods, even if they had all the usual mortals' faults, and mingled with mortals, not only ruled their lives, but they didn't like to be seen, so they would surround their palace in the mountains with thick, white clouds.

Currently listening to: Tool - Third Eye

Labels: Dion, Greece

Click on the pic to see larger version

This was taken at Meteora, in Greece, where they have these monasteries built on the top of these rocky peaks. The whole place looks like from a different planet with all these rocks emerging from the ground like fingers of the earth. Or something else. There will be more posts with pics from there.

*

I don't know whether love means all those pink elephants and violins (ok, that sounds more like tripping on acid or something like that) or not more like getting so attached to someone, addicted to them, with all that mandatory pack of very intense feelings regarding the person in question (now this sounds like a mental obsession or something like that).

And then, suddenly, shockingly for you, the perspective of not seeing that person for a bit of time, seems so awful, a nightmare you know you will have. There's something in your mind that aches. You're the addict that knows he ran out of his stuff or that he has to go somewhere where he cannot feed his vice, for a while, and this perspective drives him into panic. This is about missing someone. So intensely, as if you got one of those limbs chopped. That's more like insanity.

Currently listening to: Saul Williams - Wine

Labels: Greece, Meteora, pics, ramble

If you click on the image, you can see the large version.

This was taken in February 2007, in Spain, when I went for the NIN gig. It was the next day after the concert, such a sunny and warm day, people sunning on the beach, surfers, and all the jazz.

The construction afar is something meant just for design. To get to it, you just walk this concrete lane, one side with restaurants, where waiters stay outside and invite passers by in, trying to tempt them with the "menu" of the day and its low price. On the other side of this lane, there's this little harbor for private boats and yachts.

In this picture I also like the water glittering like million diamonds and, of course, the metaphor of the foot prints on the sand. A bit lame, and over-used, but still nice.

Labels: Barcelona, Barcelonetta, beach, pics, Spain

Well, I've been thinking about this. Life is a journey and these are my travel notes. I decided, instead of babbling crap about things, I'll be posting each day, or almost, one picture I've taken during my travels. There' will be only one pic, taken by me.

Current music: NIN - All The Love In The World