The day the world declared in one voice.

In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

Independence day (1996), Roland Emmerich.

I'll talk.

OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.

The Goonies (1985), Richard Donner.

Our time.

Don't you realize? The next time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. That's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket.

The Goonies (1985), Richard Donner.

Tranquility.

I'm waiting for the night to fall, when everything is bearable, and there in the still all that you feel is tranquillity. There is a star in the sky guiding my way with its light. And in the glow of the moon, know my deliverance will come soon.

Waiting for the night, Martin Gore, Depeche Mode.

At your will.

In your room, where time stands still, or moves at your will.
Will you let the morning come soon or will you leave me lying here, in your favourite darkness.

In your room, Martin Gore, Depeche Mode.


























Sencillo. Martin Gore es junto a Robert Smith, el mejor songwriter del mundo.

Juventud.

Toda mi vida es el ayer que me detiene en el pasado, eterna y vieja juventud que me ha dejado acobardado como un pájaro sin luz.

Naranjo en flor, Homero Expósito.

Lived.

With every awkward strum, despite his approaching demise, Harold felt a little more at peace. Harold no longer ate alone. He no longer counted brushstrokes. He no longer worried about the time it took to put on his tie. He no longer counted his steps to the bus stop. Instead, Harold did that which had terrified him before. That which had eluded him from Monday to Friday for so many years. That which the unrelenting lyrics of those numerous punk rock songs told him to do. Harold Crick lived his life.

Stranger than Fiction (2006), Marc Foster.

Donny.

Actually, Werner, we're all tickled to here you say that. Frankly, watchin' Donny beat Nazis to death is is the closest we ever get to goin' to the movies.

Inglourious Basterds (2009), Quentin Tarantino.

Debit.

When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin'.

Inglourious Basterds (2009), Quentin Tarantino.

La pregunta sin respuesta.

Nena de la lluvia, siempre quedará en mi corazón la pregunta sin respuesta de qué sucedió, si vos azul y yo bordó.

Nena de la Lluvia, La Portuaria.





www.growse.com.ar

Some men.

Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Nolan.

Still alive.

What's the matter with you guys? This was never about the money, this was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human sprit is still alive.

Point Break (1991), Kathryn Bigelow.




Bodhi is still alive.

Plastic Toy.

Listen to the girl as she takes on half the world,
moving up and so alive in her honey dripping beehive.

I'll be your plastic toy.

Just Like Honey, The Jesus & Mary Chain.

Kids.

The most terrifying day of your life is the day the first one is born. Your life, as you know it ... is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk ... and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.

Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola.

Five seconds.

What's incredible to me is that you can keep out of trouble pretty much every minute of your life apart from maybe five seconds, and that five seconds can get you into the worst trouble of all, just about.

Slam, Nick Hornby.

I'll kill ya.

If you hold back anything, I'll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill ya. If you forget anything, I'll kill ya. In fact, you're gonna have to work very hard to stay alive, Nick. Now, do you understand everything I've said? 'Cause if you don't, I'll kill ya.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Guy Ritchie.

Job.

My job consists of basically masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men's room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that doesn't so closely resemble Hell.

American Beauty (1999), Sam Mendes.

Nightmare.

I was having this awful nightmare that I was 32. And then I woke up and I was 23. So relieved. And then I woke up for real, and I was 32.

Before Sunset (2007), Richard Linklater.

Absurd.

The concept is absurd. The idea that we can only be complete with another person is evil! Right?

Before Sunset (2007), Richard Linklater.




Is it?

Against our will.

We tend to fall in love the same way we get sick; without wanting to, without believing it, against our will & unable to defend ourselves. And then we loose love exactly the same way.

Older.

Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.

Finding Neverland (2004), Marc Foster.

Sentido.

Pasamos nuestra vida intentando encontrarle algún sentido al mundo. Pero el mundo no tiene sentido. Somos nosotros los encargados de dárselo.

High School Girls.

That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.

Dazed and Confused (1993), Richard Linklater.

Cool.

For well you know that is a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder.

Paul McCartney, Hey Jude, The Beatles.

Words so sweet.

It’s like forgetting the words to your favorite song.
You can’t believe it, you were always singing along.
It was so easy and the words so sweet,
you can’t remember, you try to feel the beat.

Regina Spektor, Eet.


Un tema así, para escuchar en un lugar así, en un día así.

Thank you.

And I thank you for bringing me here.
For showing me home.
For singing these tears.
Finally I've found that I belong here.

Martin Gore, Home, Depeche Mode.





Stade de France, Paris, 27.06.06.

In the words of.

Chances like this do not come around every day. You've played hard in here, and I am proud of every last stinking one of you. Let's just give this everything we got.

We may fall on our faces,
but if we do, we will fall with dignity!
With a guitar in our hands and rock in our hearts!
And in the words of AC/DC:
"We roll tonight to the guitar bite,
and for those about to rock...
I salute you."

School of Rock (2003), Richard Linklater.

Even better.

And when I squinted the world seemed rose-tinted, and angels appeared to descend. To my surprise, with half-closed eyes, things looked even better than when they were open.

Martin Gore, Waiting for the night, Depeche Mode.



Stade de France, Paris, 27.06.09.

A real RocknRolla.

People ask the question... what's a RocknRolla? And I tell 'em - it's not about drums, drugs, and hospital drips, oh no. There's more there than that, my friend. We all like a bit of the good life - some the money, some the drugs, other the sex game, the glamour, or the fame. But a RocknRolla, oh, he's different. Why? Because a real RocknRolla wants the fucking lot.

RocknRolla (2008), Guy Ritchie.

London.

Fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins... LONDON!

Snatch (2000), Guy Ritchie.

Next to me.

Come and open up your folding chair next to me.
My feet are buried in the sand and there's a breeze.
There’s a shadow, you can't see my eyes,
and the sea is just a wetter version of the skies.

Folding Chair, Far, Regina Spektor.

Stanley Kubrick.

So Steven Spielberg dies and goes to heaven and when he get to the gates he meets Gabriel who says, "It's great to meet you. God really loves your work, if there's anything you need come to meet me I'm your man". And Steven says, "Well, you know, I always wanted to meet Stanley Kubrick, do you think you could arrange that? And Gabriel looks at him and he says, "You know Steven, of all the things you could for why would you asked for that? You know Stanley doesn't take meetings. "Well, you said it it was anything I wanted." And Gabriel says, "I'm sorry, I can't do that". Later that day Gabriel is giving a guided tour around heaven when Steven sees this bearded guy wearing an army jacket, riding a bicycle and Steven says to Gabriel, "Oh my God, look over there, that's Stanley Kubrick, couldn't we just stop and say hello?" and Gabriel pulls Steven to the side and says, "That's not Stanley Kubrick, that's God, he just thinks he is Stanley Kubrick."

WhiteChapel Art Gallery Cafe.

Cry.

You got to cry without weeping. Talk without speaking. Scream without raising your voice.

Running to Stand Still, The Joshua Tree, U2.



Hoy, 16 horas, saliendo del Old Spitalfields Market camino a St. Paul.

Sin molestar a nadie.

Cuando comprendió el carácter definitivo de aquel abandono, el poeta reparón en unas tristezas nuevas, que no había experimentado nunca, ni siquiera ante la ausencia de sus novias más clásicas. Por un instante, sintió la tentación de escribirle o de llamarla por teléfono para revelarle un amor que nunca se había verbalizado. Pero no lo hizo. Largos años de sabiduría amorosa le decían que las personas que abandonan no desean oír declaraciones del abandonado. Se dispuso entonces a sufrir el silencio sin molestar a nadie con esperanzas.

Alejandro Dolina, Bar del Infierno, La Conversión de los Descreídos.

Salgamos.

Salgamos de una vez. Salgamos a buscar camorra, a defender causas nobles, a recobrar tiempos olvidados, a despilfarrar lo que hemos ahorrado, a luchar por amores imposibles. A que nos peguen, a que nos derroten, a que nos traicionen. Cualquier cosa es preferible a esa mediocridad eficiente, a esa miserable resignación que algunos llaman madurez.

Alejandro Dolina, El Fantasma, Instrucciones para buscar aventuras.

Para los hombres de verdad.

Dejo para el final el obvio resultado de haber bebido en las fuentes vulgares de la verdad: nunca seremos más jóvenes que hoy; jamás volveremos a ver a nuestros muertos; el tiempo no retrocede; el amor perfecto no existe; hay un verso que está siempre a punto de revelársenos y que no escribiremos nunca. Para los hombres de verdad, este no es el final de sus sueños, sino más bien el principio.

Alejandro Dolina, El Fantasma, Fuentes de la Juventud.

La injusticia.

Envejecer es, antes que nada, injusto. Y el hombre noble no se resigna jamás ante la injusticia. Varones eminentísimos han luchado contra el tiempo. El carácter inevitable de la derrota sólo desalienta a los cobardes.

Alejandro Dolina, El Fantasma, Fuentes de la Juventud.

Castigo.

Hay demonios que gobiernan el azar y que tienden terribles trampas a los jugadores, de modo que a veces ganar es perder y perder es ganar. Una noche de 1970, Ricardo Ventura, un petiso de Caseros, empezó a recibir poker de reyes mano tras mano. El hombre amontonaba fichas. Los otros jugadores empezaron a sospechar. Ventura recibió un cuarto, un quinto y un séptimo póquer. Lo mataron en el décimo y nunca se supo si guardaba reyes en su manga o si tenía esa noche una suerte desmesurada. En ambos casos su castigo es merecido. Hacer trampas no es más canallesco que ligar demasiado.

Alejandro Dolina, El Fantasma, Juego.

It would kill us.

Sometimes we love people so much that we have to be numb to it. Because if we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us. That doesn't make you a bad person. It just means your heart's too big.

Riding in Cars with Boys (2001).

Sea-foam-green Fender.

And then Harold saw it. A damaged and terribly mistreated, sea-foam-green Fender, staring back at him. Despite its obvious maladies, the guitar spoke with conviction and swagger. In fact, it looked Harold directly in the eye and very plainly stated: I rock.

Stranger than Fiction (2006), Marc Foster.

Wishes.

So? Everyone wants stuff, we wake up every day with list of wishes and we spend our lives trying to make those wishes come true, but just because we want them doesn’t mean we need them to be happy.

Before you die.

The expression “Pie in the Sky” entered popular culture in 1911: it refers to a dessert so sweet that it can only be found in Heaven. If you’re craving something before you die, I recommend where The Pie Maker makes his pies. But if you’re like Chuck, you may enjoy the pie even after you die. Her sixty seconds came and went, she stayed alive; and instead, someone else had to die. He kept Chuck blissfully unaware of this fact: she was alive again – that was that.

Pushing Daisies. Season 1, Episode 2, Fun in the Funeral.

Holding hers, holding his.

As he stared at her, he reached around his back and held his own hand, pretending he was holding hers. And at that very moment, she was pretending to be holding his.

Pushing Daisies. Season 1, Episode 1, Pie-lette.

Young Ned.

At this very moment in the town of Couer d'Couers, young Ned was nine years, twenty-seven weeks, six days and three minutes old. His dog, Digby was three years, two weeks, six days, five hours, and nine minutes old... and not a minute older. This was the moment that young Ned discovered that he wasn’t like the other children: nor was he like anyone else, for that matter. Young Ned could touch dead things and bring them back to life. This gift was a gift given to him, but not by anyone in particular. There was no box, no instructions, no manufacturer’s warranty: it just was. The terms of use weren’t immediately clear, nor were they of immediate concern: young Ned was in love. Her name was Chuck. At this very moment, she was 8 years, 42 weeks, 3 hours and 2 minutes old. Young Ned’s random gift that was, came with a caveat or two. After one minute, the timer goes off. Ned looks out the window and sees Chuck’s father fall flat on his back, dead; his mother follows his line of sight and drops the pie in shock. It was a gift that not only gave – it took. Young Ned discovered that he could only bring the dead back to life for one minute without consequence; any longer, and someone else had to die. But there was one more thing about touching dead things that young Ned didn’t know … and he learned it in the most unfortunate way … as Ned settles into bed, his mother kisses his forehead, she drops to the ground, dead; Ned touches her to no avail. First touch: life. Second touch: dead again, forever.

Pushing Daisies. Season 1, Episode 1, Pie-lette.

The world is not enough for the both of us.

007; Britain's finest secret agent, licensed to kill. Mixing business with girls and thrills. I've seen you walk the screen, it's you that I adore. Since I was a boy I've wanted to be like Roger Moore. A girl in every port, and gadgets up my sleeve. The world is not enough for the both of us it seems. So I wish I was James Bond, just for the day.

I Wish I Was James Bond, Scouting for Girls.

The trick to life.

The trick to life is...

not to get too attached to it.


The Trick To Life, The Hoosiers, The Trick To Life.

Felicidad ordenada.

Como todas las personas que viven mimadas por los dioses sin ninguna razón, también sentía una especie de angustia en el fondo de tanta felicidad. Todo era demasiado hermoso, demasiado redondo, demasiado perfecto. Uno siempre teme tanta felicidad ordenada.
Porque los dioses son, como se sabe, envidiosos, y cuando dan un año de felicidad a un simple mortal, lo apuntan como una deuda, y al final de su vida se la reclaman, con intereses de usurero.

El último encuentro, Sándor Márai.

That's what I keep asking myself.

What have I got? Really? Some money in my pocket, some nice threads, fancy car at my disposal, and I'm single. Yeah... unattached, free as a bird... I don't depend on nobody and nobody depends on me... My life's my own. But I don't have peace of mind. And if you don't have that, you've got nothing. So... what's the answer? That's what I keep asking myself. What's it all about? You know what I mean?

Alfie (2004).

Compilation tape.

A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to hold the attention. Then you have to take it up a notch, but not blow your wad, so maybe cool it off a notch, and you can't put the same artist twice on the tape, except if some subtle point or lesson or theme involved, and even then not the two of them in a row, and you can't woo somebody with Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and then bash their head off with something like GBH's "City Baby Attacked by Rats," and... oh, there are a lot of rules.

High Fidelity, Nick Hornby.

Así.

En el fondo, no creo que haga falta ningún talento especial para que una persona se eleve del suelo y permanezca suspendida en el aire. Todos lo llevamos dentro -hombres, mujeres y niños-, y con suficientes esfuerzo y concentración, todo ser humano es capaz de duplicar las hazañas que yo realicé cuando era Walt el Niño Prodigio. Tienes que aprender a dejar de ser tu mismo. Ahí es donde empieza, y todo lo demás viene de ahí. Debes dejarte evaporar. Dejar que tus músculos se relajen, respirar hasta que sientes que tu alma sale de ti, y luego cerrar los ojos. Así es como se hace. El vacío dentro de tu cuerpo se vuelve más ligero que el aire que te rodea. Poco a poco, empiezas a pesar menos que nada. Cierras los ojos; extiendes los brazos; te dejas evaporar. Y luego, poco a poco, te elevas del suelo.
Así.

Mr. Vértigo, Paul Auster.

La necesidad.

Eso es lo que ocurre con la necesidad. Mientras te falta algo, lo ansías sin cesar. Si pudiera tener esto, te dices a ti mismo, todos mis problemas se resolverían. Pero una vez que lo consigues, una vez que te ponen en las manos el objeto de tus deseos, empieza a perder su encanto. Otras necesidades se afirman, otros deseos se hacen sentir, y poco a poco descubres que estás de nuevo en el punto de partida.

Mr. Vértigo, Paul Auster.

Superman's critique on the whole human race.

As you know, l'm quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well-drawn. But the mythology... The mythology is not only great, it's unique. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2003), Quentin Tarantino.

Though things like this make me sick.

I want somebody to share the rest of my life, share my innermost thoughts, know my intimate details. Someone who'll stand by my side and give me support, and in return, she'll get my support.

She will listen to me when I want to speak about the world we live in and life in general. Though my views may be wrong (they may even be perverted) she will hear me out and won't easily be converted to my way of thinking. In fact she'll often disagree, but at the end of it all, she will understand me.

I want somebody who cares for me passionately with every thought and with every breath. Someone who'll help me see things in a different light; all the things I detest I will almost like.

I don't want to be tied to anyone's strings; I'm carefully trying to steer clear of those things. But when I'm asleep I want somebody who will put their arms around me and kiss me tenderly.

Though things like this make me sick, in a case like this I'll get away with it.

Somebody (Depeche Mode), Martin L. Gore.

The tip of the spear.

Gentlemen, you are the top 1% of all naval aviators: the elite, the BEST of the best. We'll make you better. Fly at least two combat missions a day, attend classes in between, and evaluations of your performance. Now in each combat sequence you're going to meet a different challenge. Every encounter is going to be much more difficult. We're going to teach you to fly the F-14 right to the edge of the envelop, faster than you've every flown before, and more dangerous. Now, we don't make policy here, gentlemen. Elected officials, civilians, do that. We are the instruments of that policy. And although we're not at war, we must always act as though we are at war. We're the tip of the spear. In case some of you wonder who the best is, they're up here on this plaque on the wall. The best driver and his RIO from each class has his name on it. And they have the option to come back here to be Top Gun instructors. You think you're name's going to be on that plaque?

Top Gun (1986), Tony Scott.

The ability to bullshit.

It was the oddest, most unexpected thing. I began writing what they call a Mission Statement for my company. You know -a Mission Statement- a suggestion for the future. What started out as one page became twenty-five. Suddenly I was my father's son. I was remembering the simple pleasures of this job, how I ended up here out of law school, the way a stadium sounds when one of my players performs well on the field... I was remembering even the words of the late Dicky Fox, the original sports agent, who said: The key to this job is personal relationships. Hey, I'll be the first to admit it. What I was writing was somewhat "touchy feely." I didn't care. I had lost the ability to bullshit. It was the me I'd always wanted to be.

Jerry Maguire (1996), Cameron Crowe.

Inspiración.

-La inspiración acude cuando se pegan los codos a la mesa, el culo a la silla y se empieza a sudar. Elige un tema, una idea, y exprímete el cerebro hasta que te duela. Eso se llama inspiración.

El Juego del Ángel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Simple y pura biología.

-Está en nuestra naturaleza sobrevivir. La fe es una respuesta instintiva a aspectos de la existencia que no podemos explicar de otro modo, bien sea el vacío moral que percibimos en el universo, la certeza de la muerte, el misterio el origen de las cosas o el sentido de nuestra propia vida, o la ausencia de él. Son aspectos elementales y de extraordinaria sencillez, pero nuestras propias limitaciones nos impiden responder de un modo inequívoco a esa preguntas y por ese motivo generamos, como defensa, una respuesta emocional. Es simple y pura biología.

El Juego del Ángel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Todo es un cuento.

-Todo es un cuento , Martín. Lo que creemos, lo que conocemos, lo que recordamos e incluso lo que soñamos. Todo es un cuento, una narración, una secuencia de sucesos y personajes que comunican un contenido emocional. Un acto de fe es un acto de aceptación, aceptación de una historia que se nos cuenta. Sólo aceptamos como verdadero aquello que puede ser narrado...

El Juego del Ángel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Hair grows even after you're dead.

Imagine you go away on a business trip one day and when you come back home your children have grown and you never made your wife moan, and people make you nervous. You'd think the world was ending and everybody's features have somehow started blending. And everything is plastic, and everyone's sarcastic, and all your food is frozen; it needs to be defrosted.

Well maybe you should just drink a lot less coffee, and never ever watch the 10 o'clock news. Maybe you should kiss someone nice or lick a rock or both. Maybe you should cut your own hair cause that can be so funny, it doesn't cost any money and it always grows back. Hair grows even after you're dead.

The Ghost of Corporate Future, Regina Spektor.

Train of thought.

Leonard:
What did Penny mean, "you'd make a cute couple"?

Sheldon:
Well, I assume she meant that the two of you together would constitute a couple that others might consider cute. An alternate, though somewhat less likely interpretation is that you could manufacture one. As in, "Oh, look, Leonard and Leslie made Mr. and Mrs. Goldfarb! Aren't they adorable?

Leonard:
If Penny didn't know that Leslie had already turned me down, then that would unambiguously mean that she, Penny, thought I should ask her, Leslie, out, indicating that she, Penny, had no interest in me asking her, Penny, out; but because she did know that I had asked her, Leslie, out, and that she, Leslie, had turned me down, then she, Penny, could be offering me consolation - "That's too bad, you would have made a cute couple..." - while thinking, "good, Leonard remains available.

Sheldon:
You're a lucky man, Leonard.

Leonard:
How so?

Sheldon:
You're talking to one of the three men in the Western Hemisphere capable of following that train of thought.

Leonard:
Well, what do you think?

Sheldon:
I said I could follow it, I didn't say I cared.

The Big Bang Theory, Season 1.

Sagittarius.

Penny:
I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.

Sheldon:
Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.

The Big Bang Theory, Season 1.

Chance.

You have about as much chance of going out with Penny as the Hubble Telescope has of finding that at the center of each black hole there's a little man with a flashlight trying to find the circuit breaker.

The Big Bang Theory, Season 1.

La entrada número 200.

Sí, otras 100 entradas más. Y una vez más vuelvo a escribir. Tardé mucho tiempo en postear esta entrada, casi un mes, porque quería hacer algo especial para esta ocasión (por alguna convención que desconozco, todo número redondo es digno de algún tipo de festejo o distinción). Evalué la posibilidad de volver a mostrar algún texto mío, pero nada era digno de tal merecimiento. Y durante todo este tiempo, si bien me encontré con varios textos que merecían aparecer en este blog, quería que la entrada 200 me representara de alguna manera. Y hoy, por esas cosas del azar, me volví a cruzar con un cuento que leí hace muchísimos años, y releí hace otros tantos muchos años. Un cuento que me fascinó desde mi infancia y que me marcó de alguna manera, ya que lo recuerdo como el primer cuento por el cual sentí algo mucho más fuerte que el simple placer de la lectura. Un cuento que me despertaba pasión, admiración, felicidad, y tristeza al mismo tiempo. Un cuento que recuerdo como el primer gran final de una saga que haya leído. Un cuento que comenzaba así:

Tomo la pluma con tristeza para redactar estos pocos párrafos, que serán los últimos que yo dedicaré a dejar constancia de las singulares dotes que distinguieron a mi amigo el señor Sherlock Holmes. Me he esforzado, aunque de una manera inconexa y, estoy profundamente convencido de ello, del todo inadecuada, en relatar como he podido las extraordinarias aventuras que me han ocurrido en su compañía desde que la casualidad nos juntó, en el período del Estudio en Escarlata, hasta la intervención de Holmes en el asunto de El Tratado naval, intervención que tuvo como consecuencia indiscutible la de evitar una grave complicación internacional. Era propósito mío el haber terminado con ese relato, sin hablar para nada del suceso que dejó en mi vida un vacío que los dos años transcurridos desde entonces han hecho muy poco por llenar. Pero las recientes cartas en que el coronel James Moriarty defiende la memoria de su hermano me fuerzan a ello, y no tengo otra alternativa que la de exponer los hechos tal como ocurrieron. Soy la única persona que conoce la verdad exacta del caso, y estoy convencido de que ha llegado el momento en que a nada bueno conduce el suprimirla. Por lo que yo sé, sólo han aparecido en la Prensa tres relatos: el que publicó el Journal de Geneve el día 6 de mayo de 1891, el telegrama de Reuter que apareció en los diarios ingleses el día 7 de mayo y, por último, las cartas recientes a que antes aludí. El primero y el segundo de estos relatos son sumamente lacónicos, en tanto que el último tergiversa por completó los hechos, según voy a demostrarlo. Me toca a mí el contar por primera vez qué es lo que verdaderamente ocurrió entre el profesor Moriarty y el señor Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle, "El problema final", Las Memorias de Sherlock Holmes.

Polite.

You shouldn't think that just because I'm looking at you while you're talking to me, that I'm necessarily listening to or caring about what you're saying. It's just something I do to be polite.

Sports Night. Season 2, Episode 2, "When Something Wicked This Way Comes".

Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

To quote Andy Warhol, "Everybody has fifteen minutes of fame."
To quote myself, "I wish they didn't".

Mick Mars, The Dirt.

Last looks.

Because we have a moment here, let me tell you that I have recently become a secret connoisseur of 'last looks'. You know the way people look at you when they believe it's for the last time? I've started collecting these looks.

Elizabethtown (2005), Cameron Crowe.














For WetGirl.

Too great to be gone forever.

Disco will never be over. It will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this, that was this big, and this important, and this great, will never die. Oh, for a few years - maybe many years - it'll be considered passé and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented and caricatured and sneered at, or - worse - completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, white polyester suits and platform shoes and people going like *this*, but we had nothing to do with those things and still loved disco. Those who didn't understand will never understand: disco was much more, and much better, than all that. Disco was too great, and too much fun, to be gone forever! It's got to come back someday. I just hope it will be in our own lifetimes.

The Last Days of Disco (1988), Whit Stillman.

The end of the end.

In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end in the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words -or perhaps someone else's- before slipping back into darkness as our stories of unfortunate events come to an end.

A Series of Unfortunate Events, "The End" Book the Thirteenth, Chapter Thirteen, Lemony Snicket.

Born yesterday.

But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Violet was born more than fifteen years before this particular wednesday, and Klaus was born approximatley two years after that, and even Sunny who had just passed out of babyhood, was not born yesterday. Neither were you, unless of course I am wrong, in which case, welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book The Tweltfh "The Penultimate Peril", Lemony Snicket

The beginning of the end.

Dear Reader,

You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of the end. The end of the end is the best place to begin the end, because if you read the end from the beginning of the beginning of the end to the end of the end of the end, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope.

This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.

It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the end does not finish you.

With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket.

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Thirteenth "The End", Lemony Snicket.

Después de todo.

Y te subís al último tren de la noche, acompañado por el resabio de unas copas, una leve euforia y una pizca de melancolía. Y entre tema y tema que suena en tus oídos, te das cuenta que después de todo, tu vida no está tan mal.

Rooms.

I'm gonna base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. That's what life is. It's a series of rooms. And who we get stuck in those rooms adds up to what our lives are.

House M.D., One Room, Episode 12 Season 3.

We sell cigarettes.

People, what is going on out there? I look down this table, all I see are white flags. Our numbers are down all across the board. Teen smoking, our bread and butter, is falling like a shit from heaven! We don't sell Tic Tacs for Christ's sake. We sell cigarettes. And they're cool and available and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us!

Thank you for smoking (2005), Jason Reitman.

The voice of God.

Metatron acts as the voice of God. Any documented occasion when some yahoo claims God has spoken to them, they're speaking to me. Or they're talking to themselves. Human beings have neither the aural nor the psychological capacity to withstand the awesome power of God's true voice. Were you to hear it, your mind would cave in and your heart would explode within your chest. We went through five Adams before we figured that one out.

Dogma (1999), Kevin Smith.

Cada tanto una puerta se abre.

Las puertas han sido el tema de este último programa. Las misteriosas puertas que comunican momentos de nuestra vida, habitaciones de nuestro corazón y puertas que permanecen siempre cerradas, de modo que algunos sectores del alma jamás se comunican.
Yo les deseo a todos ustedes que alguna de esas puertas que están cerradas con candado se abran aunque sea por un rato. Vivimos, le decía yo hoy a un amigo que me hizo un entrevista, casi siempre solos y encerrados. Cada tanto una puerta se abre, un puente se establece. No les deseo yo una vida de puertas abiertas porque es insoportable, pero sí que cada tanto en medio de esa soledad se abra la puerta y se asome una cabeza amiga y diga “hola”. Pero esos milagros solo suceden en dos ocasiones: en ocasión del amor y en ocasión del arte. Ojalá que todos ustedes tenga momentos de amor y momentos de arte.

Alejandro Dolina.

Three New Yorks.

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. […] Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

Here is New York, E.B. White.

The only one.

You’re the only one I cry for, the only one I try to please. You’re the only one I sigh for, the only one I die to squeeze. And it gets better everyday, I play, with you it’s such a scream. Yeah it gets better everyday, I say, with you it’s so extreme. Yeah, it gets wetter everyday, I stay, with you it’s like a dream.

The only one, The Cure.






20.06.08 MSG - Cured.

Cut here.

But how many times can I walk away and wish "If only..."
But how many times can I talk this way and wish "If only..."
Keep on making the same mistake
Keep on aching the same heartbreak
I wish "If only..."

But "If only...."
Is a wish too late...


Robert Smith, Cut Here, The Cure.
A un día...

Hugh Gallagher's 'College Essay'

3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:

ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

---

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

Notes from the pulpit.

I am not qualified to speak about God. I am going to speak about advertising. That is something I believe in. When I mention that I am in advertising, people's instinctive reaction is that you are trying to sell people things the don't want.

They regard advertising as being a bit distasteful. I am no more distasteful than you. Yes, of course, I am selling. But so are all of you.

You are hustling and selling or trying to make people buy something. Your services or your point of view. Tupperware parties, for example. They are selling.

You clean your car to sell it, showing it to its best advantage. People even put bread in the oven to make their houses smell nice when they are trying to sell them. The way you dress when going for an interview or a party, or merely putting lipstick on. Aren't you selling yourself?

Your priest is selling. He is selling what he believes in. God.

The point is we are all selling.

We are all in advertising.

It's part of life.



It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be. Paul Arden.

Fail.

Fail. Fail again. Fail Better.

Samuel Beckett.

The rebel.

"Life conspires to beat the rebel out of you."

Alex Bogusky.

Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein.

Today... today, you find yourselves equals. For you are all equally blessed. For I have the pride, the privilege, nay, the pleasure of introducing to you to a knight, sired by knights. A knight who can trace his lineage back beyond Charlemagne. I first met him atop a mountain near Jerusalem, praying to God, asking his forgiveness for the Saracen blood spilt by his sword. Next, he amazed me still further in Italy when he saved a fatherless beauty from the would-be ravishing of her dreadful Turkish uncle. In Greece he spent a year in silence just to better understand the sound of a whisper. And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you, the seeker of serenity, the protector of Italian virginity, the enforcer of our Lord God, the one, the only, Sir Ulllrrrich von Lichtenstein!

A Knight's Tale (2001), Brian Helgeland.

Everybody lies.

It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what. The weird thing about telling someone they're dying is it tends to focus their priorities. You find out what matters to them. What they're willing to die for. What they're willing to lie for.

House MD, "Three Stories", Season 1 Episode 21.

Where the birds always sing

The world is neither fair nor unfair. The idea is just a way for us to understand. But the world is neither fair nor unfair. So one survives, the others die and you always want a reason why.
But the world is neither just nor unjust. It's just us trying to feel that there's some sense in it.

Where the birds always sing, Robert Smith.

Not anymore.

Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man... a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets! A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example.

Se7en (1995) David Fincher.

The Flight of our dreams

... so rapid is the flight of our dreams upon the wings of imagination...

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas.

You haven't lived.

Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. If you don't start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.

Meet Joe Black (1988), Martin Brest.

The Summer of 1959.

I was twelve going on thirteen the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959—a long time ago. But only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only 1281 people, but to me it was the whole world.

Stand By Me, Rob Reiner (1986).

Decenas de poemas.

Y lloré con la almohada mi estúpida plegaria, y me tragué con vinos una desolación tras otra, perdido en la intemperie que suele ser mi abrigo. Y escribí decenas de poemas que convertí en canciones deplorables.

Adolfo Castelo, Revista TXT, Año 1, Número 35.

The mind is its own place.

Farewell, happy fields, where joy forever dwells!
Hail, horrors! Hail infernal world!
An thou, profoundest Hell,
receive thy new possessor
-one who brings a mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place,
and itself can make a Heaven of Hell,
and a Hell of Heaven.

Paradise Lost, John Milton.

Miserable.

You're gonna be miserable. At home, at work, somewhere. The goal in life is not to eliminate misery. It's to keep misery to the minimum. Someone's gonna be miserable sometime. Accept it. That's how I stay so happy.

House MD, Season 4, Episode 5 "Mirror mirror".

Mrs. Robinson.

For god's sake, Mrs. Robinson. Here we are. You got me into your house. You give me a drink. You... put on music. Now you start opening up your personal life to me and tell me your husband won't be home for hours. Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.

The Graduate (1967), Mike Nichols.

You were a tomato!

MICHAEL DORSEY
Are you saying that nobody in New York will work with me?

GEORGE FIELDS
No, no, that's too limited... nobody in Hollywood wants to work with you either. I can't even set you up for a commercial. You played a *tomato* for 30 seconds - they went a half a day over schedule because you wouldn't sit down.

MICHAEL DORSEY
Of course. It was illogical.

GEORGE FIELDS
YOU WERE A TOMATO. A tomato doesn't have logic. A tomato can't move.

MICHAEL DORSEY
That's what I said. So if he can't move, how's he gonna sit down, George? I was a stand-up tomato: a juicy, sexy, beefsteak tomato. Nobody does vegetables like me. I did an evening of vegetables off-Broadway. I did the best tomato, the best cucumber... I did an endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass.

Tootsie (1982), Sidney Pollack

Success.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Mark Twain.

Second Chance.

When the Washington Sentinels left the stadium that day, there was no tickertape parade, no endorsement deals for sneakers or soda pop, or breakfast cereal. Just a locker to be cleaned out, and a ride home to catch. But what they didn't know, was that their lives had been changed forever because they had been part of something great. And greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man. Every athlete dreams of a second chance. These men lived it.

The Replacements (2000), Howard Deutch.

Fermín Romero de Torres III.

Mire, Daniel. Las mujeres, con notables excepciones como su vecina Merceditas, son más inteligentes que nosotros, o cuando menos más sinceras consigo mismas sobre lo que quieren o no. Otra cosa es que se lo digan a uno o al mundo. Se enfrenta usted al enigma de la naturaleza, Daniel. La fémina, babel y laberinto. Si usted la deja pensar, está perdido. Recuerde: corazón caliente, mente fría. El código del seductor.

Fermín Romero de Torres, en La Sombra del Viento (Carlos Ruiz Zafón).

Fermín Romero de Torres II.

La televisión, amigo Daniel, es el Anticristo y le digo yo que bastarán tres o cuatro generaciones para que la gente ya no sepa ni tirarse pedos por su cuenta y el ser humano vuelva a la caverna, a la barbarie medieval, y a estados de imbecilidad que ya superó la babosa allá por el pleistoceno. Este mundo no se morirá de una bomba atómica como dicen los diarios, se morirá de risa, de banalidad, haciendo un chiste de todo, y además un chiste malo.

Fermín Romero de Torres, en La Sombra del Viento (Carlos Ruiz Zafón).

Fermín Romero de Torres.

Vive Dios que yo nunca me acosté con una mujer menor de edad, y no por falta de ganas u oportunidades; que hoy me ven ustedes en horas bajas, pero hubo el día en que tuve presencia y gallardía como el que más, y aún así, por si acaso y me daba en la nariz que eran un poco golfas, exigía cédula de identidad, o en su defecto autorización paterna por escrito para no faltarle a la ética.

Fermín Romero de Torres, en La Sombra del Viento (Carlos Ruiz Zafón).

(RED)

What we choose to buy.

A t-shirt can change the world.
What we collectively
choose to buy
or not to buy
can change the course
of life and history
on this planet.


Gap t-shirt, Product (Red) Campaign.

Mr. Glass.

Your bones don't break, mine do. That's clear. Your cells react to bacteria and viruses differently than mine. You don't get sick, I do. That's also clear. But for some reason, you and I react the exact same way to water. We swallow it too fast, we choke. We get some in our lungs, we drown. However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We're on the same curve, just on opposite ends.

Now that we know who you are... I know who I am. I'm not a mistake! It all makes sense. In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero, and most time's they're friends, like you and me. I should've known way back when. You know why, David? Because of the kids. They called me Mr. Glass.

Unbreakable (2000), M. Night Shyamalan.

Those in the water.

Once, man and those in the water were linked. They inspired us. They spoke of the future. Man listened and it became real. But man does not listen very well. Man's need to own everything led him deeper into land. The magic world of the ones that lived in the ocean... and the world of men... separated. Through the centuries, their world and all the inhabitants of it... stopped trying. The world of man became more violent. War upon war played out, as there were no guides to listen to. Now those in the water are trying again... trying to reach us. A handful of their precious young ones have been sent into the world of man. They are brought in the dead of night... to where man lives. They need only be glimpsed... and the awakening of man will happen. But their enemies roam the land. There are laws that are meant to keep the young ones safe... but they are sent at great risk to their lives. Many... do not return. Yet still they try... try to help man. But man may have forgotten how to listen...

Lady in the Water (2006), M. Night Shyamalan.

The burden.

The weight of the world
   is love.
Under the burden
   of solitude,
under the burden
   of dissatisfaction

   the weight,
the weight we carry
   is love.


Song (excerpt), Allan Ginsberg.

Quarrel.

I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Robert Frost's epitah.

The key word.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Ray Bradbury.

The trick.

That's 'cause we all wanna be problemless. To fix ourselves. We look for some magic solution to make us all better, but none of us really know what we're doing. And why is that so bad? That's all we humans can do. Guess. Try. Hope. But, Justin, just pray you don't fool yourself into thinking you've got the answer. Because that's bullshit. The trick is living without an answer. I think.

Thumbsucker (2005), Mike Mills.

Come again.

Come again,
sweet love doth now invite,
thy graces that refrain
to do me due delight.
To see, to hear,
to touch, to kiss,
to die with thee again
in sweetest sympathy.

Come again,
that I may cease to mourn
through thy unkind disdain
for now left and forlorn.
I sit, I sigh,
I weep, I faint,
I die, in deadly pain
and endless misery.

Come Again, John Dowland.

Kinda sad.

There comes a time when you need to make a huge mistake in order to see yourself with perspective. It's kinda sad, but that's how people mature.

Nana, Ai Yazawa.

The massacre of the Shaolin Temple.

Once upon a time in China, some believe, around the year one double-aught three, head priest of the White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road, contemplating whatever it is that a man of Pai Mei's infinite power contemplates - which is another way of saying "who knows?" - when a Shaolin monk appeared, traveling in the opposite direction. As the monk and the priest crossed paths, Pai Mei, in a practically unfathomable display of generosity, gave the monk the slightest of nods. The nod was not returned. Now was it the intention of the Shaolin monk to insult Pai Mei? Or did he just fail to see the generous social gesture? The motives of the monk remain unknown. What is known, are the consequences. The next morning Pai Mei appeared at the Shaolin Temple and demanded of the Temple's head abbot that he offer Pai Mei his neck to repay the insult. The Abbot at first tried to console Pai Mei, only to find Pai Mei was inconsolable. So began the massacre of the Shaolin Temple and all sixty of the monks inside at the fists of the White Lotus. And so began the legend of Pai Mei's five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Quentin Tarantino.

Self-absorbed

I know, I get that. But if it is 'cause of me, maybe I can talk her out of it. Except for the fact that I can't ask her if it because of me without sounding totally self-absorbed. And I'm not self-absorbed, right Ryan? Me? Me? Me?

The O. C. Season 1, The Goodbye Girl.

No more guys.

ARI
I fired him for stealing pens. Why do I care about Josh?

EMILY
Well, now he’s an agent at Triad. And he’s the one who gave the boys Queens Boulevard.

ARI
That’s why no more guys! You fire a guy you create a rival. You fire a woman you create a housewife.

Entourage, Season 1, Busey and the Beach.

If I could have all those things.

I wanna be with her more, I wanna be with her all the time, and I wanna tell her things I don't even tell you or mum. And I don't want her to have another boyfriend. I suppose if I could have all those things, I wouldn't really mind if I touched her or not.

About a Boy (2002), Chris Weitz/Paul Weitz.

If you ever get lonely.

Never take it seriously, you never get hurt. Never get hurt, you can always have fun. And if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit all your friends.

Almost Famous (2000), Cameron Crowe.

Las malas compañías.

Y si la Magdalena pide un trago, tú la invitas a cien que yo los pago. Acércate a su puerta y llama si te mueres de sed, si ya no juegas a las damas ni con tu mujer. Sólo te pido que me escribas contándome si sigue viva la virgen del pecado, la novia de la flor de la saliva, el sexo con amor de los casados.

Joaquín Sabina, Una canción para la Magdalena.

Y sin embargo.

Y me envenenan los besos que voy dando y sin embargo cuando duermo sin tí, contigo sueño.

Y sin embargo, Joaquín Sabina.

Life.

Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.


Mr. Magorium Wonder Emporium (2007), Zach Helm.

Shenanigans.

I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?

Juno (2007), Jason Reitman.

Total agony.

SAM
I know I should be thinking about Mum all the time, and I am. But the truth is I'm in love and I was before she died, and there's nothing I can do about it.

DANIEL
Aren't you a bit young to be in love?

SAM
No.

DANIEL
Oh, well, okay, right. Well, I mean, I'm a little relieved.

SAM
Why?

DANIEL
Well, because I thought it would be something worse.

SAM
Worse than the total agony of being in love?

DANIEL
Oh. No, you're right. Yeah, total agony.


Love Actually (2003), Curtis Hanson.

It pricks.

Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

Willieam Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 1. Scene IV.

Look hard enough.

At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may, in-fact be the first steps of a journey.

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events.

Para no recordar.

Toda alegría no es más que un olvido momentáneo de la tragedia esencial de la vida. Puede uno reírse del cuento de los supositorios, pero éste es apenas un descanso en el camino. Uno juega, retoza y refiere historias picarescas, solamente para no recordar que ha de morirse. Ese es el sentido original de la palabra diversión: apartar, desviar, llamar la atención hacia una cosa que no es la principal.

El Fantasma", Alejandro Dolina.

One of those guys.

I wish I could be one of those guys who doesn't call, the kind of guy that gets broken up with and appears not to give a shit. He doesn't make an ass out of himself, or frighten anybody, and this week I've done both of those things.

High Fidelity. Nick Hornby.

I shouldn't be listening to pop music.

Sentimental music makes you nostalgic and hopeful at the same time. Marie's the hopeful part. Laura's the nostalgia part. These things happen. They happen to men, at any rate. This is why I shouldn't be listening to pop music.

High Fidelity, Nick Hornby.




PD: Sí, estoy monotemático.

I just don't think I'll ever get over you.

But I don't want you thinking I don't get asked to dinner 'cause I'm here to say that I sometimes do. Even though I may soon feel the touch of love, I just don't think I'll ever get over you. If I lived till I was 102, I just don't think I'll ever get over you.

I just don't think I'll ever get over you. Colin Hay.

Leave me alone.

And if you have to leave I wish that you would just leave, 'cause your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone. These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there's just too much that time cannot erase.

My Immortal, Evanescence.

I step to the edge.

So I walk up on high and I step to the edge to see my world below. And I laugh at myself as the tears roll down, 'cause it's the world I know. It's the world I know.

The world I know. Collective Soul.

Or if it's true.

...and it's alright if you're undecided or if you're scared that you might like it or if it's true; I ache for you.

Ache For You, Ben Lee.

Everybody cries.

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone, when you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on. Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.

Everybody Hurts, R.E.M.

All we got.

ANDREW LARGEMAN
Fuck, this hurts so much.

SAM
I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got.

Garden State (2004), Zach Braff.

The woman I loved.

The Moulin Rouge. A night club, a dance hall and a bordello. Ruled over by Harold Zidler. A kingdom of night time pleasures. Where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most beautiful of these was the one I loved. Satine. A courtesan. She sold her love to men. They called her the "Sparkling Diamond", and she was the star of the Moulin Rouge. The woman I loved is... dead.

Christian (Ewan McGregor), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Baz Lurhmann.

Longing.

Christian, you may see me only as a drunken, vice-ridden gnome whose friends are just pimps and girls from the brothels. But I know about art and love, if only because I long for it with every fiber of my being.

Toulouse Lautrec (John Leguizamo), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Baz Luhrmann.

So screwed.

MATT ALBIE
Was there something you came to see me about?

DANNY TRIP
Yes.

MATT ALBIE
What?

DANNY TRIP
We don't need to do it now, but at some point I'm going to need you to level with me about Harriet. I need to know how big of a problem it's going to be.

MATT ALBIE
It's not going to be a problem at all.

DANNY TRIP
It will if you are still in love with her.

MATT ALBIE
I'm not. I'm not. Danny, I love her talent. The woman's got millions of fans but there are maybe fifty guys in town who know how good she is and we're two of them. I admire her. I'm knocked out by her talent. And I like it when she makes me laugh, and I like making her laugh, which isn't easy to do, so it's gratifying. She's undeniably sexy. I like it when she smiles at me, and a couple of other things, but that's it.

DANNY TRIP
Oh my God, we are so screwed.

MATT ALBIE
I know.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Episode 2, The Cold Open.

Bairdmen.

Out of order, I show you out of order. You don't know what out of order is, Mr. Trask. I'd show you, but I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too fuckin' blind. If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a flamethrower to this place! Out of order? Who the hell do you think you're talkin' to? I've been around, you know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen. Boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothin' like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that. You think you're merely sending this splendid foot soldier back home to Oregon with his tail between his legs, but I say you are... executin' his soul! And why? Because he's not a Bairdman. Bairdmen. You hurt this boy, you're gonna be Baird bums, the lot of ya. And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are out there, fuck you too!

Scent of a Woman (1992), Martin Brest.

So, who wants me?

Hello, sick people and their loved ones! In the interest of saving time and avoiding a lot of boring chitchat later, I'm Doctor Gregory House; you can call me "Greg." I'm one of three doctors staffing this clinic this morning. This ray of sunshine is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. Doctor Cuddy runs this whole hospital, so unfortunately she's much too busy to deal with you. I am a board certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. I am also the only doctor currently employed at this hospital who is forced to be here against his will. But not to worry, because for most of you, this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you're particularly annoying, you may see me reach for this: this is Vicodin. It's mine! You can't have any! And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem... but who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too stoned to tell. So, who wants me?
And who would rather wait for one of the other two guys?
Okay. Well, I'll be in Exam Room One if you change your mind.

Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), House M.D., Season 1, Episode 3.

The world is not small.

You can run far; you can take your small precautions,
but have you really gotten away?
Can you ever escape?
Or is the truth that you do not have the strength or cunning
to hide from destiny?
That the world is not small, you are.
And fate can find you anywhere.

Heroes. Season 1, Episode 8: Seven minutes to midnight.

Dignity.

There's no such thing! Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're 90, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it! I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass... it's always ugly, always! You can live with dignity; you can't die with it!

Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), House M.D., Pilot.

Hank hates you all.

Hell-A Magazine blog number 1. Hank hates you all. A few things I've learned on my travels through this crazy little thing called life. One, a morning of awkwardness is better than a night of loneliness. Two, I probably won't go down in history, but I will go down on your sister. And 3, while I'm down there it might be nice to see a hint of pubis. I'm not talking about a huge 70's Playboy bush or anything. Just something that reminds me that I'm performing cunnilingus on an adult.

Hank Moody (David Duchovny), Californication, Season 1 Episode 2.

English garden.

Would you care to sit with me for a cup of English tea?
Very twee, very me, any sunny morning.
What a pleasure it would be chatting so delightfully,
nanny bakes fairy cakes
every Sunday morning.

Miles of miles of English garden,
stretching past the willow tree.
Lines of hollyhocks and roses listen most attentively.


English Tea, Paul McCartney, Creation and Chaos in the Backyard.

Suppose.

And suppose I never ever met you.
Suppose we never fell in love.
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft.
Suppose I never ever saw you.
Suppose we never ever called.
Suppose I kept on singing love songs
just to break my own fall.

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better.



Regina Spektor, Fidelity.

September 3rd 1973.

On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. At the same moment, on a restaurant terrace nearby, the wind magically made two glasses dance unseen on a tablecloth. Meanwhile, in a 5th-floor flat, 28 Avenue Trudaine, Paris 9, returning from his best friend's funeral, Eugène Colère erased his name from his address book. At the same moment, a sperm with one X chromosome, belonging to Raphaël Poulain, made a dash for an egg in his wife Amandine. Nine months later, Amélie Poulain was born.

Amelie (2001)

This is how it works.

This is how it works.
You're young until you're not.
You love until you don't.
You try until you can't.
You laugh until you cry.
You cry until you laugh.
And everyone must breathe,
until their dying breath.

Regina Spektor, On the Radio.

The incomparable.

Angels.

In one form or another, angels appear in most of the major religions as intermediaries between god and humans. They are invisible or semi invisible beings who act as guides to the soul, helping it grow and evolve. They are also believed to organize the universe at it's very foundations, keeping the planets on course, and controlling the growth of life on earth.

Bar 89, 89 Mercer Street.

When we first met.

You are my sweetest downfall,
I loved you first, I loved you first.
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth,
I have to go, I have to go.
Your hair was long when we first met.

Regina Spektor, Samson.

Harold wristwatch.

This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would brush each of his thirty-two teeth seventy-six times. Thirty-eight times back and forth, thirty-eight times up and down. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to forty-three seconds. His wristwatch thought the single Windsor made his neck look fat, but said nothing. Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would run at a rate of nearly 57 steps per block for six blocks, bearly catching de 817 Kronecker bus. His wristwatch would delight in the feeling of the crisp wind rushing over its face. And every weekday for twelve years, Harold would review seven point one three four tax files, as a senior auditor for the Internal Revenue Service, only taking a forty five point seven minute lunchbreak, and a four point three minute coffee break, timed precisely by his wristwatch. Beyond that, Harold lived a life of solitude. Harold would walk home alone. He would eat alone. And precisely eleven thirteen every night Harold would go to bed alone, placing his wristwatch to rest on the nightstand beside him. That was, of course, before Wednesday. On Wednesday, Harold's wristwatch, changed everything.

Stranger than Fiction (2006), Marc Foster.

Hell's Kitchen.

You want a Rolls-Royce, you don't come here, no no. You go to England, or wherever the fuck they make it. If you want champagne, you go see the French. If you need money, you find a Jew. But, if you want dirt, or scum buried under a rock somewhere, or some secret nobody wants anybody to know about, there's only one place to go: right here, Hell's Kitchen. It is the lost and found of shit. They lose it and we find it.

Sleepers (1996), Barry Levinson.

Bavarian sugar cookies.

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

Stranger than fiction, Marc Forster (2006)

Fatum.

Jonathan Trager, prominent television producer for ESPN, died last night from complications of losing his soul mate and his fiancee. He was 35 years old. Soft-spoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part of a hopeless romantic. But, in the final days of his life, he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. This hidden quasi-Jungian persona surfaced during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit of his long reputed soul mate, a woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with. Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure. Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly clung to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather, its a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan. Asked about the loss of his dear friend, Dean Kansky, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and executive editor of the New York Times, described Jonathan as a changed man in the last days of his life. "Things were clearer for him," Kansky noted. Ultimately Jonathan concluded that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call "fatum", what we currently refer to as destiny.

Serendipity (2001).

Growing up

Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations.
That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up.

Robert Smith.

Melancholy

But I think depression is different to melancholy. Depression is a clinical condition. Melancholy comes about through self-reflection. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be melancholic, to look at your life, to look at your world and there’s a beatiful sadness about it, to which I respond to.

Sting, The Journey and the Labyrinth.

Melancholy

CLAIRE:
I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened.

Elizabethtown, Cameron Crowe (2005).

Squints

Michael Squints Palledorous walked a little taller that day. And we had to tip our hats to him. He was lucky she hadn't beat the CRAP out of him. We wouldn't have blamed her. What he'd done was sneaky, rotten, and low... and cool. Not another one among us would have ever in a million years even for a million dollars have the guts to put the moves on the lifeguard. He did. He had kissed a woman. And he had kissed her long and good. We got banned from the pool forever that day. But every time we walked by after that, the lifeguard looked down from her tower, right over at Squints, and smiled.

The Sandlot (1993).

Freeze.

Have you ever crossed the road, and looked the wrong way? A car's nearly on you? So what do you do? Something very silly. You freeze. Your life doesn't flash before you, 'cause you're too fuckin' scared to think - you just freeze and pull a stupid face. But the pikey didn't. Why? Because he had plans of running the car over.

Snatch, Guy Ritchie (1998).

Sofisticación

"La simplicidad es la sofisticación definitiva".

Leonardo Da Vinci.


PD: El tipo era claramente un adelantado en todo.

The answer to life, the universe and everything.

- We must know it! Now!
- Now? -inquired Deep Thought.
- Yes! Now...
- Alright -said the computer and settled into the silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable.
- You're really not going to like it -observed Deep Thought.
- Tell us!
- Alright, -said Deep Thought- the Answer to the Great Question ...
- Yes!
- Of Life, the Universe and Everything...-said Deep Thought.
- Yes...!
- Is...-said Deep Thought and paused.
- Yes...!
- Is...
- Yes...!!!...?
- Forty two -said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

The Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

As you are driving me home.

I roll the window down and then begin to breathe in the darkest country road and the strong scent of evergreen from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Then looking upwards I strain my eyes and try to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites from the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

Passenger Seat, Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie.

Atlantic City

AJ
Lucas! Hey, Lucas? Hey, Lucas? What the hell you doing here, man?

LUCAS
Something happened to me last night. In Atlantic City.

AJ
Oh, you went to Atlantic City?

MARK
Wow ... did you win anything?

LUCAS
No. I did not win. So if you guys ever wonder if it was nice to know you, I tell you now that it was.

AJ
Shit, man. What happened? What happened?

LUCAS
I do not regret the things that I have done but those I did not do.

Empire Records, Allan Moyle, 1995.

Ezekiel 25:17

You read the Bible?
There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides
by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will,
shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness.
For he is truly his brother's keeper
and the finder of lost children.
And I will strike down upon thee
with great vengeance and furious anger
those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.
And you will know I am the Lord
when I lay my vengeance upon you."
I been sayin' that shit for years.
And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass.
I never really questioned what it meant.
I thought it was just a coldblooded thing
to say to a motherfucker
'fore you popped a cap in his ass.
But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice.
Now I'm thinkin', it could mean you're the evil man.
And I'm the righteous man.
And Mr. .45 here, he's the shepherd
protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness.
Or it could by you're the righteous man
and I'm the shepherd
and it's the world that's evil and selfish.
I'dlike that.
But that shit ain't the truth.
The truth is you're the weak.
And I'm the tyranny of evil men.
But I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, 1994.

La entrada número 100

La de hoy es la entrada número 100 de este Blog que inicié hace casi un año. Y como comenté alguna vez, allá por la entrada 20, aquella que daba comienzo a la serie de posteos del libro High Fidelity, este blog no fue creado para los demás, sino para mí, y que por eso no iba a escribir yo, ya que poco me interesa leerme a mí mismo. Sin embargo, debo admitir que hay gente que lo lee. Y también debo admitir que me gusta que lo lean. Y si bien aquella vez aclaré que nunca iba a postear algo que yo escribiera, hoy voy a romper esa regla. Sólo por ser la entrada número 100.

Lo que van a leer es uno de los pocos (por no decir únicos) textos que me gustan a pesar de haber sido yo el autor. El encargo fue realizar un mural, y la idea consistia en, a partir de plasmar el siguiente texto en el mismo, tomar parte de una eterna lucha que se disputa oculta a nuestros ojos y que podrán descubrir a continuación. Espero que les guste.

Mientras deambulamos por la ciudad,
sin más preocupaciones que las propias,
una batalla se libra invisible a nuestros ojos.
Es ése enfrentamiento que noche a noche y día a día
libran dos bandos separados por diferencias irreconciliables,
enemigos acérrimos hasta la muerte:
las despreciables paredes que escuchan,
y las maravillosas paredes que tienen mucho por decir.
Los hombres, ignorantes a esta disputa,
vamos sin embargo decidiendo la batalla
cada vez que decidimos o no intervenir alguna de ellas.
Nosotros ya hemos tomado partido.
Y así, de esta manera,
reclamamos para nuestro lado la presente pared,
prestos y ávidos por luchar hasta la última victoria.

Happy Ending.

This is the way you left me, I'm not pretending, no hope, no love, no glory, no happy ending. This is the way that we love, like it's forever, then live the rest of our life but not together.

Mika, Life in Cartoon Motion, Happy Ending.

Apuntes del fútbol en Flores.

En un partido de fútbol caben infinidad de novelescos episodios. Allí reconoceremos la fuerza, la velocidad y la destreza del deportista. Pero también el engaño astuto del que amaga una conducta para decidirse por otra. Las sutiles intrigas que preceden al contragolpe. La lealtad del que socorre a un compañero en dificultades. La traición del que lo abandona. La avaricia de los que no sueltan la pelota. Y en cada jugada, la hidalguía, la soberbia, la inteligencia, la cobardía, la estupidez, la injusticia, la suerte, la burla, la risa o el llanto.

Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris, Apuntes del fútbol en Flores.

El Propósito de las Mujeres

Ives Castagnino, el músico de Palermo, razonaba de este modo: si el propósito de las mujeres terribles es hacer sufrir a los hombres, tienen dos maneras de lograrlo:
1) No viviendo un romance con ellos.
2) Viviéndolo.

Según parece, al músico lo aterrorizaba mucho más la segunda posibilidad.

Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris, La Conspiración de las Mujeres Hermosas.

Las Bolitas

Se trata de pequeñas esferas, casi siempre de vidrio. Su diámetro es variable: las más chicas se llaman "piojos" o "pininas", las medianas son las más frecuentes y están también las grandes o "bolones", que suelen utilizarse en el juego del Triángulo. Años atrás podían reconocerse diferentes pelajes de bolitas. Las más hermosas eran las "lecheras". En ellas predominaba el blanco, siempre mezclado con algún otro color. Eran semiopacas, no se podía ver a través de ellas y la variedad de diseños y combinaciones era enorme. Estaban también las semitransparentes, de colores fríos, casi siempre verdes o azules. Eran como cachos de sifón. En el interior a veces se adivinaba un filamento gelatinoso y más bien repugnante. Salvo excepciones, eran unas bolitas de porquería.

Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris, La decadencia de la bolita.

Capitulo II: el lugar donde se juega.

Nota: el folleto no menciona la interesante opinión de Manuel Mandeb, quien creyó entender que la escondida era un juego sin límites. Para el pensador árabe la escondida perfecta debía ser jugada por toda la estirpe humana, su escenario era el universo y su duración, la eternidad. Así, el próposito final de la Historia puede consistir en el nacimiento de un futuro Elegido, que se encargará de librar para todos los compañeros en un acto que marcará el fin de los tiempos.

Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris, Táctica y estrategia de la escondida.

Allí hay sueños para todos.

Sueños rosas para las ingenuas de la calle Artigas. Sueños blancos para los pibes y sueños rojos para los violentos. Hay sueños agujereados de despertares. Hay sueños sin sueños que son una larga cinta negra. Y sueños usados para los que sueñan siempre lo mismo. Sueños frescos, sueños maduros. El Ángel tiene sueños buenos y malos. Tiene uno tan terrible que si uno no despierta a tiempo, se muere. Tiene otro que dura cinco días y cinco noches. Y tiene un sueño tan corto como un suspiro: quien lo sueña, sueña que suspira.
El Ángel Gris elige sueños para cada uno de los que se atreven a dormir en Flores.

Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris, El reparto de sueños en el barrio de Flores.

The commencement of a rigid search.

I will be truthful and mention that before our rigid search, I had the opinion Jewish people were having shit between their brains. Primarily, this is because all I knew of Jewish people was that they paid Father very much currency in order to make vacations from America to Ukraine. I was of the opinion that the past is past and like all that is not now, it should remain buried along the side of our memories. But this was before the commencement of our very rigid search. Before I encountered the collector... Jonathan Safran Foer.

Everything is Illuminated, Liev Schreiber (2005).
Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.

300

So my king died, and my brothers died, barely a year ago. Long I pondered my king's cryptic talk of victory. But time has proven him wise, for from free Greek to free Greek, the word was spread that bold Leonidas and his 300, so far from home, laid down their lives... not just for Sparta, but for all Greece and the promise this country holds. Now, here on this ragged patch of earth called Plataea, Persian hordes face obliteration! Just there, the barbarians gather, sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers, knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the swords and spears of 300. Yet they stare now across the plain at 10,000 Spartans commanding 30,000 free Greeks! Ho! The enemy outnumber us a paltry three to one! Good odds for any Greek. This day we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny, and usher in a future brighter than anything we could imagine. Give thanks, men, to Leonidas and the brave 300! To victory!

300, Zack Snyder.

The look on their faces.

You never understood, why we did this.
The audience knows the truth: the world is simple.
It's miserable, solid all the way through.
But if you could fool them, even for a second,
then you can make them wonder, and then you...
then you got to see something really special...
You really don't know?
It was... it was the look on their faces...

The Prestige. Christopher Nolan.

So far

BART:
This is the worst day of my life!

HOMER:
Worst day of your life, so far.


The Simpsons Movie.

Litany

Don't talk. Don't touch. Don't walk. Don't walk at night. Don't walk on the right. Don't drink. Don't think. Don't smoke. Don't do drugs. Don't do beef. Don't do junk. Don't be fat. Don't be thin. Don't chew. Don't spit. Don't swim. Don't breathe. Don't cry. Don't bleed. Don't kill. Don't experiment. Don't exist. Don't do anything. Don't fry your food. Don't fry your brain. Don't sit too close to the telly. Don't walk on the grass. Don't put your elbows on the table. Don't put your feet on the seat. Don't run with scissors and don't play with fire. Don't rebel. Don't smack. Don't touch. Don't masturbate. Don't be childish. Don't be old. Don't be ordinary. Don't be different. Don't stand out. Don't drop out.

Don't buy.
Don't read.

Comercial del diario inglés The Independent, Lowe Howard Spink London, 1999.

The Prophecy

"The one with the power
to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...
born to those who have thrice defied him,
born as the seventh month dies...
and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal,
but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...
and either must die at the hand of the other
for neither can live while the other survives...
the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord
will be born as the seventh month dies..."

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

PD: A 10 días del final.

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.




Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.



Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1997

Sabio

-Te juzgarás a tí mismo -le respondió el rey-. Es lo más difícil. Es mucho más difícil juzgarse a sí mismo que juzgar a los demás. Si logras juzgarte bien a ti mismo eres un verdadero sabio.

Antoine de Saint - Exupéry, El Principito.

Gente seria

Tuve así, en el curso de mi vida, muchísimas vinculaciones con muchísima gente seria. Viví mucho con personas grandes. Las he visto muy de cerca. No he mejorado excesivamente mi opinión.

Antoine de Saint - Exupéry, El Principito.

Derecho

Derecho, siempre adelante de uno, no se puede ir muy lejos...

Antoine de Saint - Exupéry, El Principito.

Las personas grandes

Las personas grandes nunca comprenden nada por sí solas y es cansador para los niños tener que darles siempre y siempre explicaciones.

Antoine de Saint - Exupéry, El Principito.

Una lectura un tanto demorada

Sí, así es. Vuelvo a escribir, una vez más. Otra vez, a modo de explicación. Hace años que sé que debo leer El Principito. La pregunta de ¿cómo que no leíste El Principito? me la han hecho infinitas veces, en particular cuando disfruto mucho la lectura para chicos (o no tan chicos). A todos los que alguna vez me lo preguntaron, les contesto: ya empecé. Y, a priori, parece ser un libro maravilloso, con una cantidad increíble de citas para rescatar - y no estoy hablando de "lo escencial es invisible a los ojos", cita que estoy cansado de oir, y más cansado aún, de la gente que la utiliza.

En fin, van a encontrar unas cuantas entradas del libro en los próximos días. Espero que sepan entender.

Caso de diván

Do you have the time to listen to me whine, about nothing and everything, all at once? I'm one of those melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone. No doubt about it.

Basket Case, Green Day.

Nuestro destino

En el futuro corre, como un río, nuestro destino, según lo dibujamos aquí abajo. En el futuro está todo, porque todo es posible. Allí usted murió la semana pasada y allí está viviendo para siempre.

Adolfo Bioy Casares. El sueño de los héroes.

Sense of Humour

No quiero comenzar ningún tipo de rumor blasfemo,
pero creo que Dios tiene un perverso sentido del humor.

Y cuando muera, espero encontrarlo riendo.



Blasphemous Rumors, Martin Gore.

End of Volume One

¿De donde viene esta búsqueda,
esta necesidad de resolver los misterios de la vida,
cuando la más simple de las preguntas
nunca puede ser contestada?
¿Por qué estamos aquí?
¿Qué es el alma?
¿Por qué soñamos?
Quizás estaríamos mucho mejor
si no nos preocupáramos por nada de eso.
Sin indagar, sin desear.
Pero esa no es la naturaleza humana.
No es el corazón de los hombres.
Eso no es para lo que estamos aquí.
Y entonces luchamos por hacer la diferencia,
por cambiar el mundo, por soñar una esperanza,
sin saber con certeza a quienes nos encontraremos
a lo largo del camino.
Quién dentro de este mundo de extraños
será el que sostenga nuestra mano,
el que toque nuestros corazones
y comparta el dolor de intentarlo.

Soñamos una esperanza.
Soñamos un cambio.
De fuego, de amor, de muerte.
Y entonces sucede.
El sueño se hace realidad.
Y la respuesta a aquella búsqueda,
ésa necesidad en resolver los misterios de la vida,
finalmente se revela.
Como la luz brillante de un nuevo amanecer.
Tanta lucha por encontrar significado,
por encontrar sentido sentido.
Pero al final, lo encontramos en cada uno de nosotros.
Nuestra experiencia compartida
de lo fantástico y de lo mundano.
La simple necesidad humana de encontrar
otro parecido a nosotros para conectar,
y para saber en en nuestros corazones
que no estamos solos.

Chapter 23 "How to stop an exploding man", Volume One, Heroes.

La felicidad nunca tiene grandeza.

La felicidad real siempre aparece escuálida por comparación con las compensaciones que ofrece la desdicha. Y, naturalmente, la estabilidad no es, ni con mucho, tan espectacular como la inestabilidad. Estar satisfecho del todo no posee el encanto que supone mantener una lucha justa contra la infelicidad, ni el pintoresquismo del combate contra la tentación o contra una pasión fatal o una duda. La felicidad nunca tiene grandeza.

A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.

Nicholas Nickleby

In every life, no matter how full
or empty one's purse...
there is tragedy.
It is the one promise life always fulfills.
Thus, happiness is a gift...
and the trick is not to expect it,
but to delight in it when it comes...
and to add to other people's store of it.

Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens.

Learning that fact.

I see in Fight Club the strongest
and smartest men who have ever lived;
an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables;
or they are salves with white collars.
Advertisementes have them chasing cars and clothes,
working jobs they hate so the can buy shit they don't need.
We are the middle children of history,
with no purpose or place.
We have no great war or great depression.
The great war is a spiritual war.
The great depression is our lives.
We were raised by television
to believe that we'd be millionaires
and movie gods and rocks stars.
But we won't.
And we are learning that fact.
And we are very, very pissed off.

Fight Club, David Fincher.

Fight Club Rules

The first rule of fight club is:
you don't talk about fight club.
The second rule of fight club is:
you don't talk about fight club.
The third rule of fight club is:
when someone says "stop" or goes limp,
the fight is over.
Fourth rule is:
only two guys to a fight.
Fifth rule:
one fight at a time.
Sixth rule:
no shirts, no shoes.
Seventh rule:
fights go on as long as they have to.
And the eighth and final rule:
if this is your first night at fight club,
you have to fight.

Fight Club, David Fincher

It's a letter. It's me mom's.

To my son, Billy.

Dear Billy:
I know I must seem like a distant memory to you,
which is probably a good thing.
It will have been a long time
and I will have missed seeing you grow.
Missed you crying, laughing and shouting.
I will have missed telling you off.
But please know that I was always there.
With you through everything.
I always will be.
And I am proud to have known you.
And I'm proud that you were mine.
Always be yourself.
I'll love you forever.

Mom.



Billy Elliot, Stephen Daldry.

The Parting Glass

"Of all the money that e'er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm I've ever done,
Alas it was to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit,
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass;
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.

Of all the comrades that e'er I had,
They are sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts that ere I had,
They'd wish me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not;
I'll gently rise and softly call,
Goodnight and joy be with you all.

If I had money enough to spend,
And leisure time to sit awhile;
There is a fair maid in this town,
Who sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosey cheeks and ruby lips,
I own she has my heart in thrall.
So fill to me the parting glass,
Goodnight... and joy be with you all."

PD: The Parting Glass, es una canción tradicional muy popular en Irlanda y Escocia, habitualmente cantada en las reuniones de amigos, y la pueden escuchar sobre el final de la película "Waking Ned Divne".

Otro punto de vista

Sueño que entro en la sala de un cinematógrafo. En las primeras filas hay espectadores de cabeza muy grande; entiendo que son dioses y que el film que ven es la vida. Sentado en el fondo de la sala, de repente me veo en un rincón de la pantalla; soy espectador de mi propia vida. Entonces tengo una revelación; sé por qué un dios bueno permite que nos pasen cosas horribles. Comprendo que no importa lo que nos pase, porque no somos reales, sino un entretenimiento para los dioses, de la misma manera que los personajes de los films lo son para nosotros.

Adolfo Bioy Casares.

About the life of wine

I suppose I got really into wine originally through my ex-husband. He had a big, kind of show-off cellar. But then I found out that I have a really sharp palate, and the more I drank, the more I liked what it made me think about the fraud he was. I do like to think about the life of wine, how it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining that summer or if it rained... what the weather was like. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes, and if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I love how wine continues to evolve,how every time I open a bottle it's going to taste different than if I had opened it on any other day.Because a bottle of wine is actually alive -- it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks -- like your '61 -- and begins its steady, inevitable decline. And it tastes so fucking good.

Sideways. Alexander Payne.

I'm Ibiza

- Who wrote the phrase "No man is an island"? John Donne? John Milton? John F. Kennedy? Jon Bon Jovi?

Jon Bon Jovi. Too easy.
And, if I may say so, a complete load of bollocks.
In my opinion, all men are islands.
And what's more, now's the time to be one.
This is an island age.
A hundred years ago, you had to depend on other people.
No one had TV or CDs or DVDs or videos...
...or home espresso makers.
Actually, they didn't have anything cool.
Whereas now, you see...
...you can make yourself a little island paradise.
With the right supplies and the right attitude...
...you can be sun-drenched, tropical, a magnet...
...for young Swedish tourists.
Hi, it's Kristina. I haven't heard from you.
I had a great time last weekend. So give me a call, okay? 'Bye.
And I like to think that perhaps I am that kind of island.
I like to think I'm pretty cool.
I like to think I'm Ibiza.

About a Boy. Nick Hornby.

Ser alguien

El problema con mi generación es que todos creemos ser malditos genios. Tener una profesión ya no es suficiente, ni vender algo, ni enseñar algo, o incluso hacer algo: tenemos que SER alguien. Es nuestro derecho inalienable como ciudadanos del siglo XXI. ¿Si Christina Aguilera o Britney Spears, o algún idiota de American Idol puede ser alguien, por qué no podemos serlo nosotros?

A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby