Para Andrés

Con mucha tristeza y enojo he seguido las últimas noticias del golpe que dió Alberto Begné a Alternativa Socialdemócrata. No cabe duda que México como país pierde al perder la única opción política realmente alternativa, la única voz que proponía un discurso de izquierda moderna. Los que creemos en la libertad y en el verdadero cambio no podemos más que estar de luto.

Lo que más me inflama es la reducción de la agenda Alternativa al despectivo "pinky." El término es asqueroso porque resalta la mentalidad discriminatoria en la que vive Begné: esa mentalidad que ve el mundo en diferencias, que entiende a la sociedad en términos de "ellos" y "nosotros", que cree que la sociedad se puede dividir en oposiciones binarias.

Andrés, brindo por tu lucha, porque es la lucha por todos.

Magnum In Motion on Wars

I just stumbled upon four photo essays on war presented by Magnum Photos. The images speak for themselves...

(and my mind just wandered off into a world similar to that of Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness)

Vampire Weekend in Van

Yes...this post is a spin-off of the previous one. But it gets even better: my entire evening yesterday was also a spin-off of commenting on Vampire Weekend's online success. The story goes like this... (skip to section "B" if you want the narrator to go to a concert)

A

When the tickets for Vampire Weekend's concert went on sale, I knew absolutely nothing about the band. The tickets were only 12 dollars and sold out instantly. Weeks later, I received a misplaced copy of Spin Magazine in the mail and read the band's name for the first time, together with a subtitle that said "The Years Best New Band...Already?" As any media-driven automaton would have done, I instantaneously logged into the band's Myspace and began my relationship with the Columbia four.

The attraction was inevitable. It happens to me maybe once a year, at most... but do you know when you listen to a band for the first time and the music just blends perfectly with your present mood? Well, I was in the middle of a rainy week smeared with interminable assignments and terrifying due dates (the kind that makes you question even the most irrelevant details of your daily existence). The music had a perfect je ne sais quoi that kept me glued to my earphones for the rest of the evening, forgetting the rain and escaping the cloud of deadline-induced stress (mea culpa, I am a master procrastinator).

The next day came Dragonette and the story you've already read. But as I was preparing my reply to one of the comments, I realized that Vampire Weekend was playing in Vancouver! I read with horror that the tickets were sold out in the first few days. With fan-from-hell determination, I found a couple of tickets on Craigslist and drove downtown to pick them up from your token scalper....

B

The venue was Richard's on Richards, the time was 10 pm. We arrived just in time for the opening band, Yacht, who truly jumpstarted the audience with their intense beats and zombie dancing moves. Again, my girlfriend delivered the killer one-liner that will save me from any attempt at describing the band: "This is just what a hipster karaoke would look like."

Then came the button down shirts and merino sweaters of Vampire Weekend. The lead singer immediately took the microphone to tell us it was his first time in Vancouver.... I was standing maybe 11 meters away (ahhh the marvels of tiny, intimate venues!) They started to play and the audience fell into a trance. It was impressive to see such confidence and flawless playing by such a young quartet. The singer kept telling us stories about the songs and asking us to sing some of the parts...the connection with the audience was perfect. At one point, the keyboard player took his jacket off to reveal an "I heart NY" t-shirt. Somebody in the audience complained, "hey, that's not a collared shirt!", to which the singer replied a very cool: "well, don't believe everything you read."

Follow his wise words if you may, but after yesterday's electrifying show, I can assure you that Vampire Weekend is here to stay. Here are some pics from yesterday:

Dragonette lacks fire

A wiser fellow than myself once said, "if you're not gonna say something nice, don't say anything at all." I say wiser because I tend to push myself into awkward situations for lack of a "nice" filter between my mouth and my mind. Having said that....

The only nice thing I can say about Dragonette is that the crowd that showed up to see them yesterday at the Commodore Ballroom was funky. Since I was buying the tickets, I found it quite suspicious that their profile comment on their Myspace was a self-applauding: "Best New Band Juno Nomination!!!!!!!" (yes, eight exclamation marks)

Was it an expression of surprise at having been nominated? If yes, what do I think of a band that doesn't even believe in itself (i.e. no true rockstar can escape the egocentric belief that his band is the best on earth)? If no, do they really have to brag about it? Aren't we supposed to be able to tell if a band is great just by listening to their music? (Vampire Weekend's music speaks for itself: >3 million plays in their Myspace!)

Let's face it, no self respecting band needs to tell you they won an award in order for you to appreciate them. In the case of Dragonette v. Amigo, it worked quite the opposite way: I spent the whole show wondering what part of their songs was the one I was supposed to like. I had assumed that, at least, the music would make me want to leave my comfortable chair in the bar to go sweat with the crowd. But after six songs and a cold pint, the only thing that made me leave my chair was the promise of a slice of late night pizza on Granville. As we left the Commodore, my girlfriend, almost inadvertently, delivered the coup de grâce with a simple: "what was that award you said they won?"

Great expectations are a bitch.

Food Fight

Disclaimer: I don't want to turn this into a video blog, but I found this fascinating. (Try to decipher the battles and armies involved without going to the cheat sheet first!)

Butt Hash

And just for some weekend comic relief. I hadn't laughed so hard since Dubbya fell off the Segway! My favorite part, apart from the obvious, is "Parents need to be talking about it" (!!!!). I can just imagine the following...

Dad: "hmmm..eeerrr... son, we need to be talking about butt hash."
Son: "have you been drinking again?"

Enjoy! (and thanks to Chris Malmo for sharing the link)

An Interview

Given that this blog's first post in English had to be something special, I hereby share my recent interview with Hank Bull, director of Centre A.

The Champion of Asian Art.

The sole barrier separating West Hastings Street and the gallery space at Centre A is a long glass wall that can be penetrated through a small door. It feels as if the inside wants to permeate the glass and fuse with the outside. To a person walking along the street, the attraction is inevitable. No lineups, no reception, no ticket counter, no coat check, not a single flight of stairs or even a wall between the newcomer and the art displayed at the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. 

I entered the small door for the first time, together with my friend Christiane, in February 2008 to interview Hank Bull, the director of Centre A. My first impression was that of a person who has just entered a large warehouse or a hangar, and feels uneasy in the large space. As we sat waiting for Hank on a couple of couches that lie in a corner of the gallery, our eyes began to understand the chameleonic properties of the space. The size of the gallery and the height of the ceilings make it suitable for any type of exhibition. 

Hank Bull appeared and after a brief explanation of our mission, we began asking him the questions that we had previously agreed upon. But Hank is not a person that can be easily bound and he immediately escaped the intermittent structure of our script. 

Almost apologetically, Hank began by saying that Centre A exists to break down barriers. His intention is to facilitate the transgression of roles of the traditional museum by expanding the field of cultural intervention. In other words, the art should not stop abruptly behind the doors of the gallery and the artist should not bow to the traditional labour structure that hangs over larger institutions. Artist cum curator cum explorer, Hank envisions a place without hierarchies, where multitasking is the norm, and where the artist and his art are in constant dialogue with the viewer, the bystander, and with the street. 

A decade ago, Hank took a year-long trip to Asia to escape the Paris-New York syndrome and he came back with the dream of creating an art go-to center in Vancouver that truly reflected the ethnic composition of the city. He dreamt of a place for new Asian artists to legitimize their art, but also for established artists to have a platform for interaction with the public. “Art is about people” said Hank, as he explained that by enabling residencies, the gallery becomes a workshop for artists, who develop their art through a constant interaction with the gallery’s visitors. 

The door of the gallery suddenly opened and a homeless resident of East Hastings appeared behind us. She gave us a joyful greeting and Hank introduced her as one of the honorary visitors to Centre A. In an instant, the life of the streets fused with the space of the gallery, marking the absurdity of the outside/inside binary opposition.

“Our location is crucial” continued Hank. The gallery is located at the cultural heart of Vancouver, on the corner that divides Gastown from Chinatown, West from East. The street outside is always vibrant with people walking or pushing shopping carts. Anyone can walk in, the door is always open. This enables Centre A to receive constant feedback from the community it serves and, thus, live up to the director’s vision: to build a pluralistic democracy through art.

I was interested in knowing how Centre A relates to the more traditional Vancouver Art Gallery and Hank explained that partnerships are very common in this city. This led me to ask how Centre A was different and he was quick to deliver the central response in our conversation: the VAG does not reflect the ethnic reality of Vancouver. Even if they cooperate, Centre A’s main drive is to boost the Asian presence in the city in order to fulfill its mission: “push the boundaries of contemporary art that question and complicate the construction of Asian and Asian-Canadian cultural identity.”

Centre A does not settle on a particular construction of “Asian.” It is crucial for the gallery’s survival to maintain an edge of transgression because, as Mr. Bull puts it, “you don’t want to be an agent for liberation and then become an instrument of control.” In this sense, “we don’t tell you what Asian is…we’re here to open the door to exponents of ‘Asian’ without defining it.” After hearing this I began to understand that Hank Bull’s vision includes a constant battle for ideas to redefine the cultural environment of Vancouver. Centre A then becomes not only the setting, but also the moderator and even the debater in this fight.

Hank Bull is on a mission to reinvent the museum and to save the Vancouver Art Scene from the bounds of western paradigms. Lucky for art, he won’t stop until cultural diversity is sufficiently represented in the city.

February 29, 2008

Carlos Mota es tonto

Puedo decir con cierto grado de sinceridad que esta nota en el diario Milenio fue el "tipping point" para inaugurar este blog. Lo tenía planeado desde antes... pero el silencio es canijo y necesita de una explosión para romperse. El señor Carlos Mota fue mi gas butano.

Mi entrada será una copia del comentario que puse en escrituraleatoria.

Me revuelve el estómago esa mentalidad de líder, la de emprendedor, la mentalidad TEC, donde no cabe la búsqueda del conocimiento sin fin utilitario, donde no se entiende la investigación básica porque sólo importa la aplicada, y donde el éxito se juzga en función de mi contribución al PIB. Pobre tonto, pobre Carlos Mota que piensa que un estudiante sólo vale la pena si se dedica a los negocios.

Me encanta que hable de "adoctrinamiento" sin verse a sí mismo... sin darse cuenta que el más adoctrinado es el que no tiene la capacidad de entender las decisiones profesionales de los demás.

Pero lo que más me inflama es su ejemplo final, sobre los filósofos de EUA que deciden corregir su camino estudiando un MBA. ¿Acaso no se da cuenta que EUA es el país donde se publican los journals de filosofia más prestigiosos del mundo? De verdad cree que los filósofos exitosos son los que dejan de ser filósofos...los que dejan de perseguir sus intereses intelectuales para dedicarse a crear empleos. Tristemente, la respuesta es más simple: para Carlos Mota esos journals solo importan si logran enormes ventas.

Devolviéndole sus palabras, este tonto quiere "romper el mundo, no construirlo." Y de paso, a mi me rompe las pelotas.

3...2...1...¡contacto!

Mi blog mio. Mio de mi, para mi, por mi. Para mis ideas y mis desvíos; por mis impulsos y mis desvaríos. Mio para compartir y diseminar. Lo que es de mi y lo que no es mio. De mi la selección y el escrutinio. Pero de ti la crítica y la continuación. Porque aunque existe por mi, vive para ti. Tuyo el comentario que enriquece lo mio y lo vuelve tuyo de ti. Inicio.