Manu Chao is a musician, born in France to Spanish parents. Writing music in English, Spanish and French he became a leader in the new Spanish alternative music. I've been listening to his music since I was born. Right now I just searched him on Spotify and all these memories are coming back. I haven't heard some of these songs in years. My father used to play his albums on summer days while I would lay on the hammock with my sister and really that is the only memory of a perfect moment I have. His album "Proxima Estacion- Esperanza" plays as a single piece, where the next song has started before the last ended and listening from start to finish is something, to me, so perfect. I really don't know what to say other than to listen to it. It's not the type of music that people in STAC really listen to, it has this laid back regge feel but it is different than Bob Marley because Chao feels more experimental. His biography said that he spent years traveling around South America and that his music is a reflection of everything he saw.
These are the links to the two albums I listened to when I was little.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh6vM1CwpXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rEeuqJlmE8
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Pulp Fiction, The Blogging Conundrum and Suicidal Singers
Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was only in the past three months that I had actually watched it, but in those three months I've probably seen the movie six times, and I have been watching all of Quentin Tarantino's movies. I'm writing about this because two nights ago I watched it again with my mom, sister and dad. Both my mother and father had seen it, but it was my sister's first time. My mother told me she had seen it and liked it, but couldn't remember it at all. Pulp Fiction is my father's favorite movie. After we finished watching I asked my sister what she thought and she said she liked it, then my mother informed me that she no longer liked the movie. Honestly I was expecting that. My mother isn't one who enjoys cursing and can't see any humor in killing, and her face during the scene where Zed raped Marcellus was more than hysterical. But what really makes me think is that there was once a time when she actually enjoyed the movie. I was never a believer in the idea that people actually could change, but it seems like she has. I guess after all these years of being a mother her instincts tell her that she can't like those type of things. Tonight I'm going to see Django Unchained, I have high hopes and I hope that my mother can forget her instincts and just enjoy the movie for the beauty and art that it is.
I know that I haven't been blogging that often, but I have actually been meaning to change. The issue is that my grandfather has an obsession with online spider solitaire and spends all his time on the computer. Today I got a Mac, so I can blog more often. I actually started a journal two months ago and I have been writing in it daily, but because I don't get to use the computer I couldn't type up any of my ideas.
Three days ago i went to a theater in Manhattan called El Repretorio Espanol. It is a theater where they preform and write plays in Spanish. I went and saw a concert about Latin American female singers, where they preformed a bunch of old songs that I grew up listening to. Before each song the pianist gives a little story about the artist, where she came from, what her struggle was, and other information. During the last song, Gracias a la Vida by Violeta Parra, the pianist informed us that Ms. Parra killed herself recently after writing this song. Gracias a la Vida means thank you for life. It is a song that I've heard countless times and it is part of my childhood, but I never knew the connotation behind the song. She killed herself because of love, and wrote that song as her last influence on the earth. She thanked god for everything but really she was thanking him for giving her life, but that she couldn't handle it, so she had to give it back.
I know that I haven't been blogging that often, but I have actually been meaning to change. The issue is that my grandfather has an obsession with online spider solitaire and spends all his time on the computer. Today I got a Mac, so I can blog more often. I actually started a journal two months ago and I have been writing in it daily, but because I don't get to use the computer I couldn't type up any of my ideas.
Three days ago i went to a theater in Manhattan called El Repretorio Espanol. It is a theater where they preform and write plays in Spanish. I went and saw a concert about Latin American female singers, where they preformed a bunch of old songs that I grew up listening to. Before each song the pianist gives a little story about the artist, where she came from, what her struggle was, and other information. During the last song, Gracias a la Vida by Violeta Parra, the pianist informed us that Ms. Parra killed herself recently after writing this song. Gracias a la Vida means thank you for life. It is a song that I've heard countless times and it is part of my childhood, but I never knew the connotation behind the song. She killed herself because of love, and wrote that song as her last influence on the earth. She thanked god for everything but really she was thanking him for giving her life, but that she couldn't handle it, so she had to give it back.
Monday, December 17, 2012
I realized something today as I was working on a script with Jessica. We have had an extremely odd relationship with each other. Our piece is about two spies that are trapped and must confront an evil doctor. It's a completely silly script but it reflects so much about our lives and the relationship we have with each other. I don't know if Jess would be comfortable with me getting into the details but this much information could have been gathered from facebook. We dated, twice, and now I'm a homosexual, and we are now really good friends, but there we're also times when we didn't speak to each other at all. Our relationship has been everywhere it could go and that is what is our script really is about, our lives, our story, told in a five minute script consisting of cliche spies and a transvestite doctor. It's not done yet, but the idea is one so perfect to me, and I really want to get it on it's feet because this idea is just too good to just be another script saved on flash drive.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Kontrollings
These are the things I've noticed...
1) The subway is hell. Bulcsú is being punished by some reason and he can't leave the subway because it is his hell. This reminded of the Greek Myth, the name I cannot remember and I can't find it on the Internet because I don't know what to search, but in the myth the hero's wife dies and she is sent to hell and he must save her from hell. I think that the girl in the bear suit is the hero in that Greek myth. She is trying to save him from his hell.
2) Bulcsú's face gets progressively more bloody as the movie goes on. I don't know what this mean, maybe something about his punishment, but I thought that it was a really cool thing.
3) Because it is filmed in an active subway system, it has all the real dirt and other gross stuff that lives in the underground. This makes for a really cool effect of the setting of the movie. So many movie aren't this way, and no movie that I've seen felt this real.
4) My favorite scene is the dream scene. The girl in the bear suit with the red flare thing is incredible. In the dirty subway, it makes it look majestic and surreal and I love that.
5) I like how they showed Bulcsú had another life before his Kontroll job, but they don't give too much detail because they don't have to. This also helps me understand that maybe Bulcsú is being punished for his life before.
The one thing that sticks to me is the idea of coming out of hell. Being trapped and then saved, or rather, being trapped and then killing the thing that keeps you there (the person who is pushing people into the trains). There was this weird feeling as I was watching it, it felt uncomfortable, and it made the movie better for some reason. I felt enclosed and that helped with the idea that Bulcsú was being punished.
1) The subway is hell. Bulcsú is being punished by some reason and he can't leave the subway because it is his hell. This reminded of the Greek Myth, the name I cannot remember and I can't find it on the Internet because I don't know what to search, but in the myth the hero's wife dies and she is sent to hell and he must save her from hell. I think that the girl in the bear suit is the hero in that Greek myth. She is trying to save him from his hell.
2) Bulcsú's face gets progressively more bloody as the movie goes on. I don't know what this mean, maybe something about his punishment, but I thought that it was a really cool thing.
3) Because it is filmed in an active subway system, it has all the real dirt and other gross stuff that lives in the underground. This makes for a really cool effect of the setting of the movie. So many movie aren't this way, and no movie that I've seen felt this real.
4) My favorite scene is the dream scene. The girl in the bear suit with the red flare thing is incredible. In the dirty subway, it makes it look majestic and surreal and I love that.
5) I like how they showed Bulcsú had another life before his Kontroll job, but they don't give too much detail because they don't have to. This also helps me understand that maybe Bulcsú is being punished for his life before.
The one thing that sticks to me is the idea of coming out of hell. Being trapped and then saved, or rather, being trapped and then killing the thing that keeps you there (the person who is pushing people into the trains). There was this weird feeling as I was watching it, it felt uncomfortable, and it made the movie better for some reason. I felt enclosed and that helped with the idea that Bulcsú was being punished.
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