Our maid, who has been with the family for years, brought her grandaughter today. The cutest little thing. It was quite a surprise to open the door and fin this miniature of a person, dangerously holding one of mom´s mirrors, standing in the middle of the living room. She looked at me, somewhat embarrassed, trying to figure out who was this new character that had just popped out of nowhere (I was doing the same, to some extent, ´till I remembered the maid speaking of the little girl before). Then she smiled and told me in the most gleeful of tones that the mirror she held had two faces. I replied, locking the door, that one of the faces made you look bigger. And she said: "Wow! I´ve got a huge head!!".
The mais told me she had to bring her along because her mother was in labor, having her brother. And she told me a pittyful tale about how the little girl woke her up this morning saying that her mother wasn´t in her bed, and hence had abandoned her. Grandma explained to her that mommy was going to get her younger brother, but she would be back... And I kept wishing I could spend these days tagging along with the little girl, to witness and understand what goes on in the older child´s mind when a new child comes along. All that stuff about jealousy, the feeling of loosing the parent´s attention...
The house seemed different with her around. Certain habits of mine where intimidated by the presence of her. For instance, I always watch television while I have lunch. But I felt uneasy to turn it on with her around. Nonetheless, she put on quite a show herself, pretending to clean the room, watching things outside the window and maintaining the simplest of conversations with me. She was as intimidated by my presence, as I was by hers. At times I wondered if our house was fit to support such a young child prancing around. What would she break come the end of the day? But then I tought I was being stupid about it and put the matter aside.
On the kitchen table, one of my childhood Teddy bears had been forgotten. Ah... So she found Alex. He´ll keep her company.
The maid told the little girl that I was the one who painted all the things she had seen in my bedroom walls. And the girl pointed at other paintings in the house, some centuries old, affirming that I had done them too. Had I bought film for my camera today, I think I would definitely snap a few pictures. The maid would have liked that. I kept wondering about the girl´s perception of images. How had her psyche worked when she came into my room. The common person, at an advanced age, would come into my room staring forward, looking perhaps at my Dalí poster (Hallucinogenic Toreador) or the horrible green curtains (seggested to my mother by an aunt who works with interior decoration...) or the things on my desk. Then, with the corner of the left eye, a human form would be perceived, giving the distinct feeling that someone else was in the room. But when the person would turn around to look, it would only be a life-size painting of Marcus. I wonder if the little girl had that surprise. I wonder if she already works like that.
Lioness' portrait leans on my closet. The little one probably made some comment about the absence of the eyes. One of my walls is ladden with photographs. The most beautiful ones are the colored ones. And any photo with nudity is conveniently placed at the bottom: since the desk is too high for little children to look over it, it hides those pictures.

Dejá vu!

The university...
Five minutes after class began. No sign of the teacher. I went into the men´s room to do my business, thinking about whatever mindless subject comes to mind in those hours. There´s a sound of the door being opened. And a thought happens across my mind in a quick flash: yes, it´s him... my teacher. Not the same one from last semester, but the same situation nonetheless. And just as long an eternity as last time...

Got my car back!!!! *hugs the dark blue hood*
I had almost forgotten how it feels to drive... My car is one of the simplest around. It's simplicity makes it incredibly light. I remembered when I got it: I had been learning to drive in mom's car and when I sat on mine and shifted the gear, it felt like shifting a toy gear made of hollow plastic. The manual brake lever was just as light. The steering wheel, I fear, wasn't as light as mom's (hidraulics...).
I just can't describe how happy I am... I wouldn't say I've been through hell without it: I've had worse. But I could say there were... minor discomforts.
Nonetheless, I'm still highly determined to ride my bike to the university every wednesday and to the art course every monday. Exercise!!!

Speaking of which...
My arms are shot to hell. I went to the gym last saturday, to try and pump some iron like I did for a measely short while two years ago. But I think I overdid it. Too much weight. These things tend to meddle directly with your pride. You're never satisfied with the weight you're lifting. And so you add weight and end up like me, spending a whole week with sore arms that won't stretch out completely. I'll keep in mind to use lighter weights next time... This is so humiliating...

Come on... ring, telephone... Ring... Please...

After a few profitless experiences with wax, I decided to leave my Lioness' portrait as it is.
So here you have it, my latest work:



I once told her I thought she was a mix of Angelina Jolie and Milla Jovovich... It's something in that mouth of hers. I can't quite explain it. You have to know her to understand. And her eyes... They have the exact same expression as Milla's sometimes.

Throughout a decade, amidst the most important lessons I learned was not to postpone obligations.
But all I can say is I wish I hadn't logged into ICQ tonight. I wish I could have that conversation tomorrow. I guess it is not a sign of immaturity to postpone an obligation once in a great while.

Ok, sure... Laugh all you want...





Take the Which Wonder Years Character are you? quiz by Ben.

I still don't understand why is it that my blog sometimes decides to organize a mutiny and stop working...
Well, actually it isn't exactly my blog's fault. The blame is on all the peripheral sites that supprt it. Enetation has been "upgrading" or "busy" for the past three days. No word on how long 'till it gets back online. Liquid2k, that hosts my images will sometimes decide that it simply does not exist: my images won't load into the blog and when I try to access the site, I get an error page telling me it doesn't exist. Yes, I'm using the correct address: I use the ones I used to access the site previously. It just decided it doesn't exist anymore. This has happened other times. In a couple of days, the guys from liquid2k will decide that they do exist and will go back online.

*Frowns*
Hmm.... I wonder if it has anything to do with sundays...

It is games like the one on the last post that sometimes get taken too seriously by the schizotypal mind...
We are deemed uncapable of comprehending mental games from reality. But then again, most people out there toy with the idea of gods, religions, offerings and sin and eventually take it too seriously and start believing it.
I know it's a cliché, but it ends this post marvelously: Man created God. Then Man forgot that simple fact and began to believe that God created Man.

We got screens installed on all windows of our apartment yesterday. It's a good thing, 'cause we live close to a river and in warm weather such as this the mosquitoes tend to outnumber us ten to one, keeping us up all night. It was about time my parents did something about it. All I could do about it was go on a mosquito killing spree every time they woke me up at three in the morning. And keep my room as isolated from the rest of the world as possible, plugging up any possible entry for them. Now I get to sleep with my window open: a lot fresher than before...
Through the screens, the world out there appears to be just an image made of tiny colored squares, pixelated like a computer image. Realistic, but not that real... It reminds me of the feeling I had when I was a child, that the world could perhaps be a mere simulation. Something played out specifically for me, to make me believe for some obscure reason that that was the real world when in fact there was some dark secret behind it. I toy around with this idea again. And the only thing that spoils the game are the few glass windows with no screens on them that still show the real world out there.

I was at a gallery indicated by my teacher Sandra Cinto today, taking a look at paintings from graduated students from the art course who worked in her attelier. She told me to look at a few specific ones she thought might have some connection with my work. I guess the one that interested me the most was a girl named Mariana Palma. Her painting depicted a woman holding a baby and a little girl holding a doll by the woman's side. I think it was called Because I love you... At first, what called my attention was really the technique. Quite good andd detailed. The way I like it. But then I began to wander around more macabre aspects of it. The woman and the girl both have this maniacally gleeful smile on their faces. Their mouths are but semicircles turned upward in smiles and their eyes are mere semicircular slits facing the oposite direction. Identical. Maybe demonical, I don't know. It aroused me, I must say. The next thing I noticed was her obssession with decoration. That bauhaus guy from the 1940's might have identified this as criminal behaviour (a guy named Loos who theorized that obssession with decoration such as tatoos and bathroom graffitti are characteristics of criminal minds...). The little girl had a dress ladden with little pearls and oriental lines. At some point I noticed two little white beads on her neck: pearls like the ones on her dress. I took a closer look: the oriental lines also continued on her neck for a while. It made me think the girl wasn't real at all. She was a doll made of a similar cloth as the one used to make her clothing. It made her more macabre. Like some sort of voodoo doll. I searched the mother for the same invasion of pattern and found it after searching for a while: the decorations invaded her right arm... And they were everywhere! The background was all decorated cloth of various styles and colours!! It could be described as obssessive and dismally macabre. And I liked it!!!

Art expo at the university in a few weeks...
I'll be enrolling my portraits, my Virgin (if I can finish it on time...) and a few other things. But first... Ethical procedures.
As I was walking to class tonight, sided by my Lioness, I saw the Blonde Muse somewhere. If only I had a picture of the portrait I made with me.... Then, just before I entered the classroom, I remembered: I do have a picture... It's in my notebook.
I hurried back to where I had seen her and called her out, after a moment of hesitation. I told her I knew I had caused a bad impression with the whole photography thing and explained my work with portraits. Finally, I asked if I could put her portrait in the art expo. She took it all quite well. Better than I would have imagined for someone who thought I was some sort of dangerous psycho. She was very sweet and polite. I was an idiot: words seemed to evade me when it came to explaining my work. I just couldn't get that nervous smile out of my face. Nonetheless, it was the most correct and righteous thing to do. It would be rather unethical not to ask her permission. To expose her inadvertedly. And I still managed to right a wrong in the process, clear misunderstandings and hopefully erase the psycho-with-a-camera impression.

Just met with Makel. I gotta admit, she made my day a lot easier helping me to take a few things home from the atelier. Like a guardian angel, she sometimes appears in my times of need.

I remember a post a while back where I wrote about how she began to loose her life, to look rather depressed or something. This time she seemed so joyous and alive. Things are working out great for her on her job and she's getting along with her guy. Her parents aren't such a pain in the backside anymore: she has surpassed them in maturity. And she looked great. I guess I miss her form, her image. It was one of the things that dismally bothered me when we began to date, but one of the things I miss the most nowadays.
Someone in the Council asks how much of that depression of before had to do with my evil influence... But I guess that's more schizotipal thought...
Nowadays I understand how I tainted her. I have some sort of macabre aura, a way of dealing with the wretched aspects of life. The dark phases. I searched for it for quite some time. Searched to corrupt myself because I was under the teenage suspicion that corrupt guys get all the fun and nice guys finish last. When she met me, my evil was starting to show. It tainted her a little at the time. Nowadays, she's all better. Away from my influence, with someone who understands the good aspects in her. Someone who understands she is a princess and not a lioness. In a sort of religious cliché, I could say she has returned to the light. Meanwhile, I'm being recognized as a vampire. I've gone this far and darkness has given me nothing except for my photographic ghosts. I want to return to the light too. I want to be one of the good guys again.
This doesn't mean I want to be with her again. I've understood that we are intrinsecally different. That we will get along as the best of friends. But we'll just get on each other's nerves as lovers.
No,I just want to return to the light. To be honored. To be a nice guy again.

Pan's-eye-view on Magritte's Golconda

When I look at Golconda, I see those thousands of little men raining down from the skies and, to me, they have no faces. At least that's how I remembered the painting until I saw it on the net a few years back. It always gives me the feeling that that's how busy city street scenes are "loaded" into the real world. Where do all the people out there come from? Where do they all go at night? Look around you: do you think there are enough appartments to house all these people?
It seems to me, that in the first few quiet hours of dawn, they all rain from the skies to flood the streets. A sign somewhere will read: "LOADING..."
What Magritte really wants to say is... "It's raining men!". No, not like the song. He speaks of overpopulation: people, people everywhere you look. All dressed alike and trying to "fit in", to be part of the whole. And he speaks about how life in the city turns every individual into just another drop of rain, like every other drop of rain. If you look closely at the little men, they all have little differences. But their overall aspect is the same, making you aknowledge them as the same figure and ignore their faces. That's why I remembered the painting as men with no faces. And I guess if you ask people on the street about this painting, most of them will say those men have no faces. The city has a system that turns everyone into something that can be calssified, cathegorized. There is no "new and original". Everything has been done before. Everything has a past reference. Whenever something really "new and original" comes along, it becomes a trend to be followed by all those who feel they don't quite fit in or those teenagers who want to be different. And pretty soon, it has millions of followers and it has become just another classification, another cathegory. Take your place in the sky 'cause you're no different from those faceless little men...

NOTES FROM MY NOTEBOOK:
ABOUT ART:
I guess I should start by saying that art is manufacture but not all manufacture is art. I can't think of any sort of art that could sustain itself without being materialized into something. But as these years in the art course have taught me, the simple manufacture of an image or a concept isn't enough to be considered art. It becomes a mere illustration, a sample of technical dexterity. Something vital is amiss: dialogue
I consider ilustration, advertising, any purposeless production of images to be a monologue. Concept is comunicated in a direct way, independant of the spectator's opinion. It expects no answer.
Art must venture beyond monologues to come to a dialogue. Aartworks of today (where conceptual art thrives....) are incomplete sentences waiting for the spectator to complete them and then say wether he agrees or not and if he has any sugestions.
And it isn't one dialogue, but two:
ARTIST ----- ARTWORK ----- SPECTATOR
The artist's purpose is to dialogue with the spectator. But in order to do that, he must first dialogue with the artwork. This is a dialogue of methodology. The artist starts to work with a specific artwork in mind. Chance events, obstacles, uncertainties (understood as expressions of the artwork itself) give sugestions of a different artwork in return. It's up to the artist ro choose wether he takes over the dialogue and ignores the sigestions, or if he allows art to take over an incorporates the sugestions.
On the other hand, the spectator will deal with the artwork in the way I mentioned before: giving answers to the questions sugested, thinking and forming opinions and sometimes creating their own questions. This is a dialogue of concept.

TWO CONSIDERATIONS:
First, according to this definition of art, how can renaissance art and greek art be considered art? I still have no answer to this quastion. But the idea of two moments of art comes to mind. The first dealt with technique and research of more adequate ways of portraying reality. The other dealt with the discussion of other aspects of reality besides it's simple representation: politics, sacial aspects, economical aspects, religious and psychological aspects. But this is a subject to be dealed more carefully later on...
The second consideration is with more pratical aspects. It is inevitable to comprehend that the world of commercial art is a bonfire of vanities where a famous artist's name can turn balderdash into pretigious works of art and the correct contacts can make hoodlums into the nexts Basquiats.

I just saw the saddest Cowboy Bebop episode ever!!
I thought Spike's death would be bad enough. But this one was much worse. Faye finally remembers her past. She goes back to earth and meets and old friend. Literally old: since Faye was frozen after an accident in her youth, she looks younger. This friend of hers went on with her life. She has a grandaughter now. While Faye has virtually no life at all. When she finally remembers the accident and the place where she used to live, she runs over to find rubbles of an old mansion: no answers for her there... She has no past and no future. The last image of her shows her lying down on what was supposed to be her room. With a twig she outlines the space her bed used to be on.
On the same episode, Ed finds her father. She places an add showing her father as a wanted criminal with a high reward so that Spike and Jet will go after him. When they find him and all is explained, she is faced with the difficult choice of leaving the Cowboy Bebop team or leaving her father for good. The episode ends with Ed walking into the desert after her father, Ein following her. She looks back one last time, hesitating. But then moves on, leaving the ship beind. Jet and Spike stay there, having dinner, eating their own meal and what was supposed to be Ed's and Faye's. They pretend they don't care. But the viciousness with which they eat shows something different.

Ok... I think I was able to squash the last few bugs in the system and place my latest image: this ilustration of flying Pan. Coloured on the computer. I tried to colour it with pencils, but I guess my ability won´t mach Makel's and I couldn´t make it anywhere near the quality of the Marcus and Azrael illustrations shown earlier. But alas, I believe it looks way better coloured on the computer.
Here it is in it´s original size:


I suppose you know what the thing he has on his wrist means, don´t you?
He´s the Lioness' Guardian.

According to plans, I got my bike fixed and have started to ride. I spent saturday going to the park and to gradma's to finish my Lioness' portrait. I gotta say it´s not as exhaustive as I thought it would be. I could definitely get used to it. And I could get used to going to the park on saturdays. There´s a load of people there. And it takes my mind off things. Now all I need to do is find a way to attach one of those water bottles to my bike!

...and find an easy way to the art course too.

A quiz somewhere hinted that I might be affected by Schizotypal Personality Disorder.
So I looked into it, to know exactly what was the so-called StPD.

Check this out: http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/schtypal.htm

It's pretty accurate to what I've experienced and to what I know people think of me.
Now I wonder... How come my shrink didn't notice it? Well... I can't expect her to notice everything, right? Out of thousands of psychological sindromes, StPD must be one of those textbook details no one remembers.
I'm thinking about giving her a call and asking about it. But I really don't want to go back to the sessions...

I thought I had taken them all...

MORE QUIZ RESULTS!!



You are a muse.

What legend are you?. Take the Legendary Being Quiz by Paradox


I WAS A GIFTED CHILD
i had my niche.
intelligent. creative. or artistic.
what kind of child were you?
(brought you by april)


Well, that's revealing....

Taking the bus recently, I've noticced people. It's that casual way of noticing someone mostly out of repetetion rather than for any other interest.
For example, every day, as I head to the art course, there's this german in the bus who always sits in the same place. He's an old man, I'd say in his mid-fifties. I know he's german because of the face and because of a german novel he has been readin for the past week. I can't seem to remember the title. Nor do I think I'd understand it anyway. He sits in the same place every day: the only seat turned towards the back of the bus. He gets off on the same stop I do: a busy commercial street. Then he heads down into the subway and vanishes underground. Every day. He has a calm, serene face. Looks like a jolly fellow to have a conversation with.
As I head on to the next bus stop to take my second bus, I walk by an oriental beggar. Even though she wears a cap and some sort of surgical mask and is always looking down, I can tell she's oriental because of the tone and smoothness of the skin. I've never seen her eyes... She sits by a construction yard, aluminum gates painted blue with some company's logo on it. She holds a round transparent plastic container with both hands. It's got three, sometimes four coins in it. She tilts that container in a way that two of them keep rolling along the sides of it. And she stares at them relentlessly.
If I manage to get into the right bus, at the right time, I'll find this girl in it. She studies at the same foundation where I take the art courses. But she studies something else. She's a pretty blond with a round face and very blue eyes. Her cheeks are always red, but I'm not sure if it has to do with excess make up or natural blush. I wouldn't neglect the first, since she seems to wear a lot of make up on the rest of her face.

Father´s day come and gone.
We spent the day with him, saw a few movies, had some fun.
It had been a while since I had spent so much time toghether with my entire family. And it felt good. I felt safe. No depression or anything.
By the end of the day, I had made my dad a watercolour:



A few years back, I made up a personal game of mine. I would give to my dearest ones these pictures of mythical creatures: the Guardians. Each Guardian should be given a name by it´s owner and placed somewhere where they´d be seen every day. I never knew exactly the names of most of the Guardians I did. Their owners never told me. Some never even named them. But I handed them out to many people. Some never even knew they got Guardians. Guardians were identified by the necklace they all carried around. This particular sorceress has hers on her left hand, along with her staff. Some held it in their hands, others wore them on their necks. Some tied them to their belongings.
I had made four Guardians for my family. One for each member. Dad got the sorceress, mom got a dwarf, my brother got a mermaid and I made myself an angel. I was amazed when, while painting my Blonde Muse's portrait, I found many similarities between her and my angel. Perhaps that´s why I obssessed with her so.
Anyway, dad lost his Guardian when he moved to another company. So I decided to make another one. It´s nice to upgrade the Guardians. It´s an undescribable feeling when you confront the old and the new. You prove that your technique has evolved. My angel has followed my technical evolution in drawing for quite some time. She gets better every year. Dad´s sorceress evolved from a corny acrylic on paper to a more realistic watercolour. And I´m thinking about upgrading my own Guardian to watercolour. I tried to model her in clay, but my abilities aren´t that evolved yet... Perhaps in a near future!

TWO VERY GOOD MOVIES SEEN RECENTLY:

Insomnia:
The first movie to feature Robin Williams without corny little jokes... I guess we can scrap him from that list of actors who always do the same role. He plays a very good vilain. The misunderstood, perverted, pityful type. Also, you get to see both him and Al Pacino doing a fair bit of running around and a lot of action for two fifty-something-year-olds. Although the plot is the basic cop movie thing, the psychological part that deals with Mr. Pacino's guilt is quite impressive.

Memento:
The entire thing goes backwards. And it´s brilliant, since the main character has this mental disorder that keeps him from remembering recent events. The entire movie flows at the same time like a long recollection of how did he get to that final image while keeping the viewer as perplexed about things as the main character. In the end, all things explained, you find out how allies are actually foes and victims were actually there to help. And this weird sense keeps buzing in your head that your own memory isn´t good enough to deal with the entire movie. Your really get in touch with your memory´s feebleness. All you can say after it is: "thank God I do remember things... But can I trust them?"
My cousin got the DVD. He says he can play it in the correct order... That ought to be enlightening!

Against my better judgement, I´m posting the picture of my latest painting... And the picture I used to paint it. I guess this image posting thing has become another addiction.

This one is from the latest series of portraits.



And this is the picture I used to paint it...



Now that I look at it... It looks even better when you compare both pictures like this...
Guess who this is!

Ok, I know you're fed up... But check this out!





What's *Your* Sex Sign?

As Ionce said: "Heck, no one's complained so far..."

And so, I crashed my car... Again.
This is the third time. And the second serious colision: this time it was so bad, that I had to push it into the sidewalk because it wouldn't work. The engine started, but it didn't move.
I remember the feeling of crashing my car the first time. There was a sense of disbelief compared to being shot or stabbed, I guess. That surreal sense that this isn't really happening. When you drive, you synchronize with your car. Your car becomes your body. So you sense when your car will fit in places and when it is moving or motionless. So you can imagine how it feels when all of a sudden part of your front is smashed in. You feel like part of your body gets smashed in: a wound. But it didn't really happen to you. It happened to the car. That's when your connection breaks. It's pretty much like riding EVAs in Evangelion.
This time it felt a bit different. I could feel the solid material breaking. Kinda like feeling my bones break but without the pain. I close my eyes and I can still vividly remember the sensation of the shock between solid parts. It comes to me very vividly along with that sense of frustration, of knowing I'll have to take the bus for some time. Feeling that I lost my car temporarily carries the desperation of having lost someone. Geez, that sounded cheap!

Well, I'm determined to make something good come out of this. I've checked out bike shops to repair my old bycicle. I'm planning to go to the art course, maybe, riding mybike. That ought to be a start on the whole exercise thing. Since I now know I'll never have time for squash... It'll sure beat spending ten bucks a day on bus rides to the art course and to the university. And when my car returns from the repair shop, I'll probably stick to the bike whenever I can. It ough to cut down on my expenses with gas and still keep me healthy. Plus, It had been long since I last saw the city. When you drive, you tend to see very little of the city around you. Your attention is strapped to traffic lights, speed limits and such balderdash. Taking the bus or walking puts you in touch with the people, the curious little things, the ebb and flow of energies.
One thing is certain: even though mom is still trapped at home with her operated foot, I don't want to use her car. It's a matter of responsibility. I feel like I must somehow be held responsible for the crash. Having to take the bus or other means of transportation will be a sort of a punishment I'll inflict upon myself. But also a way of correcting my habits. I want to change from the spoilled rich kid that takes mommy's car when his car isn't available. The sloth that worries about the meaning of life but not about his own health.

I just had the first day of the new semestre... And what an exhaustive day it was!
I went to the art course first. And boy did I miss that place. I missed the girls that study with me (apart from me, there's one more guy... stereotypes). And I missed the stimulation of the art course... Since we're comming to the end of the course, teachers tend to respect our personal works and philosophies. The assignements will deal much more with our individual works than with subjects the whole class will deal with.
Right from the star, we had some sort of sculpture class. As my theory goes, we won't be taught traditional sculpting. This semester we'll learn about instalations (I don't know if that's the correct term...). I gotta remember to bring the pictures of the one I did last year with strings and the aid of Makel... The teacher seemed awefully nice. He related to us in a person-to-person sort of way. Not in the usual teacher-student thing. He seemed like quite a nice guy. And the way he talked of things was so interesting that a thousand ideas popped into my head. So many ideas per minute and I only got to write down two of them on my artist's notebook. But anyway, I feel like I'm really going to enjoy this class. And I'll probably get to like this new way to express myself that I had been neglecting. Other classes that dealt with the subject seemed such a bore...
I had to write about the walls. The foundation where we have the art course has white plaster walls. Throughout the semester, some of the students use those walls to hang canvases, instalations or even to paint on the wall itself. Non-art students do their own mindless graffitti too. When the semester ends and the works of graduate students are to be displayed, the walls are painted white again. And it feels sso nice to come to the foundation and see the bare walls... It's interesting to see all the graffitti and sstuff evolve too. And all the works hung on the walls throughout the semester are most stimulating. But seeing those white walls is a totally different thing. It has a feeling of possibilities. And I already want to preserve a little corner on one of the rooms for my first instalation. So many ideas regarding white walls!!

And we have a new reader!
It´s a guy who used to live on my building. Punk is the only name I can give him. It´s the nickname we all know him by.

So, right now, that I know of, the following people read my blog:

-My Lioness
-Blue-eyed Teddy
-A Foreign Elf
-Alex
-Moviemaker
-Punk

Anyone else I´m not aware of??

But the thing that most amazed and inspired me in those albums was seeing so many pictures of me. I was a strange little baby. An ugly baby, I´d say. My stomach was perfectly round but my arms and legs were too thin. Brother seemed almost like me. This is something I´d like to introduce on my photographic ghosts: the little animals we were when we were children. We were never land animals. In land, when we stood up, we arched our backs and our round stomachs hung down in a bizarre way. Our arms were ridiculously thin. An the whole thing seemed too much for our legs to bare, so we spent most of the time squating down on our heels or crawling somehow.
When we dove on water, everything changed. We were very graceful. It seemed we moved with ease on water and awkwardly on land. We´d swim effortlessly, like sharks. Our bodies flowing limply in the direction of the current and our heads sticking out of the water. We loved to dive: the deeper the better was our motto. Seldom did we use our arms: instead, we seemed to use our whole body in a limp motion that resembled a long fish tail. It optimized our use of oxigen, since the body didn´t demand so much. And with exercise, our endurance grew. My brother once spent two whole minutes underwater!

I turned the page and suddenly there was a photo that marked the beggining of teenage. We were both standing on a coral reef, foam of a crashing wave flying into the air. But we were different. We stood straight, not arching our backs. Our stomachs had evolved to a more civilized aspect (abdominal muscles!!). Our legs looked stronger. Wish I could say the same about the arms, though... But we looked really good! From then on, things changed. Every photo showed how our individual characteristics evolved, making us into what we are today. My attitude, his relaxation. We still swim like that. And I guess that´s what´s responsible for our arms never getting much stronger. It makes the swimming easier. And it has helped me to have gentle painting moves. It did wonders for my brother and his piano too.

I want my ghosts to be like that. Water creatures. To crawl in land or stand up awkardly. I do hope I never look like I did back then, and that´s something I´ll have to manage without in the ghosts. But I must someday take pictures of us swimming.

I spent most of yesterday looking at family photos. I was looking for one in particular about my mother, to paint a portrait. But alas, it wasn´t exactly the way I wanted it... Guess I´ll have to take one myself.
But I came across endless pictures of grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins and such. It was quite impressive to see my brother´s eyes on a teenage mom, or his pose in all of grandfather´s photos. His lips on my grandmother´s smile. He´s like a colage of many members of my dad´s family. Even his overall aspect, as a child, seemed like a miniature of my dad´s younger brother. I, on the other hand, look like a fusion of my mother´s family. Mom looked like a female version of me as a child. My overall aspect looks like her father, the famous actor. But I must say that my father is the best fusion between me and my brother. There´s a picture of him when he married mom that has my hair, my deep eyes, my brother´s cheeks and lips and other strange similarities. Plus mustache... Nowadays he's gotten a little... wider... around the edges. And the similarities have faded. But they are still there somewhere.
Mom´s mom was very fun to see. There was this whole album with photos of grandmother. Ever since she was a baby. I told mom that grandma (the one from the atelier...) always looked a decade older as a child. Then when she got into theatre and wore make up for the plays, she´s look a decade younger. After she reached her sixties, she seemed to stop in time. She´s in her mid seventies now. But still looking like a sixty-year-old.
There were albums about our visits to the north-eastern part of the country, to visit a part of dad´s family. We usually stay at this big house owned by two aunts. I´ll call them Grumpy and The One with the cats. The names explain themselves. Out there, time seems to have stopped altoghether. i was looking at photos that were a decade old, sometimes even older, and they were all the same. Grumpy even wears the same kind of clothes and the same hair. Nothing ages there. Heck, everything seems so old already that a decade won´t make any difference. The only thing that ever changes are people who die (mostly servants... the family stays intact), children who are born and children who grow up. And the family out there is so huge, that every year, when we come to visit, there´s some aunt or uncle I´ve never met before. The most hilarious case is the one of two twin uncles whom I thought were the same person ´till I was around 15 years of age...

Before we went for sushi last night, I remember my Lioness on my bed, her fingers caressing an unfinished painting on my wall. I seemed somehow vaguely preocupied that her nails would chip away the fragile plastic-like acrylic. But if it happened, it would mean I didn´t paint it correctly.

And then she said in some tone of wonder that I was very talented.

She asked me if I was ever afraid. Afraid of not being talented enough. I know my own talent. I know my limits and I like to expand them. I´m not afraid of not being talented enough. My talent is supposed to be something that will grow as years go by. So, if I´m not talented enough for something now, I guess I will be, in time.
No... My fears are different. I fear having taken the wrong path, adopting the wrong talent. People (including father...) have often told me that I can write better than I can paint or draw. For it seems easier to impress with a drawing than with writting, so it seems harder to prove that one is a good writer. And father thinks I´ve proven it at my age. Even though I´ve never published none of my books... I fear having taken visual arts when I should have studied writting... Or acting, for that matter. Another thing I´ve loved to do.
Regarding visual arts, I also fear that I may reach some point where there´s nothing more to learn. I can already illustrate just about anything from photographs or real life objects. Now it seems that the only way is to find some new form of expression. Picasso was a good illustrator before cubism. But you see, when you illustrate something, it´s easy to tell if it´s good or bad by it´s likeness to the real thing. But new forms of expression can´t count on that. There will always be people who love and hate cubism. But I depend so much on other people´s opinions that I don´t think I´d be strong enough to defend any new form of expression.
For instance, what the Lioness said just put a grin on my face that´ll last me all through the week.

Yesterday, my Lioness came to my place. We went for sushi and then my friends showed up and took us both to a party all of a sudden. That´s what I like about the whole Pasta Gang. They are always on the move. There´s a party every weekend and they know the places and the contacts. This time, it was a farewell party for Little Wonder (check the dictionary for a new entry!!). She studies to be a vet and now she´s going away to study some sort of large animal veterinary somewhere. It had been so long since I had last seen her. And here she was: as short as ever and with those wonderful gipsy/scorpio eyes of hers.
I went dressed somewhat like Marcus, with my new trench-coat. Since they all know the character, I thought it might have looked kinda funny in a way. Or that it might have given them a chill to see him amidst the crowd. But all in all, with the dim lighting, I don´t think they noticed...
We left rather early. The sickness found it´s way through my mental defenses and struck me right in the middle of the dance floor. Panic: the bathroom was straight across a sea of wobbling teenagers. I looked the other way: across another identical sea was an open area with fresh air. I made my way to one, and then to the other. No accidents. And my venture to the bathroom was pointless: I´m starting to understand that the sickness is just a discomfort, a panic attack. I never threw up and I don´t think I ever will... Now if I could just make this nausea go away...
On our way out, trouble over the bill. I don´t seem to sound prejudiced, but the cashier was some jackass who looked like he never went to a disco in his life. He charged me for admission plus my drinks, when they had told me at the entrance I´d be charged only for what I consumed. My brother tried reasoning with him, but it seemed obvious that he knew less about the business than my brother did... I left, after paying some abusive price, swearing never to return again. On my way out, feeling highly frustrated, I called to a girl from the staff and asked about the bill, about why they were charging for things they weren´t supposed to. She sighed in an obnoxious way and told me to call for the manager. Something took hold of me and I yelled at her. I never did that. I never took the aggressive way on these misunderstandings Hence I was never taken seriously. In the end, I left without bothering to wait for the manager. I should have waited and made a whole fuss about it. I guess that´s what I learned from the whole thing: finish waht you start. But I have to say I felt proud of being able to let out my aggressiveness. I don´t know if I should thank my shrink, Marcus or the beast for that. Maybe all of them.

Well... I´ve signed up to a site that will host some of my images so I can post them here. To get things started:




This is Marcus.



And he´s Azrael.

These were supposed to be on a site of mine that never existed. They were done some two or three years ago. The larger images were drawn by me and painted in coloured pencil by Makel.

Yesterday, as I was undressing to take a shower, a thought of Makel suddenly struck me. I remembered her face. And the thought that had come apparently for no reason at all made me put my pants back on and run over to my room. I had remembered her face in astonishing detail. One wouldn't expect less from a person who spends two years seeing her every other day. But the thing is, even with all that detail (and mayhaps bacause of all that detail...), never did her face seem more foreign to me. I digged up all the photos we had toghether and stared at that face for quite some time, the distant sound of the shower in the background. It was as if, despite all the seemingly endless memories I had of her, a part of me did not recognize her. As if we had never happened. I needed some sort of undeniable proof. I went through all the photos of right-angle-right-lighting moments and I could see her beauty. No doubt about that. But it was somehow a beauty that I could not conceive to have been mine some day. It was the beauty of a girl on the street. You know, one of those girls we men see and make gross chauvinist remarks about. I finally gave up and took my shower. The disbelief still haunted me throughout the night.
Makel and the Lioness had both talked about similar feelings before. Makel usually said, when we were dating, that often there was a sense of disbelief that we were toghether. She said it was too good to be true and hence a part of her would not allow her to believe it... And the Lioness once talked about the weirdness of us both being toghether after school. We studied for years in the same school. I remember seeing her there and she remembers me. But we never spoke. I guess there was simply no reason to. And then we met in the university and everything happened. It feels like we wasted time somehow. And now it feels strange to her that I, someone who used to be so distant, am so close now. It feels borderline unreal.