I'm a Top Model Now!!

Today someone flattered me. I was told that I walk like Kate Moss when stoned. One, even in decay, must have style, until the very end. This has been the best compliment I have been given. It's nice to know that someone else thinks so and points it out; from now on, I am one more of her fans --not everyone is lucky and stylish enough (he,he,he) to be compared to her, anyway.

Prayer

I need the force to face solitude and loss.
I'm not begging you for something shallow or stupid,
Since I will have to go back to loneliness.
Though I always knew that I'd have to,
Either sooner or later, since it would not
Last that long. Yet I already feel sad and lonely.
This force will help me to make it through.
Maybe I am not the best of your children,
But you have surely noticed I'm not the worst, either.
Send me, please, angels that bring me inner peace and hope.
I know you are beyond all of this;
I beg you, however, for something that I really need.
Thence I know for certain you will listen to me.
I did (do) not want to be alone any longer.
I only wanted to find someone to whom love,
Someone who loved me, too.
But it seems that destiny had (has) nothing for me,
But more solitude. Thence I need this force to face these facts
And fulfill my fate. I'll stick to the promise I made in the past,
But please, forsake me not, abandon me not, don't let me fall apart.

Sonnenschein

Es hat den Schein, dass wir heute den längsten Tag des Jahres hatten! Trotzdem --und glücklicherweise-- war es nicht so heiss, deswegen habe ich nicht so viel geleidet. Ein frischer Wind hat die ganze Zeit geweht, so dass das Wetter sehr nett schien. Vielleicht soll ich jemandem dafür danken, da die vergangenen Tagen mir zu schlecht gefallen haben. Es hat auch den Schein, dass Gott mich schliesslich zugehört hat. Deshalb danke ich ihm für alles. Aber niemals war ich gegen das Licht, so lange es keine Hitze herstellt (die stört mich völlig). Das Nachglühen ist mir immer sehr toll gegangen. Gott, vielen dank für diese Ruhe. Sie hat mir neue Hoffnungen gebracht. Die sind, was ich wirklich brauche.

Saint Seiya, Fourteen Years Later

"There is neither perfect evil, nor perfect justice"
Shaka of Virgo

A few days ago I ran into one of my best friends (maybe the only one) and, to my surprise, he stated that he did not understand how he came to become a Marxist reader. I immediately snapped that Communism is such a terrible fraud, that even Fidel Castro knew it since the very beginning. I, however, am forced to give Fidel his due, since he has thoroughly stood tall and stuck to his ideals till the very end --nor even the most powerful nation could ever bring him down!! I told my friend later that utopias were, and are, delusions which only naïve kids take seriously, since there is neither total evil nor complete justice (being fair to someone might mean a wretch for somebody else) in this world. Where on earth did this simplistic yet irrefutable philosophy (I write this word due to the lack of a better term) come from? From a bothersome, bitter scholar? Did I find it in a shitty philosophers' maxims compilation? Well, I discovered this truth neither in books nor in philosophical treaties, but in popular manga-anime series Saint Seiya at a quite early stage of my life.

Even if Saint Seiya may fail to fulfill freaks's demands, some of its traits are worth analysing. Apparently, Saint Seiya tells the story of a group of knights who fight by the side of goddess Athena's human reincarnation to save the world and keep peace and justice in order. Through their way they acquire super-human abilities and powers. Surprising? Not really, even if we all as children really enjoyed watching people tearing someone's chest with their fists only, not mention the lots of blood and violence that were displayed in the TV screen. Back then (I write about a long time ago, 1994 exactly), nothing else could ever get over that series, since this Japanese anime had everything (who didn't spend his/her weekends in the morning watching every chapter and suffering their plot?) Yet, 14 years is a long time and my points of view are not (fortunately) the same any longer, since I have developed certain "criteria" to look at things and judge them from another point. Even if I still fall for the visual and aesthetic content, Saint Seiya has a lot of failures that appear under another light:

1. Its length wears everything out. It's way too long, at least, for its very plot, which only consists of saving the girl and the world, only.
2. Failures of characterization blatantly come up. Kurumada should have taken advantage of the previous point to coherently develop more manifold characters. All of them lack Post-Modern psychology, anti-hero attitude, and traumas we all love (Evangelion takes less time but successfully manages to fulfill this task.)
3. Plain structure. The only way to tell a saga from the previous one is the setting. Apart from the scenery, their frames share the same appearance.
4. Suspicious blending. Athena quite resembles both Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. In the Classical tradition, Athena was anything but motherly --gods did not even care a damn for humans. Anyway, how come a Japanese author shares Western, even Christian, values and ideals? Malicious critics might regard this as a lame marketing alibi.
5. Saint Seiya mostly borderlines melodrama, both inwardly and outwardly. Why? Just picture this: a secret organization has a group of war orphans sent throughout the world, just to be turned into killing machines, and then recruits them to carry out secret missions and fight in underground wars against demi-invincible enemies. Here lies the true melodrama, you take orphans because no one would get mad if they die.
6. Kurumada and his crew took many elements (e.g. religion, mythology, philosophy, legends, ancient and modern history, etc) that could have truly helped him to create a series with plenty of readings and meanings, deeper plots and multi-layered personae that could have been totally worthwhile. Unfortunately he only made use of all those elements quite shallowly.

(Maybe all these failures might become the most interesting traits after all.)

His work, nevertheless, possess worthwhile features, as I have already stated. One of these (which seems to be the most appealing) is aesthetics. Kurumada et al spare no effort to portray, physically, attractive characters. If the plenty men in the series were pretty, the scant women looked even more beautiful. This is one of Saint Seiya's most unforgivable failure: its lack of female beautiful characters that countered that constant homo-erotic atmosphere. Anyway, we still look forward to find out how the final OVA's look.

¡¡¡Odio mi PC!!!

Diez razones por las que odio mi PC:

1. Sólo tiene dos entradas USB, y sólo una funciona.
2. No tiene entrada para Ethernet. ¡Tengo que usar una entrada USB para conectarme!
3. Su procesador es una mugre.
4. No tiene suficiente memoria.
5. No puedo descargar actualizaciones (el fulano que la arregló usó software de dudosa
procedencia y calidad).
6. Es muy vieja y labora horas extras.
7. La impresora es nefasta.
8. No lee DVD.
9. No tiene quemador de discos. ¡¡¡ARGHHH!!!!
10. Y lo peor de todo, no puedo deshacerme de ella y comprar otra. ¡¡¡La necesito!!!

¡Dios! Ésto es como un matrimonio mal avenido...

P.D. Jamás compren Compaq.

A Place for Me to Dream

Desde hace mucho tiempo había deseado esto. Creí que jamás volvería a suceder, pero parece que Dios (o el Destino, o lo que sea que me arrastre por la vida como el más inútil y patético muñeco de trapo) ha decidido ser un poco compasivo conmigo, darme un ligero respiro después de una prolongada sensación producida por la casi aplastante soledad crónica. La razón: descubrí que no perdí la capacidad de soñar con algo bello. Ésta había quedado, aparentemente, guardada en un contenedor impenetrable y arrojada en el más profundo abismo sin fondo que es mi subconsciente. Es maravilloso descubrir cómo algo que se creía perdido desde hace tres años ha vuelto a aparecer. Si bien no duró más que unos cuantos minutos, fueron los mejores que he tenido en siete meses (si les sorprende la cronología exacta, seguro sabrán que, durante los peores momentos, los días y los meses son una materia pesada y cuantificable).

No obstante, no soñé con algo que yo hubiera querido, o con quien me gustaría mucho que volviera a mi vida --algunos ya saben quién es ella, así que no necesito decir más--, sino que (en mi dulce sueño) apareció una chica a quien jamás he visto en toda mi vida. Es la primera vez que me pasa y, por lo tanto, este suceso quedará registrado por mucho tiempo. Los sueños, generalmente, son divas herméticas que jamás permitirán que le echemos un vistazo a su naturaleza más íntima y misteriosa. De ahí que no logre entender por qué he soñado con una chica rubia que me gustó mucho, dado que las rubias no son mis favoritas. Otro dato curioso es que durante el viaje onírico (qué no pareció ni tan desordenado ni incoherente como una película de Luis Buñuel) es que me topé con ella en algo relacionado con la super banda Joy Division (!?). Lo más memorable fue que, al mirarnos mutuamente, tuvimos la genial sensación (que espero sentir dentro de poco, sólo falta encontrar con quién) de que nuestra búsqueda había terminado finalmente. Debe ser genial encontrar a alguien que te confiese que eres lo que más había deseado desde hace mucho tiempo y que esperaba tu llegada a su vida con mucha emoción. Ella me abrazó de inmediato --y no pensé que tuviera tanta fuerza, para ser una chica de apariencia mas bien frágil. Yo no pude evitar corresponderle de igual forma, pues me fue imposible no enamorarme de ella.

Finalmente tuve que despertar, pero no lo hice con ese usual y terrible sentimiento de querer dormir por siempre. Ni siquiera tuve ganas de maldecir mi destino. Por fin pude encontrar a alguien, por lo menos en mis sueños, y eso es lo que importa. En cierta forma, yo gané esta vez.

A Foreboding of Afterlife...

The days are gone
When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;
Now there are no rulers, no emperors,
No givers of gold, as once there were,
When wonderful things were worked among them
And they lived in lordly magnificence.
Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are dead.
The weakest survives and the world continues,
Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished.
The world's honour ages and shrinks,
Bent like the men who mold it. Their faces
Blanch as time advances, their beards
Wither and they mourn the memory of friends.
The sons of princes, sown in the dust.
The soul stripped of its flesh knows nothing
Of sweetness or sour, feels no pain,
Bends neither its hand nor its brain. A brother
Opens his palms and pours down gold
On his kinsman's grave, strewing his coffin
With treasures intended for Heaven, but nothing
Golden shakes the wrath of God
For a soul overflowing with sin, and nothing
Hidden on earth rises to Heaven.



We all fear God. He turns the earth,
He set it swinging firmly in space,
Gave life to the world and light to the sky.
Death leaps at the fools who forget their God.
He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven
To carry him courage and strength and belief.
A man must conquer pride, not kill it,
Be firm with his fellows, chaste for himself,
Treat all the world as the world deserves,
With love or with hate but never with harm,
Though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell,
Or set the flames of a funeral pyre
Under his lord. Fate is stronger
And God mightier than any man's mind.
Our thoughts should turn to where our home is,
Consider the ways of coming there,
Then strive for sure permission for us
To rise that eternal joy,
That life born in the love of God
And the hope of Heaven. Praise the Holy
Grace of Him who honoured us,
Eternal, unchanging creator of earth.
Amen.

The Seafarer (Mid 10th Century)
From Anglo-Saxon (trans. Burton Raffel)

Ich Gehe Noch Einmal Zurück, Wohin Ich Gestartet Bin

Das letzte Mal, in dem ich dir etwas geschrieben habe, war vor einem Monat. Damals sagte ich dir, dass ich wegginge und alles beenden würde. Damals dachte ich, dass ich niemals zu dir zurückkäme, da du für immer in meinem Geist leben würdest. Trotzdem konnte ich dich nicht vergessen --etwas schlimmer würde geschehen, wenn ich mit der Erinnerung an dich aufhörte, glaube ich. Obwohl meine Zeit sehr schnell verging, gab es nichts los. Immer, wenn der Tag beginnt, sehne ich mich nach dem Abendrot des Sonnenuntergangs. Vielleicht ist das der Grund, warum meine Tage sehr schnell weglaufen. Wie kann ich durchmachen, weiss ich nicht. Es ist möglich, dass die Hoffnung, auf dich wiederzufinden, mich weiterhält. Aber alles fängt an wieder, die Sehnsucht kommt auch wieder. Dafür bin ich ganz schuldig, weil ich dich von mir weggehen gelassen habe. Ich sah dich nur einmal, doch das reichte, damit ich immer an dich erinnerte. Wann werde ich wohl dich wiedersehen? Wann wirst du zu mir wiederkommen? Zwar brauche ich dich jetzt sehr, aber es hat den Schein, dass ich mehr länger auf dich warten werde. Wenn du bei mir wärest, erzählte ich dir, wie lange ich mich nach dir gesehnt habe, wie ich mich ganz isoliert und verlassen gefühlt habe, wie viel ich mich gehasst habe, weil ich dich weggehen liess. Ein Teil von mir stürtzt täglich ein, denn ich bin sicher darüber, dass du niemals in mein Leben zurückkommen wirst. Alles wird schon beenden und ich werde bald ganz allein bleiben. An Einsamkeit war ich früher ganz gewöhnt, aber leider kann ich sie heute nicht mehr ertragen. Ich würde gern in deinen Armen schlafen. Ich wäre immer bei dir und niemals enttäuschte ich dich. Immer, wenn du mich bräuchtest, ginge ich zu dir sofort. Ich liebte sehr gern, weil es für mich ganz einfach wäre. Ich würde irgendwas machen, um dich wiederzusehen und bei dir zu bleiben. Niemals liesse ich dich von mir weggehen.