Organ donations

We woke up this morning learning about the new German law for organ donations. It seems to be controversial, although it tried to improve the current situation.

In Mexico, it's necessary that not only you, but also your relatives are ok with the donation. But, as it happens, when the family is dealing with the death and arranging the funerals, it is hard to think about donating the organs.

This is a new film, released yesterday, about a mother who decided to unplugged her brain dead daughter and to donate her heart to a sixty year old man. This was the first succesful heart transplantation.

(In this role, Lisa Sheridan, is just breath taking... no earring has pierced her ears...)

Nils Christie dixit

"I want to be a citizen in a state where ministers, unguarded, use public transportation."

Or bikes.

And I agree!

What a contrast: I remember getting out of class, crossing Gendarmenmark and suddenly being face to face to Germany's President, Horst Köhler.

On the other side, my neighbour is the owner of one of the largest banks in Mexico. There are everyday around ten bodyguards with... It sucks!

Merkel on a bus from Italy to Berlin due to volcan Eyjafjallajökull

The powerful: Killing Osama, watching Champions League

How similar and odd and at the same time how different these images are...

May 2011, Washington, during the Operation Jeronimo

May 2012, Camp David, during the G8 Summit

Lotus: René Burri, Wu Guanhzong

Two images of Chinese lotus, one photo by René Burri and one ink drawing by amazing Wu Guanhzong (there is an ongoing exhibition of his oeuvre in New York, go if you are there!).

 

Shoot: Hunter S. Thompson, Ewen Gur

Hunter S. Thompson founded gonzo journalism.

Ewen Gur is a young French/German designer, whose work has impacted the grafitti and comic industry recently. This work appeared on the Idealist Art project, in Berlin, last autumn.

Those horny guys

A few moments ago, I heard the cleaning woman talking about "those horny boys" who are always checking women. I thought she was talking to herself, as she usually does, but then I realized she was addressing the guard, sitting on a bench below her.

It reminded me of Roland Garros...

Colum McCann

I just read Transatlantic, by Colum McCann, whom I hadn't read before. He has a handsome style, a drive which is not normal to find nowadays, specially in the boring literature written in Spanish (too much ado about nothing). 

This is a moving short film based on one of his short stories. I liked it less, since it's predictable, but still hasn't read the original piece. Still, it's worth watching just for the sake of Karlie Greene, the breathtaking girl.

Shabolovka Radio Tower, British Museum

Wladimir Schuchov (1922)

 Norman Foster (1999)

Maruchan, Sabritas

Panis et circus: lucha libre, debate

I am fed up with the terrible niveau of the politics in Mexico. The funniest thing happened last Sunday, when the four candidates to the Presidency –all of them pathetic: corrupt and silly– were about to start a so called "debate". It was no debate at all.

As everything in this country, it's just about the façade and making as-if, as Germans say. As-if they are interested in Mexico, as-if they are honest, as-if they want to improve things...

It was the political version of lucha libre: a wrestling combat in which, as everybody knows, nobody is going to get hurt, where the winner is given in advance, and people just enjoy the wrestlers doing as-if they were fighting each other.

An important character at the lucha libre is the "edecán": the sexy girl who introduces the wrestlers and the rounds.

Last Sunday, being the debate a pathetic copy of a lucha libre, an edecán in a Pippa Middleton similar sort of sexy dress was the most commented figure due to her big boobs trying to escape from their fabric jail. 

In this fucked up country, politics imitates (even) lucha libre. Great!

Scissors: Alice Springs, Tom Ford

Tom Ford's campaign for his fragance was hard critised due to his agressive sexualization. His selfportrait cutting the underwear of a girl looks like a joke in comparison with Alice Springs' Parisian image of Susi and Lena...

Legs: Cartier-Bresson, Terry Richardson

1969

 

2009

Peter de Sève, Warhol

The actual cover of The New Yorker, by Peter de Sève, reminds me of this Andy Warhol...

U under the blue sky: Cerro de la Silla, Ribs & tits on a horse

New pics

Valle de Bravo's bakery

Valle de Bravo's grocery

Jungapeo (one of the most strange cemeteries I have ever seen)

 Morelia's food market

 Morelia's food market

 Morelia's light & water fountain

Super slow motion stupidity

Great images and colors...

Mediocrity

The most significant feature of this country is the mediocrity of its people. This is a beautiful land, but most Mexicans are just mediocre.

A recent story.

A friend of mine teaches in a university, his students are doing Journalism. As he mentioned The Guardian, nobody knew the paper. He was shocked. And he got depressed when one of the students argued with him: "Why should we get interested in a British newspaper if they rarely publish something about Mexico? Let's focus on Mexican papers..."

Mediocrity has to do with a low, narrow scope. Hélas!

Licht, mehr Licht

Right before dying, Goethe famously said: "Licht, mehr Licht!" – "Light, more light!"

This is how light glows in Vienna. Awesome.

There's nothing to see there

The media is obsessed with Damien Hirst, but there is really nothing to see there, except for a PR and marketing magician.

Check out his dots, I'm fed up with them. They resemble his collection of pills, which I have seen at the Brandhorst Museum in Munich. And, yes, it is neat and clean, but nothing else.

Other people have done shoes, skateboards, whatever. It's just boring.

Now we even have this, by David Benjamin Sherry. What's next? A cow?

On coolness

Thomas Leuthard, Tradition vs Technology (2011)

When I discovered this image earlier today, I thought of Raphaël Enthoven's discussion on coolness. The concept emerged among the Afro-American population, and was early adopted by Miles Davis. Etcetera.

Nothing better than enojoying the presence of a cool girl!

On the air: Jean Shrimpton, Helmut Newton, Grace Coddington

Haiti: W. Eugene Smith, Christopher Anderson

The image of W. Eugene Smith in a psychiatric institute in Haiti resembles the fear of the men catched up while traveling in a boat to the American coast, as they started sinking. With this image, Christopher Anderson won a prize and developed the so called "experiential documentary", as he was taking part in the expedition and was about to die with everyone else, until they were rescued. He used no flash, only the light of the moon. Neat!

W. Eugene Smith, Madness (1959)

 Christopher Anderson, Haitian refugees (1999)

Sacral art meets Goebbels' propaganda

My colleague Cynthia Ramírez blogged earlier this year a collection of holy tits: Mary breastfeeding Jesus child. It was a nice post.

Very spooky indeed is to figure out that Goebbels' propaganda (posters by Wolf Willrich, for instance) got inspiration in such Christian motives.

Sadık Demiröz, Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton, Self portrait with Alice Springs and two models (1981)

 Sadık Demiröz, Untitled (2010?)

Beware of the State!

The State –in both images represented by the eagle– takes care of the family... Beware of it!

The idea comes from Deuteronomy 32:11, Memo pointed out to me:

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings" (King James translation).

Nazi propaganda (1938)

"NSDAP secures the people’s community

Fellow-countrymen: if you need advice and help, apply at the local branches"

IMSS logo (1943)

An eagle taking care of a breastfeeding mother.. right!

Leo Arcand, Protecting spirit (2010)

Memo also suggested me this sosias, as an add-on.