Pisco sour day. As usual, this is one of my favorite dates, and this year I patiently drunk even more than in 2010. Nothing can be more classic and popular than pisco sour, which is why I highly recommend all of you to grab a bottle or two in your next visit to Peru.
And following the dictates of my consciousness I decided to draw the spirit behind the spirits, my first idea was to have the character dragging a carriage full of pisco bottles, but I realized it would be too hard to draw all those tiny little labels for the bottles, so I decided to leave it all as it is. Chinese ink over a 2B pencil.
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Es una de mis fechas preferidas, y este año me encargué pacientemente de tomar incluso más pisco sours que en el 2010. La bebida bandera siempre se ha prestado para una magnífica gama de cócteles, y entre ellos el más clásico y conocido es el pisco sour.
Y sin motivo aparente decidí dibujar al espíritu detrás de la bebida espirituosa por excelencia, mi intención era que cargase un carruaje lleno de botellas de pisco pero me di cuenta que sería muy difícil ponerme a dibujar las etiquetas de las botellas con la bendita plumilla así es que decidí dejar el dibujo a la mitad. Entintado con plumilla sobre dibujo a lápiz 2B.
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| my drawing |
Two inaugurations took place yesterday. I had to pick one and so I did. “Strange Bodies” in Shock Gallery reunites the work of two artists: Eduardo Deza and Juan Luis San Miguel.
Deza focuses on women bodies embracing the artistic heritage of Mannerism but assimilating at the same time certain artistic movements of the 20th century. With strong and decisive lines, San Miguel strips down the body to its most elemental aspect. Both artists offer us a unique view of that which matters the most: our bodies.
And since the female body was the evening’s protagonist, I decided to include some women in my next inked drawing.
Finally, here’s a link I found quite funny: “The most awkward sexual moments in comics” (only for true fans):
http://www.cracked.com/article_18957_the-8-most-awkward-sexual-moments-in-comic-book-history.html
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| Eduardo Deza |
Ayer en la noche tuve que elegir entre la inauguración de la muestra de Bendayán y la inauguración de "Cuerpos Extraños" en la Galería Shock. Al final, como buen barranquino, opté por lo más inmediato, aunque en el camino pasé por la Galería Yvonne Sanguineti; además de conversar un rato con Paola Tejada aproveché para ver la Colectiva de Verano. Entre los trabajos nuevos que más me llamaron la atención están los dos dibujos de Marcos Palacios, un ingenioso trabajo visual que parece desafiar y condensar estilos que bien podrían empezar en Picasso y terminar en Tola. Aunque su visita iba a ser muy breve, Paola tuvo la delicadeza de caminar conmigo las pocas cuadras que nos separaban de la plazuela San Francisco.
Como siempre, visitar esta zona de Barranco constituye un atractivo en sí mismo; la galería es un espacio estupendo donde uno se siente cómodo y relajado. La arquitectura de esta antigua casona parece destacar aún más con los cuadros y esculturas. En esta exposición, Eduardo Deza presenta cuerpos femeninos que a primera vista podrían hacernos pensar en la escuela manierista, pero que en realidad son una reelaboración de corrientes artísticas del siglo XX, en donde el detalle milimétrico y el híper realismo se unen a atmósferas tenues y flotantes.
Juan Luis San Miguel nos ofrece, en cambio, figuras humanas despojadas de todas las capas primarias, en una imagen que va más allá de la esencia y se configura como un esbozo primordial del cuerpo. Sin duda, Deza y San Miguel ofrecen dos interesantísimas y aparentemente contradictorias imágenes de eso que somos: el cuerpo.
Y ya que el cuerpo femenino ha protagonizado la noche del viernes, decidí incluir personajes femeninos en el siguiente dibujo entintado con rotulador.
As usual, every morning I go for a walk. I’ve kept this routine even when I was working in 2010. This is the only physical activity that helps me maintain the ideal weight, without it I’d be suffering this summer which, like any other summer, demands obedience to certain aesthetical imperatives.
Instead of describing everything I decided to graphically document my everyday walk. Here are the pics. Enjoy!
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Todas las mañanas salgo a caminar. Incluso cuando trabajé como consultor a fines del 2010 salía a caminar diariamente. Para presumir, claro, a veces decía que salía a trotar (aunque, para ser honesto, sí he trotado una que otra vez). Caminar es importante, no solamente porque me relaja sino porque es el único ejercicio que hago y, afrontémoslo, sin esta actividad no podría mantenerme en el peso ideal, sobre todo en estas fechas veraniegas donde el imperativo estético prima por encima de todo, o casi.
Mi ruta consiste en atravesar un par de cuadras hasta llegar a la avenida Grau, cruzarla, y bajar por la vereda en dirección al mar. Por supuesto, nunca llego a pisar la arena de las playas barranquinas, en parte porque mi intención es hacer ejercicio y en parte porque en verano simplemente hay demasiada gente.
En lugar de describir mi recorrido punto por punto, pensé que podría documentar gráficamente esta caminata. Ahí van las fotos.
Pero primero, la portada de Aaron Bir para el volumen 2.
Someone has accused me of being too exquisite when it comes to films. Perhaps it might be so, but then again instead of a defect this would be a most paramount virtue. Nonetheless, I intend to prove that my tastes can be rather eclectic. What did I pay attention to in this, the first month of 2011?
I saw Douglas Trumbull’s “Brainstorm” (1983), a production that proposes a technology able to record people’s life experience so that others might experience them through a combination of virtual technology and other technological stimuli. The hereafter is analyzed through a scientific perspective which is always something interesting to see.
Dito Montiel’s “A Guide to Recognizing your Saints” (2006) is a heartfelt autobiographical story that revolves around a group of kids growing up in a most underprivileged area. Crime and poverty take a toll on the lives of these youngsters, and while some of the male teens find refuge in drugs, others are prone to delinquency. What matters the most, though, is the life of the protagonist, an intelligent boy that is bedazzled by an Irish lad he meets in high school and starts realizing that there is a world outside his neighborhood, that there can be other alternatives besides misery. In streets ruled by gangs, the dynamics are almost medieval, the protagonists are white, so that means they can’t go to the street ruled by Japanese gangs or the street ruled by Latino gangs and so on. What’s most amazing, perhaps (and this is a story based on true facts) is that even though they live only a few minutes away from New York City, they’ve never been to the city. They live in the world they know, and that means adapting to human misery.
Dennis Iliadis “The Last House on the Left” (2009) keeps the spectators at the edge of their seats. The director skillfully creates suspense and delivers shocking moments that no one could foresee. When I first saw it, for some reason, I didn’t catch the producer’s name (Wes Craven), but since the very beginning I found the story interesting. But then, when I saw Spencer Treat Clark (actor in Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” or Eastwood’s “Mystic River”) I knew this wasn’t just a regular movie. This young actor has always worked for good filmmakers, and this case is no exception. For any horror or suspense fan “The Last House on the Left” is highly recommendable.
John Hughes “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) is a hilarious take on teenage idleness taken to the extreme. Hughes presents the viewer with a charismatic teenage boy that everyone loves. He ditches classes constantly, he lies to everyone, he makes his parents believe he is the perfect boy and he always gets away with it all. Not only that, he is such a resourceful young man that he can intervene his high school computer to delete his absence records or create an ingenious replica of his body so that his mother will think he is in bed. As he takes his girlfriend and his best friend on a journey to the city (stealing the Ferrari of his friend’s father), he makes them discover that fun is all that matters in the end. But more importantly, because of a series of accidents, he forces his best friend to break out of his shelf and face his greatest fears, namely the unhealthy relationship with fatherly figures. A very funny story with quite emotive moments. John Hughes was truly a master of teen movies.
Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” (2010) shows the lives of several characters that have been, in one way or another, affected by death. A French journalist barely survives a flooding in Indonesia, and as a result becomes more in contact with the world of the souls. A man in San Francisco refuses to become a medium, but he is well sought after since he can actually communicate with the dead. Twin brothers in England deal with their mother’s rampant drug addiction and when one of them abruptly dies all hell breaks loose. Eastwood talent is made evident in each of these seemingly unrelated stories, all of these characters are fascinating and can easily move the viewer.
Robert Schwentke’s “Red” (2010) based on the comic book miniseries by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer suggests the possibility of a retired CIA agent coming to grips with his life as a pensioner. Of course, CIA agents never die peacefully, or do they? When a wetworks operative tries to put an end to his life, he will have no other choice but to go to his old friends and plan a counterattack to CIA headquarters. Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Brian Cox can easily guarantee a fun ride. But the script is also surprisingly entertaining. There will be a sequel, that’s for sure.
François Truffaut’s “L’Histoire d’Adele H” (1975) is an intense depiction of obsession. When a woman falls in love with a British lieutenant she decides to follow him even if that means turning her back on family and the life she knew. One cannot avoid feeling sympathetic towards Adele, the level of obsession is at first portrayed as something we might identify with (after all, who hasn’t been romantically invested with the wrong person?). However, as the story progresses degradation ensues. How much humiliation can she take? How long can she survive as a lonely woman in search of a man who barely pays attention to her? A masterwork worth revisiting.
Torsten C. Fischer’s “Guter Junge” (2008) is a harsh story about pedophilia. However, the protagonist is not an old predator, but rather a 17-year-old that is constantly hanging out with 11-year-olds. When he starts filming his young buddies he crosses a boundary, and soon one of these boys will accuse him of an immoral act of such caliber that his life won’t remain the same. This is an extraordinary approach on ordinary life and how much it can change because of the protagonist’s pedophilic tendencies. A very tough but also honest perspective of perhaps one of the most controversial subjects one could think of. For a more in depth review feel free to read my IMDB entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205492/usercomments
Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” (2010) is an eerie story of complots and hidden agendas that involve the CIA and England’s Primer Minister. Here, Ewan McGregor is an anonymous writer that has a task at hand: writing the biography of a character that is an obvious reference to Tony Blair, interpreted by Pierce Brosnan. How the pieces of the puzzle fall into place and how the characters interact with each other is interesting enough, but my favorite part is the suspense and the impending sensation of doom that permeates the activities of the writer. It has been said before, getting close to the truth might be dangerous. Perhaps too dangerous.
Donald P. Borchers’ “Children of the Corn” (2009) is based on a Stephen King story (who also writes the screenplay). The first scene takes us to an isolated rural town in the US, where a group of children intend to ritually sacrifice a pig in order to clean the town of the adults sins. They will soon realize that if all adults are sinners, then to eliminate them will also mean to get rid of sin. Such an uncanny idea, a town governed and inhabited only by children. It is in this scenario that a Vietnam veteran and his Afro-American wife are unlucky enough to stop by. And once they get in touch with a horrific reality they will have no choice but to fight for survival. By the way, this is a remake and I feel now compelled to see the original version.
“Dressed to Kill” (1980) is a classic Brian De Palma’s film. A transvestite killer chases the only witness of his crimes, and as a consequence we have a frenzy search of suspects. Characters include a prestigious British shrink marvelously played by Michael Cain, a high-class whore, a boy of unlimited scientific skills, a rough-edged police officer. For a more in depth review feel free to read my IMDB entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080661/usercomments?start=30
Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martineau’s “Crustacés et Coquilages” (2005) is a story about two boys, one of them straight and the other one gay, trying to find their place in the world. As any teenager, confusing feelings and constant horniness will lead them to places which might change everything, and also they will discover certain hidden secrets about the adults surrounding them during that journey. For a more in depth review feel free to read my IMDB entry.
Finally, I watched several short-films included in “Boxer Shorts”: in “Tom Clay Jesus” two men have sex, while the first one wants a relationship the second one only wants to find the next hot body. “Boychick”, is about a gay Jew trying to overcome his shyness. “Caught” analyzes the mechanisms of gay infidelity and the nature of desire. In “Audit” a couple of actors face an Internal Revenue audit, and when they realize the lesbian and gay IRS agents are interested in them, how far will they go to avoid paying taxes? “Prom Queen” a transvestite teenager insists in going to the prom night as a drag queen while trying to get the acceptance of the most popular high school boy. For a more in depth review feel free to read my IMDB entries:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287942/usercomments
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277387/usercomments
As usual, if you find the review useful vote for it!
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El otro día alguien me acusaba de tener un gusto demasiado exquisito a la hora de elegir películas, quizá sea cierto, pero si es así, lejos de ser un defecto se trataría de una virtud. En todo caso, quisiera demostrar que mis gustos son un poco más eclécticos de lo que podría parecer a simple vista. ¿Qué vi en este primer mes del año?
Vi “Brainstorm” (1983) de Douglas Trumbull, una película que sugiere una tecnología capaz de grabar las experiencias vitales de la gente para que otros puedan experimentarlas a través de una combinación de tecnología virtual y otros estímulos tecnológicos.
“A Guide to Recognizing your Saints” (2006) de Dito Montiel es una triste historia autobiográfica sobre un grupo de chicos que viven en un distrito caótico y pobre. El crimen marca la vida de estos jóvenes, algunos de ellos encuentran un refugio en las drogas o en la delincuencia. Hasta que el más inteligente del grupo queda cautivado por un carismático irlandés que le hace descubrir que existe un mundo más allá de la miseria de su vecindario.
“The Last House on the Left” (2009) de Dennis Iliadis mantiene el suspenso de principio a fin. Por algún motivo, cuando empecé a ver la película no me di cuenta que era producida por Wes Craven (cineasta al que siempre sigo), pero las primeras escenas me mantuvieron en vilo. Y cuando vi a Spencer Treat Clark me di cuenta que esta no podía ser una peliculilla cualquiera, y es que este joven actor siempre ha elegido bien sus proyectos (ha trabajado bajo la dirección de Ridley Scott, M. Knight Shyamalan y Clint Eastwood). Una película recomendada para todos los fans del cine de suspenso y terror.
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) de John Hughes es una hilarante historia sobre la ociosidad adolescente llevada al límite. El protagonista es un carismático chiquillo que hará todo lo posible para faltar a clases y no hacer tareas, y siempre se saldrá con la suya. En la secundaria todos lo adoran, y en su casa sus padres lo consideran el hijo perfecto. En una de sus escapadas decide incluir a su enamorada y a su mejor amigo. En un día lleno de aventuras y enredos, el mejor amigo descubrirá que no puede vivir su vida lleno de miedo, y decidirá enfrentar a quien más lo ha relegado: su propio padre. Si bien el humor está siempre presente, también hay momentos de gran emotividad.
“Hereafter” (2010) de Clint Eastwood es un recorrido por las vidas de varios personajes: una periodista francesa que está a punto de perder su visa en la inundación de Indonesia, un hombre en San Francisco condenado a comunicarse con el mundo de los muertos y que desea escapar a su pasado como médium, y dos hermanos gemelos que deben lidiar con la drogadicción de su madre, hasta que uno de ellos muere en un accidente y todas las desgracias se desencadenan.
“Red” (2010) de Robert Schwentke está basado en el cómic de Warren Ellis y Cully Hammer. Cuando un agente de la CIA jubilado está a punto de ser ejecutado, recurre a sus viejos camaradas espías. Nombres como Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren y Brian Cox garantizan un espectáculo digno de verse, pero además un guión sorprendentemente entretenido eleva el nivel de la película. Habrá una secuela, desde luego.
“L’Histoire d’Adele H” (1975) de François Truffaut es un retrato de la obsesión. Cuando una mujer se enamora de un oficial del ejército británico, decide abandonar su tierra y su familia. Pero ¿qué ocurre cuando el oficial no le presta atención? ¿Hasta qué punto permitirá ser humillada? La obsesión lleva a la degradación absoluta en esta obra maestra de Truffaut.
Guter Junge (2008) de Torsten C. Fischer es una película intensa que aborda uno de los temas más controversiales: la pedofilia. No obstante, el protagonista es tan sólo un chico de 17 años que prefiere como víctimas a niños de 11 años. El director no se concentra en el morbo visual, sino en las catastróficas consecuencias que experimenta el protagonista cuando uno de los jóvenes abusados lo denuncia. Para los que quieran leer un comentario más detallado consultar mi reseña en IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205492/usercomments
“The Ghost Writer” (2010) de Roman Polanski realiza un paralelo con Tony Blair. En este caso, se trata de un primer ministro británico que debe trabajar con un escritor anónimo para publicar su biografía. No obstante, extrañas intrigas y conspiraciones empezarán a salir a la luz. Lo más llamativo: el terror que invade al escritor cuando se acerca demasiado a la verdad.
“Children of the Corn” (2009) de Donald P. Borchers, basada en una historia de Stephen King, empieza con un conciliábulo de niños que deciden sacrificar a un cerdo en un ritual que pretende contrarrestar los pecados de los adultos. Pronto descubren que la mejor forma de eliminar el pecado es asesinando a todos los adultos del aislado pueblo en el que viven. En una sociedad formada enteramente por niños fanáticos religiosos, todo es posible. Pero el verdadero horror lo experimentarán un veterano de Vietnam y su mujer afroamericana que tienen la mala suerte de pasar por esta región rural.
“Dressed to Kill” (1980) de Brian De Palma presenta a un asesino de travestis que mata a una mujer, mientras una prostituta de lujo es testigo del acto. Los sospechosos serán varios: un prestigioso psiquiatra británico genialmente interpretado por Michael Cain, la mencionada prostituta, un paciente travesti del doctor, entre otros. Para los que quieran leer un comentario más detallado consultar mi reseña en IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080661/usercomments?start=30
“Crustacés et Coquilages” (2006) de Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martineau narra los encuentros y desencuentros de dos jóvenes amigos, uno de ellos gay y el otro no, que en la confusión típica de la adolescencia serán incapaces de discernir los límites entre la amistad y la naturaleza del deseo. Para los que quieran leer un comentario más detallado consultar mi reseña en IMDB.
Finalmente, he visto diversos cortometrajes incluidos en “Boxer Shorts”: “Tom Clay Jesus” aborda la naturaleza del deseo. “Boychick”, la historia de un chico judío gay que debe superar su timidez. “Caught” analiza los mecanismos de la infidelidad en una pareja gay. En “Audit” una pareja de actores hará todo lo posible para no pagar impuestos, aunque eso significa darles algo a cambio a los agentes del fisco (una lesbiana y un gay que demuestran gran interés en ellos). “Prom Queen” muestra a un adolescente travesti que insiste en ir al baile de promoción vestido como una chica. Para los que quieran leer un comentario más detallado sobre “Tom Clay Jesus”, “Boychick” y “Prom Queen” consultar mis reseñas en IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287942/usercomments
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277387/usercomments
Como siempre, si la reseña les parece apropiada ¡voten por ella!
“There’s only one joke worth laughing at and it’s the joke of existence”. Too existentialist for you? Well, if it is, I strongly advise you to take a few classes of contemporary philosophy and come back to Grant Morrison’s KID ETERNITY. This is not your average retcon or your regular miniseries about an obscure character of the DC Universe. This is a metaphysical adventure that involves super-powered beings, hereafter metaphors and even hell itself, albeit a hell so chaotically ferocious only Mr. Morrison could have come up with.
Kid Eternity was one of those characters that wouldn’t have escaped oblivion if not for Morrison’s attempt of bringing it back for a more postmodern audience. But what does postmodernism has to do with it? Well, our era has strengthened the exscinded subject. We live in more schizophrenic times than, say, a century ago. Kid Eternity is the battlefield in which the never ending struggle of unconscious versus “conscientious I” carries on. I’m not suggesting that this work is less complex than others, but certainly at first glance it might look a bit more complicated, which is why I think psychoanalytic theory can come in handy, specially Lacanian theory. Jacques Lacan stated that there is no ‘I’ in the subject. The ‘I’ is the ego, and as such can remain pretty much consistent throughout time. The subject, on the other hand, as the very words implies, clearly derives from subjectivity and it’s prone to alteration and constant modification. Kid Eternity is both: ‘I’ and ‘subject’. However at the beginning of the story there is no divisiveness, the kid is still whole. As the story moves on changes are put into place and the reader discovers along with Kid Eternity that identity relies heavily on the gaze of the other. After all, the only question that matters is “what am I in the eyes of the other?”.
Much has been said about deconstruction; nonetheless Morrison takes upon a rather different approach which I could denominate de-configuration: the fragmented narrative lines, the seemingly chaotic order, the focus on multiple unrelated moments have but one goal which obeys a carefully orchestrated tapestry displaying different characters experiences and interpretations of what’s going on. In the end nothing is random: Kid Eternity, Jerry, the Priest and the Woman will each play a fundamental role in chapter three; for the readers, though, this grand design might make little sense in the first pages. The Scottish writer’s work in this case is more akin to such films as David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive which requires a much larger amount of work and concentration; these authors will not spoon-feed the public, quite the opposite indeed. De-configuration then is the key to understand what Morrison is trying to do in this miniseries.
It’s up to you, the one holding the book, to come up with the answers. All necessary hints are provided within the 144 pages lavishly illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, an amazing artist that creates remarkable images. Why is it that “Kid Eternity” goes very much unnoticed by most Morrison fans? If only for the art alone this is a miniseries deserving of praise. Perhaps it is the complexity of underlying themes, from Saussure’s linguistics (signifier versus signified): “there is no meaning, the sound is the meaning” to the apparently inconsistent nature of Kid Eternity. It is then necessary to understand that consistency has no place in this tale, because as the kid learns while facing the Unnamed Five, reality can dissolve and reconfigure very easily. The audience with the Five, arcane creatures of uncanny power, reveals a number of things: first of all, Kid Eternity has spent years fighting for forces he did not know at all, he will then be shocked as he understands who has he been secretly serving all this time; but it’s not just a dramatic anagnorisis, this information changes everything about him. Thus the ‘I’ and the ‘subject’ become exscinded as required by postmodernist guidelines. In the same way Kid Eternity’s subject has been built upon safety blankets, id est, repressing the traumatic memories of his childhood (he had been sexually abused by a pedophile captain), his identity had also been built upon false pretenses, thus the impact of the truth threatens to destroy the very ‘self’ of the character. Rather than deconstruction I’d like to think of this as a much needed de-configuration of a character that otherwise would have remained forever forgotten.
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"La única broma de la que vale la pena reírse es la broma de la existencia". KID ETERNITY de Grant Morrison es una aventura metafísica que apela a diversas corrientes intelectuales y que involucra personajes del Universo DC, seres sobrenaturales y un infierno tan caóticamente desquiciado que solamente Morrison podría haber inventado.
¿Quién es Kid Eternity? Bueno, es uno de esos tantos personajes de DC que podrían haber permanecido para siempre en el olvido si no fuera por Morrison. Se trata de un sujeto escindido, es decir, un sujeto típicamente postmoderno (recordemos que la postmodernidad está más vinculada a dinámicas esquizofrénicas de lo que podríamos adivinar a simple vista). Lo interesante es que la diferencia que establece el psicoanálisis lacaniano entre el yo y el sujeto está claramente presentada en la personalidad de Kid Eternity. El yo vendría a ser el ego, mientras que el sujeto estaría supeditado al super-ego y al mismo tiempo sería vulnerable a alteraciones y constantes modificaciones. Cuando Kid Eternity descubre que todo lo que ha hecho en los últimos años ha sido en beneficio de fuerzas siniestras empieza la crisis. Porque, al fin y al cabo, si lo vital es la respuesta a la clásica pregunta "¿qué soy yo en los ojos del otro?", entonces Kid Eternity se preguntará qué es él ante el mundo. Si su vida ha consistido en servir a las fuerzas equivocadas y en reprimir las verdades traumáticas (entre ellas, el abuso sexual que sufrió a los once años a manos de un capitán pedófilo), ¿cómo evitar la escisión final y el desmoronamiento de la identidad?
