Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

DAY AFTER PILL

–Tu eres mi Antonio Banderas.
–Y tú eres mi Gina Lollobrigida.
Source: http://resources.roomsnet.com/2010/02/19/
check-out-the-diviest-nightlife-in-nyc/
Así comienza el cuento Day After Pill que forma parte de los cuentos en Amoricidio y que está dentro de la colección de UGDU. Escogí este cuento por cualidades que lo hicieron resaltar en mi memoria, el ritmo acelerado de la narración, la manera en que integra al lector con las imágenes que presenta y los matices que revela en las subsiguientes lecturas. De inmediato, el cuento lanza al lector en un torbellino de acciones durante una noche de música, baile, bebida, cigarrillos, besos, y palabras. El protagonista es un extranjero que lleva poco tiempo en la ciudad al igual que la mujer que el conquista. Ella es una turista italiana. Al pasar de la noche, y ya suficientemente ebrios como para estar enamorados, los dos salen de la barra/discoteca a coger un taxi y para continuar en otra parte.
"Se retiraron borrachitos muchísimo antes de la hora triste para pescar un taxi amarillo que los llevara a la guarida de ella porque Tú eres mío cuesta notte, le había susurrado ella con la boca fría en una mordida de oreja y antes de irse se dieron un beso frente al local..."

Srouce:http://blog.petaflop.de/2008/02/
Después de esperar unos minutos, terminan en la casa de ella bebiendo más vino. Al final, antes de la llegada de la hora triste, tienen relaciones sexuales. De ahí el título del cuento, porque en pleno acto se rompe el condón. Al instante se cae el velo y todo se ve como verdaderamente es, la atmósfera cambia, y los dos, serios, salen disparados para el hospital más cercano para sacar el resto del profiláctico dentro de ella. Ya ha salido la luz del día y los dos se ven como son, no con los ojos embriagados y susceptibles de la noche anterior, sino realizan que ni el ni ella son tal como la bebida y la noche los hizo creer. La enfermera les informa que están fuera de peligro y le da una pastilla del día siguiente a ella, para evitar complicaciones. En ese momento estallan llantos, sirenas de policías y bomberos. Cuando se percatan, las noticias anuncian que Nueva York esta bajo amenaza porque las torres gemelas, el World Trade Center, debido a los dos aviones que estallaron contra ellas, están en llamas y derrumbándose. Justo en ese momento el protagonista mira a la turista, le agarra la mano, y la invita a desayunar.

–Mierda.
–Questo e veramente un casino, dijo ella bastante molesta.
Uno de los factores que me atrajo al cuento, el cual ya mencioné brevemente, es el ritmo acelerado. Tan pronto empieza, las palabras parecen correr una tras otra, mientras tanto dibujando imágenes breves y marcadas. Uno tiene la sensación inmediata de la noche, la bebida, los besos oliendo a alcohol y cigarrillo, la espontaneidad, las palabras coquetas, miradas. Aparte del estilo, el final le da un toque sombrío y a la vez unificador. Los dos habiéndose confrontado, a la luz del sol, extranjeros y diferentes, frente a esta tragedia que ocurrió tan cerca se cierra la brecha que los distancio. Puede que tenga o no tenga suma importancia la substancia que contiene el cuento, me supongo que eso queda a manos de la perspectiva individual, no obstante, yo soy de la opinión que su relevancia reside en la demostración de que la vida nunca acaba de sorprendernos, de cogernos a la imprevista, y sobre todo de unirnos como  humanos.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

June Pride

After a brief hiatus, in which I took a needed vacation in the City of New York, I am back home and it is June. I debated long and a bit hard on what my focus would be for this month and the conclusion was to take advantage of Pride. June is Pride month and in most parts of the world gatherings are held in celebration of LGBT pride. 


From a 70's Gay Liberation Front poster. Used on the jacket cover of: Duberman,  "Stonewall, 1993.
Source: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/case1.html


And why June? Well, primordially because of an event that took place June 27, 1969 in New York City. The police raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village. After decades and decades of alienation, pain, stigmatization and abuse, the anger of the gay community reached the tipping point. This tipping point is known as the Stonewall Riots. In which the gay community decided to fight back against the system and demand equality and justice. A great article recounting the event in fuller detail is found here. With the knowledge of the events of June 27, 1969 and what proceeded from there, a better picture is formed on the purpose and the aim of the LGBT marches and gatherings. Now, this isn't to say that gay civil rights organizations haven't been around before this event, for there were organizations that preceded the Stonewall riots, such as the Scientific Humanitarian Committee founded in Germany towards the end of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, this committee was thwarted by the Nazis. The LGBT community is one that, as evinced from history and recounting, has suffered greatly under the pall of prejudice and alienation. Therefore, this month I will join in adding a small grain to the recognition, the dissemination, and the civil rights movement for equality in regards to the LGBT community. 


The New York Times, June 29, 1969. Source:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/case1.html
New York Post, June 28, 1969.  Source:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/case1.html
*More clippings found here

While in New York City I purchased a used book entitled Making Gay History by Eric Marcus. So far, with all the excitement of the trip I've only read part one. The book is a personal oral account of people within the LGBT community. It contains an extensive list of interviewees. Part one precedes the incident of Stonewall and in it the reader meets six interviewees and their experiences in the community. The first one is Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a psychologist who taught at UCLA. She was one of the first to begin a study on gay men, aimed at clarifying whether being "gay" was a disease and shedding light on the community. From the following entries are narratives by people from the community, describing their experiences during a time when LGBT issues where obscure and hidden. 

The first magazine for "gay gals" started in June 1947 in Los Angeles, California by one woman called Vice Versa. 

Chuck Rowland, an excellent organizer who went on to form civil rights groups that included gays, blacks, jews, and women. 

From these two narratives, advanced more intimate accounts of what being gay and coming to terms with that realization meant to three young ladies during the early part of the century. 

The composition of the book makes it approachable and intimate allowing the reader to delve into the recount of the interviewees, making the topic much more accessible. And that is my aim, to delve this month into the LGBT community and expose the parts of history that, for many, have remained concealed. 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

El hombre que inventó Manhattan

I finally finished Ray Loriga's "El hombre que inventó Manhattan"
and let me just say that I loved every word of it. I still stand by what I said in my earlier post, on my first impressions of the book. This is a colorful and deliciously sordid tapestry of stories that combine to give life to a city that is at once famously elusive and enticing. Beyond its' relation to the City of New York, specifically the borough of Manhattan, I find that the entire book transcends its' title and this territory in that in general and concise words it paints for the reader the diversity found in human nature especially bred in a large mass of population coexisting in a tight space. We are all related and connected, man and nature. This was most evident when I found the chapter on the rat Missy, describing it's first adventure into central park, being a young rat. Which connects to the ending entitled, "De Ratones y Hombres", where this same rat is killed by the narrator, before his sons' eyes whom had just named it Missy.  Curiously enough, this immediately brought to mind lines by the scottish poet of the Romantic period in English literature Robert Burns, "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!" (Lines 39-42). This is from his poem "To a Mouse". There is an interesting correlation between these two different works that I find relevant and important in understanding the core of what Ray Loriga presents in this book. Besides a description of the human condition found in a city as diverse and populated as NYC it is also a testament of man at his most grotesque and real and the harsh reality of human nature.

Now, I have begun and am about 15 pages in in the philosophical book I said in my previous post I was to begin next, Théorie du Corps Amoureux: Pour une érotique solaire by Michel Onfray. So far, I love what the book proposes to discuss and analyze in the opening pages. Briefly and roughly, it proposes individual autonomy and freedom from the bounds of oppressive western cultural traditions retaking and reinstating the Greek philosophers.

Till next post...

Monday, October 10, 2011

El Hombre Que Inventó Manhattan by Ray Loriga

Taking a breather from philosophy, I purchased "El Hombre Que Inventó Manhattan" by Ray Loriga. From what I've gathered he is a novelist, scriptwriter and movie director from Spain. I was completely unfamiliar with him and his work but I purchased it anyway, I enjoy taking risks with unfamiliar writers. So far, it's been amazing. It's a collection of short stories that at first seem independent of each other but as one progresses with one after the other each piece of the puzzle begins to fall into place with the next and so on. It is obvious that they are all interconnected. Which leads me to the hypothesis that that is the writer's intentions in this collection of stories which have as the center the City of New York. He weaves the stories, full of a wide diversity of characters, all interconnected by the fact that in totality they form the tapestry that is said city. There are elements of the morbid, the sick, a bit of perversion, sex, lies, yet there is a string of the enchanting in it all. As of today, I am in the sixth story, stopped in my tracks by a pair of wonderful sentences that commence the story, which is called "Peces Voladores", that left me pensive. With that I conclude this post.

"Para Andreas, lo más parecido a la felicidad era el ritmo constante de las obligaciones ineludibles que le sujetaban al momento presente como los alfileres sujetan las mariposas enmarcadas. Sin embargo, por mucho que uno lo deteste, a veces no queda más remedio que pensar en las cosas que uno no quiere pensar, especialmente en los días de lluvia."

Finishing this book, I am going to pick up another recent purchase written by this fellow right here. Yikes!


Happy reading.
Follow the rabbit trail...