¡¡¡regreso al cine!!!-"Rescue Dawn"

Por fin volví al cine después de más de un mes. Con mi bastón y todo fui a Fine Arts a ver "Rescue Dawn". Siempre he sido fanático del director alemán Werner Herzog. Me gustan sus películas con personajes que caminan una cuerdafloja entre ser brillantes y estar locos. En este caso se trata de una historia real de un piloto americano que acaba perdido en Laos en el 1965, antes de que oficialmente empezara la Guerra de Vietnam. El hombre pasa por terribles situaciones. Tantas que a veces es difícil ver esta película. Francamente me hubiera gustado haber escogido una película mas ligera para mi regreso al cine después del accidente, pero disfruté el film de todas maneras.
Pero, creo que esta noche, veré algo bien bobo en tv para compensar por la agonía de "Rescue Dawn"

Pensamientos en un sabado

Sábado con sol. Hay algo que siempre me gusta de poder decir eso. Quizás porque después de tres semanas en las que sólo me miraba la pierna y el rash...hoy, de pronto, me puse a mirar el cielo y todo a mi alrededor. Sin faltar la taza de café. Y de pronto me dije, todo lo que hace mi vida diferente es mi rodilla lastimada. Sólo eso. Todo lo demás está igual. Mi familia, mis amigos, mis libros, mis películas. Sigo disfrutando de cenar, de escribir, de ir al cine. Sigo amando escuchar música. Soy el mismo. Soy quien soy. Todo es como es. Sólo que tengo una rodilla lastimada. Y ya.

This Xanax's for you

Siempre he pensado que la "nota" perfecta es la que da tomar dos cervezas. Después de dos, todo se arruina. Y siempre me pregunté si habría algo que reproduzca esa experiencia de dos birras.


Bueno, el otro día probé un Xanax por primera vez. Me lo dieron por un ataque de ansiedad. Y francamente es una maravilla. De pronto, el mundo se puso manejable. Todo estaba bien. Me sentía cool y confiado. No demasiado. Simplemente bien. Como después de dos Heineken. Dos Heinekens bien frías.

Ashford Cafeteria

En estos días he estado almorzando en la cafetería del Ashford Medical Center. Es una de esas cafeterías como las de González Padín y la New York Department Store de Santurce. Donde hacen sandwichitos de jamon, queso y huevo y tienen su pequeño menú de comida criolla escrito con magic marker. El otro día probé "Coditos con Carne" (ni en Bebo's sirven algo tan básico).

No sé. Comiendo allí me transporté a esas cafeterías. Y me acordé de mi abuela pidiendo su bocadillo en el sótano de la New York. Y mi mamá pidiendo un hamburger. Y yo comiendo algo, pero también pendiente de la sección de discos a ver que había llegado.
En realidad fue sólo un momento de transportación total, pero lo tuve y lo disfruté.
No sé porque duró tan poco. Bueno, quizás por el flancito de vainilla tipo "Cedó" con el que cerré mi magnífico almuerzo.

Anyway..¿cuál es el punto de ésto? Quizás que este era un mundo el cual creía que ya no existía. Pero ahí está. Tuve que joderme la rodilla para descubrirlo. Pero...that's the way it goes.

Piano- canal 449

¿Qué he estado haciendo en ests días? Pues aparte de mis traumas...he estado escuchando mucha música. Principalmente la música de piano del canal 449 de Onelink. De pronto se ha convertido en mi background soundtrack. Y es que es una maravilla. Un poco de jazz, un poco de clásico hasta un poco de cursilería estilo Muzak. Pero es sólo piano. Nada de orquestas. No sé. Hay algo tan puro, sencillo y mágico en escuchar un piano. Hubo un tiempo en el que pensaba que la guitarra era mi instrumento favorito. Ya no. Es el piano. Bueno, sigo escuchando.

today

Beginning a new day.

this week

I have made so many decisions this week. I am tired. I am a bit scared. And I am a bit content. I have taken a step forward, realizing I have a long way to go. Sometimes it takes a bad step to make one realize many things.

my week

I had a tough week. I fell and have a torn ligament in my knee.

It will mean months of rehab, perhaps an operation and rehab. I wish I could explain how I felt waiting to know what the MRI would reveal. I saw myself unable to walk again (the blow to my knee was very hard), I felt guilty and stupid of having caused the situation that led to the injury. My mind was creating as much damage and pain as my knee. I had never been so depressed in my life. I could not read a book, watch a movie. My mind always went back to the fact I could not walk properly. A simple thing and I could not do it. Still does, once in a while.

I had to stay with my parents, call friends, I could not face myself alone.

I am grateful to them for having been there for me. And I hope they will be there through the slow, painful process that lies ahead.
I have no desire to write a philosophical statement here. Quite the contrary, I want to laugh, and smile. At life, at me, at how much we take for granted.

the zen of mystery books

I read a lot. And I usually take turns reading serious books "literature" if you want to be snobbish about it and then a fun book. Probably a mystery. The thing is most mystery books nowadays are gory tales about serial killers. Nothing wrong with that. There are some great books dealing with that theme. But sometimes one wants something different. And I have found it with the Alexander McCall Smith mystery series. Especially the Isabel Dalhousie mysteries. These are tales set in Edinburgh, which combine mystery and philosophy. One moment you are dealing with a murder, then you dealing with the great questions of life. There is something so comforting in these books. Something so charming and well, civilized about them. They remind me of the old Sherlock Holmes books, only Holmes did not talk about Kant.

These are books to enjoy during a long weekend. Books you can enjoy while listening to some classical music, with some tea or coffee on the table. They make you forget the tough world outside and remind you of the values we seem to have lost: charm, wit and civility.

walking and remembering

These days I have been trying to learn how to use my new Canon XT camera, my first "real" camera. So yesterday I decided to take a walk by Santurce and take photos. While stopping at the Calle del Parque, I decided to take some shots of the old movie theaters there. One of them (Music Hall) has been repaired and looks great, the other (Radio City) is abandoned and to add insult to injury, there are pigeon cages where the marquee used to stand.

I loved these two theaters. At the Music Hall, I used to see all the Walt Disney movies when I was a kid. They specialized in that kind of movie. They also used to show MGM festivals in which they would re-release old movies such as "The Time Machine" and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm". I recall that my favorite place to sit there was in the second floor balcony. Wonder if its still there after the remodeling.

The Radio City was a huge 1960's type theater. It had a huge screen and huge curtains that would open up slowly before the main feature began. It gave even the worst movies an aura of greatness. Many of the great blockbusters used to play there. The lines for movies like "Jaws" were enormous. Between blockbusters they used to show horror moves such as my personal favorite "The Abominable Dr. Phibes".

Anyway, it was an interesting walk. I may take it again next week, just looking around and taking photos.

in praise of weird women

Yes, the slightly disturbed woman. There's something about her. About her unpredictability, her strange moods. We find a strange sort of fascination in her. And filmmakers know that. They realize that loopy women make for great thrillers. And I saw one of them last night. It's "The Bridesmaid", a movie by acclaimed French director Claude Chabrol, the so called "French Hitchcock". It's a slow moving, but griping story about a man who falls in love with a woman who at first seems to be slightly eccentric, but turns out to be much more. It's a movie about love, jealousy and obsesion. But mostly about how love can blind us from seeing the obvious. And it has some nifty suspense scenes.

Californication

It's official. Showtime is now cooler and edgier than HBO. Watch this show tonight and see why.

"The Page Turner"- cool movie

Melanie is a potential piano child prodigy. But her big rehearsal is ruined by the action of a female jury member. As a full grown woman, she ends up working for the woman. Ans she plots her revenge. But not a revenge typical of Hollywood movies, she doesn't turn into a "Single White Female" weirdo. And her revenge does not involve killing pets and things like that. But she does get a revenge. A very intelligent and French one. This is such a cool movie. A real thriller. A realistic one. I loved it.

Saturday at 4pm

Do you have a favorite time of the week? I do. And it's not Friday at 6pm as most people would choose. It's Saturday at 4pm. And it's been that way ever since I remember. There is something about that time that brings out a certain element of calmness. Maybe I relate it to my childhood days when I used to go to Saturday afternoon movies with my friends and we would leave the theater around 4pm feeling great. Maybe not. Maybe it's just that Saturday at 4pm is just a calm moment for me. A moment to stop thinking. A time to listen to some music. A moment whe weekend has not yet reached it's middle point and one can close the eyes and wonder what it will still bring.

Puerto Rican Disney World zombies

This is my second blog entry about it. But there's a reason for it.It just happened that the other day before a work presentation, the 12 people there, all of them educated professionals started talking about vacation trips. And somebody mentioned she was going to Disney World. And then everyone started talking about the place, about the rides, about the fact that they go there every year. "Don't miss the blabla mountain", "no, now the blabla ride is even better".After 15 minutes of this I had to leave the room. It was like the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", only people were turning into Disney zombies.

Why are people here so obsessed with Disney World? Fuck. There's a whole world out there of amazing, beautiful, life changing places and they are stuck in EPCOT?

As for taking the kids, ok. Take them there once. But let the see the world too.Let them see New York City,let them watch the sea lions in San Francisco bay, take them to the Grand Canyon. There are REAL places out there, goddammit.

I am stuck in the 70's....

I read somewhere that we always love more movies one sees when one is a kid. One feels a particular fondness for them. And I'm finding this to be true these days. I am constantly watching movies from the 1970's.Maybe because it was the most fascinating period in American cinema. And it was the most experimental, interesting decadein cinema (until George Lucas dumbed everything down.) And maybe it's because those movies remind me of a time when my life was simpler and angst-free.

I saw "Blue Water, White Death" at the old Metropolitan theater in Santurce. I remember being blown away by it for several reasons. Well, two of them, really. A scene in which divers leave their shark cage and swim among sharks. I couldn't believe how crazy that was. And the scene when they finally find the Great White Shark and the shark basically tries to tear apart the shark cages. And almost succeeds. Watching the movie again, 35 years later, I am still amazed at it.

So I had my nostalgic moment. And further proof of how great movies were way back then.

Sweet Land- a great movie

Last night I saw one of the most wonderful movies I have seen in years. Maybe the most wonderful. It's a small movie called "Sweet Land". It tells the story of Inge, a mail order bride from Germany who arrives in Minnesota in 1920 and faces discrimination because of her nationality. She meets the man who sent for her, a shy, hard working farmer but can't consummate the marriage because authorities don't want to give her a marriage certificate. I know this makes the movie seem heavy handed, but it isn't. This is a sweet, simple, touching story about love. The acting is great, the photography, breathtaking. This is such a special movie. It's on DVD now. Dont miss it for the world.

about forced vacations

I am obssesive with my vacation days. I want every one of them to be special. Which means that I want to spend every one of them traveling. Just being away from home. And I had already made my vacation plans so I wouldn't have to spend a single day at home. But this week, the company that I work at forced me to take two days off. Something that made me really upset. I tried fighting it. I said I would work both days and that this way I could keep my plans unaltered. Slowly I realized you can't fight City Hall. The administration's silence on the matter of my complaint meant one thing. Hey buddy, you take the two days off was the message. And I acted accordingly.

Strangely enough I have enjoyed the time away from work. I have been going to the beach. I have been doing some reading and here I am doing a little bit of writing. Every day has been a lazy one. It's been nice to see the hours go by. In peace and quiet. It's also been great that San Juan is basically empty these days, everyone is on vacation elsewhere. So taking the days off was good, after all. Maybe it's better not to plan things so much and just go with the flow and enjoy.
Still, taking a plane somewhere would have been nice.

about movie crushes

I must have seen Kay Lenz in "Breezy"on tv when I was 11 or 12. I remember not noticing at all the middle age crisis theme of the movie and being simply fixated on actress Kay Lenz. I thought she was everything I would want in a girlfriend when I was old enough to have one. So to me, it was more much of a "pre teen" crisis movie.

I had totally forgotten about this movie, until I saw it pop up in an Encore premium channel the other day. So many years later, the whole feeling of the movie changed so much. Now being in the early stages of middle age, the movie becomes much more relevant. And Kay Lenz becomes the girlfriend I cannot have because, well, I would be old enough to be her father.

Still, this is a very cool movie. It was directed by Clint Eastwood, not especially know for romantic flicks. And he shows here the low key approach and beautiful subtleness he would show decades later in movies like "Letters from Iwo Jima". William Holden and Kay Lenz are very good in it. And the whole hippie era environment gives it a sort of naive, romantic feeling. This is a really special little movie.
And it has Kay Lenz in it (did I mention that?)

Movies- "The Hospital"

I made my mind to write again. First up,movies. I recently saw two interesting movies from the early 1970's who dealt with a theme seldom touched by today's high adrenaline cinema": the plight of the middle aged man. First, "The Hospital" a movie starring George C. Scott that talks about the plight of our health care system decades before "Sicko" did. In a NYC hospital, chaos reigns, patients are mistreated and there may even be a serial killer loose. The movie also deals with the middle age crisis of a man who relializes that his life has gonewrong in so many ways. Alcohol seems to be the way out. He even considers suicide...until he meets a woman who makes him realize life is worth living. Kind of a corny way out. But still the movie is brave enough to deal with depression, impotence (pre-Viagra days) and divorce.