LEVART

Stevenson says (I quote by heart): "Even the longest journey starts by the first step". But what would happen if we decided to step back, to return to the dark nothingness of the past, to the somber kingdom which doesn't belong to us anymore, which is as misterious as our own future, which shows faces and landscapes which we never saw before? If we wanted to travel back, we would have to take the letter L, and then the E, and then the V, and then the A and the R and, finally, flow into the T of "Turning back to the beginning".

Long time ago, October the 20th 2000, we landed in Amsterdam, not just for smoking marihuana in our Red Lights District's favourite coffee shop, but for windowshoppining before taking the next plane to Moscow.

Even we saw Lenin's mummy. Yes, we were in Moscow just for praying the Our Lenin before Kropotkin and Gogol's graves.

Vividly scketched! All those bad-tempered people. Besides, we were not able to understand a bloody thing. We only wanted to purchase a ticket for following the legendary tracks of Miguel Strogoff, Dostoievski and Zhivago's soles. But it was impossible.

A miracle! Yeah, we finally got a ticket from an Anna Karenina-like clerk. This is why we were rubbing our hands together in front of Baikal lake three days and a half later. By the way, you could cross the lake on a sleigh or by using a pair of ice skates (hands at your back, a scarf around your neck), and going all the way whistling a borrowed tune.

Rolling around the wind. We left Irkutz and then such a city returned to its place in the You-will-never-be-there maps.

To Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva. After a dangerous trip driving around the mountains and steppes of the broken throats' country, we crossed the border to Kazakhstan by train.

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Foto de Marina Fernández Bielsa.

Acróstico 2008

2 (DOS) 2008 ha sido un año bisiesto, pero no por ello me he echado la siesta dos veces. He escrito una novela, un ensayo y he conocido el amor. Además, mi grupo de música, Dos (http://www.dospop.blogspot.com/), ha consolidado su formación y ha empezado a dar conciertos regularmente.

0 (CERO) Cuando empieza 2008, me estreno como parado (http://www.inem.es/). Otra vez a empezar de cero. Zapatero asegura que la crisis no existe.

0 (CERO) Acaba el año, y vuelvo a estar sin un duro. Los ceros, en mi cuenta, pasan del lado derecho de la cifra al izquierdo (http://www.casinogranmadrid.es/). Zapatero conviene en que la crisis es un hecho.

8 (OCHO) En lugar de tumbar el ocho y hacerlo infinito, le añadimos medio número, y así obtenemos el título de la película homónima de Federico Fellini, lo que aprovecho para recomendar un blog de cine: (http://lanavajaenelojo.blogspot.com/). Mc Cain ha conseguido un meritorio segundo lugar en las presidenciales norteamericanas.

La otra noche soñé que me tocaba un viaje a Nueva York. Lo realizaré en 2009.

Grupo Dos: Soy el primero por la derecha (Foto de Verónica Mas)

¡HABRASE BRISTOL!

I have just come home from Bristol. I love this city, but I am in love with Wells and, above all, Glastonbury. I climbed up to the Tor and then knew who I was. King Arthur, druid magic, Sir Lancelott, Guinevière... Avalon was true!... Then Mother Nature came to me and gave me all her power.

One day before I was singing in Wells the Swan Song:

"Here in the garden, water and shadows.
People and landscape threading and weaving.
Out on the benches someone is sitting
holding their memories".

Cheers!!!

LOL or "TO BE IN LOL"

I know this abbreviation means "laugh out loud" or "lots of laughs". But actually I mean Love Old Love again... I know when this thing happens because is so rare as a gem. And now I am singing with The Jayhawks:




I'm in love with the girl that I'm talking about
I'm in love with the girl that I can't live without
I'm in love but I sure picked a bad time to be in love, to be in love.
let her be somebody else's queen
I don't want to hear about it
there's too many others who know what I mean
and that's why I got to live without it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZh2NgF4Ho
However, she is looking at me from my screen saver all the time. She is beautiful, inside and outside. I can see the twinkle in her eyes. I am in Lol with you, Girl.

TRAVELS WITH VARASEK

That train went on to Uzbekistan and I was not there. But I knew our shadows were like DNA chains. Life is a journey and we would be together again along the road. However, I have forgotten this truth so many times during the last years...

Fortunately, last San Juan's night, Varasek said to me I was a rusted boat. And I said:

"You're right. Friendship is an alarm-clock".

Nasdarovié, mariscal!!!

UK MAP

I have an UK map on my wall.
One morning I woke up with a huge hangover and fixed my eyes on it. Then I saw a lot of animals... Below, a rat. Over the rat, a pig, and over the pig a dog (or maybe a witch with a Robin Hood hat on) looking fiercely at the Ulster. And the Ulster seems a dog too.

INGLES DE VALLECAS

A couple of weeks ago I visited my mother's house, as I do once a week, on saturdays to be strictly accurate. After having lunch, I usually take a stroll with my sister Pilar and her daughter, my cute little niece, and as long as the Wild Carmela, as she likes calling herself, goes on the swings, my sister and I talk away for hours. Last saturday, I boasted about my high level of English. However, when I started singing Because the Night, by Patti Smith, my sister said categorically: "Ok, high level, but this is inglés de Vallecas".

If you don't know what I mean, please, hear the song Aquarius (Raphael's cover, of course), and you will know why...

LOST IN TRANSLATION

This morning I have been to the hospital with my friend Raquel. While waiting for the results -fortunately, she is OK: 18 out of 30-, I have come across a fun sign above the toilets: "Ass Cab". Some vandal taxi-hater had removed several letters from the Spanish original: "Aseos Caballeros".

SHOP LIST

1.Riding a balloon.

2.Watching the sunset.

3.Writing poetry.

4.Going to the movies with you.

5.Travelling.

6.Saying I Love You in Spanish, English, French and Italian.

7.Being in love again.

8.Taking poem-pictures.

9.Feeling the Eastern Wind in my face.

10.Living in New York.

FAHRENHEIT 451

I never wished to save people from a fire.

I never wished to appear naked in a calendar.

I never wished to be a hero.

I never wished to be a fireman.

I first read Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, when I was thirteen-year-old. So being a fireman meant to be an enemy of books, an enemy of knowledge, an enemy of mankind.

Anyway, I never liked that warning on the wall:

"Uso exclusivo bomberos"

EL GENERAL PEREZOSO

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a Spanish general of Irish origin who was executed by firing squad not because of his surname. Quite the opposite, he was a very active and liberal career soldier. In fact, he defended the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

But if you don't know his biography you will think he was an idle person. According to a Spanish saying, "Cría fama y échate a dormir". The English translation would be: "Give a dog a bad name". A friend of mine who lives quite near to Reina Sofía Museum, said to me last night he felt a bit lazy when started walking by General Lacy street on his way home.

The funny thing is that Lacy is not a corruption of the word Lazy. So actually that general was very transparent, as his deeds and literal surname show. This is why I like go walking by that street at sunset. Then I feel light as a feather.

CLEAR SKIES OF LOVE

One week ago, my six-year-old niece Carmela gave me a bunch of little mushrooms she had come across in the park. Carmela's mother, my beloved sister Pilar, said immediately those mushrooms were fairies. So I could make a wish. Of course, I did... Last new moon, the clear skies of love left its doors wide open.




*Dibujo de Carmela.

YOU ARE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

You are not Peter Pan anymore. You are in Madrid now. You have to be "logical, responsible, practical" (SUPERTRAMP).
However, I get back to Kansas every time I open the first page of In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, and read:
"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there'".
So "get back to where you once belong" (The Beatles)

Literature is always 'out there' whispering in your ears:
"I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards" (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll)
"It is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before" (Peter Pan, by J.M.Barrie)
"Si tu aimes une fleur qui se trouve dans un étoile, c'est doux, la nuit, de regarder le ciel" (Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
"I'am seventeen and I'm crazy" (Clarisse to Guy Montag in Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury).
"He never stopped talking, and what was awful was, he never said anything you wanted to hear in the first place" (The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger).
I believe in Literature even more than in Billy Wilder. So I will always live in Kansas.

*You are not in Kansas anymore es una popular expresión de El Mago de Oz que viene a significar algo así como: "Vamos, crece, madura, ya no eres un crío".

ACEPTA

Everyday I make a short walk before starting to write. I am embarked on a fantasy novel. I have already finished two out of three parts of it. Apart from the novel, there are a lot of things nagging in my mind: money, love... It's always the same story. Fortunately, I saw this morning a writing on a wall: "Acepta". That's true. I am fighting for my dreams. I am a richman who don't have anything. That's all.

DOVE'S LOVE

It was on a sunny sunday afternoon of March. I was in a park close to my apartment reading The Times as I do every sunday since I discovered it is more useful to learn English than to read Shakespeare's works. So I was reading Alice Miles' article when I realized that a cock pigeon tried fucking a nice dove. As a backdrop, there was a gang of tramps fighting for a bottle of plonk*.
I felt a mix of happiness and bitterness. On one hand, the weather was marvelous, but on the other, a strong feeling of hopelessness began to dominate my mind. At the time, I was fed up with living alone. I had lived alone for two years and I couldn't stand it anymore. Then, I cried to myself, "Is there anybody out there?".
(silence)
Suddenly, I was the defeated cock pigeon or, maybe, I was the tramp fighting for a burning sip of plonk. The nice dove flew away into the sky.

*Vino peleón. Me gusta porque refuerza la idea de lucha.

A.

It is more than a movie by Woody Allen. I met you last summer. You were my teacher and I was your devoted student. You said I had pronounced the word success perfectly well. But we are both losers. You are a cute-cool painter who is drifting far from her crenelated country, and I am a wanderer writer without homeland and flag. I wonder if you would like to share the next trip to nowhere with me.

TRUE FRIENDS VERSUS FALSE FRIENDS

I true friend of mine said to me last night: "¡Qué de phrasal verbs y false friends!".
Es curioso que un amigo verdadero hable de "amigos falsos", ¿no?
Anyway, he is right. Loco English is based on false friends and phrasal verbs in a 70 %.
Of course, false friends here are deliberate.
Anyway, I prefer a true friend who uses false friends to a false friend who speaks English perfectly.

OUT OF LOVE

If you are not in love, you necessarily are out of love.