sábado, 24 de noviembre de 2012

Real Nice Thing in Life #12

My real first love was a kitten I named Aurelio. We met at my uncle's farm in the mountains of Colombia. I was only four years old. With Aurelio I initiated a non-stop frenzy of lovers. I used to bring home frogs (who never turned into princes), lizards, kittens, street dogs and injured birds hoping for my mom to accept any animal as the household pet. 
It wasn't until I turned seventeen that a four-legged animal was accepted as part of the family. If Aurelio was my first love Lino, my Labrador was the love of my life. I switched the "princess" bed for a bunk bed so that Lino could sleep in my bed-room. I had the upper level, Lino the bottom. Shortly after Lino's arrival, my brother and I found a tiny kitten roaming around our building. She was all bones and whiskers. She became Lino's younger sister. We named her Misifú. My mom loves Misifú more than my brother and me. I don't blame her. 
My love for animals has dictated many aspects of my life. I've been an on-and-off vegetarian for most of my life, I stretch cat-style every morning, I wag my tail when I'm excited, and I also love to wear animal prints while outside in the wild (i.e. friends' backyards, NYC streets, PATH trains, etc.), you know, for camouflage purposes. 
I found this fabulous faux fur vest on Bib & Tuck (wonderful site where you exchange clothing with very fashionable girls), and have been wearing it pretty much every day. As certain Guayabagram suggested last night, I wore the vest with flower-print pants and a leather jacket while obscenely devouring Nutella crepes. Today my belly hurts. 

Real Nice Thing in Life #12: The Aurelios and Linos that brighten our lives, teaching us what unconditional love is; to camouflage yourself in animal prints and bright colors hoping that the rest of the wild world is color blind; Nutella.




All pictures by Alcibiades. Photo shoot location: The Congotes house AKA la casa de la perdición! ;)

viernes, 16 de noviembre de 2012

Real Nice Thing in Life #13

Real Nice Thing in Life #13: That today is Friday! Enjoy your weekend, laugh until your belly hurts and call your mom. I promise I'll call mine ;)
Dress found on Bib & Tuck, Superga sneakers. All pictures by the one and only Alcibiades.

domingo, 11 de noviembre de 2012

Real Nice Thing in Life #14

Lulu's Adventures (or, Gloria's Diary on How to Write a Fantasy Story) 

August 24, 2012: I’m feeling all inspired. I started my story full of great ideas and romantic thoughts about flying unicorns and how to get to Gotham City.

Once upon a time, in a beautiful town called Candelaria, located in the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia, there was a little girl called Lulu. She was fascinated with animals, especially with unicorns.

For her eighth birthday Lulu’s father gave her a unicorn that she named Gabrielo. As you might already be aware, unicorns can fly. So Lulu and Gabrielo visited many places: they flew to India, Spain, Guatemala, France, and Gotham City (…come on, if you had a flying unicorn, wouldn't you go to Gotham City?). They often flew to Colombia. Lulu was fond of chontaduros and platanos maduros. Gabrielo’s favorite delicacy was guayabas (of course!).



September 10, 2012: I feel really bad for taking so long to finish a one-page story, which a fifth-grader could finish in fifteen minutes. I’m getting too easily distracted lately. (Should I clean my cat’s vomit now while it’s fresh? It’s probably easier to just let it dry. Did I send my blue dress to the cleaners? Oh shit, I didn't call my mom for her birthday!)

During one of their trips around Colombia—specifically to Anzoategui (a little town where people live forever and the water tastes like vodka)—Lulu and Gabrielo met a beautiful siren named Salt while they were vintage shopping in El Corte Ingles (ok…in real life there’s no Corte Ingles in Colombia, at least not the fancy store like the one in Spain, but for fantasizing purposes let’s just imagine that Anzoategui has a multilevel store with vintage clothing and shit). Salt and Lulu became best friends. 


One day, Salt invited Gabrielo and Lulu to her home. She lived in a castle high in a mountain, a castle guarded by a dragon called Book-of-Matches. Salt was forced to marry an old ugly man when she was younger. He never allowed her to see the ocean, and she never learned to swim. Salt was a prisoner in her own home. That horrible man was called Carlos Augusto Bustamante (inspired by Mexican soap operas). He used to bathe only once a week, and he ate deep-fried spiders and bats. Salt was miserable. She needed to escape sooner rather than later.

October 2, 2012: Today is the day. I went to the gym, I got a congratulations-for-your-great-job-letter from my boss, and my digestive system is not attacking any of my organs (i.e. I surprisingly don’t have either chronic constipation or unstoppable diarrhea [which I prefer to constipation]).

Book-of-Matches felt miserable too. Guarding a castle wasn't his thing. He was more the type of dragon that liked to play golf and go to the beach. He wanted to leave the castle and be free too.

Mental note #1: I’m sure I killed all my creative neurons (mental note inside a mental note: ask my brother about “creative neurons”…this doesn't sound right) or some horrible spell was cast on me. I won the “Best Story Award” three years in a row in high school. And now I can only come with this crap!? Should I only post Mabel’s drawings and let them do the talking? Nah, I started this damn story and I’m going to finish it!


October 16, 2012: I've reached the point in the story where I become super analytical and think to myself, “Wait a minute, if Salt and Book-of-Matches hated that fatso Carlos Augusto Bustamante so much, how come Book-of-Matches didn't just kill him with a burst of fire? And how come Book-of-Matches, (whom I’m sure knows how to fly, because what kind of dragon would he be if he were guarding a castle and only able to do it by foot?) didn't just fly away with Salt and leave Carlos Augusto Bustamante alone in the castle? Should I just stick to architecture? I Probably suck at that too.

And so Salt left the fatso alone in the castle and she sailed away with Lulu and Gabrielo. Yup, she couldn't care less about living in a castle or having a damn dragon that by all measures was worthless, or even having a closet full of Manolos. She took that fin of hers and left Carlos Alberto Bustamante full of debt and a broken heart.



Mental note #2: I’m starting to like the ironic tone this story is taking. Ok brain, let’s see what else you can come up with.

Book-of-Matches suddenly absconded to The Land of the Lost Dragons (I believe that’s north of Greece, a little bit to the left of Macedonia).

Mental note #3: Even though Meibol’s skills as an illustrator are outstanding, she wasn't able to draw a dragon at the proper scale, leaving me with no other solution than to suddenly remove him from the story. I’m tempted to do the same with Gabrielo. Or maybe I’ll just make him into a porn star. He’s got the face for it. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Gabrielo changed his name to Ben Over and became a porn star. That sonofabitch  Salt was driving him nuts, and even though he loved Lulu, she couldn't give him what Ricardo Grande (his boyfriend) gave him. Lulu studied architecture and started a very successful blog called The Papaya Experiment. Salt became the spokes-siren for Chicken of the Sea. She married Fishey Smell, better known as the shark actor who starred in Jaws 1,2, and 3. And they all lived happy ever after!

The End

November 12, 2012: I suck as a storyteller. But I’m happy that after almost three months I managed to finish this damn story!

Thanks to Meibol's Drawings for the lovely illustrations, to Alcibiades for the great pictures, and to my late dad for giving me a little pink unicorn (the stuffed kind, not the real kind, but knowing him he would've moved heaven and earth to find a real unicorn for me) when I turned eight.

Real Nice Thing in Life #14: Hip Hip Hurray! For friends that can draw porn-actor unicorns and gold digging sirens! And for fathers that will do anything for their daughters. I love you, daddy. 

lunes, 5 de noviembre de 2012

Real Nice Thing in Life #15

Ms. Sandy was a total bitch whom I underestimated. I lived in what I can only describe as "pitch darkness" for what felt like a month. After all this time of not being able to turn on a light switch to see where my cat had puked, I finally got my power back and became the happiest girl in the whole world. Am I being a drama queen or what? And I'm not talking about the inner power to change the world yada-yada-yada, but the electric power that Mr. Thomas Alva Edison invented so conveniently back in the 1800's. The first night with no electricity felt like camping in the woods- very adventurous and romantic, but a little uncomfortable. The following days were neither adventurous, nor romantic. They were just plain depressing. I felt most of the symptoms of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), which according to Wikipedia are:

1. Hopelessness: Especially every morning when taking a shower with freezing cold water. Let's not forget that due to my curly and unruly hair I have washed it with shampoo and conditioner every day of my life (at least every day I take a shower, which doesn't necessarily mean every day of my life).

2. Increased appetite: My body went to hibernation mode.

3. Increased sleep: See point #2.

4. Less energy and ability to concentrate: Concentrate doing what exactly? There's nothing to do when half your city is in hibernation mode (I should add "crankiness" to the list).

5. Loss of interest in work or other activities: I'm going to have to disagree with this one. I never felt so happy that my office is located in the wonderful neighborhood of NoPo (North of Power). In the darkest days, I couldn't wait to go to work to charge my cell phone, check on my virtual social life, and to see a lit light bulb face to face. 

6. Sluggish movements: Are we talking about peristaltic movements? I disagree again. For a reason I cannot explain, my horrible digestive system worked beautifully (i.e. no signs of chronic constipation!) when the lights were off. I think I've reached the point where professional help is needed. 

7. Social withdrawal: I felt so cranky I didn't want to socialize with anyone anyway. I could hardly stand myself. 

8. Unhappiness and irritability: Yes and yes. And this is the scariest part. How can our happiness depend on external factors like electricity? The events of the past days have been a nuisance for some (like me), but deadly and devastating for many. We live in a world where one and a half billion people - more than one out of five - are forced to live with no electricity. And yet we (the lucky bastards) get depressed after five days without a working refrigerator, electric lighting whenever we want it, and warm water (some people dream  of having access to clean water regardless of the temperature). 

Real Nice Thing in Life #15: To get wake-up-calls from Mother Nature to stop being so spoiled. Today is a new day for me. I will be more grateful for what God (i.e. good-energy old man with white beard and beer belly living above the clouds and keeping an eye on us) has given me. To realize that taking a shower with cold water is not the bad beginning of a new day but rather a great way to energize your skin and battle that other horrendous bitch called Ms. Cellulite. 





Anatomy of my day-to-day life post Hurricane Sandy-the-bitch.


Le Cat during the storm.

viernes, 2 de noviembre de 2012

Sandy left me with a bad heartache

Sandy came, played with me, abused me and left me. I'm being forced to interrupt Real-Nice-Things-in-Life programming until I recuperate from a very bad break-up (from Sandy that is). In the meantime I'm sharing with you this fantastic video that I found on nowness.com.   Somehow it perfectly portrays the events of the past few days. Hope you like it!

Fashion Photographers Inez and Vinoodh Stake Out the Balmain Supermodel When Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin signed on to shoot the fall/winter 2010/11 Balmain campaign starring Kate Moss, they did so as double agents. Without anyone knowing, the renowned fashion photographers set up four surveillance-style cameras to capture Moss’s unbridled performance on set. The short film, titled Everglade, takes its name from the haunting Antony and the Johnsons song that serves as its soundtrack, and premieres on NOWNESS today. It marks the latest instance of the Dutch duo's intentionally blurring the boundaries of reality. “Surrealism is always there in our work, whether it’s in camera or through computer manipulation,” says Van Lamsweerde. “We’ve had the idea for this video for some time. We are fascinated with the different realities going on in one shoot and so the music, the animation, Kate's movements and the camera angle represent these layers of perception.” With animated illustrations by artist Jo Ratcliffe (in collaboration with Bouwine Pool for Sherbet), the film not only captures Moss in action, but also aims to represent a fantasy inner world. “We talked to [Ratcliffe] about it being half horror and half Disney,” Van Lamsweerde says, and what evolved is an idiosyncratic take on the behind-the-scenes genre. “It ranges from a sinewy heavy metal feel to a much cuter place,” she sums up.