ALCHEMY

Pedro Herrera's new works .

By Rafael Marcelo Arteaga

NINFA-DELIRANTE-DE-LOS SUENOS

If we accept the rhetorical art professor's theory, who is convinced that everybody has his own vision of the world, we would then also to be agreed with the existence of so many worlds as alive beings on earth. Similar to the creation methods; although, in that unknown territory there is a common denominator: our fears above all as much as it escapes to the domain of the reason.

Simple questions as who we are or toward where we are going it will always be a reason to begin the search. And it is not death what scares us, but the mystery that it contains. like the darkness, or our ideas of being eternal. It is not the silence we worry about, but the absence of words; we cannot decipher our time and we look for an answer, illuminating those world of shades, such if we had a lantern in our hands, in order to capture the images of our dreams.


This way, the medieval artists, convinced with their paints about the risks of the pleasure and they used the fear to move away the faithful of the sin; but, how do not enjoy today and -at the same time- terrify us the chaotic and refined world of Hieronymus Bosch with his triptych Delights Garden, or Death's victory by Bruegel, The Old.

Holocaust premonitions are not new.

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CLONACION-DE-LA-FORMA

Here it is Pedro Herrera's atelier. Guilty swords of deaths and betrayals, old picture cameras; books whose names we have forgotten. Old gods masks, an endless key collections close to objects and more things that justify the owner's existence.

Whoever enters here, it is as reading a chapter of the Divine Comedy, when Virgilio guides to Dante into the purgatory: you return your head and realize that your teacher disappeared. There is not coming back. You are alone in those hidden worlds outside of the paradise, in those mental jails that it retain us caught in darkness. Here begins the creation's pleasure.

-I am the atelier's spirit -. Pedro invokes, before crossing the threshold, and at once another voice answerer's from inside: - I am the the light. Come and liberate me. Outside the city rests and the fog, same as a beggar in the streets, enjoys the delight of walking in silence. Love, then, as a wild animal hidden between the mirror and the water, jumps into the eyes of anyone!


Everything is movement in the solitude, as at the beginning of the universe. There is not fear to death, it is an approach to it, an attraction to the mystery, whose doors open up and close behind us.

Pedro's work is not the photographic click, it is the mental process toward the image of our collective dreams, whose origin is perhaps in the tombs of old Egypt -or even more. It is a prophecy to be completed for us. And there is not cruelty in them, but a kind of an infantile obscenity, in an unavoidable way, we lost forever.

He is a creator amid the chaos generated by us. As in the old towns of Europe, he is sometimes magician, alchemist, astrologer. His images, more than surrealist, are fantastic, in territories populated with identical beings to us, full with daily details, prejudices and repressions: the representation of the modern hell, with all our pleasures and weaknesses, at the time where we are indoctrinated to be happy, although there are hecatombs.

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Here are his new works , ready to go to conquer the world, as in the train station, a foreigner, close to his baggage and without return ticket, is waiting for the arrival of the next train. He baptized them with a medieval name which contains the whole mystery of the creation: ALCHEMY. Los Angeles were the first scale, last November; then Sydney, New York, Mexico...

You, the one who still dazzle the mystery of the light and the shades, ignore the signs on the way road to arrive here. Captive of the colors and of the dreams, as a hungry wolves in the mountain, this territory is a challenge to the dynamics of the reason, the fascinating travel to death and its exploration, only guided by the passion of creating.

-I want to be the supreme one in visual arts!-, Pedro admits in a flare of euphoria. - I look for an own and at the same time for an universal style. It is water and it is light, it is a torrent of images whose spirit has its origin in the chaotic world of dreams.

And he returns to his teachers to reinforce his way: Bosch, Dillon Redone and his Dreams and Death, Ives Tanguy: The imaginary numbers, Indefinite Divisibility. Joan Miro, Rufino Tamayo, Dali ... names and names so fantastic as surrealist, like their works.

-I live and I sleep with images,- he affirms in front of his paints-. I conjugate work methods as the trocaje, the drawing, some images I make in sculpture, - he adds, satisfied of having given one more step ahead in his big projects. The camera of pictures is more an element inside his life, not less than the old books, the wine or the visits of friends in his atelier.

LUZ EN EL DESIERTO

I ask him, why in our country nobody risk to talk about him, even he is very known. -"We always wait that somebody from outside discovers the world for us"-, he answers, without paying attention to my words.

-"It is good because he says it; but not here for our people. I work for the time! Time is the mystery of the creation!"- He adds. Nevertheless, in 2004 Los Angeles city declared him illustrious guest, with the keys of the city in his hands! He is member of the artists council in this city, the Arts Academy of Long Beach studies his works; Joaquin Sabina admires him, Luis Eduardo Aute, during a concert in Spain, proclaimed him as brilliant. His pictures were transformed into posters and are selling now in Australia and North America.

-"My dreams are too big as to fit here", Pedro concludes. And in his answer there is not resentment some, but rather a challenge.

The challenge is outlined. Enter into the splendid world of his works and you will find the unsatisfied passion that provokes them.

FINAL CALL

Constantine P. Cavafy (1913)

I did not restrain myself. I let go entirely and went
to the pleasures that were half real
and half wheeling in my brain,
I went into the lit night.
And I drank of potent wines, such as
the valiant of voluptuousness drink.

Constantine Cavafy

CUATRO POEMAS

Traduccion de Rafael M. Arteaga



PENSAMIENTOS PELIGROSOS

Dijo Myrtias (un estudiante sirio en Alejandría,
Durante el reinado del emperador Constante y del emperador Konstancio,
En parte un escéptico, y en parte cristiano):
“Fortalecido por el estudio y la reflexión,
No huiré de mis pasiones -tal un cobarde;
Entregaré mi cuerpo a la lujuria
A los goces que he soñado,
A los placeres más audaces,
A los lascivos impulsos de mi sangre,
Sin miedo a cuanto yo he buscado.

Tendré la fortaleza que yo adquirí a través
De los estudios y la reflexión;
Y cuando quiera, en los momentos difíciles,
Rescataré igual mi espíritu irreverente, como hace tiempos".

HE MIRADO TANTO


He mirado tanto la belleza
Que mis ojos desbordan con su visión.
Las lineas del cuerpo. Los labios rojos. Sus miembros gentiles.
El pelo como robado de las estatuas griegas:
seductor, cayendo libre hasta la frente pálida.
Efigies de amor, como mi poesía las deseó
Cuando fui joven
Y las hallé en secreto aquellas noches.


HACE MUCHO TIEMPO

Me gustaría hablar de aquel recuerdo…
Pero es tan descolorido hoy, que no queda algo de él.
Ocurrió hace mucho tiempo, en mis primeros años de adolescencia.

Una piel como de jazmines,
Aquella noche de agosto -Fue agosto?
Puedo sin embargo recordar sus ojos,
Pienso que fueron…azules Oh sí, un azul zafiro.


NADA ME DETUVO

Postal de Alejandría con la calle donde vivió el poeta

Nada me detuvo. Me di por entero y fui
A los placeres que eran mitad verdaderos
Y mitad girando apenas en mi cerebro.
Entré en la noche encendida
Y bebí el vino más fuerte
Como sólo los valientes saben beberlo.

SOSPECHOSOS TRAS LAS REJAS

Parte dos

Siguiendo las pistas del indestructible computador de Raúl Reyes, se descubriò también un email que implica seriamente la seguridad interna del pais del sur, ya que alli asoma la frase zarpazo al socialismo, por lo que nuestro gobierno, aunque no cree en los documentos entregados por su colega Uribe, ha ordenado a sus cuerpos de hinteligencia seguir las pistas de los posibles sospechosos.

Ha dicho también en la cadena radial de los sabados que fuerzas oscuras pretenden asesinarle a fin de acabar con su proyecto de revolucion ciudadana , que la vieja partidocracia esta confabulando para desestabilizar su mandato, que alguien abrio las llaves del cielo e inundo el pais con las lluvias, que los inversionistas han huido asustados ante tales amenazas, y que por ello no hay la tan anciada recuperacion economica, que sube el precio del trigo, del arroz, de la leche sin que él haya dado la orden; motivo por el que las pesquizas siguieron las huellas dejadas por el primer felino en Bogota, y descubrieron para sorpresa de los ecuatorianos, que dicho especimen tenia mas conecciones en nuestro pais que el cerebro del computador mismo.

He aqui la foto del primer implicado, cuando fue sorpredido in situ atentando contra la majestad del poder

Captura del causante de la inestabilidad politica y economica. Se teme que sea pariente de Garfield.
Extraditado de Colombia, otro ejemplar cumpliendo severa condena en alguna carcel de Ecuador.

Con los culpables tras las rejas, igual que el gato negro de Santander de Quilichao, lo que demuestra la efectividad de los cuerpos de seguridad, se cierra este capitulo vergonzoso para ambos pueblos; los mismos que a partir de hoy, asi han prometido sus gobernantes, entraran en una etapa de franca recuperacion economica.

PRUEBAS FELINAS CONTRA LAS FARC

Parte Uno



En uno de los computadores incautados descubren foto de Raúl Reyes con el gato que mordió al niño en Santander de Quilichao.

Caracol – RCN – El Tiempo- Según fuentes oficiales, en uno de los indestructibles computadores de Raúl Reyes, se encontraron fotografías que vincularían al felino que atacó a cuatro niños en Santander de Quilichao con las FARC.

Para la Fiscalía, "El gato terrorista era el encargado de probar la calidad del uranio que tenía la guerrilla cerca de Bogotá, lo cual le ocasionó la rabia cuando se dio cuenta que el material era empobrecido".

El narcouranioterrorista gato, viajaba clandestinamente a Ecuador, para reunirse con el Presidente Correa, pero en Santander de Quilichao fue interceptado por un grupo de niños, quienes al darse cuenta del personaje intentaron capturarlo para matarlo, cortarle una garra y cobrar la recompensa. Sin embargo, el felino (con botas machita) logró escapar dando muerte a uno de los ingenuos seguidores de la seguridad democrática.

Por otra parte, "Hintelijencia" militar está tratando de establecer la responsabilidad del gato y las FARC con la pérdida del partido de fútbol de la selección Colombia ante Honduras, y las crisis por las que atraviesa el Junior de Barranquilla y el Nacional de Medellín, puesto que el juego de los oncenos futbolísticos está empobrecido, al igual que el material radioactivo de la guerrilla.

Ante las pruebas encontradas en el computador, el Gobierno ha anunciado una recompensa de 5000 millones de pesos a quien ofrezca información sobre la ubicación del animal, eso sí, aclaran, que este monto es por todas las siete vidas, pues de lo contrario la recompensa aumentaría a 35.000 millones y el Ministerio de Defensa tendría que declararse en quiebra.

Según información del DAS e INTERPOL, el minino terrorista ha cambiado su aspecto para salir en varias oportunidades del país. Una de ella para reunirse con Osama Ben Laden y recibir instrucción sobre la fabricación de minas quiebrarratas, lo que tiene muy preocupados a funcionarios del alto gobierno y a la gran mayoría del Congreso de la República.

La intelectual, periodista, socióloga, economista, sicóloga, politóloga, historiadora, investigadora, científica social, astrologa, clarividente y funcionaria de la oficina de prensa de la Casa de Nariño, Claudia Gurissati, logró entrevistar a varias ratas de la red de informantes que aseguran que el gato sí es de las FARC; lo que según la elegante comunicadora, demostraría que la guerrilla no tiene voluntad de paz.

El asesor presidencial, José Obdulio Gaviria, aseguró, que aunque él no es responsable, las Águilas Negras han declarado objetivo militar a todos los gatos que se encuentren cerca de niños. De la misma manera, el Ministro de Defensa, Juan Manuel Santos, explicó que en colegios y universidades se investigarán a todas las niñas que usen cuadernos de la marca "Hello Kitty" por considerarse propaganda alusiva a las FARC.

El Comando Sur de los Estados Unidos ya actuó para contrarrestar la nueva modalidad de los terroristas de las FARC y en el marco de las operaciones del Plan Patriota envió a un escuadrón de caninos a las selvas del país. Según declaraciones de un campesino de la zona, "Se sabe que estos perros cayeron en un campo minado y hay uno que tiene jodida una pata." La versión no ha sido confirmada por fuentes oficiales, pero algunos periodistas lograron varias fotografías del animal que, a fin de no alarmar a la población, fue prohibido publicarlas en los medios.

Roberto Carlos, el cantante brasilero ha sido requerido por la Fiscalía General, para que rinda versión libre y espontánea, de la relación clandestina entre este narcoterrorista felino con el gato que está triste y azul.

Fuente: Colmensa, marzo deL 2008.

Foto: Diego Arias

PABLITO Y SUS MORENAS

He aquí tres "cachos" muy en honda en Ecuador.




Buenas tardes quisiera un buen gallo que cubra a todas mis gallinas...

A lo que el gallero responde:

- ¿Cuántas gallinas tiene?

- 180 - dice el granjero.

Entonces el gallero saca una jaula con un gallo francés, enorme, fibroso, la
cresta parada, ojos azules y un tatuaje en pecho de los Rolling Stones y le
dice al granjero:

- Tome este, es "Philipe Le Cock", no falla.

El granjero se lo lleva y, a la mañana siguiente lo saca de la jaula y lo mete
en el gallinero.

El gallo sale corriendo, caza la primera gallina,le echa dos polvorines, agarra
otra, le echa el primero, y cuando está por el segundo... se queda
frito.

El granjero lo mira y dice:

- ¡Que mierda me vendieron, se zumba a dos y ya no puede más!Entonces toma al gallo de la cresta y se lo lleva de vuelta.

El gallero se disculpa y le saca otro llamado Japonés Imponente con la cresta
amarilla, ojos grises y zapatillas Nike.

- Este es "Niko Takamura", pruébelo y después me cuenta.

El granjero se va y repite la maniobra.

El animal sale desesperado... se zumba a la primera gallina, agarra a la segunda
y la empala, a la tercera le hace el 69 y cuando esta echándose a la cuarta
revienta y cae muerto en medio de la granja.

El dueño enojado toma al gallo de la pata, y se lo lleva a devolver.

- ¡¡ Este es el segundo que me vendes y revienta como saco de sal !!

Entonces el vendedor le saca un gallo ecuatoriano, de las tierras altas de Riobamba, todo flaco, sin plumas, ojeroso, mal anochado, chuchacoso.

- Mire señor, es lo único que me queda, se llama Pablito....

El granjero, enojado, se lo lleva pensando ¿Qué voy a hacer con este jodído gallo
flaco?... Llega, lo suelta en el gallinero. El gallo sale como diablo con pólvora en la cola y se zumba a las 180 gallinas, cada una con una posición distinta;luego pega una segunda vuelta y se las echa a todas otra vez, sale corriendo, se tira al perro pastor alemán...hasta que el granjero lo toma del cuello, le pega dos bofetones para enfriarlo y lo mete a la jaula.

- ¡¡¡ Que fenómeno este gallo !!!, piensa el granjero...

Las gallinas estupefactas con Pablito; que Pablito esto... que bien se entrega a la
pasión... que bien me pica... que si con tres al mismo tiempo... y a ti que te hizo... y a mi me hizo tal cosa... Un jolgorio total.

Al día siguiente lo suelta de nuevo y sale el Pablito botando espuma por el pico, le pega dos vueltas al gallinero dándole a todo lo que tenga plumas, sale corriendo y se
tira al perro, al gato, dos vacas... El granjero lo persigue lo toma de la cresta,le pega sus cuatro ostias para calmarlo y lo mete otra vez en la jaula.

-¡¡¡ Pinche gallo hijo de puta, si jodes a toda la granja te voy hacer caldo !!!..., amenaza el granjero.

Al día siguiente va a buscarlo pero descubre la jaula desarmada. Va al gallinero y encuentra a todas las gallinas con las patas para arriba, afuera ve a dos vacas echadas en el suelo con el trasero colorado hablando del Pablito, el perro con el culo floreado, a las cerditas flotando en el lodo suspirando por Pablito. El granjero dice:

.- ¡¡¡¡¡ Noooo, se me escapo el gallo y se va a zumbar al ganado del vecino y él
me va a matar !!!!!

Entonces agarra al caballo (que también ya se lo había zumbado) y sale en busca
de Pablito. Cabalga y cabalga sin descanso siguiendo la pista dejada por Pablito...
cabras abiertas de patas, chivos fundidos, una tortuga que en el empuje la sacó del caparazón, tres ardillas rengas, un borrego poniéndose crema antinflamatoria, un venado curado de hemorroides, una víbora vuelta del revés y usada de condón, hasta que de repente a varios kilómetros, ve a Pablito tirado en el suelo, inmóvil, al tiempo que dos buitres volaban a su alrededor en círculos...


UNA ESCENA DESGARRADORA

El granjero se da cuenta de la situación y grita:

- ¡¡¡¡¡Nooooooooo, Paaaablitooo!!!!!... ¡¡¡¡¡Se me murióóóóóó!!!!
¡¡¡¡¡Paaaablitooo!!!!!... ¡¡¡¡¡ Al fin encuentro un gallo de verdaaaaaddddd y se
me muere !!!!!...

En medio del lamento, Pablito abre apenas un ojo, mira al granjero y,
señalando a los buitres, le dice:

-¡¡ Sshhhhhh...ssshhh... cállate cabrón !!! ¡¡¡ que me espantas a las
morenitas !


*Moraleja: sonríe crestón, que no cuesta nada. Ahora dos bajativos:


CORREO

Una dama joven consulta al ginecólogo:

-Doctor, desde hace unos días me salen unos sellos postales de la vagina.¿Qué puede ser?

El doctor le ordena desvestirse a fin de examinarle. Después de un momento da su diagnóstico:

-Señorita, éstos no son timbres postales; son los sellos de ¡chiquita-banana!


EL HUEVO Y EL COLESTEROL

Mi amigo Carlos me dijo emocionado el otro día:
-Hermano, he conseguido una viuda cero
colesterol

Extrañado, yo le seguí el juego:

-Querrás decir cero kilómetros...

-Dije cero colesterol. No ves que desde hace años que no prueba huevo.

A SHOCKING LOOK INSIDE CHINESE FUR FARMS

by: SWISS ANIMAL PROTECTION

Every day we get so much information, and perhaps we have forgotten this message recived by email. But after watching it, the question is what are we doing here with the life?



Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org

skined alive

When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently, they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. When the fur is finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive, breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are still beating five to 10 minutes after they are
skinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.

Before they are skinned alive, animals are pulled from their cages and thrown to the ground; workers bludgeon them with metal rods or slam them on hard surfaces, causing broken bones and convulsions but not always immediate death. Animals watch helplessly as workers make their way down the row.


Background

Undercover investigators from Swiss Animal Protection/EAST International recently toured fur farms in China's Hebei Province, and it quickly became clear why outsiders are banned from visiting. There are no regulations governing fur farms in China—farmers can house and slaughter animals however they see fit—meaning miserable lives and excruciating deaths. The investigators found horrors beyond their worst imaginings and concluded, "Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards. In their lives and their unspeakable deaths, these animals have been denied even the simplest acts of kindness."


Living hell

On these farms, foxes, minks, rabbits, and other animals pace and shiver in outdoor wire cages, exposed to driving rain, freezing nights, and, at other times, scorching sun. Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread, and animals suffering from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves repeatedly against the cage bars.


Is there a Skeleton in your closet?

The globalization of the fur trade has made it impossible to know where fur products come from. Skins move through international auction houses and are purchased and distributed to manufacturers around the world, and finished goods are often exported. China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States. Even if a fur garment's label says it was made in a European country, the animals were likely raised and slaughtered elsewhere—possibly on an unregulated Chinese fur farm.


Because a fur's origin can't be traced, anyone who wears any fur at all shares the blame for the horrific conditions on Chinese fur farms. The only way to prevent such unimaginable cruelty is never to wear any fur.

BRITNEY SPEARS, MIKE TYSON, MOHAMED ALI

Por Rafael Marcelo Arteaga

Ella tenía hambre de amor
y le ofrecimos tranquilizantes.

Oración por Marilyn Monroe, de ERNESTO CARDENAL.

As in the Pink Floy´s song:The show must go on!

Un día recibí una invitación por email para participar en una encuesta sobre Britney Spears, de cuya voz soy adicto desde su primera canción. No es una cuestión de edad, es una actitud de vida lo que nos lleva a identificarnos con el ritmo del canto, la poesía, o los colores de un cuadro. La encuesta en mención dice: ¿Crees que Britney Spears logrará pasar al 2009? Si - no. ¿Crees que ella morirá bajo el efecto de las drogas? Si - no. ¿Crees que se suicidará? Tiene un record de 3.690.456 participantes en menos de un mes, y creo que irá para largo.

RETAIL THERAPY: Britney Spears and her mom Lynne make a united (and matching) front during a shopping trip at Miss Sixty Tuesday in West Hollywood.

Compra y venta, ¡he aquí el supremo placer de la realización personal! Los promotores artísticos y la ingeniería del marketing creen saber lo que el público quiere cada cierto tiempo: no un león, no una serpiente deslizándose entre las rocas del desierto, sino una caricatura apenas de estos animales. ¿Cuál es nuestra reacción ante una cobra en su habitad? Huir, porque su belleza nos causa miedo, porque hay algo en ella que nosotros hemos perdido definitivamente, y es esa capacidad de rebelarse.

Britney Spears said "I don't want anyone touching me. I'm tired of everybody touching me."

Los ídolos como Britney Spears son hermosos y crueles -a la vez-, y ahí está el veneno que nos fascina y asusta. Pocos son fuertes y siguen otros pasos que no sean las palabras del representante, las imposiciones de una cadena de empresarios que se agitan tras cortinas y mueven infinitas sumas de dinero con cada ocurrencia del artista. La gente no va al circo para aburrirse, asiste a la función para ver monos cabalgando en corceles, elefantes bailando sobre la pista, leones que saltan aros de fuego, focas con esferas en sus hocicos, las mismas que, luego de tantos azotes, más el castigo del hambre, del cautiverio, en un instinto de sobrevivencia, saltan, brincan; sin darse cuenta el público que esa imagen desagradable y perversa bajo la carpa es también su imagen en la vida real: somos los inventores de la guerra, de la bomba atómica, las computadoras, pero también de la soledad.

No todos los animales del circo se dejan domesticar. Muchos prefieren no comer, ser azotados, en vez de recibir una zanahoria a cambio de un movimiento más que complete el show de la noche; se dejan caer simplemente y mueren, no por los golpes, o las heridas causadas por el domador, sino porque –al perder el horizonte- ellos son más fuertes que los demás y saben que una vida en una jaula no tiene sentido.

Creating a name Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson fue grande mientras nos tuvo contentos destrozando las narices de sus rivales. No fue terrible para nosotros ver a un hombre sangrando junto a las cuerdas, o desplomarse en el ring luego de recibir un jab en el rostro. Disfrutábamos verlo retorcerse de dolor en la lona, hasta su ingreso a una sala de emergencias; al fin de cuentas, tuvimos cuanto pagamos. Es un mercado y allí no hay complejo de culpa, sino oferta y demanda. Entonces se levanta la mano del vencedor. Lo cruel es emoción. La sangre, la saña con los más débiles es el mejor premio a nuestros espíritus enfermos.

No en vano los periódicos de la crónica roja son los más vendidos en el planeta, no en vano la invasión a Irak fue transmitido en vivo para satisfacer nuestro morbo, hasta aburrirnos y cambiar, como si nada hubiera ocurrido en nuestros corazones, a Discovery Chanel, o a los musicales, donde la extravagancia de sus artistas, sus infidelidades, son más importantes que las bombas que cayendo sobre la ciudad.

Hemos sido educados para ser crueles, fríos y calculadores, impermeables, igual que un poncho de agua. Estamos acostumbrados a ver la miseria como si fuese un proceso normal en la vida, y no nos damos cuenta que este mundo es también de nuestros hijos. Todo es más importante, menos la paz interior y esa rebeldía que pocos, como Birtney Spears, Tyson o Mohamed Alí (a quien sólo su enfermedad logró hacer callar) son capaces de cultivar. Ojala pronto recuperen el camino y puedan seguir andando, no para divertirnos, sino para que sigan ridiculizando nuestra torpe manía de callar y obedecer.

Ps.

"I just found out about 10 days ago that I must live 300 or 400 yards from Britney Spears... So now I have to move."

– George Clooney, to Newsweek about the hassles of being in Spears's neighborhood

THE VOICE*

by Rafael M. Arteaga
of the book: LINES OF FIRE

– Who are you? -, you ask me,
what are you doing here?
I answer:


I go from the darkness to the dawn,
from the seed through the flower to the fruit,
everything begins in me and everything ends in me,
I do not depend on your hands for the bistouries,
nor on the precision of the machines.
The silence is my weapon. What are your weapons?


I was before your glass buildings and steel,
I can exist without you and I speak through your mouth,
however, you are not able to speak through mine,
I know the blinding shine of the desert
moreover, the old man who comes every morning in his barge
to take the dead people to the abyss.


How can you measure my words
with the senile grammar of your language?
moreover, do you believe that I need it?


The dream is a break; he who cuts off
this flower returns to the tree of life
to tell me what he made with the earth.



*The pictures are from Intag, a nice place two hours from Ibarra: here is the last paradise.I was there, without nothing to do, just feeling and enjoying the view.

WATER SUPPLIERS

In Jaipur, the “Pink city” is the Maharadschabuilding, called Chandra Mahal; where still reside the maharascha family in 5 sq km palace. But outside of this place, where poverty is more evident for the traveller, I discovered something that I paid attention: on the alleys toward the temples, there are certain towers beside the road, and up of that people with large jars full with water. By seeing that, no one con imagine what they are doing there. I believed, according to our mercantile vision that they are selling the water in order to calm the thirst; but I never thought that it is simply to give it to the pedestrians, so that they can wash their hands and rinse their mouths before entering into the temples.



This water is, without requesting anything in exchange, to those who are thirsty or to who are looking for becoming purified before going to their meet with the gods. What do they win with it? They sit over those small towers the whole day, and if the visits time to the temples extends until night, same: they wait there ready to help with any question as trains schedules, buses, they give some recommendations to come closer to the gods, as incenses, prayers; as a information point. And so as well as they appear, they disappear. At next day they will be on the tower of another passage.



I asked them (to the two men of this picture) if they receive some money in exchange for their jop from any particular or state institution, they replied that such an insinuation was an offence to their vocation, because they made it for love to people, as an obligatory step on the way to spiritual perfection; that certainly it surprised me. We need to know, understand and accept the way how persons of other cultures assume the world and feel it, far away of our consumption vision and of trade, or of our notes in the bank.




I would like that in the world there were hundreds, thousands men, who instead of being dedicated to the weapons dealer, to buy and to sell anything, thinking always about our pockets, we are ready to offer water to purify our mouths and our spirits.

With such ideas in my head, going back to the hotel, I met on the street the tamer of vipers and I told to myself: thanks for that, because it was not a west fantasy: such people stay alive in Jaipur streets; maybe more real than my self! They are a part of an east story, but not of that, which Discovery Channel shows us on TV. I saw them and they allowed me to shut a picture for my friends.

LONG LIFE THE KING

By Rafael Marcelo Arteaga




Thailand’s king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, has just left the hospital, where he was almost three weeks suffering by a terrible gastric imbalance. During these days, the population has not stopped to demonstrate their affection: the aviation companies have painted the king's portraits on their airplanes that cross the continents. The shops in the country are full with pictures that reveal the old man's life, from birth until his days in the hospital. The big buildings in the city have at their walls and glass the king's portraits, so that all can read long live the king from kilometres of distance.














Thai People with yellow T'shits: the king's favorite color.













People express this way their love, the gratitude to those who were their rulers and today are their spiritual guides: that luminosity which lights through the centuries, without extinguishing, and same as the illumination of the stars whose masses disappeared millions years ago, but we still receive that light which in silence of nights helps the sailors, so they don't loose the route and better they reinforce the enthusiasm for the trip.




























View of the Boyoke Tower, Pratunam, the biggest building from Thailand.

These pictures are also dedicated to those that governed Ecuador during the last thirty years and instead of bringing progress, a modern country, with a wide net of first level highways, with stable companies which offer a worthy work to the people, with an educated population, and not alone it, but also prepared to face up to the new millennium challenges; but they were looking just for their small interests, dedicated to build their kinglets crowns in a poor country, whose people are humiliated in their human essence, degraded until they believe that misery, lack of dreams is a divine punishment that we must load in our back.

















They should undertake the suicide by seeing the country that they inherited us. Work, security, investment are hardly words that can be real with a wise and firm, less burlesque behavior and jester of who today is in govern house. Such photos should motivate us also to believe and to build the country that 12 millions of Ecuadorian and three millions abroad are looking for during our daily work.

NOT LANGUAGE VALID

By Rafael Marcelo Arteaga


On the way to Guangzhou I met a Brazilian friend Flavio. We were lost in a bus station from a "small" Yiwo, a two million people city. He does not speak English well but that was not the problem, the real problem was that nobody here (outside of the five stars hotel reception or some chic or wholesale shops), speaks a foreign language! Inside China many dialects are spoken: in Beijing, Shanghai, close the borders of Tibet, for example. Everywhere is another language. The authorities make effort to have united the country with a same language: the mandarin. The education centres, the official matters, the army; but it is impossible. Here there are more than 155 local of then, each province or -in this case-: each state has an own language. The country is too big to have just one. Somebody must be born and live here to understand the language variation from the official Mandarin!

I've learned some useful Shanghais phrases but outside of this province I couldn’t understand or speak, because nobody understood those words. Perhaps my pronunciation was terrible. And that made me sad. Once I was sick in the hotel. Two days inside of my room and nobody at the reception understood by telephone that I needed: water and some food. As I was better ordered again with a universal phrase in any hotel: room service, please! Ten minutes after a nice lady was at my door: Hi, darling! -she told me, did you order room service?

A girl friend from Spain ordered in the restaurant a coca-cola light. How difficult was to explain that, but the waiter sent her to the lavatory! Of course in expensive hotels and restaurants for west business people is not problem, then they pay for a guide and translator, who are anytime with then and help step by step during their trip in China.

Foreign governments arrive anytime here. All want to do businesses, all want to sell or to buy something; China is a warehouse of the world. It purchases raw materials, invests, causes the rise of many key products, and shakes the market. China buys and sells all. The big companies have their seats here, the great and famous marks.

The Chinese president Hu Xiantao receives to anybody in his office. As soon as a third world president arrives in Beijing, a second line authorities pick up him at the airport and bring him to the main house, where if he has a lucky day and something good to offer to China, can have a twenty minutes conversations, with a hand shaking and pictures for the world press. And that is a successful step for him! The red carpet, the army review , more ceremonies and diplomats protocols are just for the most important world governments. The main news papers here don't take care or inform if a Nicaragua or Angola president is here. Most of the people ignores that or is interesting in this matter.

Important business, global strategic and political dialogs are just with rich or big countries: USA, Russian, Germany; oil price, the war in Iraq, etc.

This nation is too great as to depend on others. Two thousand years was locked up behind a wall. Centuries before west, they have already invented the press. The medicine was outpost. And today is more. And when they opened again their doors was for giving us new lessons of optimism by the work. It was for contributing with their knowledge with the world.

Flavio told me: they don't speak English and I don't speak Chinese either. That is good for me! It is the first country where I feel cool. It is as at the beginning of the world or as if I were lost in Babel. A friend from Pakistan said: why should they learn English? We need them, not they us. How he is right: China is the fabric of the world! Most of all that you have in your home was made here. Don't you believe it? Look around your house and confirm it.

GUANGZHOU'S SMALL STREETS

As I was a child I asked always to my mother where did she go every morning. "I am going away to work", replied she and although I did not understand it I was alone again until night. I spent my childhood in small streets, surrounded by old women and a lot a children. So as I arrive in Guangzhou those narrow streets inside of the big city remembered me those glad and sad days -sometimes. Travel is looking for something lost long time ago but perhaps even within us, that our skin, our blood have not forgotten and someday jumps with the first step into the bus.

Maybe the new country or town is the place where life is waiting for us. Modern times, for what? And the soul, the spirit born of fire, water and distances? Enjoy these pictures, go to those days, where the world was hard and perhaps even Ok: the world our genes don't ignore.

All big cities are the same in the rich side: ample and great streets with trees at the flanks, beautiful buildings. The north of Quito and from there towards Guapulo, the valleys zone, near the San Francisco University, where our president was teacher, are similar to the rich parts of other cities around the world. Rich people are similar everywhere. Just poverty is different. When I arrive in a new place I always want to discover inside of that, where real life of a country is on.