1.
La obra «Kort fra Krøyer» (1996) del artista danés Ole Kofoed Ahlberg.
2.
La versión en directo de «Árbol gris», de Pájaro Jack, grabado en la Casa de los Girones (Granada).
3.
El artículo de E. Alex Jung para Vulture sobre el escritor Anthony Veasna So.
Un extracto:
«Here’s something everyone can agree on. For the occasion of his first book, Afterparties, Anthony Veasna So would have loved it all: the interviews, book tour, readings, attention, praise, pans, mythmaking, the opportunity to opine on the treacly queer writers he hates (or at least shade them) and the insufficiency of Asian American identity. He might talk about how he identified as Cambodian American before Asian American and, for that matter, Californian before American, which would have been a way of making space for himself as well as others. Some writers might be tentative about the limelight, but not him. His parents survived the Khmer Rouge genocide, and he survived Stockton, California, so you can be damned sure he’d make every second count.
Everyone could agree, too, that he was ambitious. Anthony was 28 with a plan. He graduated from Stanford and then got his M.F.A. at Syracuse, where he was adored by his teachers: Dana Spiotta and Jonathan Dee and Mary Karr, who would all write glowing blurbs for the back of his book. During his third year, he got a $300,000 two-book deal with Ecco, and he made the bold move of hiring a personal publicist to promote the first. Most important, he had a (roughly) five-book plan: Following Afterparties, a short-story collection that draws from his Khmer American universe in Stockton, would come his debut novel, Straight Thru Cambotown. Then an essay collection called Dreadful Places and two more books, including a novel about the Cambodian singer Pan Ron, whom he had tattooed on his right arm from a sketch he drew himself, paired with a quote from Slaughterhouse-Five: “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”
But instead of that agreed-upon future, in the early hours of December 8, 2020, Anthony died of a drug overdose. His partner of seven years, Alex Torres, whom he had met as a student at Stanford, found him in the morning. It’s a bittersweet irony that Anthony is now enjoying a literary debut he could have only dreamed of. His death changed the narrative but not the goal — instead perhaps adding to the specter of other young, brilliant artists who passed too soon. After his death, his publicist, Michael Taeckens, contacted national media desks to let them know Anthony had died suddenly. The AP, the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times ran obituaries describing an author “on the brink of stardom” — his potentiality cut off at the point when it was limitless.»
4.
La pieza «Damnation of Faust» (1984) de la artista de videoarte Dara Birnbaum.
5.
El poema «Canto a mí mismo», de Natalee Cruz.
Dice asi:
«Sometimes when I listen to Vicente Fernandez
I imagine I’m back in California
waking to the sound of the leaf blower
cantando in the morning
It would infiltrate my dreams
become a part of my sueños
The grito of the machine
coming out of the mouth of my padrasto
wide open like a trumpet
telling me it’s time to start my day
Sometimes I listen to Pepe Aguilar
When I’m sitting at home
Rubbing my pansa
Drinking my cervesas
Thinking about lost loves
and destroying machismo
There have been times
when I listen to Ana Gabriel with my mother
on Sunday mornings
Elegancia
We admire her beauty and her range
How she waltzed onto the stage
in mariachi garb
and made the phallic sombrero
look like a vagina
Her Mexico lindo
Me and my lover listen to Joan Sebastian
when we are laying in bed together
and we kiss
in our native tongue
leaving sweet idioms on my breasts
mobilizing the different parts of you
to play all the parts of this orchestra
strumming my navel
humming into my neck
Juan Gabriel
May he rest peacefully
The sound of his voice
still hangs off my ears on the train at night
Like diamond earrings
they remind me of a past gift
That I will pass on for eternity
Juanga, take me back to those times
we ran after busses
My father moved so fast
with my hand in his
I would catch flight
Juanga, wake me the way you used to
when you would tell me stories
and I would listen
We spoke the other day
Mis padres dicen que they were happy that
i was worried
Y mi mamá también
Continuó
That sometimes they feel like I forget
I could never forget–
so many reminders
each like a single brick in a giant wall
mortared with thick golden blood
Each crack
adorned with ivy
Twisting through imperfection
creating culture
It will bloom
Can you feel it? I ask.
You can hear it, each responds softly.»
