Los papeles de Boris

The title of this post brings together two books that have shaken the German modern history. The first one is an essay written by an anonymous Austrian painter, whose creative frustrations transformed into political leadership that ended with millions of deaths and such a scale of devastation that the World has never witnessed before. The second is an investigative work done by a German journalist who spent months disguised as a Turkish illegal immigrant at the beginning of the 80´s. In the "The Lowest of the Low", as it was translated originally, the author Günther Wallraff, was experiencing and exposing first-hand the difficulty of life in Germany's immigrant netherworlds. “Three million copies of the book were sold over the ensuing three years, prompting the nation to put a more human face on its Turkish community, and also confront the unacceptable conditions this workforce had been subjected to since its arrival in the 1950s,”, as DW well resumed. Few ...

Cadáver exquisito es un juego de palabras por medio del cual se crean maneras de sacar de una imagen muchas más.  Ultimamente se usa en la narrativa y la educación para fomentar la creatividad en grupo. Me encanta participar en este tipo de juegos. Creo que todos deberían hacerlo, porque ayuda a construir historias y realidades paralelas. Este es de un concurso de La Vanguardia donde Quim Monzó daba la entradilla y los concursantes le seguían la nota. Más abajo es la mía: A las 4 de la madrugada hace ya horas que da vueltas en la cama, incapaz de dormirse. Una tras otra, cuenta ovejas blancas que saltan una valla, aunque no ha visto nunca que ninguna oveja salte vallas. Generalmente esta rutina consigue que el sueño llegue pero hoy, de golpe, ve que una de las ovejas que salta la valla es negra y eso lo desconcentra. Prueba a contar ovejas que sean todas negras. Muchas ovejas negras que saltan una valla. Pero, cuando casi está a punto de dormirse, aparece una oveja blanca en ...

The recent trend in media to unerline the nationality or the country of origin when revealing the terrorist identity, is just a long line of tradition that started with the 1 st Industrial Revolution. Ever since we have become used to stereotype people’s country of origin by linking it to some certain common trades. Turkish truck drivers, Polish plumbers, Cuban doctors, Argentinian psychologists, Mexican gardeners… it’s just a small part of a wide range of stereotypes commonly found in most of the parts of the Western culture. The latest version of it is the media using the nationality/contry of origin of the terrorist in the same context as the indictment. In a way, it is a normal response to the basic need of our brains to seek for coherence within the reality that tries to interpret. That is why we love the news headlines. But, the danger comes when the ethics are no longer involved in the process. One of the most absurd examples of it I lived not long after comin...

Soon about to turn 40 and according to the general understanding I should be considered a grown up person. But I don’t believe there is such thing. Especially not with men. It somehow doesn’t come together as the “Only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys”. And that’s quite a relief that helps  to stem out the pressure from the codes of "normal" (perhaps thats why they call it the norms) that the society intents to stick up upon us.  I believe that there are only two kinds of people:  a) those who gave up and accepted to be considered Grown Up.  b) those who understand that living is a process and to be Grown Up would mean to have failed. Instead, they keep on Growing Up. I fell much better surrounded by the second group. If you wanna know if you are a GrownUp or still Growing Up, check out The Marble Machine (music instrument using 2000 marbles).