The First Slam Dunk

It's a computer animated anime-style rendition of the last chapters of the Slam Dunk manga. It doesn't start from where the anime ended, but not very far from it. The movie centers around the final game of the team against Sannoh and the life of Ryota Miyagi, one of the Shohoku players. It has great action, is made by the original mangaka as a film director, it has the usual excess of emotional flashbacks in the middle of the game that characterizes him and it's great. It took me a while to get used to the animation style, maybe because I am very fond of the anime stylization of the nineties. Maybe I'm a nostalgic (I am) and also probably it fucking looked neat as fuck. The last ten minutes are a visual joy to watch. Very good. Story driven, emotional introspective, sports anime. It lacks a bit of the goofiness of the original, probably because Sakuragi is not the main main character of the show. Overall, it's not perfect but at least it's not a soulless reboot of a cult piece of media what has all the superficial traits that make it recognizable but without utterly mutilating the intangible that made it irreplaceable. I know that's a low bar to set, but the world has been surprising me lately in that regard. I watched it in Español Latino because I couldn't find it in any other language and still liked it, and if that doesn't say enough, I don't know what will.

Man, this shit review was so fucking hard for me to write.

A couple of days before, I was looking for reviews of the movie on youtube to see if it was actually worth watching at all. I almost hoped it wasn't, so I don't have to do it and can delve in my usual rancor about new things. Also, somebody remembered me I was told to watch it in theaters with a friend like a year ago and totally forgot about that. To my dismay, the movie was supposedly actually good, but the stupid usual youtuber reviewers were not saying anything relevant about the movie and only talking about the animation and about how they went to see the movie and how they didn't even knew about the series before that.

Fuck.

Because now I want to write about this, but I don't want to be one of them talking about nonsense of their own life that doesn't interest me and the slightest but at the same time this series, this manga is so intertwined with my personal life that I can't mention anything about it without an emotional flashback about myself being flashed into the screen at the same time. I have so many superficial stories and transcendental details (or what I call them, memories, this movie is in some many ways about memories). What do you mean you haven't even seen the series you are reviewing?! Why are you reviewing this in your shitty youtube channel then?! To create random content about things you don't even care about? For five thousand shitty subscribers channel? Are you going to make it big in the Internet, son? Fuck you. You know nothing about anything. I started playing basketball because of this series. That's about six years of my life, and more in my head. I have a Shohoku shirt in my closet, that is not even the one of the main character and only wear in special occasions. I have shown the complete series to three of my girlfriends, almost as a rite of passage. I have listened dozens of times and get (how do you call in english "pell de gallina") goosebumps doing so the openings and endings of the series while not watching the series. The imagine on top of this article has been my screen saver for years. And I am not even a weeb. I don't even watch anime anymore. Did when I was a kid, and then stopped, like normal people do. It's not even about the anime being specially good, even though it is, nor about the obvious overblown hype and dramatization of every possible little thing the Japanese like to do, but more about the capacity of seeing what I see, feeling what I feel, when actually playing basket and doing things. How all of life holds in a single moment, and how at the same time they are mundane and even vulgar scenarios and invented fights. I see a game, I see a story. I could spend the rest of my life talking about those forty moments and what are they for every single person on the field, and then about how they are forgotten most of the time the day after. I am not going to start with the whole "this has helped me through hard times" as if this was a comment section on reddit. Shonen is not an emo song, it's part of a monomyth; almost a church of the narrative of the hero religion. Shonen didn't help me in certain moments of my life, shonen configured a deep basic unconscious being in itself in my psique that manifested in virtually all moments of my life; good or bad or irrelevant. I don't know what else to say. I was a follower. In a way still are. I am not going to delve into heroic existentialism and masculinity today, but you get the idea.

With time, one surrenders many things. I made a comeback, last year, of playing basketball. Maybe I had left something on the field. I returned rusty, unmotivated, ten years later. And the found myself more free than what I remember being. When I entered the field, the moment my feet crossed the line, it was like if I was entering inside a very holy cathedral. You hear yourself, the characteristic sounds of the trade. I remembered I used to want wings.

I have great memories from that time. But just memories. Now I don't play anymore (again), but the feeling is still there somehow. There's not youthful idealism, but there's still some fight.

For some time, I have been fantasizing about a manga or anime or something I will never write. Mainly because I don't want to, even more mainly because I can't draw. It was about a group of players in a highschool basketball team (I have always been very original) that do all the usual stuff; they have stories and background and inner monologue and motivation and stakes. But they always lose. And despite all odds, despite all obstacles, they struggle to improve and keep going and sacrifice everything. Only to lose again. I would find newer and more exciting ways to build up the cathartic narrative of eucatastrophe in the audience just to smash it again and again. Basting open the idea that you should never give up and that effort and even defeat always has a silver lining or any hope any viewer dares to have. They just can't, they are just not good, not talented, not tall, not special. And no amount of narrative can solve that. I will go until the point the audience starts to root for them to finally give up the whole basketball thing, to stop destroying the lives of everyone around them and themselves, watch how they grow bitter towards each other and themselves, more resentful, more petty, less well adjusted persons. Until they start to even feel a guilty sense of schadenfreude towards their suffering, and thinking they deserve the disaster they are bringing upon themselves.

And then, after a disappointing and critically booed series finale that grew too abstract and philosophical and Evangelionesque, I will make a final movie or OVA or final chapter. Bonus points if I disappear from the public sphere during some years and presumed dead, until I come back to make the great reveal of a comeback. It will start by showing the lives they have when they are older. Somewhat mundane, somewhat good, somewhat sad. Some of them still live in the past, eternal child as a result of the existential trauma I have inflicted them as if I was AM from "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream". Others have more or less forget about it like a bad nightmare. The wife of one of the now grown boys, will ask him to empty the closet to make space for their second baby or something like that. There, he will find photos, and start to reminisce this almost repressed memory. Then, in a forgotten box in the bottom of it all, the old basketball shoes. It will cut to him wearing them, stepping in a street court, not knowing why he's doing this. There, he will find one of the other players. They are not even "the" main character of the show, just glorified side characters where some of the heart of the shows gets explored and appear in endings. The other man goes there often, all wearing basketball attire that looks terrible on his middle aged fat body. They talk, play a little, and somehow make it a routine. The wife is furious because he hasn't get rid of the old shoes, they remind her of "bad times". In a montage, it is shown or implied that they start to call other old players, and they talk between to them with a photography of the whole team in the hand. He starts crossing names from some sort of list. The day arrives, and five of them show up in the street court. They have all changed. Everyone has his life, and motives. Unsure of what to do, unsure if to even dare to shoot, they sit on the edge of the court, and a moment of silence. A group of other, similar, middle aged man appear. Only they are laughing and having a good time. They are also former student players. Some of them recognize each other. "Want to play?" So they begin playing. More people starts to appear. Other relevant characters. The wife, his little girl children, that cheers them up from the other side of the fence. "Daddy! Daddy!" And the game grows in momentum, them absolutely focused, concentrated, ready to vindicate a whole life in a single moment through sheer fucking will.

And then they lose. Badly. They get absolutely smashed. I mean, it wasn't even close. The other men, that have always won against them, are good sports about it, and even try to go a little easy on them and let them score some easy points, which only adds to the pathétique. The hero narrative is further destroyed by the evil villains being neither evil nor villains. Even the little girl notices and cringes, losing a bit of respect for this own father, shattering too early the illusion of his figure as an infallible role model. They try to talk to them afterwards. Like, don't take it so seriously, it's only a game. We are grown now, we are here to enjoy and have fun. But that doesn't work. Some are crying. Some catatonic. Some just leave. It's not a game to them, can never be. It will always be failure. After more than a decade, nothing in won, nothing is learned only wounds were reopened that maybe would had actually healed if they didn't, but now that they have now it's definitely too late.

And then it ends. Nothing. No uplifting anything, nothing. Not even disaster or tragedy. Just nothing.

Do you like it? It even has a name. I call the anime "The Art of Surrender."

I used to own a copy of the last manga book of Slam Dunk. It was like a treasure to me. A talisman. I read it in very deliberate moments. It almost doesn't have any text and it's a beautiful piece of art. Takehiro Inoue is probably my favorite illustrator (sorry Miura). It got stolen or lost with the rest of my books when our flat in Barcelona got ocuppated by Pakistanis during the summer. I had forgotten about it until I saw the movie. "The First Slam Dunk". What a great name. Not the last (because it was the last) but the first, as the series itself being the preamble of a whole generation of players. I never get to be poetic like that. In some way, this whole thing is something I had at some point surrendered, in order to survive. But now, the same way I played some basketball again, maybe I want to have that last manga again in my hands. Who knows. Maybe I left something there too.

Media

 

 "Equally shallow counter-narratives reinforce preexisting bias."

What the fuck does that mean. Let me explain, or at least, let me try. 

 

A is good. B is bad.

B is good. A is bad.

Conventional wisdom would tell us that someone is lying. It could be. That some of those perspectives have an agenda. Maybe a bias they might be or now aware of. That those confronting positions about the world are the result of a misunderstanding, of polarization. Reasonable points could be made into the suggestion that the truth is somehow in some middle ground. Some will say that we can inform ourselves about the actual situation if only we hear both sides and made an educated assessment of more objective facts, and if we adjust for potential misinformation or skewed perspective and bias.

These are fools.

Why? The simple statements of A-versus-B is an endless ocean of assumptions. Assumptions we can't even understand fully and see the depths of. It's not even about A or B being good or bad. Beneath those surface-level narratives lie the very foundation of cognitive processes and language that conform our perception of reality. It's the same with any form of communication. Let me list a few of the assumptions only so you can see what I am saying.

The first assumption inherent in these dueling narratives is the oversimplification of complex issues. When A labels B as 'bad' and B reciprocates, they effectively reduce multifaceted issues to black and white terms. This simplification obscures the nuances, context, and underlying causes of a problem. The media often prefers sensationalism and simplification over depth and context, as it tends to garner more attention and elicit stronger emotional responses. We are familiar with most of the consequences of this one-dimensional problem: polarization, populism, stratification, identity politics, straw-men rhetoric (where one argues not against the opponent view but against a designed representation of it). Another is the narrowing of the discourse. Where A and B are the possible options, the existence of A and B limits the conception of how far in one direction or the other a real open discourse would go, because they are labeled as extremists by both sides. Both counter-narratives (no matter how antagonistic in principle) enforce with one another a common ground for reality. A bit like the artificial creation of the socialist party in Spain just prior to democratization as a way to narrow the political space of the left, so communists wouldn't occupy their rightful seat in the side of the political spectrum opposed to the remnants of fascism.

The A-versus-B assumption often overlooks the human tendency to perceive 'the other' as a monolithic entity. People are diverse and complex, and painting any group with a single brushstroke oversimplifies the reality. In the realm of media, this leads to harmful stereotypes and reinforces biases against certain communities, races, or ideologies. It is essential to recognize that within any group, there is a spectrum of perspectives and experiences that are not adequately represented in a binary narrative. From the moment they are uttered, both statements solidify the "form" of A and B as valid entities that can engage in a conflict or a moral relation of good and bad. The simple fact that they are mentionable makes them exist as something that is. The most clear example is perhaps in the case of nations. Where A and B are nations, is understood in principle that the notion of them as nations, unifying almost absolute agents of power within a territory exist and can be treated as such; no matter the real functioning, insanely complex ecosystem of decision making agents that is comprised of and if they even see themselves as that, and in what way, and the differences in cultural background that goes with that identification. The ramifications and consequences of such action are huge. Not only about A and B themselves, but how that legitimizes the understood common ground between media and listener of that "form" of agent as valid, labeling as the type of being that constitutes the political landscape. Has anyone complained about the disappearance of Russia Today in the West, the stewards of free press? No, because their mere existence would expand the spectrum of ideas in the one-dimensional landscape. I am not saying that they speak the truth or not, the question is beyond that. The question is about how through not censorship but how political-economical decisions have made the media companies take care of the problem themselves eliminating it from the list of available channels. How easily we have accepted that our propaganda doesn't admit competition in the white sanitized term of "misinformation" and how natural is at that task the force of the market.

Also obvious is the false dichotomy of good and bad. Someone should write a book about that assumption, I'm sure it doesn't have a deep moral and religious idea behind it. There's also the presumption, anxiety of complexity that translated into a need to position yourself when two perspectives are conflicted, no matter how far or irrelevant to your life.

We are also somewhat fluent on some forms of obvious intentional and unintentional propaganda, and we accept them to some degree. Selection and omission of some information. The customs and norms of information sharing shape the content's structure, tone, and narrative, further influencing how the audience perceives the information. That bias is inherent and often unavoidable. Every individual and media outlet carries a set of biases shaped by their experiences, beliefs, and affiliations.

But all of this, all of this, is nothing.

To continue we have to talk first about extra dimensions.

I hope I don't have to say it, but there is no neutral reference point in the universe. The positions in a two dimensional space (or any dimensional space) are defined solely by what you agree to be the zero point. Even when you define a zero point as the geometric median, then it's only defined by the points themselves, and different populations of them can have widely different medians, each one convinced on their own. Ask a Mongolian tribe from the eight century and see what their political compass is. And doing such thing also carries the fact that the power of a particular idiosyncrasy is almost in practice in the modern world just the number of population with access and clout in that time media to make visible and add weight to their point; and not whether if the ideas that constitute that particular zeitgeist is "functional" or "coherent" or god-forbid me for using this term "true". Some kind of signals can still be seen in ideology, like in white or black questions about clear economic policies, but those get increasingly masked between layers and layers of politics that not only make them into just vague tendencies, but also arise the point of who is actually in charge (if anyone) of money, the state or a transnational bank. So it becomes just a matter of identification. Would a political party or individual that identifies itself as right-wing, making all the possible to be identified that way, but that at it's core holds left-wing values but never implement them in any noticeable way, would be one or the other? Yes, both, neither. There's no ideology in the sense of deep foundational non-negotiable ideas. Only market gaps in the hyperspace of identity politics that need to be filled to move the reference point or way or another.

Up until now, we have only talked about the hyperspace of ideas and points of view and narratives and ideologies as if they were one-dimensional. Every single mention and categorization of ideas reinforce the idea of a linear spectrum. In reality, complex issues exist in a multidimensional space. An apt illustration of this is the oversimplification of political ideologies into the left-right spectrum. This flattens the multifaceted nature of ideologies, projecting them onto a one-dimensional line. Just as a two-dimensional plane can represent a point as (2, 1) or (-2, 7), a two-dimensional space can offer a more accurate representation of the nuances in ideology. An idea located at (-2, 1) aligns more closely with the first point, but due to the reduction into a one-dimensional axis, it is often represented as merely (-2), thereby grouping it with the second point. This limitation is a pervasive issue in various fields where multidimensional concepts are oversimplified into linear representations, diminishing our understanding of the world's intricacies. And this is not solved by adding a vertical axis. And this is not solved by developing more sophisticated ways to "project" or categorize things in our comfortable one-dimensional line. It's unsolvable. Simplification is loss of information. It's the prize we pay to be able to say things at all. We are reductionists at heart.

Media itself can be the message. The way information is presented, prioritized, or omitted can carry a narrative of its own. When media outlets prioritize sensationalism, conflict, or polarizing stories, they shape public perception, often at the expense of comprehensive and in-depth reporting. They create language, symbolism, they induce, seduce. Thus, the media is not just a neutral conveyor of information but an active influencer of public opinion and societal values, mainly by perpetuating it's own through a sensation of normalcy. It has to satisfy an audience, it has to satisfy publishers, it has to satisfy it's writer. It has a whole agenda before any agenda it's directly submitted to it. The form of content that satisfies the media it's in, morphs accordingly. Censorship is no longer necessary in media (also because nothing is subversive) the same way violence is no longer necessary in the presence of internalized deterrence: the pressure of economic forces and political correctness understood as an apolitical force of nature.

It's curated, fine-tuned, devoid of reality the same moment a camera started to film. An spectacle.

This family (talking about the first TV reality show) was already hyperreal by the very nature of its selection: a typical ideal American family, California home, three garages, five children, assured social and professional status, decorative housewife, upper-middle-class standing. In a way it is this statistical perfection that dooms it to death. Ideal heroine of the American way of life, it is, as in ancient sacrifices, chosen in order to be glorified and to die beneath the flames of the medium, a modern fatum. Because heavenly fire no longer falls on corrupted cities, it is the camera lens that, like a laser, comes to pierce lived reality in order to put it to death. "The Louds: simply a family who agreed to deliver themselves into the hands of television, and to die by it," the director will say. Thus it is a question of a sacrificial process, of a sacrificial spectacle offered to twenty million Americans. The liturgical drama of a mass society.

One must think instead of the media as if they were, in outer orbit, a kind of genetic code that directs the mutation of the real into the hyperreal, just as the other micromolecular code controls the passage from a representative sphere of meaning to the genetic one of the programmed signal.

Baudrillard 

Bias is not merely "often unavoidable." Bias can't be "solved" because bias implies that "nonbias" is possible and that there's an objective viewpoint void of presuppositions, almost transcendental. But that doesn't exist, language is defined though language use, and it's meaning are relations between different functional representations of reality. Cognition is not a logical process with errors, logical though is an emergent bubble from a deeper level of relationism and though-patterns (do you hear me, stupid AI journalists?). The heart of the matter is that information cannot exist free of bias because the very structure of information inherently carries subjective meaning. Striving for complete objectivity, even if it were possible, might not be desirable as it can perpetuate the illusion of impartiality. The use of words, sentence structures, and even images inherently contains bias. Sentence contain itself the idea of ordinance, of separation of subject and object, of action and being. By stating "A and B are in conflict" you are not only saying that, but also not saying everything else you could communicate in the world. Inherently "this is important". This subject is worth talking. This is a relevant piece of information towards understanding the world, which I promise is totally a thing.

Consider, for instance, describing World War II as a "conflict" between Germans and Jews. Technically, it's not false, but the statement hides a multitude of critical nuances and biases. The choice of words, the narrative's focus, and the elements omitted are all steeped in bias, influencing our understanding of the historical event. From the simple obvious sterilization of a fucking massacre to the delicate concept of what constitutes a cultural entity. By simply saying conflict (or any other word) we limit the dimensionality of the possible interactions between the agents; the possibility of "conflict" is now how we interpret similar ones.

Counter-media, or revolutionary media, can hardly ever (if ever) be truly subversive. As simply saying "no, it's not B who is bad, it's A" can't escape from the invisible constrictions of frame imposed by "A is good, B is bad", it just reinforces them. And the same happens even if your propose C (although it's a start, I guess). We become pathologically contrarian. Each ideological position is defined more by their relative position to others than by it's almost irrelevant content, and can't exist without something to negate, subvert or antagonize. Even this article is an sterile counter-narrative itself; with one side interpreting the world in terms of good and bad but reinforcing the preexisting idea that problems arise from intentional systems of oppression and power, and the other side saying that's an absurd simplification and therefore, bad.

Perhaps the deepest manipulation information engages on is precisely by the suggestion (through the pursue by it by its own language) that itself can be impartial —or that trying to pursue it as an ideal is desirable—, that truth can be accessed through it and exists in a definite form; that impurities are only caused by the middle man. But is precisely when a certain coherent representation of the world can disguise himself as neutral or logically arising from self-evident principles when it's more dangerous. And that happens without a guiding hand, just as the result of the will to communicate. First, propaganda was an idea someone was trying to convince or told you. Second, propaganda was in the optimal resolution of situation that enfolded and revealed itself as the solution. Third, propaganda was in the context itself as given from granted. Fourth, propaganda is the medium itself, the functioning mechanisms in which the medium thrives, that self-give them through fine-tuning into the underlying idea. In advertising, the message is not only (ever) just "buy my product", but also "commodities are how one experiences identity, solves problems and reaches happiness". Who knows what else are saying, the infinite number of cultural assumptions that go into an ad for new electronics. Not even they know the emergent effects of a world where content and ads are not distinguishable from each other; functional information is an ad about a whole representation of the world. Itself, the word "media" that just means "middle", reinforces the structure of communication of information-medium-receiver. But we know that to be a simplification. Information in not pure, it's indistinguishable from noise if not passed through the appropriate decoder; the DNA structure lacks meaning if not in the specific context and the cellular automaton, radio transmissions mean nothing without the decoder in the receiver. And that does not mean that "you just need a proper decoder", it means that information itself is in the whole system and cannot be separated from intentionality or independent interpretation. It's the same principle that in the Chinese room, with the same solution: the whole system understands Chinese and it's indivisible. We, as humans, come with a truckload of preexisting notion. If not, communication would be impossible. Words just activate those. In the simple sentence "A and B are in conflict." that exact word, just "conflict", is an abyss of connotations and presuppositions we can't think of consciously if not with great effort (and even then, we are just touching the surface). A dictionary won't help. The dictionary itself it's a lie that tries to hide the fact that there's nothing behind it. The fact itself of "conflict" being a word that tries to denaturalize, to abstract at the maximum until the point of almost no essence the situation, is an incredibly deep unaware manipulation towards the denaturalization of the conflict itself. A deep political position and propaganda of the particular worldview in which exists that tries to pose itself as unbiased. The consistent representation of an average that doesn't exist, or of the different postures in their simulacrum form. All together orchestrates not a representation, information, or characterization of reality; but configurates reality itself, through the replication of the initial perception. When media says something, it's mainly about media itself. It just don't have the guts to turn the camera a hundred eighty degrees.

Screen to screen, word to word, is constructed the monomyth of the persona ─that is, how a person is supposed to be, to feel, to think, to behave. We have only been ourselves, and any other testimony about being is built about what we tell each other, the average of others, the nonexistent nucleus of being. So we coalesce towards it. Naturally.

The narrative aspect of media shapes our perception of reality, often by simplifying complex issues into digestible stories. The primary message conveyed is not always as straightforward as "A is good" or "B is bad," but it extends to the idea that "the world makes sense and can be understood through chains of causes and consequences." Media functions as a storytelling medium, and it caters to human psychology's inclination for narratives that offer a sense of coherence and meaning. The narrative structure allows us to make sense of the world, contextualize events, and discern patterns. And to work, narrative needs of all the paraphernalia that makes it work (heroes, villains, chapters, beginnings, ends, archetypes) that gets recreated from fiction through media towards reality; the other way around you would normally expect. Baudrillard again: the media make themselves into the vehicle of the moral condemnation of terrorism and of the exploitation of fear for political ends, but simultaneously, in the most complete ambiguity, they propagate the brutal charm of the terrorist act. No wonder history feels like TV; it is TV. Reality feels like TV. Everything feels like TV. This storytelling approach helps engage audiences and make information more accessible, and "what works" in there is the imperative —and the observer through selective consume appetite selects, and the message is receiver-created. So form becomes also the message. Media is the message. Everything is the message. The message being "the world is what the world needs to be for media to thrive". And that world is our world. It doesn't need an editor. It doesn't need corruption. It doesn't need a minister of propaganda. It's on auto-play.

It's not even about "they all lie" or "this is all fake, an orchestrated pantomime" like conspirationists like to suggest. That would actually be quite reassuringly simple. Deep down, they are trying to preserve the idea of the real by creating an enemy to it. The problem is then not the absence of objective reality, just a matter of saying it's there, just behind the curtain. They are wrong. Naive. It's much more complex (as it often is) than that.

If you haven't noticed, the world is rarely as straightforward as a traditional story arc with clear causes and consequences. Nobody can really predict anything with any degree of certainty anymore. Maybe if they are very isolated stuff, but even then, if they involve people, the information itself becomes part of the the system and makes it chaotic. You can take all the experts you want into your talk-show to try explain things retroactively to give the illusion that it makes sense. But they know nothing. Real-life issues are multifaceted, and their solutions are often elusive. More often than not, not even the dichotomy of problems-solutions makes any sense. No matter how much information is presented, examined, or cross-referenced. No matter how many different perspectives you see. A light-bulb goes bad in Kurdistan and the dollar immediately crashes two points in the stock market. You can't even detect the underlying preconceptions you carry in your representation of the world, because you are a fish swimming in that water and haven't seen or can't think on terms of anything else. You don't know what a country is. You don't know what exactly is money. You don't know what the fuck is going on. But media tells you story. A wonderful story about how the world kind of makes sense and you kind of get it. That the square is a coherent and complete frame to observe the globe. And we buy it. Because we can't even fathom an alternative.

A is good. B is bad.

B is good. A is bad.

Top Ten Live Performances Of All Time

It would be easy for me to just pick my favorite songs of all time and posting live versions of those. But I have risen to the occasion, put aside my personal bias, and developed a method using science and artificial intelligence to produce an objective list. 

The criteria are as follows:

Obviously they have to be a live recording. They have to be significant in some way; from the sound itself, to the video, the context of the concert, anything. A good indicator is that, in the occasion I want to listen to the song, I gravitate towards the particular live version, or it's at least a hard and meaningful decision to make. Also they have to be on youtube. Also I have to know about them. Also I have to like the music—I guess this explains why it's mostly classical rock, that or the style is prone to legendary performances, which is possible. Also I don't know much jazz, don't like pop divas and everything electronic has the problem of usually not qualifying as "live performance" even when live. Also there's really not a criteria, I lied before. But in my defense, I will say that I do whatever I want. They are in the particular order of how fast I thought of them when I got the idea of doing this, except the ones that I though about latter but put in the middle for some reason. This isn't even a top ten. It started as a top ten but I think there are about fifty songs here now. Also I didn't make a proper playlist because I'm stupid and sleepy. It's just embedded videos on this post.

Please stop reading just hit play and leave me alone.

[2018] Charon

a man wakes up, still dark outside.
a bed that more than fall asleep,
saw him crash again last night.

don't dare close again your sight,
don't even blink, don't even try.
just get up, get up, get up. get up now!

but i think i will myself be alright
if i sit for a while in the corner
just let me think about my life

as a threshold for insanity
everything about this moment
is sacred.

and the man then grabs the white,
the pure white sheet of holy bed
and starts walking outside
naked body inside a cloud
the defined shape of
a man who never skipped a day in life.
a working class kind of damned hero
lacking everything but might

ever misunderstood
ever misdirected
ever undervalued
never unfold, never told
applause stops,
function goes,
and in his hand he holds no prices
no one is to pray, anymore
as he slowly walks inside
a large hall full of nothing but thin air
and he open doors in order and silence
like if he doesn't know whats inside them
like if they ever change
like if he doesn't do it every single day since he was born

door one shows a pile of fortune
more gold than a lifetime would take to make
or spend, for never a coin dared he ever waste

two is a legacy gallery
photos and pictures, a hall of fame
appearing young age
smiling and shaking the hands others;
the captain the farmer the soldier
the sage, the poet and his maid

three is the shore of a river
and at three he just stops and stares,
at the other side,
curse and litter.

this is not what it was supposed to
this is not what it used to be
this is a work for a single army
not a fate for a whole of me

what would happen if you stop, boatman?

they would eventually stop to die.

then why don't you go ahead and do it?

because then they would also stop to arrive.

[Fotografia] La Fábrica

Escalar és molt fàcil d'explicar. Veus aquella petita roca que sobresurt de la paret, quan els teus braços estan tant cansats que no pots ni aguantar el teu propi pes, on només hi ha lloc per la punta del dits d'una ma? Doncs és la totalitat de la teva vida i símbol de tot el que has volgut aconseguir mai. Agafa-la.

A la recerca del temps perdut

Sé que sóc un intens. Potser no en el sentit de la paraula en el que un normalment entendria que algú es intens rollo bombàstic, però un intens al capdavall. Que anys i anys després ens trobem i en lloc de disfrutar del moment continuo amb la conversa on la vam deixar. Que tu vols contemplar les vistes i jo parlar sobre el bé i el mal. Que tot o be tot te una immensa rellevància o be que tot es totalment irrellevant. 

Quan escric, o fins o tot quan parlo, sempre sembla que estigui corrents, que ho faig amb una permeable gravetat, perseguint alguna conclusió, intentant convencer de alguna idea, reclutant per alguna causa o alçant el puny i cridant en rebel·lió contra algun enemic invisible que només jo puc veure i ningú sap exactament què m'ha fet. De vegades, ni tan-sols jo. Ho reconec. Potser és perquè quan ho faig es precisament perquè hi ha alguna cosa que considero que ha de ser dita. Però s'ha convertit d'alguna manera en una representació constant de les coses i un model que utilitzo en els meus pensaments. Els assajos tenen més força quan són contra alguna cosa. Com tenir diàlegs interns amb un ninot de palla que defalleix davant els teus arguments, o com explicar alguna cosa a un aneguet de goma amb la màxima possible simplicitat (perquè ho entengui, que es un aneguet de goma pobret) perquè es una bona forma de deconstruir llargues cadenes de pensament que s'han enredat i no recordes d'on venien. En meu enemic imaginari es una abstracte divinitat, amagada darrera d'una tempesta. Un truc de màgia que ha deixat una impremta permanent en el meu caràcter.

Fa uns mesos que torno a llegir llibres. No recordo haver decidit deixar de fer-ho, però ho vaig deixar. En tot cas, si no vaig decidir deixar-ho, vaig decidir tornar-hi. He llegit algunes coses que no acostumava a llegir. Per exemple, aquesta primavera vaig devorar una novel·la negre d'aquelles de l'Agatha Christie. En podria parlar bastant. No de la novel·la que sincerament no tenia gaire d'especial ni que la diferencies d'un episodi del Detectiu Conan, sinó de com ho vaig viure des de dins. L'estructura previsible i formulaica del gènere sempre han estat coses que m'han tirat endarrere, però vaig entendre com apart dels seus principals defectes precisament son unes de les seves grans virtuts. La promesa d'una resolució. Hi ha un contracte social invisible entre escriptor i lector que entra en efecte cada cop que teclegem alguna cosa (i del que en moltes ocasions volem escapar, tant l'un com l'altre) i es el de que, si inverteixes el temps i l'atenció necessària en llegir això i et deixes portar per on et vull portar, al final no te'n penediràs. El mateix contracte existeix en els jocs, amb la condició adicional de haver de seguir les normes. Novel·les romàntiques, de detectius... Hi ha una seguretat en la recompensa. Cadenes de incerteses i capítols de patiment que porten a una resolució final. Res desperta una reacció més visceral en el lector que un final obert per aquesta mateixa raó. El cas es que l'estava llegint i podia notar com la meva lectura s'accelerava. Primer una mica, després molt. Un frenesí que em portava a girar pàgines amb fúria, a saltar-me paràgrafs sencers que la meva vista jutjava com no importants de cares a la resolució; i no es que el llibre m'agradés especialment. Simplement, es com estic fet jo. Soluciono problemes. Viatjo cap a objectius. M'agrada saber que esta passant, qui es qui, on estem, el perquè de les coses i els mons autocontinguts que contenen respostes accessibles.

Comprendreu la meva sorpresa llavors quan em vaig trobar amb un llibre de Proust.

Porto setmanes encallat. He trobat llibres en els que no he pogut avançar abans en la meva vida, i els he abandonat sense sentir-me culpable al respecte. Després de tot, no tot llibre és per tothom (salutacions desde aquí a en James Joyce). Però aquest? No puc avançar però tampoc puc abandonar-lo. No te paraules difícils ni un estil aparentment poc ortodox, entenc tot el que diu, però no tinc ni idea de què està passant ni perquè ni de cap a on va. Estic dins dels pensaments vagament inconnexos d'alguna especie de francés de classe alta de fa més d'un segle. No se qui és ell, què passa al seu voltant, què fa ni deixa de fer ni que vol ni res de res. Res sembla indicar que res serà important en el futur ni cap descripció aporta ni suggereix la mera existència de cap trama. He llegit ja més de cent pàgines. Habitualment després d'una o dos de seguides tanco el llibre, exasperat, frustrat amb en Proust i la mare que el va parir. Al cap d'una estona el torno a obrir i llegeixo una mica més, amb idèntic resultat. Me l'emporto a tot arreu on vaig (o més acuradament, on va la meva motxilla) amb l'esperança de que si l'obro en el moment apropiat o arribo a la pàgina adequada, el seu contingut, la seva raó de ser, sem serà finalment revelada i tot tindrà més o menys sentit. Ens embarcarem en la cerca d'alguna cosa que el personatge principal vol aconseguir i tornarem a estar en un mon conegut de curses d'obstacles seguit de un final que satisfarà les nostres ànsies inacabables de resolució. Però aquest moment no arribarà. N'estic convençut. Seguiré per sempre més atrapat com un observador en el torrent de consciencia d'aquest gabacho en el que es, per el que puc interpretar, viure la seva vida com si fos un passeig per el camp en el que de tant en tant es para a mirar ocells, parlar amb la veïna i fer reminiscències sobre el passat. Es a dir, l'infern.

M'heu d'entendre. Mai he sigut un poeta. Puc escriure, però veig el mon en blanc i negre. Millor dit, en dos velocitats. Quan miro el cel durant la posta de sol, amb els ocells creuant sobre la lluentor encara blava, només hi ha dos possibilitats: o be el simbolisme aclaparador de cada raig de llum em fa perdre'm en un mar de pensaments conscients que aporten desesperadament un cert ordre a l'univers que soc, o be sento una brutal indiferència per tot plegat. El segon és més habitual.

Què hi veus, en aquests paisatges per els que passes cada dia, cremats per la llum i estèrils a noves memòries, que et fan escriure pàgines senceres de frases que es neguen a acabar?

Avui m'he topat amb aquest paràgraf:

Mentre recordava d'aquesta manera la visita de Saint-Loup, havia anat caminant; vaig fer una marrada molt llarga; era gairebé al pont dels Invàlids. Els llums, ben poc nombrosos (a causa dels bombarders), eren encesos, una mica massa aviat perquè el "canvi d'hores" s'havia fet també una mica massa aviat, quan encara es feia de nit bastant d'hora, però estabilitzat per la resta del bon temps (igual com les calefaccions s'encén i s'apaguen a partir d'una determinada data), i, per sobre de la ciutat nocturna ben il·luminada, en tota una part del cel - d'aquell cel que ignorava l'hora d'estiu i l'hora d'hivern, i al qual tant li feia saber que dos quarts de nou havien esdevingut dos quarts de deu -, en tota una part del cel blavós hi havia encara una mica de llum de dia. Per tota aquella banda de la ciutat que dominen les torres del Trocadero, el cel tenia l'aire d'una immensa mar matisada del color turquesa, que va de baixada, deixant emergir ja tot un rengle lleuger de roques negres, o potser de simples xarxes de pescadors arrenglerades les unes al costat de les altres, i que eren menuts núvols. Una mar en aquest moment de color turquesa i que s'enduia amb ella, sense que se n'adonessin, els homes arrossegats per la immensa revolució de la terra, de la terra sobre la qual son prou bojos per continuar les seves, de revolucions, i les seves inútils guerres, com la que en aquell moment ensangonava França. Val a dir que, a força de contemplar el cel mandrós i massa bonic, que no trava digne d'ell canviar l'horari i que allargava blanament damunt la ciutat il·luminada, amb aquells tons blavissos, la seva jornada que es retardava, t'agafava vertigen: ja no era una mar oberta, sinó una gradació vertical de blaves glaceres. I les torres del Trocadero que semblaven tan pròximes als esglaons turquesa que en devien estar extremadament allunyades, com aquelles dues torres de certa ciutat de Suïssa que de lluny sembla que siguin al costat de la carena dels cims.

No sé que em va passar. Potser va ser la música, o la llum dels finestrals. Però em vaig quedar parat, congelat en aquell paràgraf del que no entenia el context, ni raó de ser. No deia res, i alhora ho deia tot. El contingut estava en la forma, en aquella forma de percebre les coses i relacionar el món. Sempre m'he considerat un noi observador, però mai he observat d'aquesta manera. Ni tan sols es tracta exclusivament d'una forma més sofisticada de l'art de la nostàlgia (de la que ja vaig servit sense ajuda de ningú) si no més aviat d'una tecnologia - per a mi desconeguda - per controlar el torrent de realitat sense ser abrumat per la seva abundància i sense exhaurir la terra que l'alimenta de nutrients. De vegades sembla, que amb la nostre presencia, amb els nostres ulls inquisidors, que mirem les coses i les obliguem a ser, quan molt més s'estimarien ser deixades al seu propi aire.

Aquell fragment de no-res em va catapultar, sense cap motiu en particular, en direcció a tres escenes del meu passat, que potser compartien una semblança a aquelles escenes en les que un o be no hi es o be la seva presencia no suposa importància, i que ara entenia configuraven en realitat un mateix moment. He d'anar molt en compte, cada cop que agafo aquests records, de no tacar-los de metàfores; o de intentar amb massa força explicar una historia o evocar alguna sensació en particular. No caure en trucs ni interpretacions simbòliques. Deixar-los respirar.

Era ja fosc, al seient de darrera del cotxe dels meus pares, tornant a casa. Fileres de llums interminables acompanyaven el camí desconegut i incert cap al que sabia era un destí segur. Gotes com llàgrimes feien curses a la finestra. Encara veia el relleu de les muntanyes llunyanes, dibuixades contra el cel. Havíem visitat castells, parets de roca dura del mateix color que el polsim de terra; enlloc hi havia conquestes per fer. Vint anys després, al seient del copilot, sonava música a tot volum i una amiga conduïa conversant de tornada cap al cor de Barcelona. El fum que s'escapava per les finestres obertes ballava amb el passar dels edificis de la perifèria, i una mota de pols sembla sostinguda sobre la superfície d'un únic raig de llum de mitja-tarda. Ella tenia l'inusual poder de, casual i tranquil·lament, decidir què era i què no era possible o normal. Si m'hagués dit, en aquell específic moment, que el cotxe era robat, m'hagués semblat d'alló més natural. Era una sensació intoxicant, però un poder que per desgracia no s'encomana, un poder normalment reservat a nacions senceres. L'últim és amb la Cecília. Vaig perdre l'autobús que arbitraria però justament acabava la visita que jo m'agradava regalar-me un cop cada dos anys (les úniques vacances que m'he permès mai) i a ella consentir. Era tant de nit com la imaginació t'ho permeti. Ni tan sols veia la carretera, només les llums que els aparells electrònics del seu cotxe nou emetien en una única freqüència de color vermell penetrant. L'aire tenia la lleugeresa que té després de pluja. Ella estava tranquil·la, contenta, casi impassible, no donant importància al silenciós moment que havia generat. No ens sentiem amb la obligació de parlar. Em tornava a casa. Com a un cadell extraviat que s'ha trobat i que potser en una altre vida s'hagués quedat. No tenia perquè fer-ho. De veritat. Conforme ens apropavem i començava jo a distingir els camins i les carreteres, l'escena agafava el toc oníric que agafen quan noies que habitualment només apareixen a la teva pantalla (o imaginació) són de cop i volta presents en cos i ànima en els teus llocs de sempre. Aquelles fotografies semblen pertanyer a un altre món. Jo només podia gaudir de la seva presencia, oferida com sempre sense condicions, i alhora resar per a que aquell instant completament transitori, buit d'acció i agenda, no s'acabés mai.

No en se gaire, de disfrutar els moments; d'escriure la meva vida d'aquesta manera. En general, sempre faig quatre o cinc anys tard a les meves cites amb la realitat. Intento ser més puntual, però la veritat és que, en la majoria de ocasions, de molt preferiria estar cobert de fang i mort de fred en la incessant persecució d'un somni que no pas en un bonic restaurant. No ho se Marcel, si mai acabaré el teu llibre. No l'he tornat a agafar, ni crec que ho torni a fer en un bon temps. Som persones molt diferents. Jo no puc mirar com mires, ni viure com vius. En certa manera, el moment sempre ha estat per mi una distracció situada just al mig entre el futur i el passat. Aquest és el meu metabolisme d'instants.

Però crec que ara, per fi, ens entenem una mica més que abans.