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\”ID Experimental para ciudad abierta\”

Once upon a time, I lived in Las Vegas. During my brief stint in Sin City,  I came to the conclusion that the culture, heat and lifestyle of Vegas were not for me.  I still, however, crave a Las Vegas I never got to experience.  The Las Vegas that is promised by the now-famous welcome sign:

Probably the most renowned of its kind, The Las Vegas sign is part of the kookily futuristic Googie movement in design and architecture that began in the western United States in the late 1950s.  Googie evolved out of the Space and Atomic Ages during a time when Americans were heavily interested in new sciences and looking toward the future.  The Googie trend elevated even a humble roadside motel or gas station sign to a work of art.  

They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore…

A Feast of Googie Signage (from Flickr and google images) after the jump.

We initially traveled to south Florida to take advantage of an empty condo, gorgeous, sunny weather and the casual atmosphere that is such a change from city living.  But while returning from the beach on US1, we were startled to drive by an incongruous explosion of jungle-like gardens, flaming torches and thatched everything.  

We had accidently stumbled upon the Mai Kai,  a 53 year old Tiki bar and Floridian landmark; a place that elevated our beach-bumming vacation to an unprecedented level of awesome.

Back at the condo, a little internet research taught us that the Mai Kai was built during the height of the Tiki-themed restuarant craze that began in the 1930’s with the iconic Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s and lasted until the mid to late sixties.  The Mai Kai was built in 1956 for 1 million dollars by Bob and Jack Thornton when that area of Ft. Lauderdale was much less developed than today.

Folowing Humuhumu’s excellent advice on Critiki, we promptly made reservations for dinner and the show…

Driving over the wooden plank bridge to the Mai Kai’s valet immediatley transports you from the strip malls and speeding cars of the federal highway to a romanticized vision of the South Pacific.  Dinner is 1950s-style Cantonese fare in all it’s gluey, cornstarchy glory.  Well crafted and delicious cocktails are available in four levels ranging from non-alchoholic to strong and are served in a variety of large vessels, including pineapple, coconut and barrel.  The camp factor reaches a fever pitch during the show, which featured fire juggling, insane hip gyrations and a questionable level of authenticity.  It is well-worth the 10 dollar price tag.  

After diner and two more ginormous tropical quaffs, we took a stroll in the Mai Kai’s extensive gardens:  a maze of man-made waterfalls, colorfully-lit idols and kitsch. 

Although the popularity of Tiki bars has dwindled since the 1960s, The Mai Kai, which is still owned by the same family, has managed to maintain sucess while staying true to the original format.  The Mai Kai is a temple of nostalgia for a bygone era where peoples’ world view was much narrower than today, but bathrooms always had attendants and women wore gloves to dinner….

more pictures from our trip to the Mai Kai:

Bakelite is the world’s oldest synthetic plastic. It’s also pretty boss draped around your neck or dangling from your ear. Leo Baekeland, the fella that invented it, was named one of TIME’s “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century” for his discovery (mostly for Bakelite’s use as a nonconductive medium in electronics). Flickr has a great group dedicated to all things Bakelite. . . here’s a smattering of jewelry, but be sure to check out the group pool for lots of rotary phones and box cameras and such.

Two artist ; one photographer, Pierre Commoy, and a paintor, Gilles Blanchard, form this amazing duo. They produce ethereal worlds of Kitsch in which young men and dainty women are glorified to the maximum through photographs which are then reworked by hand with paint!

La madone au coeur blessé

Double Je

an unnecessary event to celebrate an unremarkable year:
THE Kiss in piazza san marco
starring: 60.000 unimportant people (hopefully an even number)
director: Doug Jack, a man “inspired by life” http://www.dougjack.net/
location: Piazza San Marco, roughly 22.500 square metres, which leaves each person with 0.3 sqm to breath, sneeze, hold the (right) partner and kiss
time: two rehearsals at 22.15 and 22.45 -do people really know how to kiss?http://www.wikihow.com/French-Kiss- , then the real and SPONTANEOUS kiss at 00:00
music: the most heartbreakingly romantic songs (ie Take my breath away)
issue: should homosexuals be allowed to partecipate?
resolution of the issue: two steps: step1) take no official position, step2) the day after, always complain

unspoken issue: 3 deaths for meningitis in the last two weeks. “The risk of getting the disease is very low” YET ” We pass the bacteria between each other by close contact (e.g. kissing)” (http://www.meningitis.org/disease-info/whats-the-risk)

me: i didn’t go. in the fury of kissing according to Doug’s instructions, i might have ended up kissing one of the 100 special cops sent to patrol the area- unless they have been sent in couples as well.

Mario Praz’s book, The Romantic Agony was published in 1933. I happen to think that my psychedelic Jagger image is just as appropriate to a discussion of it as the 16th century paintings that grace the cover of my Oxford paperpack edition. Probably more so, though Mario would have probably vomited at the thought of Jagger on the cover of his book.

The book, is discussed in this article at a “wiki site” (something I don’t understand too well) that seems to be presided over by the blogger Jahsonic, an affable fellow who shares many interests of anyone interested in this post.

In the text, Praz delves in great detail into the morbid sexual imagery that infuses much of romantic literature during the 19th century. The book contains lengthy excerpts – often in French – has a fantastic index, and a table of contents worth browsing in its own right. Starting pre-romance, with the Shadow of the Divine Marquis, he sets the stage for what will come in his discussion of authors down to the time of the Symbolists and Decadents, and D’Annunzio.

I learned of this book from another, Dreamers of Decadence, by Phillipe Julien, a study of the art of the late 19th century Symbolists. At the time I read these books, I was about sixteen years old, which tells you something about where my head was at. I later kicked myself for not developing a syndicate to buy up art of this period, considered kitsch and dreck in the early 70s, but which I, in a rare bit of financial acuity, knew would soar in value soon. And so it did! Every style has its day, and a second day, and another…With the hippies of the 60s growing up, abstract expressionism and modernism was bound to go out and the overheated sensibilities of the decadents would find buyers again. Thus, we come to Mick Jagger again, the watered down Satan of rock ‘n’ roll.

Praz’s book is of a type that doesn’t get written much these days, I think. I loved the scholarly apparatus of the notes, the clear sense that a scholar was at work here, one who knew his field, and could show the evidence for his point of view. So much love for the texts – he is not a critical vivisectionist, though he has his opinions!

Yes, I spent many happy hours searching for the juicy parts, reading them over and over, imagining their effect on certain attractive young women I fancied. I even read passages to one of them, during a romantic evening a deux. I think it was the passage in which Swineburne compared his passion to rats gnawing on a corpse…you never know what will grab a girl, do you?

Finally, I must quote Praz on the Divine Marquis:

Let us give Sade his due, as having been the first to expose, in all its crudity, the mechanism of homo sensualis, let us even assign him a place of honour as a psychopathologist and admit his influence on a whole century of literature; but courage (to give a nobler name to what most people would call shamelessness) does not suffice to give originality to a thought, nor does the hurried jotting down of all the cruel fantasies which obsess the mind suffice to give a work mastery of style…The most elementary qualities of a writer – let us not say, of a writer of genius – are lacking in Sade.

Such wonderful good sense! Such a sure grasp of values! Much as I love the surrealists, I always found their championing of Sade a little tiresome. The fact is, Sade is boring! He is not a fine writer. People who regard any discussion of sex or perversion as thrilling may find him congenial, but he really only has three or four things to say, and he says them at length, over and over. (Philosophy in the Bedroom is his only piece that I can recall as having a sustained and interesting argument. And he is arguing, always…) Would that this quotation by Praz were repeated everytime a new book, film, or play comes out with Sade as the misunderstood poete maudit.

They say that if you will sup with the devil, bring a long spoon. Praz could have broken bread with Satan himself, with no fear for his soul.

Todas las críticas negativas, todo el veneno que se ha vertido por ahí en los medios de comunicación sobre el concierto de las Spice Girls en Madrid del pasado domingo, son exageraciones crueles y, en su mayor parte, productos de la pose de modernos claramente resentidos con el espíritu de los tiempos. Y es que difícil de asumir, amigos míos, que Mel C (a.k.a. la Spice deportista) sea la compositora con más números uno co-escritos en el Reino Unido después de Lennon y McCartney (dato comprobable aquí).

Aparte, es lo que tiene acudir a un show semejante con expectativas que, obviamente y por propia definición del evento, no podrán ser nunca cumplidas. Las Spice Girls son lo que son, y son divertidas en sí mismas desde sus propios términos.

¿Y por qué lo sé? Porque yo estuve allí. Y me lo pasé en grande con cada canción y cada performance. Cuando uno se gasta del orden de 50 eypos por ver a estas cinco mozas, una década después de su presunto mejor momento artístico, muy bien debe saber a lo que se va a enfrentar, máxime cuando, en mi caso, mi favorita es la señora Victoria Beckham. Cuando uno hace eso, está claro que: 1) que sientes bastante nostalgia por el pasado, 2) que te gusta lo kistch, y 3) que te lo quieres pasar muy bien. En estos tres sentidos concretos, estuvieron increíbles. La mejor guinda posible con la que coronar un año intensivo de conciertos.

Qué demonios, si ya son un pedazo (entrañable) de la historia de la música. Sólo puedo hablar de ellas con cariño.

Alaska, ets estupenda. Per dir-ho d’alguna manera. El teu art (bé, el de fangoria) és capaç d’esgarrapar perillosament l’horterada per sortir-ne victoriós i trionfant com quelcom glamoukistch, envoltada i aclamada per les ordes supramodernes pseudogays, i mica en mica, convertint-te altre cop (del qual, en el fons, no has sortit mai) en una diva de la modernor més rabiosa, més enllà del stateoftheart, sempre avançada al teu temps.

M’admira també la teva capacitat per reinventar el teu look, i la imatge del teu grup, sense traïr la teva essència (que portes ja molts anys proclamant als quatre vents), sense por al ridícul (el vídeoclip de “Criticar por criticar” és un clar exemple de tenir uns collons com un toro, amb perdó) , i demostrant-nos quant d’equivocats estem la resta dels mortals en les nostres concepcions culturals, estètiques i artístiques.

Però si m’admira algun cosa de tú encara més és la teva capacitat per dir el que penses sense ni la més mínima por a les possibles represàlies… Quants s’han atrevit a dir coses com:

yo soy la Santa Inquisición
solo llamo la atención
de quien no tiene de que hablar
de tres aburridas.
me parece que en realidad
ya no se como acabar
lo que empeze por alcanzar
un poco de celebridad

i tot això, embutida en un body de licra blanc, ballant davant d’una barra d’stripper. Però no, el meu petit homenatge d’avui no vé per això… ve per les teves declaracions a la televisió de Mallorca, que afecten directa o indirectament a aquesta petita sangonera que ens assatja poc a poc, des de la foscor, i escudant-se en que, a sobre, és una societat sense ànim de lucre:

“Es la crisis de una industria, no es ni la crisis de los músicos ni de la música”

“No tiene nada que ver con la creatividad ni con nada, música va a seguir habiendo aunque probablemente no haya CDs o no haya vinilos o no haya soportes. ¿En qué afecta eso al artista? Pues en que tendremos que distribuir nuestra música de otra forma ¿En qué afecta a los fabricantes de discos? En que desaparecerán. Yo no soy fabricante de discos así que no es mi problema. Así que ell que tenga un problema que busque soluciones.”

“Todas las redes de disfusión actuales todo lo que hacen es difundir aún más mi música, hacer que llegue a gente a la que nunca le llegaría y creo que de cinco años para acá en España se vive un momento de oro en cuanto a conciertos”

Sí Alaska sí. Que aprenguin els Ramoncines, triumfitos manipulats per les seves discogràfiques i altres xitxarel·los… Tú si que saps diferenciar l’art del negoci. Perquè el que tu fas és art. I a més, saps propagar-ho als quatre vents.

Res més enllà de la meva intenció el dedicar aquest bloc a la Shirley Manson. No per res en especial, no tinc res en contra d’ella, és més, la considero una trashy queen molt pròpia de la època grunge que en el seu moment era una actitut bastant cool (tot i que, bonica, el temps ha passat, les modes canvien, i és de llestos saber digievolucionar com els pokèmon).

Ni tampoc voldria dedicar el bloc a les pel·lícules de James Bond. Tampoc tinc res en contra d’elles, tot i que considero que són una icona carrinclona d’una societat masclista-violenta on el valor d’un homes es podia valorar pels dolents que mata i les dones que engalipa (per cert, noietes, en això certa culpa també hi teniu vosaltres… de fet, sou vosaltres les qui encara sentiu una atracció fatal pels homes amb actitut perillosa probablement heredada de molts segles d’iconografia masclista).

Potser, si he de dedicar el bloc a alguna cosa, a banda de a mi mateix, doncs a la fi un bloc no és més que un exercici d’automassatge egòlatra (per no dir onanisme intel·lectual), és als títols de crèdit de les pel·lícules de James Bond. Potser es la única cosa que em sabria greu que es deixessin de fabricar aquestes portades tan parodiades (i parodiables). En el fons, són d’un kistch admirable en produccions mainstream. Ja des de les mítiques portades primerenques (Goldfinger és una de les meves preferides: imatges projectades sobre el cos d’una noia daurada, amb la veu densa de Shirley Bassey cantant “pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold. this heart is cold.”), fins a les darreres on s’ha començat a transgredir l’esperit original per modernitzar-lo (aquí sí que he de dir que the world is not enough em sembla d’un neobondisme increïble, especialment per la imatgeria sensual-guarra de les noies caient-los petroli sobre el seu cos nu, mentre la Shirley Manson canta amb gola profunda “no one ever died from wanting too much”). Evidentment, pel mig hi han hagut grans cançons i grans moments de videoclipisme camp que probablement ningú ha volgut (o ha gosat) valorar en la seva deguda importància.

Al cap i a la fi, el gust pel gust dubtòs és potser un dels sentiments humans més ocults i més inconfessables. Fins als nostres dies on les onades queer han reivindicat el dret a que t’agradi el que és de mal gust. I això potser ens fa més lliures… i menys Bond.