klavaza blog

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T12:37:00.001-07:00

May all The Hollows bring peace of mind, prosperity and happines all year long. Celebrate Night, as Rilke said: "Night Rules!".

Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett 1947 - 2009

2009-06-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Foto: Cybertown.

"Farrah had courage, she had strength, and she had faith. And now she has peace as she rests with the real angels". Jaclyn Smith.

Obama as Super Hero

2009-06-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

I can't think of any president since Kennedy, as charismatic as Obama. Let's hope he will be up to the expectations. In any case, the man knows how to attract people's sympathy.

Steve Rogers is Back

2009-06-15T20:01:00.001-07:00

As I knew Steve Rogers is back from the dead. A major event in the Marvel Universe coming in the first issue of Reborn.

Thinking in Summer (v.2K9)

2009-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

Image: The Bankruptcy Litigation Blog.

2009 tastes the end of an era for the US automotive industry. Those days of glory, when General Motors Company reigned supreme as the world's foremost enterprise are over. How big can be measured by the fact that its revenues were bigger than the Gross Income of some nations. I recall one particular year, when it was larger than that of the Netherlands. GM's logo is known almost by everyone and it is likely that few people have not got a ride in one of its vehicles, or at least in one made under another brand belonging to that company.

When Nikita Kruschev visited the US in 1959, then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower welcomed him to IBM saying ”you will see a true American company”. Movie director Stanley Kubrick took to the future the icons of that American industry in 2001, A Space Odyssey: Pan American would shuttle people to space; IBM would go on governing computing technology and telephones would be run by Bell (Ma Bell). Only GM was absent in that film (BTW some DVD transfers lack all those logos today).

Now GM is 60% in the hands of the US Government (Where are You, Adam Smith?), though it promises a short term intervention. However, Bell is gone as an empire long ago, as long ago some other covert monopolys went over too. Although IBM is still powerful, it is no longer the tycoon it used to be. I don't think that we are to witness the end of GM, I believe it will reinvent itself to come back like a Phoenix. Would it be possible to think that GM is a herald of a new age, the signal of the end of entrepreneurial megafaunas?

Or perhaps it is exactly the opposite? That we are seen the raise, not of magafaunas, but of petafaunas, capable of eating whole markets at once? Could it be possible tha Nikita´s Prophecy is on its way? Would Eisenhower greet Nikita with so much pride today, like in 1959?

I have never been a big fan of US cars. But I do love some of its finest ones. Like Mustangs, Cobras or Corvettes, which would have been impossible to develop in other markets. Also, I am fed up with the sad and loud GM farewell: Amidst convoluted negotiations,occult agendas and only God knows which other sordid manuevers. History, perhaps, will tell the whole story some day.

Perhaps some day someone will seat in front of the descendant of the Wikipedia just to read it all: "Then President Barack Obama, advised by the Nation leading banking staffs, decided to save the Company by investing billions of dollars taken from taxpayers in order to...".

So, the Saudis goes to the movies...

2009-06-07T22:26:00.001-07:00

Oh! I am so happy I was born in the West: "Fayez al-Malki, star of the movie, Menahi, poses in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia late Saturday June 6, 2009, in front of a poster of his film, which became the first movie to be publicly screened in Riyadh in more than three decades. Women were banned from the show because organizers could not get permission for them to attend. Still, the decision to show the film, produced by a company owned by royal tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, at the government-run cultural center was a daring step and a challenge to the more conservative elements of society". (AP Photo)

Thank You, Kodak!

2008-12-03T20:02:00.001-08:00

I will try the samples so kindly sent by Kodak. As a lover of B&W film this is a great opportunity.
Image: klavaza, 2008.

Hábitat Imaginario

2008-11-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

Claudia Cirici is a young sculptress from Guatemala. Her most recent exhibition delves deeply in one of the most persistent myths in Fantastic Art and Literature, that of lost, forgotten or secret cities, some of which, it is said, were perfect, built by mythical beings, but others found their doom due to their mundane proclivities.

"Morbus is an ancient city... It was built in prehistoric times by a people who are now extinct... I discovered it. I have remodeled and rebuilt it, but largely upon the foundations of the old city, which was splendidly built", tells Edgar Rice Burroughs, of Tarzan fame.

Borges in El Inmortal wrote: "Before any other trait of that astounding monument, I was stoned by the antiquity of its construction. I felt that it was older than men, older than Earth. That notorious antiquity (in a certain way terrible for the eyes) seemed to me the proper work of inmortal masons”.

Nobody, however, has been as able as Lovecraft to further the myth: "Remote in the desert of Araby lies the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It must have been thus before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked".

As Marco Flaminio Rufo (Borges inmortal) did in the lost city of his tale, I wandered through Claudia’s sculptures, idly at first, but increasingly attentive thereafter. I left the Museum premises but her works permeated my mind and came with me, directing my steps to other creators whose idealized cities were left in comics, books or illustrations. Hers, instead, are primordial maquettes, archetypes of what could be called Fantastic Architecture.

Maybe her works are fantastic in nature, but they steam from quintessential art inspired in Escher’s labyrinths, in the bold ideas of Erik Desmazières and in Borges words. Every work in this exhibition has a personal, unique, mark, identifying the hand of Claudia Cirici as her creation, something apparent in the superb patina, finishing and even in the title of every inch of every single marvel of this beautiful collection.
Hábitat Imaginario took place between Oct. 8 and Nov. 9 in the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Guatemala.
Bibliography: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars, 1940; Jorge Luis Borges, El Inmortal, in El Aleph, 1949; H. P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City, in The Wolverine, 1921.
Images: Abyss of the Four Moons; Infinite Palace C; Windows of the Gods and its fragment, by José Carlos Flores, by kind courtesy of Claudia Cirici.

China 2005

2008-08-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Peta, via anonymous mail.
I don't think things have changed since then.

SD ComicCon 2008

2008-08-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

As usual, the future releases, the ridicule of fans and friends, the boldest and the most beautiful girls and goddesses. Enjoy the full presentation, 135 imges, right here. Au revoir!

Hints of Paradise

2008-02-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

Art and Architecture share many things in common, in fact the first one nurtures the other. In many cases, however, we find them conjoined in a very casual way. This never happens in the works of Claudia Cirici: Architect of British School and artist from the bottom of herself. I met her art at Cantón Exposición, a Guatemalan gallery of art, two or three years ago. The female angels I saw there were rendered in clay with a masterful hand. Later, I found her again working hard in a monumental sculpture called Rostro del Tiempo, a 1 Ton clay figurative creation done for a Guatemalan high end watches boutique, Relojería En Hora. From the original, scaled studies, precursors of that monument, she created a new collection of smaller panels, human figures (a continuing exploration of the artist) and towers. Oh towers! They made me remember the writings of the great Julius Caesar. Every piece is a beautiful study of formal aesthetics composition, masterful handling of clay (a difficult material) and inspiration. Watch-like parts pervade the whole concept, so much, that they become essential for this related series of sculptures. In a sense they remind us that Time is that elusive fourth dimension intertwined in every aspect of our lives. From money to how long we will live. Besides, they talk to us of long gone eras deeply rooted in ancient, arcane cultures. Her art does not make me shiver, as H. R. Giger’s does. However, hers is the quantum of solace that ignites the fire of my love for Art. For her creations are the kind of essential concepts devoid of any frills that takes me instantly to Paradise. Watch the collection, if you can.
Claudia Cirici’s Rasgos del Tiempo will be on display at Relojería En Hora during Feb., at Centro Comercial La Pradera, Zona 10, Guatemala.
Images, klavaza, 2008.

The Art of Estefanía Valls

2008-02-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

In Topâzu, the erotic masterwork of Ryû Murakami, Ishika says that the Nazis knew very well that in a woman´s hair resides her beauty. Ugly for some, essential for others, for this young Guatemalan painter hair is the central core of her first big leagues exposition. Paintings, sculptures and the gallery itself blend to become a unique work of art. Hair is an indicative of many things, she says, when white it marks the end of youth, it becomes a nuisance if it appears in certain undesirable spots of the body, it reminds that a child is becoming a teen.

Estefanía has attended art schools in Barcelona, New York and Guatemala, but her interest in art stems from her early age. For me her sculptures are the stars of the exhibition: She conjoins parts of known animals to create a new one. One with mythological overtones, part fantastic art, part a dream like creature taken from the entrails of the Jungian Collective Unconscious. Over the walls, you will see severed human-like heads, letterings and intense colours. From everywhere you will see hair, sprouting, adorning, infesting. In her paintings they are apparent when viewed from a lateral side. Some of her paintings were originally photographs, but now they are so exquisitely overworked that you will see in them deep volumes, rich colours and subtle suggestions.

Estefanía is not a rookie to art. However this is her debut, a very firm and inspired one into the serious, erudite, art of Guatemala.

A Pelo, esculturas y pinturas de Estefanía Valls Urquijo, is open from Feb. 8 to March 8 at Galería Ana Lucía Gómez, Avenida Las Américas 19-30, Zona 13, Guatemala.
Imagess: klavaza, 2008.

Testing Rodinal 1:200

2008-01-24T08:41:00.000-08:00

These images are part of my next expo's making-of, scheduled for Sept. They have no relation with it thematically whatsoever, but are rather a test for the technique I want to use (perhaps my farewell to the excellent HIE stock since Kodak will stop producing it soon). I read in Photo.net that Rodinal (actually Orwo R09) diluted to 1:200 wouldn't go as far as developing the highlights. Since in such sites you will find lots of opinionated people saying anything about everything, I decided to give it a try. Results: the opinion is false.

The first shot, an industrial set, as well as the second, of an antenna set in a Government building in Guatemala were taken between 23:00 a 02:00 hours with a Cat. 500mm lens. Then, with a 1000mm one. Expositions went from 8 to 24 min. The fourth one, an urban landscape in daylight was taken through a glass window. The Moon used 0.25 sec. at f/11 (the reddish hue is a mismanagement of the scanner). You can see detail in the textures, wires and the tonal range is excellent. So, only the highlights, eh?

Film: Efke KB25, ISO25; 17 min. developing time, 0 initial agitations and then one of 2 sec. every 30 secs. @ 20° C. Your opinions will be apreciatted.
Images, klavaza, 2007.

Elen Reveals Herself as a True Artist

2008-01-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

Elen:

Few things in life are as good as finding the secret treasures a friend might have. It was not until now that I had the chance to go to the Courier service and grab the beautiful, lovely gift you sent to me from the heart and the entrails of South East London. When I think of the former head of the British Empire I usually see images like these ones: deprived of every bit of grandeur and past glories, yet fascinating and deeply moving.

Your ability as a photographer and as a designer is beyond dispute. You hunt the very essence of that city in a way that also transmits not its people's feelings, because they are absent, but its very essence and loneliness, its deepest feelings, those that are there but which to the casual onlooker never exist. But also its miseries, albeit in a very abstract and aesthetic way.

Deep inside you dwells art, you transpire it, from mesmerizing Saxo notes to imaging. I am really happy being your friend. This small, yet revealing and magic scrapbook is one of the very best homages of my whole life. Thanks forever.
Images: Elen Le Foll, 2008.

Guatemalan nudes banned in Geneva

2008-01-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

Guatemalan photographer Daniel Hernández-Salazar was invited to expose his photographs at the Palais des Nations, See of the United Nations Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Hernandez's images expose in an artistic and metaphoric way the horrors left by the civil war that devastated that Central American country during more than 30 years. One of his aims is to preserve the usually fragile memory of such events, in order to prevent its recurrence. In Guatemala, I am aware, many people would be glad to forget all that happened. However, History has the tendency to remember, like Borges Funes el Memorioso character.

Three of the works included by him depicts naked males and are widely recognized as works of art by critics and public alike. However, some members of UNO staff found them inappropriate for exposition, since they could be offensive to some members of the organization, like some overly sensitive Islamic groups. The bottom of the situation is pure censorship, as I see it, since, I suppose, if the photographs were of nude females nobody would have had any complains whatsoever.

It is fairly logical to imagine how difficult it must be to find a central point of agreement between the many representatives, officers, clerks, visitors, ambassadors and all such fauna, from a worldwide acquisition that conforms the UNO. But this is Art, Western Art if that matters, the same that has been a landmark of aesthetics since time immemorial. Therefore, it is impossible for me to justify UNO censorship, even after its officers accepted to expose three void spaces, to signal the missing images, and to send the visitors to this web site, where the images are in a permanent, albeit virtual, exposition. I advice to you to please visit that site, You'll enjoy it.
Photos: Daniel Hernández-Salazar.

¡Ah the 70s! and the Southwest Scandal

2008-01-03T18:07:00.001-08:00

Many memories come to mind watching this image posted by Ben McConnell in Church of the Customer blog. He did so to remind Southwest its unabashed corporate history. It happens that in Sep. 07 a then Hooters employee, Kyla Ebbert, was flying clothed in a way that someone in the airline considered too lewd or provocative. After asking her to cover up, and telling her about good flying ways for clothing, she was permitted to seat and finish her 70 min. fly. This lunacy ended with an apology from Southwest and the creation of its Miniskirt Fares. Oh, I was to forget, the black and white image shows the uniform donned by Southwest stewardess back in the 70s.
Images: Church of the Customer and Ebbert web site.

Russian ICBM: two versions

2008-01-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

Ver. 1
ICBM launched from Barents Sea hits target in Kamchatka - official

MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Tula nuclear submarine of the Russian Northern Fleet commanded by Captain First Rank Anatoly Kovalenko launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday from the Barents Sea to the Kura test site in Kamchatka, Russian Navy Spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo told Interfax-AVN. "The ICBM was launched from the underwater position under a plan to check the readiness of naval strategic nuclear forces," the spokesman said. "The reentry vehicle arrived at the test site at the designated time," Dygalo said. Russian Navy Commander Vladimir Vysotsky hailed the high professionalism of the commander and the crew of the submarine, the spokesman said.

Ver. 2
New RS-24 ICBM lands on target at test range in Kamchatka

MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - A new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), which was launched from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk region on Tuesday, has successfully hit all hypothetical targets at the Kura Test Range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN) told Interfax. "Experimental warheads arrived at a planned area at the Kura range on Kamchatka Peninsula after flying about 7,000 kilometers. The launch purposes have been accomplished in full," RVSN spokesman Col. Alexander Vovk said. The launch was carried out as part of program of trials for the new ICBM. The first test launch of a prototype of the new MIRV-equipped RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile took place at the Plesetsk space center on May 29, 2007. According to unofficial information, an RS-24 missile can carry more than three warheads.
Image: China Daily.

Poetry's historic place vandalized

2008-01-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

A group of what Police believes was an underage pack of party goers destroyed historical artifacts and damaged one the houses of poet Robert Frost, of The Road Not Taken fame, which is preserved as a museum. They got into the property through a window and left behind empty beer cans, vomits and other better to forget memories.
Note and image, Yahoo! News.

450 F-15s grounded by tha US Air force

2007-12-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

According to this Yahoo! News the US Air Force grounded 450 F-15s warplanes because of "possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems". It is not clear if they will fly again or when. Meanwhile some F22 Raptors are doing the F-15s chores while some possible home security holes are now being filled by the Canadian Air Force in a time when Russian military aircrafts are flying with more frequency near the US air space. Perhaps the US Air Force wants to replace the aging F-15s with the Raptors at a fastest pace or the problem is real.

Image: AP/Yahoo! News.

Poor Rich Paris

2007-12-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

According to Yahoo! News Paris Hilton's expected inheritance will be far less than calculated since her grandfather decide to donate just 97% of all his wealth to charities. That means she will be just a poor millionaire instead of the wealthiest billionaire she belived was to become someday. I am sorry for her.

Photo: Paris and her sister at a charities, 2007, according to Yahoo! News.

AvP Reqiem, the Web site

2007-12-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

Something must have these creatures with Central America, since Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, a novel about a South American fictitious country, inspired in Nicaragua, christened the ship of the first Alien film. And in the first one of Predator the action takes place in Guatemala's jungles. But now, Alien vs Predator: Requiem, takes place in a US small town. Before seeing the film, visit its website, an incredible amalgam of posindustrial graphics that seems inspired in Shinya Sukamoto's, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It contains also excellent colour combinations, sound effects and a minigame that will let you create the henious creature spawned by the crossing of both aliens. As Pinhead said, when you are in the website, "be free to explore".
This post refers to the US English site only.

Texas slaps a tax on strip clubs

2007-12-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

"A dancer performs at a the gentleman's club in Dallas, Texas, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007. Beginning New Year's Day, Texas will require clubs to collect a $5 per head tax on customers of the state's 150 or so strip clubs. Much of the money will go to help sexual assault victims. Club owners and some of their customers say that's a noble cause, but they argue the tax is unconstitutional, will drive some bars out of business and unfairly links their industry to sex crimes".
Text: Yahoo! News. AP Photo/LM Otero.

Family adopts slain son's military dog

2007-12-21T12:57:00.001-08:00

"While waiting for a live shot during a morning news show, Lex looks for attention from new owners Camryn Lee and other family members, from left, Rachel, Jerome and Mady on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007, at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. The adoption of Lex, an 8-year-old German Shepherd, by the family of fallen Marine Cpl. Dustin Lee marked the first time the U.S. military has granted early retirement to a working dog so it could live with a former handler's family, officials said".

I wonder what happens to other US Mil. dogs after retirement...
(AP Photo/Walter Petruska).

Got fleas? Get the vacuum

2007-12-21T12:50:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Vacuum cleaners kill fleas just as well as any poison, surprised researchers said on Tuesday.

They said a standard vacuum cleaner abuses the fleas so much it kills 96 percent of adult fleas and 100 percent of younger fleas.

So no need to worry that a vacuum cleaner bag may turn into a fleabag breeding ground for the pesky, biting creatures, said Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University.

Needham studied the cat flea, or Ctenocephalides felis, the most common type of flea found in households.

"No matter what vacuum a flea gets sucked into, it's probably a one-way trip," Needham said in a statement.

Writing in the journal Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, Needham suggested that the vacuum brushes wear away a waxy outer layer on insects called the cuticle. Without it, the fleas, larvae and pupae probably dry up and die, he said.

The findings were so surprising that the researchers ran their experiment several times.

"We didn't do a post-mortem, so we don't know for sure. But it appears that the physical abuse they took caused them to perish," Needham said.

Fleas spread diseases such as plague and can transmit worms".
Text and image: Reuters.

Maria by Cecilia Bartoli

2007-12-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

I had never heard about Maria Malibran as the Romantic era is not of my taste. However, knowing of Cecilia Bartoli's magnificent voice as well as her keen academic researches, I bought this set as soon as I could. It delivered far more for me than I expected. Not only the performances were astounding, eight world premieres included, but the DVD was informative and the book excellent- Now, I know about Malibran, who she was and something about a fantastic era in the history of music. No music lover should be left without one. You can buy the CD alone, but you will miss the DVD and the excellent book which comes with them. Both shows Bartoli's deep interest in Malibran, her times and voice capabilities, as well as her interest in the history of music and the role of women in it. As they used to say in the old stereo magazines: it is highly recommended.
Image: Amazon.