In…Rojas’…wildly creative novel…the dead writer watches his last, fateful days replayed in a private theater in the underworld. Decades have passed, and Lorca is aware of his posthumous fame, and how his death torments those who outlived him. All he wants is to sleep, finally and forever, but instead he’s trapped with the memories of his life, and of all the art and literature he created.
more.
…the world is full of abandoned buildings: factories left by companies…suburban subdivisions from the boom years, crumbling farms and churches in remote places. Italy has an estimated 2 million such properties; Spain, another 3.5 million; America, many more. Andrea Sesta, who lives in Milan, has been trying to find alternative uses for some of them. His…site, Impossible Living, allows anyone to map unused real estate, and act as champions for their renewal (even if they don’t own them).
more.
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art: digital collage by Nacho Ormaechea
Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, says we have to have a tragic sense of life…Think of the good things we’ve achieved in California in terms of our architecture, our social institutions, our university system, the digital revolution, the whole creativity of our culture…But…if you have a tragic sense of life you also look at the complexity, the chiaroscuro, the light and the dark of the past. You’ve got to deal with that material in such a way that you don’t focus just on it, but on the other hand, not to ignore it either…When you’re dealing with things that were lost, thing that were destroyed, people who were ruined, that’s the burden of the past.
historian Kevin Starr
The conquistadors were instructed to read to any indigenous people they encountered a statement that briefly explained God, from the creation story to the pope’s supremacy, before requiring listeners to opt for baptism and a civilized life under the Spanish crown. They could refuse, but “we emphasize that any deaths and losses that may arise from this are your fault”…We can only imagine the bafflement of [those who were read this document, sometimes without the benefit of translation, or from a ship moored out of earshot, or with nooses around their necks. In Cuba a…leader was offered a Christian death and burial if he converted. He is supposed to have said that if Christianity meant an eternity spent in the company of Spaniards, he would prefer not to be baptized.
more.
It is…an irony that the very states seeking secession from “big government”—like Louisiana and Alabama—have been among the top beneficiaries of that selfsame government. Put bluntly, the government would be far smaller without them, and they would seriously struggle far more without it. Indeed, were they to become independent, most would be failed states in need of a bailout. Only this time their benefactor would be not the federal government but the International Monetary Fund, of which the United States is the principal donor. Louisiana and Alabama would go the way of Greece and Spain.
more.
![…he and the rest of the [cycling] team were…doping all along. They began with little “red eggs” of testosterone before graduating to injected erythropoietin, which enhances red blood cells and decisively increases energy: known for short as EPO, or “Edgar Allan Poe” to the American riders, their old buddy Edgar. And then [Tyler] Hamilton went to Spain to be introduced to the ghoulish practice of blood doping, in which a rider’s blood is taken from him, kept cool and reinjected before racing.
more.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md8x11WyEl1qcwnv4o1_500.jpg)
…he and the rest of the [cycling] team were…doping all along. They began with little “red eggs” of testosterone before graduating to injected erythropoietin, which enhances red blood cells and decisively increases energy: known for short as EPO, or “Edgar Allan Poe” to the American riders, their old buddy Edgar. And then [Tyler] Hamilton went to Spain to be introduced to the ghoulish practice of blood doping, in which a rider’s blood is taken from him, kept cool and reinjected before racing.
more.
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Tyra for Yves Saint Laurent, s/s 1995
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culture is politics. politics is culture.
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