Havananess and NewYorkitis / Regina Coyula

Not very productive on the blog, I’ve dedicated time to a course on editing with Adobe CS6 including editing work, extremely interesting; I read The City and the Dogs (I much prefer the young Vargas Llosa to the famous one); I have put in order the drawers and closets; and have prepared work in one of my favorite pastimes, my violon d’Ingres no doubt, but the sewing and crafts I love. Without internet, I can only translate Telesur, which focuses too much on Venezuela, as if the most important events happen there; it must be the “he who pays,” and well, you already know who the majority shareholders are of that broadcaster.

I watched excerpts of the recent Federation of University Students (FEU) congress which depressed me. Even though I know that those kids are chosen for their discourse (note I don’t say for their ideology, because I doubt they all say what they think), the speeches I saw didn’t refer to the students or their rights, nor to the university environment; it was all about struggle, battles, enemies, campaigns for the release of the “Five Heroes,” all in similar language, with similar gestures, until I think they clone them, because they were dressed alike, they couldn’t have reflected better the anodyne or innocuous. I hope, not that they change their ideology if they are sincere, but that they try to shake off the image of mediocrity they convey.

I continue with the mundane world. I enjoyed Pestano’s homerun at the end of the game, the dream of any player, a homerun with the bases loaded. He should have dedicated it to Victor Mesa, who left him off the national team. I enjoyed the final of the under-twenty soccer, and enjoyed the Confederations Cup. Spain is in crisis but their soccer is first class.

What else?  I went to bed at dawn on Tuesday because of Dirty Sexy Money. It’s funny how the political discourse goes in one direction and the TV is full of pirated series that say the opposite. And they say it better. If we did a meta-analysis on the series, we could say it’s an acid critique of social decadence because of money and power, but it must be very profound because what we see is a fast-paced plot, well acted, well set, with the addition in my case of being in New York.

And I say, if the Muslims have to go to Mecca once in their lives, I have to go once to MOMA, pass through the door of the Met, eat a hot dog in Central Park, and take the corresponding tourist photos of the Flatiron and Chrysler buildings and Times Square. Meanwhile, I conjure up my NewYorkitis with canned enemies.

21 June 2013