Snob

La diversión es su combustible y tras 38 años de carretera The Fleshtones siguen siendo una de las mejores party bands del planeta. El legendario grupo de Nueva York se encuentra presentando su disco Wheel Of Talent y ayer ofreció un concierto completo y exclusivo para los oyentes de Radio 3. Sube el volumen, dale al play y disfruta con esta irrepetible actuación en donde sonaron Hitsbugh USA, Feels good to feel, Lets go, Pretty pretty pretty, Available, Dance with ghoul man, The Dreg, Theme from the Vindicators, Alright, Remember the Ramones, I was a teenage zombie, My kinda lovin. Y un segundo set con los bises Veo la luz, Haunted hipsters, Screamin skull, Bigger and better y American Beat 84. Fleshtonizate!!

Hola, ¿soy la única que se rasura porque me pone a topete ver como frota/entra/sale la polla y no por cuestiones higiénicas (el agua y el jabón poco tienen que ver con la existencia o no de pelos) o gustos ajenos? que igual soy una loca del coño de esas y hago las cosas porque me gustan a mí y no por satisfacer a los demás, vete tú a saber.

El caso que rasurarse también tiene sus cositas. Estaba en casa, medio de bajona y decidí ir de compras porque todo el mundo sabe que salir de compras siempre va bien y nunca hay suficientes zapatos ni cervezas. Volví a casa con un conjunto ma-ra-vi-llo-so de lencería, blanco, de raso con puntillitas, muy rollo porno de los 70´s y me vine arriba, baño, exfoliación, hidratación y rasurado a conciencia.

Salimos y al volver a casa entre las copas, los tacones, la lencería y siento decirte esto Kate Moss, pero quererse sabe mucho mejor que estar delgada, le besé guarramente, cuando se animó le paré, le empujé al sofá, me subí a la mesa y empecé a bailar mientras me desnudaba y le miraba a los ojos, sí, yo cuando me vengo arriba, me vengo. Total que todo iba MUY bien hasta que veo que pone cara rara, miro mis bragas que era donde él estaba mirando y veo todo el frontal con manchitas rojas como si mis bragas tuvieran la varicela, me había rasurado TANTO que me había llevado por delante epidermis o algo, jajajajajajja, risas y polvazo, claro.

Moraleja: Cers, no existe nada en el mundo mundial, ni en la Galaxia, como hacer las cosas por uno mismo porque no es gustar a todo el mundo, es gustarte a ti, en serio. ^^

Lectores de entre 35 y 45 años: ¿Os acordáis de esos libritos rojos y pequeños que en la década de los ochenta nos regalaban nuestros tíos? Sí, sí, esos libros de aventuras englobados bajo el estimulante título de Elige tu propia aventura. una colección que en su momento fue realmente novedosa porque nos ofrecía a los chavales que leíamos estos volúmenes la posibilidad de elegir el destino del protagonista de cada relato, que casualmente éramos nosotros mismos porque la narración estaba escrita en segunda persona, como si nosotros mismos fuéramos los protagonistas. Las aventuras eran de todo tipo: ciencia ficción, terror, aventuras, misterio… aunque todo empezaba en un entorno “real”, el de los protagonistas que casualmente éramos nosotros mismos. La colección se editó en el Reino Unido entre 1979 y 1998.

Ha llegado la hora de que estos libros den el salto a la gran pantalla. No sabemos cómo lo van a hacer, porque no nos imaginamos una película inspirada en esta colección de libros sin que la participación de los espectadores sea crucial para el desarrollo de los acontecimientos. Quizás en el formato doméstico se puedan explotar al cien por cien las posibilidades de este concepto llevado al cine. El director elegido para llevar a cabo esta tarea ha sido Rawson Marshall Thurber, conocido sobre todo por su última película, Somos los Miller. Produce 20th Century Fox.

 

 

The post Habrá película basada en los libros “Elige tu propia aventura” appeared first on .

Few things get the mouth salivating like a plate of deliciously crispy French fries. Whether you’ve enjoyed salty, mayonnaise-covered fries from a ‘Patat’ stand in Holland, where the potato is revered almost as much as the Dutch royal family, or had a go at making them yourself, they’re a staple that both food snobs and ready-made fans can agree on.

But the history of the golden French fry is complicated. There have been rows over which nation invented them (it would be too obvious if they were French right?), wars that made them popular, and even a marketing campaign fronted by Marie Antoinette.

So here’s our whistle-stop tour of the secret history of French fries. We’ll take you from the discovery of the potato, right through to how the likes of McCain French fries became so popular today.

Belgian fries?

The story of our humble French fry begins in 1537, with Jimenez de Quesada and his Spanish forces stumbling across a strange new foodstuff, left behind by Colombians as they fled their conquered village. Initially confusing them for truffles, the Spanish brought the potatoes back to Europe, although it took 20 years for them to become widely-known. Latin countries initially eschewed this odd vegetable when they struggled to grow it, but Northern Europe slowly began to take it to its heart.

But it was the Belgians who took things to the next level by starting to fry potato strips in the late seventeenth century. Historical accounts show that bragging rights for the invention of the French fry belong to the Low Countries, despite Gallic claims to the contrary. According to some documents, Belgians resorted to frying potato strips as an alternative to frying fish when the rivers froze over.

The French claims

Of course, the French have their own story around the development of French fries, linked to the almost fanatical passion for the potato shown by one man, celebrated French military medical officer, Antoine-Augustine Parmentier. In eighteenth-century France, the potato was regarded with great suspicion as many believed it had links to leprosy. Indeed, until 1772, the cultivation of potatoes was banned in France. But when Parmentier was forced to eat them as prison rations following his capture during the Seven Years War,  he realized that the scare stories were false.

He became a passionate advocate, finally helping to reverse France’s ban after hosting gala dinners, featuring his favourite foodstuff, for the likes of Benjamin Franklin, King Louis  XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. By 1795, potato growing had become widespread in France and fried ‘frites’ began to be sold by push-cart vendors on the streets of Paris.

The Americans complete the job

Even though the French still like to stake their claim to the invention of the French fry, it seems that the Belgians beat them to it by around 100 years. It is entirely possible that the French military cottoned on to the idea of frying potatoes during operations in Belgium. But it was really the Americans who popularized French fries as we know them today. Becoming a staple of road-side diners as the car began to dominate the USA, French fries quickly became synonymous with the fast food revolution of the 1960s. In many parts of the world outside Europe, French fries are known as ‘American fries’.

So there’s our trip through the secret history of French fries. The arguments about who invented the French fry will no doubt continue, but we’re just glad that someone had the forethought to get frying. We’re off to get ourselves a nice salty plate of them right now.

Hoy a las 15:15 participo por libre en las 24 horas de la bande dessineé. Iré colgando cada una de las 24 páginas conforme las vaya terminado en este tumblr creado especialmente para el asunto. ¡Contemplad mi descenso a lo loco!http://tebeoen24horas.tumblr.com/

A revista infantil e xuvenil, que botou a andar este verán, lanza unha campaña de crowdfunding e de subscricións para asegurar a continuidade da publicación. Falamos co seu director, Marcos Ferreira.

Esta palabra alaga hoxe a prensa galega. Antes do outono do 2012 case ninguén a oíra por estas latitudes e hoxe en día xa parece o máis común dos nosos substantivos a pesar de que pouca xente sabe que significa flotel: “Un flotel é un barco que flota”, contestoume meu pai cando lle preguntei que significaba esa palabra que lle sentía tanto ultimamente. É o poder das promesas. E da TVG.

Flotel é un neoloxismo resultado da amálgama da forma inglesa floating hotel (hotel que aboia). O uso deste substantivo xeneralizouse logo da vertedura de petróleo do buque Deep Horizon no golfo de México no 2010. Para limpar a maré negra construíronse varias plataformas que serviron como residencias para os traballadores no medio do mar.

Loxicamente, a palabra flotel non aparece nos nosos dicionarios nin nos das linguas do noso contorno. É polo tanto un estranxeirismo en fase de expansión e aínda non se sabe cal será o seu alcance como palabra de éxito na nosa lingua. Malia ese estado aínda incipiente, tanto o galego coma o castelán xa o adaptaron á nosa grafía.

Coa norma na man, os xornalistas e políticos foron moi adiantados. A forma correcta de referirnos a un flotel en galego é escribilo en cursiva e adecualo, na flexión de número, ao sistema habitual nas palabras rematadas en -l. Aínda que en inglés a palabra é grave, en galego sempre aparece como aguda, polo que é correcta a forma floteis, tamén en cursiva.

Tendo en conta que o tema destes dous buques domina desde hai anos toda a axenda industrial, política e xornalística de Galicia é probable que en menos de cinco anos a RAG debera incluír a palabra flotel no dicionario como palabra galega de pleno dereito. A non ser que a Xunta busque deica alá outro nome amuleto como engado político.

 

You may have thought it was ketchup, but the biggest-selling condiment in America is …mayonnaise! Americans buy two billion dollars worth of mayonnaise every year now, compared to only $800 million in ketchup. My go-to condiment, mustard, is way down the list. Strangely, this graph found at Quartz raises more questions than it answers. The graph quantifies the condiments only in dollars; how do the condiments stack up when measured in gallons consumed? After all, some of these are much more expensive per gallon than others. Does the mayonnaise stripe include Miracle Whip and its clones, which is mayonnaise plus sugar? It makes a difference, because while I use Miracle Whip for some recipes, I can’t stand mayonnaise. And where is salsa? A lot of other people wondered that, too.

(Update: Various readers have asked why salsa isn’t included on this list. Euromonitor responds that salsa is, technically speaking, a “dip”, not a condiment. So now you know. For what it’s worth, salsa would eclipse ketchup, but still be second to mayo.)

Hot sauce is the fastest-growing condiment, but it has a long way to go to “ketchup” with ketchup. -via Digg

It’s been a long road for ’80s rockers Mötley Crüe. Over 30-odd years of playing together they’ve collectively made a porn, killed someone drunk driving, and been to rehab for heroin more times than you can count. And they’ve made plenty god-awful jock rock along the way. They’ve finally apparently decided that enough is enough.

But not before milking the cash cow for one final squeeze, of course.

Monday the Crue held a press conference in which they announced they’re not only retiring, but throwing one final two-year tour after which time they’ll never play again, as per a legally binding “cessation of touring agreement” they’re all signing.

The band’s attorney explained at the press conference:

Other bands have split up over rancor or the inability of people to get along, but this is a mutual [agreement] among all four original members and peaceful decision to move on to other endeavors and to confirm it with a binding agreement.

“Our job here is done,” explained drummer Tommy Lee, possibly two and a half decades too late. “We always had a vision of going out with a big fucking bang and not playing county fairs and clubs with one or two original band members.”

The band embarks on “The Final Tour” July 2, and the message is clear: See the band some time by the end of 2015, or forever hold your peace.

It’ll be difficult, but somehow I think we’ll find a way.

Image

In his latest “Newscasters Agree” sketch, Conan made a supercut of local newscasters all saying “don’t worry, be happy,” quoting from the Bobby McFerrin song that came out more than 25 years ago to introduce a feelgood news report. It’s incredibly creepy to hear the empty platitude repeated, ad nauseum, until it loses all meaning:

The video is a followup to his first bizarre clip, where they all agree: “It’s okay, you can admit it if you’ve bought an item or two, or ten for yourself.”

In case you’re worried that our country’s news has devolved into Pod People with nice haircuts reading directly from hacky wire reports of news items with no real import, as more serious things are ignored, like how global warming and corporate malfeasance are driving us closer to a grim and painful mass extinction, well…

H/t Laughing Squid

Luis-Manuel Garcia has written a detailed article for Resident Advisor reviewing the role of homosexuality and the evolution of club culture: An alternate history of sexuality in club culture. There are links (largely Wikipedia, some French) to collate references to particular clubs, individuals, articles, books, and songs inside.

Intro
Clubs
Berghain, Harry Klein, Output / The Panther Room, A Club Called Rhonda (NSFW)

DJs/Producers/Musicians
Goddollars


New York disco and garage
Clubs
The Loft, Studio 54, The Paradise Garage, The EndUp, Trocadero Transfer, The Saint (The closing party), Club Zanzibar, The Sound Factory, Twilo

DJs/Producers/Musicians
David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Donna Summer, Chic, The Bee Gees, KC And The Sunshine Band, Larry Levan

Books & Articles
Discotheque Rock '72: Paaaaarty!, Hot Stuff: Disco And The Remaking Of American Culture

Disco Demolition Night
ESPN flashback, local coverage at the time, "Where were you on Disco Demolition Night?", The Night Disco Went Up In Smoke (New York Times, retrospective)

Chicago House
Clubs
The Warehouse (The Music Box)

DJs/Producers/Musicians
Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy


Detroit Techno
Clubs
Todd's

DJs/Producers/Musicians
Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Sauderson, Morris Mitchell

Books & Articles
Energy Flash, Techno Rebels, Out Come The Freaks: Electronic Dance Music And The Making Of Detroit After Motown (forthcoming)


Acid house and rave
Clubs
Heaven,Shoom, Medusa's, Smart Bar

DJs/Producers/Musicians
Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, Tronco Traxx, Kevin Aviance, E.G. Fullalove, Masters At Work

Books & Articles
Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital, Rave America


Drag balls
Documentaries
Paris Is Burning

Books & Articles
Gender Trouble

Songs
Vogue, Walk For Me, Cunty, Didn't I Know (Divas To The Dancefloor...Please), The Ha Dance


Deep house in Midtown Manhattan
Clubs
Sally's II, Edelweiss (NYT)

DJs/Producers/Musicians
DJ Sprinkles / Terre Thaemlitz

Album
Midtown 120 Blues


Lesbian clubbing in Paris
Clubs
Le Pulp, Le Troisième Lieu

DJs/Producers/Musicians
Jennifer Cardini, DJ SexToy, Ivan Smagghe, Chloé, Clara Moto, Scratch Massive, Fantômette, Léonie Pernet


House and kwaito in Johannesburg
Videos
Love Can't Turn Around

Books & Articles
"No easy rave to freedom" - The South African Youth Revolution (not cited in article, but more relevant than links to club websites)

It looks like axolotls are gone forever. This may not mean much to you if you aren't into amphibians, but if you read Mad Magazine back in the day the word might conjure up some memories, or even a poem.

I Wandered Lonely as a Clod from Mad Magazine, 1958

I wandered lonely as a clod,
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
When onward on my way I plod,
I saw a host of axolotls;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man's blood freeze.

Some had handles, some were plain;
They came in blue, red pink, and green.
A few were orange in the main;
The damndest sight I've ever seen.
The females gave a sprightly glance;
The male ones all wore knee-length pants.

Now oft, when on the couch I lie,
The doctor asks me what I see.
They flash upon my inward eye
And make me laugh in fiendish glee.
I find my solace then in bottles,
And I forget them axolotls.

PLEASE NOTE: The disappearance of any living creature is a horror. I do not mean to make light of the passing of one of the earth's wonders. I mean only to harken back to a time when words were sometimes slung around for the sheer fun of their spelling.

Alexander II was known as the liberator of serfs, because under his rule, in 1861, serfs were granted the freedom to marry without having to gain consent, to own property, and to own businesses. In 1862, Alexander II signed off on the ethnic cleansing of Circassians that began as a simple resettlement, and led to (by official Tsarist documents, more by other accounts) over 400,000 deaths. Circassians in fact protest the 2014 Olympics in Sochi being that it was the supposed site of their final expulsion.

In the late 1850s, Alexander II moved to assimilate the Polish people that had rebelled under his father's reign by restoring the rights of the Polish to elect local assemblies. However, Polish exiles abroad were organizing resistance to the Russian rule. Polish nobles did not approve of Alexander II's peasant reform, and an uprising began in January 1863 when Polish (and Lithuanian, and Byelorussian) youth protested their conscription into the Russian army. Owing to their lack of military strength, the rebels resorted to guerrilla warfare, only to have the resistance crushed in the summer of 1864, with many an execution and deportation. Following this event, Alexander II ended Polish autonomy just as his father had. The Polish language was banned at official places, and Polish people were forbidden from acquiring landed property.

Alexander III was 36 years old when his father was assassinated as an example of propaganda of the deed by the People's Will (Narodnaya Volya) in 1881, and his thirteen years of rule sought to reverse his father's liberalization of Russia. Alexander III dreamed of a single Russian nationality, language, and religion just as his reactionary grandfather Nicolas I had dreamed. With Konstatin Povedonostsev and Nikolay Ignatyev having Alexander III as their protégé, the Russian language was taught by mandate throughout the Russian empire, from the Germans to the Polish.

After a period of violent, anti-semitic, rioting pograms following the assassination of Alexander II, the May Laws, also known as "Temporary regulations regarding the Jews" came to remain in effect for over thirty years, and were terribly restrictive in that they prevented settlement only in existing Jewish agricultural colonies, forbade issuance of property and other deeds to Jews, and forbid Jews from transacting business on Sundays and Christian holidays. These laws, as well as subsequent legislation limiting Jewish access to high schools and universities, revocation of the right of Jews to sell alcohol, and measures banning Jewish participation in local elections (even in the Pale of Settlement) led to a surge in Jewish emigration to the United States, triggering a surge of American nativist sentiment in the early 20th century.

Cryptocurrency enthusiast Arianna Simpson goes to a Bitcoin meetup, encounters sexism first-hand.

In a move sure to delight MeFites everywhere, Ghent University in Belgium has created an online, almost arcade-game-like test of word knowledge which is almost BS-proof. Know the word? Press J. Don't? Press F. But don't lie! You will be punished.

People chasing the car in which Enriqueta was carted off after her arrest

At the turn of the 20th century, Enriqueta Martí—a woman from the witchcraft-steeped countryside of Cataluña—came to Barcelona. Like many of the poor rural immigrants flooding into Barcelona at the time, she found that the Catalan capital was less “Pearl of the Mediterranean” and more “City of Death.” This didn’t bother her, though, because it was in Barcelona that she became her country’s answer to Jack the Ripper, luring children back to her house, killing them, and then drinking their blood.

Fast forward a century and Marc Pastor, a CSI detective based in Barcelona, finds himself working on a case involving another female serial killer. In his spare time, he writes Barcelona Shadows, a retelling of Martí’s diabolical career redolent of Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and David Peace. Already a bestseller in Spain, the book has just been published in English. I caught up with Marc for a trip back to the dark alleys of the Barcelona slums.

VICE: Hi, Marc. When exactly is your book set?
Marc Pastor: It’s in 1912. Barcelona is leaving its rural past behind and becoming a modern city. There is the biggest casino in Europe, which was an amazing amusement park with a rollercoaster. There’s a lot of poverty. People are living in the streets and there’s a lot of sickness. This is where Enriqueta appears, where she rises up. A woman. She is a female killer, which is very unusual because 99 percent of serial killers are men. It’s a dark and creepy city with a dark and creepy serial killer.

And Enriqueta came onto this scene from the countryside, to work as a servant in a house?
Actually, as a whore.

Fake wall in Enriqueta's kitchen, where she hid the bones

I was about to say: she swiftly becomes a prostitute. How quickly does she start to kill people, and can you tell me about her methods?
We don’t know exactly how many people or children she killed. That’s part of the myth. Jack the Ripper had five victims, but you don’t know how many victims Enriqueta had. She was arrested in 1912, but she went to Mallorca in 1901 for three months and had to come back because people wanted to kill her. So you can imagine she was murdering people and children for 12 years, at least. I met a lot of people after publishing the book who told me, “My grandma was a victim of Enriqueta," or, "My grandmother-in-law was one of the people Enriqueta tried to kidnap.” They showed me pictures. She tried to kidnap a lot of people. One woman told me her grandmother-in-law was approached by a woman who tried to give her candy and told her to come with her.

That’s suitably old-fashioned. What do you know about her methods?
We have a witness. A girl saw her kill a boy. She kidnapped the sons and daughters of whores and beggars; children who nobody knew about. She kidnapped them close to her house and then she would bring them home. The witness said that Enriqueta gave the boy something to put him to sleep, because she didn't want him to scream. With a knife, she cut the neck and opened the void like a piece of meat, like a cow.

Enriqueta wanted to use the blood. She used the children for prostitution, for pedophiles, but she also used them to make tonics, and for other types of witchery. There was no medicine at that time. A lot of people had tuberculosis and diseases like that and she claimed that drinking the blood of an eight-year-old child would help them. I think there was some kind of cannibalism going on. It hasn’t been proven. She thought that the blood and the cooked flesh of the children would bring immortality, so she ate them.

Inspection on Picalquers Street, searching for bones from one of Enriqueta's apartments

That’s how she became known as the Vampire of Barcelona, right?
Yes. One of the wonderful parts of this story is that she never got to her trial; she died of uterus cancer beforehand. It's quite ironic that the woman who spent her life kidnapping and eating children to become immortal, couldn't have children.

She kidnapped the children and drained them of their blood because she believed that it would make her immortal. Wasn’t there a kind of twisted logic to it?
It was more a superstition. She was illiterate. She was brought up in a small town. If she really was dying of cancer, maybe it was some kind of survival instinct kicking in. But she was also a psychopath—she enjoyed what she did.

How was she caught?
The same way all criminals get caught: because of a mistake. She kidnapped the daughter of a man who wasn't rich, but who was very loved and well known in Barcelona. The girl's name was Teresita. She cut Teresita's hair in her apartment and left the window open. A neighbor saw Teresita in the window and told the police about what she saw. When the police went into the apartment they found two girls. That was when they found out.

You work in CSI for the police.
Yes. I work on robberies and I look for DNA, blood, sperm, and fingerprints. We don’t drive hummers, though.  

Teresita with the mayor and the cops who rescued her

Can you tell me about working on the case of the female serial killer Remedios Sanchez, and how that influenced the book?
I was trying to write the book and get into Enriqueta’s mind—the mind of a female serial killer. It was the summer of 2009 and a woman appeared strangled and stabbed in a neighborhood in Barcelona. We went to investigate. There was a lot of violence in those days, lots of break-ins, so we didn’t know exactly what happened. Two weeks after the crime, another old woman was murdered in an apartment.

This was less violent but there were some coincidences between the two cases. At the same time, some robberies were conducted in the same way: a woman would enter an old woman’s house, talk to her, and then beat her up in order to rob her. It was strange. In two weeks we had four or five robberies including old women being beaten. The procedure seemed to be the same. The woman would always ask for a glass of water and then come in and turn into a monster.

It must have been exhausting.
It was maybe the worst time in my career. Every time the phone rang and someone said, “She did it again,” I felt awful. You want to get her before she can do it again. It was a big investigation. She was so fast leaving the crime scene that we could never catch her. We got some blurred pictures from a CCTV camera. We knew how she moved. We found out that she lived and worked in the same neighborhood all the robberies were taking place in. It took about two months of investigation, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It was so exhausting. I could tell she was beginning to feel powerful, because she killed even more often. The robbery was only an excuse—she had been stealing all her life. When she killed for the first time, she realized, “This is what I like.” The last killings became more and more violent. Again, we arrested her because of a mistake. She stole a credit card, went to a casino, and tried to use it. So we went to that casino and looked at the IDs and we went to arrest her. She worked at a bar where a lot of cops go, cooking omelettes. All the cops say she cooked very well.

We went to the bar, but didn’t find her. But we found her by the phone and she was going to kill another woman. She dialed the number of another woman she was going to kill that afternoon.

Guitart family. Teresita on the right side.

You said that when you looked into her eyes, you understood something about Enriqueta.
After the arrest we went to her apartment. She was so cold. She didn’t say anything. When the cop grabbed her to take her out of the car and into her building, she refused to move. She was screaming, “Leave me, leave me.” Inside the apartment the officer in charge told her: “Nobody can see you now, so stop.” She instantly stopped crying.

All her house was painted purple. She sat down on a sofa in her living room and the judge told her, “We are going to look for evidence of homicide.” She stood up, face to face with the judge, and said, “I do not agree.” Have you seen The Silence of the Lambs? It was like the “Hello, Clarice” scene. She began to walk around the room, looking into everyone’s eyes.

We found a lot of evidence. She had a lot of little things that reminded her of her victims.

And she loved to kill people, just like Enriqueta.
When I saw Sanchez, I saw Enriqueta. Well, a hundred years of difference, but they are both female serial killers who killed innocent people—children and grandmothers. Her eyes had the same glaze that I saw on the picture of Enriqueta, so I knew how to get into her mind. I wrote Enriqueta based on Sanchez.  

And there is a kind of overlap, isn’t there?
When a nice woman comes to an old person and helps them with their bags or asks them if they want her to cook in their apartment, they just let her. One of Sanchez’s victims told me: “She was so nice, so kind, she helped me. Then, as soon as she entered the house, she turned into a monster. She hit me. I told her: ‘Please stop, don’t kill me.’ She didn’t say a word. She was an animal.” I will remember those words all my life. She said she saw the monster that otherwise remains inside.

Barcelona Shadows is out now, published by Pushkin Press

Follow Oscar on Twitter: @oscarrickettnow

The 25 Albums Found at the Bottom of Every Used CD Bin

De Reddit

Tías, la única respuesta válida a un “qué falda tan corta” es:
A JUEGO CON TU POLLA, tira. ^^

Xosé Manuel Beiras ”o león de Compostela” intervindo nun mitin do PSdG nos anos 70

"The cinema was made for horror movies. No other kind of film offers that same mysterious anticipation as you head into a dark auditorium. No other makes such powerful use of sound and image. The cinema is where we come to share a collective dream and horror films are the most dreamlike of all, perhaps because they engage with our nightmares." And so Mark Gatiss opens his three-part series, A History of Horror. "One of the great virtues of this series is that it is thoroughly subjective. Gatiss does not feel any particular obligation to give us an A to Z of horror, but instead lingers lovingly over his own favourites," taking the viewer with him from the Golden Age of Hollywood horror through the American horror movies of the 1960s and 1970s.

For your viewing terror, the episodes are available on YouTube.

Episode 1: Frankenstein Goes To Hollywood

In the first episode, Gatiss explores the Golden Age of Hollywood horror, or the Universal era, the 1920s to 1940s. He looks at the silent film The Phantom of the Opera (1925), starring Lon Chaney, the first great horror talkie Dracula (1931), starring Béla Lugosi, and the later release of James Whale's Frankenstein (1931), featuring Boris Karloff. He focuses in particular on Son of Frankenstein (1939), a personal favourite which he feels has been neglected.

The episode includes interviews with John Carpenter, Sara Karloff, Gloria Stuart, Carla Laemmle, Donnie Dunagan, and Sheila Wynn (Lugosi's co-star in a 1951 Dracula tour).

Episode 2: Home Counties Horror

The second episode focuses on the British Hammer Films of the 1950s and 1960s, which inspired Gatiss' childhood passion for horror. He meets key figures from Hammer to discuss the series of Frankenstein and Dracula films which made stars of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, both of whom Gatiss argues are underrated talents. He also identifies a short-lived sub-genre of British "folk horror", drawing on paganism and folklore, including Witchfinder General (1968), his personal favourite Blood on Satan's Claw (1970), and The Wicker Man (1973).

This episode includes interviews with writer-producer Anthony Hinds, writer-director Jimmy Sangster, director Roy Ward Baker, Barbara Steele, star of Black Sunday (1960), director-producer Roger Corman, director Piers Haggard, John Carpenter again, and actors Barbara Shelley and David Warner. Also included are archive interviews with Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

Episode 3: The American Scream

In the third and final episode, Gatiss looks at American horror movies of the late 1960s and 1970s, including Night Of The Living Dead (1968) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). As well as the emergence of slasher films, Gatiss examines the other great horror film trend of the era, the theme of Satanism and demonic possession in films such as Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976).

This episode includes interviews with writer David Seltzer and directors Tobe Hooper and George A. Romero, who also made Martin (1978), another personal favourite which Gatiss considers neglected. Gatiss meets David Warner, Barbara Steele and John Carpenter again, accompanying Carpenter on a tour of the set locations for Halloween (1978). He also visits the Bates Motel, the set location for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

To round out the series, a related special was produced in 2012, called Horror Europa

This 90-minute exploration of European horror reunited Gatiss with director John Das and consultant Jonathan Rigby.

Gatiss' interviewees included Harry Kümel, Annette Chaton (daughter of Thomas Narcejac), Edith Scob, Fabrizio Bava (grandson of Mario Bava), Dario Argento, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, Jorge Grau and Guillermo del Toro. Among films covered were Daughters of Darkness, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu, The Hands of Orlac, Les Diaboliques, Eyes Without a Face, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, La residencia, Who Can Kill a Child?, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth.

See also: Horror Europa Q&A

Hace apenas unas semanas, varios medios se hicieron eco de los peligros que representa Peppa Pig para el recto crecimiento moral de las niñas y niños de nuestra maltrecha sociedad. Según parece, los aparentemente inocuos cerditos que protagonizan el dibujo animado esconden, tras sus simpáticos hocicos sonrosados, la terrible cara del más fiero colectivismo marxista-leninista; una propaganda panfletaria que amenaza con transformar a nuestros desprevenidos púberes en estandartes del socialismo, el comunismo, y lo que es mucho peor, del feminismo. Créanme, el señor Piers Akerman afirmó que la malvada puerca hacía gala de unas «estremecedoras posturas feministas». Tiene sentido que los inapelables puntos sobre las íes en tan controvertido asunto viniesen del periódico australiano The Telegraph; no en vano, el rotativo es propiedad de Rupert Murdoch, vivo ejemplo de triunfador hecho a sí mismo gracias a las obvias virtudes del liberalismo económico y, por tanto, un hombre decente y de bien. Afortunadamente, pocos días antes de tan necesaria revelación, nuestro bienamado ministro de Justicia acababa de presentar el anteproyecto de la nueva Ley de Protección de la Vida del Concebido y de los Derechos de la Mujer Embarazada, que limitaba los avances de estas peligrosas enemigas de nuestro crecimiento como nación. No obstante, esta nueva ley no es más que un parche; si el señor Gallardón en verdad desea mantener la paz social que nos vertebra y que tanto nos ha costado conseguir entre todos, debería prestar atención a los incesantes ataques feministas que sufre diariamente la ciudadanía más indefensa, esto es, los niños, y apuntar a la médula de tan perniciosos pensamientos. O sea, prohibir la emisión de Peppa Pig, de Dora la Exploradora, de los Teletubbies y sobre todo, desterrar de nuestras parrillas televisivas, de una vez y para siempre, a la mayor apologeta del feminismo que se ha camuflado bajo la máscara de una narración infantil: Mary Poppins.

Una mujer trabajadora en un mundo de princesas

Cuesta imaginar un marco menos proclive a la reivindicación femenina y feminista que The Walt Disney Company, la verdad. Sí, es cierto que hace unos quince años, la mastodóntica compañía dio vida a Mulan, una mujer guerrera tan equiparable a sus pares masculinos que, en efecto, eran pares. No obstante, en el filme, la heroína asiática no hacía gala de su condición de mujer; antes bien, debía ocultarla para llevar a cabo su heroico propósito. Es posiblemente el estreno de Brave en 2012 la primera ocasión en que la Disney, aunque fuese a través de Pixar, coloca al frente a una mujer en su propia y completa condición femenina. Merida es una protagonista sin disfraces, sin imposturas y sin ocultaciones.

Afrontémoslo, salvo estas últimas ondas en la superficie, la corporación del ratón y el castillo llevaba siete décadas solidificando unos roles de género, ejem, tradicionales. Esto es, la mujer y la sartén en la cocina estén; o lo que es lo mismo, la mujer vale para ser guapa y para que la rescate un hombre. Y si quieres ser una mujer fuerte, independiente y carismática, entonces te toca ser, literalmente, la mala de la película.

Veamos. Blancanieves; una pavisosa mojigata cuya única función parece ser la de servir de chacha a siete hombres hechos y derechos, pese a su estatura. La Cenicienta; con esta comienzan las ensoñaciones. La chica tiene una vida bastante espantosa y sueña y sueña con salir de ella algún día. Gracias, por supuesto, a un hombre poderoso; o sea, a un hombre, vamos. Su cometido en el filme es existir. No hace nada más, no toma ninguna decisión. Nada.

La Bella Durmiente; esta directamente es que ni existe. Lo único que hace es dormir, y ni siquiera su vida es especialmente mala, por lo que su ensoñación es aún más ridícula. Solo sueña con un príncipe azul. Porque sí.

La Dama, Lady Marian, la Sirenita, la Bella, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Wendy, Campanilla… todas, pese a ser en muchas ocasiones la cabeza y el nombre de la película, están a la sombra de un príncipe, un soldado, un conquistador, un ladrón o un guerrero. Es que no soportan la menor comparación con sus antagonistas. En serio, piensen en la Madrastra, en la Reina de Corazones, en Cruella de Vil. Piensen en el personaje femenino más carismático de la época dorada de Disney: Maléfica. Firme, decidida, independiente, bella, seductora. Pues ya ven, era la mala. Así que las niñas acababan asociando estas características a la maldad.

En definitiva, parece que la Walt Disney Company se encontraba en una enconada lucha con Mattel por discernir cuál de los dos transatlánticos del entretenimiento infantil femenino perpetuaba una imagen más rancia de la mujer. Posiblemente también peleasen —y aún lo hagan— por patentar el color rosa, pero esa es otra historia.

Y sin embargo, en 1964, apenas cinco años después del estreno de La Bella Durmiente, la compañía ya había puesto una pica en un Flandes que no volvería hasta treinta y cinco años después. La película era Mary Poppins y la protagonista homónima encarnaba una contestación cuidadosamente afinada al prototipo femenino que la Disney había proyectado hasta el momento. Mary Poppins no es una princesa. No tiene derechos de sangre ni herencias visibles u ocultas en ominosas profecías. Mary Poppins no basa su atractivo en lo bella que pueda ser —y no es que Julie Andrews fuese precisamente fea—. Mary Poppins no necesita un hombre para estar completa, no es su búsqueda vital porque ni siquiera es su búsqueda. La relación que tiene con el pizpireto Dick Van Dyke puede incluir una cierta tensión sexual pero no es el leitmotiv de la misma; al menos no desde Mary hacia Bert.

Podrán objetar que tampoco Alicia es la media naranja de nadie, pero seamos honestos, su personaje no deja de comportarse como una bola de pinball a merced de la locura de Lewis Carroll y el País de las Maravillas. Y esto es lo que la diferencia esencialmente de la niñera voladora y lo que eleva a Mary Poppins por encima de todas sus contrapartes: Mary Poppins toma sus propias decisiones y asume sus propias responsabilidades. Conduce su vida como ella considera adecuado; aconseja cuando lo cree conveniente y se muestra severa cuando decide que debe serlo. Y sin perder la amabilidad ni maquinar malvados planes. Mary Poppins es firme, independiente y decidida. Y es la buena de la película.

Quizá me digan que el análisis que presento es demasiado rebuscado. Puede ser, pero también puede ser que, con un poco de azúcar, Walt Disney Pictures nos estuviese metiendo una píldora de libertad en medio de una comedia musical aparentemente sencilla.

Una mujer libre en un mundo de esclavos

Es curioso, porque el personaje que la escritora P. L. Travers dibuja en las novelas originales de Mary Poppins es sensiblemente distinto al que aparece en el filme. El primer libro, escrito en 1934, presenta a una mujer mucho más severa, áspera y hosca. De hecho, Travers veía con muchas reticencias una posible adaptación de su personaje por parte de la Disney; y no fue sino tras una larguísima negociación con el propio Walt Disney que la autora australiana dio su brazo a torcer, permitiendo el rodaje de la película. Con todo, una vez estrenado el filme, Travers rechazó frontalmente la versión cinematográfica, precisamente porque la Mary Poppins que aparecía en la cinta producida por Disney y dirigida por Robert Stevenson no era lo suficientemente severa, áspera ni hosca.

Y me parece curioso porque, aunque es bien conocido el suavizado general que las películas de Disney llevan a cabo sobre sus homónimos originales, el caso de Mary Poppins es algo distinto. Y me explico; los cuentos de Perrault o los hermanos Grimm son bastante más gore que sus versiones en la pantalla grande, pero Disney creía conveniente su dulcificación para ofrecerlos al público infantil. Quizá este proceso vaya en contra del espíritu de las narraciones, pero sin embargo, el suavizado de Mary Poppins ayuda a la transmisión de un mensaje que la Disney había contravenido sistemáticamente hasta ese momento: que una mujer firme, decidida e independiente puede ser también amable y buena.

Y ser libre.

Porque este es el mensaje último que la película parece difundir: las personas deben ser libres. Libre es la sufragista señora Banks, libre es el deshollinador Bert y libre, absolutamente libre, es Mary Poppins. Y además, aquello que toca se vuelve libre.

Los niños se liberan de una educación decimonónica basada en la rigidez y la impostura de los modales. El propio señor Banks, pese a ser un acaudalado bancario, se libera de un trabajo que le transforma en esclavo. Esclavo del tiempo, claro, pero también esclavo del espacio oscuro y opresivo del banco. Y sobre todo, lo que es verdaderamente horrible, esclavo de una represión emocional derivada de una ambición que no le pertenece. Incluso el director del banco, el tacaño señor Dawes —interpretado en doble papel por el propio Van Dyke— se libera de años y años de avaricia y aprende, finalmente, a volar.

Quizá este mensaje feminista no sea tan evidente como los exuberantes números musicales, los deliciosos efectos especiales o la formidable interpretación de Julie Andrews; pero a mí me gusta creer que contribuyó a las doce nominaciones a los Óscar —incluidas mejor actriz protagonista, mejor película, mejor director y mejor guion adaptado—, a las cinco estatuillas y a que la propia Walt Disney Company considere Mary Poppins como su crowning achievement. Su mayor logro. Su coronación.

Es divertido pensar que la compañía coloca en lo más alto de su propio ranking un filme cuyo trasfondo está en las antípodas del mensaje de timorata sumisión femenina que asociamos a Disney. Que la mejor película de Walt Disney Pictures sea una película feminista.

Porque de eso va el feminismo: de que cada persona pueda tomar sus propias decisiones y asumir sus propias responsabilidades. En igualdad y en libertad. Porque en el coño de Mary Poppins manda ella.

(Nota: Este texto es una idea original de Loreto Igrexas)

Un texto de Raquel Boo Anderson

Foron 42, as ilustracións que John Tenniel fixo para Alicia no país das Marabillas, logo de que Carroll desistise de debuxalas, consciente do tempo que lle ía levar e de que a calidade non sería a desexada. E 537 coas que Sidney Paget conformou a imaxe, aínda vixente, de Sherlock Holmes, criticada polo propio Conan Doyle por consideralo máis atractivo do que el pretendía nas páxinas da súa obra. O fidalgo máis representativo da literatura ten a figura tan recoñecible que Gustave Doré lle proporcionou. E Matilda vén sendo a filla fervellasverzas do marabilloso tándem creativo que facían Roald Dahl e Quentin Blake. Así acontece con infinidade de personaxes que tomaron unha aparencia universal, que fica na memoria colectiva dun xeito crible e inamovible.

Paréceme un paradoxo que o argumento que máis se escoita en contra das novelas con ilustracións é que coartan a imaxinación e a liberdade dos lectores, mentres que os contos que les de neno, xusto cando o maxín traballa a pleno rendemento, están cheos de ilustracións que se comen os textos, collendo o valor que merecen, amosándonos outros mundos, guiándonos polas historias. Teño moi claro que isto é unha cuestión de preferencias, e respecto fondamente as de cada un, mais quero reflexionar sobre isto porque eses libros que citei arriba non os entendo sen as fantásticas ilustracións que os acompañan.

Os adultos que amamos a ilustración tiñamos, até hai relativamente pouco, que coleccionar contos para nenos ou novela gráfica (e o seguiremos facendo porque nos encantan ambos xéneros), mais para o noso gozo, fixéronse tendencia os albumes ilustrados para adultos. Admiro moito os proxectos de editoriais galegas como Kalandraka, Oqo, Patasdepeixe, Bululú… e tamén son fan das auto-edicións de talentosos ilustradores, e entristéceme atopar novas coma esta que fai visible a realidade dos profesionais do gremio, obrigados a marchar fóra para poder vivir do seu traballo e acadar o merecido recoñecemento.

En Galicia temos unha asociación de Ilustradores con máis de 130 socios, cunha calidade incuestionable e ampla variedade de estilos e plásticas, polo que cómpre preguntarnos que é o que falla para que a meirande parte deles non poidan vivir da profesión? Quizais non valoramos o que aportan ao mundo literario na súa xusta medida… quizais as imaxes, que sempre dicimos que valen máis ca mil palabras non se cotizan de igual xeito… quizais simplemente sexa outra desas discriminacións que se dan en tantas profesións infravaloradas.

Gostaría moito de que as súas obras non estivesen limitadas no espectro literario só a albumes ilustrados, e que as editoras, e tamén os autores, apostasen por incluír ilustracións en novelas, compilacións de poemas e incluso teatro, para universalizar as personaxes das nosas letras. Que os debuxos fosen máis alá dun recurso para a cuberta, contribuíndo ao imaxinario colectivo do país…

Pero para gustos píntanse cores e aínda que eu desexe que se pinten moitas, as tendencias marcarán os rumbos dos nosos ilustradores e ilustradoras, aquí e fóra. O que si podemos facer é reparar no seu traballo cando o teñamos á vista e darlle o valor que merece, que é moito, e non deixar que sexa o tempo o que faga memorables aos nosos artistas do mundo da ilustración.

 

La capital gana un habitante cada día y supera por primera vez la barrera de los 96.000 vecinos, pero no consigue recuperar el cuarto puesto en el ránking de ciudades gallegas

Because sometimes the only thing to do when you’re feeling down on yourself for not doing something well is to look at other people who are doing it way worse than you so you can feel superior. (Don’t act like there is any other point to watching this show.)

This woman owns 300 pigs in a non-selling-them-for-bacon-they-are-my-friends kind of way. They live in her house.

The moldy food bowl is like JV hoarding.

Those are bags of poop. I wish I could tell you they would be the last bags on poop in this list.

That time you and your roommate pretended the dishes weren’t even a thing for a whole week is starting to look less egregious.

Unholy nightmare.

More poo. Shooting out of bags, onto walls, NBD.

Even more poo. 

Not poo, but still not great.

Dead cats, in case you can’t tell. Because they’re extra decaying.

Blurry honorable mention: a whole bathroom basically overflowing with poo. There’s a toilet in there somewhere.

When “who forgot to take out the recycling?” goes wrong.

If you’ve never had a dude in a hazmat suit remove hundreds of NEEDLES from your bedroom floor, you at least kind of have your shit together.

Dear ex-roommate who complained when I poured kale juice down the sink and didn’t rinse thoroughly enough: It could have been worse. I’m guessing that’s not kale juice.

I mean, who doesn’t have a bucket of roaches in their kitchen?

Ugh. Cannot deal with the feels of seeing signs that kids live in these places.

Worst places in a hoarder’s house: bathroom, kitchen sink, and refrigerator. Oh dear god, the refrigerators.

LOL you didn’t think we were just going to address human poo, did you? Hoarder’s homes are like mini Noah’s Arks of poo.

Black widow. We’re done here.

Side note: Why do we always end up watching Hoarders and it’s poo-covered pal Hoarding: Buried Alive while we’re hungover and already on the verge of throwing up?