What Chile needs so badly at the moment

Is a large amount of proofreaders.
Lots of them.
Lots and lots of them.
This is my main conclusion after going through the first 5% of the published documentation i collected in july. But i'd noticed the problem before, typos aren't just in art magazines and essays: they're everywhere. On newspapers. In books. Even in those big ads in the underground.
Hear my plea: if you're somewhat literate in spoken and written spanish or castellano, please move to chile, learn the slang and find employment as a proofreader at some big influential art book and magazine publisher. So next time i have to write a thesis on a chilean artist(god forbid) my brain doesn't have to endure my eyes hopping around from typographical error to typographical error, not being able to concentrate on whatever text remains underneath.

Go look!

Online gallery of Santiago Stencil and Sticker Art, Photographed by evaristo on 13 and 15 august 2005.

...Which us why i was so eager to learn how to make photo galleries...

Pictures taken in Lastarria, Bellas Artes and(the last four, taken on the 15th) Barrio Brasil areas. Generally overlooked by more "formal" artists and scorned as too aristocratic (or artsy-fartsy) by traditional graffitists, sticker art and stencil art are mostly ignored in Chile despite their omnipresence in the very heart of Santiago. Still in its budding phases, this form of expression is naturally enticing to the creative everyman thanks to the obvious simplicity of its technique, particularly so in places that until only some fifteen years earlier would every morning be painted white by the Carabineros to cancel all visible signs of political dissent.
It will be interesting to observe the evolution of this art form over the next few years. And to eventually use it as material for something rather different, but let's not get carried away here.

Good news, friends!

Brothers Grimm finally came out in the U.S. this friday! European premiere at the Venice Film Festival next week! Further info on the relentlessly updated Dreams website.

Also, i updated the Fidel Blog. Pictures of my cat -who is viciously attacking my sandals as i type- are to be expected here and on his even-more-procrastinated blog, since some of you have been enquiring as to his how-and whereabouts.

(Yes, as you might have guessed and most of you already knew, i'm back in italy. And not very happy about it either.)

No.

Actually, i'm not in the mood for blogging today.

inevitably

With the digital camera comes me learning to make web albums. So as a test i took my entire images folder and splonked it online. You can see it here, if you're so inclined, and appreciate the irrational and oddly autobiographical randomness of it all. Existence in general, but the album too.

(actually it's quite boring, i wouldn't bother going if i was you)

Only two images were removed before uploading, one portraying future yet-to-be-revealed projects and the other that i don't know how it got there, officer.

3 pictures

Airport, Iquique
August 2005

Dog on roof, Tacna
August 2005

Portrait of my uncle, 2005








Yes, i bought a digital camera. So you may or may not be seeing pictures taken by me here once in a while. Putting one's own pictures online is so immodest, as if they were actually worth being seen by the rest of the world. Which in my case they certainly aren't, but i won't let all this technology go to waste so here they are anyway.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Which movie is the worst you could possibly be shown while travelling through the andes by bus for over 6 hours? This one or this one?
And before you ask: yes, these both really happened to me. The first one even happened twice.

linky-link

My aunt has a blog. There's no more religion.

Distorting reality for fun & leisure

In San Pedro de Atacama:

Her: So, how's the Carrete in italy?
Me: well, it depends if you're in a small town or a large one. Small towns have people going out more on weekends, while large ones are full of university students who usually come from out of town, so parties and nights out are concentrated on weekdays.
Her: So...you told me you live in a small town...
Me: Uh-huh.
Her: ...and used to stay in a large one on weekdays.
Me: Uh-huh.
Her: So basically you would party seven days a week??
Me: I took mondays off.


The things we say for free drinks. Or thanks to free drinks. But seriously, San Pedro's night life is one of the best i've found in the past month. Much better than Santiago. Which doesn't look good for Santiago if you consider San Pedro is mostly a little conglomeration of huts in the middle of the desert.

Also

Went for a walk in the market today, there was a stall where guys in large Barney and Winnie The Pooh costumes would charge for having their picture taken with people's children.

Barney.

Purple bugger scares the living shits out of me now, thank god he wasn't around when i was a kid.

Le Avventure Di Un Robinese In Chile

(Title ©Ai 2005, from an sms received the night before leaving Italy)

So the day after algarrobo we leave for Arica. I decide to lighten my luggage (thus defeating its meaning, ethimologically) by leaving some tapes and pullovers in santiago so i can pick them up on the way back. We spend two days in Arica and decide to hit Iquique. Just for a couple of days.
So i decide to lighten my luggage by leaving some tapes in Arica, and leave for Iquique with only one pair of trousers and a couple of T-shirts. It's only two days anyway.
While we're there we decide to split roads and visit some more places, transforming the original two days into about seven. Once again i leave tapes in iquique, and to solve the t-shirt problem i buy emergency ones.
So by now it's the last week of august and i've left a trail of tapes throughout the southern continent, i'm walking around alone in the middle of the desert somewhere north of the tropic of capricorn wearing a white t-shirt and holding a large red plastic carrier-bag full of audiotapes, looking like Jules and Vincent after The Wolf solves their problem.

Just to allow you to somehow picture my appearance in those moments.
I would also like to mention the fact that all the events hereto described provoked in me a considerable sense of fun and excitement.

(What i was doing in the middle of the desert -and what i found there- are none of your business, thank you.)

Algarrobo

Main reason i haven't updated much in the past weeks: Stuff has finally started to happen. Now that it's apparently over, i can waste some more time writing useless stuff on the internet.

Small anecdote: Went to Algarrobo, a seaside resort 1 hour away from Santiago, a couple of weeks ago. When i awoke the following morning my brain was too distracted by the Vainas i'd drunk the previous night fighting it away in my stomach to allow me to remember where i'd ended up.
So i manage to half-climb out of bed to peek out of the window, and what i see is a wide green field with bunnies hopping around.
"Oh great, i'm in bloody teletubby land" i tell myself, and go back to sleep.