There is nothing like a score card, the greatest invention since the appearance of the black thread. It is amazing how in a glance you can visualize the results of thousands of people of your company in a simple and colorful matrix. The yellow means that you have been working but not hard enough. You need to double efforts. The supervisor explains some external and inevitable circumstances who affected the otherwise perfect performance. The Director looks at him and says nothing. He expects a better result next month, quarter or period. “This is just a warning” seems to express with his blue eyes. The color of the fresh blood is the red. Passion, courage and love are its meanings, however in the universe of the score card red means failure, delay and danger. Red is the color of the incompetence. The supervisor explained that these other areas did not provide their part in the process, “we are a system after all”. They are red because the internal or external world have put in front of them unavoidable obstacles which nevertheless with titanic struggles the team wes able to overcome to achieve the current results, undoubtedly insufficient but impossible for anyone else. The Director speaks this time a couple of words which can be translated as unacceptable failure. The supervisor is marked, in a couple of weeks he will leave the company side by side with a couple of security guards. No body liked him anyway. The new supervisor is even more handsome.
The final supervisor does not express a word. He is just leaning in his chair, looking at the score card projected in the meeting room. The walls are of bleach white, the lines of the furniture are straight and clean. The only light abandons a invisible device behind the audience and spread its digital beam to them. Bit by bit the scorecard is built. This supervisor’s project is green which means simply perfection. Nobody asks anything to him. He is about to explain how he lead his team in the attainment of such grandiose accomplishment when the Director moves his hand commanding to go to the next line. The supervisor retracts his proud smile for a second and then smiles again. This is what was expected, a job well done is why the company pays him. The supervisor gets home in his BMW, his wife and children are sleep. He turns his computer for a couple of minutes, he will not disturb anyone and he cannot go to bed this early. His team is still working at the office. What the world would do without post its?, he thinks while browsing in the emails he is receiving from China. A flawless “post it” is a way of saving humanity. In each of the houses in his block in this wonderful suburb faint lights can be seen through the windows as luminescent evidence that computers are still on. The score card should be green, the crystal screen is the only light, and this is such a wonderful life.
I have been following really close the Mexican news for the last couple of weeks and this has nothing to do with the fact that the news sites I used charged me they fees automatically and without a previous advise. Mexico is in a certain period which shows that every 100 years we got into sever conditions. First we have the economic crisis, of course it is world wide but Mexico is also part of the world, it is not? Then we have flu (for some malevolently called Mexican flu), then we got this tide effect which produces huge waves in the so called Pacific Ocean so now tourists are not allowed to get into the the sea, finally Mexico win the Golden Cup in Soccer. All these facts are misleading. All of them show us something important and all of them are detrimental to our country.
I would like to write about all of them, but I just wonder about the pattern. How Allende, Aldama, the Dominguez seen and interpreted their situation. How about Madero, Orozco and Zapata? Did they see what we see now.
Hopefully it is not a pattern and just a new opportunity to change without blood this time.
This is the trailer of the Knowing, movie also about patterns.
In 1969, on Savile Road, the Beatles sung for the last time together. On the roof of a high building Paul McCartney begun the end with Get Back a paradoxical melody that probably made reference to the last Beatles’ reunion after a convoluted White Album. Abby Road was their last album where they got back just for one more time to the way they were and then they got back even more into the past to be soloist again. Once again this was not what I wanted to talk about. My real point here is that all the people around the building started looking up and listening to their music (at this point in time everybody knew the Beatles). The Beatles have not played in public for long years, and all of the sudden it was possible to listen to their notes live!! It should have been amazing and then… someone called the police. It is OK, you cannot expect everybody to like that kind of commotion. The English Policemen finally arrived to the roof of Apple Records and threaten the band: either they stop playing or they will go to jail. They stopped.
The Policemen, of course, were doing their job without thinking in everything else. They stopped one of the most famous events in music history because of angry neighbours. And I keep thinking about them…and I believe that we cannot do a very good job unless we are sure of the true meaning of our duties and what is their place in the society. Specially the keepers of peace and order need to be aware that their duty is a service to the society and not only a service to the rules. I should say something profound here but I really do not have the time (or the brain). I would have probably sit down and listen to them until they got tired, but on one hand I admit I’m more a Beatles fan than a law enforcer and on the other I believe there are much worse crimes than listen one of the greatest bands on history playing on a roof.
As many of you know this is a song by Oasis of their album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory of 1995. This song was a hit and a proud representant of the Brit Pop, that musical wave which included Blur. These bands took back some old influence (in Oasis you can definitely hear a renovated Beatles sound) and tried to incorporate some “alternative” influences. But this is not my point, I really wanted to talk about this specific song. Written under drug influence it still manages to reflect that we need to keep walking our path looking to our past with calm understanding. There is no case in “looking back in anger”. We may not forget but we do decide how to make use of our memories. Transform them in hate, frustration or experience and useful advise.
The opening notes are almost a copy of Imagine (John Lennon, Imagine, 1971) which are just perfect with the rest of the song. In the verge of the Revolution and Independence wars anniversaries of Mexico, it makes plenty of sense to Do not Back in Anger. On the other hand I like better the second verse proposal
“So I start a revolution from my bed
‘Cos you said the brains I have went to my head
Step outside the summertime’s in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out”
Lennon tried a revoltion like the one in the song with almost no results (actually the phrase is his), however there are wars that are worthy of being fight more than once, and this one is definitely in that group
Fallen beings have always had a relevant role in all kind of artistic expressions. There is nothing more eloquent than the story of a high being who for faith or foe is degraded to the meaningless level of the common, or even less than common, the dispossessed. Even the new Transformers movie (Bay, 2009) talks about it. But why this theme is so attractive? Michel Jackson, for example, was a fallen star until his dead, which rise him one last tim. However during his period of “disgrace” everybody was talking about him. Of course, whatever fallen means for Michael Jackson it would be the apex for a regular being.
Even when we talk about a regular falls, we like them. The famous Home Video TV shows are full of them and they are hilarious, but why? Nobody laughs when someone rises up only when someone falls. It is just a question without an answer from my part. Even if I try to answer it, I have no time.
I do not totally agree with the lyrics by Oasis but the song seems pertinent.
Today I was suppose to write about The International (Twyker, 2009), this anti-climatic thriller, but I would like to use these few minutes I have to talk about something by far more important. The new requisites to travel to Canada.
The first thing I would like to mention is that everybody has the authority over their own homes. If you do not want to invite someone to your house nothing can oblige you to do it. If you want to establish certain requisites for your invitees (like brining a bottle of wine, or some taquitos of deshebrada) you have the right of doing it. In the same way because of the increase of the amount of Mexican migrants. The Canadians have decided to request a special visa for the Mexicans who want to visit their home.
I had the oportunity to visit Canada a few years ago, and it looked to me like the Europe in America. Open mind people with no real restrictions to Mexican visitors. If you wanted it you only needed your ticket and you could fly to Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, etc on a weekend. To be able to spend time in such beautiful places was a privilege.
In a lot of places in Canada people leave their doors open. From now on, to Mexicans those doors are closed. Canadians will still open them but now we need to knock.
That is what happens when one feels better with the neighbour than at our own home.
How many times have you heard life is a circle? It is not just Elton John singing in the expensive plagiarism of Kimba: The White Lion (Tezuka, 1950), the infamous Lion King (Allers, Minkoff, 1994). It is quite obvious that things have this attribute. Circles can start anywhere but they will always end up where they started. Life can start at the end as in Benjamin Button (Fincher, 2008) or start in the middle as Dante Alighieri start describing his Divine Comedy (1308-1321 ). But they will end, as I said, just before they started. During the weekend I watched a couple of movies and both of them suggested questions that after more than 100 minutes were not answered. The movies in general were good, but there seems to be a trend nowadays where directors think that to have open finals is a symbol of making an artistic movie.
I agree that sometimes it is good not tell everything. To leave a blank space that the spectator can use to fill it out with his own thoughts and theories. But if the span between the two extremes of the circle is too wide, the circle will never be closed and we will only feel dissatisfied. The Knowing (Proyas, 2009) is a kind of prequel to the best picture of the director so far, Dark City (1998), but another entry and probably another film will be necessary to explain it.
On the other hand The International (Twinker, 2009) is an anti-climatic thriller of the new wave as Michael Clayton (Gilroy, 2007) and Syriana (Gaghan, 2005) which explain the problems but never propose a solution. I will talk further about them during the week.
In the meantime it is Monday and this video makes sense.
Have you ever listen to the Piano Sonata number 14 of Beethoven. It is called “Moonlight” even though probably its real name is “Almost a Fantasy”. Its last movement is astonishing and abounding in the author’s passion. This is the kind of creations which provide life to things. The piano, almost a convoluted amalgamation of wood and metal, is transformed into ethereal sentiments. But we need to listen to the piece to understand the love of the 31 years old magnificent composer for the 17 years old pupil. The sonata is not affected by time patina since passion and love have always been the same. I would like to write more but the sonata’s voice is much better than mine. If you do not have time to listen everything just listen to the last 3 minutes.
Yesterday I went to a Blockbuster which is very close to my home and bought a couple of movies. They were pre-watched movies and besides their correspondent price they had a 50% of extra discount. There is nothing like a cheap good movie!!. I bought Sunshine (2007) , a Since Fiction Horror movie directed by Danny Boyle (the same guy who won the Oscar on 2008 for Slum-dog millionaire). The premise of the movie consists in a bunch of people who want to turn on the sun. Their worst disaster is when their greenhouse is destroyed. Their enemy is a person who has a strong religion beliefs (believes which make him kill). Again to the topic, the movie works as horror movie only in the grade you accept its framework but I truly invite you to understand their characters in a crisis situation, as we are in a crisis situation in Mexico and in the world, and observe the attitudes which contribute to solve the problem and the ones leading to self destruction. It is still a Horror Futuristic Movie in debt with Alien (Scott, 1979), Event Horizon (Anderson, 1997) and the strange and lower rated Sphere (Levinson, 1998) with more focus on the people rather than in the science. You may want to give it a try sometime.
The quick and the dead is a popular name for novels, my only real reference though, is the movie directed by Sam Raimi in 1995 (yes, the same director of Spider-man). Looking in wikipedia I found interesting that the phrase has its origins in a misinterpretation of 1Peter 4:5. Where the word translated as quick in today’s English means alive or living so the right phrase should be “the living and the dead”. After this cultural introuduction I will establish my point: today’s news in Mexico are only two: Michael Jackson’s death and the elections result. Believe it or not the PRI is back and now Michael Jackson is a brilliant example for all humanity. In Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death if that is so Mr. Jackson is now free of sin, but what would be the wage of those who resuscitated the PRI? In a sense we all did, as we all, in a sense, killed Michael.
Posted by Manuel Gaitan 
Posted by Manuel Gaitan 
Posted by Manuel Gaitan 
