Just another massively underrated and lesser-known genius from Latin America. The place stinks with them down there!
The late, Sr. Wilfredo Lam, de Cuba:
I have so thoroughly and repeatedly observed in life that exclusivity breeds stupidity, and for the life of me I cannot see how that ever could be a good thing.
..
Pretenders to the throne of High Art need not apply. Pedestrians welcome. This is a very typical kind of painting in Venezuela which is somehow very near and dear to me; the image of the Avila, the mountain which separates Caracas from the Caribbean Sea. You can see it, in innumerable paintings from Venezuela, in this style. In fact if you are patient you may see a very similar image on the cover of Los Amigos Invisibles (A typcal autotoctonal Venezuelan dance band) 4th album, "Arepa 3000".
I once owned a lovely antique painting from the 40's similar to this one, showing colonial Caracas before the construction boom in the cool shadow of the Avila. I spent time on that mountain, defying gravity, playing bocci, and riding on a little blue burro. Unfortunately, the painting has since been sold, along with all my other stuff.
I'd like to meet:
SOME SOUNDS FROM THE JUNGLE, the road, oblivion, and the great beyond.(For best sound quality, make a "bowl" shape with the equalizer on Windows Media Player. Otherwise you mgiht hurt your ears.):
I Landed on the Planet
O Canto de Leone
Greetings, and Welcome to the Funk
Inside the Monster
Shock and Awe
Slick Dick Rhapsody
Tango en la Plaza
Greeting of the Carioca
To Steal a Soul
The Beautiful Accents Confuse Me
The End of Heaven
Samba is Delicious
Every Day, Every Night
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL:
Music:
I like anything that reveals that so-called insanity is beautiful, and awesome as hell. Presently smokin' an' pokin' to the following: (You will no doubt hear some of these as you read... assuming you read?): Los Amigos Invisibles (yes, those stupid guys you see on my page)
Molotov, Noir Desir, The Gourds, Hank III, Marisa Monte, O Rappa, Tribo de Jah, Natiruts, Rene Ferrer, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mad Professor, Damian Marley, Steven Marley, Manu Chao, Os Mutantes, Orishas, El Gran Silencio, Robert Earl Keen Jr., R.L. Burnside.
Two tracks from the from one of the best movies I can think of:
Grayson Capps: an interesting and compelling musician.
Steve Earle, the Meatpuppets, North Mississippi Allstars, Celso Pina, Bersuit Vergarabat, Illya Kuryaki and the Valderamas, The Doors: rare and poetic tracks. BRASILIAN MUSIC!
It doesn't stop, and certainly never waits...
Los de Abajo and the Lunatics, Control Machete, Plastilina Mosh. Can anyone resist the alluring effrontery of Cibo Matto? I cannot. And Buena Vista Social Club is ALWAYS welcome, of course.
Generally, tango, samba, cumbia, and most all the various matriculations and derivations of Latin Music, including today’s Reggae, which has expanded beyond Jamaican shores to infiltrate, blend, find absorption and expression in an array of cultures. Lastly from the mundacity of my own country there are still left vestiges of unique, genuine music... what I consider to be the remotest expression of the latin temperament, the sounds of the American South, seemingly languishing out here on Latin Pluto.
Movies:
I am a thinker; yes, it's true. My poop doth stink, as equally doth the poo of you.
Television:
I enjoyed watching the catfights and such on the Brasilian soap operas, which are played in all the low-class restaurants where I dined regularly in Rio...!
Here in the US, it's generally alternating marathons between Scrubs and Two and a Half Men. About sums me up in a nutshell, there I guess, huh? And where did Magnum PI go? Damn. Fucking Mystery Channel, has itself become: an enigma......!
Books:
I owe a lot to this rascal:
And to this one:
In this instance, the influence was most troubling, and likewise, most profound:
If you are of a mind to, you might sample these...:
Hemingway, Faulkner, Jean-Paul Sartre, Walker Percy, Albert Camus, Evan S. Connell, Franz Kafka, Peter Taylor, Tennessee Williams, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Valery; W. J. Cash's The Mind of the South is a must-read, James Agee, Iris Murdoch, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Amado. Soon to be favored: Harry Crews.
Juan Rulfo, unsung classic British expatriate writers W.H. Hudson & Richard Hughes, and though it may be tacky I refuse to omit Henri Cherriere (who was also himself one of France..s most infamous expatriates, second only to, perhaps, Gaughin) author of Papillon and the equally, if not even more engrossing, Banco.
...Therefore, for those of you seeking adventure:
Or if you are truly committed, THIS:
This is another truly great, unsung novel which seem to somehow miraculously capture the innocent barbarity of children... much more poignantly and believably than say, "Lord of the Flies" might, which we are all force-fed to read....
There is apparently a movie as well, which I have not seen, starring that old-skool cool guy, Anthony Quinn.
Here we have a dreamy, simultaneously nostalgic and apocalyptic novel of madness, set in a "ghost town" of early 20th century Mexico....
If you don't get it, well, we won't entirely count it against you....
(cont'd)....Motorcycle Diaries, the book, was much better and more thorough (as always) than the movie. Check it out. A peculiar but very intruiging sort of writer by the name of Jaime de Angulo.... I believe Picasso should be read as literature. In college I enjoyed reading Emmanuel Kant, and delving into Soren Kierkagaard, thanks and due exclusively to Walker Percy. This is one of the best books on earth, and I found many moons ago, just in time:
For whatever it’s worth, my life seems to be vaguely repeating the plot of The Razor’s Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham, and not intentionally, ai ai ai..... Check that, things have changed. I'll no more seek a vain nirvana nor the futile salvation of others. My life now moreso resembles the plot of "The Swimmer", by Jonathan Cheever. Even still, I think I am moving into something different now. It is called, most specifically, The Fugitive Kind, the movie adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending, starring Marlon Brando and Ana Magnani. I am most bizarrely and pleasurably living out the plot of that movie to a T. I just hope it doesn't end the same gruesome, tragic way.
For those of you who want a challenge, and/or seek a peculiar reflection:
This man died in Mexico, a suicide, after he left the place he understood, after he compelled us to understand ourselves, our place, our psyche, the world. Read this classic:
"Number One", by John dos Passos, predates and mirrors the plot of "All the King's Men", and is a far superior novel depicting Southern Poltics. Makes you wonder.
Heroes:
Pablo Picasso, Luther Dickinsin (from NM Allstars), Jimmy Smith (of The Gourds), Walker Percy, Simon Bolivar, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Amado, Mario Vargas Llosa, Joey Ramone, Thomas Jefferson, Cormac McCarthy (bastard never wrote me back; he lives in a hovel in El Paso) Vic Chestnut, W.J. Cash, Ralph McGill, Paul Gaughin, Los Amigos Invisibles (the entire band), Asie Payton, R.L. Burnside, Ibrahim Ferrer. For some reason I like Cary Grant. The possibly fictional characters of Jeremiah Johnson, Larry Darryl (from the The Razor’s Edge), Henri “Papillon†Cherriere, Magnum PI. William F. Buckley. Next to James Bond (who is fictional), he is the coolest. RIP dogg. James Bond. Though fictional, he'll never die.
I was a smuggler. And general danger seeker:
