Da Silva

Da Silva "Le Carnaval" por totoutard

Another new guidebook

After the fabulously picturesque Lleida Climbs, the new Siurana, San Benet, and Rodellar guidebooks last year, 2011 seems to start as another promising year for Catalunya guidebooks - this time it is Joan Miquel Dalmau, the owner of Balco de la Luna shop in my home town of Monistrol de Montserrat, that has finished this superb 450-page guide, complete with photos and a very good map of the Agulles.  Even if you are used to navigating this complicated terrain, the guidebook is a gem to add to one's collection.  Moreover, it also includes the latest updated version of the sport climbing at Vermell de Xincarro and Desdentegada - so far no errors noticed during a quick inspection - Vianant remains at 7c+, Busca Brega at 7b+, Ultravox at 7c, Canela and Vox Populi lack their names, but proudly stand at 7b.  The Vermell part also includes (all?) the latest new routes opened by Piju n co' this winter-spring, such as Kurt Albert.  To be enjoyed and climbed without moderation!

It is also rumored that the latest Luichi guidebook, the new version of Cavallers happiness, is to be found in the shops very soon....!!! Let's see if the projects and routes climbed will keep their grades intact there - now that Smith Rock is downgraded to 7c+ in Lleida guidebook, I need some comforting or simply more training, protein, and campus-pills...

Cavallers my love

 Opening the season, cold and wet

Philip  and myself on The project...

Jaume the photographer getting fit

Miro, painter poet

"For me, a picture should be like sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem. It must have radiance; it must be like those stones which Pyrenean shepherds use to light their pipes." Miró

Moon Bird at Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Visiting another exhibition on Miró, I am always enchanted to find his works more surprising, less simple than it might seem at the first sight, always more inspiring, but also more fleeting.  Miró, with his farmer or factory-worker face, looks almost as surreal as Magritte on the old black-and-white pictures.  Is he making fun of us, his audience, painting and talking about these images that find meaning as he paints them, that find their names when he is done throwing paint on the canvass, concentrated, hard-working, all day long?  Or does he know more than us, does he have a different sight, does he talk with Plato's shadows of the ideal?  It is always the woman and the bird that come back in his paintings - not ants like in Dali's nightmares, but constant inspirations for Miro's more poetic and mystic work.  Even during the dark years of WWII he paints women - in black this time. 

One of the discoveries for me during this exhibition in Brussels (where ING is copying Fundacion Caixa in Barcelona with a dedicated space for art in the city center) was a book Miro illustrated for Paul Eluard's poetry.  The illustrations reminded me of Shagal's more spiritual work for the Bible, where here Miro remained Miro - light, easy, un-understandable, full of himself - and full of meaning for the ones willing to accept him as he comes.  Sure, as he and Eluard come together.

Une prison découronnée
En plein ciel
Une fenêtre enflammée
Où la foudre montre ses seins
Une nuit toute verte
Nul ne sourit dans cette solitude
Ici le feu dort tout debout
À travers moi.


Mais ce sinistre est inutile
Je sais sourire
Tête absurbe
Dont la mort ne veut pas dessécher les désirs
Tête absolument libre
Qui gardera toujours et son regard et son sourire.


Si je vis aujourd’hui
Si je ne suis pas seul
Si quelqu’un vient à la fenêtre
Et si je suis cette fenêtre
Si quelqu’un vient
Ces yeux nouveaux ne me voient pas
Ne savent pas ce que je pense
Refusent d’être mes complices


Et pour aimer séparent.

(P. Eluard)

The last impression from the exhibition - this other quote from the artist: "Pour moi, conquérir ma liberté, c'est conquérir la simplicité. À la limite, une ligne, une couleur suffisent à faire le tableau". This made me think more of my thesis - I would wish so much for it to be simple, for me to finally see the light and make it simple, conquer liberty through simplicity...

Inspiration

I don't usually post videos, but this one left me drooling, over and over again.  Death to gravity, everything is possible.  Maybe one day, in the next 10 years?  Or maybe not, I will go dream my dream anyway!  Quizas, live and see...


KALÉA BORROKA 8B+ SIURANA Alizée Dufraisse from phil on Vimeo.

Strange times

Strange times between projects, looking for motivation, for color, finding reasons to suffer more, working, sleeping, not much more going on - so much more going on.  Moving on, from the South face to the North face, or going in circles.  Pushing people away, trying to keep them in, life goes on, in its own inexplicable way.  Dreams of granite keep me awake at night, nightmares put me to sleep.  Let the strange times roll...

Melancolia

Hermano, tu que tienes la luz, dime la mía.
Soy como un ciego. Voy sin rumbo y ando a tientas.
Voy bajo tempestades y tormentas,
ciego de ensueño y loco de armonía.
Ese es mi mal. Soñar. La poesía
es la camisa férrea de mil puntas cruentas
que llevo sobre el alma. Las espinas sangrientas
dejan caer las gotas de mi melancolía.
Y así voy, ciego y loco, por este mundo amargo;
a veces me parece que el camino es muy largo,
y a veces que es muy corto...
Y en este titubeo de aliento y agonía,
cargo lleno de penas lo que apenas soporto.
¿ No oyes caer las gotas de mi melancolía ?

Ruben Dario, a leer escuchando Game Over, by Marcel Cranc