This time in Spanish and English
2010. El número me suena a ciencia ficción. Pero ha llegado. Happy New Year!!! Voy a inaugurar el año bloguero con uno de los videos de la serie I don´t live in LA @Getty#09. Tengo mucho material filmado y lo quiero ir sacando poco a poco. Además, para qué engañarnos, echo de menos esa extraña ciudad sin ciudad, donde sólo algunos barrios parecen tener vida humana, donde la gente sueña constantemente con reinventarse, donde los cielos no caben en los ojos y donde el cambio horario crea la ficción imposible de que todo ocurrió ayer. Eso sí, pasear por las calles de Madrid, atiborradas de gente en pleno ataque de consumismo navideño se ha convertido en un inesperado placer. Después de dos meses teniendo que subirme a un coche para poder rodearme de gente que pasea sin más, tener a miles de madrileños ruidosos alrededor resulta extrañamente reconfortante. No obstante, este video muestra una de las caras amables de Los Angeles, Venice Beach. Allí hay sobredosis de vida.
I grew up thinking about 2010 as a sci-fiction year, but it's totally real now. Happy New Year from Madrid!! I am opening the new blog season with a video from the series I don't live in LA @Getty#09. I can't lie, I miss that weird city without a city, where only a few neighborhoods seem to be inhabited by people; where the sky doesn't fit inside the eyes; where people dream about reinventing themselves, and where the clock travels so far behind the rest of the world that everything seems to have happened yesterday. I have to confess though, to see Madrid' streets packed with madrileños doing frantic Christmas shopping or just walking because walking it's fun it has been a surprising pleasure. After two months of feeling at times the last human being on the planet in the streets of LA and having to drive just to go to share some public space with people, I am enjoying being surrounded by thousands of noisy Spaniards. In this video, though, there are people. Lots of them. It shows one of the mildest sides of LA, Venice Beach.
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Jan 3, 2010
MISSING LA - I DON'T LIVE IN LA #4
Dec 20, 2009
GETTING TO KNOW LOS ANGELES #2
This time in English
This is the second chapter on a series about experiencing LA as a potential Angelina.
Alvarado St.
IMMIGRATION, LOVE AND MOVIES
I am living around MacArthur's park, which means I am a white girl with blond hair and blue eyes around Guatemalan, Salvadorian and Mexican workers who think I am a gringa who doesn't understand Spanish. It's a lively neighborhood where you can incessantly listen to Jose Luis Perales , buy cheap socks and impossible clothes, have great tacos, pupusas -and great pastrami at Langer's- and get fake green cards.
"ID's, ID's". That's the most common word uttered around the area. The cholos (gang people) control the business but deep in the chain of command there are illegal immigrants walking the streets and offering their bargains: the cheapest ID is $40, the most expensive could be $700. Maybe because I look 'gringa' but I speak Spanish with my thick Castilian accent, one of those men agreed to talk to me. "If you just jumped the fence we try to be good and give you a deal. If you are European we charge you more and if your car looks expensive the price goes up". At least, they have a heart...
Alvarado on a Sunday morning
The cost also depends on how fake the ID looks. The quality of the number it's key too. "If you want a green card with a real number you are going to have to pay for it, but we can get you anything". The price of the best ones, $700, looks very cheap to me, compared with New York, where as far as I know you have to pay at least $2000 for a good green card in the black market. "The business is bigger in LA and we sell mainly fake numbers but every employer knows it and everybody plays along" this guy told me.
He was caught months ago when he sold an ID to a cop in the area. He was deported but crossed the border again; it cost him $4000. "I have done it a few times, so that was a 'good customer' price; if not it could have been $5000 or $6000". He used to work in construction in LA but he wasn't making much money. "This is a better business, it's worth the risk" he says, although he wouldn't say how much he makes. "In Mexico there is no money and my girlfriend is here so I had to come back". Whether it's love or money who keeps him here, he doesn't even think about going back to his country. Neither are millions of illegal immigrants who are trapped in all kind of emotional or economic webs.
Picture of 'Love and Documents',
a great short movie recently screened in LA and
directed by Ben Fine using muppets.
It's based on the following story and it´s a good example of how art
can help to raise awareness:
I have a very good friend in New York who crossed the border more than ten years ago. He's married to an American because he loves her but he can't get his green card because he entered the country illegally and laws don't forgive it. It's a catch 22 situation. They are trying to press the government to change the current law and include their case in the future immigration reform: there are at least half a million people in the same situation. You can read about it here, and you can help them by sign their petition for the waiver reform here.
This is the second chapter on a series about experiencing LA as a potential Angelina.
Alvarado St.
IMMIGRATION, LOVE AND MOVIES
I am living around MacArthur's park, which means I am a white girl with blond hair and blue eyes around Guatemalan, Salvadorian and Mexican workers who think I am a gringa who doesn't understand Spanish. It's a lively neighborhood where you can incessantly listen to Jose Luis Perales , buy cheap socks and impossible clothes, have great tacos, pupusas -and great pastrami at Langer's- and get fake green cards.
"ID's, ID's". That's the most common word uttered around the area. The cholos (gang people) control the business but deep in the chain of command there are illegal immigrants walking the streets and offering their bargains: the cheapest ID is $40, the most expensive could be $700. Maybe because I look 'gringa' but I speak Spanish with my thick Castilian accent, one of those men agreed to talk to me. "If you just jumped the fence we try to be good and give you a deal. If you are European we charge you more and if your car looks expensive the price goes up". At least, they have a heart...
Alvarado on a Sunday morning
The cost also depends on how fake the ID looks. The quality of the number it's key too. "If you want a green card with a real number you are going to have to pay for it, but we can get you anything". The price of the best ones, $700, looks very cheap to me, compared with New York, where as far as I know you have to pay at least $2000 for a good green card in the black market. "The business is bigger in LA and we sell mainly fake numbers but every employer knows it and everybody plays along" this guy told me.
He was caught months ago when he sold an ID to a cop in the area. He was deported but crossed the border again; it cost him $4000. "I have done it a few times, so that was a 'good customer' price; if not it could have been $5000 or $6000". He used to work in construction in LA but he wasn't making much money. "This is a better business, it's worth the risk" he says, although he wouldn't say how much he makes. "In Mexico there is no money and my girlfriend is here so I had to come back". Whether it's love or money who keeps him here, he doesn't even think about going back to his country. Neither are millions of illegal immigrants who are trapped in all kind of emotional or economic webs.
Picture of 'Love and Documents',
a great short movie recently screened in LA and
directed by Ben Fine using muppets.
It's based on the following story and it´s a good example of how art
can help to raise awareness:
I have a very good friend in New York who crossed the border more than ten years ago. He's married to an American because he loves her but he can't get his green card because he entered the country illegally and laws don't forgive it. It's a catch 22 situation. They are trying to press the government to change the current law and include their case in the future immigration reform: there are at least half a million people in the same situation. You can read about it here, and you can help them by sign their petition for the waiver reform here.
Nov 19, 2009
I don't live in LA (day 3)
This time in Spanish and English
Hoy he descubierto que un inmigrante italiano llamado Simon Rodia emuló a Gaudí sin saberlo al construir las Watts Towers, una escultura con aire a La Sagrada Familia en el corazón del barrio de Watts, en Los Angeles. Se pasó más de tres décadas dedicado a su obra, reciclando materiales para construirla poco a poco y sin ningún tipo de ayuda entre 1920 y 1954. Las Watts Towers estuvieron a punto de ser demolidas en los años cincuenta pero sobrevivieron a la amenaza de las inmobiliarias y hoy permanecen erguidas como supervivientes ejemplares de la historia de este duro suburbio de Los Angeles, habitado principalmente por afroamericanos e infaustamente conocido por los 'Watts riots' de 1965. Según cuenta la leyenda, mientras Rodia construía sus torres alguien le mostró una foto de La Sagrada Familia. "Se parece a mis torres" exclamó con cierto desdén. Tras contemplar la foto un rato exclamó "!Pero a él le ayudaron a construir su iglesia, yo lo hice solo!".
La banda sonora es un jarocho, música tradicional de Veracruz grabada en directo durante una cena musical en casa de Sasha Anawalt. Uno de los intérpretes es Cesar Castro, un mexicano que hoy vive en Los Angeles y que tiene un brillante futuro como músico. Por alguna razón su jarocho me recordó al viaje al desierto de Mojave que también hemos hecho durante la usc annenberg fellowship. El video no es periodístico, es otro experimento sin apenas edición con la digital harinezumi.
Today I discovered that an immigrant named Simon Rodia built a sculpture -the Watts Towers- that resembles Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. He shaped it in the heart of Watts, one of the toughest and resilient neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We had a very unique guide who told us how the story went: "One day somebody showed Rodia a picture of Gaudi's church. He looked at it and said with some disdain 'it looks like my towers!'. Then, after a pause, he added: 'He definitely had some help, I did it alone!". Rodia spent more than 30 years building his towers all by himself between the '20s and the 50's.
The musical score is by Cesar Castro, who played jarochos live during a musical night at Sasha Anawalt's home. California used to belong to Mexico, I guess that's why I made the unconscious connection between jarochos (traditional music from Veracruz) and the Mojave desert in this video piece. It's not a reporting piece, it's another experiment with almost no editing with the digital harinezumi.
Hoy he descubierto que un inmigrante italiano llamado Simon Rodia emuló a Gaudí sin saberlo al construir las Watts Towers, una escultura con aire a La Sagrada Familia en el corazón del barrio de Watts, en Los Angeles. Se pasó más de tres décadas dedicado a su obra, reciclando materiales para construirla poco a poco y sin ningún tipo de ayuda entre 1920 y 1954. Las Watts Towers estuvieron a punto de ser demolidas en los años cincuenta pero sobrevivieron a la amenaza de las inmobiliarias y hoy permanecen erguidas como supervivientes ejemplares de la historia de este duro suburbio de Los Angeles, habitado principalmente por afroamericanos e infaustamente conocido por los 'Watts riots' de 1965. Según cuenta la leyenda, mientras Rodia construía sus torres alguien le mostró una foto de La Sagrada Familia. "Se parece a mis torres" exclamó con cierto desdén. Tras contemplar la foto un rato exclamó "!Pero a él le ayudaron a construir su iglesia, yo lo hice solo!".
La banda sonora es un jarocho, música tradicional de Veracruz grabada en directo durante una cena musical en casa de Sasha Anawalt. Uno de los intérpretes es Cesar Castro, un mexicano que hoy vive en Los Angeles y que tiene un brillante futuro como músico. Por alguna razón su jarocho me recordó al viaje al desierto de Mojave que también hemos hecho durante la usc annenberg fellowship. El video no es periodístico, es otro experimento sin apenas edición con la digital harinezumi.
Today I discovered that an immigrant named Simon Rodia built a sculpture -the Watts Towers- that resembles Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. He shaped it in the heart of Watts, one of the toughest and resilient neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We had a very unique guide who told us how the story went: "One day somebody showed Rodia a picture of Gaudi's church. He looked at it and said with some disdain 'it looks like my towers!'. Then, after a pause, he added: 'He definitely had some help, I did it alone!". Rodia spent more than 30 years building his towers all by himself between the '20s and the 50's.
The musical score is by Cesar Castro, who played jarochos live during a musical night at Sasha Anawalt's home. California used to belong to Mexico, I guess that's why I made the unconscious connection between jarochos (traditional music from Veracruz) and the Mojave desert in this video piece. It's not a reporting piece, it's another experiment with almost no editing with the digital harinezumi.
Nov 4, 2009
I don't live in LA (day 1)
It's official, I don't live in LA but maybe I should!
This is my first video-experiment with my new little toy camera during my Getty fellowship.
Nov 2, 2009
BLOG A MEDIO GAS
No sé si tendré tiempo de escribir en las próximas semanas. Hoy empiezo la USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship en Los Angeles y aún no sé si tendré tiempo de bloguear. Sé que voy a pasar tres semanas extraordinarias conociendo gente a la que siempre he admirado, entre otros a Bill Viola y a Manohla Dargis. El plan de vida que me han organizado suena más que bien pero no sé si tendré tiempo de hablar de esta magnífica agenda californiana que me regalan a través de esta fellowship.
Disculpadme si no me prodigo mucho por mi propio blog pero es parte del trato: entre otras cosas me piden que no trabaje! Lo nunca visto, que te paguen por no trabajar y te exijan disfrutar al máximo de la gente a la que han decidido que tengo que conocer. Qué gusto da esto de ser una fellow!!!! En cualquier caso algún video caerá por aquí seguro. Please, keep coming back!
Disculpadme si no me prodigo mucho por mi propio blog pero es parte del trato: entre otras cosas me piden que no trabaje! Lo nunca visto, que te paguen por no trabajar y te exijan disfrutar al máximo de la gente a la que han decidido que tengo que conocer. Qué gusto da esto de ser una fellow!!!! En cualquier caso algún video caerá por aquí seguro. Please, keep coming back!
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