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Last posts

Asterix Park Paris

Mónica Boixeda Only-Be, Parisian, Things to do in Paris

Asterix Park is one of the must see attractions in Paris if you´re travelling with children and adults who refuse to grow up.

Istanbul and the age of the Mediterranean

Mónica Boixeda Istanbulite, Only-Be

In an entry related to Rome in this fabulous logbook, we talked about that beautiful scene in Kubrick´s ´Spartacus´ in which the head of the gladiators, after listening to the recitation of a moving song of gnostic echoes regarding the return home (“When the shining sun withdrew from the sky / When the wind blew its last breath on the mountain / When the lark couldn´t be heard no more in the fields / When the foam of the sea slept like a girl / And the pink twilight caressed the world / I returned home) he´s defeated by the desire and sadness of only knowing how to fight, of not being able to sing beautiful songs and making people believe in them, of not knowing how to read or write, of not knowing anything, of feeling ignorant. Of not knowing, for example, why the stars and birds don´t fall from the sky, why the sun abandons the scene when night falls, why the moon changes shape and where the wind comes from. His great love, Varinia. after looking at him unforgettably, responds to this last question talking to him about a cave far away in the north where a young god sleeps whose breath animates and agitates the night winds every time he breathes dreaming about a girl. Maybe there´s never been anything to know, maybe all experiences are strictly incommunicable, maybe all knowledge is exclusively based in the fable. But our need to know is so big that we can´t beat the wanting to legitimise the stories that we invent to calm our mind. The truth, in... read more

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

As an example of the peculiar, that some may prefer to call strange or bizarre way of being and work of Will Oldham, also known by the stage name Bonnie “Prince” Billy, one of the most prestigious, reputable and interesting creators of the American popular music, in the last twenty years, we may cite, among countless examples, the fact that at some point he cited Russ Meyer and Robert Duvall as two major influences on his work. Not surprisingly the future Bonnie “Prince” Billy (only created the heteronymous apparently for purely phonetic reasons, but ended up having hidden meanings and unpredictable ramifications gradually revealed, in the penultimate year of the twentieth century) began his artistic career playing the role of a teenage preacher in John Sayles´s film Matewan (1987) when he was seventeen. Duvall has declared, admiring especially his presence as a performer, this special ability with certain actors (and actor is every singer, especially on stage) to convert all of what they are into something interesting by virtue only of their ability to find ways to make personal and unique look. The reasons why he seems to admire Meyer can perhaps be traced to the touching song I See a Darkness which in 1999 was named to his first disc, os the time of Bonnie “Prince” Billy and was memorable version one year later, with Will Oldham on backing vocals, perhaps the best part of the sublime subject, the way in which the two voices intertwine by Johnny Cash on the album, American III: Solitary Man Starting with a reminder of the many times they got drunk together... read more