Only-apartments' blog

ONLY BE AMSTERDAMMER

ONLY BE BUDAPESTER

ONLY BE VENETIAN

ONLY BE BARCELONIAN

ONLY BE BERLINER

ONLY BE VALENCIAN

ONLY BE ISTANBULITE

ONLY BE FLORENTINE

ONLY BE LISBOETA

ONLY BE LONDONER

ONLY BE NEW YORKER

ONLY BE MADRILENIAN

ONLY BE MALAGUEÑO

ONLY BE MILANESE

ONLY BE PARISIAN

ONLY BE PORTUENSE

ONLY BE PRAGUER

ONLY BE ROMAN

ONLY BE SEVILLIAN

ONLY BE PROXIMAMENTE

ONLY BE ATHENIAN

ONLY BE COMING SOON

Last posts

The Guell Palace in Barcelona reopens its doors to the public

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

In the cyclical dance of time, undoubtedly, there have been more prudish and puritan times in the Western World than nowadays. However, it is also true that not long ago, there have been incomparably freer and more permissive times regarding moral issues. This makes us feel as victims of a moral deterioration that is hardly bearable. While permissive times usually coincide with great intelligence and creativity explosions, puritan times coincide with times in which stupidity seems to be the dominant paradigm. Obviously, intelligence, creativity, good taste or style do not disappear from the face of the Earth. They just give the impression of being left aside from time to time. People get used to stupidity, absurdity and the lack of ideas in the political discourse –In fact, it seems to be dominated by lazy students who did not even have the honor of being the last ones of the class-. Also, the media, work and mass culture might make people end up forgetting there is another way to live, think, behave and govern. For example, there are constant negative comments about Amy Winehouse’s life on the edge. People sometimes forget that it is very difficult to expect moving and tender songs from a tormented artist who is surrounded by nicotine, drugs and love problems. People just forget that for some artists, their direct communication with pain is an essential part of their extraordinary works. It is as if we expected that artists with hard lives like Billie Holidays have a perfect like just by going to the gym every day and by reading self-improvement books (As if self improvement... read more

Fashion catwalk in Berlin subway

Mónica Boixeda Berliner, Only-Be

How necessary fashion is for us and how important it is for us to be aware of it. They are not only dress codes but also cultural trends: political game, genres that mix up and explode; lean figures on the catwalk in a performance that also represents the changing of seasons, and with each new season new desires, ways of dressing and understanding everything. Obviously, reality is dressed up, the world is dressed up. Your body is seized with a coat of cloth and plastic and latex and leather, culture has made you wear it so that you can move in it. Despite being naked, you are dressed but with other body, other signals, other rhythms. Berlin continues to be exhausted in provocative and “cutting edge” attitudes. Evidence of this is the Underground Catwalk, to be held on July 6 in the underground of this city which, despite wars, bombings and nefarious dictators, has been able to be undone and rebuilt, to become today, and since quite long ago, one of the world´s cultural capitals. F**k Paris! Yes Berlin! As the catwalk slogan says: “step into the underground!” This parade is marked by trends and irreverent, urban designs, all influenced by the “underground” fashion. The catwalk will take place in two different underground travels; one will be the Street-Couture and the other U-Couture. More than twenty different brands and exclusive designers will show the latest in street urban and sports fashion, and of course, influenced by the culture of rock, gothic, punk and pin-up aesthetic among others. Rockstar Models agency’s girls and boys will put into movement and madness... read more

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

“On my 90th birthday, I wanted to treat myself to a night of wild passion with a teenage virgin.” This is how “Memories of my sad whores” by Nobel Prize winning Gabriel Garcia Marquez starts. An elderly man who has resolved to arrange a sexual encounter with a teenage virgin is an idea which could have alarmed the morals of literature – but in fact, it is just the starting point for an interesting approach to the understanding of sex, love, life and death. Looking through the novels which take sex as their main theme, here I find a book which though I struggled with initially, I found in the end that the world constructed by Garcia Marquez captivated me with its sincerity, and the cadence of the prose of the narrator; a narrator with a great sense of knowledge. I won´t get carried away – lets get straight to the point: The old man falls in love with the girl. Each night, he pays the madame of the brothel to be able to see her, always in the same bedroom, which he starts to decorate so that the girl feels more comfortable. But the thing which could have been shocking (an old man having sex with a poor adolescent who has resorted to prostitution) becomes strangely more and more like a love story. He doesn´t touch her – at least not with desire: he never explores her naked body. Is it possible to feel pleasure, sexual feeling without any physical contact? It seems so. The old man falls in love – just by lying next to her, and... read more