ABOUT GUELYLAND

"One of the smallest , independent kingdoms in the ciberuniverse. Nothing fancy. Population? Just me, myself and my jaguars, my movies and my books (and, at this very moment, YOU). Hided and secret like Skull Island or Opar, the ancients in Guelyland use to read the scrools of a minor god called Voor-Hes.
Most of the treasures of Guelyland are made of paper, plastic and vinyl.Guelyland dreams with expanding in deep more then in surface. The music of Nik Kershaw has been heard here. There are apes, lots of apes in Guelyland. Woody Allen and Bob Hope visit it quite often. Here we love books (the Kingdoms Library is both celebrated and secret) Here we are atheists but very tolerant and think of god a bit too often and much. Guelyland is, the stuff my dreams are made of..."

PEOPLE WITH TASTE. YOU CAN BE ONE OF THEM!!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

ALFREDO JAMES PACINO IS 70



"I'd like to be remembered as the only man who lived to be 250 years old!”




"That`s right! That`s right! We know the best feeling in the world is the one between the second and third martini. That was my deal. I just enjoyed who I became when I was drinking, so that was something hard to break. I became much quieter, and funny. I must say, that kind of thing came out.!

"I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx."



"Vanity is my favourite sin."


"People always said that time, the `70s, was about pretty boys, and then I came along!"


"[When asked what a movie of his life would be called and who would play him] It would be called `The Dustin Hoffman Story`. When we were starting out, [Robert De Niro], me and Hoffman were always sort of mixed up. People mistook us for each other."


"Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don`t believe me when I tell them."


"My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness."


"I don`t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians...it`s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it`s not who you love...a man, a woman, what have you...it`s the fact THAT you love. That is all that truly matters."

"I'm an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools."

"The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I`m talking about."



"My weaknesses...I wish Icould come up with something. I'd probablt have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. maybe they're the same thing"



Saturday, April 17, 2010

LA BARATA NOSTALGIA DEL VHS


En los 90's un amigo solía decirme medio en broma: "Jaramillo, y cuánto es eso en videos?". La broma iba en que yo compraba muchos videos y que para mi debía ser una forma fácil de calcular cuanto costaba algo. Un muy idiosincrático tipo de cambio.
Debo confesar que de muy chiquillo uno de mis sueños era tener una colección de videocasets (mis sueños no eran tan futuristas como para pensar en posteriores formatos) . Debo, además, confesar que la primera vez que ví un video no lo entendí. Allá por 1977, en una tienda de Tarata en Miraflores (Lima), en la vitrina de una tienda, junto al club filatélico que regularmente frecuentaba, andaba un televisor con algo de futbol alemán en pantalla (reconocí a Beckenbauer). Luego, un tío abrió la vitrina y saco una especie de caset gigante de un aparato que andaba al costado de la tele. Ya no había más futbol. Despues puso otro y empezó otro partido.
No entendí.
Entré a la tienda y pregunté qué era eso.
-Betamax. Fue la respuesta.
Cuando al final supe lo que era me imaginaba grabando documentales de animales de la televisión y soñaba con tener una colección y ver sólo lo que yo quisiera.
La verdad es que no fue hasta que vine a Suecia que tuve uno. La verdad es que empecé a comprar videos mucho antes de tener mi propio aparato donde ponerlos y siempre andaba con alguno cuando iba de visita donde algún amigo que tuviera, y me la pasaba grabando clips de MTV. Debo haber tenido como quince o veinte sin tener donde verlos y en esa época eran muy caros. Un documental de Marilyn (Remembering Marilyn) me costó lo que hoy serían unos 25 dolares! Aunque Repulsión, de Polanski, sólo me costó como 10.


Descubrí tiendas donde los vendían usados y mucho más barato y compraba. Descubrí una en especial, maravillosa, llamada "Velvet Video" (en la calle Bondegatan) donde tenían lo que se dice todo (fue allí que descubrí El Topo de Jodorowski, por ejemplo). Sólo importados! Y por director! Y qué directores! Uno los podía alquilar o comprar.
Fue ahí que me decidí a comprar un segundo aparato y empecé a alquilar y copiar como si el mundo se fuera a acabar.


Cuando a fines de los noventas, con la aparición de los DVDs , los de Velvet Video se decidieron a rematar todos sus VHS's me dí un glorioso festín que me dejó pobre pero feliz (que es lo que cuenta no?). Scorsese x 4 , con cortos del gran Marty fue finalmente mío. Y aun lo es.


En el apogéo de mi colección debe haber habido en casa unos 1,700 videos. Hasta que llegaron los DVDs y al poco tiempo me di cuenta que tenía que deshacerme de las cintas para poder pasarme al nuevo formato. Me ahorraría mucho espacio y plata vendiendo y cambiando lo viejo por lo nuevo. Lo hice a tiempo. Cuando aun pagaban buen dinero por los VHS. Sin embargo como no estoy tan loco me quedaron muchas cintas. Ya que no todas se pudieron cambiar por no haber aparecido en disco o porque no lo consideré necesario.



Lo que ven en estas fotos es pues lo que queda de ese periodo glorioso y hoy tan venido a menos que de vez en cuando disfruto. Nunca falta por hay algún amigo interesado en ver uno de estos videocasets. Incluso suelo comprar de vez en cuando ya que ahora están casi regalados. Pero en los últimos años sólo he comprado cosas que me han parecido rarezas. Como esta copia americana de Indiana Jones con un documental muy raro que no existe ni en las mas recientes versiones o este otro documental sobre la saga original de La Guerra De Las Galaxias.

Se que el VHS es un formato obsoleto y que se degrada. Pero también que si uno los cuida siguen funcionando de lo mejor. Me ha entrado la nostalgia. Voy a poner uno. Así, al azar. Que me voy a sorprender a mi mismo y al empedernido coleccionista que llevo dentro.


Mucha gente le encuentra un cierto encanto a los videos en la tele. Como que tienen más calor dirán algunos, por los comerciales que se grabaron sin querer, por lo retro, porque son parte de un programa que confeccionamos, como los casets de audio que podiamos grabar de la radio.
A diferencia de los discos de vinil. Los videos, salvo contadísimas excepciones (que disminuyen cada se que reeditan en DVD o HD) no tiene un valor coleccionable. Aunque a veces aparecen algo editados en DVD. Por ejemplo hay una escena en el Viaje Fantástico de Simbad o Simbad y la Princesa, como se llamó en Perú (The Golden Voyage of Simbad ,Gordon Kessler, 1974) donde de casualidad se le salta un bellisimo seno a Caroline Munro. En la versión DVD la cubrieron con extensiones de cabello digital!

Aquí les dejo también un par de fotos de la no menos importante colección de Diana. Mi hija.




Thursday, April 15, 2010

EL OTRO, BORGES

Basado en un cuento de El Libro De Arena (1975) este lindo video de "El Otro".


Y no es malo agregar que Borges escribió "Los Himnos Rojos" pero que despues destruyó el libro porque no le gustó. Y deshecho por completo los ideales de la Revolución Rusa que en su juventud le inspiraría esa obra desaparecida.
Hay cosas que simplemente no puedo dejar de compartir :)


Sunday, April 11, 2010

SQUARE PILLOWS ARE FOR SQUARE PEOPLE


As far as I know these pillows are the real McCoy and it was about time they stop being square! Yes, sometimes a pillow is just a pillow, but...

Some other times it can give you the cleenex you need when you got a cold and have to stay in bed.


Sometimes can give you the security that your sleep needs like you need a boyfriend.


Or the illusion of some pretty lap.



Perhaps you are the kind that can't close a book even when you sleep in the library (it goes for 102 bucks).


Or you are a joker 24 hours a day and that pillow that looks like blood is your kind of thing.
Some like light in the dark (with an alarm for those dark winter mornings)...


Or simply an offer you can't refuse.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

LOUIS PRIMA: THE BEST! (And Guelyland song #7))


From one of my favorite movies "Mad Dog and Glory", directed by John McNaughton in 1993 and starred by the holy trinity of DeNiro, Bill Murray and Uma comes this clip with the song I wanted to share with you. And I am sucker for these "karaoke scenes" (you know, when people in the movies start singing like for real, while listening to a record or a radio).


And this is because today, I found the Complete Capitol Recording works of Louis Prima, his wife Kelly Smith and pal Sam Butera with their band The Witnesses. I already own a few old precious vinyls, CDs and even a DVD of them. But this 8 CDs collection were at a price i couldn't resist (got it for a tenner and sales for 160 bucks in Amazon). Even includes a big (LP size) glossy forty pages book with lots of beautiful pictures and great reading (by Bear Family Records, 1994).



Unless we count his voice as King Louis the orangutan in Disney's Jungle Book, this is his most popular song. It was actually taken from the forementioned DVD , the 1999 documentary "Louis Prima: The Wildest" (Don McGlynn). And there was not a better version in our dear YouTube. This is the one everybody has heard, even if only in the David Lee Roth version from 1985.




The irony of this theme is that even if it's one of the most happy smiley songs, the words are quite sad and pathetic. Check out the lyrics!:


I'm just a gigolo and everywhere I go,
People know the part I'm playin'.
Pay for every dance, sellin' each romance,
Ooohh what they're sayin'?
There will come a day, when youth will pass away,
What will they say about me?
When the end comes I know, there was just a gigolo's
Life goes on without me.


'Coz I... Ain't got nobody and there's
Nobody cares for me, there's
Nobody cares for me
I'm so sad and lonely, sad and lonely, sad and lonely
Won't some sweet mama come and take a chance with me?
Cause I ain't so bad.

I... Ain't got nobody and there's
Nobody cares for me there's
Nobody cares for me, nobody cares for me, nobody cares for me

(and I'm sing the love song a long time, she was lonely beat)

[Instrumental]

I... Ain't got nobody and there's
Nobody cares for me there's
Nobody cares for me
I'm so sad and lonely,oh lonely, oh lonely, lonely, lonely
Won't some sweet mama come and rescue me?
Cause I ain't no bad.

(and I'm sing the love song a long time, she was lonely beat)

Baby, mama, sugar, darling
I ain't got nobody baby
And there is nobody
(There is nobody)
There is nobody
(There is nobody)
There is nobody
(There is nobody)
There is no one
(There's no one)
There is no one
(There's no one)
Nobody (repeat several times)
Nobody cares for me


He would be hundred next december. So, we can take this as a warming up celebration. Now let's sing (you know you want) IIIIIIIIIIIII'm got nobooooodY!!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

TONY CURTIS

1952

With the exception of some notorious great serious roles like Sweet Smell of Success, The Boston Strangler, phone cameo in Rosemary Baby, Spartacus or The Defiant Ones, Tony Curtis (born Bernard "Bernie" Schwartz in New York, 1925) was for me and since I was six years old the ultimate smiling heroe.

1958


So, here you have a nice gallery of old Tony Curtis movie posters. Some of those are the missing and missed films , some actually are out there. Take them as a preview of coming atractions or so we hope here, in Guelyland.

1961


1959


1967


1964


1960

Funnier then cool and usually from a humble origen (as in real life) he was always ready for a fight with fists or swords. And his hair was always the same no matter was playing a viking, a european knight, Harry Houdini, an arab, an american soldier, an ukranian farmer, a musician from the twenties or a gambler cowboy.

1955


1957


There are so many of his 50's and 60's movies not available yet on DVD (or VHS for that matter) that i only can recall to my childhood memories to see them. But little by little they are coming back.

1958


1953


1961


1957

Remember that, as I used to judge animal books by their presence or absence of jaguars, I would like or not a movie book because of the mention of the adventures of Tony Curtis. But then i didn't have so much access to movie books being six or seven years old. By 1972 The Persuaders was my favorite teve series side by side with Star Trek (Captain Kirk was somehow a more serious heroe.

1952


1955


After only one season of the european serie he kind of dissapeared from the big league of actors and never made a real comeback. Lost his trademark hair (and with that his self esteem), got in drugs and older (and with that bye bye boyish looks). Although he was a good actor, the people only wanted the star. Time was merciless with him as well.


1960


1955


But isn't that the ironic magic with the movies? That you can always be dashing and young forever, as long as you keep yourself in the screen?. Older movies kept him young new movies showed him old.

1963


1954


1964


1953


Correct me if I'm wrong but apart from Kirk Douglas (they shared the screen twice, in Spartacus and The Vikings) All the big guys (that excludes Mickey Rooney) from the Big Hollywood Studio era are gone.

1951


1964


1965


1966


1966


So, Tony is a survivor. An 85 year old survivor. And somehow that makes me happy, at least for a while.

WATCH ME, WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME

Related Posts with Thumbnails