tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86392967740404691442024-03-20T03:43:54.269-07:00artspleenelda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-8208832215130799922023-11-29T07:32:00.000-08:002023-11-29T23:54:35.519-08:00A Study in Viridian Shadows ~ a short story by Elda Oreto<p> <span> </span><span> </span></p><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A Study in Viridian Shadows </span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">~</span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A short story by Elda Oreto</span></h1><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">Neil Gaiman</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> inspired me to embark on a literary exercise recently. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">What sparked it all? Two extremely stimulating Futurescapes’ workshops: one with Fran Wilde, which explored genre fusion pointing at Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," and another by R.F. Kuang, which focused on the subtle skill of impersonating prominent author's voices. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is my response to them.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-1526e7f5-7fff-88a6-35fc-c1218e895d6b"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This journey has birthed a tale of two detectives in a realm of conflict, kingdoms, lies and the eternal struggle for freedom. </span>Here, the notions of good and evil aren’t opposing forces but intricately entangled together. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, before we go into the complexities of the story, let us honor the literary giants who came before us: Gaiman, Wilde, and Kuang, your impact is palpable.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Are you ready for a literary escapade, where murder and vanishing people clash, and mysteries echoes through the pages? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Get a seat; we're going on an exciting journey that will be really spectacular. 🌟📖</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> ~</span><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span><br /></span></span></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHeC812vgB3KLA1BGAYMeO_qJiChi8TYFSUr5IPKq2X7RjMoNnCjZGCNlxGhdJM6uNUmnZfBcAWrYCk-6z5sJHF7u-0jWx6VazzFy3pfUQtZxCEmlK-184w2yKiXHoE5rO8UbI-3J6AhtELJAOAmU97FCzS8GNP3FgB4CoeIZQuAodBXKICpogX8_13o/s2000/1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaE0ma8POXdIANd0gTTIMeP82k_b5FwzkLaKmgeReVYX1lvgdapj4cQCaWnwNAzx8R8YKiOD0DVWkw_bkbK2oqgfny2DuNyE6IAXOra3qCsOJ33rVAL_293gClabWkHyYiKeNUGN8cLYed6eBQkf2z4mi9MP892_wa4kOO_cv0t1ToW_AZZe7rHK2Wq1Q/s2000/12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1414" height="746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaE0ma8POXdIANd0gTTIMeP82k_b5FwzkLaKmgeReVYX1lvgdapj4cQCaWnwNAzx8R8YKiOD0DVWkw_bkbK2oqgfny2DuNyE6IAXOra3qCsOJ33rVAL_293gClabWkHyYiKeNUGN8cLYed6eBQkf2z4mi9MP892_wa4kOO_cv0t1ToW_AZZe7rHK2Wq1Q/w527-h746/12.jpg" width="527" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">And since sharing is careing, here there are two links to A.Conan Doyle's and Neil Geiman´s writings:</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244-h/244-h.htm" target="_blank">- Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf" target="_blank">- Neil Geiman, A Study in Emerald</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> here the link to the Pdf :</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mp0IF9jdEg6iNzT7AmtXVVJy1Ylvlnb0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">- Elda Oreto, A Study in Viridian Shadows</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mp0IF9jdEg6iNzT7AmtXVVJy1Ylvlnb0/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mp0IF9jdEg6iNzT7AmtXVVJy1Ylvlnb0/view?usp=sharing</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-82544037525669924982023-09-20T10:27:00.000-07:002023-09-20T10:27:36.745-07:00Unpacking "Yellowface" by Rebecca Kuang: A Tale of Envy, Exploitation, and Injustice<p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPYH3SGHQ3X7aFYA_Ea3981EpYUWUmwUGAsyz0RXYa4uagdGauR-fj2KQYcPOkIKzVIZhUknFQlw8T4fQ63UxhVv2aBagWiPeKpijUQjXDwSfta2lV6Z7s_P0x9F8TB7KAkjiUsdPBs-Qp_B5pc-h8B2prHItT9Zd25egY7WfC4g2BKL4Ks9qr7SmNXQ/s2096/4FBA7111-745C-41A1-9695-99271E8B9FB4.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2096" data-original-width="1179" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPYH3SGHQ3X7aFYA_Ea3981EpYUWUmwUGAsyz0RXYa4uagdGauR-fj2KQYcPOkIKzVIZhUknFQlw8T4fQ63UxhVv2aBagWiPeKpijUQjXDwSfta2lV6Z7s_P0x9F8TB7KAkjiUsdPBs-Qp_B5pc-h8B2prHItT9Zd25egY7WfC4g2BKL4Ks9qr7SmNXQ/s320/4FBA7111-745C-41A1-9695-99271E8B9FB4.JPG" width="180" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />In the realm of contemporary literature,
"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/000853277X/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=000853277X&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2">Yellowface</a>" by Rebecca Kuang stands out as a gripping novel, a
testament to the brilliance of its author. This compellin novel tells the story of June, an unsuccessful writer who takes a dangerous and dark turn after her famous friend Athena dies. June, consumed by jealousy and desperation, decides to steal Athena's novel in order to live a life of renown and wealth. Under the surface, though, June is
a very sad and unhappy person.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Rebecca Kuang's skill as a storyteller shines through as she
makes us look at the thin line between success based on social media and real
creative desire. What do you desire if you wish to become a writer? Eternity or
the web's endless forgetfulness. The story takes place in a world where social
media platforms can be both addicting and used to trick people, making it hard
to tell what is real and what is just an illusion. Through June's character, we
are reminded of how important it is to find a balance between our online and
real lives as we try to figure out who we are and what we want. "Yellowface"
urges us to look at our digital presence and asks how much we are willing to be
influenced by a virtual world where the line between fact and fantasy is often
blurry.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">June's unrelenting desire for fame and wealth is tainted by
her constant dread of exposure. As the plot unfolds, we witness the tables turn
as someone else subjects June to the same treacherous scheme she once
perpetrated against Athena. Kuang shows how envy can be a subtle and
manipulative force that makes people do desperate things out of fear of not
being good enough.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">However, at the heart of the story lies a critical theme—one
that underscores a narrative of exploitation and injustice. The central plot
device revolves around Juniper stealing a book that tells the harrowing tale of
Chinese labor exploitation by Western armed forces during World War I. It's a
chapter erased from history, a story silenced by the passage of time. What
makes this central theme even more poignant is the fact that Juniper is not of
Asian origin, whereas Athena is. In essence, Juniper is once again exploiting
and not acknowledging the work of someone from a minority background in the
West—an injustice upon an injusticeThe question here is not whether a white
woman can or cannot write a story that belongs to another cultural context, but
rather how she should approach it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">But this story shows in a roundabout way that work is what
matters most at the end of the day. The genuine beginning may be traced back to
a well-written book. June's quest is more concerned with the events leading up
to the book than with the book itself, even if it is motivated by the need for
fame, recognition, and recompense for the inadequacies and hole left in her
life by terrible occurrences. She hopes that, by being acknowledged and
appreciated, she might finally feel whole, an emptiness she has felt since
childhood. The sad part is that this cycle of never-ending envy is not finding
even a moment's rest.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Without the fundamental creative object, the core
creativity, there can be no real success, as "Yellowface" quietly
tells us. The results of someone else's hard work can be copied, but they will
never measure up to the original. What matters most is not how many words are
in a book, but how much thought and care went into each one.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The complex web of jealously, manipulation, and imposter
syndrome that "Yellowface" spins challenges us to examine who we are
and what we hope to achieve when we call ourselves writers. It's a striking
reminder of how difficult it is for humans to deal with aspiration,
self-discovery, and the attraction of the digital realm.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the end, "Yellowface" beckons us to ponder
these questions and more, providing a literary journey that is both
thought-provoking and hauntingly evocative. <span face=""Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji";">📖✍️</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1e1915;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Author <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> R.F. Kuang</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1e1915;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Title <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> Yellowface</span></span></p><div class="DescListItem" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4f4f4d; display: table-row;"><dt style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-text-subdued); display: table-cell; padding: 0.4rem 1.6rem 0.4rem 0px; width: 12.5rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Format</span></dt><dd style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4rem 0px;"><div class="TruncatedContent" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;" tabindex="-1"><div class="TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--small" data-testid="contentContainer" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-height: 8.8rem; overflow: hidden; word-break: break-word;" tabindex="-1"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">329 pages, Hardcover</span></div><div class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></dd></div><div class="DescListItem" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4f4f4d; display: table-row;"><dt style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-text-subdued); display: table-cell; padding: 0.4rem 1.6rem 0.4rem 0px; width: 12.5rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Published</span></dt><dd style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4rem 0px;"><div class="TruncatedContent" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;" tabindex="-1"><div class="TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--small" data-testid="contentContainer" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-height: 8.8rem; overflow: hidden; word-break: break-word;" tabindex="-1"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">May 25, 2023 by The Borough Press</span></div><div class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></dd></div><div class="DescListItem" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4f4f4d; display: table-row; font-family: "Proxima Nova", Montserrat, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><dt style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-text-subdued); display: table-cell; padding: 0.4rem 1.6rem 0.4rem 0px; width: 12.5rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">ISBN</span></dt><dd style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4rem 0px;"><div class="TruncatedContent" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;" tabindex="-1"><div class="TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--small" data-testid="contentContainer" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-height: 8.8rem; overflow: hidden; word-break: break-word;" tabindex="-1"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">9780008532772 <span class="Text Text__subdued" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-text-subdued);">(ISBN10: 000853277X)</span></span></div><div class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></dd></div><div class="DescListItem" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4f4f4d; display: table-row; font-family: "Proxima Nova", Montserrat, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><dt style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-text-subdued); display: table-cell; padding: 0.4rem 1.6rem 0.4rem 0px; width: 12.5rem;"><br /></dt><dd style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4rem 0px;"><br /></dd></div><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p></p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-48611989141078851692023-09-14T14:00:00.000-07:002023-09-14T14:00:06.860-07:00Berlin Art Week 2023: A Tale of Brilliance, Exclusivity, and Paradoxes - by Elda Oreto<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBc4nATuphscp0tKcs-jrqeh223Ht0ySzhKJPgDU_2epluXr4is_A2IUZ8Bf9vG_ZqTwr1b5EbFipCKRwDWaCiYVuiKn6WK2y10sg6hXIHNo2tjqHAqZa7cUeCJyfN0db8VHo6MIEgTh08ZOFpseM_Yr_SLU8qNfNEpqsc_V5R2VnML6apYBU8Xs42i80/s4032/IMG_8706.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBc4nATuphscp0tKcs-jrqeh223Ht0ySzhKJPgDU_2epluXr4is_A2IUZ8Bf9vG_ZqTwr1b5EbFipCKRwDWaCiYVuiKn6WK2y10sg6hXIHNo2tjqHAqZa7cUeCJyfN0db8VHo6MIEgTh08ZOFpseM_Yr_SLU8qNfNEpqsc_V5R2VnML6apYBU8Xs42i80/s320/IMG_8706.heic" width="240" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Installation views at Isa Genzken, 75/75, at neue Nationalgalerie</span></div><p class="MsoNormal">I took a break from writing my next book to enjoy the chaos of <a href="https://berlinartweek.de/" target="_blank">Berlin Art Week,</a> which was a fun break from my usual schedule. Contrary to what you might think, I didn't go into the galleries, even
though they had interesting shows and events going on all weekend. 😀<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Berlin Art Week was like a rush of artistic events,
sometimes out of sync and spread over large areas. It seemed like it was
fine-tuned to appeal to a small group of people. It helped young hipster
artists get noticed, but other people got lost in the jumbled landscape.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the middle of all this chaos, the <a href="https://www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/neue-nationalgalerie/home/" target="_blank">Neue Nationalgalerie</a>
stood out as a lighthouse by the amazing show by Iza Genzken called
"75/75." 😍</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Klaus Biesenbach,
and the elegant touch of Lisa Botti made this show a true spectacle. In
addition to Genzken's works, it showed off the exquisiteness of the museum's
collection and the spirit of Mies van der Rohe' s building itself.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Neue Nationalgalerie also served as the center of a
number of events. "Baumschule Kulturforum," which was put on by BAW
Garten, turned the stark concrete of Kulturforum into a green haven. Under the
artistic direction of Klaus Biesenbach and the landscape design company atelier
le balto, this gardening project made a city dream come true. It was a plan
like what the planner Hans Scharoun had for Berlin. During Berlin Art Week,
more than 50 trees that lose their leaves were placed on the front of the Neue
Nationalgalerie. This showed a taste of a better future both outside and inside
the building. 🌳🍍🍌🍎<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chef and food artist Caique Tizzi made Berlin Art Week even
more tasty. His "food intervention" was a trip through fruit that was
inspired by the building of the Neue Nationalgalerie. "Edible
Landscapes" were fruit trees around the Museum like a defense wall, but
only they were welcoming the visitors. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 'Motus' project by Adrien Missika was a small gallery on
a modified bike with a small carbon footprint. Artists like Jeewi Lee, Saadane
Afif, and Kasia Fudakowski showed their work with it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During Berlin Art Week, <a href="https://www.videoart-at-midnight.de/" target="_blank">'Videoart at Midnight'</a> by Olaf
Stüber found a new home at BAW Garten. It was like going to the movies outside,
with pictures by artists like Yalda Afsah, Bani Abidi, and Annika Kahrs that
looked at important problems of our time. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Also there were talks and performances.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The famous "Cut Piece" performance by Yoko Ono was
done every day inside the glass cube at Neue Nationalgalerie, which reflected
themes of power and weakness. Also on shows, the hyped
performer Goksu Kunak's "Venus," an art piece based on the idea
of a car, looked at complicated problems. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally party,party,party. In fact, BAW Garten is known
around the world for its wide range of music and DJ sets with good vibes,
ambient sounds, and deep pop. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Still, it's important to note that events like these may
unintentionally create an air of elitism by catering to a certain group, which
could make other people feel left out. This obstacle was further complicated by
the vast distances that separated the various locations, which highlights the
fact that Berlin Art Week is primarily geared toward an exclusive clientele. 🤔<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On a more positive note, "UNBOUND: PERFORMANCE AS
RUPTURE," a show at the <a href="https://jsfoundation.art/" target="_blank">Julia Stoschek Foundation</a>, was a personal
highlight for me. With the help of Line Ajan, Lisa Long carefully put together
a some of the most incredible performance artists on the field. Some
of these innovative makers were well-known people like Panteha Abareshi,
Eleanor Antin, Salim Bayri, Nao Bustamante, and many more. Together, their
works explored the idea of performance as a way to shake things up by openly
questioning established norms. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Also, Eva Fábregas's "Devouring
Lovers" show at <a href="https://www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/hamburger-bahnhof/home/" target="_blank">Hamburger Bahnhof,</a> which was put together by Anna-Cathrins
Gebbers, gave an interesting look at contemporary art, that embgace an
aesthetical cannibalistic point of view. Are all of us going to be
consumed and devoured by a system that is gluttonous and overweight? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In conclusion, Berlin Art Week showed both the good and bad
sides of the city's contemporary art scene. Even though some events were
brilliant and intellectually deep, the overall experience could have been
strange for people who weren't in the event's intended audience. As we think
back on this crazy week, it's clear that Berlin's art scene is in a state of
flux, evolving slowly, hard to include new voices and ignoring others
in its quest for change.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And, since we're talking about paradoxes in the art world,
<a href="https://www.fotografiska.com/berlin/" target="_blank">Fotografiska Berlin</a> had one of its own. This gallery chain spaces, which
also has locations in Stockholm and New York, is known in the art world as a
mecca for neoliberal sprint. However, it launched its headquarters in Berlin
with an exhibition by the usually critical Candice Breitz, bringing attention
to the inconsistencies that exist in the art scene.😁💥🙊<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to this contradiction, Fotografiska wants to be
more than just an art show. For a certain fee, it wants to be a gourmet diner,
a night club, and a hub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a city known
for its avant-garde approach to the arts, paradoxes are as important as bread
to the artistic experience. <o:p></o:p>I have <i>no doubt</i> that Fotografiska will prepare a three-star meal for us in the very, very near future 👀😘.</p><div>Even though Berlin Art Week is a whirlwind, let's not forget
the ironies that remain under the surface as we enjoy the show and grandeur.</div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While we love the art, it's important to remember the
heated debates of the past year, especially about how museums work and how
public money is spent, which often implies taking advantage of women's
postition in the system. It's disappointing to see that little has changed
behind the shiny surface. Even though they have made mistakes and been
criticized in the past, the same people keep doing what they are doing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They try to throw a lot of people, artists, and places into
a big pot and think that's what makes the magic happen. But nothing magical
happens. The harder they try the worst and messy it looks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This steadfastness, which is often confused for strength,
has made it hard for people to grow and change. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We must remember that magic cannot be recreated any time we
want. It works best when it is made in the moment by unique people in unique
situations. Perhaps it's time to embrace change not only as a challenge but as
an opportunity, allowing new voices and perspectives to flourish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The week was full of these different events, each of which showed
a different side of the art world. It was a time for me exploring,
talking, and thinking, all set against the lively art scene in Berlin. As I
work on my book again, I will remember this special week. It was a break from
the usual and gave me new ideas and ways of looking at things.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">💘💞</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> IMAGES</o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcyVLOHqO4lbmuCQw5E6_ZRithd6U4XRLm1LKtR9OnWEFLETyULy5LLG6p3PyFKHbOIcUgoqMfXssPhc9d20Tlcs8XQZkcBVopZV1D-C2X7Pwth-bJLDqDZl5-F7PVZZk-JDtc1H3ztN8UR7P_J452dwWpVuBF3nj6kbGRr7O_E6OUS7h3e-SyOgSVeYI/s4032/IMG_8713%20-%20Copy.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcyVLOHqO4lbmuCQw5E6_ZRithd6U4XRLm1LKtR9OnWEFLETyULy5LLG6p3PyFKHbOIcUgoqMfXssPhc9d20Tlcs8XQZkcBVopZV1D-C2X7Pwth-bJLDqDZl5-F7PVZZk-JDtc1H3ztN8UR7P_J452dwWpVuBF3nj6kbGRr7O_E6OUS7h3e-SyOgSVeYI/s320/IMG_8713%20-%20Copy.heic" width="240" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gVJJGDTr_0EMoACOH81KUlenzLK6XkuU4s4OmrsdsETcNrqBKrp44vi4BYYZEeLiupu6cMkR2fbnyHkibKGBUQ-U4KUMJbMiNS4LBeV-2PvtFrSqo4qY2V-Axsa16TGRyiUA2p1kUMuoFKHKjaxXEZvqtQ6OpT11C19YER0d9Vjm01KyYZ60aElEXtc/s4032/IMG_9179.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gVJJGDTr_0EMoACOH81KUlenzLK6XkuU4s4OmrsdsETcNrqBKrp44vi4BYYZEeLiupu6cMkR2fbnyHkibKGBUQ-U4KUMJbMiNS4LBeV-2PvtFrSqo4qY2V-Axsa16TGRyiUA2p1kUMuoFKHKjaxXEZvqtQ6OpT11C19YER0d9Vjm01KyYZ60aElEXtc/s320/IMG_9179.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnCDvwX8mMIFqrsqPufYtqCsfbr14TdVAAIJbbRezfTL5WiVq6zv-1OfJjZdlGmNteM8ddE1ScaDTIwunfoEyCEkXhTKMGWMht-kiliRjajuafOtAsB61n-BMarvWSgigMD2wXXhXWprhigJzodaQ62zWXoQzN78OvukUBP9kw_xGAnlqZnAIeqLqUe2A/s4032/IMG_8703.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnCDvwX8mMIFqrsqPufYtqCsfbr14TdVAAIJbbRezfTL5WiVq6zv-1OfJjZdlGmNteM8ddE1ScaDTIwunfoEyCEkXhTKMGWMht-kiliRjajuafOtAsB61n-BMarvWSgigMD2wXXhXWprhigJzodaQ62zWXoQzN78OvukUBP9kw_xGAnlqZnAIeqLqUe2A/s320/IMG_8703.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: center;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Installation views at Isa Genzken, 75/75, at neue Nationalgalerie</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQ76bL7y5O3aOkcdzy6qJPFLM4jn_zq1Gj1m5LovOh6wPUxiVaVW5MQE8VK4Wqtk-ZH5J2rffp87yEHkfPEsJLOMWbdPzdOWuuZgs6w-IzPAtISNMo0xeK8NLr1X2ZKiJlIgfnrB0G_UYnMte5x6n2sZiL67o-TlsgPxirIFHABdCVe2n9irs4JyzZ_A/s4032/IMG_9304.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQ76bL7y5O3aOkcdzy6qJPFLM4jn_zq1Gj1m5LovOh6wPUxiVaVW5MQE8VK4Wqtk-ZH5J2rffp87yEHkfPEsJLOMWbdPzdOWuuZgs6w-IzPAtISNMo0xeK8NLr1X2ZKiJlIgfnrB0G_UYnMte5x6n2sZiL67o-TlsgPxirIFHABdCVe2n9irs4JyzZ_A/s320/IMG_9304.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; text-align: center;"> Installation view at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-family: times; font-size: small; text-align: center;">Julia Stoschek</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; font-size: small; text-align: center;"> Foundation</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; font-size: small;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> ~ ~ ~</span><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOa0c_qI49qA5jYcR65mJ9VsV1n_Vm53g70DGA7p9IKoT1KVvLa3rFoNyTSUXmXkiaF208f-ACKHElS6nPzSqior1_am8bPIoEa6xoq67Z6OiYvNZh7fCaJs5ibIJDmyZIhlTil0S2xNeQ5OnMoQQ8DPNI9QflPczoBxzOzSUIfU55bkev2azigw4qByY/s4032/IMG_9558.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOa0c_qI49qA5jYcR65mJ9VsV1n_Vm53g70DGA7p9IKoT1KVvLa3rFoNyTSUXmXkiaF208f-ACKHElS6nPzSqior1_am8bPIoEa6xoq67Z6OiYvNZh7fCaJs5ibIJDmyZIhlTil0S2xNeQ5OnMoQQ8DPNI9QflPczoBxzOzSUIfU55bkev2azigw4qByY/s320/IMG_9558.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Installation views at Eva Fábergas, Devouring Lovers, Hamburger Bahnhof</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYUY8UJC8nxxowu-n4TU5wKV0r3y32I2Xhycv62p5IiCj775FBSAlJzfPHVo9iYuXlNh9etW_ga7J4mRMoghnpXxp9MDzPG7ZZOSo7oSupgvHo5KUoZ_hFacFdLxiPo2BZgSwO2m0cvA0MROjz7DJOWZe3A_szsRH-ndbB6GrHrLWVEbFctqpsMT7sh8/s2783/IMG_9624.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2783" data-original-width="2087" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYUY8UJC8nxxowu-n4TU5wKV0r3y32I2Xhycv62p5IiCj775FBSAlJzfPHVo9iYuXlNh9etW_ga7J4mRMoghnpXxp9MDzPG7ZZOSo7oSupgvHo5KUoZ_hFacFdLxiPo2BZgSwO2m0cvA0MROjz7DJOWZe3A_szsRH-ndbB6GrHrLWVEbFctqpsMT7sh8/w215-h286/IMG_9624.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>One of Fábergas´devouring creatures and me</span></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.comBerlin, Germany52.520006599999988 13.40495424.209772763821142 -21.751296 80.830240436178826 48.561204000000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-10046929625647162992022-09-28T00:43:00.002-07:002022-09-28T00:43:18.467-07:00Short Story ~The Double ~ from the collection "Bright Nigtmares Horror Stories", 2021<p> ~ The Double ~</p><p><br /></p><p>Dear Editor,</p><p>I send you this story, hoping it may be of</p><p>interest to you. Fear, anxiety, horror,</p><p>desire, love, dreams and reality are all the</p><p>elements that, combined, make this story</p><p>so absurd but still sort of believable. I bet</p><p>you’ve never read anything like this before.</p><p>What I’m going to tell you here is not my</p><p>story, but something that happened to a</p><p>person very close and very dear tome—my</p><p>neighbor.</p><p>I live in a small town in the north of</p><p>Norway. It’s one of those places where</p><p>nothing ever happens, and people do lots of</p><p>sports and drink so much every weekend</p><p>that they can’t find the front doors of their</p><p>own houses.</p><p>Life here, for me, is extremely boring,</p><p>and it has been</p><p>that way for a long time. I’m a lonely</p><p>soul, and I like fine things: music, theatre</p><p>and art. This little town offers nothing like</p><p>that. My husband died many years ago,</p><p>leaving me without any kids and with a</p><p>grumpy old sick dog.</p><p>94</p><p>One day, luck seemed to knock at my</p><p>door. A nice young couple moved into the</p><p>empty house next tomine. The two houses,</p><p>mine and theirs, are so close to each other</p><p>that I could see them making breakfast in</p><p>their kitchen while I watched TV in my</p><p>living room.</p><p>Their life was very interesting tome; they</p><p>seemed almost perfect but also kind of</p><p>mysterious.</p><p>Thus viewed from a distance, they were a</p><p>perfect mix of fiction and strength.</p><p>However, I soon discovered something</p><p>extremely unusual about this couple. You</p><p>may not believe me, or you might think</p><p>that I’m a poor old deceived woman, ready</p><p>to get involved in the lives of others, but I</p><p>believe that this story must be told and</p><p>absolutely deserves to be published.</p><p>One fine morning, someone knocked at</p><p>my door. And there she was, my beautiful</p><p>and mysterious neighbor. She introduced</p><p>herself and her two beautiful children,</p><p>Doris and Lukas, to me. She said they had</p><p>just moved from a town on the mainland</p><p>and that she was there to finish a writing</p><p>project. Yes, she was a writer. What a funny</p><p>coincidence!</p><p>I invited them in, and I made pancakes</p><p>for the kids while we talked and sipped</p><p>coffee.</p><p>Her name is Beatrice, and she’s</p><p>thirty-nine years old, from Italy. When she</p><p>was eighteen, she moved to London, where</p><p>she studied Literature and Philosophy and</p><p>met her husband, Michael, a Swedish man.</p><p>They married very young and had two kids.</p><p>After a few years, they moved to Germany,</p><p>95</p><p>where she worked as a translator and editor</p><p>for a publishing company, and her husband</p><p>worked in IT as a freelancer.</p><p>She told me about the book she was</p><p>writing. It was a story of a little girl and her</p><p>family: her mother, her father, and her</p><p>younger brother. They lived in a sunny</p><p>apartment in Naples, in the south of Italy,</p><p>where the chaos from the street—things</p><p>unsaid and the fear of feelings—rose in</p><p>waves into their daily life.</p><p>The little girl's name was Susy. She was a</p><p>very nice girl, always helping her mother</p><p>with household chores. One day, she was in</p><p>the kitchen, setting the table for lunch. Her</p><p>mother was talking to her, but she couldn’t</p><p>remember exactly what she was saying.</p><p>Susy turned around to pick up some dishes,</p><p>and suddenly, a second later, her mother</p><p>was gone. In her place was another woman.</p><p>She was identical to her mother in</p><p>appearance, but muchmore evil. Susy knew</p><p>it; she could feel it.</p><p>The evil mother ordered Susy to do</p><p>terrible things. She told her horrible things,</p><p>and Susy was very scared. She ended up</p><p>doing what her mother wanted.</p><p>I asked if</p><p>there was something</p><p>autobiographical in the story. Beatrice</p><p>seemed perplexed, but in the end, she said,</p><p>“No, I wouldn’t say that, but there are</p><p>strange coincidences between a writer’s life</p><p>and what she might write.”</p><p>Since they’d moved, many things had</p><p>changed in their lives, she told me. When</p><p>they were in their previous home, she’d</p><p>been very busy with her work.</p><p>96</p><p>I can now say that Beatrice wasn’t a</p><p>conventional woman; even if her</p><p>appearance seemed okay—that is to say,</p><p>normal. Apparently, she behaved like a</p><p>woman of moderate habits, a person who</p><p>would never attract particular attention.</p><p>She was beautiful, that's for sure, active</p><p>and independent, a workaholic, always</p><p>ready to go anywhere andmeet anyone and</p><p>organize things, make things happen.</p><p>Translation and writing were her passions</p><p>in life, but travel and meeting people were</p><p>her pleasures. I must admit, I liked her a</p><p>lot.</p><p>When she’d started working in the</p><p>editorial field, she’d felt very excited. It had</p><p>been her dream to reach a certain level in</p><p>such a competitive field. She loved the job.</p><p>She felt fulfilled in it.</p><p>One day, her boss told her, "I have high</p><p>expectations for you. You’re an ambitious</p><p>person, but to get what you want, you have</p><p>to make sacrifices. But they’re sacrifices for</p><p>a good purpose. Make them for your family;</p><p>think about how your sacrifice will benefit</p><p>them.</p><p>“Your image cannot be compromised.</p><p>And somehow, they—your family, your</p><p>children—will be an obstacle to your</p><p>professional progress. They don’t match</p><p>the image that one has of you. To succeed</p><p>in this field, you must ... sacrifice a part of</p><p>yourself. Your image must be that of a</p><p>person aiming for success—independent.</p><p>To succeed, I don't say that you have to</p><p>neglect your family, but maybe hide it; put</p><p>it in the background for some time. Think</p><p>97</p><p>about it. After all, you’re doing it for them,</p><p>too”.</p><p>Poor Bea. I thought and thought about</p><p>those words for many days and nights. This</p><p>torment went on for weeks. Life had given</p><p>her an impossible choice. How could she</p><p>reconcile the two? But in the end, she</p><p>made a decision that she believed was the</p><p>wisest in the long run. Her family was</p><p>everything to her, but she couldn’t give up</p><p>on herself, on what she liked to do, on her</p><p>work, on her personhood. So she decided to</p><p>follow her boss's advice.</p><p>With great caution and attention, Bea</p><p>began a new life. There was the Bea who</p><p>went to work, who went to book fairs, who</p><p>met writers and agents, who traveled. And</p><p>there was another Bea who loved her</p><p>family, who spent time playing with her</p><p>children, who went for walks in the woods.</p><p>Bea led two different lives, which never</p><p>intersected except during the night, in her</p><p>dreams.</p><p>But they were more than dreams; they</p><p>were real nightmares. In those dreams,</p><p>horrible things happened, but Bea couldn’t</p><p>remember them once she was awake, lying</p><p>in a pool of tears and sweat.</p><p>Someone could probably call her feelings</p><p>a mix of anxiety and sadness, a form of</p><p>guilt, but it was impossible for Bea to</p><p>define them.</p><p>One night, she woke up as she had for</p><p>many weeks, soaked in sweat, terrified by</p><p>something vague and remote. She felt</p><p>exhausted and restless at the same time.</p><p>Suddenly, she felt a strong pain in her</p><p>chest, as if she had just received a straight</p><p>98</p><p>punch to the middle of her belly, at the</p><p>level of her heart. She got scared and</p><p>thought she was having a heart attack.</p><p>Then, she felt nauseous and quickly stood</p><p>up from the bed and ran to the bathroom</p><p>with an extreme urge to vomit.</p><p>She switched on the light and began to</p><p>breathe heavily; her retching breaths</p><p>became sobs. She again felt a strong</p><p>pressure on her chest. Bea put her hand</p><p>over her heart. She was bent over in pain</p><p>when, sobbing, she regurgitated something</p><p>from her mouth and into the bathtub,</p><p>nearly choking.</p><p>Stunned by fatigue and pain, Bea sat on</p><p>the floor near the tub. She didn't even have</p><p>the strength to get back on her feet and go</p><p>back to bed. Behind her, a strange figure</p><p>was rising from inside the bathtub; thin</p><p>white limbs stretched out and hung</p><p>alongside the tall, slender woman who</p><p>slowly laid a hand on Bea's shoulder. Bea</p><p>hadn't expected that and spun around.</p><p>What she saw scared her so much that she</p><p>screamed: the woman was herself, but a</p><p>monstrous version of herself, not in</p><p>appearance, because the woman was</p><p>identical to herself, but in her thoughts and</p><p>in her heart; Bea could read the woman</p><p>very well and interpret her, as a sister can</p><p>do with her evil twin.</p><p>When Bea woke up the next morning, it</p><p>took her a couple of seconds to realize that</p><p>everything was in the same place she had</p><p>left it the night before. It almost seemed to</p><p>her that the dream she’d had was real. Or</p><p>rather, for a moment, she was afraid that</p><p>99</p><p>after the previous night, her present daily</p><p>life would never be the same again.</p><p>However, all around the room, she saw</p><p>the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, the</p><p>large mirror near the table, the chair and</p><p>the clothes that were just where she had</p><p>left them.</p><p>She got up from bed and went into the</p><p>living room; to be certain, she wanted to</p><p>see if the rest of the house was like it</p><p>always was. And above all, she wanted to</p><p>see if Michael and the children were still</p><p>there and were all right.</p><p>In fact, just like the day before and the</p><p>other days before it, Michael had gotten up</p><p>early and prepared breakfast for the</p><p>children and for her. Now, he was sitting at</p><p>the kitchen table, drinking coffee and</p><p>reading the newspaper while the children</p><p>played with their food.</p><p>“Hello,'' said Bea and went to the coffee</p><p>machine to pour herself a cup.</p><p>“Hello,” Michael replied.</p><p>The children ran over to Bea to hug her</p><p>and kiss her. Just for a moment, a sense of</p><p>terrible and inexplicable anguish assailed</p><p>her. "Today, I’ll be out all day. I don't think</p><p>I'll be back for dinner," she said a little</p><p>sadly.</p><p>"Don't worry. We'll spend time together</p><p>over the weekend. I'll be with the children,"</p><p>Michael said.</p><p>He was so supportive of her work, and not</p><p>a day passed that Bea did not consider</p><p>herself a lucky woman.</p><p>Suddenly Michael told her, "You talked in</p><p>your sleep last night."</p><p>100</p><p>Taken by surprise, Bea remained frozen</p><p>for a second at the idea of having said</p><p>something—something unmentionable.</p><p>"And what did I say?"</p><p>He looked at her, puzzled, and replied,</p><p>"Nothing that made sense ... You</p><p>stammered more than you spoke …”</p><p>"Ah, I had a terrible nightmare ..."</p><p>Just as Bea was starting to tell Michael</p><p>her weird experience of the night before, he</p><p>interrupted her to say, "Inmy opinion, you</p><p>shouldn’t stress too much."</p><p>He was laughing, so Bea gave up on her</p><p>story and answered him. "I'll try," she said.</p><p>"Now, I'm going to get ready."</p><p>“I’ll try,” she’d said, but she thought all</p><p>day about her nightmare and the unsaid</p><p>words mumbled the previous night to her</p><p>husband. Like a nail stuck in her head,</p><p>those thoughts went on and on and on. She</p><p>thought about the dream in the morning</p><p>while correcting proofs, at lunch and while</p><p>she ran in the afternoon. But what had she</p><p>said in the dream? Fortunately, at the end</p><p>of the day, just as she was getting on the</p><p>subway to go home, she realized she wasn’t</p><p>thinking about her dream anymore.</p><p>The obsession had finally dissolved.</p><p>But when she got home, she found</p><p>another surprise: The police were waiting</p><p>for her. They wanted to interrogate her</p><p>because, as they told her, she’d just</p><p>committed a crime. The problem was that</p><p>she couldn’t recall having committed it.</p><p>They said she had been seen entering an</p><p>antiques store, right next to her building.</p><p>She’d walked past the store every morning</p><p>on her way to work. Although she and the</p><p>101</p><p>store owner didn’t know each other</p><p>personally, they greeted each other and</p><p>exchanged courtesies and gestures of good</p><p>neighborliness.</p><p>Imagine the surprise of the shopkeeper</p><p>when that morning, he had seen her</p><p>stealthily enter the shop and reach out a</p><p>hand to a bird-shaped ornament—a</p><p>magpie,</p><p>to be precise, made of</p><p>porcelain—and run away with it. They</p><p>knew Bea too well to have any doubt about</p><p>who it was. She’d snuck in the entrance and</p><p>reached out and grabbed the porcelain bird</p><p>and escaped.</p><p>The police, after having been called by the</p><p>shopkeeper, had gone to the door of her</p><p>house without hesitating. They’d waited for</p><p>Michael, her husband, to come home after</p><p>picking up the kids at school. He remained</p><p>incredulous in the face of the police claims,</p><p>but he had not resisted, because he was</p><p>convinced that they were wrong.</p><p>When they had entered the apartment,</p><p>they hadn't had to search for long. In fact,</p><p>they hadn't had to look for anything; the</p><p>porcelain magpie stood serene in its</p><p>gleaming ceramic splendor at the center of</p><p>the dining table in the living room.</p><p>“This is a joke,'' said Michael.</p><p>They waited for Bea to return home and</p><p>offer the necessary explanations. She’d</p><p>found all three of them waiting for her</p><p>there, sitting around the dining table in the</p><p>living room, along with the magpie.</p><p>Bea apologized and said she didn't</p><p>remember doing such a thing.</p><p>Her husband said, "It's not like you."</p><p>102</p><p>Then, one of the policemen had tried to</p><p>arrange the pieces of the puzzle and offer</p><p>an explanation for what had happened.</p><p>"She woke up that morning and was ready</p><p>to go to work. That morning, she didn’t</p><p>take the kids to school. Toomuch to do. She</p><p>had an important meeting. Michael took</p><p>the kids. But before going to work, she</p><p>stopped outside the shop, near her home,</p><p>to wait for her husband and children to</p><p>come out. Then, she stole the object, went</p><p>home, placed it quietly on the table and</p><p>finally went to work.”</p><p>"But I don't remember any of that at all,"</p><p>said Bea, lost and confused.</p><p>"Maybe it was a moment of stress and</p><p>anxiety. You might want to take a few days</p><p>off. Kleptomania or memory loss can be</p><p>symptoms of somethingmore serious," the</p><p>other policeman told her.</p><p>“However, the shopkeeper has decided</p><p>not to file a complaint. He’s proven to be</p><p>very tolerant and understanding. But he</p><p>wants the bird back," the first policeman</p><p>said.</p><p>Bea looked at the object in question. It</p><p>wasn't even her style. How could she have</p><p>stolen it? And why?</p><p>That evening, Michael slept on the sofa</p><p>bed. He and Bea had argued after the police</p><p>had left. He thought Bea needed to slow</p><p>down a little with her work. All that work</p><p>was driving her out of her mind. She was no</p><p>longer the same. Bea, on the other hand,</p><p>felt that he had been distant. He was no</p><p>longer present.</p><p>The discussion had gone on for hours and</p><p>hadn't gotten them anywhere. As had been</p><p>103</p><p>happening more and more frequently, Bea</p><p>felt like she listened to the conversation</p><p>from outside herself--like her her head</p><p>was separate from the rest of her body</p><p>Now Michael was on the couch, trying to</p><p>sleep, and the more he tried, the less he</p><p>could sleep. At three o'clock in the</p><p>morning, when he’d finally fallen</p><p>half-sleep, he saw a shadow crossing the</p><p>arched doorway that led from the bedroom</p><p>corridor to the living room. Quickly and</p><p>surreptitiously, the shadow went around</p><p>the table and the television. And although it</p><p>had an unusual shape and way of walking,</p><p>there was no way that Michael could be</p><p>mistaken; there was no doubt that the</p><p>shadow was Beatrice, his wife. But there</p><p>was something about the figure that was</p><p>different, unrecognizable. In a moment,</p><p>Bea was at the foot of the sofa.</p><p>Michael looked at her. In a single</p><p>movement, she took off her turquoise silk</p><p>nightdress and slipped under the rough</p><p>wool</p><p>blanket—an</p><p>uncomfortable</p><p>requirement for camping overnight in the</p><p>living room—her naked body next to his.</p><p>At 05:15 the alarm sounded, as it did</p><p>every morning. Bea was standing there</p><p>making coffee, as she did every morning.</p><p>Michael looked at her, but she looked</p><p>indifferent—almost</p><p>irritated by his</p><p>presence, there in the kitchen, hampering</p><p>the morning preparation ritual, disturbing</p><p>her concentration. She looked like a</p><p>different person from last night. They took</p><p>leave of one another with a quick kiss in the</p><p>front doorway, one of those kisses where</p><p>104</p><p>they grazed their lips as though afraid of</p><p>actually touching each other.</p><p>Bea checked her agenda on the train. She</p><p>had a very long, busy day ahead. That</p><p>morning, Michael would also take their</p><p>children to school. Bea wouldn't see them</p><p>all day.</p><p>With meeting after meeting, the day went</p><p>by very quickly and was tiring; it ended late</p><p>at night, after the last meeting, which had</p><p>taken place at dinner. Bea had been</p><p>drinking that night, but she wasn't really</p><p>drunk. She only felt a little tipsy.</p><p>After dinner, outside the restaurant,</p><p>there were no taxis, so Bea decided to walk</p><p>a bit to clarify some ideas she had. She</p><p>walked to the taxi station around the</p><p>corner, but there were no taxis there,</p><p>either. She had to wait. She was cold and</p><p>felt tired and upset, when she saw</p><p>something that terrified her.</p><p>Her boss was just coming around the</p><p>corner, probably to get a cab, too, when he</p><p>was assaulted, brutally and for no reason,</p><p>by a woman who had run across the street</p><p>holding a stick. She hit the man on the head</p><p>and in the stomach with it several times</p><p>before he fell to the ground. But even then,</p><p>the woman, caught up in her savage</p><p>wickedness, didn’t stop. She kicked the</p><p>poor man until he was no longer breathing.</p><p>Bea was wordless with shock. She</p><p>couldn’t say or do anything. She was</p><p>immobilized by a feeling of deep anguish. It</p><p>was like being imprisoned in a block of ice.</p><p>Her voice had stuck in her throat. Then,</p><p>fear took over.</p><p>105</p><p>The murderess, whose identity had been</p><p>a mystery up until then, turned to look at</p><p>her.</p><p>Bea felt ice stream through her veins, and</p><p>it then turned to fire. She recognized the</p><p>murderer instantly. It was herself, or rather</p><p>the evil twin version of herself—the same</p><p>one she had seen a few nights earlier in the</p><p>bathroom of her apartment.</p><p>The woman started laughing. She laughed</p><p>louder and more and more and with the joy</p><p>of her own laughter—as though a hilarious</p><p>comedy show were unfolding before her.</p><p>She bent over with laughter. Bea looked</p><p>herself up and down, to figure out why her</p><p>twin was laughing so much. But there was</p><p>nothing wrong with Bea. She was just</p><p>standing there.</p><p>The woman suddenly stopped laughing</p><p>and started running in the opposite</p><p>direction. Bea thought of following her, to</p><p>learn where she’d been hiding. But</p><p>something stopped her. If this was the</p><p>situation, no one would believe such an</p><p>absurd story—a diabolical double who was</p><p>haunting her and had just killed her boss.</p><p>So Bea decided she had to do something to</p><p>cover up the evidence of the murder and</p><p>make sure it couldn't be traced back to her.</p><p>She took the walking stick that the</p><p>murderer had left behind and hid it under</p><p>her coat. She had to destroy it.</p><p>In the meantime, she would go home and</p><p>think about what to do. After a long walk,</p><p>she found a taxi and reached the door to her</p><p>apartment building. There was her double,</p><p>waiting for her, with a hysterical evil grin,</p><p>as always. When she saw Bea get out of the</p><p>106</p><p>car, the double opened the front door and</p><p>started to go inside.</p><p>Bea chased her. The double ran up the</p><p>stairs, opened the door to Bea’s apartment</p><p>and entered. Bea was just in time to grab</p><p>the open door and slip into her apartment.</p><p>Everything was dark. Everyone was asleep.</p><p>Bea walked in and made her way into the</p><p>living room and the kitchen, then into the</p><p>hallway, looking in all the rooms to find the</p><p>intruder. But she was gone. She’d vanished</p><p>into thin air.</p><p>From that day on, Bea started to feel</p><p>secretly persecuted by her double.</p><p>The identity of the violent murderer of</p><p>her boss was never revealed. This did</p><p>nothing but create terrible distress for Bea.</p><p>She began to feel that her colleagues</p><p>secretly suspected her, and she felt guilty,</p><p>not only because she knew who the killer</p><p>was, but because she had helped her to hide</p><p>the evidence. Oddly, the terrible and sudden</p><p>death of her boss had caused an unexpected</p><p>advancement in her career.</p><p>The most horrible thing was that Bea</p><p>couldn't share her secret with anyone, not</p><p>even with Michael, because she knew</p><p>nobody would ever believe her. Maybe she</p><p>really was under stress, exhausted. So she</p><p>decided to cut back on work, even if it</p><p>significantly affected her career, and spend</p><p>more time with her family.</p><p>This was when the real nightmare began</p><p>for Bea. She realized that her cruel twin was</p><p>taking her place in her life. Maybe she’d</p><p>already started a long time before. Bea</p><p>noticed it in this way.</p><p>107</p><p>One Friday morning, Bea decided to pick</p><p>up her children at school. She was almost at</p><p>the entrance to the kindergarten when she</p><p>saw her double. The other Bea stepped past</p><p>her, ignoring her and with a brisk step,</p><p>reached the glass door before her.</p><p>Bea was astonished. There was</p><p>something uncanny about all</p><p>that</p><p>naturalness, all that ease. Her double had</p><p>done this before, many times. It was like a</p><p>habit.</p><p>Finally, Bea saw Doris and Lukas leaving</p><p>with her double. At</p><p>that moment,</p><p>undecided about what to do, Bea crossed</p><p>the road and hid behind an ice cream truck</p><p>parked by the opposite sidewalk. From</p><p>there, she could see what was happening.</p><p>She saw the three of them walking</p><p>together, and they seemed happy. The</p><p>children spoke and smiled at her double.</p><p>Bea felt overcome with loneliness, and then</p><p>a terrible rage assaulted her—an anger</p><p>against herself.</p><p>From that day on, Bea ran into her double</p><p>in different situations,</p><p>several times,</p><p>always with her family, taking Bea’s place.</p><p>The double wasn't always present,</p><p>though. She appeared and disappeared</p><p>suddenly. She came forward in Bea’s</p><p>absence. For example, on weekends,</p><p>Michael went with the children to the park</p><p>or the zoo, and Bea stayed at home to tidy</p><p>up and get ready to meet them; at that</p><p>moment, the double would appear and</p><p>replace her. So when Bea finally caught up</p><p>with her family, she’d find her double with</p><p>them.</p><p>108</p><p>Then when they went back home, the</p><p>double would vanish and Bea could resume</p><p>her role within the family.</p><p>The same thing happened at work.</p><p>When Bea went to the bathroomor maybe</p><p>even when she was sitting at her desk, she</p><p>would see her double come into the office,</p><p>greet her colleagues and move around like</p><p>nothing had happened, as though Bea</p><p>didn't exist.</p><p>Sometimes, the double would even enter</p><p>Bea’s office. Bea saw her sitting there and</p><p>laughing, mocking her. She threw paper</p><p>planes at Bea. But she never said a word to</p><p>Bea.</p><p>The situation had become unbearable for</p><p>Bea, until one day, when she got home</p><p>from work and she found her double on the</p><p>sofa, mending Bea’s son’s clothes. Bea was</p><p>in the kitchen, and she went into the living</p><p>room to speak to her double. The double</p><p>was lounging on from the sofa, looking like</p><p>she had no intention of moving.</p><p>Bea stopped. She had no idea what was</p><p>happening. This person didn’t exist; she</p><p>was a figment of Bea’s imagination, her</p><p>disgust, her distress. Yet now, she was</p><p>there, sitting on the couch, cuddling her</p><p>children, sleeping with her husband and</p><p>taking the glory for Bea at work.</p><p>Bea didn't have the courage to say a word,</p><p>to take a step. She turned, opened the door,</p><p>went down the stairs and began to walk</p><p>aimlessly. Myriad thoughts crossed her</p><p>mind. A sense of suffocation choked her.</p><p>Tears ran down her face. That night, she</p><p>slept in the street and did so for many more</p><p>nights.</p><p>109</p><p>Many weeks passed.</p><p>From that day on, Bea wandered</p><p>aimlessly in the streets. Now, her days</p><p>consisted of reaching certain places at a</p><p>certain time, not for interesting business</p><p>meetings, but to get food, clothing and</p><p>shelter. Wandering gave her a lot of time to</p><p>think, but she couldn’t reach a clear</p><p>conclusion about what was happening to</p><p>her.</p><p>Bea would go home secretly, from time to</p><p>time, stealthily, to bathe, to change and to</p><p>eat, but she always slept in the street.</p><p>Everything at home was perfect—the light</p><p>coming in through the windows, the</p><p>garden with the walnut tree, her children’s</p><p>fragrant clothing.</p><p>Finally, Bea decided what to do. It took</p><p>her many weeks and many days, but she</p><p>finally decided to face her cruel twin and</p><p>defeat her, at any cost. She came up with a</p><p>plan: she would hide in the living room and</p><p>wait for a moment when she could be alone</p><p>with her double. Bea had begun to think of</p><p>her double as “Bea Number 2” and of</p><p>herself as “Bea Number 1.”</p><p>One morning, after Bea’s husband and</p><p>children had gone out to play soccer, Bea</p><p>Number 2 was preparing lunch and</p><p>cleaning up. Bea Number 1 jumped out from</p><p>behind the sofa by the window. Bea Number</p><p>2 was a little bit surprised, but she didn't do</p><p>much, as though she’d seen a distant</p><p>unwanted relative.</p><p>Bea Number 1 had a kitchen knife with</p><p>her, and she said, "I don't know who you</p><p>are or where you came from, but I want you</p><p>out of my house and my life immediately."</p><p>110</p><p>She was trembling all over as she spoke;</p><p>trembling, with the dagger felt ridiculous.</p><p>Bea Number 2 didn’t flinch. She entered</p><p>the room and sat on the couch, the same</p><p>one where Bea had seen her the first time.</p><p>She crossed her arms and said, "What do</p><p>you think you're going to do with that</p><p>knife? Kill me? You put me here. You</p><p>wanted me to be here. Don't you</p><p>remember?"</p><p>"What do you mean?" answered Bea</p><p>Number 1. She felt lost and confused. She</p><p>lowered the knife and looked around, first</p><p>at the room, at the furniture, and then at</p><p>herself. Everything suddenly seemed</p><p>foreign to her—even her own hands, her</p><p>legs and her feet.</p><p>"It’s absurd for me to have to tell you</p><p>this,'' said Bea Number 2, “but you created</p><p>this whole thing. I’m your real fear, your</p><p>hidden desires, your anxiety released. You</p><p>made your own rules ... You want to be</p><p>perfect and still be yourself. What did you</p><p>expect? Accept reality, as it is now. Live in</p><p>the shadows—the shadow you have</p><p>become."</p><p>Bea listened in silence, then looked out</p><p>the window and found the strength to react.</p><p>She raised her knife, angrily and</p><p>menacingly,</p><p>and</p><p>said,</p><p>screaming</p><p>hysterically, "I won't let you take my life. I</p><p>won't let you do this." She took two steps</p><p>toward the sofa to attack Bea Number 2 but</p><p>had to stop immediately and back away a</p><p>little. Bea Number 2 had eased herself off</p><p>the sofa, and slowly her body had changed.</p><p>It was slowly stretching. In her black</p><p>trousers, the legs had grown and bent</p><p>111</p><p>backward at the knee, like the broken</p><p>branches of a tree. Her arms in the white</p><p>pullover had become thin legs. Her back</p><p>and her trunk had lengthened and widened</p><p>to make room for a huge mouth with rows</p><p>of teeth, while the little head and face</p><p>remained where they were, on the neck.</p><p>"Now, you force me to do what I don't want</p><p>to do. But at least we’ve reached the end.</p><p>Soon, all this will be over. We’ll return to</p><p>being one," said the monster who was Bea</p><p>Number 2.</p><p>The huge, thin-legged creature moved</p><p>over poor Bea Number 1 and swallowed her</p><p>piece by piece until nothing remained but</p><p>the knife.</p><p>The monster slowly recomposed itself</p><p>into the human form of Bea Number 2,</p><p>which was now the only Bea left, since it</p><p>had swallowed the first.</p><p>And it went on again and again over time,</p><p>feeding on the lives of other women</p><p>without ever stopping.</p><p>My young friend had finished telling her</p><p>story and was quite downcast. I understood</p><p>that this story had touched her very deeply,</p><p>but I didn't know the difference between</p><p>reality or fiction.</p><p>From the window upstairs, I watched her</p><p>leave and reach her house. When I looked</p><p>again, I was struck with a shudder of</p><p>horror. I saw her at the window, her eyes</p><p>turned toward me, the thousand legs and</p><p>the two heads. The alien monster was</p><p>behind the window, looking straight at me.</p><p>Maybe I wouldn't be able to escape, either.</p><p><br /></p><p>Elda Oreto</p><p><br /></p><p>~ from "Bright Nightmares ~ Horror Stories", 2021</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Nightmares-Stories-Elda-Oreto/dp/B08WV3Y6W3">Bright Nightmares: Horror Stories: Oreto, Elda: 9798701485653: Amazon.com: Books</a></p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-43921888678575495602022-08-28T02:34:00.005-07:002022-08-28T02:34:59.764-07:00Elda Oreto – Bright Nightmares - Book Reading - 23.9.22 @ Hall Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTLimk-XG7vAw_BfvAPmdvK2gk2LEp2oZeyVLQodTIY1a3KqMeT4d-HFwG3qcNzJZoZVsUBHNXbjW1t3l46t2ZpnkUoABKj0bFE9vsRM2R3bdPwBuShIyRqelOE4KSrToD2r54XEVE4mjbBrlTN_0LXlsYjdWlzGgQn9Vegdz1GF1EyMBDhWxiNMf/s1438/783E3896-6F7B-4AAA-84BC-48950226CBAA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="1438" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTLimk-XG7vAw_BfvAPmdvK2gk2LEp2oZeyVLQodTIY1a3KqMeT4d-HFwG3qcNzJZoZVsUBHNXbjW1t3l46t2ZpnkUoABKj0bFE9vsRM2R3bdPwBuShIyRqelOE4KSrToD2r54XEVE4mjbBrlTN_0LXlsYjdWlzGgQn9Vegdz1GF1EyMBDhWxiNMf/w400-h399/783E3896-6F7B-4AAA-84BC-48950226CBAA.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Elda Oreto – Bright Nightmares</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">23.9.22</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">@ Hall Gallery,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><span style="color: #202124;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Kustgatan 15, </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><span style="color: #202124;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Göteborg</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">We are happy to announce a book reading with the writer and art historian Elda Oreto. Oreto will be reading from her new novel “Bright Nightmares” on occasion of the Gothenburg Book Fair.</div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">’What would you do if an evil Spirit unleashes itself from Hell to take possession of your life and steal your world? What the hell is the Demon coming from? What if it is saving you from your damned life?’</div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Elda Oreto is an art historian and writer from Naples, Italy who lives in Kiruna, Sweden. Oreto has her Bachelor in Philosophy and her Master in Art History from the University Federico II of Naples. Currently, she is writing for different magazines and newspapers in Italy as well as her own blog Artspleen. </div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Between 2011 and 2013 she founded and ran the contemporary art gallery Club Midnight in Berlin. Her first Novella, The Secret Lodge, was published in 2015. </div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">The Event is supported by The Cultural Unit of Region Norrbotten. </div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkMuqTljkq4j8R5qUqydhigu4svrbLBno-SaWnX_0cltQiakurTkx5MdzZKu4ryaks4rvFOi249wich9kxgms0vG1EXPSd1MdtjndXg5uCp6GhWWggLFkg9sfSbbkB5EC1Hjwu9RFGOWFlastWWnaRynfpnZR2QIsIJhEgHfQgqtIpuHPpTNqYraJ/s1438/9F62D340-87B9-49A8-B064-C3643F9AC124.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="1438" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkMuqTljkq4j8R5qUqydhigu4svrbLBno-SaWnX_0cltQiakurTkx5MdzZKu4ryaks4rvFOi249wich9kxgms0vG1EXPSd1MdtjndXg5uCp6GhWWggLFkg9sfSbbkB5EC1Hjwu9RFGOWFlastWWnaRynfpnZR2QIsIJhEgHfQgqtIpuHPpTNqYraJ/s320/9F62D340-87B9-49A8-B064-C3643F9AC124.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Abstract: <a href="http://eldaoreto.com/bookselda" target="_blank">Elda Oreto - Bright Nightmares ~ Horror Stories</a></div>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-31932197709569584662022-08-21T02:42:00.006-07:002022-08-21T03:01:06.933-07:00Poetry Corner ~ Only Today ✍︎︎<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxoQyv-DiMTGndfHhU38sh-1N5jFthmljdsWfScw4krGj55y0G6_WlQDd9gRemDJMuK-QDDqndHCLDu81er9g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><u>Flying Test, Falknerei Pierre Schmidt, January 2020</u></span></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">✍︎︎ Only Today ~</span></p><p></p><div><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><div>I have almost felt shame of this, then. Because that's not what is expected of a woman like me. </div><div>You are expected to climb. To surrender. To subdue. In a world where you are supposed to act as a social climber and to do anything to become famous, become object, passively suffer,</div><div>keeping quiet, </div><div>having a passion like this consigns you to exclusion. However it is also an index of resistance. </div><div>I don’t say I did not try. To change what was around. To believe I was wrong. To deny reality. In the end it could not be so bed if other people accept this. Perpetual humiliation. Being manipulated. But for me too much is too much.</div><div>I could not allow myself to be used and thrown to an unwanted course of things, in the illusion, always disappointed, that one day, maybe, who knows, maybe tomorrow I will get...You will not get anything like this. I can tell. I saw so many others before you. You will go the same way as all these other desperate delusional. I've been watching them for years. They are all destined to pass without leaving a trace. </div><div>Jumping right down into the oblivion pitt. And then trying to climb to the top through a slippery surfaces until the nails get stuck into the walls; and then fall, even lower, deep into the pitt, where you throw yourself.</div><div>Instead.</div><div>I Choose. </div><div>Say "I'd rather not to". It is also a liberation as well as a freedom.</div><div>Feel life slowly being born within. And a sense of presence. Speaking an unknown language with a being who is not even of the same specie; and not only understand each other perfectly but also trust each other, respect each other. Partnership is based on mutual respect. We help each other to make this living a tiny bit more sustainable. Exciting. Then look into the mirror and smile if there is an extra line or a white hair. Accepting time. New challenges. Pursuing childhood dreams. Without thinking of an hypocritical tomorrow. Or what people will think about. They don’t know me. They don’t know you. Who are you? Who you really are? </div><div>Only today. And just for pleasure. Then, instead, to win all the races, unexpectedly.</div><div>I tried in every way I tried. To love and be loved. To be as they wanted me to be. They have tried even harder, in every way, to make me be who I am not. Who I did not want to be. I didn't succeed. They did not succeed. </div><div>I won.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elda Oreto </div><div><br /></div><div>January 2020 - August 2022</div></div><p> </p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-8494115689742025592022-07-16T07:01:00.002-07:002022-07-16T07:01:45.497-07:00Art Review ~ Michail Pirgelis ~ Opaque Surfaces ~ Sprüth Magers, Berlin ~ July 2 / August 27, 2022<p></p><div style="text-align: left;">by Elda Oreto</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdnvqM6OT76e7jgtCu41CCRlgrjI2kQixCzzeZXqLr_VATEZ27APbMyeHtva-8hF4NJWBR7AyDrmdYw-obgCMkSyEKT0kPh2s9BoJ_Pr6lCIrGtrDMPNEmvCiwdVCmOcaBUxpKZzzb3mdTkMS8AGjONUwHY_B4QFvv1iRHl2M1V8b0vNf-sONQmUua/s3543/MPI_Install_Opaque_Surfaces_SMB_2022_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1992" data-original-width="3543" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdnvqM6OT76e7jgtCu41CCRlgrjI2kQixCzzeZXqLr_VATEZ27APbMyeHtva-8hF4NJWBR7AyDrmdYw-obgCMkSyEKT0kPh2s9BoJ_Pr6lCIrGtrDMPNEmvCiwdVCmOcaBUxpKZzzb3mdTkMS8AGjONUwHY_B4QFvv1iRHl2M1V8b0vNf-sONQmUua/w640-h362/MPI_Install_Opaque_Surfaces_SMB_2022_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Michail Pirgelis, Opaque Surfaces, Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, July 2–August 27, 2022</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photo: Timo Ohler</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a488aad9-7fff-6dab-9ae8-79a1573be64e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">~ Preface ~</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of Daedalus, an artist and architect. Daedalus was commissioned by King Minos to build a Labyrinth on the island of Crete. The Labyrinth was so big and intricate because it had to imprison the Minotaur, the monstrous son of Minos. After completing his work, Daedalus and Icarus were also imprisoned by Minos in the same Labyrinth. They could not leave the island because they must not reveal the secret of the Labyrinth to anyone. Daedalus, however, does not give up to his freedom in the face of the ban of Minos and decides to escape. So, he built huge wings that were glued with wax to his arms and back and Icarus’. Father and son soar over the sea but Icarus is a curious and naive child. He gets caught up in the thrill of flying and wants to touch the sun. But the higher he rises, the more the heat of the brightest star melts the wax, causing him to fall into the sea where he drowns at the mercy of the waves. Daedalus manages to reach another island, Sicily, where he built a temple dedicated to Phoebus Apollo, the God of Art, in honor of his son. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZZLR70cnvDc-JfGIMjC3hjqC0H6vxy2qzj9Jn4XpimF5NlYHPM_RML95Gd_9ns-nhv00hUMkKuhR-4mv14gplyi9hdhuKOoVtlkIO7rHL6Cnf2q-CBTAru7g1KCs1zXhoE0zk1Uv9EOIJSMytjOoL1kb7jQ9vqPTVqwa2q13sjwzQ_HUn8_YQotN/s3543/MPI_Install_Opaque_Surfaces_SMB_2022_01_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2301" data-original-width="3543" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZZLR70cnvDc-JfGIMjC3hjqC0H6vxy2qzj9Jn4XpimF5NlYHPM_RML95Gd_9ns-nhv00hUMkKuhR-4mv14gplyi9hdhuKOoVtlkIO7rHL6Cnf2q-CBTAru7g1KCs1zXhoE0zk1Uv9EOIJSMytjOoL1kb7jQ9vqPTVqwa2q13sjwzQ_HUn8_YQotN/w640-h416/MPI_Install_Opaque_Surfaces_SMB_2022_01_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Michail Pirgelis, Opaque Surfaces, Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, July 2–August 27, 2022</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photo: Timo Ohler</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2d4fc46b-7fff-e639-cb4b-213c3cd641a6"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The myth of Daedalus and Icarus has always been associated with an idealised image of art and the role of the artist. In fact, this myth sums up various concepts, with both positive and negative connotations, such as: the sacrifice of life for the purity of art, the boundless and irrational ambition of the artist, creativity as an extreme resource to get out of difficulties, the artist's challenge against the rules imposed by society, the fear of daring to fly high and its opposite, <i>Hubris</i> or Arrogance, which will lead to the inevitable fall into mediocrity.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The topic of Icarus, Daedalus and the fall of the Hubris is the common thread running through the artistic practice of Michail Pirgelis, a German artist (1976), who grew up in Xanthi in Greece. The artist grafted the myth into his practice, manipulating elements that belong to the ancient classical tradition together with the dialectic of postmodern art, in a sort of demystification of the modernist ideal through points of conceptual sarcasm.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The process of transforming the surfaces is at the origin of his work. For a long time, the artist collects metal panels, which belong to the carcasses of abandoned airplanes in the Mojave desert; he disassembles and reassembles them and then he manipulates them.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In the solo exhibition “Opaque Surfaces” (July 2 - August 27, 2022) in the Berlin location </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">of the <a href="https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/michail-pirgelis-opaque-surfaces-berlin/" target="_blank">Sprüth Magers</a>, Michail Pirgelis shows a series of new artworks that look at </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">“ special surface structures, traces and patina as well as the history of the individual elements. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">My main concern is the abstraction of the material and the transfer to another level." </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Pirgelis explains in a text produced on the occasion of the exhibition.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">On display, the artist presents two groups of works of large dimensions that intervene </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">on to the gallery space by responding to its internal structure. The first group of works </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">consists of panels both set up independently as monochrome sculptures, lying in front of </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">a wall or hung up from the ceiling.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">These works, like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Desert Star I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Desert Star II</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, consist of rectangular floor sections of the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">plane passenger area, held together by metal reinforcements and scraps of adhesive. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The vertical structure and seriality of the works clearly evoke the American </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">minimalism and in particular Barnett Newman's zip paintings.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The intrusive reference to minimalism in Pirgelis works, as the title of the exhibition </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">“Opaque Surfaces” makes clear, it is described in the preface to the catalog by Tenzig Barshee, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">"In his essay “Opaque Surfaces” (1973), Douglas Crimp analyzed how the art of Robert Ryman, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Agnes Martin and others attempted to reconcile this issue ( “Can painting ever </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">achieve a “literalness”similar to “to what Minimalism had imparted to sculptural object?”). </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">He described these works as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">opaque paintings. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In their pragmatic approach, these artists </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">responded to real parameters. Instead of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">elsewhere, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">their works recorded what was already </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">there: the present condition".</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b6f19e6f-7fff-8b6d-9933-cad05ef653df"></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In Pirgelis’ practice this translates into an attention to procedure as a transformative power of art. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The works on display, which at first glance give an idea of perfection and sleek surfaces, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">are actually the result of a careful manipulation by the artist who works on the elements </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">already deteriorated by time on old abandoned carcasses. But this clarity is not achieved by </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">extracting the elements, but by slowly extracting what remains under the surface: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">"They were objects just waiting to be uncovered." Pirgelis says.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDU2QMpFTQbg9wvmrx-kHmnRaV3QgXzM_n1N2yVC5BQ9SiDIMSzCh9Jbm41EgA0DeFVnqv2rMkn3r7LptYvI26CQKdHy-ny82Tb2v6LpHZCGQQF7Jd31Qq6gLI6i8kurnpeBDmi6k60K1pLg3b9p5fN--LXIQgW0mGuOebmX4qwOfXAotdi3MEdOHL/s3543/MPI_46345_Phantom_Hands_I_2021_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2363" data-original-width="3543" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDU2QMpFTQbg9wvmrx-kHmnRaV3QgXzM_n1N2yVC5BQ9SiDIMSzCh9Jbm41EgA0DeFVnqv2rMkn3r7LptYvI26CQKdHy-ny82Tb2v6LpHZCGQQF7Jd31Qq6gLI6i8kurnpeBDmi6k60K1pLg3b9p5fN--LXIQgW0mGuOebmX4qwOfXAotdi3MEdOHL/w640-h426/MPI_46345_Phantom_Hands_I_2021_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Michail Pirgelis, Phantom Hands I , 2021, Aluminium, titanium, lacquer, 96 Å~ 150 Å~ 5 cm, 37 7/8 Å~ 59 Å~ 2 inches</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photo: Ben Hermanni</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In works such as, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Nature Studies </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Phantom Hands</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, the pictorial quality stands out </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">while other works show more clearly Pirgelis Intervention who works to extract </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">bare aluminum, as in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Opaque Surface</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Desert Training</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The artist blurs the boundary between genres, exposing the industrial material </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">translated in forms between image and sculpture, that evoke the minimalist </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Donald Judd and Robert Morris.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-35487356-7fff-769e-71ff-da46c19f9fd0"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">More than an abstraction it looks like an extraction by scraping of reality.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJm1pxz79muKMEC_eg6ZdS37YY1R5y4bx32Bac7-xgY-QK1vlbfW6Yupp_RAfVyNHfsE6j5UfD7aQEf_3bUXIsO2LnPNzZDlZpTeaHWTV_GN55AkZYsIBFsevZ60134ul-rfiqVxlVM5TWTTTv8jOLO_XyRXy78DhlzUc6AwUbCKg4MQzKDbkVJ1cN/s3543/MPI_46344_Italian_Denim_II_2021_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3543" data-original-width="2407" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJm1pxz79muKMEC_eg6ZdS37YY1R5y4bx32Bac7-xgY-QK1vlbfW6Yupp_RAfVyNHfsE6j5UfD7aQEf_3bUXIsO2LnPNzZDlZpTeaHWTV_GN55AkZYsIBFsevZ60134ul-rfiqVxlVM5TWTTTv8jOLO_XyRXy78DhlzUc6AwUbCKg4MQzKDbkVJ1cN/w434-h640/MPI_46344_Italian_Denim_II_2021_01.jpg" width="434" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>Michail Pirgelis, Italian Denim II, 2021, Aluminium, titanium, lacquer, 81.5 Å~ 53 Å~ 4.5 cm, 32 Å~ 20 7/8 Å~ 1 3/4 inches</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photo: Ben Hermanni</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">“Pirgelis is interested in the way technology simultaneously defines and limits </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">human perspective. He finds an abstract language for what Auge’ </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">(The Future, 2015) deems the ultimate symbolic act - a person’s ability to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">situate themselves in the world - but seems to posit the limitations themselves </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">or the experience of reckoning with these constraints as itself </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">what is most essential here. Standing before Pirgelis’ swathes of metal, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">there is a sense in which these remnants are about as apt a language as </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">there is to evoke that redefined essence of humanity that has been altered by </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">what it has made”, Camilla McHugh writes in the catalog, investigating </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">how the legacy of Land Art and conceptual art of the 1960s influenced </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Pirgelis' practice. And indeed his installations seem to retain some </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">of the evocative power of Land and Process Art sculptures albeit within interior space.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-e2e5855c-7fff-0fc2-2699-d64e7a0c76fe"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In her clear textMcHugh also quotes Walter Benjamin's </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Angelus Novus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">in relation to the material of Pirgelis's works, the carcasses of airplanes and the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">reuse he makes of them. In Benjamin, the Angel of History looks at </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the remains of the past because he wants to recompose them into a unity. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">But a violent wind, the wind of progress, propels him with his back towards the future.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQYAsTBfJuTMCT80uMzU8ka8yk3Sl8g3xFOiOzqgImKkfTKuDPfJIYOzaXAr2LgHyJJU6zOH8yslDeM80W9v06kgpAngf91RbZrmPrd9B-7Nk7poguw8_9dtyDkT2VgPSghZuyGdziJL_CWoukXSIYt6ZTI_weXYXqkR3RplB6stklvGuMuftPINZR/s3543/MPI_41165_Desert_Training_I_2021_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3543" data-original-width="2363" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQYAsTBfJuTMCT80uMzU8ka8yk3Sl8g3xFOiOzqgImKkfTKuDPfJIYOzaXAr2LgHyJJU6zOH8yslDeM80W9v06kgpAngf91RbZrmPrd9B-7Nk7poguw8_9dtyDkT2VgPSghZuyGdziJL_CWoukXSIYt6ZTI_weXYXqkR3RplB6stklvGuMuftPINZR/w426-h640/MPI_41165_Desert_Training_I_2021_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>Michail Pirgelis, Desert Training I, 2021, Aluminium, titanium, lacquer, silicone, 86 Å~ 53 Å~ 5 cm, 33 7/8 Å~ 20 7/8 Å~ 2 inches</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photo: Ben Hermanni</b></p></div><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Nicolas Schafhausen scrive del suo lavoro in catalogo “ (...) he employs </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">his perception as an occupation of time, as a way of absorbing </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and conveying impressions. As an artist one is left alone in having to </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">invent one’s own visual world in order to reach inner truths. Within this in mind, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Pirgelis' sculptures bring to light his unexpected, hidden and instinctive feelings for him. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">And whilst his outer and inner thruts of him remain ostensibly related to one another, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">they yet remain parallel according to their own laws. The amorphous material </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">transport notions of time, of becoming and passing”.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-e77c5dd0-7fff-aa47-b123-3380b7e9243b" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Michail Pirgelis studied at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf with </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rosmarie Troeckl (2003-2009), he exhibited at the Braunsfelder collection, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Cologne (2019), with Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt); Leopold-Hoesch Museum, Dueren </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">(2016, with David Ostrowski); In addition, he has participated in several group exhibitions </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">including a.o. Villa Sarre, Potsdam and byvier, Cologne (both 2021); Forum Ludwig, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Cologne (2020); Athens Biennial, (suits 2018); Rubell family collection, Miami (2015); </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Istanbul Modern (2014), Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2013); Thessaloniki Biennial (2011), </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Kunstmuseum Bonn (2010) and Stadtmuseum Dusseldorf (2005). Pirgelis was selected </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">for the DESTE Award, Athens and 5 × 5, Castelló (both 2013). Numerous awards </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and scholarships include the Akademie der Künste Berlin Scholarship, Berlin (2013), </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the Audi Art Award for "New Positions" at Art Cologne (2010), the Adolf Loos Award </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">from the Van den Valentyn Foundation , Cologne (his first award ever, in 2008) and </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Villa Romana Prize, Florence (2007).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-21de5350-7fff-2b70-1871-c7b8a6fc440c"></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">As in a postmodern version of the myth, Pirgelis' artworks at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Opaque Surfaces</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">could be compared to the great wings of Daedalus and Icarus. Nostalgia is the secret element </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">that holds them together as a magic word that revives finite things to free them from the past. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Contrary to Greek mythology, however, Icarus loses his ingenuity and does not sacrifice </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">himself for the purity of art. His desire to reach the stars, of being perfect, absolute and </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">hyperreal, has transformed a chimerical abstraction, the myth of modernist perfection, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">by overturning it; only by using flaked elements of a past reality it is possible to create wings </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">that do not melt like wax in the sun, do not flake in an endless transformation towards the future.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10px;"><br /></span></div><b style="font-size: 10px;"><br /></b><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwOq5F2zhLJLOO-_RwO-V0ScTpu__I_gHttlMilfRE2u8T9G2VxBK_3SIaytEhbDsVXfqrOXFu_43XggvNuJwpVkwv_iuIUD6JP8zjauVyyetPID0hkutNMGazK1FXzy7d_LU_gnnaDoMiZXzbljZSLzzfv047an3roST7fj7Wo_Ink50vRZ29xuS/s3543/MPI_41164_Nature_Study_III_2021_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2363" data-original-width="3543" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwOq5F2zhLJLOO-_RwO-V0ScTpu__I_gHttlMilfRE2u8T9G2VxBK_3SIaytEhbDsVXfqrOXFu_43XggvNuJwpVkwv_iuIUD6JP8zjauVyyetPID0hkutNMGazK1FXzy7d_LU_gnnaDoMiZXzbljZSLzzfv047an3roST7fj7Wo_Ink50vRZ29xuS/w640-h426/MPI_41164_Nature_Study_III_2021_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p></div><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>Michail Pirgelis, Nature Study III, 2021, Aluminium, titanium, lacquer, 67 Å~ 74.5 Å~ 4 cm, 26 3/8 Å~ 29 1/4 Å~ 1 5/8 inches</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b>© Michail Pirgelis, Courtesy <a href="https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/michail-pirgelis-opaque-surfaces-berlin/" target="_blank">Sprüth Magers</a>, Photo: Ben Hermanni</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><b><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://spruethmagers.com/artists/michail-pirgelis/" target="_blank">Michail Pirgelis, Opaque Surfaces, July 2 – August 27, 2022, Sprüth Magers, Berlin</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d8f0dbda-7fff-8c66-ae88-3c2f0d2f5ac5"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://www.buchhandlung-walther-koenig.de/koenig2/index.php?mode=quick&quickshow=true&art_nr=1620391" target="_blank">Exhibition Catalog: Michail Pirgelis. Opaque Surfaces, WALTHER KONIG, 2021</a></span></p></div>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-22213555076663955632022-07-13T06:02:00.001-07:002022-07-13T06:05:44.666-07:00 Poetry corner ~ Too short a summer ~<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifLKQYWX9EANsQHAG1Z8PP6lNe_uf8ZlGOVT97P3Z1vZBiCf8nygMKAX_v47SDbzIUy8hph0ndhz0bD6_rSrS62Z8CXQ_fUF09TsZkyhY3Xbx_W6au9ci2WFUXWezntQmIl8_P7Vps5Y6jBeaRN79Sf4EP7dk50OxzJbGb4q07m5jWRHCOuIKahuVl/s1280/IMG_20200718_140330_625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="720" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifLKQYWX9EANsQHAG1Z8PP6lNe_uf8ZlGOVT97P3Z1vZBiCf8nygMKAX_v47SDbzIUy8hph0ndhz0bD6_rSrS62Z8CXQ_fUF09TsZkyhY3Xbx_W6au9ci2WFUXWezntQmIl8_P7Vps5Y6jBeaRN79Sf4EP7dk50OxzJbGb4q07m5jWRHCOuIKahuVl/w113-h200/IMG_20200718_140330_625.jpg" width="113" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="gs" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; width: 1108px;"><div><div class="ii gt" id=":qs" jslog="20277; u014N:xr6bB; 4:W251bGwsbnVsbCxbXV0." style="direction: ltr; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="a3s aiL" id=":qr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; overflow: hidden;"><div dir="auto">Do you ever wonder what is coming after?</div><div dir="auto">Maybe we are really coming to the end </div><div dir="auto">And what would you do if you would be sure that the end is near ?</div><div dir="auto">And you cannot do anything about that.</div><div dir="auto">What would you feel ?</div><div dir="auto">Fear </div><div dir="auto">Anxiety </div><div dir="auto">Relief </div><div dir="auto">I stay wandering through a land of mine,</div><div dir="auto">Thank all of my gods </div><div dir="auto">Thank all of my family </div><div dir="auto">Thank all of my friends </div><div dir="auto">You have never been so good, omg.</div><div dir="auto">You can do the same!</div><div dir="auto">It was a nice time,</div><div dir="auto">Going back again tomorrow,</div><div dir="auto">Keeping the same time for you and me.</div><div dir="auto">This time you will never get to go.</div><div dir="auto">So we are on a journey to the rest of the world.</div><div dir="auto">She has to be there tomorrow or maybe today.</div><div dir="auto">Slowly getting better,</div><div dir="auto">Slowly getting used to this sense</div><div dir="auto">Of perpetual loss.</div><div dir="auto">Without knowing what is coming after </div><div dir="auto">Ready to see,</div><div dir="auto">Waiting forever,</div><div dir="auto">for life.</div><div dir="auto">Hit me.</div><div dir="auto">Hit me.</div><div dir="auto">Every time,</div><div dir="auto">I am unprepared.</div><div dir="auto">Unprotected.</div><div dir="auto">Spy me.</div><div dir="auto">She is looking for a positive attitude,</div><div dir="auto">She has to do something to make it work.</div><div dir="auto">But it’s not so much better than what you can do.</div><div dir="auto">You,</div><div dir="auto">Thank you.</div><div dir="auto">Thank you for sharing your story.</div><div dir="auto">Thank you for your message.</div><div dir="auto">Thank you for the good morning,</div><div dir="auto">For the good night.</div><div dir="auto">Too late for me.</div><div dir="auto">Too late for you.</div><div dir="auto">Hope it is not good.</div><div dir="auto">Look where we are. </div><div dir="auto">Where did you end up?</div><div dir="auto">I am really looking at this picture,</div><div dir="auto">And we will have never been there.</div><div dir="auto">Cosmic food </div><div dir="auto">Zero problem </div><div dir="auto">Everything else </div><div dir="auto">Please me </div><div dir="auto">Tomorrow is not my birthday.</div><span style="color: #888888;"><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto">Elda Oreto </div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div></span></div><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="yj6qo"></div></div><div class="hi" style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: auto;"></div></div></div>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-4848663092436873182022-07-02T06:42:00.004-07:002022-07-02T06:42:51.873-07:00SHORT STORY IV ~ Clementine By Elda Oreto <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8q0WCvjJBHFuE5OX7i-_opvdA9yoE4XR9JfBq7DjsSTjjWQAbv5o7eKLJYRDrdIrwp2zi9UXSy2xLgE4vyjOTlB9gpyfQhBbHCoUF8d_XzKH5Sf4t67rv860ilgWHvmq9mY8x9WvwOMWBfjT5Zl8qL5oKco9LBUwXuc1EsVFKA20Z19yP1sSl_cM/s3520/IMG-9422.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3520" data-original-width="1980" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8q0WCvjJBHFuE5OX7i-_opvdA9yoE4XR9JfBq7DjsSTjjWQAbv5o7eKLJYRDrdIrwp2zi9UXSy2xLgE4vyjOTlB9gpyfQhBbHCoUF8d_XzKH5Sf4t67rv860ilgWHvmq9mY8x9WvwOMWBfjT5Zl8qL5oKco9LBUwXuc1EsVFKA20Z19yP1sSl_cM/w225-h400/IMG-9422.JPG" width="225" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">photo credit by me</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 22pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Clementine</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-f4df21df-7fff-d389-2f43-4b185571c7ae"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Elda Oreto </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the best things about October is that the weather is neither cold nor really warm. October is the best season to go for long walks in the forest but also to hang out and go shopping. But Dirk wasn’t keen on either of these two things. He enjoyed staying home and watching movies, streamed from the internet—almost anything from fiction to random homemade porn. Basically, this was his main activity, and sometimes, as a part-time activity, he looked for a job. Which was almost impossible in Berlin. These were hard times for good people. Dirk, twenty-one years old, with dark blonde hair and 185 centimeters tall, had started Medical school once he had finished college; then he had met a friend who told him that there was an easier way to make money—much faster, no stress: being an internet artist. So he changed his course of study from medicine and started taking classes at the art academy. His parents angrily cut off their support, and he began to starve, like any other artist in Berlin. He thought that was just cool. The truth was it was actually very hard to find a job because there was too much competition. So Dirk spent all his time taking ecstasy, drinking, using mescaline, taking MDMA, smoking marijuana, eating junk food and, most of all, doing cocaine. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Thursday morning, Dirk woke up at twelve pm. He ate and played on the internet for a couple of hours. He was looking for inspiration. Not finding any, he took a nap and after that, he went to an opening and then partied until five am. This was it - the life of an artist, designed to burn itself out for the…the… Well, this was what everybody else did. A few of his friends had been luckier, and they had found galleries that were “supporting” them. By “supporting,” they meant paying their rent, paying their bills, buying them food, clothes, pants, socks, etc.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months before, in the spring, Dirk had met a girl. She was just lovely. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was no other way to describe her</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> . A flower that had come out after the rain. Her name was Clementine. She was twenty-three years old, with long red-blonde hair and sensual green eyes, like two magnets. She was studying architecture and working at a small, fancy but good design studio as a photographer. She and Dirk had met at a party given by a mutual friend. She was interested in what he was doing as an “artist,” and he thought that the conversation between them was profound and interesting. Dirk had told her that there was a special connection between them. They ended up together that night and the night after and the night after that, and so on. It was an amazing time. Fun, jokes, making love, sun, food, wine and talk, talk, talk. Maybe too much talk, because after three weeks, she reached a point of no return. He was taking time off, and she started to date another guy, Jack. Soon Jack and Clementine were engaged.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At first, Dirk felt nothing. He didn’t consider it a great loss or disappointment. He took it well. He was fine. As fine as he had always been. He was hanging around with other girls and friends, and so on. Until one day. What fucking happened that day he could not explain to anybody.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nadine, long-legged and eighteen, blonde hair and dumb blue eyes, had asked him to go with her to the animal shelter because she wanted to rescue a cat. Dirk called the place the “Dog Jail.” Nadine wanted to adopt a cat — a sweet fluffy cat! It was a mild, warm October day. Dirk thought that it was nice to be walking with Nadine, but she was not so much fun to talk to. She wanted to talk only about herself and her stupid job. She was an actress but just starting out, and in order to survive, she was working as a prostitute at a whorehouse. She did not keep her work a secret, because in Berlin prostitution was not illegal. Anyway, she said that she was open-minded, and she thought it was cool to say it openly. Nevertheless, Dirk found her incredibly boring. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The dog shelter was far from the center of town. It was a big building further north, out in the countryside. They had to walk a lot, even after they had taken a </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">U-Bahn</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and a bus and a tram. They walked on in the hot sun, and as they were walking along, Dirk thought he saw something in the meadow. He looked again and saw something weird. He could not make out what it was, but it looked like a huge rat or a small kangaroo. He stopped and tried to focus and get a better look. Nadine asked him what he was doing, and he asked if she could see anything strange, over in the meadow. Nadine replied that she could see nothing, so Dirk thought: maybe it was a cat.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally they found themselves in front of a huge concrete building from the seventies.The shelter looked like a big spaceship: the buildings were constructed in four different circles. In each of those four little circles were the dog shelters. Almost all of the dogs had been abandoned; people often got rid of dogs when they were too old or useless, or when they did not play by the rules.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, Nadine decided to go to the toilet “to piss”—she said this loud and clear—and after that, they took a tour of the place and looked at the animals. There were so many of them in cages. All kinds of animals, not just cats or dogs, but rabbits, reptiles, wild cats, even a wild pig that had been domesticated, monkeys and wild creatures. Dirk and Nadine forgot the purpose of their visit and began to wander around. They went into the house where the rescued dogs were kept. Beyond the entrance, in a little courtyard, there was a big space where a dog was running free. All around the courtyard, there were rooms where many other dogs were kept. Nadine and Dirk turned left and stepped into the first room. As they entered, all the dogs in their cages began to bark like crazy. It sounded totally crazy - frightening, dark, loud, chaotic and utterly heartbreaking and meaningless sounds. Dirk felt scared but kept walking. Some of the dogs looked quite aggressive—like someone had ripped their hearts from their chests. Some others were totally mad, crazy: they were eating their own faeces, running around in circles. Some other dogs were just begging for attention and almost seemed to be pleading , “Please, take me, take me.” Every pathetic gesture in that room was something Dirk had never understood.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last room was for the dangerous dogs. The ones that nobody would take. And it was there that he saw her: Clementine—a big, white mass of fur, straight ears, open mouth. A cross between a dog and a wolf with a genetic quirk that made her incapable of controlling her own unpredictable, wild behavior. She stood up and ran to the back of her cage. She looked at Dirk, and stared at him without flinching. And Dirk suddenly understood everything. It was time to get away from that place.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That night, Dirk stayed home. No openings, no stupid or foolish chatting, no drugs and no sex. He waited at home. He was waiting for someone or for something but he did not know who or what. After some time he had a terrible headache. Dirk took some painkillers, practiced some breathing exercises that he had learned at yoga classes and finally fell asleep. Then Dirk had a dream. He was in a forest, and she was there—Clementine, with her long, red-blonde hair and magnetic eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, like nobody ever had, and walked across the forest towards him. She stopped at a certain point, and she pointed her finger at him, in his direction. She pointed at something at his back. So he turned slowly. There stood the big, white female cur, and it jumped at him. Dirk felt terrified and helpless in the face of this majestic beast that was completely indifferent to his fear. He woke up all sweaty, and suddenly he knew what was going to happen, and he knew what he had to do. What he had seen that morning at the dog shelter was a shocking manifestation of the great mistake of humanity. It was something that broke him. What did all of these humans want to do with those dogs? Why had they abandoned them? Why had they owned them in first place, if they didn’t really want them? And why did they treat them so badly? For a dog, a human was everything; he was its whole world. If all of the dogs could speak, would we listen to their stories of pain, suffering, violence, disrespect, disillusion? No, we would not. We are not loyal. Loyalty is not a human quality at all. But the worst and final torture was to be left alone in those cages. This was the worst thing that could happen to anybody. Why should it happen to an innocent being?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dirk decided that this horror should end.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He saw his whole life from another perspective. Now he knew why he had reached that point in his life. He saw the bigger picture, and he understood his role in all this. He went to his computer and found a website where he could buy a gun. It was easy and not expensive either. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It took fifteen days to get the weapon. When the package arrived, there was also a flyer with instructions that explained how to load the gun and shoot it. He learned all that he needed to know. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was ready to go. At seven am, he walked out of his apartment in </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neukolln</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to go to </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mauerpark</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> . It was early and his flatmate was still sleeping, so he slipped out of the apartment. He had the weapon in a big backpack so that he could pass unnoticed as he walked down the street; there was nobody on the streets. Another new day was starting. People were ready to go to work, opening bakeries, walking with coffee to go. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took a </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">U-Bahn</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to Bernauer Strasse, the closest metro to the park. There, in the </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">U-Bahn</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he found the first one: tiny eyes looking out from a small handbag. The tiny creature seemed to know what was going on, and he looked up at the fat, old blonde German lady who was carrying that tiny, heavy bag. The train stopped, and she went in, followed by Dirk. He travelled quietly, and he soon arrived at his station. He went out and arrived at a dog area in </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mauerpark</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> . </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There he saw the second one: a dark spot in the field, running free, with a bald, drunk guy behind him. The guy was not far from Dirk, maybe five meters away. The guy was screaming at the dog, calling him back. Dirk stopped to walk and opened his backpack. His hands were sweaty but steady. He pointed the weapon and shot the man. A long, drawn out scream came from the guy; it did not sound human at all. The bald man went down, and Dirk drew close to him and saw that he was bleeding from his chest and that blood was also coming out of his mouth. He shot him another time right in the center of the head. Nobody was around, so he started walking again. The black dog just stayed there, watching the scene, moaning in fear. He came close to his owner and licked him, and then he started barking, but there was nothing Dirk could do to help him. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After some time, Dirk saw the third one. An old, white dog was lumbering along slowly, dragged by a tall, blonde girl who was busy with her phone. The dog was huge. He was so old that his ears seemed to be falling off, and he looked particularly sad. Suddenly, the old dog stopped in the middle of the way, and the girl screamed at him shouting that he was retarded. The old dog got scared, and he peed on himself. The girl was even more upset, and she looked around to see if anybody could see her; then she turned and she hit him. Dirk saw everything and walked quickly toward them. When he was a couple of steps away from the girl, he said, “Excuse me. Don’t you think that it’s a horrible thing to hit animals?” She was very surprised, and she looked at him, ready to open her mouth and say something stupid. But she didn’t have time. He shot her in her mouth. Dirk looked at the dog and said gently, “Don’t worry. Now you are free.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dirk saw deep unhappiness and fear in those dark eyes, and he walked on. He saw the fourth and the fifth, a couple sitting on a bench. She was just sitting and looking at her iPhone. He was sitting silently by her side. Neither of them spoke to each other. Sitting in front of them was a beautiful husky. He was not playing with any other dogs, but he appeared to be waiting for some attention from the couple. Dirk went over the hill where the two were sitting, and once he was there, he said, “It’s going to rain today.” The two persons looked at him, wondering if he was crazy, but they did not say anything. Dirk went on: “Do you know how many chromosomes humans and gorillas share? Basically, we are the same.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They looked at him like he was crazy and maybe he was. And the guy said, “Yes, like the planet of the apes” and laughed like a jerk. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dirk went on: “Yeah, and do you know what the big difference is between gorillas and humans?” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The guy answered: “Maybe they cannot speak, and we can!” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dirk looked at him, and as he shot him in the head, he said, “Sorry, that is the wrong answer.” The girl started crying. She ran behind the dog and tried to use him as a shield to cover her body. The dog started growling at Dirk, and Dirk looked at him in his blue eyes. He walked towards the dog, and when he came near, the dog stopped growling and lay down. The girl started to run away, and Dirk fired, first at her legs, then at her shoulder and at last in the middle of her back. The husky lay there.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By this time, Dirk could hear the sirens of the police cars and the ambulance, and he knew what to do. But…he just could not. So he started to run and run, and he heard the cop shouting loudly behind him “Stop running! </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drop the gun</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!” But Dirk ran faster instead. They were chasing him, and they screamed that if he did not stop, they would fire. There was a sudden pain in his leg. They ran faster over the hill, and he went down a bridge turning in the opposite direction. Somehow they lost sight of him. He was bleeding a lot now, and he fell, exhausted, to the ground.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he regained consciousness, it was evening and it was getting dark. He took off his coat and put his shirt under his pullover to make a bed. He took off his trousers, and he saw the red blood. It had smeared his whole leg. Not only that, he was in a great amount of pain. He bent his leg, put on the bloodied trousers and kept on walking. It took him four hours to reach the countryside, to the exact place where two weeks before, he had seen that strange creature: the kangaroo-cat-rat. It was almost nine pm, and it was already dark there. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stars filled the sky</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and there was no trace of the moon. He arrived at the front entrance to the shelter. The tall gate was already closed. Someone had left another tiny, scared dog outside the gate, as a nice present for the upcoming day. What an asshole! Dirk approached the shelter from the back. A wall of trees enclosed the dog shelter garden, and it was easy to walk through. Once he was inside the place, there were no alarms, and Dirk went straight to the cage where Clementine was. He opened the first gate and slipped silently inside. She was sleeping. Clementine. She was lying in the dirt, such a beautiful, regal creature. She woke up and came close to the gate to look at him. In her eyes was a mixture of wildness and intelligence, when really there should have been just sweetness.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next morning, at the animal shelter, the workers started to collect food for the pets and share it among the little houses. They did this chore every day around six am. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the workers came to the house where the wild, dangerous dogs were, and he immediately saw that something was wrong. The gate was open. He went inside slowly, prepared for a dog to try and attack him. He crossed the room and, instead, saw Dirk lying close to Clementine’s cage. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had shot himself, deciding to end his life because he could not give her a new one. He had left her forever, but she knew that he was a loyal man</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><br /><br /></span></div><p><br /></p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-74197503805538028102022-06-22T02:40:00.006-07:002022-06-22T02:40:57.825-07:00SHORT STORY III ~ The Craigslist Thriller ~<h2 style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><br /></h2><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2H5cp7371R0hJ6b5sEWW2qXdWUyGzSVLY8MitY28TGfkhOmDH28WCz48xRKjEeRqnqGbQEC1bN0yOZTPjUVO8SH-_Gm3KYgms9IlcX9gXI6Qifarq914TE_FA2WKP8ZcAjt8mP-NzjRpA1yjUx_j_uBzidegBmkv5BbBwoAlv4gsI7BLauyyWsnU/s2048/AF1C9F86-92A8-4101-9B63-5156DD55DD47.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2H5cp7371R0hJ6b5sEWW2qXdWUyGzSVLY8MitY28TGfkhOmDH28WCz48xRKjEeRqnqGbQEC1bN0yOZTPjUVO8SH-_Gm3KYgms9IlcX9gXI6Qifarq914TE_FA2WKP8ZcAjt8mP-NzjRpA1yjUx_j_uBzidegBmkv5BbBwoAlv4gsI7BLauyyWsnU/s320/AF1C9F86-92A8-4101-9B63-5156DD55DD47.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><p><b id="docs-internal-guid-9c298bf9-7fff-50c1-ec76-555aa06cf36e" style="font-weight: normal;"></b></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">~ The Craigslist Thriller ~</span></span></h2><div><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">By Elda Oreto</span></p><p><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“I have already waited half an hour, and nobody has come… I’m not going to wait another minute more!” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna was speaking to a glowing screen. She was complaining and almost in tears. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The room was a hot, dark hole. There were only two windows in the two-room apartment: one in the kitchen-cum-living room and one in the bedroom. The one in the kitchen-cum-living room was a sort of one-person balcony over a dirty backyard where the whores carried on their business wwith their clients and the drug dealers sold their treasures.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The apartment was completely empty, except for the furniture that was stuffed in a corner and piled up against a wall of the living roomThere were some boxes lying in a heap waiting to be thrown away.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna felt the desolation of those objects within her soul— desperate and lonely as they waited to be thrown away. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The apartment was part of a bleak building in one of the few bad areas of Berlin. It actually looked like a ruin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna’s neighbors were pushers and hookers. She lived on the fifth floor. The elevator was perpetually broken. When it was working, it reeked of piss and cum. She took the stairs. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">More than once, she had found dead junkies on the stairs. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She often had to call the police to report harassment by the perverts. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Every other day, someone got into a fight, sometimes for no reason at all, and when the police came, they would be in their riot gear and the people stood in the windows and on the balconies to watch the reality show. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Don’t worry! He is going to come,” A warm and masculine voice emerged from the screen. “In just a few days, everything will be over. We’ll be there together.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Of course, Edna was not talking to the screen, even if she sometimes thought that her relationship with her Mac was stronger than anything else. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> She looked back at the screen and a handsome young man looked back at her, his face glowing with love.. He had a determined look on and she thought his smile was just amazing.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Henry, her fabulous husband. They had met and fallen in love, just a year before, in Berlin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">After that meeting, she was ready to be his wife forever. He worked for an international shipping company. One day, he was here, and the next day, on the opposite side of the world. So she quit her job just to follow him. And he told her how proud that made him feel. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Now the time had come for them to find a place to stay, to settle down and start a family. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They had been trying to have a baby for two years, without success, but they had not lost hope, and they wanted to be ready when the birth eventually happened; they wanted a big house and a perfect family: a huge TV monitor, a leather sofa, some contemporary art to decorate the walls. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They had found the perfect place for them in northern Norway, in Tromsø. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They bought a big house with a mortgage that would force them to work for life. But it was their dream house. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">And now to make the big move out of the old, shitty, dirty two-room apartment in Berlin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Most of the furniture had come from Ikea, or from street sales. The best solution to getting rid of it was to sell everything on Craigslist. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The internet platform was perfect for those who wanted to sell second-hand furniture and other stuff to people on a tight budget who would be happy with second-hand junk, without any guarantees. There were people who bought and sold on Craigslist as a business; it was almost a second job: they went around the streets and found trashed furniture, left there by other people, brought it home, cleaned it and sold it on Craigslist. They called it vintage.</span></p><p><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna and Henry had put several objects on Craigslist, but nobody had responded to their ads in weeks. Henry had to travel for work. Edna had to stay home, because she had to wait for responses from people who read the Craigslist post.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Finally, someone—a man called Alex—answered. He was coming to pick up the Ikea table, the one she had bought second-hand on Craigslist one year earlier for ten euros. The original price had been twelve euros. Now she was selling it for five. A real deal.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Alex was an art student who had just moved to Berlin from the USA. He needed cheap furniture for his room in his WG in Prenzlauerberg. Nothing too extreme. You know, less is more! he told her in an email.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna told him that he could come to pick up the table on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Alex suggested an appointment time on Monday afternoon. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna accepted. She just wanted to get rid of that piece of shit—the table, of course. It was a matter of personal satisfaction at that point. In fact, it had been her idea to put the furniture up for sale. Henry had accepted the idea. But it had seemed, so far, like she had failed in her mission to earn some money for the move.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">On Monday morning at twelve, she would have her personal moment of glory. She would sell her first piece on Craigslist. The rest would follow. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">On Monday, she woke up early and cleaned the apartment. She may be moving, but she did not want to give the impression that she was messy or dirty.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So she cleaned and arranged the few things that still decorated the apartment. She took a shower, and she got dressed up. She also put on make-up and perfume. Then she wasted half an hour deciding if she should wear shoes or slippers. She decided on the shoes and spent another half hour deciding which pair to wear.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">When she was ready, she went to the computer and checked the time. He was thirty minutes late!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">What? Fear exploded in her stomach and then in her lungs; for some moments, she could not breathe, and a terrible doubt overcame her: maybe he was not coming at all!She panicked. Edna checked her email, but there was no news from Alex. She noticed that she had forgotten to get Alex’s cell phone number and thought that maybe he was not able to check his emails right then. Edna started sobbing and sent an SMS to Henry, looking for consolation.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">One minute later, Henry was on Skype, speaking with her. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Now Alex was forty-five minutes late. Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he could not find her number. Maybe he had fallen asleep in the U-Bahn.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Henry, he’s forty-five minutes late! I will not answer the door if he comes now!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">she said, upset. She was anxious, and the anxiety made her sweat excessively. Her make-up was melting, and the sweat stains were becoming visible under her armpits. The fucking apartment was so humid.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Honey, be patient and relax. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We are going to solve this problem when I get back.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But Henry was not to know that was real humiliation for Edna. She started to sweat even more. The apartment was like a sauna. She could feel the moisture running down her neck and her hair getting dump. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She got a glass of water and drank it all at once. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">After an hour, the doorbell rang unexpectedly.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna was sitting in front of the computer screen and shaking her leg nervously.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“I am not going to open it,” she said and lit a cigarette.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“What? Why?” Henry asked.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“No, I won’t.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Well, you don’t even know if that is him or someone else…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But at that moment, an idea sparked in her head: she could finally get rid of the table. She decided that would be her goal. She had to respect it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Ok. I’ll go and see…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">After a minute, she was back. Her attitude had changed completely, and talking to the monitor, she said, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“All right. He is coming up…but he sounded a little bit weird… Can you wait on Skype and check who he is with me? I am a little bit scared!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She took the computer and put it in a corner, almost hidden behind the door from the living room into the corridor. From the monitor, Henry could see the room.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna went back to the entrance and opened the door, waiting for Alex. When she saw his shadow moving warily in the darkness, she reached over to the shelf next to the entrance and picked up the pepper spray. Better to take precautions.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The corridor was completely dark; only one dim bulb was blinking on and off, on and off. The shadow came closer and finally came close enough. He popped up from the darkness like a ghost in a horror movie. He was horrified and horrific at the same time!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna thought that he was scared because of the building. “Don’t worry. It is a strange place, I know, but…please come in.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">He slid inside and in a low voice said, voice, “Thanks.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">When they were in the other room, he turned and saw her face.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She looked like a cadaver in decomposition. She was probably a whore or the worst of the junkies. Most probably both..</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna smiled. “Would you like to have something…?” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Before she could finish the sentence, he said nervously, “No, no, no… So where is the table…?” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She thought, ‘How rude!’ and finished her sentence anyway. “…to drink…water, tea, coffee?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Then she added, “The table is in here” and moved in front of him, across the room.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Alex felt his nostrils assaulted by the thick stench of body odor mixed with a strong fragrance that accentuated the stink, and exclaimed, “OMG!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna turned around. “What did you say?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Oh, no. N-n-n-nothing. Just give me the table, and that’s it.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Now she was very upset. “Hey! By the way, you are one hour late! I have been waiting for you all this time, and you treat me like this?!” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She moved towards him as she talked, and Alex could see the crazed face of the dirty, stinky hallucinating woman so closely that their noses were almost touching. He moved backwards jerkily and found himself in a corner of the room.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Edna sprang to the other side, moving the door so that it would not hit the computer, but Alex did not notice the computer and thought she was going to grab something like a hammer or, perhaps, a pointed object or even a gun.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">He jumped from his corner and reached the front door and ran as fast as he could—down the stairs, into the street and away—leaving that crazy woman behind forever. What a stroke of luck he had not given her his cell phone number!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Edna, Edna? What happened?” Henry was calling from the monitor.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In all that mess, she had left him on the shelf and ran to the door to see what was going on.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She went back to the computer, disappointed and sweating. “He left,” she said, sobbing. “He left. He ran out the door and he left, without saying a word.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Did he take the table?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“No.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Garamond,serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">“Ah, Edna. Don’t worry. He was probably wacky... The world is full of lunatics.”</span></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-13366022723065628952022-06-11T10:51:00.001-07:002022-06-11T10:51:23.933-07:00~ Short Story ~ THE NIGHTCUP ~<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8zczQIQsirNLZ0kjd_eymC0gZXgK2JSc6jZhxgDShmD3eSd5vvcrCA6Qo0cQR0igSvd5axeN_4CrH11BDVAkJeCfSCMAS95720TyfKZMT_1ZUR6ymzCwUZqhNoI1bsTf3S7CfcL4siPCLe72-aDEDJ-pfA9tx1wp2e8NRQggPmtNuO3c6352Zxgz/s1334/59840824-2383-471E-9B27-E225B7401D25.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="750" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8zczQIQsirNLZ0kjd_eymC0gZXgK2JSc6jZhxgDShmD3eSd5vvcrCA6Qo0cQR0igSvd5axeN_4CrH11BDVAkJeCfSCMAS95720TyfKZMT_1ZUR6ymzCwUZqhNoI1bsTf3S7CfcL4siPCLe72-aDEDJ-pfA9tx1wp2e8NRQggPmtNuO3c6352Zxgz/w293-h520/59840824-2383-471E-9B27-E225B7401D25.JPG" width="293" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkncjM3P8F9vgBGP2YcOlD81BOnhSnYMCNXwnfmlIomdzmh48Hvlqlq--B8_oz0KRHvepm5KMkfnFzVNk03hSa2zEilE-RnIQxF62Bq_gz-kwrTf5XZKmngmyE10eWhHJzH80LcskSElIgT8oi5RDC3FnBu0P3D-ZtewzRT2nMW_jn2uSAKpyMhZM/s1334/E186D971-F415-4C9C-B08F-5195E00BE0B4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="750" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkncjM3P8F9vgBGP2YcOlD81BOnhSnYMCNXwnfmlIomdzmh48Hvlqlq--B8_oz0KRHvepm5KMkfnFzVNk03hSa2zEilE-RnIQxF62Bq_gz-kwrTf5XZKmngmyE10eWhHJzH80LcskSElIgT8oi5RDC3FnBu0P3D-ZtewzRT2nMW_jn2uSAKpyMhZM/w293-h520/E186D971-F415-4C9C-B08F-5195E00BE0B4.JPG" width="293" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nightcap</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-40155b18-7fff-5952-0c8d-390d714bdd7f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Elda Oreto </span><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry had always been in love with Lucy, from the first moment they met. But Lucy had rejected him constantly.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was a decent man with an honest job. He had never looked at any other woman. He was only fond of his wife, and the only goal in his life was to make her happy and, most of all, to make her proud of him. He would stare at her for hours when they were together, but she would get pissed off at his behavior. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy was always too busy to spend much time with Larry or even to listen to what he had to say; she spent all her time chatting or on Facebook, posting sexy pictures of herself, and she could not stand Larry’s presence. She was always distracted by something happening somewhere else, and if Larry wanted to kiss her or touch her, she slid away from him, going toward the window, lighting a cigarette and grabbing her cell phone to see who had just sent her a text.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s be clear: she was very sweet and gentle with Larry. He knew that she loved him. It was just that she was always a step ahead of him. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had always been like that, but he had hoped that over time things would change and the relationship between them would become more balanced.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One day, as he was coming home from work, a fortune-teller stopped him. She was sitting under a porch on a rickety stool with a table and a crystal ball. She glanced at him as he passed by, and she said, “Larry, please have a seat!” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry was simply astonished, and he froze. He asked, “How could you know my name?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looked at him with a certain disappointment and said, “I am a clairvoyant. My name is Jaga, and I know everything; you see, I have a crystal ball… I pictured you taller than you actually are.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had a Slavic accent, and she looked very attractive, even if it was impossible to guess her age. She could have been twenty-five or fifty-five, but she was still very appealing.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She moved her hand over the crystal ball and looked at it. “I see… It’s your wife… Her name is Lucy, right?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry winced on the chair and said, “Yes… What… What about her?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She is not happy with you. She doesn’t like you anymore. She is not sexually attracted to you, and she shares her body and her pleasure with other men…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point, Larry jumped up from the chair. “What the fuck are you talking about? How dare you? I cannot hear any more, crazy woman…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looked at him with a pitiful look. “</span><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh</span><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, please stop,” she said, “and see for yourself.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry looked into the crystal ball and saw a strange, disjointed sequence of images of his wife: first she was smoking near the window, then she was with him in their living room, evidently annoyed, then she was at the computer and taking off her T-shirt to show her breasts to someone who was looking at her from the screen; after that the image was all fuzzy. Then he understood; it was Lucy, naked, sitting on the lap of another man, a stranger, also completely nude. She was moving, waving repeatedly, on and on, over and over.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He felt shattered and could not speak.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Jaga, who knew everything, also knew what to say: “I know how you feel. What you are looking at is painful. I know, because I know everything. I also know what you need. Don’t be sad! There is something that you can do to get your wife back. For twenty dollars, I have the answer to your problem: a magic potion. You can make your wife come back to you and be completely and only yours.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At first, Larry was not very confident about spending all that money for a ‘magic infusion,’ but the picture of his wife with another man haunted him. If that woman, that fortune-teller, could guess his name and show him his wife in a crystal ball, maybe she was also right about the potion. So he bought it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He arrived at home and had his usual lonely dinner in the kitchen while Lucy sat at the computer, chatting on Facebook. She looked so innocent, but now he knew what she had been doing all afternoon.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So he tried her: “My love, what have you done today?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After a silence she said, annoyed, “Nothing.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He giggled hysterically because he knew she was lying. “Would you like a nightcap?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After some seconds, she answered: “Mmhmm… Yyeeaaah.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took the tiny bottle from his pocket and poured the magic drink into a cup full of clear, cold water. Surprisingly, the cup started to smoke, as if it held hot tea!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He brought her the drink, and she tasted it. After a few seconds she said, “Thanks. It is good.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry sat on the couch and waited, fifteen minutes, half an hour, forty-five minutes, but nothing happened.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then Lucy stood up and yawned, saying that she was going to sleep.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pretty surprised, Larry wondered what had gone wrong. He went to the kitchen and looked in the garbage to find the bottle that had contained the fluid, but there weren’t any instructions. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He thought, ‘What a moron I was to believe in a fortune-teller. How could I think that a woman with that name—</span><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jaga</span><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—could predict my future? For sure, she was a scam. She stole my twenty dollars…’</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, when he felt calmer, he went to the bedroom to go to sleep. The light was off, so he could not see anything in the room. But once he was resting in the bed and had turned towards his wife, he noticed that the bed was empty. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He jumped off the bed and switched on the light to check where she was. Lucy wasn’t in the room, and the window was closed. Where had she gone?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then he heard a sound, a faint hiss: “Hey, hey.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was coming from the wall, near the headboard of the bed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He moved toward the headboard, then moved closer and closer, and finally, he could see a tiny spider hanging from it. “Larry, it’s me!” the feeble-voiced spider said. “It’s me. It’s Lucy, your wife.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He moved even closer, and he saw that the little spider with the long, thin legs had the pretty face of Lucy, his wife. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Holy shit!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was the only thing that he could say. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He put the little spider in a small box, one of those used to keep earrings, to keep her safe, especially from himself; she was so tiny now that he could have easily mashed her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larry stayed awake all night, thinking about what to do. The next day, he took the day off from work. He picked up the little box with his wife-spider in it and decided to find the fortune-teller and ask her what had gone wrong and what he had to do now.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was not so easy to find the woman because, of course, she was no longer under the porch where they had first met. He had to ask a lot of people if they had seen a woman who looked like this and like that, etc. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, as he was walking along a side road, he saw her and stopped her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Good morning, Larry. How are you?” she said. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But he was too upset to have a normal conversation: “Hey! Yesterday, I went home, and I gave my wife the potion you gave me. Something went wrong: she turned into…a spider.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took the box from his pocket and opened it. Baba Jaga looked inside, and a tiny spider with long, thin legs and a pretty human face peeped out.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baba Jaga looked at him, and shaking her head in disillusionment, she said, “Oh, Larry, Larry, how could you be so stupid? The magic potion was not for your wife. It was for you! You should have drunk it, and she would have fallen for you. But now there is nothing I can do. You turned the magic against your wife, and there is no way to go back.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hopeless, Larry watched the fortune-teller shake her head and move away into the crowd, leaving him with a little spider with a pretty face peeping out of the box in his hand. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The End</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /></span>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-23983699298549057582022-06-02T06:00:00.004-07:002022-06-02T12:33:29.652-07:00~ Short Story: The Plastic Surgeon. By Elda Oreto ~<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='480' height='397' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwa9H0cViQ0CHxXbjrsM7fWoZ3priE2qbmD0JhMxwCXM-mDAp_FGhmJvtfbxgqMjdG_w5mL3wDWS3qjwQZriQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: center;">SHORT STORY</h1><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"> ~ <span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Plastic Surgeon ~</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><u> by Elda Oreto </u></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><u><br /></u></span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-1a7f2182-7fff-90c8-e8e2-de97a4fd5d1c"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James Sullivan looked at himself in the mirror every day of every week of every month of his long, sad life. That was his job, but it was also his greatest talent, his passion. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He gazed at himself in the mirror, but he could not recognize himself. </span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had a repulsive face, like plastic. His appearance was disgusting. </span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small, dark blue eyes had settled into his face almost by accident. His gaze was dull and expressionless; his mouth was puffy, his lips bloated. His thin, small nose was erect in the middle of his face, wanton. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His dyed dark-red hair cascaded from his half-bald head.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He did not like himself. ‘There is always something wrong—like something is missing,’ he thought to himself, ‘but today something is definitely wrong.’ He could not say what it was, but he kept checking and re-checking.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then he raised his left hand and, with his fingertips, pulled up the skin on his forehead. He raised his right hand; he was holding a hypodermic syringe with a long needle. Inside the syringe was a green fluid. He aimed it at the corner of his eye and stabbed the needle there. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ah,” he exclaimed in an effeminate voice.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He pressed the plunger of the syringe a little bit and pulled the needle from the corner of his eye. Then he stuck the needle into his face again, at several points, pulling at the skin and pressing the syringe, dispensing a little bit of green fluid from time to time, all over his face—always pulling at his skin and sticking in the needle. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James was a famous plastic surgeon. Famous actors and actresses, singers and TV personalities from all over the world went to him for a special rejuvenation treatment—a treatment invented, proven and tested by James Sullivan on himself. He was considered a genius, a mentor for artists, a millionaire and then a billionaire, the owner of real estate in the most exclusive places in the world, from Malibu to Thailand. Always surrounded by twenty-year-old girls, he had celebrated seventy-five birthdays and could not remember whether he had been young once upon a time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, he had exhausted his life on his vocation. He had once not been so rich, and he’d had to do whatever he could to get what he wanted: success!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the last fifty years, he had performed over 25,000 surgical procedures on himself. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A human doll, emasculated and ridiculous, he could always see something else to change.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this day was a really special day. It was his birthday. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He always felt a strange eagerness on this very special day, and he had always celebrated in an extreme, magnificent way. All the people he knew—celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, artists and models—would come to his palace in the countryside and would celebrate by drinking, taking lots of drugs and doing every fun thing that they could imagine. And there was free Botox for everybody. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He would remain in his bedroom like an emperor, lying on his bed, surrounded by his five Pekingeses—DiDi, GiGi, FiFi, SiSi, LiLi—a Labrador, Juan, and a black cat, Polly. All the guests would come to him and hope that he would give them suggestions; he would answer with a labile and kind voice, smiling, playing, talking, chatting and answering messages on his three iPhones like the real idol and busy man that he was—giggling with everyone.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every year had been a mega-party like that, but not this time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James was scared today, and he could not believe that something like this could have ever happened to him. He was looking in the mirror, and what he saw was not his real self. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There, in the mirror, was a doll: one of the dummies that someone could find in an old vintage store from the ‘50s. One of the puppets used by ventriloquists to frighten and amuse at the same time. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He looked at the image of himself in the mirror, and he could not understand what was happening. It was probably the light pink fluid that he had used during his last surgery and that he had injected into himself—in all the principal veins of his body—to dry out all the fat from the tissue. Now he had to find a solution. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But a strange feeling was growing in his chest. He had done something really wrong to himself, and now there was no going back.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doctor Sullivan was a man of science; he did not believe in anything like spirits or ghosts or demonic possession. He was a man of logic. He believed in what he could see. Nonetheless, now he really doubted himself: was he going mad, or was he experiencing something similar to a magic spell? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had always thought that he could do anything that he wanted with his body. Now he began to think that he had definitely been wrong.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what was going on?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, the evil grin of the weird mask his face had become looked at him and moved its lips. It seemed it was saying something to him: “This is your last chance: Repent for what you have done to me. Repent and you will die in a peaceful and painless way.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doctor Sullivan answered, “I don’t want to die! My whole life is about keeping people forever young. It’s about giving eternal life and beauty. I cannot die! I will not die!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pale mask looked at the doctor through the mirror and said, “Ah! You fool! Those are your last words. Your destiny is written. There is nothing else you can do! Now your body will take its revenge, and it is its right to do so! You want to become an object, so you will have eternal life.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having said that, the puppet in the mirror lapsed into silence. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doctor Sullivan was overcome. He could not stay seated, with his hands in his lap. “Oh, my God! No! What can I do to stop this? Please, tell me what should I do.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The white, pale, grinning mask answered: “Ah! Now it is done. There is nothing else that you can do!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Please, help me! I changed my mind.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can you reverse time?” said the dummy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Of course not! Nobody can do that,” answered poor Sullivan.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“So there is little that you can do. Your only chance is to carve human feelings into yourself and find the secret to mortality. It’s right there inside you, under your skin!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The doctor set into motion straightaway and ran around his villa, across the seventeen rooms on the first floor, followed by all of his dogs, until he reached a small room, his private surgery cabinet, where he used to experiment by doing the most wild surgery on himself.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He went inside, followed by his lovely pets that were looking at him and wondering where all of his desperation was coming from. He gave himself a sedative so that he would not feel pain and grabbed a scalpel and forceps. He would peel his face off and remove the skin from all over his body. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later he would graft on new, fresh, young skin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He started cutting along the edge of his face, all around the hairline of his fake hair—previously implanted during several surgical procedures—then down to the left ear and around his jaw and to the other ear, up to the point where he had started.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the forceps, he grabbed the external flaps of his face near his ears and pulled outward; slowly the skin came away. He switched sides and started to pull outward from the top of his forehead and from his chin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thick mask came off, and James threw the skin away from himself. He looked in the mirror, and he could see the orbits of his eyes, his eyeballs coming all the way out and moving around and up and down. His silicone lips fell from his mouth, leaving a full, skeleton-toothed smile. He was all blood and muscle and nerve and bone. But he could not learn any secrets. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without a face, he also could not see any human expression but the grin of a skeleton.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He touched the muscles on his face and then stripped off the dressing gown he was wearing so that he was naked; he had to look inside himself. He sat on the surgical bed in a way that he had a full visual of his old, skinny body in the mirror.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James took the scalpel and started to cut a long vertical line from his chin to his penis. His skin opened up like that of a stuffed turkey; his entrails came out: intestines, stomach, bladder. His heart and lungs were still attached inside his chest. He needed to free them, too. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So he extended his arms along the table of tools, selected a surgical saw and sawed at his ribcage. Slowly, all the organs started to push and come out; finally they burst out of his body and onto the floor, blood surrounding him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The little dogs that had been waiting for their lovely owner to finish his work jumped up on their legs. Attracted by the smell, they licked up the blood on the floor and on the bed and on the legs of their beloved daddy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the more they licked, the hungrier they became.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doctor Sullivan tried to turn them away with the scalpel and the saw. But there were more of them, and they were stronger, and soon they attacked his arms and his face. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For over two hours, they ate the rest of poor Doctor Sullivan, and in the end only his heart remained.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was still feebly beating, trying to survive. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Outside, something was scratching at the door to get in; it was Polly, the black cat. The Labrador went to the door and opened it with his muzzle to let the cat in. Once inside, the black feline jumped on the table, and with a single little stroke of his paw, pierced the heart and ate it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next day, the news jumped from newspapers to websites to social networks. James Sullivan had committed suicide on his birthday. He was lonely and surrounded only by his beloved pets. </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-78114487813065810122022-05-23T03:18:00.002-07:002022-05-23T03:18:56.437-07:00 Collection Spring 2023 @ balenciaga NY ~ May 23, 2022<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Balenciaga showed its Spring 2023 collection on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.</span></span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hJ5GzMO_0hHp8mAXwg1A2el1rK2z0Tny78ClqKCSdnqsc1mPinT6Ne5n0fIBm1j4h7nll-lNF08nNxd8vBaqLkvouJBCWjV5HYmGOR-rpXDZ6a32E8bilzjJyOvIug091JYDkP8A1r9WqVNc-bTsb9pMd3xCCWibox3zzjH9VE0_a_ZjddAUn7hC/s1800/unnamed%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hJ5GzMO_0hHp8mAXwg1A2el1rK2z0Tny78ClqKCSdnqsc1mPinT6Ne5n0fIBm1j4h7nll-lNF08nNxd8vBaqLkvouJBCWjV5HYmGOR-rpXDZ6a32E8bilzjJyOvIug091JYDkP8A1r9WqVNc-bTsb9pMd3xCCWibox3zzjH9VE0_a_ZjddAUn7hC/w512-h640/unnamed%20(1).jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQObXtlNv1e4Nb78aa4iHmV7ScW0YyFWDTEoq0Vz9PcmwMGqLcLPPsiitGtK4YQRrTpy1VRg7dsr_jZE5wNTPnqEYCN8R3TaNkryWKzClhqHPG37dKnn00AWRCL5QCtYQYGVwLolVd5q_1yZg7fOq0_zz4624tWi4naDQ4N8HRsRIv9QFnHTaI6GyD/s1794/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1794" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQObXtlNv1e4Nb78aa4iHmV7ScW0YyFWDTEoq0Vz9PcmwMGqLcLPPsiitGtK4YQRrTpy1VRg7dsr_jZE5wNTPnqEYCN8R3TaNkryWKzClhqHPG37dKnn00AWRCL5QCtYQYGVwLolVd5q_1yZg7fOq0_zz4624tWi4naDQ4N8HRsRIv9QFnHTaI6GyD/w514-h640/unnamed.jpg" width="514" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK3W2hvoacuNxOYgmzHyqbSgmRxSab7_Qvup2jYCTMMjbTDNzVdR1i_rhm-Q6W1TzzV-WduELkJxAukoiPKLtjin-iAiqfMBulv9vPF_MF_6W76XZarYeJLvvuUtw7_ZjA7NAJgzsem4-Jk45M6LasTzmicTHOA7uNzwMbF8vKKd_GCWePJgqp6MNY/s1236/IMG-4976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK3W2hvoacuNxOYgmzHyqbSgmRxSab7_Qvup2jYCTMMjbTDNzVdR1i_rhm-Q6W1TzzV-WduELkJxAukoiPKLtjin-iAiqfMBulv9vPF_MF_6W76XZarYeJLvvuUtw7_ZjA7NAJgzsem4-Jk45M6LasTzmicTHOA7uNzwMbF8vKKd_GCWePJgqp6MNY/w388-h640/IMG-4976.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><p style="color: black;"><br /></p><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">This hits me: the very elegant transformation of humans into fetishes as they just leaft the BDSM club or the office is the same, makes no difference, ah, maybe they had just been robbed...</span></span></div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">"The biggest and most important challenge for any kind of creative is to make product that is desirable, to create desire. That's what fashion should do," Demna says for BOF “The commercial success of a product is linked to that desirability. That's the biggest and most difficult thing." </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">What does it mean to desire? What are beauty, success, power, money if they are a fetish? And then how do you want it?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UupjfHzpaAm17pqmVCPx1rVwWtFwLdQC5mnjYaUsLZWUbXQN55MHeIdXk4XsGrMl-TQPDGngS3WtwHqK46FUVc484TVhFoe5QHU8mrAOO7078Q6M1emulW54HIB205npmXrtX48tTh46nvTbPHws58kUTY_gfSLZQ1Dr-d60_fjjLgTEQ2oM4twt/s1794/5962F19E-FAF5-4CBA-B897-39D19FCABCDE.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1794" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UupjfHzpaAm17pqmVCPx1rVwWtFwLdQC5mnjYaUsLZWUbXQN55MHeIdXk4XsGrMl-TQPDGngS3WtwHqK46FUVc484TVhFoe5QHU8mrAOO7078Q6M1emulW54HIB205npmXrtX48tTh46nvTbPHws58kUTY_gfSLZQ1Dr-d60_fjjLgTEQ2oM4twt/w514-h640/5962F19E-FAF5-4CBA-B897-39D19FCABCDE.JPG" width="514" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFVPi7N9lbAGHY7WH2a_8jjwHyvBfIA22TbGRgjgYTAb-A1aulNkAOo-1TVKvLPD7at1Qi39OPZFjYVS5d1jo_tD6Cwx9V0waaTj9Qjba2aPNsCL4FDM-tjlfyuQHlCTNRbNIqMtjsfASVYGksppWH5tKk9FCJ5Mhh62JYgwsWGPzq7iNmhhq1Nxj/s1794/10479B85-4B7A-44D0-A583-7B91B01084C8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1794" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFVPi7N9lbAGHY7WH2a_8jjwHyvBfIA22TbGRgjgYTAb-A1aulNkAOo-1TVKvLPD7at1Qi39OPZFjYVS5d1jo_tD6Cwx9V0waaTj9Qjba2aPNsCL4FDM-tjlfyuQHlCTNRbNIqMtjsfASVYGksppWH5tKk9FCJ5Mhh62JYgwsWGPzq7iNmhhq1Nxj/w514-h640/10479B85-4B7A-44D0-A583-7B91B01084C8.JPG" width="514" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Beauty is the last bulwark of fetishism,</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">a sexualized object. </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">This representation gives an illusion of pleasure, a promise of happiness, but it is not happiness that it does want. It wants to sell a product!</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">The sexualization of the fetish object solidifies in us the idea of sexuality as objectification, pleasure as an object, for which we too want to be objects, fetishes, so to be loved and desired. Accepted.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">This is truly the very opposite of pleasure, love, which arise from desiring as a free and independent action.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">This superimposed rule can be reversed today.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">If I am a fetishized object and I am trapped in the web of other people's desire, In the (vain) promise that one day I will be freed, I will be happy, I will be perfect, what if this fetish then one day really frees itself?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">May we have to go to hell and come back to find out</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">Apart from the fact that I hadn't finished digesting the plastic bags in the snow anyway, here it is, Balenciaga did it again!</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqYEkrWAeonFsM6VUoHayQ_iBQ-0WwZLZ_iIrFCrT9QqUMvxl1SsvTYAeh4WGCqYBPyEFD6Sj47F4RWQH210TOdeuzvvQ8gkHM62LTns3n8Jfp-qED30gLqUCBh52boTJ_8aKuRhwNRIgEy9tbN38hUpFLJo9TrcDfUllKl7mhSRIHYA4-4Cht9PF1/s1794/AE3D5776-DA81-4B0A-A55F-A21D265DEA88.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1794" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqYEkrWAeonFsM6VUoHayQ_iBQ-0WwZLZ_iIrFCrT9QqUMvxl1SsvTYAeh4WGCqYBPyEFD6Sj47F4RWQH210TOdeuzvvQ8gkHM62LTns3n8Jfp-qED30gLqUCBh52boTJ_8aKuRhwNRIgEy9tbN38hUpFLJo9TrcDfUllKl7mhSRIHYA4-4Cht9PF1/s320/AE3D5776-DA81-4B0A-A55F-A21D265DEA88.JPG" width="257" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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font-size: medium;"><span style="height: 1.2em; width: 1.2em;"><img alt="👽" aria-label="👽" class="an1" data-emoji="👽" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/14.0/1f47d/32.png" style="height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /><img alt="👜" aria-label="👜" class="an1" data-emoji="👜" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/14.0/1f45c/32.png" style="height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /></span> <span style="height: 1.2em; width: 1.2em;"><img alt="🏦" aria-label="🏦" class="an1" data-emoji="🏦" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/14.0/1f3e6/32.png" style="height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /></span> <span style="height: 1.2em; width: 1.2em;"><img alt="🧛♂️" aria-label="🧛♂️" class="an1" data-emoji="🧛♂️" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/14.0/1f9db_200d_2642_fe0f/32.png" style="height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /></span> <img alt="🖤" aria-label="🖤" class="an1" data-emoji="🖤" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/14.0/1f5a4/32.png" style="height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00;"><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-82326519778056462372022-02-23T04:58:00.002-08:002022-02-23T05:47:50.376-08:00BOOK READING ~ Bright Nightmares - Horror Stories ~ @ Literaturhaus Berlin, 18.3.2022 h. 19<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqpvwzM5Mw3e3IS0FXwgSB5MI6WG7ts1rEXG8-1KtW0Z8iPpr02XzDneXCbtpnO09zaM1GttFJXBqwmmv4o2aFP_3yLFlrl6orvog4AG34Cn7gvkogul8EKHuJxEiBV8WT-eqzbfhjsdl-sdLaa2-vYWEH2nAqfwhqFEbSArei15p0mcFEarafXcUX=s1318" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqpvwzM5Mw3e3IS0FXwgSB5MI6WG7ts1rEXG8-1KtW0Z8iPpr02XzDneXCbtpnO09zaM1GttFJXBqwmmv4o2aFP_3yLFlrl6orvog4AG34Cn7gvkogul8EKHuJxEiBV8WT-eqzbfhjsdl-sdLaa2-vYWEH2nAqfwhqFEbSArei15p0mcFEarafXcUX=w228-h400" width="228" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-841012f9-7fff-7509-c5d7-c829ce3d353e" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-841012f9-7fff-7509-c5d7-c829ce3d353e" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Book Reading</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elda Oreto </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">» Bright Nightmares ~ Horror Stories ~ «</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Fri 18.3.2022 h. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">19:00 p.m</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> Literaturhaus, Berlin</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Kaminzimmer,Fasanenstraße 23, 10719 Berlin</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">drinks and talks</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Free Entrance. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Limited access:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">RSPV : </span><a href="mailto:brightnightmaresbookreading@gmail.com" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">brightnightmaresbookreading@gmail.com</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Moderation: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elina Norden</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">We are glad to invite you on Friday 18 March 2022, at 19:00 pm at the Literaturhaus in Berlin </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">for a book reading of “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bright Nightmares</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">” by</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> Elda Oreto.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">A voyage between the female deepest desire and the darkest <br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">nightmares “Bright Nightmares” is a three stories collection born to put together </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the classics of the horror The Haunted House, a Vampire and the Double, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">but with the individual typical feminine twist that characterize Elda Oreto’s writing.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elda came to dialogue with the masters of horror, Edgar Allan Poe's, Bram Stoker, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and Stevenson but in her case the 'monsters' - so to speak - are female characters. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elina and Elda will talk about the origins of the three stories, the relationship between fiction and reality, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> between Magic Realism and Surrealism and finally they will give an insight on the female soul to what </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">could be considered in a lacanian way the origins of fantasies and anxieties.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elda Oreto</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> is an art historian who is writing about art and fiction. Originally from Naples, Italy </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">she lives between Berlin, Germany and Kiruna, Sweden.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">She has a Bachelor in Philosophy and a Master in Art History both at the University Federico II of </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Naples. From 2011 and 2013, she founded Club Midnight (</span><a href="http://www.clubmidnight.de/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">www.clubmidnight.de</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">),a contemporary </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">art gallery. Her first Novella, The Secret Lodge, was published in 2015. She is a freelance journalist </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">writing for: La Repubblica Napoli, Flash Art, Anniversary Magazine and her own blog: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">h</span><a href="https://artspleen.blogspot.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">ttps://artspleen.blogspot.com/</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elina Norden</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> is a Berlin/Munich-based curator, private art consultant, and writer at Arterritory.com. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In addition to her primary focus on contemporary art, her areas of expertise extend to the </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">culturally-related categories of design, film, and literature related to the space age era. Norden is </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">actively working between Germany and native Latvia.</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Nightmares-Stories-Elda-Oreto/dp/B08WV3Y6W3" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Elda Oreto »Bright Nightmares ~ Horror Stories ~ « </span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Nightmares-Stories-Elda-Oreto/dp/B08WV3Y6W3" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">KindlePublishing, 2021</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Please come boosted OR vaccinated/recovered AND please wear an FFP2 mask. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">We look forward to seeing you!</span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA4rtuxcjbZeXdYFvypca7cB4vXPFirL92Bn5KBialsseSkw5xf-16GpVtVSPL0gDst9muoDcNCjHFsu7eL41DPRaInCTaUdvJzclBjxuVispmKrjcqFNvL99XU7baDnIlInFIphKno3J4IUq4248wDiDT80HWyaFkPf7DoZupy9afekt4pnwq3kPS=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA4rtuxcjbZeXdYFvypca7cB4vXPFirL92Bn5KBialsseSkw5xf-16GpVtVSPL0gDst9muoDcNCjHFsu7eL41DPRaInCTaUdvJzclBjxuVispmKrjcqFNvL99XU7baDnIlInFIphKno3J4IUq4248wDiDT80HWyaFkPf7DoZupy9afekt4pnwq3kPS=w150-h200" width="150" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMXbZvJr81Cpd10h47fXwHqMvZSQxGjUL5ny3mOQKW4p-PQwroQtQEitmUprziRMzL2YIaBK-bMBczAOKzwTi_0P61DcFYg3TnYxwMJy7l9BlE95MqW67y2EQEdd1TOfTuYJcXqk1osFBUHWYfOrcu6OZTb-BTMCiz00dUO-aI_uatD_L7LosgftrN=s1154" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">Photo: Elda Oreto</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="1153" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMXbZvJr81Cpd10h47fXwHqMvZSQxGjUL5ny3mOQKW4p-PQwroQtQEitmUprziRMzL2YIaBK-bMBczAOKzwTi_0P61DcFYg3TnYxwMJy7l9BlE95MqW67y2EQEdd1TOfTuYJcXqk1osFBUHWYfOrcu6OZTb-BTMCiz00dUO-aI_uatD_L7LosgftrN=w200-h200" width="200" /></div>Photo:Elina Norden<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /><br /></p>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-86551445377480127662021-11-17T11:49:00.001-08:002021-11-17T11:49:24.345-08:00THE WEKUA ZONE and everything that is hiding in the room of memories // Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<iframe src="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2021/11/the-wekua-zone/" name="iFrame Name" scrolling="Yes" height="500px" width="100%" style="border: none;"></iframe>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-48176591813312814252021-11-17T11:45:00.003-08:002021-11-17T11:50:40.942-08:00Joakim Ojanen. Lots of Feelings // Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<iframe src="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2021/08/joakim-ojanen-lots-of-feelings/" name="iFrame Name" scrolling="Yes" height="500px" width="100%" style="border: none;"></iframe>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-4779299446549841152021-11-17T11:43:00.006-08:002021-11-17T11:51:41.067-08:00Bjarne Melgaard and the Lustfulness of Loneliness // Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<iframe src="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2021/06/bjarne-melgaard-and-the-lustfulness-of-loneliness/" name="iFrame Name" scrolling="Yes" height="500px" width="100%" style="border: none;"></iframe>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-11810700191210805582021-04-20T04:49:00.003-07:002021-04-20T04:49:59.166-07:00Pablo Tomek / CONDEMNED @ WINDOWS;68 - Xibt _ONLINE April 2021<div class="iframely-embed"><div class="iframely-responsive" style="padding-bottom: 66.6797%; padding-top: 120px;"><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2021/04/pablo-tomek-condemned-windows68/" data-iframely-url="//cdn.iframe.ly/Ce8jlJJ"></a></div></div><script async src="//cdn.iframe.ly/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-83960962496269517592021-04-20T04:46:00.000-07:002021-04-20T04:46:59.176-07:00The power of thinking and the fundamental encounter with reality in the works of DAVID SPRIGGS - Xibt Jan/Feb/March 2021<div class="iframely-embed"><div class="iframely-responsive" style="padding-bottom: 66.6667%; padding-top: 120px;"><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2021/02/the-power-of-thinking-and-the-fundamental-encounter-with-reality-in-the-works-of-david-spriggs/" data-iframely-url="//cdn.iframe.ly/TU0RVmS"></a></div></div><script async src="//cdn.iframe.ly/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-2895745407379858612021-02-18T04:46:00.002-08:002021-02-18T04:47:10.601-08:00NEW BOOK: Elda Oreto, Bright Nightmare ~ Horror Stories ~
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B08WV3Y6W3/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=bright+nightmares&qid=1613650456&sr=8-5" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="493" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZNjYA_f3oX9izpD65uEf53J1PP6hgMCDAWUyR1-gs8l2jrZmsjqAbSAf75oCJEH0LP3B23YCCknebYj5a35LN_u1gxPgjQ8k80JmhPsAzAdu_gF78I1JEKSauVVXpdJTbIpFM7maRflQ/s400/IMG_8591.jpg" /> </a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B08WV3Y6W3/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=bright+nightmares&qid=1613650456&sr=8-5" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">What would you do if you were haunted by the dearest things? How would
you behave if you found out that your wife is hiding a horrible secret?
Could you survive the thought of having lost everything? These three
tales tell three different yet similar stories of women who make an
unstoppable journey into the abyss. </span></a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Product details</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">
<span class="disclaim">
</span>
</span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></p><div id="detailBullets_feature_div"><ul class="a-unordered-list a-nostyle a-vertical a-spacing-none detail-bullet-list" style="text-align: justify;"><li><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="a-list-item">
<span class="a-text-bold">ASIN
:
</span>
<span>B08WV3Y6W3</span>
</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="a-list-item">
<span class="a-text-bold">Publisher
:
</span>
<span>Independently published (17 Feb. 2021)</span>
</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="a-list-item">
<span class="a-text-bold">Language
:
</span>
<span>English</span>
</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="a-list-item">
<span class="a-text-bold">Paperback
:
</span>
<span>114 pages</span>
</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="a-list-item">
<span class="a-text-bold">ISBN-13
:
</span>
<span>979-8701485653</span>
</span></span></p></li><li><p><span class="a-list-item"><span style="font-size: small;">
<span class="a-text-bold">Dimensions
:
</span>
<span>13.97 x 0.74 x 21.59 cm</span></span></span></p><p><span class="a-list-item"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>8,82 euro</span></span></span></p><p><span class="a-list-item"><a href="https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B08WV3Y6W3/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=bright+nightmares&qid=1613650456&sr=8-5#detailBullets_feature_div" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B08WV3Y6W3/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=bright+nightmares&qid=1613650456&sr=8-5#detailBullets_feature_div </span></span></a>
</span></p></li></ul>
</div></div>
elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-13108046290753839172020-11-26T09:42:00.000-08:002020-11-26T09:42:00.871-08:00Katharina Grosse, It Wasn’t Us until 10 January, 2021 / A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin - Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<blockquote class="embedly-card"><h4><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2020/11/katharina-grosse-it-wasnt-us/">Katharina Grosse, It Wasn't Us * XIBT Contemporary Art Mag</a></h4><p>A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin by Elda Oreto Katharina Grosse turns the world into a canvas and everything into a work of art, the exhibition "Katharina Grosse: It Wasn't Us", curated by Udo Kittelmann and Gabriele</p></blockquote>
<script async src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-6844770230290914872020-11-26T09:39:00.000-08:002020-11-26T09:39:02.414-08:00Catherine Biocca, Milky Seas / PSM, Berlin - Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<blockquote class="embedly-card"><h4><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2020/11/catherine-biocca-milky-seas-psm-berlin/">Catherine Biocca, Milky Seas / PSM, Berlin * XIBT Contemporary Art Mag</a></h4><p>The methods of verbal communication allow for an aggression that permanently affects our feelings. Even when these words are not directly addressed to us. Catherine Biocca in the solo-show Milky Seas presented at the PSM Gallery in Berlin, investigated the mechanisms of fear, aggression and violence that are continuously and more or less subtly part of our daily life.</p></blockquote>
<script async src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-7471518032836691282020-11-26T09:36:00.002-08:002020-11-26T09:36:46.150-08:00Émilie Pitoiset / MANIAC - Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<blockquote class="embedly-card"><h4><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2020/10/emilie-pitoiset-maniac/">Émilie Pitoiset / MANIAC * XIBT Contemporary Art Mag</a></h4><p>In the MANIAC exhibition, at the gallery Klemm's in Berlin, from 10 September to 24 October 2020, the French artist Émilie Pitoiset investigated the way in which the control over our body movements, and particularly dancing, are the manifestation of the acceleration linked to mechanisms and relations built by the expansion of a capitalist system.</p></blockquote>
<script async src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-77285961076298560892020-11-26T09:33:00.001-08:002020-11-26T09:33:20.679-08:00Monster Chetwynd, if spirits and demons become reality - Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<blockquote class="embedly-card"><h4><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2020/10/monster-chetwynd-if-spirits-and-demons-become-reality/">Monster Chetwynd, if spirits and demons become reality * XIBT Contemporary Art Mag</a></h4><p>Rite of passage, liberation, space of rupture, limits, chaos, law, life, order, death, identity, masks, high culture and popular culture, ancient and modern, serious and humorous are all elements the British artist, Monster Chetwynd, mixes in her artistic research that swings between the magical ritual and the social experiment, creating an atmosphere that feels as if we are between a village festival and the Ancient Greek Theater.</p></blockquote>
<script async src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639296774040469144.post-73596808095193418452020-11-26T09:30:00.002-08:002020-11-26T09:31:12.771-08:00K.H. Hödicke at Palais Populaire - Xibt Contemporary Art Magazine<blockquote class="embedly-card"><h4><a href="https://www.xibtmagazine.com/en/2020/10/k-h-hodicke-at-palais-populaire/">K.H. Hödicke at Palais Populaire * XIBT Contemporary Art Mag</a></h4><p>Frantic flashing neon signs overflow from the gray facades of concrete buildings and intertwine in a constellation of advertising posters and glimpses of underground life in Berlin, almost a ghost town, sweet and dark, this is the scenario created by Karl-Horst Hödicke in his inexhaustible artistic practice.</p></blockquote>
<script async src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>elda oretohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06410812885351112539noreply@blogger.com0