Bang!

progressive catholisism

2010-07-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

a moment in time

2010-06-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

A city sat on the palm of a furious hand. Closer to God yet further from humanity. The weather in tone with the attitude of the locals: a constant change between rainy and sunny, depressive and euforic. I left after the diasapointing results of an election that extended the reign of an abusive goverment. Now, in this town i feel at peace for a moment. A town where time stays still, where the heat is intence and the mosquito peals your skin. Tamalameque: my on personal Macondo.

Bone to pick

2010-04-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

Three young men enter a Polo store in some outlet in New Jersey. Two of the kids, the best dressed ones, spend their time looking and gathering shirts and sweaters while the other one, the darkest one and the only one with dread locks, walks around with a bored and oblivious look in his eyes. After Thirty minutes, and what seemed to the rasta like an eternity, they all walk to the counter. A chubby girl stuffed in a two sizes too small polo shirt with a golden insignia and “Russia” written across, fills two overweight paper bags with all the clothes the two twenty something year olds gathered. After they pay for the overpriced yet “sale of the year” clothes, one of the two that were looking around, the shortest one of the three, says something to the other two in Spanish and then turns around to the girl and asks her in a heavy undefined accent:
-Can you give me more bags for these clothes?-
The blond girl smugishly replies:
-No, we can only give two bags per costumer-
The other well dressed kid, the more Caucasian looking and the tallest one of the three by a long shot, asks the girl politely with the same odd accent:
-but couldn’t you please give us one more? This bags are kind of heavy.-
The girl, with an annoyed tone to her voice barks back:
- The policy is only two bags per costumer!-
The black kid, who had been reclined against the counter giving his back to the register, turns around and without missing a bit asked:
-Is that policy only for blacks and latinos or also for white suburban women like the one that walked out with four bags five minutes ago?-
Shocked, the girl tries to mumble something but before she is able to utter a word, the over-educated black kid demands:
-I would like to talk to the manager please-
The sales girl walks away with a concerned and astonished look on her face, while the two confused kids talk to the black one in Spanish. After a couple minutes the girl comes back with a shorter and brunette version of herself who asks with a fake smile on her face:
-How may I help you?-
The young black kid responds without moving the dreadlocks off that cover one of his eyes:
-Hi. We just bought two hundred and fifty dollars worth of merchandise and we plan to go to other stores. These bags are quite heavy and I’m afraid they are going to rip off after an hour of carrying them around. Could we please have some more bags?-
The girls redistributes the clothes with another two bags. The three boys walk out laughing.

Presidential Elections in Colombia and Colombian Poetry

2010-04-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, the second voting round for the next president of Colombia is almost here and even though this process might seem a little confusing for people (I'm more lost than a needle in a hay stack; I'm not sure this translates well) it seems that the two options now are Noemi Sanin and Juan Manuel Santos. I personally don't like either one, Sanin seems to flip constantly on her positions plus it seem a little... how do I put it... Opus Deish (with all due respect to the church) and then Santos, well apart from the fact that his family probably owns half of the country and that he might have a little trigger finger problem, he is not that bad... he'll keep the politics of Uribe to the max... oh wait that sounds pretty bad... but it seems that keeping the politics of Uribe is just what the majority of the Colombian people want...no wait, the majority of Colombian voters want, big difference (I'm sure the IDP's are not very big fans of Santos) . Anyways I visited this website to learn more about the two candidates but oddly enough they didn't find anything about Santos or my choice for President Antanas Mockus
http://www.elecciones.com.co/
So your best bet is to go to the candidates websites and try to see through their bullish. For those who speak Spanish (or want to practice it) here is a great video of important questions made by Colombians which the candidates will never answer (specially the one about shoe shinning cabins)

http://www.citytv.com.co/videos/18948/que-tema-vital-los-candidatos-presidenciales-no-estan-planteando

Well, don't want to leave you all in a bad mood so please check out this video: a great interpretation by El Parcero del popular # 8 of a great the great poem Rin Rin Renacuajo written by Rafael Pombo:

3 things on my mind

2010-03-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Well, three kind of random things to post today (I guess random is what is becoming the norm here).

First, since this blog is meant for the book and the book is about Colombia, I just wanted to share a video that made me very mad; a report on police abuse in Bogotá. This teenager gets shot with a rubber bullet in the chest for protesting police abuse. Thankfully the kid didn’t suffer major injuries but this just shows the unjust abuse of power by cops:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.citytv.com.co%2Fvideos%2F54814%2Fjoven-herido-por-un-esmad&h=66264d377f9a8bb1832f791f86c284c7

To turn 360 degrees, the next video is about a program against child mortality in Peru. I have a clear bias towards believing that this project will be very successful but outside from that, the efforts are admirable and the cause is noble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0OJWkqf-Is

And last but not least, just to keep the randomness alive, yesterday I was listening to my good friends’ band Backlights. I kind of felt this weird feeling that their songs were like a person in the way that: the base is like the heartbeat, the drums are like the mood or frame of mind, the keys are like the atmosphere around it and the guitar is like the personality. And the voice, well the voice is like the voice hahaha, but in the case of this band it just blends perfectly, it’s like another instrument. I’ll let you guys be the judge; check their music out (my favorite here: from the rooftop):

http://www.myspace.com/backlightson

2010-03-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

so, have been out for a while doing a couple things. Sorry for not posting for a while. To make it up here is a little video just for entertainment. I did it a while ago. It is an ethnographic study on the south west that really ended up being an ethnographic study on my friends and I. Music by the White Stripes (Cannon) and video by yours truly. chapters coming up soon to two more locations in New York, keep checking for details.

2010-03-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

Awesome, this is going better than I thought. There are 2 stores in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn that are now carrying the first two chapters of the book. We have Cosmic Comics in 10 East 23rd st, St. Mark’s Comics in 11th St. Mark’s Place and Bergen Street Comics in 470 Bergen Street in Brooklyn. Each chapter is being sold separately and they are only $2 a piece so please people, if you are somewhere around this neighborhoods, please pick up a copy. And if you want the complete book the only place to get it right now is www.andresink.com

2010-03-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Well, here is where I will make any comments, respond to comments and keep people updated with any news. Not much to say for now but enjoy www.andresink.com and check this blog soon for any updates.