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Agostina Rufolo
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Valentina Varas
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I first met Aggie virtually, through Twitter. We had many things in common, one of them being my ex boyfriend, who had gone on a date with her way before my time. There is something mysterious yet inviting about her, maybe it has something to do with the fact that she is very talented in a humble, quiet way. I finally met Aggie in the flesh a couple of days ago, only to find that I will never be able to put my finger on what it is that makes her so alluring. I will continue to pursue this quest, and so should everyone who comes across her. Not often does one find a pretty girl with interests and curiosity, or a sense of humor, perhaps because these are not expected from her. In Aggie’s case, beauty is frequently overshadowed by substance, which is why her self-consciousness is nothing but an obvious miscalculation in her perception of the world.

Sometimes I Forget I'm a Woman.

09.03.16
1 min
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Sometimes I forget I’m a woman.

What does it mean to be a woman anyway?

Lots of shitty feminist art to narrow down the answer.

I sometimes feel I’m a guy. Which is what I wanted to be when I was a teenager.

I sometimes feel pretty neutral regarding gender.

And then I remember I’m a woman.

I wouldn’t choose otherwise.

MagrittePipe

No Future pour cette Pipe

27.12.15
4 min
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So I think I might have got all the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” meaning all wrong. 

I’ve recently heard that what it meant is that it wasn’t really a pipe because it was the painting, the image of a pipe, a representation, and not the pipe itself, of course.

All my life I thought it wasn’t a pipe because a pipe being called a pipe is just a convention and not the real thing, like anything could’ve been a pipe, but it ended up being that object. I guess it is the same but with a word instead of an image, I don’t know.

It reminded me of one day, I was standing next to the sink at my first guy’s house. We had a 6 months relationship. Their family was all around the place. Parents and sister, who was originally my friend and the reason I’ve met him. It was always a bit uncomfortable because his parents are German and I was 16 and I didn’t rally know how to behave around them because they would just start speaking in German whenever and they sounded mad or bossy when doing so. Like the first time we we sort of “together”, which was just kissing because I am such a late bloomer. We woke up on the couch together and his mum was shouting in German and I knew it was about him but he made up it was about something else. I guess German or Argentinian, an angry mum sounds like an angry mum all over the world and you just know what it is about no matter the language. Well, back from the flashback, we were in the kitchen, and it was towards the end of our relationship. He wanted to be my boyfriend but I didn’t want that. He seemed awfully depressed that day, he eventually ended up sitting in one of the kitchen’s corner and he just seemed so blue. I asked him kind of in a grumpy way why was he blue. He said he was sad because he thought that when the Sex Pistols sang “No future” they were talking about the inexistence of future because time didn’t really exist, like no past, no present, no future. I thouht it was ridiculous that the Sex Pistols would be that deep regarding the meaning of their songs. So I told him what they meant, like no future because no jobs and no money for their class and the whole England system of classes and shit like that, much more mundane, and he said “Yes, I found that out today, it depresses me so much.” And I’m not sure why, no idea, I think the idea was in the back of my mind already, maybe, but at that exact moment I felt the click. I’ve stopped liking him for good. I was later sitting next to the sink and he would come to me and kiss me and I couldn’t feel it, it felt so weird and he could tell something was off and also I didn’t want displays of affection near his German mum, which is really cool to talk to years later but was kind of scary before (they live a block away from my house). He asked me about it, so I tried to fake the whole thing. Awful. Then a week later, 2 hours before my birthday party, which I always celebrate the night before because mine is always a holiday due to Independece Day, anyway… I felt really uncomfortable and decided I didn’t want to have a boy around during my party so I got together with him. We stopped at this corner with a lovely tree that had red leaves in autumn/winter. This was in July, so winter. There were lovely leaves all over the road in that corner and I told him right there that I wanted to finish it and told him he could still come to the party, which he did. It was so awkward, I felt like a bitch. That night I kinda fell for my best friend’s mate, but that is another story… The next morning, on my birthday, July 9th, it snowed. I was thrilled because that only happens every 50 years or so in Buenos Aires.

vern

Rambling: Sabotage, failure and quitting.

26.11.15
7 min
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I am not a quitter, which I’ve found out these years that is not something to take pride in. It just means that I will not actively make a decision to stop something that I clearly don’t want anymore, even if I haven’t consciously noticed and even when I have. And what’s worse is that if it’s falling apart, I’ll cling to it so hard till it hurts, till it’s shuttered into crumbles of what it once was. This goes for jobs, relationships, friendships, whatever. So I get tired of something but I won’t actively stop it. I will mess up, fuck up till some other person decides for me then try to hold on tighter and then, when there’s nothing left, release, feeling both sadness and joy. 

After 2 months of almost no sleeping due to exams and school projects, the day I can finally catch up with work, I get laid off. You know that day. You are sad, you feel like you failed but, at the same time, you feel so HAPPY. You’ve been released. But you are not supposed to feel happy, because what are you going to do now? So even when I have a hard time dealing with changes and letting go, even when I feel numb and sad, I know it’s good and that I’ll be fine. The mourning period is nice because you get to be curled up in bed watching old repeated Seinfeld and Friends episodes while you feel pity for yourself and you get to cook and bake what you like and catch up with Homeland. Being an Audiovisual Design student, it is normal to hear my friends go “Have you watched it yet? You HAVE TO. It’s amazing! Do it NOW, here, have my Netflix password, watch it!” and then I explain that there’s a long list of movies and pilots I have to watch for school, and sometimes, I don’t even watch all of that. So I spend a lot of months a year hoping for school to finish so I can choose what I watch, even if it’s Clueless or Mean Girls or catching up with Homeland or Silicon Valley instead of a Pier Paolo Pasolini film, which I also love, but sometimes I’m just not in the right mood for that. 

So where was I? Anyway, I finished my year with mediocre grades, no job, no nothing. Pure self sabotage. I am sort of an expert on that, because when you don’t actively decide to quit, you sabotage yourself till you have a clean slate to work with. As I told a classmate yesterday, even if I wrote that 20 pages script and its 20 pages analysis in 2 days without sleeping after 2 days of no sleeping due to a Sound I project, I really think I’m learning. And I am. Maybe I can’t quote Kierkegaard and Ansperger by heart, but I got it. Something that you learn at design school is to live without sleeping well for months and maybe not sleeping at all for almost a week and to do things fast. Especially because you are not getting paid but putting lots of money into it and need the rest of the time to do something that gives you the money to pay for that. Although sometimes it seems impossible to balance that and you get fired. Ha. But I clearly wanted to pass those classes even if it wasn’t with flying colours like the little nerd in me would have wanted and I clearly didn’t want that job anymore, therefore, my sabotage angel chose for me and did it right. Sabotage is only quitting in a non so active way. 

Something that I do a lot is define myself through failure. Imagine you get a job, get promoted, find the love of your life. I usually don’t tell, because, if I like someone I just think I’m gonna jinx it by telling everybody (and when I do is maybe a start on the self sabotage thingy) and if I get a job or good grades, as my dad always put it, is “something that you do for yourself and you have to do things right, that’s the normal thing to do, it shouldn’t be cheered upon”, so, all my As were normal and my classmates Bs deserved a Playstation. So I kinda learnt not to tell nor feel overexcited before something I achieved, but failing, that’s the not normal thing to do, and that’s the one I communicate. Which maybe, should be the other way round. Perhaps I’m just trying to show everybody that they can fail and they can be crazy and they’ll survive regardless. 

The silver lining to this rambling is that, yesterday, at this beer event at the lovely Plaermo Hippodrome, which I’ve never visited before because I live blocks away from the one in San Isidro, I was walking around, drinking, looking at guys and as I walked I crossed one that I liked and made eyes at him, then went straight to the toilet, where i was heading. When I got back, he kinda stopped me, we went for more beer and he told me he’d just return from San Francisco, hence the surf-y look. He reminded me of this surfer I hooked up with a few times. And I asked him what it felt like being back, he said he didn’t understand a thing, he was still jet lag and the city seemed strange. He asked me if I was stoned, which I was very much so: “Hence the sexy stoned eyes, disrupting all the square vibes here”, he said, we were on tune regarding the square vibes at the event, even if I look as bad (and as content) as Rihanna when stoned (I know we’d be great friends, RiRi). We were about to kiss. Then he started talking about how San Francisco is different because, for example, Argentinian DJ Hernán Cattaneo went to play there a few dates and “by the fourth night, we were calling each other’s names when we saw and greet each other, it’s all really chill and cool like that”. And the spark was gone. I felt judgy, because I think that doing normal things with someone famous is nothing extraordinary or to take pride in. I get it, part of the flirting, maybe, maybe it was just a comment, anyhow, I wasn’t up for it anymore. I felt like a bitch, maybe I was being one and I also felt what I’ve heard many times before, that “nothing is good enough for me” in a bad way. So I would try to be cool and keep talking to him, and then a friend came and hugged him and they started talking about his trip and decided that it was a perfect time for me to leave, which, before, I wouldn’t have, I would’ve stayed. So that whole “nothing is good enough for you” shit is bullshit. You start thinking it yourself as well, but it is not like that at all, when it isn’t right, it just isn’t right. So yesterday I learnt how to actively quit, even if it was a small insignificant thing. 

colossus

"Let's Change": Cybotron - Colossus (1978)

24.11.15
2 min
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So this time I’m not the one writing but only both translating and introducing my friend Cristian. He is a live music encyclopedia and the one we all look at at any gathering when we are in need of great jokes and a good intense laugh. He is a really honest, fun, smart and humble guy… He is really punk-rock in that way, which is what punk-rock was about to me when I was a teenager and we were all into punk, and what is still about nowadays, if you ask me. He is really special like that. I’ve been nagging him for a long time now about starting a radio show, but at least I got him to write a few lines. 

Agostina Rufolo

—–

Monday.

“Let’s Change” (Translation of the name of the party that won the presidential election on Sunday in Argentina, “Cambiemos”)

We all love space-rock, we talk about Hawkwind, UFO, Gong, Pink Floyd, even Kraftwerk? Or Neu?, CAN?!, etc…  I think there are a few more progressive rock bands of “solar” high-flying not recognized by the genre “fans”, but, why not consider Cybotron? From Australia, these guys, apart from being a leading influence and pioneers of the first electronic music wave, they also express vibrant and catchy melodies filled up with space trip, taking any listener to the best sci-fi story, more complex and progressive, full of electronic sounds.

Maybe now with all that stoner rock frenzy and XXI century style progre-psychedelia with long instrumental passages (which I support a lot) and all that, some of you will take my words into consideration and try to give these not really known “mosters” from kangaroo continent a chance.

I leave you to their third record.

“Colossus”, 1978.

Cristian Ch

Doesn't have to be a stranger

22.11.15
6 min
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Quite a hectic day. Biked towards my friend’s recording studio. And as I did, I saw a falcon standing on the Hippodrome’s fence. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’ve always seen a few flying really high on the sky but never had a bird of that size so near me. I went really near him, gazing in that regal pose. Some species are incredibly sexy like that. I wish I had a phone to take a picture. #NoFilter #Falcon #Regal #Blessed. But felt lucky that I didn’t ruin the moment taking a picture. I went as near as my fear allowed me since seeing the size of his peak freaked me out a bit. Hoped I could have him as a lovely pet, flying around, then I would walk outside to my garden and he’d fly toward my arm an stand there, being beautiful as I caress him. I don’t know why I assume it was a he, because I have no idea, really, but it seemed pretty masculine, although that’s bullshit. If it was a she, she was fierce and hot yet sweet, much more than Beyonce will ever try to be. I kept going on my bike and arrived to the studio. My classmates were late, so we chilled and talked about the future for a while. The future is somehow always present among 20 somethings. We always talk about “our plans for the future”, but is always the near one; trips, living abroad, plans while living abroad, further education, getting a bachelor degree or just drop out half way through because the 4 years program the public uni suggests is completely unrealistic and then you spend a decade studying (including finals), ideal jobs… I think it’s good that marriage is not a plan for a certain age, but something that happens. Love is something that happens. Maybe. Someday. Hopefully.

Then my classmates arrived and I had to leave for 2 hours to my last dance rehearsal. Which I was kinda pissed about since my position in many of the choreographs has been changed many times. So I have to focus on remembering every little detail changed instead of concentrating on smiling and enjoying myself at the last rehearsal ever with this professor. Then biked back the 40 blocks to the studio again, in my dance clothes which consisted on fuchsia stockings, black legwarmers, a really short black skirt and a Ramones top. Going for what would be now 12 Km. on my bike after 2 hours of dancing, I felt with more energy than ever during that day, which is why I can’t ever stop dancing or I’ll die. Just like sharks not being able to stop swimming (which is something else I cannot quit). Arrived to the studio and had an incredible afternoon recording Foley. During which, I found out about the Paris attacks through a DJ I know announcing she was OK but of course the party was cancelled. I find it as a really unfortunate coincidence that today I uploaded a picture wearing a headscarf my dad brought me from Morocco, which is so colourful and lovely. Not appropiating culture but celebrating it, I was almost ready for the Sahara. And then I chose undies that had a poodle and the Eiffel tower which says “Paris” on the front and “Oh la la” on the back. Not funny, but, as I said, an unfortunate coincidence. Not implying at all a headscarf makes you a terrorist, more like the kind of associations ignorant people make. I really hope this doesn’t backfire against refugees all over Europe, but it most likely will some way or another. 

After smoking a bit with my friend at the studio and talking about politics, Argentina facing this crazy ballotage where I can’t vote for neither candidate nor party. One being right-wing, the other being right-wing disguised as left. So I’ll do the teenager thing to do and will put a paper with the anarchy symbol written on it. Even if my friends have been nagging me for weeks trying to convince me to vote the one they go for. Everything seems like a football match here, parties being the respective teams.

I started heading back home, amazing night to be on a bike. Bought a 1/4Kg of ice cream at my fave of the area, and also really cheap, Arnaldo. Chose 3 flavours: Tramontana (cream, little cereal balls covered with chocolate and dulce de leche, which I always ask little of because I find it too sweet and ruins it), Tiramisu (like the dessert, one of my faves) and Marroc chocolate (bitter chocolate with little pieces of an Argentinian candy made with chocolate and peanut cream). I decided to buy a burger since there’s a new Burger King. Looked for bike parking with no luck so just left it tied to a post. Security guard stopped me and I told him I did look for it but couldn’t find it and that I wasn’t staying long. He was super nice and let me go.

Burger King cashier: “I love going home after a workday because I feel I did things right.” It was weird to hear that coming out of a fast food place cashier, which made him adorable. I returned home, happy to finally be there, happy that I was about to eat. And the burger was the wrong one. Why didn’t I check? I always check. I was STARVING. So I took a bite anyway because there was no way I was hopping on that bike again without food in my system and headed back. Then when I had to complain about my burger being not the one I asked for he was not working anymore, the cashier was having dinner with workmates, but came towards me anyway and said sorry like a zillion times while he detailed everything the new ones were doing wrong. I asked him if he felt like going back inside there and do it himself. He said he wanted that badly. Then added “My shift is over, but I’d help you anyway, anytime”. I kinda wanted to hug him. I looked at him and I almost hug him. But restrained myself because it would’ve been weird. It felt really nice having a stranger stopping whatever he was doing (which was eating in this case, after a long day working, something I wanted to do so badly) to take care of me. I guess it’s nice when someone takes care of you, doesn’t have to be a stranger.

How we would have met in real life

09.11.15
6 min
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  • Thank god not everybody lacks of sense of humour on Fountayne Road…
  • Haha I thought it wasn’t a joke at first but, as I’m a cat person, I got it was a joke, he was just a comfy furry ball there on a cloudy blanket. Although I don’t live in Fountayne Road, no idea who added me there, but I liked the group so I stayed.
  • Haha, so you just look for cat pictures on the page.
  • No, I just enjoy nice posts and think if i’d rent the rooms you guys post.
  • Are you looking for a room?
  • No, I think I’m going to Berlin after all. Was thinking about Stockholm before, but I was kinda looking for a while, yes. Now I’m in Buenos Aires.
  • Ah, bad choice, London is the best.
  • But so expensiiive
  • True but true…
  • Haha I’ll go visit
  • Well let me know, I’ll introduce you to the cat!
    I see you know Blair, he’s my neighbor.
  • Yeah, I don’t remember how, though. Very weird how I ended up in that group.
  • Facebook is so funny.
  • INDEED. But if it wasn’t via FB we would all connect the same weird ways somehow.
  • Well without my stupid cat joke and someone randomly adding you on that private and selective group I don’t really see how. I guess you’re an artist if you want to go to Berlin.
  • Maybe we bumped into each other somewhere or if it was on the internet maybe a forum or chat room. Haha no, I’m kinda sick of artists right now. I’m a writer, but I don’t know, also studying Audiovisual Design. Maybe I am an artist or want to be one. Fuck. But I also translate and subtitle, that’s so not artsy.
  • :) Subtitle is cool.
  • And write for magazines. Yeah, it’s incredibly tiring though.
  • How would I watch my hacked movies without it…
  • Right! I “volunteer” for this art site that uploads art documentaries and the volunteers subtitle them to Spanish. It’s a pirate site. So yeah, translators… We are really charitable.
  • Yeah, modern slavery for art. What’s the site? I’m interested.
  • Haha no, I think it more like passing and sharing the culture to people who don’t understand Damien Hirst’s bloody accent. Lalulula.tv is the site.
  • Well I don’t understand Damien Hirst’s art so getting his accent would be a good start…
  • Hahaha I do love the shark at the Met, though. But I love sharks.
  • And cats.
  • Now I’m subtitling one about Olafur Eliasson. And cats too and bats and spiders and snakes. And red pandas.
  • Oh bats are so cute!!!
  • Yesss
  • Haha bloody cute animals on internet.
  • Haha yeah. Anyway, lalulula.tv is a great site.
  • It looks like. I will check.
  • Well, it’s English with Spanish subtitles only.
  • Now I’m trying to imagine how we would have met in real life.
  • I kinda always think about that regarding people I’ve met on the internet.
  • You would hear me in a gallery telling a joke about a dead cat to my friend. You would take it seriously at first. Be sad.
  • And think about my dead cat River Phoenix and be sad, yes. Then keep drinking to try to get loose and not be sad.
  • Then I would tell you it’s a joke and you would be mad at me.
  • Would I?
  • Then I would tell you My Own Private Idaho is one of my favourite movies.
  • Depends on the joke, but I don’t think so.
  • And you would forgive me haha.
  • Of course.
  • And you would invite me for a dulce de leche.
  • Because it is a great movie! And my cat had this amazing name. I’m not so fond of dulce de leche… too sweet… but the one from Uruguay is better.
  • Good choice! I’m from Brazil, in a little city North East they have a very special one made with fresh milk directly coming from the cow.
  • Really? Where? My great grandmother was from Rio Grande do Sul.
  • Rio but the city is called Ipira in Bahia.
  • Nice.
  • Oh so you’re almost Brazilian :)
  • Hahah we could say, I like that.
  • :)
  • Have you  ever been here?
  • Where?
  • Buenos Aires.
  • No, I almost did 3 years ago to visit an old friend of mine. We used to play in the same band. But it was too expensive. Shame.
  • Oh shame indeed. What band?
  • It was called Alleph.
  • Nice
  • After the book from Jorge Luis Borges.
  • Yeah, got the reference.
  • Now my friend plays in a band called Morbo y Mambo. Do you know them by any chance?
  • Oh I love that band! Saw them at TRImarchi Graphic Design Festival in Mar del Plata. Great guys.
  • Oh cool
  • Who is your friend?
  • Manuel. But it was more than 10 years ago and so brief…
  • Aguilar?
  • The bass player. Yeah. You know him?
  • Not really, by friends in common but yeah.
  • That’s so crazy. Thank god for that cat.
  • Hahahah. See? But I don’t have him on FB, I just know him from events.
  • Don’t ruin it, say you know him, say it’s your childhood friend!
  • Hahaha I have 162 mutual friends on FB with him.
  • WTF!!!
  • Haha yeah a lot.
  • Just how many Facebook friends do you have? I only share 95 with my closest friend and we basically moved to the same countries almost at the same time and you share 162 with someone you don’t know.
  • I have like 1500 friends.
  • Wow…
  • Yeah I know. Comes with working at magazines.
  • Ah yeah OK makes sense. Have you ever sorted your page and unfriended people who you didn’t remember?
  • Yeah but what happens is that the first ones to appear are the ones I do know then I get tired and I don’t delete anybody.
  • So, to change the topic, are you writing?
  • Oh yeah, I mainly write personal stuff at the moment. Really short, I can’t write long for now.
  • Is it fiction?
  • No.
  • So purely your experiences.
  • Exactly. That’s what I can write about lately.
  • Interesting.
  • Is it? You can say if it’s rubbish.
  • No I haven’t read yet :)
  • Great haha.
  • Interesting the idea of writing experiences. Choose the ones you will talk about.
  • Yeah, not that I choose too. It just happens.
  • Haha so you just write whatever happens to you?
  • No, it’s just whatever comes out as writing. Sometimes I write in my mind but don’t write it down.
  • I had that since a few weeks. Well I guess our meeting is worth writing about ;)
  • It is, I will write about it.

(W)hole III: Human Life To-Do List

20.10.15
3 min
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I remember my first kiss. I was 14. I kinda wanted to live the experience at last. I’ve waited long enough. I felt like a really late bloomer. We’ve been going to the municipal pool with two friends, everyday riding our bikes, during the whole summer. Only “My Girl” as the soundtrack was missing. I’m sure we sang it a few times while riding our bikes, though, or it definitely played in my mind. We would meet boys there and have fun. Although they wanted to be around the place and I really wanted to be in the pool all day long.

So I met E. He wasn’t what I would call something special, but he was the one I liked the most in that group. And so did my friend M. I didn’t know that at first. But I had something personal to get through with. The whole summer went by, he sorta had to decide between the two of us. The whole situation started feeling really pathetic, so even though I liked him and even though I am incredibly stubborn and capricious, I thought he’d of course choose my friend instead of me, because she was blonde and had an amazing hair and was more experienced than I was. I’d never kissed anybody before! Why would he want that? So I stepped aside and waited to see how everything with my friend would start to develop and focused on enjoying the pool. 

The last day of summer you could smell the nostalgia in the air, you could see the bright colours fading like a retro Instagram filter slowly into the autumn palette. This guy, the Paraguayan we called him because that’s where he was from said he wanted to talk to me. He asked me if I still liked E, if I wanted to make out with him. I was confused, I thought he had chosen my friend already, I thought he didn’t want to kiss me after all. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, I was all nerves, but I had to get through with it and it had to be that summer, I wouldn’t wait any longer.

His friend told me he was waiting for me passing a long row of trees. I walked there, almost shaking, but pretending with a firm and steady walk. I sat down next to him and I told him I’ve never kissed anybody before, I had no idea how to proceed. He told me not to worry, that it was easy and to close my eyes. He just leaned toward me and our lips touched, our mouths were wide open and our tongues danced. I opened my eyes, his were closed. He seemed to be into it. I didn’t get what the fuss was all about, I felt nothing, I just mechanically but willingly moved my tongue and my lips like I would perfect a choreography at my dance classes. Think I did pretty well. Then we stopped and we sat there for a little longer, although it was kinda awkward and I didn’t really know what to say. Then we went back to the group. I felt nothing, I felt the same, but somehow accomplished. I’ve crossed that off of my human life to-do list.  

I never hanged out with my two friends nor him anymore after the summer ended. Then found out my friend and him were a couple. I didn’t really care.

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fos

Moments Like These

Agostina Rufolo about making a literary selfie
02.10.15
1 min
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I, with great difficulty due to a hurt thumb, rolled a joint and headed outside with a box of matches because I hate that smell inside the house and because I wanted to look at the rain. Several matches got turned off by the wind, some accomplished their mission while I watched a little spider coming out of a spiderweb on a corner. So I started walking towards the garden by the trees and thought: “I live for moments like these.” I looked at the sky sensing a lightning coming soon. And in a few seconds it did. So I ran towards the house with a thunder as soundtrack. Inside, Donovan coming out of the computer, thanks for Youtube’s Autoplay. I danced for a little while infront of the mirror and then started writing this. With a break and a chocolate cereal bowl in the middle, switching to Rolling Stones. Is writing something just right after it happened like taking a literary selfie?

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Fear and Trembling in Buenos Aires

Agostina Rufolo about how a spider can make me feel the luckiest girl.
21.09.15
4 min
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In the midst of zapping I found the film “XXY” with Valeria Bertuccelli, Ricardo Darín, Martín Piroyanski, and Inés Efrón as its main actors on an Argentinan Cable TV channel called “Volver” something like “Return”, so, basically, they broadcast old Argentinian TV shows and movies, this one’s not that old, so it surprised me to see it already there, or was surprised by the constant and rapid passage of time. 

It was nice to catch this film on the telly because I had a weird week and I was tired after my dance class that evening. So my body was tired but my mind was spinning around and this movie is set in Uruguay, where my mum is from and it relaxed me to observe the isolated beach and the calm and steady Uruguay lifestyle. Early on the week I went to my dance class, then left at 11PM to a friend’s for 2 days because his parents were out of town. The second day my battery went off and I didn’t have a charger with me, and since I’m not really fond of cell phones, I’m usually happy when that happens, I was online anyway. But my dad freaked out and reported me as a missing person because my phone was off. They never talked to me on FB, a friend did, which is how I found out I was apparently missing, talked to my mum on Facebook, and she was online, which made everything really weird. Then later that day, as I got to school at 8PM, they were evacuating it because the Earthquake in Chile was felt in Buenos Aires as well, which never happens. Buses here usually vibrate so much I didn’t feel a thing. I got inside passing through the security guy telling me not to, while other students were taking pics and filming the event, because that is how good we Argentinians are at evacuating a place, we just think nothing will happen to us, I guess, Buenos Aires having little climatic and geographical trouble in that sense. My professor was still inside the class saying he was too concentrated talking about “Fear and Trembling” by Søren Kierkegaard that he didn’t feel a thing, but he liked the FX added to his class. I went home feeling like I didn’t belong, feeling as if I were really missing and I wasn’t supposed to be living my life normally or feeling like in another dimension I was really missing, who knows in what kind of situation. Or maybe I was in this other dimension, where I was living my life normally but the real me was missing. And I survived an earthquake(?)

I was still over-thinking while watching “XXY” and I felt a presence. Really near me. I kept watching the TV, ignoring the feeling. Eyes lost on the screen while a thousand thoughts ran through my head. A few centimeters from my eyes I see a little spider coming down from the wooden ceiling. I observed it, happy to had such a lovely visitor. It went down, slowly, all the way to my right leg and instantly started going back up, passing by a few centimeters from my eyes once again, till I lost sight of it, once it camouflaged itself with the wood. 

It reminded me of when I was little and I would keep spiders in jars, only to find them dead in 2 days because I didn’t know how to feed them, till I thought it was better to see them around the house or in the garden, being themselves and alive.

It’s funny how a presence, even if it’s just a tiny spider can make you go back to yourself, to make you care about what matters and to just enjoy that (in)significant moment, which is the only true and existing thing. The rest is just noise.

Bildschirmfoto 2015-08-17 um 08.35.09

Fire Walk With Me

10.08.15
3 min
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I’ve been having weird experiences with fire lately. Maybe I’ve provoked it, since I had a lovely bonfire gorgeously made by my friends for my 25th birthday. One of my professors was talking about Frankenstein in class and how the fire purifies, so it clicked, I needed a bonfire to start this year. And so I did, with a little help from my friends and sausages and marshmallows and booze. Then, about a month ago, I put some pizza in the oven and went back to my room upstairs. It was a warm day, odd being July so my windows were wide open. The air smelled like summer. Then the air started smelling like gas. I thought it might come from somewhere else but went to the kitchen just in case. The ground floor was full of gas everywhere. I opened the windows and the kitchen door and turned the gas off. I was so hungry or full of gas in my brain that I wasn’t thinking clearly, so first thing I think is how the pizza is still cold and how hungry I am, kinda like Homer Simpson kinda logic, I turned the oven back on. It was like something from a movie… That was what I actually first thought as it was happening… A huge ball of blue fire exploded towards me. All I did was jump back, scream really loudly although neither my dad nor his girlfriend heard me and started hitting myself on my sweater just in case and then touching my face to check it was OK… It’s almost funny now. I then smelled burnt hair and touched my entire head to check it wasn’t on fire. It wasn’t. Just some tips of my hair and nobody could ever notice, I kept touching one of my eyebrows anyway just to see if it was still in perfect shape. I was perplexed before my stupidity, my dad couldn’t believe I’ve done that and his girlfriend kept telling me my hair was fine and that it could have been a lot worse. Last but not least, my third encounter with fire, my second bad one this year, was exactly a week ago. Luckily, my dad was out of town for the weekend, but maybe also why it happened… I decided that since i was all alone it was a good idea to wax my legs. I’ve been waxing myself for a while now and everything had been nice and smooth so far.  So I put the metallic container on the burner and waited as usual for the wax to melt. Apparently, since the last time, there was a bit of wax on the outside of the container, which started catching fire, it happened so fast I turned around and I had a tiny bonfire inside the container. I had no idea how to solve this. I couldn’t let it burn, I couldn’t grab it without a risk of burning everything down…  I saw a bottle of water on the table… I thought this might be the only solution to my problem, so I opened it and off it went, the water straight to the container, turning the little bonfire into a really big one for a few seconds after which it was completely put out, exploding everywhere, not the fire, but the scalding honey wax… Brilliant. From 12 to 2AM on a Friday night cleaning the kitchen because there was fucking wax everyfuckingwhere. Ace. Lovely… Brilliant.

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Moments Like These

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Fear and Trembling in Buenos Aires

Agostina Rufolo about how a spider can make me feel the luckiest girl.
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Fire Walk With Me

10.08.15
3 min
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