I took an English test today and I approved! I'm going to be taking a course for the IELTS starting tomorrow (really early in the morning). If you happen to know tips, web pages or anything that can help me to prepare for this test, feel totally free to write me (please, write me!).
Thanks, bye! x
PS. The photo is from a piece of Finn Stone called Bear Necessity. I saw it in the Summer Show of the Apart Gallery in London.
I wrote an article about the MTV Video Music Awards for the online page of E! Entertainment Latin America and, for practicing purposes, I made my best to translate it to English, so here it is:
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Once upon a time, maybe you don't even remember, there was a TV channel called MTV. This strange channel was so edgy and avant-garde that it was exclusively about music. MTV used to mean pop culture. It was a platform for new artists and a window to the fans to be connected with their favorite artists.
Be a musician in the 80's and have your video in MTV was a huge achievement and at the same time a serious commitment to continue creating quality video material. It wasn't only about the music anymore, you also need a jaw-dropping video. MTV definitely killed the radio stars.
The first Video Music Awards was delivered in 1984 and the ceremony took place in the emblematic Radio City Music Hall in NYC. Perhaps you can remember Madonna's iconic Like a Virgin performance, where she descend from a cake dressing like a bride, touched for the very first time, and with a massive MTV logo as a backing.
A lot of other performances that made history also happened in the VMA's stage. Kurt Cobain in 1992 singing the beginning of Rape Me, the only song that the executives of the show had forbidden Nirvana to sing. Michael Jackson in 1995, shinning with an unforgettable performance that mixed his greatest hits and lasted more than 15 minutes. Madonna, again, singing and dancing Vogue with enormous Victorian dresses. The Gallagher brothers exuding hate while performing the lovely Champagne Supernova in 1996. Elton John playing the piano for Guns 'n Roses' November Rain in 1992. The kiss between Madonna, Britney and Christina in 2003. The most polemic, daring and over-priced performances that you can remember, probably happened in the VMA's.
Now, the ones on the top of the charts are different kind of artist, more commercial, more pop (?), the performances doesn't look that amazing anymore, and the polemic is reserved for Lady Gaga's outfits or for when Kanye decides to interrupt someone. But nonetheless, going home with the silver astronaut still is everyone's dream, and also, the ceremony, presentations, outfits and new plastic surgeries always are a good topic of conversation.
This Sunday (today), is the 28th MTV Video Music Awards ceremony in the Nokia Theater in L.A. And among the live performances there is two of this year favorites: Adele and Pitbull. It will be a homage to both Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse's careers. In the favorites list are also: Katy Perry, Cee-Lo Green (if he can beat Justin Bieber, fingers crossed), Foo Fighters and Kanye West.
Probably everyone else knew already that the Helter Skelter is a slide. I didn't. Even thought -I know- is explicit in The Beatles' lyrics:
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and then I go for a ride
'Til I get to the bottom and I see you again...
I discover that when I get to see one in a couple of Summer Festivals in and around London. For those -if there's any at all- who didn't know about this particular kind of slide, here's a picture of a beautiful Helter Skelter in the Secret Garden Party Festival, and some interesting facts about the origin of the helter skelter according to The Phrase Finder:
Helter-skelter has been in common use in England for the past 400 years and has been known in the USA since the 1820s.
Neither helter nor skelter had any meaning in themselves. Like many word pairs of this sort (called rhyming reduplications), they only exist as part of the pair - although skelter was used alone later, but only as a shortened form of helter-skelter.
Another reduplication with a similar meaning is pell-mell (a confused throng or, in disordered haste). This originated around the same time - the first recorded use dates from 1579. Others which came later, but which are in shouting distance in terms of meaning, are harum-scarum (reckless rowdiness) and hurly-burly (commotion and confusion).
...but there's no way to say and there is nothing I can do.
Is there something called "travel cold"? The typical cold you get whenever you return from holidays. By now it must be a thing already. A certified disease that you can quote from Wikipedia and let you skip at least a day of work (not my case, cause at the moment I'm not working in an office, but still).
This Herman Dune's song, that my friend Carola sent me, it's been keeping me in a nice state of quiet happiness. It sounds happy, but deep down, when you finish listening to it you're a little bit sad, or at least nostalgic. Anyway is a nice song, and it also reminds me of Paul Simon (that's when I remember my holidays and start to cough again, damn travel cold!).
This song was also used for the brand Estrella Damm as the Summer song in Spain, the video is a whole other story with a BIG budget, but also really really good, you can see it here.
Enjoy this chilli Monday (holiday in Argentina) with this happy-sad-winter-summer song.
Turning points in the evolution of love are not always the result of dramatic events; they often stem from something that at first seems completely inconsequential.
—Milan Kundera
- I've just read this phrase in the amazing Flickr page of Eduardo. Please be sure to have a look to all the stages of his photographic work.- The fucking flower (Oil on Linen. 150 x 110 cm.) belongs to the most recent work of the Spanish artist Lino Lago.- Finally while I was writing this post, started to sound Down in Mexico by The Coasters.
There you go, a little mix of info for this 4 degrees Sunday morning-ish.
I reckon that I'm going back to the regular cold Sunday activities: reading in bed + fall asleep. Maybe I'll be around here later x
Breakfast is without a doubt my favourite meal. Today, accompanying the wonderful crumpets with butter and Marmite (I brought with me a lot of typical English food to help me cope with the return to my "real" life) and my regular Earl Grey tea, I ate a 3 Minute Egg. It's been at least a decade since I ate my last boiled egg, I guess simply because I didn't have a cup to put it on, because otherwise is as delicious as I remembered it!
When was the last time you ate a 3' egg?
"World Photography Day originates from the invention of the Daguerreotype, a photographic processes developed by Louis Daguerre. On January 9, 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype process. A few months later, on August 19, 1839, the French government announced the invention as a gift "free to the world"."
Flickr and The Guardian and I guess a lot of other sites are making groups to share the photos you take today and/or during the weekend... so, take a photo, take, take, take a photo! :)
My photo is part of the West Country Tour that I recently made. I promise I'll keep writing about starting today. It's the perfect Mr. Whippy and was made and eaten in Durdle Door and is illustrating this post because it was the first thing that came into my mind when I read the world gift. A Mr. Whippy, is also a gift to the world. A delicious one. No doubt about it.
I've been SO busy in these last days of my holiday that I hadn't have time to blog. A shame, I know, but also good news for the future because I have the most amazing stories to tell and photos to share.
For now, a nice quote from Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian artist, I found in the Public Library returning from Brighton (oh Brighton) the day before yesterday. The photo is a little blurry, so is my present, but that's life, no? Some times funny peculiar, but other times simply brilliant... so lets enjoy the present as it is.
I'm out to live today's gift right now! x
