* JuanMapu - Vida en Nueva York

The title reads "Don't Look At Them", which is something unavoidable. Then is this feeling of "Being Next To Them" in that slaughterhouse that serves as a metaphor for "confrontation, agony and death," according to the authors/performers Donis Taveras and Eli Nadal.

Exhaustion becomes relief at the end. This is an observation beyond the one hour-long physical effort by Donis and Eli. As the couple engages in a never-ending relationship in which only they know how to step out of it, a collage of dance, image, speeches and songs allows the audience to identify with the characters. The piece might seem overloaded but there is no accumulation. And fatigue never causes weakness.

The minimal stage and sound designs are key to make this empathy possible as they provide the meditative atmosphere -necessary to digest that collage and bear the agony. The choice of songs and the time between them make the fun part of the piece as it develops like an "unplugged musical" that leads to a fluent ending.

And there is some dark sense of humor that helps to acknowledge the cease between antagonic forces Donis and Eli propose.

On a Harper's magazine from November 2008 that I found in the subway there is an excerpt from "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks", a novel co-authored by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac in 1945 but published last year. The excerpt is from a Burroughs part and it begins with a girl refusing to have dinner with some friends because she was broke, even though she was being invited by one of them, who later told the story to rest. One of the guys said, "People get silly ideas." Then the narrator comes with this: "'Yeah,' I said, 'but you're an artist. You don't believe in decency and honesty and gratitude.'"

A man seats on a bar, smoking cigarette after cigarette, in internal dialogue.

Another man says goodbye to his colleagues, and then, in loneliness, he is opening a can of beer in the dark.

Two films intersect again and I like that to happen. The films are "The Wrestler" (Darren Aronofsky, 2008) and "Le conseguenze dell'amore" (Paolo Sorrentino, 2004), both masterly acted by Mickey Rourke and Toni Servillo, respectively.

Rouke's wrestler is a less isolated, cynical and thoughtful individual than the former business consultant and Cosa Nostra aide Servillo plays. The wrestler is kind although he goes wild. He is warm. Doctor di Girolamo is shrewd and shows no heart at all. He is a very cold man.

They have a relation with drugs but the issue with them is not about junkiness. For different circumstances, they decide to break on their routines and reach the outer world. They do it in love (Oh such a mad thing!) and for the sake of good sense.

Both failed in their attempts to change the course (perhaps curse) and it is not easy to assimilate their deadly destiny after some signs of hope.

However, whatever they tried was inspiring. Beyond everything just keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying...

Visit www.jacksonpollock.org and do something like this (thanks Milton Manetas):

June Kosloff, Harold & Maude

La hoja de vida de June Kosloff dice que hace parte del comité directivo de una organización de artistas con enfermedades mentales. ¿Algún artista con esas características? Difícil saber cuál es. Me acuerdo de Baudrillard cuando dice que en Nueva York los locos están sueltos. Puedo señalar a la Carola o a la Sol o Antoñito. Pero seguro es la mujer del vestido rojo. La que quiere que los monos estén en una pared roja y en marcos dorados. La que dice que soy muy cute y se alista para la ópera poniéndose un chal rosado. Ella de neoyorquina tiene eso de hablar aleatoriamente con uno.