My favorite beach

Hi, now I'm in the second and last post that I have to do by administrative reasons. I have to talk you about Cavancha beach which is in Iquique, my home town. I remember that Ivo also posted this beach. It is located in the heart of Iquique ( like in the center of the city but in the coast, well if you don't understand, I do). It measures like 3 kilometers. It isn't very large but I have had great times there. I like it because you can do many things:
1.You can swim: I like it very much because it has waves. They are not very big and not very small. They are perfect to me. Besides this, you can swim to the open sea until you reach the float corks ("corchos" in spanish). This is a limit because in the other side of the float corks there are many ships fishing or touring.
2.You can play beach tennis: this is one of my favorites games, I'm no kidding, I play with my family and friends.
3.You can go walk with your couple, specially at dusk when the sky get an orange color. Also in the night, the lights of the buildings and the moonlight illuminates the coast of the beach and the view is amazing.
4.You can do bodyboard or surf.
5.You can earn money selling things: don't tell to the cops.

In summer like January and February the beach gets full. You look and the only things that you see are sunshades, they are all over the place.
Hope that you can go sometime. I recommend it. Bye

The challenge of learning english

Hi again. It's been a while since I did my last post but today I have to get on time with two posts. This first is "The Challenge Of Learning English". Well, I like learning english in an oral way. Like learning songs that I like and singing them. In that way I can learn a good pronunciation and have a great time. I don't like learning the grammatical part. The verbs, in past, adverbs. There is so much information that finally get me bored... It's like the most non-living part of learning english, but I suppose that is neccesarily in some way. To write for example... What is the thing that I find most difficult about learning English? things that I learn and later forget. Like which verb is regular or not. Things that I have to memorize but I forget them because I don't have an active practice of speaking and writing in english. I like from the English culture: THE JAZZ. The music that I idealize. And in the same topic the art, the diversity and originality of the art. DAMN! I realized that I'm speaking about U.S.A. The only thing that I have to say is "sorry". But maybe I'm right... In the same topic the things that I don't like from U.S.A is the frenetic world of Publicity and to BUY BUY BUY and get happy by that. That's some things that I had to say. See you in the next time.

Meet Bill Hicks

Today I wanna talk you about a person that is a big inspiration for me: the stand up comedian Bill Hicks. He used the comedy as a weapon to expose truths and show people how governments are screwing us every day of our lives. He was born on December 16th, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia. At the age of 13 he did his first gig. Six weeks before his death, aged 32, he did the last. His death was a real tragedy because he was in the best moment of his career.
Well, he started telling jokes at the school with Dwight Slade one of his closest friends and at 12 years old they formed a comedy double act. At home Hicks locked his bedroom door having inside his guitar and shelves filled with books and typed comedy routines into the early hours. Gaining experience and understanding he could look on all subjects with the detachment of a neutral. He saw the positive and negative, the grey area.
Later on working with Kevin Booth he toured constantly, became an underground star and having an attitude that believed President Ronald Reagan “a criminal against humanity” he was bound to upset some “patriots.”
In 1983 feeling going nowhere, Bill got into drugs and became a very addictive person and in 1988 he quit realizing he was surrounded by people offering him drugs all the time. But unlike so many stars he didn’t rail on about the hell of drug addiction, instead using his awareness to enlighten. In one of his most inspired routines he went to rail against news coverage which always focused on bad drugs stories, Hicks instead hoping for a different perspective: “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather.”
In his first video in 1988 called "Sane Man", able to see the absurdity of life that humans take life too seriously and invest too much time being concerned with unimportant things. He prowls the stage, thinking on his feet and when introducing the topic of smoking he seems to be whipping up the crowd to mock smokers, like some P.C. comic as he talks about coughing up a “phlegm”. He questions how many non-smokers there are in the audience, getting them to cheer, before altering perceptions with “What a bunch of whining maggots,” nonchalantly pulling out a cigarette.
He worked ceaselessly to spread the word. He was on a mission to wake people up; “Aren’t people frustrated by the lies being told daily in the name of God and country?” His material about the Gulf War was telling people things they really hadn’t been allowed to be aware of because of media manipulation.
In 1992 he and Kevin Booth even filmed around the Waco siege, analyzing the situation to uncover truths about the FBI and ATF’s murderous role. In later routines he would say, “If the FBI’s motivating factor for busting down the Koresh compound was child abuse, how come we never see Bradley tanks smashing into Catholic churches?”
In 1993 learned he had a cancer. On january 1994 Hicks’ deterioration was evident and he knew he was dying. He spent his final moments with his family and closest friends. He died on Saturday, 26th February, 1994 in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the memorial service Hicks’ brother read out a piece Bill had written and requested be read: “I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.”
That's all friends. I recommend you to watch this videos with spanish subtitles :D
-Tribute to Bill Hicks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUeXV6YIt8Y&feature=related
-Speaking against war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPBPXIdpj04&feature=related
-Speaking on non-smokers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PvVo7r2vIQ&feature=related

Gabriela Mistral Center

Hello. The first thing that I came to my mind was the GAM ( Gabriela Mistral Center). The true is that I don't have paid many attention to the architecture in general and I don't have any memory of a building that blowed me away. I visited the GAM around two months ago, doing a little tour inside the place. It liked me because it has a unique architecture inside. IT isn't like most of the buildings that tries to take advantage of all the physical space to full it with rooms. This place is constructed freely, to satisfy it's own needs. It have largers rooms just with one piece of art, a stair with a circular form and other things that I don't remember very good. It is used like a cultural center. It evokes music, theater, visual arts, literature ( library) and dance, among other things. The first time that I saw it was in it's inauguration in september, 2010. There it was a great visual and music show, with the presence of president Sebastian Piñera. The people is very proud of it, because is a big center of culture in the city with a very active programme. It mixes with the surrounding architecture. It is in a place surrounded by buildings and it is a building also. What makes the difference is what is inside the GAM.

Bebop jazz

Charlie Parker

Hi, in this time I want to talk you about a little of the history of jazz. The Bebop movement. It started at Minton's playhouse located in New York around 1940. There Thelonious Monk (pianist), Kenny Clarke (drummer), Joe Guy (trumpet) and Nick Fenton (bass) were the house band and the club started working like an experimental place to explore music ideas, specially doing jam sessions that lasted all night long. Many important musicians went there like the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker to develop the Bebop movement. Unlike the swing period (big band era) now the musicians started to join in smaller groups ( like quartets, quintets or sextets). The instruments that they usually used were the drums ( to give the beat), the bass (doing walking), the piano or the guitar ( to do the chords of the song) and a melodic instrument like the saxophone or trumpet. This music is characterized by fast and frenetic tempo (the drums and the bass are running all the time), instrumental virtuosity (check out in youtube any video from Charlie Parker) and improvisation. Musically speaking, in the most of the songs the musicians play first the melody of the tune (think in example of a christmas song) and later start to improvise (doing phrases) along the chord structure of the song. Like I said before, improvise is an important thing in this king of music, but... What's improvise? improvise is a language, a musical language that works like any other oral language. It has phrases and sentences and have to be put in coherence to be understanded. Well going to the main theme of my post. With the birth of the Bebop the jazz started to be a chamera music, where the people can't dance anymore and it became a more intellectual and seriously music. Concluding, this movement were very important to the develop of the jazz music and it influenced a very large number of musicians.

Santiago de Chile

Thelonious, lugar de jazz

Well, well, well... This time is turn to write about Santiago. The first that I think that I have to say is that I'm in Santiago since march of 2009. This city is very very different from the one I lived before. I was born in Iquique and I lived all my previous years there. Here the life is higly faster than the life in Iquique. To start, the population of Santiago is 5.428.590 people and in Iquique is 216.000 people. You can imagine the difference...
The things that I like from here is basically the culture. Here the movement of the culture is very active and I appreciate this very much. The things that I most visit are jazz music and art cinema. I also like all the public libraries around the city. I have visited the National Library located in Alameda avenue and the architecture of the building is fantastic and also has a big big collection of books and free internet! is a good tip. Also I'm member of the providencia's library network and I can get all the books that I want only paying 5 thousands pesos for year. I suggest for visit San Cristobal' hill. It is enormous and have many paths to explore. There is another hill in Santiago, is called Santa Lucia. There is a castle. The colonizers built it to control the population. Well, good luck

Ten Years Time

Hello everybody, I have been questioning this topic for over and over again I have to say that I don't know it yet but I'm gonna try to imagine something for this work.
In my thirdties I probably will be here in Santiago because I like that here concentrates so many cultural things ( and among them, music of course). I think that I will be teaching music in some school and hopefully doing particular classes of jazz. I will be sharing my life with my couple and have two kids. The achievements that I will have done are: finished my career ( musical theory), got married and known very good the principles of jazz music and I was forgotten... Won the soccer championship of the university with my team ( art's faculty). I don't see very much changes for ten years later... My girlfriend told me that U.S.A will be not anymore the top economic country and China will took his place ( but this will happen like 30 years more). To my concern I think that most of the things will be like now, the feelings are gonna be the same, the rich and the poor, politics. The only thing that I'm sure is that I will get a gray in my hair and Simon will be playing a Beatle's song in some place of the world jaja. Bye