15 de octubre de 2014

Fábrica

Gabino Iglesias/ Estudiante doctoral

Desde pequeñas entrenan, se arreglan, aprenden y sueñan. Independientemente de su coeficiente intelectual, que no siempre es tan limitado como la mayoría piensa, todas sus quimeras van atadas al físico, a la simetría de una cara que recibe ayudas y desayudas de la genética y a un sinnúmero de variables que van desde la manera específica de enseñar los dientes, aun en obvia ausencia de humor, a la forma en que reinventan el poner un pie delante del otro. Son carne de juicio y viven para una gloria casi imposible de alcanzar. Son, en buen castellano, nuestras “mises”.

Las “mises” que llegan lejos son diosas terrenales que llenan el pecho de orgullo patrio y ponen, como dicen por ahí, el nombre de Puerto Rico en alto. Por desgracia, también son las menos. Detrás de cada “miss” memorable hay una larga línea de casi ganadoras que quedan en el olvido.

Y para aquéllas que logran el sueño, luego está el asunto de la vida después de la gloria. Ahí habitan las pesadillas de carreras que dan lástima, los matrimonios mal llevados, los tristes y desesperados intentos de retener un ápice de relevancia, los intentos fallidos de ser cantante, actriz o animadora.

La triste realidad es que los concursos de belleza cada vez parecen ser más una fábrica de muñecas caducas. Ser “miss algo” hoy es sólo útil para la que se lleva la corona, y eso sólo si sabe buscarse la vida con lo poco que la corona le deja una vez la entrega. El resto es un triste ejército de guapas delgadas (vamos, al menos en teoría) que tiene que enterrar el sueño muerto y buscarse la vida en una realidad en la que caminar y sonreír no valen para nada en un curriculum vitae.

A lo mejor es hora de dejar a un lado los concursos de belleza. A lo mejor son tan inservibles como una silla con dos patas. O no. A lo peor estoy agrio porque estudié frenología. 

The Literary Haters Ball: Fantastic Earth Destroyer Ultra Plus

Have you ever had to suffer though a crazy person’s monologue at the bus stop? You know, when they go something like “Yeah, I was eating some cigarettes with my cousin Tutankhamen and this crazy bitch showed up with a flamethrower and asked me to give her back all her Herbie Herbster and The Disinfecting Wipes 8-tracks because she was gonna hop on her flying bicycle and visit her momma in Saturn but I jumped outta my fuzzy leather chair and kicked her ass with some of my ninja moves and shit and she ran off and now I can listen to Herbie yodeling any damn time I want!” Well, if you’re looking for the literary/visual equivalent of that, and there’s no reason in the world why you would do it but this is a world where dudes insert things in their pee holes, then snag a copy of Cameron Pierce and Jim Agpalza’s Fantastic Earth Destroyer Ultra Plus.

FEDUP (I refuse to type all that nonsense again) is the kind of mess that makes me wonder what kinds of drugs editors are ingesting these days. The plot is not a plot, it's more like a series of acid nightmares sewn together by the same character. Here’s what these fucking nutcases came up with to fill in some space on the book’s Amazon page: “In the mining town of Itchy Zoo lives a boy with pumpkin flesh. His name is Tetsuo, and he'd like to tell you about the terrible things that brought ruin to his town. How he shot his brother, how the people of Itchy Zoo became puppets, how he fell in love for the first and last time, and how Satan watched it all go down.”

Yeah, that stuff kinda happens…to a clown who has a whale for a foot. What they failed to mention is that this thing is packed with sadness and violence, and not even the good kind. There’s an ocean inside the whale, all kinds of ugly sex, and more weird stuff that I refuse to discuss here because I respect my readers. Also, Tetsuo? Really? I hope Shinya Tsukamoto sues both of these “artists” into the oblivion they deserve.

Listen, I’m all for weird. In fact, I love stories about people doing drugs and going to the mall and the occasional smart narrative about a talking penis with a twisted sense of humor. This book, however, is just too damn weird to be called anything but awful and confusing. For example, why is Tetsuo always wearing a hat? Why isn’t Satan bigger and meaner? What kind of whale grows on a foot and doesn’t complain about being stepped on all day every day? This thing makes no sense, and I think Pierce, who “wrote” this crap, and Agpalza (is that even a real last name?), the guy who illustrated this fever dream, are both major league trolls.

I was pretty mad after reading this thing, so I went to Amazon to punish these guys with a scathing 1-star review. You know what I found there? These guys had the gall to compare this garbage to Uzumaki! First of all, the Uzumaki omnibus comes in at a hefty 648 pages and has a ton of words in it. This thing is about 25 pages and contains one short sentence per page. Oh, the chutzpah these fellows possess! You won’t find a James Patterson novel that comes in at under 200 pages because Patterson delivers the goods and doesn’t skimp on words. These two should take notes from the master.

So yeah, if a really short (non)story about pure strangeness that reminds you of toothless wackos babbling at the bus stop is your thing, then throw away your money on this bizarre that should never have been published in the first place.