CUMBIA VILLERA: Love it or leave it

by Verónica Fernández.

I live in Argentina, in an overcrowded working-class neighbourhood. Here, most people listen to “Cumbia Villera”. This fact has become a major controversial issue in Argentinean society. There is a strong rejection towards this kind of music, mainly by middle and upper class people; while for those of the lower class “Cumbia Villera” has been almost a religion since it appeared in 1999.

The truth is that, whether you like “Cumbia Villera” or not, you can’t deny it is definitely a manifestation of the voice of our social reality.

One of the “Cumbia Villera” main characteristics is the rudeness of its lyrics, the rebellious, sexist and brave vocabulary related to themes such as love, sexual experiences, police force, delinquency, drug abuse, etc. This has created a bitter disapproval by those who find the lyrics insulting for the members of a well educated society.  Another particular characteristic is the simplicity of the music itself. Many musicians and critics have been against “Cumbia Villera” as a firmly established style of music, considering it just as a bold attempt to belong to the artistic world.

On the other hand, “Cumbia Villera” has allowed many people to show their discontent towards the system. For these people, the main objective is to spit in the face of society their anger, their feelings as a left-aside social group. They feel music as a way of expressing their own interests and expectations while reacting against their lack of recognition.

Nowadays things are not simple to understand. Many people think that in spite of being a cultural phenomenon, which gave overlooked people a wider chance to be heard, “Cumbia Villera” has become a business as any other. Being regarded as the music of those who have no money to spend, the commercialization of “Cumbia Villera” represents more than the 30% of the Argentinean Music Market sales, and it is increasing surprisingly fast. Because of the loyalty of business to money, people find it difficult to keep on believing that this music still represents the interests of those who have been always dismissed by the system.

In opposition, a whole brand new focus is now being located on “Cumbia Villera”. It seems that there is an attempt to include “Cumbia Villera” in the repertory of great distinguished musicians. One example is the case of Andrés Calamaro, whose latest single – enthusiastically welcomed by most people- is actually a sort of “Cumbia Villera” song mingled with rock.

For the better or the worst, Cumbia Villera is now part of our culture, no matter what social class people belong to. This makes me think that perhaps Cumbia Villera is evolving as punk has done in the UK, or reggae in Jamaica, and also Hip Hop in the colour nation of the US. Anyway, one thing is certain, “Cumbia Villera” is here to stay.

Which is the best: Windows XP or Windows Seven?

Nowadays, when people buy a new computer they find out that the latest operating system provided by Microsoft: Windows 7, is already pre-installed in the pc. Here comes the problem: do they have to trust and start getting accustomed to it, or they have to go back to the familiar Windows XP? Is one of them better than the other? If you are a user of XP who thinks that your PC needs an update, the following points may also clarify your doubts when choosing the best option for your machine.

Windows XP was launched in October 2001 and it was a great improvement on the previous Windows 98. It introduced many changes, not only in the system itself, by solving lots of problems and making everything easier, but also in the interface, which was now more attractive and full of modern icons and bright colours. Its requirements were really basic compared with the powerful hardware available today. The processor had to be at least of 233 MHz, the RAM needed was only of 128 MB and the available space in disk had to be of almost 2 GB. By the moment of its first appearance in the technological market, these requirements were covered easily by investing some money (just to forget about having any problem for a long time).

After Windows XP, the Windows Vista was another attempt by Microsoft to show how technology was able to solve our problems and help us in our everyday life. It was only an attempt, and a failed one. Instead of solving problems, it caused more. The users started complaining since the very first time they turned on their computers. It is considered as the worst operating system in history! But let’s forget about this and pass on to better times.

Windows 7 has been available since October 2009, twelve months after Bill Gates left Microsoft. Its challenge was to make the users forget about the awful experience they had with Vista; and in spite of the initial and unjustified criticisms, it has survived and each day more people choose it. Its requirements are very different from the ones of XP, but we have to take into account that eight years have passed and the new hardware is much more powerful than in those times. The processor needs to be at least of 1 Ghz, the minimum for the RAM is of 1 GB, and the disk space of 16 GB. What is new about hardware requirements are the graphic cards. With XP, the graphics were managed with an inside-motherboard device, while nowadays, it’s recommended to buy a separate graphic card for a better performance. There are motherboards which have it included, but it ‘steals’ RAM to the system to work (and this is not the best option). As a conclusion, we still have to invest some money, and a bit more than in 2001, to have a PC that would be able to work with this new operating system. But, as I have corroborated, it’s better to invest now than to suffer tomorrow.

Let’s talk now about why changing our pre-installed Seven may be useless, and also, for those who are interested in updating their systems, why it may be nice and better to give it a try. First of all, remember that XP appeared in 2001, and it’s taken as an old system by the Microsoft Company, so they will stop selling it and the licenses will  expire in less time than you imagine. It will disappear very soon, while Seven has just been born! Take advantage of that, and also of the continuous changes and updates they keep working on, which will improve its performance and satisfy the users’ needs.

If you are a potential buyer of a new PC and you don’t know if it will work properly and fast with Seven, or if you have just bought one and you are afraid of it breaking down, don’t worry! The new machines are perfectly prepared to work with this system; and what is more, they will work better and faster with it. XP is a bit out of date compared with all the new components that keep on appearing every day; it has limits that Seven doesn’t, for example when talking about RAM: XP’s limit is 2 GB, while Seven’s is 16 GB (which is a lot more than what we need).

If you buy a new PC and you want to use your old printer, webcam, or scanner, you will be able to do so because their drivers are already installed in Windows Seven, so you just connect them and the computer will recognize them automatically. But if instead of this, you have your old XP and you buy a new printer, scanner, etc., you will have to install the driver manually or maybe you may find out that it’s not prepared to run in a system that is previous to Vista, for example. It’s a real headache when you realize that you will have to throw away your new purchase, or that you will have to change your operating system.

When talking about stability and security, Windows Seven is absolutely much better. Why? Simply because XP has been many years in the hands of hackers and people who spend their time ruining other people’s lives, so they have found many (and believe me when I say ‘many’) ways of creating viruses for this system. Its weaknesses are not a mystery anymore, and it has become really vulnerable. However, as Seven is quite new, they haven’t still found out how to reach its nucleus and so its weak points. We are a bit safer if we also have a good Antivirus, which is a basic need and the first program to be installed if you don’t want surprises later.

And the last good point I will focus on, and maybe the most interesting for me, is the option that allows users to go back to a previous state of the system if they have a problem. This is a great improvement, because in XP this almost didn’t exist. I say almost because you had the opportunity to create a ‘Recovery disk’ manually; but in the case of Seven, it’s automatic. Every time you install a program, the system creates a ‘point’ for future recoveries. This means that if you happen to have a problem or you come across a virus; then you can insert the Windows Seven installation DVD and choose ‘Restore System’. This option will allow you to go back to the point you have chosen, without losing anything except the later installations. This possibility has allowed many people (including me) to get back their data.

Summing up, Windows Seven, as any scientific or technological advance, brings with it new options, new characteristics, new ideas that tend to be (always) positive and useful for users. XP is not a bad system, I’m not criticizing it. I’m not telling that everybody should erase it from their PCs. I’m just trying to give some points to take into account when having to choose what is better for each computer. It all depends on the kind of PC that you have; that’s why the requirements are the first thing to look at when making a decision. Seven is better for some cases, and XP is better for some others. Technology is always improving and advancing, and it’s good to catch up with it so as to take advantage of all the possibilities it offers to the world.

What happens when we take a story from a book to the big screen?

We generally know the stories of ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Frankenstein’ or many others through the blockbusters that Hollywood offers to the worldwide audience. However, these films have been based in previously written books. As a result of this, many great pieces of literature have been unfortunately impoverished and simplified by the Film Business in order to fit a commercial product.

‘The Twilight Saga’ is a story like the previous ones: it was first published as a book and then taken to the cinema. The saga was written by Stephenie Meyer in 2005, and is divided into four volumes. The first of the books was taken to the big screen by Summit Entertainment in 2008, and then the second and third followed. The last one has not been released yet. All of them had an enormous and incredible worldwide success.

The saga’s four volumes are ‘Twilight’, ‘New Moon’, ‘Eclipse’ and ‘Breaking Dawn’. The films have the same title than the books already mentioned; however, their content does not coincide.

In the motion picture, the story is quite similar to the one in the book and this happens all throughout the saga. We say only ‘similar’, as there is a slight difference when talking about details. We know that it is impossible to include in a film everything that a book says, because while the movie lasts two hours, reading a book may take us a week, a month or even a year. There are some incongruities when comparing Stephenie Meyer’s books and the films, in spite of sharing titles, their content is not identical when talking about the details previously mentioned.  We mean that in some of the films there is coincidence of events with their corresponding book, but not in all of them. For example, we may find in one of the films some situations that won’t appear till we reach the next corresponding volume of the books.

When these films were presented in the cinemas all around the world, we could see frantic and mad teenagers queuing for hours and waiting to see their idols. And then, we met them again while watching, or at least trying to watch, the film in the middle of their crazy screams. Beautiful women, blue-eyed vampires, super muscled werewolves and a love story make the Twilight saga an irresistible attraction for young people. But, what happens with the rest of the audience? Are people in general interested in this kind of films? Actually, they are not. It’s clear that adults or mature viewers are looking for something more than just two hours of romance or fights between creatures that don’t exist at all. However, when we refer to these same facts in the books, we may find at least some people interested in reading them. The quality of the writing is really good, with great details and profound moral matters expressed in a subtle way. This last point may be the one that can attract a non-teenager-public, because it gives the reader some food for thought.

One last point that we want to refer to is that of the position of the reader or viewer upon the ‘presented images’. The writer may describe a scene in the most detailed way, but there is always a gap, bigger or smaller, for imagination. This doesn’t happen when we watch a blockbuster: there is nothing else but what we see; our imagination has a limit. In this way, the audience is much more ‘passive’ when watching this kind of films than when reading a book. They just watch and wait for the sceneries to appear in front of them, while a reader might need to reconstruct the ‘presented image’ in his mind. Although he has more freedom, he also has to make a bigger effort.

Our intended focus is placed on the importance of getting to know the stories through their real source, their original form, content and meaning; and also to restore the position of books as mind activators, critical-thought-builders and the key to a new world of creativeness and unlimited possibilities for the imagination.

Sherlock Holmes falls in love

By Verónica Fernández.

Everything started the night in which my boss contacted me. My next duty was clearly simple. I needed to defeat my only rival. It was said that he was a snake in the grass capable of ruining my boss´ business with the Police Force.   

I was very well known as a methodical secret detective of peculiar intelligence; analytic, smart, industrious, a bit eccentric. If you ask me, I would say a bit fool as well, but anyway, no one knew that by then, not even I, not even Watson, not even my rival. “I’ll start right away,” I told my boss. I would’ve liked to think that I said that because of my enthusiastic attitude towards my job; the truth was that it was boring being alone night after night. 

Right after the phone call, I went to the bar. I had been told my rival would be there by midnight. It was twenty to twelve so I stood by the entrance, silently, expecting him in the shadows. I remember that it was a pitch black night and the brightest full moon I had ever seen enchanted me immediately, so it took me by great surprise when I suddenly noticed that my rival was walking towards the entrance. For the first time in my life I felt I was in complete loss of words. 

My rival was a man in his late 40´s. He liked tobacco as much as I for what I could see, and by the way he looked down on the girls around, he wasn’t interested in women.  I had a few spirits and the next minute my rival and I were talking. “My name is E,” I remember telling him.  That was the moment in which he first looked at me.  I still remember the sparks behind his eyes.  He noticed something in me and I was certainly counting on that. I knew perfectly well he would show a bit of attention. I didn’t need to lie; smart people wouldn’t lie. I simply kept silence waiting for his reply. Watson, who had just arrived, stared at me suspiciously. Actually, getting rid of Watson was much easier than I thought it would be. I just pretended that my automobile had run out of petrol, so I asked my rival to come with me to find some. Finally, I was alone with him. 

Since that moment on, we met regularly. Actually, it was the first of many delightful meetings alone with him. Although we established a deep relationship, we both knew the truth, but neither of us had the courage to mention anything about it. Something unspoken remained between us; our secret. Like I’d said, I was a fool. I fell in love with him. I fell in love with Sherlock.  He always knew it was him I was meant to defeat and he just kept on pretending. As a matter of fact, he never asked me about my real name, he simply called me “E”. As I mentioned before, I didn’t need to lie. Smart people  wouldn’t lie. Would they? 

Elizabeth. 

Titanic: the ending that everybody wanted

By Marina Alustiza

The water was extremely cold and Rose almost couldn’t move. She had found a piece of wood floating among the dead bodies. She didn’t have much energy left to look for Jack, but her love for him was strong and didn´t let her give up.

She shouted his name and could only hear her own echo as an answer, but she didn’t give up. Suddenly, Rose could see Jack very near from her, floating thanks to the life preserver that he was wearing. She swam as fast as she could and found him unconscious. She tried to wake him up several times, and when she was about to go away and look for help, he opened his eyes.

Both were frozen and desperate, and it seemed useless to try to move or go anywhere. Being in the middle of the Atlantic alone leaves no space for any kind of hope.

When they were about to resign, they could listen to someone coming. Together with that miraculous sound of voices calling for survivors, they saw a light. Someone was looking for them. Their hearts restarted beating and their hope was back. 

Fortunately, they were rescued and a couple of hours later they were resting safe and warm in the only ship that came to help them.

There were no more survivors. Even the people in the little boats died frozen while waiting for help. They still couldn’t realize how tremendous the tragedy had been.

Rose and Jack spent two days sleeping and recovering from the catastrophe. When they felt better, they had a meeting with the captain. They didn’t know what to say; there was such a confusion in their minds. They were still shocked and couldn’t believe what had happened. Rose burst into tears before pronouncing a single word, so the captain decided to let her rest a bit more. Jack asked the man to stay with her, because he wasn’t either ready to face the situation.

After one week, they had agreed what they were going to say and also what they were going to do with their lives from that moment on. They needed to start again; a new life was the solution to their problems. No one would stop or separate them if they were in a completely different place from where they came from and were completely different people.

They were going to change their names, and as they had no identification papers, it would be easier to lie. And so they did. Now they were called Emerald and Ryan.

They went to talk to the captain and told him that they had been travelling to America to start a new life, to look for a good job and to form a family. After all, almost everything was true.

No objections were made, and when they finally reached land, they were called by their new names and no one suspected anything.

Rose still had something very valuable and expensive hanging on her neck, something that could help them to make a fresh start: the Heart of the Ocean. That precious stone could give them the key to their future.

Rose hadn’t told Jack about it till they arrived in America, and when that happened, both agreed in selling it as soon as possible. And so they did.

When they got to the jewelry store they were so nervous that they couldn’t listen to any of the things that the man in charge told them. They just took the money and went away, without even realizing how much it was.

When they found a safe place, they stopped and looked at what they had been paid. They estimated that there were at least five hundred thousand dollars. They were millionaires!

After such a surprise, they left and looked for a Hotel. They booked a room and stayed there to think what they were going to do with the money.

The following day, they started looking for a house, and could get one very near from the center of the city. It was a big and beautiful apartment, full of big windows and delicate furniture.

After two months, they were completely settled in the house, and Rose had great news which made their happiness complete: she was pregnant!

They knew they had a glowing future waiting for them. Every wish they had made was now fulfilled. Nothing could be better than what they were living.

Nine months later, the little Marine was born, and the new Emerald and Ryan, feeling their hearts exploding with love, were finally able to leave behind the Rose and Jack that had disappeared with the Titanic.

Peaceful love

 By Lucía Rivero Boni.

Katara had a special relationship with Aang. She usually felt as his inexperienced mother or older sister. She had the emotional responsibility to take care of the young Avatar. Aang must be protected not only from powerful external forces but also from his internal own feelings. Despite of him being the last airbender and the spirit of the planet manifested in human form, she found him vulnerable. Lately, Katara had perceived that Aang was fighting against his own senses and she knew that this situation was turning aside his way.

While Aang was in his peaceful meditation, Katara observed him trying to understand why a boy had to rescue all the nations from the Fire Lord´s tyranny. She was so concentrated in him that she didn´t realize that he had just open his eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” asked Aang.

I admire you. You´re so young and have the greatest responsibility in the whole world upon your shoulders,” she answered with tender eyes. 

“What happened to you? You are not like this. Are you losing your hope?” questioned Aang, looking straight into her eyes. 

“No! I will never loose hope but I don´t want to loose you,” she replied with an air of sadness.

“Katara, you will never loose me, Sokka and you are the family I never had, we are best friends, aren´t we?” he asked with a bewildered look on his face. 

“Yes...of course!” Katara responded, she shook her head and broke his gaze on her.  She added, “don´t you feel that you want to live another life?”

“Well... Most of time I miss the moments I spent with Monk Gyatso, he was my mentor and I learnt with him. 

Before I knew that I was the divine medium who has descended upon the mortal world, I was a child.  Now, I have to learn by myself, there is nobody there to help me, there is no way to help me, I am the only one and I really feel alone” Aang said while he walked with nervous steps. 

Katara watched him. Tears descended from his cheeks. She hugged him tightly and the arrow tattoos on Aang´s forehead and limbs started shining. She realized that she was feeling something else. However, she couldn´t find out what was happening to her. In her fourteen years, she had never felt so close to someone. Perhaps this feeling was due to the fact that they had strong things in common: she was the only waterbender left in the Southern Water Tribe and she understood how stressing was to be the only one of something. She desired to heal his spirit with her knowledge of bloodbending. But she couldn´t. 

“This is what I need, Katara. I need the peace that your love provides me,” he whispered.

AVATAR: A NEW ENDING

Neytiri’s parents were still opposed to her relationship with Jake; no mixtures were allowed on the Na’vi world. Neytiri and Jake wanted to fight for their love, but they could not find a way to make the rest understand how they were suffering because of their being apart.

One day, they decided to meet secretly at the sacred tree to ask for its help. They talked to the tree hoping that it would listen to their problem. Suddenly, something strange happened: a bright light covered them and a soft voice called their names. They felt something embracing them, like a shield. The voice was from an ancestor answering to their prayers: Neytiri was allowed to turn into a human being and to go to Earth and live freely with her love.

They couldn’t believe what they were listening to! The soft voice disappeared abruptly, together with the lights and the feeling of peace. There was a loud noise, an explosion, and an enormous and blinding white light lifted them up. They could see nothing except from their faces for a couple of seconds, till they felt another explosion and fell to the ground.

They looked at the place, and then at each other. Amazed and confused, they finally understood: they were on Earth! They were humans!

“Cabs never stop in NY,” 

Jake muttered tiredly while Neytiri was struggling with his wheelchair as she tried to cope with the cab drivers who seemed to ignore her signs. The city was crowded as usual: people were running against the clock; men with their suitcases; women in high hills; noisy mobiles; traffic with its red lights, then yellow, green, red again; everything in the right usual place. 

“Everything is so insultingly chaotic!” she regretted.

Suddenly, there was a sound in particular which didn’t seem to fit in all that. It seemed alive, vivid. 

“Where does it come from?” Neytiri asked while taking a look around the place.

 “There it is again!” she yelled in the middle of the street, full of excitement. 

Jake shook his head towards the sound and recognized it at once. It was an elephant’s bellow, and it came from the zoo, just a couple of blocks from there.

He tried to hide what he had found out, but she immediately started asking him about it, staring at him suspiciously. He told her the nature of the sound; he knew he had no choice but to tell her the truth. There were animals living right in the city. She simply said,

“Take me there! I’m not going anywhere else!,” and took the handles of the wheelchair and marched firmly towards the sound that then was heard a third time.

“Conquest and heroism? Is that what you, humans, think to achieve by keeping animals in cages?” Neytiri enquired sadly as she looked how pleasant people stood up in front of every cage. 

She could hardly speak. She was suffering as much as those captured animals, and it seemed ironic how furious she was in the middle of so many happy and excited people. 

“Well, you’ll have to learn how to cope with this if you want us to be together,” Jake said firmly. 

His words made her even more disappointed. Her anger had become so deep by then, that she started shivering. 

“Please,” he said tenderly, “Let’s go”. 

He took her hand and both moved towards the exit.

The night had come; Neytiri was watching the city from Jake’s flat window. 

“All those lights, all those giant skyscrapers, all those people and cars moving like tiny insects, little bugs,” she said to herself. 

Right at that moment, a strange but certain idea came to her mind. The city was a huge zoo for people! She ran towards Jake and explained anxiously what she had discovered. He tried, with no success, to calm her down. 

“Is that what you do when someone has become inconvenient? You just try to calm things down? No fighting?,” she screamed out. 

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, I promise,” he said patiently as he moved towards the bedroom. 

She felt alone for the very first time in her entire existence.

Neytiri couldn’t sleep a wink. The images from the zoo kept running in her fevered mind. She had to do something about it, and she had to do it quickly. She escaped. She was decided to set the animals free. 

“And then…who knows?” she said silently.

She arrived at the zoo by midnight, when all the animals were slept and there were no people around. She started opening the cages, one by one, with the utmost care, so as not to make the creatures get excited. In spite of her attempts, the animals went wild and she was not able to control them as she would do in Pandora.

All the animals were running away. The elephants’ steps made the ground shake like an earthquake. People were terrified and everything was out of control. The city was in a complete chaos.

Neytiri started feeling frustrated and so she tried to escape home and find help. Suddenly, she ran into a menacing snake which left her petrified. Being face to face, she tried to make a spiritual connection to calm the beast, but it was useless.

The snake bit her and immediately the poison started flowing through her veins. Feeling dizzy and about to faint, she stared at the fierce look of the creature.

She could see nothing else for a while. She was totally blind and only heard the din around her. She didn’t have strength to move or even speak because of the pain. There was no one to help her. She was dying.

Neytiri couldn’t stop thinking of Jake, her great love, the reason for her to come to Earth and leave everything behind. He was at home now, resting peacefully while she was there, in the middle of the chaos she herself had provoked. 

It seemed to her that there was nothing to do, and she was right. Nothing could stop the effect of the poison. She was going to die soon, very soon. The only thing she hoped was that in this new world, the Earth, there was someone like Eywa waiting for her, or at least a place full of energy and peace where she could rest.

Suddenly, she could get out of the darkness where she had been for a moment, and saw a bright light descending from the sky, directly over her. There was no sound, and nothing else around, only that light. The sensation was very pleasant, no more pain. She closed her eyes and still saw the brightness; she was part of it now. All the anguish, terror, and desperation vanished into the air together with her entire body.

All the memories from her life in Pandora and the last moments on Earth with Jake came to her mind and filled her spirit with love.

Neytiri needed and wanted to leave a message, and to teach humans one of the most important things she had learned during her life: to take care of nature, and the world where we, humans, live.

While she was thing of this, she saw hundreds of seeds falling from the sky and then beautiful plants, flowers and trees growing from them. And from among all these, an enormous and leafy tree appeared just where her body had been lying.

She could see everything from up above, and felt satisfied with her legacy. Now people would be able to admire the exquisite scene in the middle of the city, and their moved spirits, in view of such beauty, would feel inclined to take care of it.

Neytiri felt her mission was complete.