The best thing

The best thing about having a blog no one reads, is it truly begins to feel like a private journal. Of course, nothing is private on the internet, but I find the illusion easier to sustain in the quiet of flying under the radar.  I haven't posted in ages; I always used to think 'time to start living and stop writing.' So I was living, marrying and working and sowing my seeds. But that depression which thrives under my skin, parasitic and invasive (but so much a part of me) is alive and well. I have medication to subdue the worst of the episodes. But tonight I come face to face with all of my failures.  It is hard in this state to remember there is good I have done on this Earth. Hard to remember the kindnesses I have shared with others. The humiliations come back to me, all the times I fell short, the times I failed and failed and failed again. So many lessons never learned because I am like an underwater creature who never learned to move with the waves; they crash into and over me. I am a mistake in an evolutionary history which has resolved in the most beautiful of creatures. I am fairly certain without the resources of modern medicine and technology, I would long ago have been eliminated by the process of evolution, a casualty of survival of the fittest. My kind were never meant to exist, but somehow we were lucky enough to make it through. I know this is subsidiary of the sadness, the disease of depression culpable. I know, while a disease, all my pains are due to my own choices, further mistakes I make in the realm of the living. But the knowledge doesn't ease the hurt of living, or the fact that my own cowardice and futile love of life keeps me from slipping over the edge. I love this place, I love those around me with everything I have; my love is my only success. I have never failed in loving, only in being loved.

Existential Crises and Other Stories

Once upon a time, this Time magazine issue tried to change my life but I wouldn't let it:




This one really did change my thinking, specifically about the biological aspects of love:

8 1/2: The Harem Sequence

Federico Fellini’s film 8 ½ has always been one of my favorites, precisely because of its dream-like quality, the constant stream expertly engineered by Fellini between the illusion and the truth.  The film is largely autobiographical, but seldom without the constant shift between what may be the director Guido’s fantasy and the reality around him. Fellini was under incredible pressure to create a masterpiece but had writer’s block; suddenly he realized the film would be about precisely his own predicament. The autobiographical aspect of the film extends beyond the anxiety of creation, but also touches on the crisis of middle age, and Fellini’s own love and confusion regarding women.

In what I will call the “Harem Sequence,” which occurs an hour and 32 minutes into the film, the central character Guido’s male desires culminate in fantasy. I’d like to demonstrate how Fellini transitions from the reality of the unhappy wife into the dream of the submissive woman with the use of sound, and how he then portrays his subconscious self in relation to the female entity through the use of lighting and movement. Bordwell’s Film Art states, “the look of a shot is centrally controlled by light quality, direction, source and color." In this particular scene, these elements are central.

The scene begins at the outdoor cafe with high key lighting whereas when we move further into the dream sequence (further into his mind) and to his childhood home, the scene is typically lit in low-key illumination. The transition into the dream sequence is impeccable. The entire film is this circle of movement from dream into reality and reality into dream. Guido’s dream is for all his women to just get along. An orchestra plays at the start of the sequence, so what we might have assumed is nondiegetic sound is actually diegetic. A sudden shift musically helps us clearly understand the transition into the fantasy. We suddenly hear fluid beautiful music (in contrast to the sharpness of Luisa’s voice); Guido leans back and seems to drift. Carla sings along with this new, calming music; she sings the same song Guido remembers from his warm, safe childhood bath, so we have an idea where Fellini is taking us. Luisa and Carla dance together surrounded by white clean linen tablecloths and flowers. Luisa’s sharp glasses have disappeared along with her sharp words. The twirling of the women fades into the swirling of steam above a pot. We realize we are in Guido’s childhood home, now filled with all the women in his life. The camera pans from Gloria with her harp to Carla coming down the stairs to Madeleine to his wife to the mysterious woman from the hotel and then back to the African girl. He never listens to the women unless it applies to his own selfish purpose, and the swiftness of the camera as it pans from right to left demonstrates this. He is not reading them, he is not processing them; and, as the camera typically spends gives little temporal attention to each woman, we do not fully process them either. The only woman the camera truly seems to study, to take time with is Luisa. This signifies to us her importance in Guido’s mind.

A low angle shot reveals Luisa’s no-nonsense sister Rosella laughing and sitting on the rails of the upper level, like his upper self, his higher consciousness. She says, “I want to observe you.” The women from his childhood bathe him and say, “Isn’t he the sweetest boy in the world?” The dialogue echoes the original memory of the bath and the women tucking him into bed. Even women who he has had no sexual contact with appear in the harem sequence to serve and care for him.

We hear the nondiegetic melody of Saraghina’s theme and then she appears as one of the women carrying him in his sheet after the bath. We meet the showgirl Jacqueline; exposition reveals that Guido had an affair with her many years ago. I love the use of the camera as it pans in continuous shots throughout the entire scene. It as if he wants us to see as many of the women as possible in a single shot and in quick succession. There are several deep focus shots, where we see everyone and every female face in the frame. A rare exception is at 1:39. The woman in the forefront of the frame cries, as the woman in the background states Guido’s rules about women of a certain age retreating to the upstairs area. The woman in the forefront is out of focus; the woman in the background speaking is in focus.

The women revolt and Wagner’s classic Flight of the Valkyrie plays as he whips them; again, a nondiegetic use of sound. Patches of light fall randomly on the women as they run and scream with delight. The use of under lighting makes Madeleine, one of the stronger forces of the revolt, appear devilish.

After Guido dominates the women, Jacqueline is given the opportunity to give a final performance in the spotlight before she is sent upstairs. The beautiful shot which frames her face in bright white light as she finally realizes he is not watching her, and as she whispers his name, is heartbreaking. The extreme close-up of her face allows us to truly see her heartbreak as her face fills the frame, and she becomes real to us in a way most of the other women are not.

The women are quiet and solemn as they all sit at the dinner table, Rosella sits at his left (his conscience) and Luisa at his right (his heart). Carla plays the harp she shared the shot with much earlier in the scene – this is another example of the use of diegetic music in the scene – and for a moment everything in the background fades into darkness but the harp and her pained face. Luisa looks at the camera and at us as if we are Guido, her face is side lit, attached shadow- one side bright, the other in subtle shadows, and walks away from the table to do chores, chatting cheerfully. In a continuous long shot, we see her move in and out of shadow to the ‘kitchen’ area. A spotlight falls on her as she scrubs the floor. And the image of her scrubbing that floor fades into Guido’s sad face, into the reality.

Carlo Celli states that Fellini’s films often have an “inherent circular nature in which the main character eventually returns to the initial situation.” Certainly, we are taken in and out of the dream and are brought back to the same point of helplessness in the face of infidelity. The film itself demonstrates what Celli calls the “paradox or living between reality and illusion.” The movement of the camera, the use of angles, and the sound and lighting choices demonstrate Guido’s conflict with women and confusion in his personal life, and they help us to understand the significant difference between his reality and the illusion. The use of these elements also helps us to understand the seamlessness of the transition back and forth between both worlds. When we are in the dream world, we begin to understand through mental subjectivity, Guido’s true relationship to the female forces in his life. We see the brevity of their faces as the camera pans past them; we see the heartbreak in bright light, and the evil in under lighting. Through these forces, we see as Guido sees in the truest sense.

Watch 8 1/2 on Amazon Prime or purchase.  Highly recommend the Criterion version.

SHAME film review

Steven McQueen's Shame is a direct and unflinching examination of sexual addiction and codependency as essentially two sides of the same coin.

The director chooses to lead us into his characters' world with the use of stark angles and muted blue tones. A subway ride is akin to a trip down the River Styx, the faces of all around him empty and hollow; you can taste the defeat and sadness in that train car. The few moments the color scheme truly shifts in the film are those in which it seems the central character Brandon, as played by Michael Fassbender, is on the verge of slipping out of his metaphysical coma. In these later moments in the film, it seems he may be awakening. The air has that different texture, as if the sun is rising.

The opening scenes put Brandon's manhood directly in our faces. The nude scenes in the film are both vulgar and plain. They teeter on exploitative, but always fall on the side of an ordinary rawness. The characters are more comfortable baring their bodies than they are baring their own souls.

Brandon's sister Sissy, played by Carey Mulligan, is as troubled as he, though less functional and more honest. She is a mess but can at least acknowledge that her spirit is a train wreck.  Her shining moment in the film is made all the more powerful by Brandon's reaction to it.  In their eyes, we see the glimmer of a shared, painful past.

The chemistry between Fassbender and Nicole Beharie, who portrays a woman he meets through work, is endearing, the tenderness they convey together on screen is touching. Intimacy terrifies Brandon and watching him graze the surface of it is an exercise in disappointment. Like a child looking out at play, he is forever trapped behind closed doors. While Brandon is threatened by closeness, his sister craves it. Her attachments are all-consuming, her neediness unbound. She desperately wants to be loved and to love, a desire that crushes her and perpetually bewilders her brother.

McQueen isn't out to manipulate or to explain. The movie is sometimes like a series of snapshots. We don't walk away crying with Brandon or his sister. We've been given access to a window into their lives. Much time is not devoted to characterization or exposition. We live in the moment with these two wanderers and witness their pain; the film doesn't deign to ask for our compassion. Even so, watching Brandon struggle in the midst of the film with his addiction and rage against it, try to tear it apart, and destroy it is moving. His compulsion is savage, turning him into a manipulative predator. He is a person in the throes of addiction and he will do anything to satisfy the unquenchable need. The drive turns Brandon into something both brilliant and disgusting, simultaneously mesmerizing and pathetic.

Joseph Campbell tells a story in his series Power of Myth in which he describes a woman who finds she has lived the larger portion of her life underwater. It is only when she is out of the water that she realizes she was a moment before submerged. Living with an addiction is like living life underwater. One wonders at the end if Brandon will ever emerge from his dark existence. We may see the sun rise in Brandon's world, but we will never see it set.

Century of the Self

When in DOUBT, use the dutch angle shot - wokka wokka wokka

Well, I saw Doubt. And it was theatrical (understandable - it is based on a Tony winning Broadway play) and a bit hammy. The concept is interesting, but those 'moral ambiguity' films always annoy me somewhat. Only a masterful director can handle such subject matter. I told my brother when watching it, "Only certain directors should be allowed to use a dutch angle shot, just as only certain directors should be allowed to shoot in slo-motion!" (I have to confess here that I didn't know this camera angle was even called a dutch angle until he enlightened me - why didn't I pay more attention in that cinema class?? I think I was just too distracted by Marcello Mastroianni's hair). BTW - this is a dutch angle shot (from a great film, albeit):

I'm gonna make a short film wherein two characters are arguing over a jar of peanut butter. Let's say those characters names are floresita and El Steven (Note: I am copying this almost word for word from Shanley's script adaptation)

ALTERNATING SINGLE SHOTS - DUTCH ANGLE SHOT FROM BELOW

FLORESITA
Is it true?

EL STEVEN (smoking cigarette)
What?

FLORESITA
You know what I'm asking.

EL STEVEN
No.

FLORESITA
Did you take the peanut butter out of my kitchen?

EL STEVEN
It was organic; it was going to go bad!

FLORESITA
Why didn't you just tell me???

EL STEVEN
I was just trying to spare you further embarrassment.

Oh, the suspense - dun dun dun!!!
Okay, moving on ...
The story is essentially this ponderous mediation on the 'nature of doubt.' It was a tight stage play that is diminished by the addition of cheesy devices like lightbulbs burning out (which interrupted the building tension and the rhythm of the whole piece - WTF did he do that??), harsh wind blowing in the night (oooooooo), killer kitty cats, and, yes, unnecessary dutch angle shots. The glorious Meryl Streep delivers a spastic performance that proves (just as Natalie Portman did in the newer, blander Star Wars films) that even the finest of actresses is only as good as her director. I like John Patrick Shanley, and I loved his Joe Versus the Volcano (one of my favorites); but, again, I think here he should have handed this piece to someone with more expertise.

Speaking of 'moral ambiguity' films. The Reader. Oh, The Reader. I cried three times, I was moved by David Cross' performance. But the film struck me as manipulative and patently blatant. The movie was a great coming of age story, but it was a piss-poor holocaust film. I kind of agree with Ron Rosenbaum's article about it:

Though I still hate you for that Billy Joel diatribe, Mr. Rosenbaum. Gar.

I'm closing with a random clip of Lily Allen's new single. Because it's catchy, and it makes me happy :))

Etta Jones

I am feeling so incredibly romantic lately. But simply because I'm tangled up with someone wonderful, and I'm enjoying the ride while it lasts :)

Slumdog Millionaire

I hope it wins Best Picture.

Happy Birthday

Cheese!

This is kind of an iLike entry (Lord, even though I don't have an iPod or iPhone, Apple has still influenced my life too much). Because I've been thinking a lot lately about the things which make me very, very happy, as simple and mundane as they might be. Call it my cream-cololored-ponies-and-crisp-apple-streudels entry :)


MUSIC

CHEESE

Oh, cheese, I love thee. I love you like the moon loves the Earth, like that rich chick in Titanic loved the poor guy who died to save her, like star athletes love steroids. It's impossible to describe just how much I love you. I think I love you even more than my phone.

I mean it.

Queama Mahon Cheese from Spain

Beemster with Field Garlic (Dutch cheese)

Havarti cheese with herbs and spices (Danish cheese)


A nice cabernet with any of these cheeses will promise happiness for a few sweet shining moments.

WEBSITES
http://www.fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.caloriecount.about.com/

CIGARETTES
I'm not gonna lie; I miss Gauloises cigarettes.

MOMENTS AT WORK

This teenage guy asked me the other day, I know I'm not old enough to ask, but how much are your beers?
Later, my favorite Italian customer: What means this word? He points at a pamphlett, his finger snuggling against the word "sigh." I show him, It's like {I put the back of my hand to my head and let out a heavy breath}
He says Ah! Sospiro! I say, Yes! Yes like the Mozart piece 'Voi Che Sapete' and sing Sospiro e gemo senza voler! He smiles.
Ebony shows me how to do my hair: Girl, don't you know what you're doing?

MEN

Men who take me to see the symphony. I like that.

* * * * *

Lucky Indian Ocean Dwellers!

Obama Loves Good Food

We Likey Him. 68% approval rating so far.

The Plan. Will it get Bipartisan support?

YouTube taking the Hulu route. They have to; they really don't have a choice.
New Poe Biography He would have been 200 years old January 19th.
Mr. Freud, Women Are Still A Total Mystery. This study on male/female sexuality is pretty fascinating. But still just goes to show neither sex seems to know what women want.
But Chivers, with plenty of self-doubting humor, told me that she hopes one day to develop a scientifically supported model to explain female sexual response, though she wrestles, for the moment, with the preliminary bits of perplexing evidence she has collected — with the question, first, of why women are aroused physiologically by such a wider range of stimuli than men. Are men simply more inhibited, more constrained by the bounds of culture?
...“The horrible reality of psychological research,” Chivers said, “is that you can’t pull apart the cultural from the biological.”
* * * * *
Listening to: Maria Taylor

:)

The most boring blog entry ever in the whole history of the world.

"Christina's World" Andrew Wyeth

So I've been a bit rocky over the last week or so. Mood swings and such, terrible dreams, the revisiting of awful memories. It makes me wonder - how much should we process and how much should we bury? It also made me think I either

a) need to get on meds
or
b) need to make a serious assessment of my life.

I've always been a windblown, zany kind of person and the notions of order and structure are kind of foreign planets to me; but I think I'm a good person with a good heart. Just horribly irresponsible and dareIsayit messy. I lack ambition, but have a lot of talent; I've just never known what I'm supposed to be doing here. I know I love my family and friends, and the poetry of people like cummings and Plath and Neruda, and Fellini films and Steve Martin, and, god, music. Music is EVERYTHING. And it seems that's all I need to be happy in life. Shouldn't there be more? Why are my aspirations so limited? Why am I content with so little? Why this blog such an utter bore today?

And why do things like THIS make me so happy?

Ah, well...

* * * * *

Despite his {epic fail} of a "press tour" in the last weeks:
Bush Still An Idiot

THIS is all I had to do to pay for college??

These folks must feel like the luckiest people on Earth.
And some Images to go along with that :)

Marie Antoniette never said let them eat cake.

The sad state of foreclosures.

RIP Andrew Wyeth
The greatest living American painter dies at 91.

* * * * *
Quote of the Day:
New York Magazine: Is there anything about the new New York that's better?
Woody Allen: Uh, well, it’s safer. But, you know, I think change of this sort is almost always negative. Things degenerate.

Deeper Shade of Snark

Film critic David Denby has a new book out called Snark.
Here's USA Today's soft-toothed interview with Denby
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-01-11-snark_N.htm

In contrast, here's Adam Sternbergh's snarky review of Snark.
http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/53159/

Given Denby’s age (65) and position in the firmament (film reviewer for The New Yorker), he could have written the most concise, insightful, artfully balanced, and expertly argued book about snark and still come off like an Internet-age Andy Rooney, wagging his finger from his rocking chair at the boisterous kids on the lawn. And he has not written the most concise, insightful, artfully balanced, and expertly argued book about snark.

ouch!

My favorite -

Did we simply transform overnight into a nation of venal assholes?

I don't have much else to say, except that I love Nate Silver's blog FiveThirtyEight
HERE read his recent entry regarding Obama's stimulus and Greg Mankiw's trashing of said stimulus. I found it very educational!

and

NYT article about the controversy surrounding new surgeon general Sunjay Gupta

You Know Why!!!

I can't stop laughing when I watch this clip. Maybe it's because now I will forever think of la flor when I see it!

The Bad Girl Planner and Other Stories

Even though it has only been a week since my last post, I'm assessing my resolutions.

1. Still a procrastinator. Some things never change.
2. Working out every day and eating vegetables - woo hoo!
3. Social, but tired.

Regarding #3, I feel like an old person. All I want to do is stay home and drink hot coffee under a blanket. But I'm trying! I've actually left the house more than twice this week! See? Now that's progress.

The year has just begun, and it has already brought such change with it. A few days ago, my best and favourite cousin had an 8 pound, beaming little boy - he's absolutely beautiful. I grew up with her, and I consider her a sister; so the idea of her pregnant and in another country is overwhelming. If all goes well, I'll trek over to Korea this year to visit her and baby.

My friend Vanessa bought me the Bad Girl's Planner :)


Which leads me to believe that I have given someone the impression that I live an exciting life, in which I actually do exciting things.

I'm stuck working a ten hour shift today, which inspired me to draw a powerful and well-crafted, walls-of-the-Louvre quality drawing depicting me crying next to a warm, comfy bed. I will have to upload this photo later, as I obviously don't know what I'm doing today and can't show you now. ****




My brother has an awesome YouTube page with videos recounting the time when San Antonio's BEST record store Hogwild was involved with the Anti-Censorship League in the 80s. He's also got some incredible playlists set up - watching them is like watching MTV circa 1982 (he's even included the astronaut on the moon station identifications which aired between videos). It made me ache for classic MTV. I blame the current bland, commercialized, why-are-we-still-called-MTV-when-we-don't-play-music-anymore inanity of the current station on the very first Real World, which led to the reality t.v. hot-tub entertainment that I despise SO much. Anyway...

Here, have some amazing photography today why doncha?
In Design class, I was slightly obsessed with perspective, so this collection is a joy to me.

COBRA, you are useless to me.
For those without insurance, COBRA is meant to be a cost-effective alternative, but I know from personal experience it's hogwash. This article also tells us that unemployment has jumped from 7.2%.
"For every 1 percentage point rise in unemployment, the number of uninsured Americans climbs by 1.1 percent."

Fred Kaplan's Best Jazz of 2008.
And HERE is a link to his fantastic Jazz blog :)

Blagojevech finally gets the bye-bye.
About damned time.

Al Franken named senator of Minnesota.
About damned time. Coleman brings on the lawyers. {sigh}

And finally, ex-evangelist Ted Haggard tells us all about how 'complicated' his sex life is in new documentary.
Yes, living a lie is definitely complicated. God forbid we embrace who we are sexually AND spiritually. I'm curious to see what insight he may offer in this HBO film.

Currently reading: Trash magazines and a month-old copy of Newsweek.


**** EDIT: Ha! Here's the picture

I even procrastinated in posting this entry!

So the new year has started and I'm already behind on my New Year's resolutions, which brings me to my first resolution:

1. Stop procrastinating.
I am the WORST procrastinator known to man (or would that make me the Best?). I put off EVERYTHING. And, I mean, everything. My whole life is on hold right now, because I refuse to make a decision about anything. There is currently a museum display case at the university I no longer attend (done, finished, finito - took me ten years to graduate - I was on the procrastinator's plan), which I STILL have not returned to our local art museum. Because I am a BAD, BAD person. Even though I swore to a nagging professor on MY LIFE that I would return it. Which means any day I will be struck my lightning. All because I am the worst procrastinator known to man.

2. Lose ten twenty pounds.
God, I'm so typical. Aaargh.

3. Stop being a social hermit.
I really don't know that I'm entirely sincere about this one, because in the last few months I have been treasuring my time alone. I have never been so comfortable sitting by myself reading or watching movies. I LIKE being alone. If anything, my Netflix subscription will be the death of me (if not the lightning attack caused by lone museum display case), as it makes me never want to leave my house. But is there really anything wrong with that? I'm not so sure. I'm just not sure real, actual people can be as entertaining as flashy Busby Berkeley dancers and the rocker vampires of Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (though a part of me really hates that movie, I still prefer it over a dinner party or a night out at a club).

Well, that's pretty much it for now, because I'm too lazy and tired to think of anything else.

Oh, wait - One More! Find new non-slacker job. I love my job, I do. But it pays horribly and my favorite, favorite boss is leaving, so I'm kind of feeling whats-the-point. It's time to move on. Kind of glad boss is leaving, because if she stayed, I probably would stay here forever ... that really makes me sound like a stalker, but I'm not - I promise, I've just known her a very long time (70 years in dog-time).

* * * * *

I found this blog through someone else's blog and I LOVE it so much I want to marry it. Come to think of it, it probably would not make a very good husband, but I don't care.

http://fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com/

I never thought hating on animals could be so much fun.

* * *

A pretty mess in Illinois.
Well, it's not so pretty really. Actually, it's not pretty at all.

Obama's in Washington now!!

Michigan's Green Jobs Initiative

The last moments of Columbia.
This article made me cry.

Lastly, I am so, so sorry for the actor John Travolta and his family. I've read so many blogs (it seems reading blogs is all I do with my time, well other than watch Busby Berkeley musicals) which detail and criticize his religion, his sexuality, the manner of his son's condition and death. But none of this matters. The man lost his child. There are few things worse than that experience, no matter who you are or what crazy religion you practice.

Happy New Year!!!

New Year's Eve with Harry and Sally

My sister used to play this clip at my grandmother's house every New Year's Eve, so even though it's incredibly sappy, it always makes me think of my family and of my childhood :)




Celebrate New Year's on YouTube!
And do everything else on YouTube, too - just like I do!!

New Year's Rockin'Eve
Dick Clark will NEVER, EVER die. He's amazing.

Celebrity New Year's Parties
Hmm... Does Weird Al Yankovich throw a party? I'd go to that.

Escape From Christmas!

Yesterday, I escaped from Christmas for a few moments and sped off in my brother's car (if you're reading this, Steven, I didn't really speed ... really) while listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I rolled all the windows down and blasted the stereo, and my hair whirled around in the wind and the music, and it was. just. wonderful.



I'm very conscious of what I'm eating today, since yesterday I gorged, of course, on tamales, Spanish rice and my father's amazing homeade bread. But we ordered Sonic at work today, and I had to do some research to avoid getting any fatter than I already am. If you're interested, here's some calorie info :) ... Not that I'm counting calories or anything like that (ahem).

Jalapeño Cheeseburger
610 calories 280 from fat

Jr. Cheesburger
380 calories 180 from fat

Grilled Chicken Sandwich
420 calories 180 from fat

Grilled Chicken Salad (no dressing)
300 calories 120 from fat

And save yourself 270 calories - don't order the fries! I'm just sayin' ...

* * * * *

Más sleep = better heart!
I knew it!

Create your own stamps
My dream come true!

Wal-Mart to sell iPhone
I really don't care - I love my Centro!!

The Dingo Ate Your Baby!
Why are people so crazy???

Read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Girl Talk
Most awesome awesomeness

Let's play some games!

And RIP Eartha Kitt and Harold Pinter.
We lost two legends in two days.

Kitt sings Santa Baby:


Pinter on the invasion of Iraq:
"an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law."

* * * * *

Listening to: Andre Rieu's Tuscany

I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!

No! You'll shoot your eye out!

Merry Christmas!!!