Whenever a list of invisible series was made, condemned to oblivion (or to live in memory) because they were not on any platform, the first on the list was Doctor in Alaska. As of February, all those who longed to see the series that La 2 aired at untimely hours again –part of the fun of being a follower was that you never knew when you were going to be able to see a new episode- they could broadcast it at midnight or at two in the morning– they will be able to do it in Filmin. Fans have received the news with delight and also some apprehension. What if the Dr. Fleischman series hasn’t aged well? What if Dj Chris (ex-con and concept sculptor) rants on town radio no longer sound deep but hollow? between Ed and Ruth-Anne no longer have the same brightness? Seeing it again will require an honesty pact with ourselves and it will be curious to see what the generations raised with the platforms think about a title that they have heard so much about from the elders.
Former Masters of Markdowns
One art market prediction that is impossible to go wrong with in 2023 is that the price of so-called Old Masters will continue to fall. A recent report by Art Basel and the consultancy USB confirmed that the sale of paintings by the great European painters between 1300 and 1830, which dominated the market until 1970, now accounts for only 4% of all money handled. Outside of one or two high-profile pieces, like the Botticelli that sold at the recent auction of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection (and is actually attributed by experts to Botticelli’s workshop), prices are typically even higher. come down. The report cites the example of a snowy landscape by the flamenco Joos de Momper, which was auctioned in October for just 32,000 euros. In 2012 it had changed hands for 40,000 and in 1999 for more than 80,000.
Botticelli’s ‘Madonna of the Magnificat’, from the recently auctioned Paul Allen collection
The ghost of Perucho
That a Lovecraftian writer like Joan Perucho has a double walking around twenty years after his death is not at all strange. The actor Òscar Muñoz, who looks extraordinarily like the author of Natural storiesembodies the ghost of Perucho in the documentary Blood and tomato sauce, which is being filmed these days in several locations that were important in the writer’s life: Barcelona, Banyoles, La Granadella, Gandesa and Albinyana. The background is the trauma of the Civil War in his literature. The film, which has the participation of TV3, the Institution of Catalan Letters and the Provincial Council of Tarragona, is co-directed by Morrosko Vila-SanJuan and Julià Guillamon, who was the curator of Year Perucho on the occasion of its centenary.
Óscar Muñoz as Perucho
Alice and the robot
Once upon a time there was a girl with big eyes, long hair and weird hands named Alice, who had a robot named Sparkle. That’s the story of Alice and Sparkle, the first children’s story written and illustrated entirely using artificial intelligence tools. The book was spawned by Ammaar Reshi, an engineer in San Francisco, a few weeks ago when ChatGPT, the non-human writing system that threatens to make all non-creative writing obsolete, became available. And for the drawings he used Midjourney, a system that generates illustrations on demand, also without human intervention. Reshi printed about a hundred copies and put them up for sale on Amazon. The result of his twelve-page story was not perfect (the girl’s hands looked like claws and there were floating objects) but it could be polished, and above all it has generated panic and logical contrary reactions among authors and illustrators of children’s literature.
‘Alice & Sparkle’
The chalet of ‘Five little wolves’
Everyone who has seen the great movie Five beads, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, has shared two reactions: crying, with that very human and overwhelming ending, and the comment “well, go home”, referring to the chalet where the protagonist’s parents live, in what is supposed to be which is Mundaka, and where she takes refuge after becoming a mother, fleeing her suffocating apartment in Malasaña. The real house in which the film was shot is now for sale, for 650,000 euros. It is a modern construction inspired by traditional farmhouses, it is in the town of Bakio and is the work of Juan de Madariaga, with 473 square meters built and two 100-meter terraces.
A scene from ‘Five Wolves’