trip me
soundtracks of your lifeArchive for wes anderson
internet charisma
When I met Severus, I didn’t think of any definition, or tag that I could use for her. Only that she was smart, pretty and sweet. And after 3 years, I still think that. Even when I’ve never seen her. Because she has an internet charisma that goes beyond the average. She has social skills-internet social skills- that make her look, in front of my eyes, like a celebrity.
She made the first step by posting in my blog. “Trailer of Life Aquatic”. As I love Wes Anderson, I replied. And when I saw the movie, it was her with whom I wanted to make a comment about it. The movie, actually, sucked. It was a big disappointment. But I still wanted to hear her opinion. Even when I knew little and nothing about her.
When people have internet charisma, you find yourself wanting to know more about them and wanting them to know what you’re up to. I look at her pictures-she’s actually a very good photographer- but when I started looking at them I had already given her the credit of being an authority. Some people are natural born leaders, and in virtual life, that happens too. If a natural born leader knows how to manage a group according to their common interests, in virtual life, a person with internet charisma will know how to read you with the little information that you give. You can get hundreds of posts, but only the ones that come from the charismatic people will stay. Why? Because they could read what you wanted to say. The same time that I got her trailer, I received a lot of comments of other people that had no interest for me whatsoever. That came from people who didn’t know how to interpret the signs that I was showing.
Being able to do this is a skill, just like speaking well in front of audiences is another one. I’m not good speaking on the phone, and maybe Severus isn’t either. I never spoke with her on the phone, so I have no idea. having this charisma in this technological society is far away from the creepiness that used to be attached by it. People are no longer considered to be stalkers, or repressed real-life beings. They manage to show to the world what they want to say and also to create a net that will support them. They use the tools they have to communicate in their just made language, taking this charisma from their personal lives to the business they’re into.
And I love Severus. And I know when her birthday is. And I can feel her energy through her status updates, even she writes in Swedish sometimes. That’s how charismatic she can be…
Sunday Morning
As I was walking through Ibn Gvirol the other day, something amazing happened. I heard it. I’m not much of a believer, but when I heard it, I believed it. “Watch out, the worlds behind you”, is what he said, and I knew he was right. I understood what life is all about.
It’s not so common to be walking and have The Velvet Underground as your personal soundtrack, coming from a falafel store, from some pizza place, from some radio of a worker who’s tired of digging holes for you to drive smoothly and feel like you’re flying. I felt as if I was trapped in a Wes Anderson movie, and I was walking in slow motion, being watched by someone who was listening to Sunday Morning inside his head.
Having Lou Reed speaking to you is the best sign that you can ever get. Even when you’re not in some NYC bar in the 60’s, even when you fell in love with Basquiat and hated Andy Warhol like a jealous wife, even when you weren’t there to see the street art of Gordon Matta-Clark and the beatniks, hippies, communists, and cursed rock & roll poets who left their traces from coast to coast.
So when some days ago, he spoke to me, I knew it meant something. And I pictured Gwyneth Paltrow, with her fur coat, thinking about how she has been out walking, thinking about the things she forgot to do. And I pictured Franny Glass in her Upper West Side apartment, reading “The way of a Pilgrim” and repeating things in her mind as if they were mantras. And I pictured myself, walking through Ibn Gvirol in slow motion, thinking of all the streets I had crossed not so long ago.
