Omnia Mutantur

Cash is king. Whoever says otherwise is a damned filthy liar.

From Heinlein:

• From Lazarus Long: Never pay for something you can get for free.
• TANSTAAFL: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

Ricardo Personal

Karma is a bitch. Cut off in front of an old lady’s car in San José because she’s driving too slow, and as soon as you turn the corner, tires screeching, gear box screaming in pain as you up gear for more power while laughing maniacally; and you ram straight into a police car that you didn’t notice because you were looking back at Granny, trying to see her reaction to your lame NASCAR maneuver while giving her the finger.

It’s because of karma that I’m flabbergasted, unbelieving at the fact that a bloke I know called me three times to insist on if I could re-arrange my schedule so that they could fly me for the weekend, all expenses paid, to a five star resort in Conchal, to lay about and shoot photos of 12 Hawaiian Tropic models.
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Ricardo Personal

Yes, I’ve said it before. I’ve come in all gleeful, heart filled with joy, proclaiming I’m finally back on track with my photography. Unfortunately, there was something unsatisfying even in my efforts with Marcela and Kelly, some missing ingredient that ended up having the effect that while the end result was OK overall, it still felt like it lacked something vital, some spark to make them feel alive.

I think I’ve hit it.
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Ricardo Personal, Photography

One of the most used keywords by which people get to this site is precisely Omnia Mutantur. I’ve seen it used in two phrases, but can’t provide the original sources for neither. Both I’ve seen attributed to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but I’ve also read several sources refuting it.

Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Inherit: everything changes, nothing persists. The use after which I named the site.

Omnia Mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: all things change, and we change with them.

Hope this clarifies it.

Ricardo Personal

There are some news that you just don’t give over electronic means of conversation. Sure, you can notify a friend over e-mail that one of his relatives died, or phone in to a girlfriend and break up, but doing it leaves a bad aftertaste that simply spending a couple of bucks in a cab would have saved you.
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Ricardo Personal

Given the recent photo by Sonny, my guess is that you must be getting sick and tired of seeing my ugly mug around. That didn’t stop me from adding a new photo, however, this time a self portrait with experimenting with my new digital camera (yes, I was unable to resist).

Ricardo Personal

I just realized that other than some caricatures by Vargas and some photos where I’m a washed out blur, there are actually no effigies of me on the site. Here’s a recent photo of lil’ old me, taken just last Wednesday by a friend.

Boo!

Ricardo Personal

Recently I started writing this long story, something a bit more personal than the goofy Apocalipsis. It is shaping up like a longer narrative (dare I call it novel?) and started out as two parallel stories about characters with a few traits in common, alternating between both stories one chapter at a time. The idea was that as it progressed the reader realizes that they’re actually the same person, one of the stories being the character’s past and the other one his future.

I began writing it to exorcise some recent issues, as a way to crawl back up from the creative wasteland said issues had moved me into, using it as a tool to force myself to create something more intimate, in the manner of my earlier photos, instead of hiding myself behind the patina of sense of humor and sarcasm of my other stories.

At first the story progressed quickly – words came easily, phrases started building up, paragraphs just appeared out of thin air. Every so often I’d hit a bump, but with the help of stubbornness and a few screwdrivers I managed to just ride over them, finishing a section and moving on to the next one.

Then something happened and I stopped writing. The flow of words had become a trickle and I just couldn’t seem to get over the current section. Last Sunday, after trying to force myself to put down 1000 words and not managing to get more than 400 out, I just collapsed on my couch to wonder what the hell was going on.

I went over what I had written, reviewing which chapters managed to hold my interest and which ones I just fast-forwarded through to get to the next one. A pattern slowly emerged. Just as it had happened when I was writing, I realized that the bumps in the story were the even-numbered sections, those set in the character’s past. Those were there only because I had sold myself on a gimmick for the story and wanted to carry it through because I liked the idea. Pulitzer delusions, maybe.

The obvious solution was to cut them out, prune them, leave them in the floor of the editing room. Something stopped me, however. Those chapters were the ones that were more self-indulgent, the ones I had been writing as a way to spite a person, or just to fictionalize some recent events. Bendrix, from The End of the Affair, came to mind immediately: a book takes me a year to write – it’s too hard work for revenge.

I had run out of anger.

Off those chapters went. Put together they constituted less than 25% of what I had written, and the result is something much cleaner, something I want to continue building on top of.

It also gives me the feeling that my subconscious was telling me that the future is much more interesting than the past.
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Ricardo Personal, Stories

Last Friday was Rodolfo Dengo’s birthday. We threw a party at my house, which started as your standard house- or techno-oriented fare and by popular demand ended up becoming an Iron Maiden-powered headbanging fest.

At least for Esteban, Rodolfo and myself. I’m the silhouette on the right with short hair.

By Cthulhu, we really howled the hell out of Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

Overall it was a great party and the most fun I’ve had in a while. It really took me back to the old get-togethers I went to some thirteen years ago, only this time nobody got stabbed.

Ricardo Personal

I’m slowly returning to my right-brain-oriented pursuits. While Apocalipsis is still in the cooler because of various personal reasons that wrecking-balled me out of the right mood, I’m writing the basis for another story that so far I’m liking (I won’t post anything about it until it’s done, however, to avoid the pleasant sensation of early feedback stop me from continuing).

Photography, however, is returning in a steady drip. My last published photo was back in January, then the aforementioned personal issues banged me up for a while and I had to concentrate in my work to forget about them, until finally two weeks ago I had another photo shoot as a favor to a friend and his wife. This is one of my favorites from that set.

It was liberating – I feel that they actually did me a favor.

Ricardo Personal, Photography