Hey, there! Good to see you again. That means you stick with me despite my random posting days. Thank you very much for that! Maybe you are also like me: sometimes a step ahead, but mostly a few steps behind the schedule. If so (and even more if not), thank you for the company! It really means a lot me.

As you know, March was hard, but I cannot complain about April. I was interviewed for the Ilustre Podcast, a small jewel made by an illustrator, my dear friend E., and could talk about my musical and research projects (to be aired on April 28th, stay tuned!). There is also another comic art related event coming by the end of the month, but I will not tell about it now. Oh, the mystery …

A busy month, as you see. Well, maybe not so busy for you, but quite so for me, since I had to add to the current month´s agenda all the remaining activities from last month. Procrastinators have the toughest life, trust me. To confirm my theory that procrastination can hit us all and nobody is really safe, I got an e-mail from one of my favourite newsletters and, guess what? It was about procrastination! And coming from one of the most productive professionals I know. Earthshaking!

My secret to keep a positive attitude about procrastination is cheating on it. How I do it? I fill my procrastination time with things that I can use later: from cooking to doing the laundry, any mildly challenging household activity will usually do. But some days require major measures, like watching a movie. Following the suggestion of my cinephile sister, I saw the 1969 classic They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Set in 1932, during the great Depression, the plot brings light to a lesser known moment in the USA history, the dance marathon contests. It is impossible not to be amazed by the accurate way it shows the origin and the essence of today’s reality television shows. Scary! A masterpiece, no doubt, but what really caught my attention was that the only tender element in the bitterly sad story was the music.

The beautiful jazz ballads from the 1930´s bring rare moments of relief to the tense narrative, and the black musicians playing it are portrayed as having way more dignity and class than the pitiful, starving bunch of white marathon dancers. A new approach made possible by the late 1960´s social movements maybe, but certainly something to think about today.

See how far procrastination can take you?

Be seeing you!

G.F.