I've decided to journal here my monthly readings cuz screw good reads and backlogged and all those kind of pages. I'm not gonna say if I liked a book or not besides the mini review, so yeah. Reading is fun.

Anyway, here is August.

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Centauros: En los orígenes de la violencia masculina / Centaurs: In the origins of masculine violence

Luigi Zoja

Review: I wasn't expecting to get so much into this essay from a book I got into from a dying book store. Luigi stands on the case that the image of a centaur, a half man half beast creature, is created as an icon of extreme sexual violence not only to dehumanize the criminal from the rest of men as he is a "beast" but also used to dehumanize victims. This image has permeated through history and even tho it has changed (king kong for example) the meaning is still the same. I had to stop several time to take notes and just think about what I was reading. I still think about from time time on the bus.

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Poesía no Completa / Uncomplete Poetry

Wisława Szymborska

Review: I was amazed how vast all the topic of poetry she had along her books. Lovely, funny and painful in some cases. I kinda want to learn Polish to get some of the subtlety in her prose.

Life on earth turns out quite cheap. For dreams for instance you don’t pay a penny. For illusions—only when they’re lost. For owning a body—only with the body.

Extract taken from the poem Here.

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Crisis on infinte earth Vol. 2

Marv Wolfman - George Pérez - Jerry Ordway - Ellito S. Maggin - Curt Swan

Review: Finally the end of the dramatic DC event that would change their heroes and the american comic's industry till this day. Tho this is a re read I didn't remember the book (calling it book cuz god damn it has words) being so oppressive. Everything the heroes do is to win a little more time, not to win the fight against the anti-monitor. This second book focuses more on the existential crisis of the main comic heroes and their futile fight (and death) against their destiny set by the editorial which is fine but I still prefer the figures of pariah as this tortured soul condemned to see universes die as penance for his sins and one of the main villain resources being negative emotions in the center stage. I got a little emotional at the last words "this is not the end but a new beginning".

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Absolute Batman #1-#11

Scott Snyder - Dragotta - Frank Martin - et al.

Review: I dropped off all the absolute universe and decided to re read it starting with batman and wow they really went in into the macabre world with villains being an exaggeration of why they are feared. I also like Bruce outside of batman, seeing this huge fridge shaped man just sulking and being shy and quiet most of the time he's not on costume. It reminds me of the movie MirageMan. I do hope they drop the whole "this is what you think an edgy batman is? no, at the end of the chapter we will show you what kind of batman world we are making" cuz there's like 3 already in 11 issues.