Two books and six covers. In Raros, radicales y rebeldes (Weird, Radical and Rebellious People) I had left out many characters, especially female ones, so I published a second part: Raras, radicales y rebeldes. Two volumes that add up to 132 illustrated and microperforated microbiographies for framing. The men and women mentioned in these books were seen as strange by their contemporaries: only their ability to write a poem, paint a picture or dance in a ring could grant them the bull of persevering in their difference. Rares, radicals and rebels: three adjectives that stigmatize those who, with pride or indifference, receive them. Difference has made them a little freer, a little more in control of their days, if not happier. The small biographical notes that make up these books do not pretend —in no way could they— to explain the totality of a life: they are brushstrokes, minimal fragments, brief selected notes that invite us to search.
Two books and six covers: Raros, radicales y rebeldes (Weird, Radical and Rebellious Men) and Raras, Radicales y rebeldes (Weird, Radical and Rebellious Women), both published by Modernito Books, a small publishing house with which, I thought, we shared certain values (but in the publishing world not all that glitters is gold). I hope to republish them as a single book with a serious publishing house in the not too distant future. This has been, to date, my most personal project. A sort of homage to all those “weird” men and women who figure in that pantheon of anti-heroes who have enriched our lives with their songs, their poems, their films, their photographs or their activism. They are not caricatures or portraits, but rather “images” to which we can rely when life makes us pay a price for our right to be different. The list is very long (almost 150), starting with the protagonists of its covers: Amy Winehouse, Roberto Bolaño, David Bowie, Gerda Taro, Maud Wagner and Antonio Vega. I'll leave you to guess the rest, among whom is my dear Carles Fontseré, whom I had the opportunity to meet; Leonard Cohen, whom we followed through the halls of the Hotel Reconquista in Oviedo, while we were putting the finishing touches to the Illustrious Mr. Cohen (he barely had time to say hello briefly, while they continued to torment him by introducing him to cultural bureaucrats, politicians and professionals of the dolce far niente). Also on the list is the ever-missed Pepe Rubianes (his sister described the drawing as "horrible").