Ibiza, the new Australia?

(by Pablo Burgués)

I’ve always been rather a dreamer…, which is the finest way to say that I’ve always been a fucking immature. As an example of this inherent and hardly praiseworthy trait of my personality I’ll tell you a secret: until well after the age of 20, I was convinced that the cecina de León (cecina is cured meat, and León is a noble and kind Spanish autonomous community) was of lion (the no less noble though not so kind king of savannah).

OK, I admit that in this case more than saying “I’ve always been rather a dreamer” I should have said: “I’ve always been rather silly”. But, fuck up, I was young and innocent and that cured meat was so dark, hard and smoked that it seemed very exotic to me, much related to the frightful claw of a fierce lion brought down by the spear of a brave Mursi at Africa than a meat coming from the dull hind leg of a harmless dairy cow from Bierzo.

When I realized my gross mistake, I began to develop a deep revision of my geographical-alimentary beliefs, and to my astonishment and sadness I discovered that neither the jamón de York (boiled ham) is made in New York nor the wine is extracted from the mines of Rio Tinto (Huelva).

Well, let’s stop talking about me and let’s start talking about other wonderful human beings whose view of the world and the funny objects that inhabit it is ten thousand times more twisted and surrealistic than mine: souvenir makers (drum roll, cymbals and general hullabaloo).

Fuck up, these people are real free spirits, global artists willing to reinvent the reality that surrounds them without regard to the oppressive yoke created by historical, geographical and cultural barriers… Which is the finest way to say that they give a real fuck. And as a sample of this I bring here a delicate selection of decorative pieces that, who knows how, a commercial genius has been able to sell to the souvenir shops in Ibiza.

The white shark

OK, let’s do an abstraction exercise and let’s forget for a while the chromatic and scene delirium of this, and let’s focus fully on its daring message: A white shark as a souvenir from Ibiza? Listen, nowadays in the Pitiusan islands, a bloated Italian trying to kiss the neck of a drunk tourist girl on the dance floor at Amnesia is the closest thing to a shark attack.

The boomerang

Is it true what I see? For God’s sake, man! A platypus disguised as a legionnaire is more representative of the traditional-peasant Ibiza style than this!

Surfer Paradise

A van with surfboards on the roof is “Authentic Ibiza”????????? Sure, man, everybody knows that the most famous 3 waves in the world are the left ones at Uluwatu in Bali, the right ones at Mavericks in California, and the straight ones at the water slide of the Aguamar water park at d’en Bossa beach.

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Translation: Dora Sales