This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

If you're reading this, chances are you hate the Minions, those gibbering cylinders for children from the Despicable Me films. These cute little characters have brought nothing but joy and laughter to kids across the world, and to quite a few adults too—but for some people, the chronically embittered, those who've lost touch with any sense of wonder or enchantment, the Minions inspire a furious, almost pathological, hatred.

Every poster for their upcoming film, every plush toy and brand tie-in, fills you with fury and dread. The internet is full of pictures of Minions on fire, and you love to watch them burn. You're not quite sure why, but hating the Minions has somehow become an incredibly important part of who you are. Bile, not blood, bubbles under your skin.

Even things that superficially resemble the Minions now have you foaming with rage. Loofahs are intolerable. You stamp on bags of Wotsits until dust pops from the seams, your arms flailing in pointless circles, your face contorted into an inhuman snarl, until supermarket security drags you away. The sight of a clitoris makes you want to puke. It's been noted of Islamophobia that the Islamophobe is dependent on Muslims to maintain his identity—if there were no Muslims, the EDL and Britain First would have to invent them. In the same way, it is you, the Minion-hater, who needs the Minions. If it weren't for them, your hatred would spill out everywhere, and then nothing would be safe.

"Sexy" minions

There is, admittedly, one good reason for hating the Minions. According to the films, the Minions have existed for millions of years, and in every age, they've loyally served the greatest villain on Earth. They're always trying to do evil, even if it's somewhat held up by their hilarious incompetence. So at the start of the recently released film Minions we see Minions accidentally pushing a tyrannosaur into a volcano, crushing thousands of Egyptian slaves beneath a poorly built pyramid, and ruining Napoleon's ambitions on the battlefield with an errant cannonball.

This potted history papers over a few cracks. Minions must have been there, piling human skulls on human skulls, some of them still blood-splattered, some hanging with stringy trails of human flesh, when the Mongols came to sack Baghdad in 1258. Pith-helmeted Minions fumbled the quinine as the British Raj starved millions in India. And eventually, the Minions would have allied themselves with Adolf Hitler. Helmeted Minions directing artillery fire in the wrong direction during the siege of Leningrad. Minions in Einsatzgruppe uniforms, chasing bananas into the mass graves. Minions falling from the guard towers at Auschwitz. After all, they're evil.

Strangely, though, the fact that the Minions are complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich doesn't seem to be why people hate them so much. With a few exceptions, most complaints about the Minions have nothing to do with their intrinsic evil. Instead, there's a familiar triad of unsatisfying objections: They're stupid, they're annoying, and they're taking over everything.

Image via Universal

This isn't untrue, but it is frankly weird. Of course the Minions are stupid; they're for children. It's like complaining that a cardboard picture book doesn't have any literary subtexts, or that the Teletubbies don't pass the Bechdel Test. There's something pathetic about Minion hate; it has echoes of the grown man who feels the need to constantly whinge about how rubbish One Direction and Justin Bieber are, as if he's facing some desperate psychological need to prove that he's better than a 12-year-old girl.

It's a narcissism of small differences: If you're infuriated by stuff for children, it might be because you're not actually all that sure how far above it you really are. The German Marxist August Bebel described anti-Semitism as the "socialism of fools." All the evils that the capitalist class actually commits are displaced onto a mythologized figure of the Jew. In the same way, all anxieties about the current state of culture can be soaked up by the spongy, grinning form of the Minion.

Related: VICE Meets Karl Ove Knausgaard

We're living in strange times. Any new radical thinker is now required, as if by law, to spend most of their time engaging in irreverent readings of Hollywood blockbusters. People who call themselves scholars and intellectuals happily and uncritically munch down anything a cynical culture industry squeezes into their mouths, whether it's a stupid two-hour car chase or a music video torture flick, so long as they can claim it's empowering. If we've all been turned into giddy, jam-smeared infants, clapping our pudgy hands at every new entertainment, then hating the Minions lets us pretend to ourselves that we're still adults. The Minions might well be deliberately annoying: It's their unpopularity that lets the slow enshittening of all reality carry on unimpeded.

Still from this strange video

It's not just that people are afraid to admit that they're no better than the Minions. There's a quiet, buried terror in Minion hate: the possibility that this chirpy, cyclopean, computer-generated moron might actually be better than you are.

The Minions are animated by a genuine desire to commit acts of evil, but they're entirely incompetent; against their better judgement, they end up doing good. They're a mirror held up to our current political reality, and like every mirror, in them everything is inverted. Real people tend to be vaguely unpleasant, but most of us aren't exactly evil. Ask the average person what kind of a society they'd like to live in, and it'd probably be something far fairer and kinder than what exists. But despite the fact that nobody really likes it, the world that we've created is one that's insane: a planet choking itself to death, a politics propelled by envy and malice, a culture wallowing flatulently in its own idiocy. This madness is something we all unwittingly reproduce every day of our lives. Everyone is, to some degree, complicit.

People try to be good, and the result is starvation, slaughter, and stupidity. The Minions want to wreak a hideous destruction upon the world, and in the process they show just how easy doing good really is. Their failure is always inventive: ours is pure impotence. It might be true that, as some people have complained, the Minions are taking over everything. They're on the side of buses, on clothes, on the internet; tomorrow morning the sun might rise as a giant, cheerfully yellow Minion. Their reign is coming, an eternal dominion. But it's not as if humanity has done a particularly good job of running the world. Maybe we should let them have it.

Follow Sam Kriss on Twitter.

Photo via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Annabel Gat is Broadly's staff astrologer—check back in August for monthly and daily horoscopes.

Can you believe it? Mercury is not retrograde! Mercury is also not going through the roughly two-week "shadow" period before the retrograde, when we get a sneak peek of what shit shall hit the fan during the main event, or in the approximately two-week shadow period after the retrograde, when we get to tie up loose ends before moving on with our lives. Since Mercury is all good right now, you have no excuse for being late, all your electronics will work just fine, and you will not hear from any of your exes.

Just kidding! Do you hear how silly these claims sound? As a professional astrologer, I hate nothing more than pop astrology written by wannabe mystics (Hilter was not an Aries!). Pop astrology has many faults: Not only does it generalize the signs and symbols of the movements in the sky, but it also makes things sound unnecessarily scary and difficult. This is especially true when it comes to the world's most newly infamous planetary movement, Mercury retrograde. Mercury retrograde has gone mainstream, the subject of articles and tweets by Real Housewives—poor Bethenny Frankel once wondered if her "shit day" was due to Mercury retrograde, and Lisa Rinna, Kyle Richards, and Dina Manzo have flexed their astrological knowledge as well.

The superstitions surrounding Mercury retrograde are well known. Common warnings include: Don't start new projects or sign contracts; don't buy electronics; and don't travel or expect anything to happen according to schedule. These are all accurate generalizations based on themes relating to Mercury, which rules communication, logic, information, movement, and commerce. However, there's a lot more to Mercury retrograde than frustration and delays. In fact, retrogrades can be wonderfully productive times to review your past, your direction, and in general, slow down. Let's take a look at some of the major misconceptions and inaccuracies surrounding Mercury retrograde:

Grammar
Let's get this out of the way first: Mercury is never "in" retrograde. This mistake comes up a lot—take, for instance, this bumbling video about Mercury retrograde starring Taylor Swift. Taylor's a big-mouthed Sagittarius, and we know that most Sagittarians don't care much about detail or preparing ahead of time; that's something their opposite sign, Gemini, is more into. Of course I'm not happy about Taylor feeding the public's fear of Mercury retrograde here, but what I really, deeply hate about this video is the fact that she says Mercury is in retrograde. Mercury is never in retrograde. It either is retrograde or it isn't.

That said: While I can't be sure, it seems to me like this was an impromptu video, so I applaud Swift's ability to improvise—so Sagittarian!

Frequency
There's a misconception that Mercury retrogrades are surprising, rare, and/or random occurrences. They're not: We know when they will occur, and they occur three, sometimes four, times a year. 2016 will be a year with four Mercury retrogrades. There's no real special significance to this, except that you get one more opportunity that year to complain about the retrograde.

Is Mercury really going backward during a retrograde?
Nope! It's an optical illusion created when Earth and another planet move at different speeds, like when you're on the train and another zooms past—the train can look like it's going backward. That optical illusion can be confusing and disorientating, but just like a retrograde, it does give you a moment to pause and consider a new perspective.

Other planets go retrograde, too
Not counting the sun and the moon, all the other planets in the sky also go retrograde. We actually have a Venus retrograde coming up this summer—Venus goes retrograde July 25 through September 8.

As mentioned earlier, retrogrades give us a chance to slow down and reconsider decisions we've made before moving on with our lives. Venus is associated with love, beauty, and luxury; expect these themes to get turned on their head when the retrograde kicks in. (Note: Venus retrograde is not the time for a makeover, so if you want to try something new, book your appointment before July 25!) During Venus retrograde, you may not feel so seductive, and your self-esteem may even take a hit, but this is an indispensable chance to review your love life and financial situation. Sometimes we need to wake up feeling gross, without any money for morning coffee, in order to look around and really wonder, What the hell am I doing here, with these people, in this city, with this job? After Venus goes direct again, you may find that not only have your wardrobe and hairstyle been revamped, but your values and ideals around Venusian themes like love and money have, too.

Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto are also currently retrograde. Saturn deals with responsibility and structure, Neptune's all about fantasy and confusion, and Pluto seeks transformation. We're all currently redoing and reviewing these themes, whether or not we're conscious of it. (Being conscious of these movements is how we make the best of them.) Uranus, an inventive and rebellious energy, will go retrograde on July 26, which may push us to make some unexpected, surprising changes in our lives. Jupiter—the planet of philosophy, growth, and abundance—will turn retrograde on January 7, 2016, inspiring introspection.

The shadow period
Although the shadow period isn't often discussed, it's arguably as significant as retrograde itself. The shadow period before Mercury retrograde gives clues about what areas of your life you can expect to revisit during the retrograde; the shadow period after the retrograde offers you yet another chance to reconsider the situation, tie up any lose ends, or clarify any remaining confusion. If you and your partner fight a lot during the pre-shadow period, you might find that during the retrograde, those issues will pop back up, possibly resulting in a break up—only to be reconciled during the post-shadow period!

There's an old saying that says that whatever you lose during Mercury retrograde will be returned to you. The pre-shadow period reveals what that may be, and the post-shadow period resolves the issue.

Will everything be fucked up/late/broken?
Mercury retrograde is a great excuse for your lack of time management skills, relationships not working out, or your shitty cell phone finally breaking—especially since Mercury is retrograde three to four times a year, and there's also a shadow period on either side. That's not an insignificant amount of time! You're basically constantly covered for your inability to be reliable—not.

It's important to remember that the stars don't hold absolute power over you. You have free will. I look at astrology for what it is: a calendar. You're likely to do certain things during certain planetary transits, and astrology is a great way to watch out for those time periods. But it's never an excuse for bad behavior or lack of organization. Furthermore, it's said that people who are born during a Mercury retrograde thrive during the retrograde period. Could you be one of those people? Ask an astrologer or Google the Mercury retrograde dates for your year of birth.

But it's really not so bad, and you can totally work with the energy
The best piece of advice I can offer you about Mercury retrograde—other than not to worry about it too much—is to not make any commitments, unless it's about something that's old news. Mercury rules logic, and, if a retrograde is hitting you hard, your thinking may not be totally straight. However, letting your fear of Mercury retrograde guide your behavior would make life nearly impossible. If you need to sign a new lease, or sign a contract for a new job, you likely won't be able to ask if you can hold off until Mercury is direct. Do what you gotta do when you have to do it—things will work out the way they will, Mercury be damned!

The mythological roots of Mercury retrograde has a lesson for us: A few hours after his birth, Mercury decided, as siblings often do, that it would be fun to steal his brother Apollo's cattle. For some extra fun, he turned the cattle's hooves backwards (what a trickster). Apollo was appalled, but Daddy Jupiter thought this was pretty funny. I think we should all take on Jupiter's attitude and just drop this drama with Mercury retrograde. I don't know about you, but I love being able to take a break. Taking one's time, reconsidering, reflecting, and generally getting a grip on life is mandatory for happiness—as is a sense of humor. Laugh at the blunders Mercury retrograde brings your way. Instead of saying, "Oh, it's Mercury retrograde; everyone will be running late," why don't we all say "Hey, it's Mercury retrograde, take your time!"?

Mercury retrograde shouldn't be a disaster: It should be an excuse to leave work early (or arrive late), to chill the fuck out, look at old photo albums, reminisce, reconnect, and reflect. If Jupiter could cut Mercury some slack, I think we can, too.

Follow Annabel on Twitter.

In Peru, illegal gold mines three miles above sea level provide dangerous, unregulated employment for residents the town of La Rinconada. Here the weather regularly dips below freezing, and the whole area has limited plumbing and sanitation. Long-held superstitions mean women are not permitted to work in the mines. Instead they're forced to scavenge for leftover gold in the waste being removed from the site. They're known as the Daughters of Awichita, or pallaqueras, named after the god who keeps the miners protected.

Peruvian photographer Omar Lucas travelled to La Rinconada to spend time with the women. We were able to catch him on the phone to talk about it.

VICE: Hi Omar. What did people tell you about La Rinconada before you went?
Omar Lucas: I was told it was cold and rocky but people could go and make lots of money. This was a lie. People that go there often stay because they don't have other options, especially the rural population. The only people that get rich are the mining contractors.

How come the women can't work in the mines?
There is a belief that the gold will disappear if they do. Male chauvinism is widespread in Peru and this is reinforced by past belief systems. So they have to work some meters away from the entrance of the mines, where they look for gold in the waste the trucks drop off.

What's a working day like for them?
From the city to the mine is around 40 minutes to an hour. The first thing they do is make an offering to the god Awicihita. They make a hole in the rocks where they leave coca leaves, pour anise liquor, and leave a cigar burning. Then they spend their day from 6 AM until 5 PM looking for gold. Then at 6 PM you see other pallanqueras arrive.

Those are very long working days. What are some of the health risks they face?
The major sickness that affects the miners is respiratory problems like tuberculosis and women suffer from UTIs as there is no sewage systems or clean water. Women work more than 12 hours a day and they do not have any type of health insurance.

Do they get any assistance from the government?
This place is considered a slum, it does not have the legality of a city or district and the population relies mostly on mining. The government knows about it and there has been a very slow process of formalization of the industry in the last years, but that's it. The poverty is extreme.

How can they find gold in the darkness?
They learn by being there every day. For me every piece of earth or rock looked the same, but when I went with them one night near the adit they knew which truck was coming with gold. I think that they know because of the size of the rocks.

Is there any other future the women can aspire for?
Just in town, there are so many restaurants and bars. I was surprised by the amount of beer, it's everywhere—I saw giant trucks entering the town every day. There is prostitution, especially underage girls, and there is no control. I saw around 10 policemen for a town of 50,000 to 70,000 people, it's crazy.

How do you feel returning to your normal life after an assignment like this?
It definitely touched me. The camera tends to be a mask that protects you but once you take it off it really shocks you as a person. Poverty in Peru and Latin America is everywhere, even in the periphery of Lima you can find people living in toughest conditions. Being in contact with these realities really changes your life and it makes you value things in another way.

Interview by Laura Rodriguez Castro. Follow her on Twitter.

Kim Hye-sook was born in North Korea, and at the age of 13, along with her family, was sent to Bukchang concentration camp (also known as Camp 18) as a punishment for her grandfather's attempt to escape North Korea.

She spent 28 years as a prisoner at the camp and eventually managed to run away and defect to South Korea. Since her escape, she drew maps and pictures of her experience at Bukchang that were used by UN investigators to identify and prove the existence the camp from satellite images.

Ben Makuch met up with Kim Hye-sook in Seoul, where she currently resides, to talk about her pictures and experiences from her 28 years at Bukchang labour camp.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It was at EGX Rezzed earlier this year when my eyes were first assaulted by Tembo the Badass Elephant. I didn't play the game then, but its accompanying branding was too boisterous to be blanked. A plump protagonist, made up like a Cartoon Network Rambo, like a total flashback to the 1990s era of platforming animal heroes—what's not to like? And then there were the names attached to the game: Game Freak, famous for its long-running Pokémon games, on development, and SEGA as the publisher. For someone whose childhood was largely spent pushing a blue hedgehog from left to right, and who remembers the fuss surrounding Pokémon Red and Blue on the Game Boy (I had—I have—the latter), every electric tingle from my amygdala was screaming: this will not totally suck.

And Tembo does not totally suck—which is more than can be said of most recent hedgehog-starring games (but let's not dwell on that, again). It's not exactly on a par with either the best of Sonic's 16-bit games—the second on the Genesis and Sonic CD (mmm, Mega-CD)—or the Pokémon series at its most gotta-catch-them-all addictive, but it pairs zingy aesthetics and zippy gameplay with a decent challenge and repeat-play encouraging collectibles—humans imprisoned by invading "Phantom" forces (look, this isn't one where the plot matters)—to comprise an entirely engaging way to see out a few dull evenings when there's nothing on the telly but Paul Hollywood's permanently haunted face.

'Tembo the Badass Elephant' announcement trailer

Tembo smashes left, he smashes right, he smashes down; he devours peanuts like they're coated in the tastiest MSG this side of a large chicken in black bean sauce; he battles tanks and cannons and mechs and legions of flamethrower-wielding nasty bastards and rolls bowling balls four times his size through obstacles just because, and all in the name of freeing Shell City from purple-clad bad guys. Seriously, the story, just don't bother—it makes a Michael Bay–helmed movie script seem like a lost Dostoyevsky. And, equally seriously, if you told me this was coming out for the Genesis, even in 2015, I'd probably believe you.

Tembo's creative cast includes director James Turner, Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Team head with past credits on Nights into Dreams and several games featuring SEGA's spiky mascot, and Ken Sugimori, character designer for the Pokémon franchise. That's some fine talent, which likely tells you enough to know if you'll personally enjoy your time with this weaponized pachyderm. Nonetheless, I got onto Turner to learn just a little more about this mechanically retrospective but resolutely current-gen collaboration.

Screenshots via SEGA

VICE: When I think of Game Freak, I think of Pokémon, and so I think of Nintendo. So what the hell are you doing siding with the enemy here, with SEGA?
James Turner: Game Freak has a long association with Nintendo, largely through the Pokémon series, but the studio has always been independent. Our production department is dedicated to trying out new things, and we created the Tembo prototype, which SEGA came to our office and played, and liked what they saw. We felt the partnership matched the spirit of the game, so that's how the collaboration began.

The gameplay feels instantly "SEGA." I'm not saying it's basically a Sonic game without Sonic in it... but it sort of is, isn't it? It's fast, you smash things, you run left to right, and the peanuts are rings.
The game is certainly inspired by the classic side-scrolling games of the 16-bit era, Sonic among them. We tried to make the game control in an intuitive and immediately fun way, like the best characters from those games. Tembo himself isn't a direct homage to Sonic, but as we adjusted how he controlled and ramped up his speed, we noticed the game began to take on a bit of that kinetic Sonic feel. We also had feedback from Sonic Team later on, as we were creating the game, so it's possible you may feel their influence as you play.

Check out VICE's latest documentary, 'Mexico's Land of Sorcerers'

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The art style's got a contemporary sharpness to it, but that 16-bit-era cuteness going on, too. Did you specifically look back to that period for aesthetic inspiration?
Games of that era were definitely an inspiration on the artwork. I especially like the design of characters and machines in the Metal Slug series—as military-themed games, those could have had a hard and drab graphical style, but instead the artists infused their designs with tons of personality and humor. We wanted that kind of liveliness in our game world. And for Tembo himself, his design formed pretty quickly. I wanted our elephant to be very round and heavy-looking, and when I put the bandana and face paint on him, his look was pretty much sealed.

The gameplay is fairly minimal, stripped-back, and uncluttered. Do you think that, with all these inputs on modern pads, it's too easy to have to assign a command to everything? Could more designers benefit from taking a more minimalist approach to control and objectives?
We kept Tembo's game design pretty simple and easy to understand. I personally like things that are designed to be simple and intuitive, so that's what I naturally go for when creating something. I think it's fine to have more complexity though—more collectibles and mini-games can be fun, as long as they don't feel like a chore, or are there just to pad the game out.

On Motherboard: The Top Five Fictional Characters That Are Literally Just Brains

The difficulty's fairly easy going to begin with, which attracted some criticism in places like IGN. But it increases pretty significantly, right?
The starting levels of the game are pitched a little on the easy side because we want the player to simply enjoy the feeling of being a badass elephant, smashing stuff up with joyful abandon.
 We didn't want to put too many obstacles in the way of this fun, initially. But rest assured, the difficulty ramps up quite a good amount as the game progresses, there are some really challenging levels and enemies later on to test your action skills and your nerves.

Is Tembo the beginning of a series, do you think? Does this bestial hero have designs on a Sonic-like run of games?
I think side-scrolling games like Tembo offer a kind of immediate and pure fun, so I hope they'll always be around, and I have ideas in mind for other adventures for Tembo, and other characters he could fight alongside. I hope he's a popular character, I think the world would be a better place with a badass elephant out there, butt-stomping evil.

Tembo the Badass Elephant is released on July 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Play it if you like fun.

Follow Mike Diver and VICE Gaming on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE Mexico

In 2007 I was living in Torreón, Mexico, a town roughly 275 miles from the US border. It was in the midst of Mexico's bloody drug war, and the city's murder rate had risen 16-fold. In many ways, Torreón used to be a cozy, Hollywood-esque town for drug cartel kingpins—everything was peaceful, they had their houses, cars, and day-to-day lives with their families. But when Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán—the infamous leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel who escaped from prison for the second time this weekend—lost control of the town, all that changed.

The Sinaloa cartel was driven out of the city by the country's most brutal drug gang, Los Zetas—a cartel known for mounting the severed heads of their rivals on poles and carving the letter Z into their victims' bodies.

During that period, the way the cartels distributed cocaine changed quite a bit. For instance, home deliveries stopped, and customers had to go somewhere to pick up. It was a lot like going to the store to buy beer.

My girlfriends and I used to buy the drugs whenever there was a party because all the guys were too scared. That's how we got the nickname "Las Malilas." "La Malila" is what we call the hangover that hits you when you're coming down after a long night on coke.

Finding a point of sale was never difficult. You just had to go to one of the known neighborhoods, look for a few tough guys standing around an altar dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and ask them for cocaine.

It was sketchy at times because undercover police were always around. You never knew who was out to arrest you, so the transactions needed to happen quickly. Sometimes you'd show up and the dealers had nothing, but they'd be happy to tell you when the carrito bimbo—the van that delivered the cocaine—was expected so you could come back. It was around that time that I noticed Los Zetas had their own pretty distinct drug packaging. They used these small colored Ziploc-style bags with logos printed on them.

One day, while making a pick-up from a dealer I knew pretty well, I became intrigued by this new narco-branding concept. I wondered how many different designs there were.

Related: Kathryn Bigelow Interviews the filmmaker Behind the Mexican drug war Documentary, 'Cartel Land'

It seemed as if the designs on the bags were seasonal. For instance, at Christmas, there'd be a picture of Santa Claus on there and we'd joke about getting some "ho ho ho." There was a turkey at Thanksgiving and a crown on Three Kings Day. Sometimes there'd be special editions with a Superman logo or a Rolling Stones logo or whatever.

Originally, my collection was just of the bags that I'd bought myself, but when people heard what I was up to, they started giving me theirs. Even now, years later, I get messages from people who have bags they want to donate. I never expected my collection would grow into this archive of one of Mexico's most dangerous drug cartels, but it did.

These are some of the bags that were available in Torreón during that extremely violent time.

Scroll down for more pictures.

Photo via Flickr user Dave Nakayama

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that President Obama planned on using his clemency powers to free a large number of nonviolent drug offenders in the weeks ahead. America has over 2 million people behind bars, and nearly 100,000 of them are in federal prison for drug crimes. Obama apparently thinks a healthy chunk of them got the shaft during the "tough on crime" era in the 80s and 90s, when politicians were engaged in a game of oneupmanship over who could be harshest on the bad guys selling your kids dope.

On Monday, Obama at least partially followed through on that promise, announcing clemency for 46 people, most of whom would not be in prison anymore if they committed the same offense under current laws, according to the White House.

Better late than never.

I did 21 years of a 25-year drug sentence for a first-time, nonviolent offense: selling LSD. I'm a free man now, but I would have been a prime candidate for this new commutation initiative, having earned multiple degrees through correspondence courses, started a publishing house and popular website, authored several true crime books, and launched a journalism career—all from prison.

It wasn't easy, but I did what I had to do to secure my future.

I was still inside in April 2014, when the feds first began to make noise about clemency. We got a message on the Trulinks system—the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) email program—that the president wanted to find prisoners who met certain qualifications: first-time, nonviolent offenders, no gangs, no cartels or organized crime connections, good institutional conduct, and at least ten years served. It was a surprise, but we all filled out the forms and applied anyway. Even though I was getting out later that year, I still wanted to taste freedom as quickly as possible.

It was unbelievable to many of us that the White House was even paying attention to the excesses in the War on Drugs. And the 30 people whose sentences the president had already commuted since December probably never thought they were getting out, but they did. So with rumors of major changes in the works, I had to reach out to some old friends from inside to see what they think about the possibility of some kind of mass exodus from the prison-industrial complex.

"We get that the Obama story is big out there," Eduardo, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who has been in for 15 years on a 25-year drug conspiracy sentence, tells me. "It's slow in here. In the public they see things like that and right away they believe that he is making moves, but that thing is moving slower than the oldest turtle."

To the prisoners doing hard time, policy announcements like this one are all hype until they happen. And "happening" to inmates means walking out that front gate. (According to the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums—or FAMM—the men and women whose sentences were commuted Monday will be released on November 10.)

"Some believe him and some don't," Big, an African-American man from Buffalo who's been in almost 20 years on a life sentence for a large-scale drug ring, says about the idea of mass clemency. "Because they keep saying it, and nothing is happening with it at all thus far on a major level, so I would conclude that some believe he will [commute many people's sentences], but many don't believe it until it's verified."

Being powerless is frustrating, but it's a hard fact of prison life. Inside, we spend so many years thinking the laws are going to change or that we're going to catch a break that it's hard to keep hope alive. Too many false promises have never been delivered on.

"Dudes' like me ain't really saying nothing, just working toward freedom through the courts," C-Low, who hails from Miami and has been in for 20 years on a life sentence for drugs, tells me. "But dudes who ain't got no real time and haven't really done nothing, dudes on petty charges, are really hyped up about it, as they should be, because it seems like the only people that really get relief are the people that really didn't need it, meaning they were going home anyway. You feel me? But dudes are happy and looking forward to it. I'm happy for them, because if one of us goes home, some of us goes home. You feel me?"

I never had a life sentence, but it was still tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Twenty-five years seems like a lifetime, especially when you begin that sentence at age 22. But some inmates see that light now.

"Even FAMM said that [Obama] is going to be doing some incredible stuff, bro!" Apache, an East New York native who has been down over 20 years on a three strikes law federal life sentence, tells me. "They are saying that he did something with the three strikes law and that he is going to pardon a sea of people."

Check out our documentary on Norway's famously progressive prison system.

Meanwhile, advocates for clemency are pleased by the initiative, even if they think the White House is still moving slowly.

"Clearly, President Obama recognizes that too many people are serving sentences that are far too long in American prisons," Michael Santos, who served 26 years in federal prison while becoming an expert on criminal justice, says. "Yet the bar is too high.... he should commute the sentence of every offender who has earned freedom, every offender for whom continued incarceration no longer serves a useful purpose. By that metric, he would be commuting sentences by the tens of thousands rather than by the dozens."

The president clearly recognizes some of the problems with excessive sentences for drug crimes, but making the gears of the criminal justice system run in the other direction—toward freedom and away from more time behind bars—has been a slog.

"President Obama has been very good at talking the talk of clemency over the last couple of years, but we're still waiting for him to vigorously walk the walk," Douglas A. Berman, professor of criminal justice at Ohio State University, tells me. "He seems to be both genuine and committed to doing more, and I have good reason to believe he is going to start doing more and doing more on a reasonably regular basis—which would be a truly remarkable development and in contrast to any or the recent prior presidents.

"But even if he was able to commute 100 drug sentences a week, that is still less than the drug offenders that are sentenced every week," Berman argues. "It's of greater symbolic importance than substantive importance for the federal prison population."

I've had a lot of firsts after doing 21 years in prison. Watching the fireworks and seeing everyone celebrate on July 4, I realized the power of our national ideals. Despite the time I served, I am still proud to be an American—and so are plenty of the other prisoners serving time in our nation's prison system.

I only hope President Obama follows through and extends clemency—extends forgiveness—to as many prisoners as he can before it's too late. The age of incarceration and the War on Drugs is at a crossroads, and if we're an enlightened society, we have to treat those locked away with compassion. They have rights and liberties, too, and they ought to be restored sooner rather than later.

If America is the land of second chances, it's about time we provide that chance to more of her people.

Follow Seth Ferranti on Twitter.

Read more comics by Lauren Monger at her Tumblr and Twitter.

It's the Monday after San Diego Comic Con, and all across the land, nerd culture types are waking up with the equivalent of a hangover and some hazy memories of the weekend's revelries. (Did you watch the leaked Suicide Squad trailer? What about the Deadpool one? What about the panels? The panels were nice.) But it wouldn't be Comic Con without at least one shining jewel of hype, one panel, preview, or premiere that left everybody speechless. In years past, it came from Marvel, who gave us glimpses of Avengers in 2010 and Guardians of the Galaxy in 2013. This year, it came courtesy of Star Wars.

According to the minute-by-minute coverage from Comic Book Resources, the panel itself was mostly a parade of new cast members and returning stalwarts, among them the holy trinity of Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford. But among the friendly banter was a smattering of newer information about both The Force Awakens and upcoming Star Wars spinoff films. Rogue One, the first in a series of anthology films exploring different aspects of the Star Wars universe, was name-dropped by producer and Star Wars brand manager Kathleen Kennedy, who told the crowd that the film, directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) was due to begin production in three weeks. (Rogue One is apparently shaping up as a military sci-fi heist film, with a crew of Rebels attempting to steal plans for the Death Star. Rumors are that Darth Vader will be involved.) Meanwhile, Abrams offered an update on the progress of Star Wars: The Force Awakens: the initial cut has been completed, and they're currently in editing. We can look forward to a new trailer some time in the fall.

Instead of a trailer, the panel offered something a little bit more exciting: a behind the scenes look at the production of The Force Awakens that focused on the practical effects and location shooting that went into making the film. This is a particularly striking departure after the prequel films, which leaned heavily on cleaner CGI imagery, and is also a welcome divergence from current blockbuster filmmaking, which has been locked in a largely fruitless and increasingly unconvincing arms race when it comes to CG landscapes and creatures. The entire video is below and worth watching. With it comes the news that Simon Pegg (presumably suitably cowed after the flap regarding his comments on the childishness of geek culture) will have some kind of small role as an alien, for which he has been given an actual alien suit, like it's 1985 or something. Other highlights include a glimpse at real sets, real explosions, and a glimpse at a moving, flight-simulator like Millennium Falcon cockpit. If you're bonkers for practical effects, it's all very exciting.

The panel ended, by the way, with J.J Abrams taking every single person in an over 6,000 person crowd to a live Star Wars concert held off of the premises, which included a brief video message from John Williams mentioning that he was hard at work on the score for the new film. There was also apparently a series of Star Wars greatest musical hits played by a live orchestra from the San Diego Symphony, accompanied by well-timed fireworks.

Meanwhile, if your need for a Star Wars fix can't wait for The Force Awakens' December 18 release date, Marvel Comics offered an update regarding its excellent licensed Star Wars comics. Starting in November, Jason Aaron (Scalped, Thor) and Kieron Gillen (The Wicked and the Divine, Journey into Mystery) will be cooperating on a crossover of their respective series, Star Wars and Darth Vader. Entitled "Vader Down," the story focuses on Darth Vader crashing on a desolate alien planet and finding himself in the crosshairs of an entire Rebel army, which promises to go badly for everyone concerned. If you know anything about comics, Aaron and Gillen are both responsible for critically acclaimed work at Marvel and some fantastic creator-owned independent series, and both are excellent at sticking a slightly off-kilter sensibility into their corporate work.

On Motherboard: The Great Comic Con Trailer Roundup

The crossover will kick off with a large standalone comic, "Vader Down #1," before continuing in alternating issues of Star Wars and Darth Vader. Marvel is also adding a five issue Chewbacca mini-series to its lineup, which will feature your favorite dog-alien crashing on an alien planet (does nobody land anymore?) and helping out a young girl. Phil Noto (Black Widow) is on art, and Gerry Duggan (Deadpool) is on writing. As yet there is no word on whether or not Chewbacca's groans will be translated, but Marvel's currently putting out two comics with a main character that only communicates by saying "I am Groot!," so really, all bets are off. All of these comics mark the expansion of the new official cannon, meaning that whatever occurs in their pages officially, definitively happened to the characters, and may add characters that will appear elsewhere down the line.

With these announcements and the steady drip of rumors over the past few months, it seems clear that Disney is aiming not just to bring Star Wars back, but to make it the inescapable face of mainstream science fiction. Expect more announcements regarding Star Wars properties at the D23 Disney Expo in August, where the House of Mouse will likely reveal more news about upcoming spinoffs. Don't worry about the Force being with you. It's not likely to ever go away.

Asher Elbein is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas.

Greek citizens demonstrating for a 'No' vote.

Early this morning, after 17 hours of tough negotiations, Greece and the rest of the Eurozone country-members reached a preliminary deal for a third multibillion-euro bailout. The deal includes the imposition of tough economic measures, which the Greek Parliament must decide on within the next 48 hours. After having promised to put an end to the austerity that has been placed on the country over the last five years, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras will now have to introduce measures that seem even harder to implement. If not, the country could be kicked out of the Eurozone.

For the past five years, Greece has been struggling with a financial crisis, which it has so far marginally survived due to a bailout program of 240 billion euros ($264 billion)—borrowed from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund. After being elected in January 2014, the new SYRIZA government pledged to renegotiate the terms of that program with its international creditors. On June 26, after five months of negotiations, Tsipras announced a referendum, calling on the country to vote on whether to accept the new bailout proposal by its lenders. Almost 62 percent of the voters said "No" to that bailout package.

Greeks have taken to social media with their (conflicting) opinions on the new agreement. Some are expressing relief that the country avoided a so-called Grexit, while others can't stomach the severity of the measures. I contacted ten young Greek people via Facebook to ask them about their thoughts on the agreement.

Aris Xiros, 23

I have mixed feelings because, once again, it's the Greek people who will have to pay the bill. This is the first time that a Greek Prime Minister fought to change Europe's austerity policy, yet it seems that battle was lost. But I hope we can win the battle against corruption and nepotism, so that the Greeks, who have lost so much in the last five years, don't feel that it was all in vain.

Mc Bsx, 21

If you were to paint a map of Greece today, the only color that'd be appropriate is black. This country belongs to a generation of young people who have been sentenced to a life without dreams.

Today's agreement is catastrophic. I don't think this new "program" will ever work—there's no way that the Greek people will be able to endure everything it demands. It's a coup. The truth is that Greece has reached its limits and is destined to live under tragic conditions.

Joanna Panagiotopoulou, 21

On the one hand, the agreement could be looked at as being futile in the sense that, yet again, the measures are very tough. However, it's good that we managed to negotiate our fate for once—we didn't just accept whatever was sold to us. I think that we'll definitely end up staying in the euro, they just wanted to terrorize us.

Panagiotis Asimakopoulos, 24

This is just a continuation of the memoranda signed by previous governments. These measures continue to bleed—both metaphorically and literally—the Greeks dry. I think it's more relevant than ever for the people to demand a release from the European Union of economic murder.

Peter Christakopoulos, 21

This agreement was inevitable in order to keep our country in the Eurozone. However, it's a deal full of misery and hard measures. The only positive thing is that it includes debt restructuring, which should lead to political stability and economic normality. Hopefully it won't just be the poor Greek citizens paying this time.

The government basically trashed the "No" vote we gave them. Perhaps they made the right decision for now. I think the public recognizes that because, even under these conditions, the current government leads by a large margin compared to those that put us in this situation. Hope dies last, so let's wait and see what actually happens.

Konstantinos Dionysopoulos, 28

Even though this new memorandum basically outlines the destruction of our country, I remain hopeful that Alexis Tsipras can find the a way to keep that from happening. He owes it to history and to those who've supported him from the beginning.

Vaso Gougoula, 29

The last thing we need right now is panic. It is time for accountability. We need to remain calm and sober. It turned out that we, as a country, aren't this superpower that everyone is scared of—like we thought we were. They pushed us to the edge of a cliff and blackmailed us. This is a disgrace for Europe and a real humiliation for the pride of our people. I hope we make it.

Giorgos Kyriakopoulos, 31

The whole situation was a bit "between a rock and a hard place." We didn't really have many options. We chose "less-immediate destruction" and signed an agreement that doesn't differ from either of the previous ones. I don't think much will change because these measures are clearly recessionary.

Related: 'Teenage Riot: Athens'

Yiannis Michalakopoulos, 30

We went from: "We'll rip up the memorandum and demand German compensation" to mortgaging our country and signing off on the destruction of our future instead. I believe that young people will react to that soon.

Panos Alevizakis, 29

I think this deal will be extremely difficult for all of us, but we had to let the economy (which has been on its knees since the announcement of the referendum) catch its breath. If Tsipras does what he promised by going after the wealthy, then yes, things could work out and we could be happy.

Need a little more background? Here's a brief history of Greek debt.

Photo via Flickr user Melinda

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Hands up—who's awoken after sinking a few too many large house reds and not had the faintest idea about how you got home, or why there's a block of cheddar with a bite taken out of it on your pillow? Who's spent an entire Sunday in a cold sweat, wracking your brain for details of what happened the night before, too scared to text friends for fear of what they might tell you you've done? Well, if that's you, take a deep breath because it's likely you're going to recognize a lot of yourself in Sarah Hepola's memoir Blackout, a book about what it's like to be a fucking nightmare drunk.

When I call Hepola—an editor at Salon who lives in Dallas—to talk about her honest, unflinching, and very funny book, I tell her it struck such a chord that I had to put it down for a moment and dry my clammy palms. "It's kind of like one long trigger warning," Hepola conceded. "I've had several people tell me how painful it is to read, and I have mixed feelings about that because I don't mean to bring people pain, but I guess it's good to know you're not alone."

And Hepola certainly isn't alone. "If my inbox is any indication," she explains, "then England has a small blackout problem."

Once there's a certain level of booze in your blood, your brain stops forming memories entirely. As Hepola explains in her book: "The blood reaches a certain alcohol saturation point and shuts down the hippocampus—the part of the brain making long-term memories." So you can try as hard as you like to remember what happened, but it will be futile because there's absolutely nothing there. Zilch.

"It's simple: The recorder in your brain has shut down," Hepola tells me. "Blackouts were the scariest, craziest part of my drinking, and in all those years I never knew what was happening. That blind spot on its own is just stunning to me. And I've been really amazed at how many people—many of whom I considered smart, educated friends—did not know the difference between blacking out and passing out. They thought that blackout meant unconscious and asleep on the couch instead of being up and around and moving and functioning."

From the first time she got drunk, at age 13 (although she'd already discovered she had a taste for beer at 11), to the time she finally decided to quit drinking almost 25 years later, blackouts were something of a speciality for Hepola. Like most other people, it wasn't that she sought to get blackout drunk. She'd have a couple of drinks, have a few more, and then... nothing, until the next morning when the detective work on your own life begins with the help of little clues—receipts, text messages, the person lying next to you—to decipher what it is you did or said. And if there aren't any clues, then, well, good luck to you and your paranoia.

"I think the not knowing what happened is the worse part of the blackout experience," says Hepola. "But by my early twenties I did have some idea of what my behavior was like. I know I tend to take my clothes off—and not in a sexy way, in a weird, uncomfortable exhibitionist way that makes people want to step away from me. The other thing I know I do is cry uncontrollably about my own essential unlovability. And I would also be very aggressive sexually with men. And because I knew that I had these behaviors, when I woke up at about five or six in the morning after a night out, I would just be in bed, quivering with fear."

WATCH: The Drunken Student Disco:

The behaviors Hepola describes are not exclusive to the female blackout experience—men cry and get naked, too—but I'd hazard they will no doubt speak vividly to many women for whom heavy drinking is central to socializing. Even if you've never blacked out, Hepola's description of how she drank with her girlfriends—of wine being the "social glue" that held them together, of a bottle on the table as "a byword for 'Let's have a difficult conversation'"—will ring true.

When I suggest that women, perhaps more so than men, have the capacity to sit around a table all night working their way through bottle after bottle of wine, Hepola enthusiastically agrees. "You can watch the sun move across the sky, and the only way you can tell the time is by how many empties are piled up in the corner. That is literally your only metric, because you haven't moved for six hours. It's like: 'We're going to get through everything. We're going to drink it all.'"

There's no question that alcohol consumption—especially among university-educated women—has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. A report on dangerous drinking, undertaken by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development earlier this year, revealed that highly educated British women drink more than any other similar group in the Western world. It's a phenomenon being labeled by some as the "dark side of equality"; the idea that, as women find more work in traditionally male environments, become more financially independent, and delay motherhood, they start drinking like men, too.

But I don't think that's the whole story. Not all women drink to be like men, or to match them. Especially as the stats showed that the heaviest drinkers in that bracket were doing their imbibing alone at home.

The height of Hepola's drinking was during the early days of Sex and the City which, as she puts it, "was a celebration of sisterhood—sisterhood as experienced through the pressure valve release of a shared cocktail."

The image of Carrie and co getting a bit tipsy on a cosmopolitan might be beyond naff now, but at the time the show was symbolic of how alcohol had become inextricably linked to female empowerment.

And for any teenage girl who watched SATC, it made drinking and smoking in a big city with your best gal pals look like the coolest thing in the world. And that's because it kind of is.

"We glamorize drinking. We portray it as what it makes us feel like—'I'm sexy! I'm pretty! I'm funny! Clink-clink'—but we rarely show what it really looks like."

Photo by Jake Krushell

And what it really looks like, or at least what it looked like for Hepola as she entered her thirties, was falling down stairs, almost burning down her own house, being overweight, and having friends that no longer speak to you.

"You normalize things by laughing about them—as long as everyone's laughing about the fact you fell down the stairs, it's no big deal. But my antics were getting less and less amusing, and that's a huge part of when you know you have a problem."

How did you feel, I ask, when those people had to have THAT conversation with you?

"I was fucking heartbroken. Fucking heartbroken. I was embarrassed first of all. And I felt like everyone had broken a social contract—that they had said it was OK and now they were telling me it wasn't.

"I kept thinking something's going to stop me. Something's going to come along and it's going to take the wine glass out of my hand—I'm going to get pregnant, or I'm going to fall in love—but what I found was that all these things changed around me and I held on to that wine glass."

Hepola tried to stop drinking many times, and in the end it wasn't a catastrophically cringe-inducing incident that finally made her give up the bottle for good—rather the realization that her life might never change otherwise.

"One of the reasons you keep drinking is because you feel like a terrible person. What make me feel good now is that I can use my experiences to help others. 'Me too' is a very important phrase. It makes you realize you are not alone."

'Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget' by Sarah Hepola (Grand Central Publishing)

Follow Liv on Twitter.

Chilean author Alejandro Zambra , age 40, has published two books of poems and three novels, Bonsai, The Private Lives of Trees, and Ways of Going Home—all translated into English. His most recent publication, My Documents, has received a fanfare rarely enjoyed by story collections. He recently published a story in the New Yorker, was announced as "the new star of Latin American literature," and his books have been translated into more than ten languages. Not bad for a writer who spends his time teaching at a university in his native Chile and who recently has been searching in films for what's he encountered in literature: personal stories that, for the most part, are set in Chile and masterfully narrated.

His latest book published in Spanish, Facsímil, will appear in English from Penguin in the near future. But thanks to My Documents, his name has begun to be heard more and more. The stories that make up this book feel personal, close to the author. There's the literature professor who talks about books with a wealthy businessman he met on the phone while working at a call center. There's a story about a boy's relationship with computers and lit. There's another about a young writer who must take care of a house and, when meeting a neighbor, pretends it's his own. And then there's one about a Chilean ( published by VICE this past February) who spontaneously travels to Belgium to surprise his girlfriend, only to discover she's no longer interested in him.

Zambra spoke over Skype from his apartment in Santiago about the grant that will bring him to live in New York in September and what it's like to be a writer who's read in the United States.

VICE: How do you feel about coming to live in New York?
Alejandro Zambra: Well, I like it. But I like living in Chile just as much. It's good to work here. I'm working on a book that's not going very well but that nevertheless exists. I'm not sure if it's a novel or a long essay—it's about a personal library, about the accumulation of books, told from multiple perspectives. At times, it's almost a parody. I'd like to place myself a little in the background of this one. It's a personal essay, but there's fiction in there too. And I have friends in New York. Good friends. True friends, I want to say.

Your stories are very personal and familiar, but they occur in the physical and mental geography of Chile. How can readers from other countries relate to something that happens on the other side of the world?
I ask myself the same question, Camilo. You're Chilean, so you know my books are very Chilean. But there's this external construction of "The Chilean" that I don't feel is in my books. On the contrary. When The Private Lives of Trees appeared in the US, someone said, "The book's all well and good, but why is it Latin American literature?" Obviously a sort of idiot said this, because he thought Latin American literature is a genre that requires a handful of recurrent themes. But, really, I'm totally uninterested in that. You can have lots of plans, all sorts of expectations and ideas, but these certainties dissolve when you're writing.

Zambra speaking to the author over Skype. Screenshot by the author

I also wonder how it's read outside Chile. I think Megan McDowell's translations are very good. English is the only other language I can more or less read well, so I have an opinion, but it's not my language. I work very closely with her. We talk a lot about the translations, the intended shade of a phrase, its various meanings, which is tremendously nourishing for me. In a sense, it makes me think one really reads the book I wrote.

I suppose there's a certain reticence on my part regarding the typical, but it seems this can't be confused with an unwillingness to observe reality. From a distance I hear the discourse about how "Latin America today is neither a rural nor urban reality" and, OK, it could be like that, but we can write about the countryside if we want to. Everything that constricts or removes your freedom seems insubstantial, really. Literature always defies the rules—and in the end, everyone writes what they want or what they can write.

"I think all books are autobiographical. There's this misunderstanding that fiction is a lie. Many writers say it. But fiction isn't the opposite of the truth." —Alejandro Zambra

Do you think the translations are different books that lose a little of the initial message?
It could be, because you don't have any control. But the truth is that the book in Spanish is important to me. If there's a reception that's important to me, it's the Chilean one, not to mention the official critics, people who are very important to me. And in general the authorship occurred there too.

But with translations, it always seems strange—I never intended to see them published. If someone says, "I read your book of poems." I say, "Why?" There's no way to follow the sequence that ends in an exchange with a reader of a translated book. But a beautiful thing about publishing in this other dimension is that you lose control, like in that poem by Emily Dickinson: "This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me." You send a letter and people receive it.

I also have a certain ambiguous feeling because a good translator is extremely opposed to using clarifying footnotes. But as a reader I like those notes at the bottom of the page, and not only because I'm a Foster Wallace fanatic—more so, I dislike not understanding what I've read. It'd be wrong for me to say, "This book isn't like the one I wrote." Of course it's not in the original language, which makes it another book. But this is also understood as a part of the game. Otherwise, it'd be ridiculous to include authors who write in other languages in your list of favorites.

Beauty and Sadness [by Yasunari Kawabata] is one of my favorite novels, but I read it in an edition that was translated from Japanese into French and from French to Spanish. Somehow the book survives all this and impresses. The truth is, I don't care if what I'm reading is original or not if I like what I'm reading.

I remember one time I was in Bogotá, talking at the National University. Everything was going very well, but I noticed that someone was laughing a lot. What I was saying merited a bit of laughter, sure, but he was laughing a lot. Afterwards, when he approached me, I asked, "Why were you laughing so much?" and he responded, "No, you were really good" and I said, "No, you were laughing more than anyone else—what's up?" He said when he heard me speak he couldn't help remember these Chilean clowns on 1970s Colombian TV. These Chilean clowns became really popular. It became fashionable for all clowns in Colombia to speak like Chileans. So now every time he hears a Chilean, he thinks they talk like clowns. Someone showed me a tape and, yeah, they speak very much like Chileans. It seemed very funny to me. These things interest me a lot.

"He said when he heard me speak he couldn't help remember these Chilean clowns on 1970s Colombian TV. Someone showed me a tape and, yeah, they speak very much like Chileans." —Alejandro Zambra

In the New Yorker , you said you started writing prose because your poetry wasn't very good, and you started to write poetry when you realized you weren't going to be a rock star or soccer player. You write about soccer, but not much about rock. How are these worlds related?
I've had really eclectic musical tastes since I was little so I know a lot about music. But I lost the fantasy. I had a group associated with Latin American folk—the music they listened to at the barbecues, the strumming sessions, also the music of AM radio and later Los Prisioneros I once thought this array of listening was essential for an eclectic citizen. On the album La Voz de Los 80s, there's a reggae song, and there's something half-ska. Lots of styles. It's influenced by the Clash, too.

Later I had these periods when I decided I liked something more like Anthrax. I was more of a poser. I liked Skid Row. And then the Pet Shop Boys. They were all associated with different ways of dressing, and everything was very Zelig in a musical sense. Later I decided I didn't like it. The truth is that the music I've always liked has been rock, folk, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, later the Kinks and folkloric music, like Violeta Parra. I learned how to play guitar when I was very young, but then I had a very Silvio Rodríguez-esque period, a soft and smooth vibe. The idea was to put out songs that were lyrical because Silvio Rodríguez is poetic. But then more recently the invention of the iPod shuffle worked well for me. There are many songs I listen to that aren't well known. There's a song by Burt Bacharach called "Any Day Now"—the version I like is by Chuck Jackson. I discovered it ten years ago, and for ten years I bet I've listened to it every day. At best, I should write an essay about this song.

But the most important music for me is Los Prisioneros, whom I believe are very Chilean in their eclecticism. Victor Jara and Jorge González's voices are crude, rude, and yet they sing lyrics that are often sentimental. The Chilean albums I like most are Corazones and Las Ultimas Composiciones de Violeta Parra—the synthesis of the work she did with Chilean music. It's also a record that contains many other styles. But I've internalized everything, the mix of Pet Shop Boys with Sandro...

A performance of 'Any Day Now' by Chuck Jackson from 1965

With ballads?
With the Latin ballad of AM radio. Now I listen a lot to a song by Father John Misty called "I'm Writing a Novel." When I'm writing, I put this song on when I take a break. I like when he says, "I'm writing a novel because it's never been done before."

With soccer, to be a fan of Colo-Colo is the only aspect of my heritage I've never questioned. At 12, 13 years old, one sees much of the world as a function of the family. But then I started to disengage, in all senses of the word, which led to literature and whatever didn't have to do with my family. Your opinions aren't the same as those of your parents. Everyone goes through this. I never questioned it. Parents don't only try to make you think like them—they also want you to like what they like. But I always rejected the things my father liked because my father did everything well. If he was playing dominoes, he had to learn the logic behind it and I would get bored.

Later in the 90s I started to think that soccer was a substitute for real debates.

On Noisey, check out 'The Psychedelia of Santiago: South America's Hotbed of Retro Rock'

Like the week when the Copa América was in Chile...
Like that week. I have an ambiguous relationship with soccer, too. It reminds me of the parody on The Simpsons about soccer: There's a play-by-play announcer talking about the game with lots of enthusiasm, but what you see are two guys passing the ball back and forth in the middle of the field. It can seem really boring, but it's a pleasurable boredom because it's so simple. The experience of going to a stadium made me like soccer. There's this collective venting, the people say everything, you're allowed to say anything. When I was young, they didn't always show the games on TV, or only a few, so I taped them on the radio and listened to them later. Games on the radio are absolutely like literature—the metaphors, the pacing, the need for an evolving style. You can't always say the same thing. The role of the play-by-play announcer seems much more interesting to me than that of the color commentator. In the end, the announcer is the narrator and the commentator is the literary critic [ laughs].

From 'The Simpsons'

You've said that your writing process is based on rewriting, cleaning. Bonsai is a short novel, but at first it was much longer.
That's right. Now I don't know if it's cleaning. Now I see it from another perspective. When I was young I had access to computers, because my father was a computer technician. He defended computers as the future. I collected books, and my books were my world. When I was 16 years old, my dad said, "Why are you collecting so many books? In 20 more years they'll all be on a little computer." And I said, "Dad, what are you saying? Books will never disappear." I always wrote by hand, but I always also used the computer. I think a lot of my writing comes from the computer. These are the sort of things writers never want to say.

But I do think that when you write you have to forget about correcting what you're doing, because it impedes the flow. Forget how it's going to be read. Forget if it will be published or not. This comes later in a form of post-production.

Watch our VICE Meets with Norwegian literary superstar Karl Ove Knausgaard:

I've been learning how to edit videos in Final Cut and Adobe Premiere. It's very addictive, absorbing, and fun. Revision is a word that sounds restrictive, but it's really not—it's part of the business, the second stage after you let things loose. Of course you fall in love with the material, as the curators say, which is a problem—you fall in love with a phrase, an image.

Even with Bonsai, I think there were different books in my head at first. I spent a lot of time with the idea. First it was a book of poems. For a long time this was a book I was writing for my friends. They said, "What are you up to?" and I said, "I'm writing a book called Bonsai." I tried to explain it a little, but it was a difficult idea to explain. Later I started to write some prose and I think they were different projects. The second part of Bonsai, for example, was a different book. Later I realized it was the same book—and when I realized this, I wrote the rest very quickly. I also started to shorten it. There was some pretty explicit talk in this project about pruning. Bonsai trees are quasi-lyrical images, half-diffuse and ambiguous. I liked them, but at the same time I found them repellent because they're tortured trees. "One must cut the mother root"—if you read a bonsai manual, there's a ton of language that out of context seems like poetry. This conceptual development was washed through with a chaotic and natural question related to the love of stories. The first scenes of "Bonsai" are about these kids who get together to study. Even when I wrote them I was thinking, I think this is superficial. I was much more serious and intellectual at the time. This is like a party of kids, I thought, but at the same time it included my sense of humor and melancholy. I remember I found it odd to write like this. I wasn't planning it, but the moment it appeared, I liked it.

"[The Bolaño comparison] bothers me a little since I come out losing—and I will always lose. He's an immense and irreducible writer." —Alejandro Zambra

Now you're working on a film based on the story "Family Life." What are your hopes for it?
What I hoped for I've already achieved. I had never written a screenplay. We produced a very good thing with Christian Jimenez and Alicia Scherson (the directors). I met Christian when he adapted Bonsai for film and, other than sometimes asking questions, he didn't bother me when working on that one. With Bonsai, they laughed because my screenplay was in Word, 16-point type. They said, "What's this?" They said screenplay programs exist, but I wrote my screenplay in this word processor. They're friends. I'm interested in their work. We made it with very little money. Friends acted in it. During shooting I was the screenwriter, but also the chauffeur for the actors and the psychologist for a cat always hanging around on set.

It's really a parallel film more than a direct adaption of the story. Truthfully, when I wrote the story, I always thought of the possibility of a film. There was something in the story's feeling I wanted to see developed visually.

I acted, too. It was a heavy experience. I can be histrionic because I'm a professor. It's very strange—you don't know exactly what you're doing when you're acting or how it's going to look. I had a small role but not a cameo. I've heard many times that directors and other people involved in films often say they like the process the most. The result depends on so many factors. One good thing about cinema is there's always someone to blame.

I've always been interested in making things other than books. When I wrote Bonsai, there was a sense to make something that hadn't been made before—to explore. I don't want to be obligated to anything, like having to write a book over a certain period of time. It sounds so empty to speak of liberty in a creative sense, but what you do can't be compromised—it always has to give you a certain amount of joy.

In the United States inevitably when they talk about you they talk about Roberto Bolaño. Was his work important for you?
Yes. The first one I read was Nazi Literature in the Americas . I remember perfectly. I was in a bookstore called the Furious Toy. It only stayed open for two years because there were three owners who were all literature graduates and they didn't like to sell any crap. I remember one time an actor entered and I was there with the owner, who was a friend of mine. Always after school I headed there. This actor entered like a famous actor and said, "Hey, recommend a book for me," and the owner said, "I can't recommend anything for you because I don't know who you are." [L aughs] A bookstore with these criteria wasn't going to last very long.

So then I had the brilliant idea of writing a book with various authors, four or five friends. We'd invent a writer and interview him, etc. I wanted my bookstore-owner friend to be one of the authors and he said, "Yes, it's a good idea, but check out this writer—he's a Chilean who lives in Barcelona and seems a little like what you're thinking, plus he's super good." As soon as I opened it, I saw it was a book that parodies manuals, a book with lots of sarcasm, and with this thing Bolaño does of making worlds interesting that in theory shouldn't be interesting at all. I continued reading, and he became one of the few writers whom I read as soon as his books were published.

Later, when I was a literary critic, it was always a pleasure whenever I received a Bolaño book. I understand that there are always these comparisons. I'm a little embarrassed about them because I believe he's a great writer. It bothers me a little since I come out losing [ laughs]—and I will always lose. He's a writer whom I like very much. His writing is simultaneously contemporary and classic, which is what I also like about Thomas Mann and Elias Canetti. The humor, too. He's an immense and irreducible writer. One can say, "Bolaño, Bolaño," but no one knows very well what they're really saying when they say this. " Bolaño-ian"? What's this mean? He can't be labeled. Labels are never right anyway. Garcia Márquez isn't magical realism. The Garcia Márquez novel that I like the most, No One Writes to the Colonel, doesn't have anything magical in it. It's a heartbreaking realism. No one flies. I love that they can't label Bolaño—it demonstrates the power of literature.

The comparison doesn't bother me because I understand it but, sure, I wind up disservice in the end.

It sounds so empty to speak of liberty in a creative sense, but what you do can't be compromised—it always has to give you a certain amount of joy. —Alejandro Zambra

You always talk about childhood, about your college period, about travels, about everything related to youth. Your literature is based on your own experience?
I think all books are autobiographical. I've never understood this definitive line between fiction and not fiction, probably because no one asks a poet if their book is autobiographical. There's this misunderstanding that fiction is a lie. Many writers say it. But fiction isn't the opposite of the truth.

As far as themes go, I really never proceed with one in mind, like, "I'm going to write about this." Ways of Going Home might be my most "thematic" novel. Its origin involved writing about these neighborhoods with identical houses in Maipú (a county of Santiago de Chile) that don't have any apparent grace. And later, sure, infancy and the dictatorship—it's impossible not to confuse them and record this influence. Deep down this is the novel's theme.

Your next projects are based in the present?
I'm in a moment of out-of-control projectismo right now, but that's because I always have multiple projects underway. I always have many ideas so I don't follow through on them all. I'm writing three books. There's the one, a sort of short novel or long story called "Chilean Poet." It's about the life of an 18-year-old Chilean poet about to leave high school. He doesn't want to study in the university because he wants to be a poet. He's going to study only when the education is free because he doesn't want to go into debt. This is his excuse, but he's very passionate about Chilean poetry. It's about the myth of Chilean poetry in Chile. All things related to Chilean poetry are odd. It's filled with half-eccentric figures. No one reads poetry, but it occupies a place in the collective imagination because we won two Nobel Prizes. The genesis of this book or long story is odd because it occurred to me as a television series. I'm a Louie fanatic, but in Chile they don't see Louie. It's not on TV. But with Louie, the freedom impresses me so much. He does what he wants. That's how this story occurred to me. Seinfeld, which has nothing much to do with Louie, also involves a guy in a similar scenario. In my case, it's poetry readings. So I imagined a series about this poet. It seemed entertaining to pitch this project to see if it could be made. For the treatment, they said, "Write it like it was a story, without worrying about scenes, like telling a story." I liked the prose that appeared, so I kept writing. I pitched it, but they didn't take the project. What I liked most about the project was showing people and places I know well. It's where I'm from and I'm very interested in showing how life unfolds there.

The second project is a novel with a working title of Dream Exams that's very much set in the present. And the third project, Personal Cemeteries, is about libraries. I don't know what it really is yet—an essay with a lot of fiction and stories mixed in. The story in part tells about why a certain book wasn't returned. They're real stories—it's fiction, but not in the sense that these stories never occurred. The feeling and the pulse of the story are important, what the presence of the various titles triggers. I thought one book would take precedence over another, but there are days I write a little on one and a little on another. I feel like it's a problem, but really it's stupid to think this way. It would be a problem if I were trying to write and nothing ever came.

Translated from the Spanish by Lee Klein.

Alejandro Zambra's My Documents is available from McSweeney's in the US and Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK.

Follow Camilo Salas on Twitter.

Doctors performing a caesarean. Photo via Flickr

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"Lady I can deliver your baby but first let me take a selfie," wrote smooth-talking Venezuelan student obstetrician Daniel Sanchez on his Instagram page last week. In the accompanying picture he smirks at the camera while a woman, naked from the waist down, gives birth behind him. Another obstetrician's fingers are still in, or around, her vagina as she begins crowning.

Sanchez (who has since set his Instagram account to private) went on to boast that his team can "bring kids into the world and reconstruct pussies," claiming their skills are such that women (and implicitly their partners) can look forward to being "brand new, like a car with zero kilometers on the clock." How splendid, say the image's 31 likers. Unfortunately for Sanchez, more than 4,000 people who signed a petition calling for disciplinary action to be taken against him think it's less acceptable.

In an email exchange with the petition's creator (Jesusa Ricoy of the Roses Revolution, a global movement against obstetric violence) Sanchez has apologized for any offense while denying taking the picture himself. He carefully mansplains to us all that the woman in question is respected because "you cannot see her genitals or her face" and assures that she gave consent. He's also keen to make it known that he is one of the most empathetic students on the team and that women often request that he specifically perform their vaginal examinations, saying, "doctor hagame el tacto usted que es mas delicado" ("doctor you touch me because you are more gentle").

Even if Sanchez did gain the unidentified woman's consent before displaying an intensely private and vulnerable moment to the world, his priorities were skewed. She was busy pushing a small human out of her body. Having done that a couple of times myself I'm confident that posing for a photo wasn't at the top of her to-do list.

But that's only part of the problem. Most shocking to me is the power dynamic in the photo. The woman is surrounded. She's on her back, at a moment of birth where she can't move even if she wanted to. The doctors are standing, uniformed against her nudity. They have faces, feelings, and agency. She has been reduced to a torso. A reproductive channel to be rooted around in without regard.

Jesusa Ricoy started the online protest against the image to "tackle the culture in which this kind of thing is permitted and accepted." Her movement was founded in response to a series of cartoons in the Spanish Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists journal that shamed, mocked, and sexualized women. With oversized breasts matching their inane questions, reduced to splayed legs and genitals in stirrups or running with a vaginal prolapse dragging on the ground to the delight of chasing dogs; it was clear how these doctors viewed the women they were supposed to care for. Despite protests, the Society has never apologized for the cartoons.

Sanchez's photo isn't a lone example. This image of an apparently unconscious, naked woman after a caesarean section was again posted online by doctors. Over this weekend Ricoy found another medic instagramming dubious birth images. Nurse Francisco Salgado has now deleted his photo showing the post-birth stitching of a woman's perineum. A tastefully blurred and bloodied vagina and thighs is the background of an in-focus head attending to her. Salgado has added a caption that reads; "someone will be in my eternal debt #thankfulhusbandsstich." The "husband stitch" refers to the practice of painfully suturing a woman's vaginal opening to be smaller and tighter than before birth.

Of course the images in and of themselves aren't the real problem. They are simply hieroglyphics for much of what's wrong with the way women are treated in childbirth and, more broadly, throughout their reproductive lives. Away from the filtered reality of Instagram, the power is still usually in the wrong place.

Venezuela was the first country to legally recognize the term " obstetric violence." The law forbids abusive practices and anything that brings with it "loss of autonomy and the ability to decide freely about their bodies and sexuality, negatively impacting the quality of life of women." The legal definition has provided hope around the world, but the reality in many Venezuelan hospitals is still grim.

In Brazil last year Adelir Carmen Lemos de Góes was taken from her home by police and forced against her will to have a cesarean section because doctors didn't agree with her birth choices. Routinely, according to the recent Birth in Brazil study, vaginal birth is a lonely world of pain. Women are denied the opportunity to have a companion, access pain relief, or the freedom to move around in labor. The caesarean section rate is out of step with women's preferred choice of labor with a recent study showing that while 73 percent of women want a vaginal birth, 50-80 percent of them end up with cesarean sections.

This isn't a problem unique to South America. It's so endemic that the World Health Organization has launched a campaign explaining that "across the world many women experience disrespectful, abusive, or neglectful treatment during childbirth in facilities. These practices can violate women's rights, deter women from seeking and using maternal health care services and can have implications for their health and well-being."

Related: Abortion Access in the Maritimes

While those in the developing world are often hit hardest by abusive practices and a culture that dehumanizes childbearing women, it would be naive to think this doesn't impact women closer to home as well. Activists Cristen Pascucci and Lindsay Atkins's newly launched "Exposing the Silence" photo project documents women in the US who have experienced obstetric violence. There are equally shocking forced cesarean cases in the US and a rising culture of punitive measures against pregnant women who seek to restrict their reproductive freedoms more broadly.

The UK does better, but women still report intimate, surgical procedures being performed without their consent. A lack of dignity and compassion is cited time and again in investigations into failing maternity units and tragic, avoidable deaths. Women say that they are made to feel like vessels, not human beings, in birth.

Humanity is the key to breaking down acceptance of practices that not only humiliate, imprison, endanger, and abuse women, but eat away at their basic rights. In South America the extent of the problem has provoked a revolutionary solution. The humanizing birth movement (resulting in government-sponsored programs like the Stork Network in Brazil) pushes for safe and quality care with a woman-centered, respectful approach at all times. Putting basic human dignity back in to childbirth and reversing the power balance is an approach now being watched and emulated around the world.

Forced cesareans, obstetric violence, and dehumanized care can seem a world away from an arrogant junior doctor with a selfie-stick. But women are shamed and dehumanized in the birth room every day. Their heads may as well be cropped out, as in Sanchez's photo, as they lie stranded, just identity-less vaginas awaiting rescue or pillage; the balance of power tipped entirely in the wrong direction. It's women, not doctors, who "bring kids into the world." Let's start with getting that on the first page of the obstetric text book.

Follow Rebecca Schiller on Twitter.