lost trains of thought

New Blog

2011-01-09T04:55:00.001-08:00

I —together with my dear and misanthropic friend Santiago— can now be found here:

http://indecidibles.blogspot.com/

Thanks

Street Hassle

2010-09-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

In Either/Or, Kierkegaard says: "If you marry, you'll regret it; if you don't marry, you'll regret it as well."

This thought can set us free: if happiness is impossible, then we are liberated from pursuing it. We don't have to anxiously decide what will bring us less pain —if we treat everything as lost, the fear of loss will disappear —and we might as well just do whatever we want to do.

Then again, Lou Reed provides an alternative —at the end of the first section he sings:

"Neither one regretted a thing."

Despite the apparent contradiction, the two ideas might be compatible. Perhaps if we make our decisions as if happiness were impossible, we will find ourselves unregretting —if we abandon the pursuit of happiness, if we cease to compare our life to an impossible ideal, we might find that we suffer less.

The Saddest Equations

2010-09-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

At one point near the end of the class, Rimbaud stood up in the middle of the seminar table and to the horror of the professor spoke thus:

We are prime examples of the modern youth: so mature & self-aware —self-doubting, self-obsessed, unstill, suspicious —heartbroken & heavy-hearted —undersexed & underslept & overthinking —neurotic, in a word —quixotic, if you will.

We are the well-read insomniacs of the future, and we will feed generations of oculists and ophthalmologists: night after night we burn our pale blue irises by candlelight, but we find no answer.

And with the years we begin to suspect there is no answer; and we become old in our youth.

We try to make light of it; we parade ourselves in the face of misery ever so fashionable —ever so ironic —but our laughter rings hollow, and a voice in our ear whispers: Do you want this again and again and again? Is this what you want? Is this what you truly want?

And in the brief instants —usually late at night, alone in front of a mirror —when we cannot drown the voice out, we shiver with terror.

And so I say that something has got to change. We cannot continue this way. I cannot continue this way.

And I think that if we are to change, we must first of all reinvent love —and solve the saddest equations.

The Overman

2010-09-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

You said: "I teach you the overman!" No wonder they didn't listen! You should have said: "I teach you Picasso!" After all, the herd learns better through particular examples.

A Closed Space

2010-09-14T11:01:00.001-07:00

Every morning, the men in suits drive the boy to school. The Volkswagen Passat is silver and elegant and discrete, full of the chemical smell of pine freshener. The windows are thick and heavy and unmovable, and so the men in suits never turn the air conditioning off. Cradled by its soft sound and the early hour, the boy dozes off in the backseat, morning after morning. When they get to the imposing concrete building, the boy gets out of the car and thanks the men in suits and walks away. The men in suits then watch Sylvester Stallone movies on a portable DVD player and smoke cigarettes and go buy cokes for each other. Later in the day they drive the boy back home. The boy picks a rock album from a large CD holder and asks them politely to put it on. He then nods his head rhythmically and taps his knees for the duration of the journey.

Some afternoons the men in suits drive the boy a couple of blocks down the street to the house of his best friend. There he sits in a moldy basement and drinks beer and listens to records and talks for long hours to two other boys who are very much like him, but drive their own, battered down cars. Meanwhile, the men in suits wait outside and tell each other blatantly false stories of their time in the force.

Other afternoons the men in suits drive the boy all the way across Mexico City to his father’s office. During these longer rides the boy usually reads a book. The boy sometimes wishes he could talk to the men in suits about books or rock and roll records, but the men in suits don’t really read or listen to music. They only drive the car and watch Stallone movies and lie to each other.

On Friday nights, the men in suits drive the boy downtown to the diminutive apartment of one of the boy’s older cousins. Here the boy drinks rum and coke and steps on girls’ feet and fails at kissing them. Around two in the morning the men in suits drive him back home. Sometimes they have to stop at a red light and quickly open the heavy door so that the boy can throw up. After dropping him off, the men in suits go to a nearby bar and silently drink themselves to stupefaction.

Then one afternoon the boy comes out of the house with a smile on his face, carrying a brand new electric bass guitar and a small amplifier. The men in suits load the two black bags into the trunk of the elegant yet discrete car and open the door for the boy. The boy asks politely to be taken to the house of his longhaired friend. The green door of the residential compound opens wide and the silver car exits into the street. Parked right in front of the green door there is a blue, unwashed Nissan Tsuru. It starts as the Passat exits the compound. In the old blue car are six or seven dark skinned men wearing working clothes. Some of them have tattoos. The men in suits turn left towards the best friend’s house and notice that the other car has turned left as well. They don’t talk or look at each other. Following the procedure, they turn right in the next intersection. The boy notices but pretends not to notice. After a couple of turns, the old blue car is still there. One of the men whispers a cryptic message into a radio. The boy stares into his book, making an effort not to look behind his shoulder. He tries to read, but the printed letters start to look like agonizing spiders. He then hears a click, and looks up. The men in suits are quietly assembling guns. Nobody says a word, and the only sound in the comfortable interior of the armored car is the omnipresent hum of the air conditioning and the nasal voice of some rock singer.

Then the man in a suit who is driving steps on the accelerator and makes a sharp turn right, into a small side street. The silver car roars and dashes past the small grocery stores where old women listen to the radio surrounded by multicolored products. At the end of the street, the driver makes a u-turn and stops. The three of them wait, listening to an excessive guitar solo. Two or three minutes pass. The co-pilot looks at his partner and gets out of the car, clutching the gun with both hands. He walks, slowly, down the narrow sunlit street, past the parked taxis where young men take naps or read pornography. He disappears from the sight of the boy and of the other man, who sits up very straight, his eyes fixed on the street and his hands on the wheel of the car. After a couple of minutes the bodyguard returns. He opens the door and gets in. He sighs.

—They were only construction workers —he says.

The other man nods and starts the car. They drive away, from closed space to closed space, the boy sobbing in the backseat.

New Haven

2010-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

El aire del norte es afilado,
cuchillos y navajas húmedos de rocío;
una presencia inquietante
que lame la hierba y las piedras
y agudiza los ángulos y los silencios;

es una parvada helada e intangible;
esquirlas de humo, brillantes
en el fulgor del mediodía;

es un acero que hiere limpiamente,
que muerde, como los dientes
de una amante despechada.

An Aphorism

2010-09-09T13:53:00.001-07:00

Love your drives and let thought be an afterthought; be an artist, that is, a professional forgeter; or, in short, make Nietzsche the conscience of your conscience.

Messina

2010-08-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Today I desired you like a beggar,
as I walked the sunlit streets.

I saw cadavers of birds
frozen midair by the forceful hand of death;
I saw the remnants of a palace
with the tall windows all broken,
and the tiles of the courtyard defeated by poisonous botanicals.

By midday the world was full of your absence,
and I was alone, already a part of the ruins.

Then hungry for the harsh Sicilian sun,
the vines began to feed upon my flesh.

Birth of a Fascist

2010-08-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Revolutionary students share a flat. One of them is clearly Ashkenatzi. The other one perhaps German, perhaps French. They go to school together, faculty of philosophy, and attend a famous Marxist study group in a nameless European city. The Ashkenatzi excels in everything, making the other one jealous and hateful. One night the German or French student brings out a guitar and begins playing and singing traditional songs of his country. He is not very good. He finishes playing and asks the Ashkenatzi:

—Do you like my song, boy?

To which the Ashkenatzi replies, honestly and simply,

—No.

The other one stands up, drops the guitar and asks:

—You don't like my song, then? You don't? If I were a little boy two hundred years ago and I came to you in the streets and played my sad song in the accordion you wouldn't give me money, wouldn't you? You would let me starve.

The Ashkenatzi student looks at his flatmate in silent terror, not knowing what to do.

—That's right! —screams the other one— You would let me starve!

After a brief moment he adds in a whisper:

—You fucking Jew.

He then proceeds to brutally murder the Ashkenatzi. Fade to black.

El Antro

2010-07-31T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hoy pagué quince euros

para entrar al fondo del infierno
—había luces y ruido rítmico
como golpes eléctricos a la espina dorsal,
y a mi alrededor gente que
no era sino partículas erráticas,
chocando unas con otras en el vacío.

Mike Rose: Latinoamericano Honorario

2010-05-07T20:52:00.001-07:00

Mike Rose es mi mejor amigo aquí en Yale. Se trata de un Aquiles hebreo de dos metros de altura, sorprendente musculatura, y poderosa melena rubía y rizada. Mike es actor y amante de Shakespeare, y su personalidad es una extraña mezcla del übermensch y un nerd roedor y tímido. Le gusta la nueva trova y la literatura del boom.

En fín, he aquí el final essay de Mike. Es sobre la Soledad en tres escritores latinoamericanos. Me parece que es excelente. Espero que les guste.

La Búsqueda del Otro

“Todos los hombres,” escribe Octavio Paz, en el apéndice al Laberinto de la Soledad, “en algún momento de su vida, se sienten solos; y más: todos los hombres están solos.” Según Paz, el deseo de remediar esta soledad primordial es la motivación más profunda del hombre, de la cual provienen todas las acciones e ideas que componen su ser. La soledad como la define Paz es una presencia fundamental en la literatura Latínamericana, y aquí voy a examinar sus representación en el poema Walking Around de Pablo Neruda, el cuento El Sur de Jorge Luís Borges, y la novela Pedro Páramo de Juan Rulfo.

“Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.” La sintaxis de este primer verso de Walking Around implica que el “yo” del poema se siente separado de si mismo. La conjugación impersonal del verbo “suceder” dennota un acontecimiento externo, mientras “que me canso” dennota un sentimiento interno, y esta tension entre el ser interior del “yo” del poema y el exterior se expresa en el poema como el deseo constante de escapar de si mismo. Neruda enlista las cosas externas de las que el “yo” del poema se cansa: “El olor de las peluquerías me hace llorar a gritos/….sólo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,/ ni mercaderías, ni anteojos, ni ascensores.” Todos estos elementos funccionan para ordernar o mejorar algún elemento de la naturaleza, para que esta cumpla las exigencias de nuestra sociedad. El cansacio del poema, entonces, es cansancio de la intención humana de cambiar la naturaleza.

En la tercera estrófa, sin embargo, Neruda nos previene contra una interpretación tan sencilla: “Sucede que me canso de mis pies y mis uñas/ y mi pelo y mi sombra.” Los pies son la parte del hombre que lo conecta con la tierrra, y las uñas y el pelo se cuentan entre esos elementos que la sociedad exige sean cortados y refinados en las peluquerías y otros establecimientos. Este cansancio de la intención de cambiar a la naturaleza viene acompañado de cansancio de lo natural dentro de sí, y de esto sigue que la naturaleza del hombre consiste en querer reformar y escapar de su propia naturaleza.

El resto del poema es una descripción de los aspetos de la naturaleza de que los que huímos y de las maneras en que intentamos tal escape, aunque estas preocupaciones no son independientes. Contra la alienación y la nausea Sartreana, se sugiere la rebelión de “ir por las calles con un cuchillo verde/ y dando gritos hasta morir de frío.” Verde—el color de la naturaleza—atacando las peluquerías y jardines que la intentan oprimir. Sin embargo, esta rebelión se acaba con la muerte de frío. Neruda nos cuenta de donde viene este frío derrotador: “No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba,/ de subterráneo solo, de bodego con muertos,/ aterido, muriéndome de pena” (itálico mío). La frase “raíz y tumba” se parece a la de la primera estrófa, en la que Neruda se refiere al “agua de origen y ceniza” en que existe el el hombre, y también recuerda la imagen “raíz en las tinieblas” de la quinta estrófa. “Raíz” connota el origen del hombre—nacimiento—y también la intención de extraer algo de donde no hay nada—de las tinieblas. El concepto dominante de estos versos es la muerte: “tumba,” “subrráneo,” “bodega de muertos.” La mortalidad es las tinieblas en las que el hombre es raíz, es el frío en el que estamos ateridos, y es elemento de nuestra naturaleza del que queremos escapar.

El “yo” del poema busca escapar de la desolación de la mortalidad y de la temporalidad: “me empuja a ciertos rincones, a ciertas casas húmedas,/ a hospitales donde los huesos salen por la ventana,/ a ciertas zapaterías con olor a vinagre,/ a calles espantosas como grietas.” Estos versos están llenos de imágnes vaginales: “casas húmedas,” “calles como grietas,” y “olor a vinagre” (Y con perdón, pero asi se llaman). De nuevo, hay referencias a establecimientos que reordenan la naturaleza—las zapaterías y hospitales, y como antes, la intención de estos establecimientos es equivalente al deseo del “yo” de escapar de su naturaleza. La voz del poema busca en lo erótico refugio de la mortalidad. Pero allí en las casas húmedas, “hay espejos/ que deberian haber llorado de verguenza y espanto,/ hay paraguas en todas partes y venenos, y ombligos.” Este “espejo avergonzado” es una imagen auto-reflexiva a través de la cual el “yo” del poema se convierte en participante y observador al mismo tiempo: al mirarse en el espejo la voz del poema es sujeto y objeto a la vez. El problema surge cuando el “yo” del poema descubre que la experiencia de ser externo e interno a la vez—de ser espejo—es avergonzante. Hay paraguas para protegerse del “agua de origen y ceniza,” pero todavía hay venenos—que traen muerte—y ombligos—que nos conecta a nuestro nacimiento. Lo erótico falla como remedio porque trae nos retorna a nuestra naturalezas: un constante intento de escapar de nostros mismos.

La imagen final del poema condensa todas las otras: “ropas colgadas de un alambre:/ calzoncillos, toallas, y camisas que lloran/ lentas lágrimas sucias.” La ropa está colgada para secarse, para quitar “el agua de origen y ceniza,” como el hombre que intenta escapar de su naturaleza mortal. Así, la ropa es metáfora para el hombre civilizado. La función de la ropa es cubrir la naturaleza, de lo que se sigue que el hombre es un ser que existe para cubrir— o escapar de— su propia naturaleza. Sin embargo, en el proceso de secarse, la ropa está llorando, produciendo agua. Al intentar escapar de ella, el hombre crea su propia naturaleza –y esta es una naturaleza dolorsamente mortal. La suciedad de las lágrima hace referencia al papel de lo sexual en este proceso. El hombre existe en el cansancio de ser hombre. Como dice Paz, “Su naturaleza —si se puede hablar de naturaleza al referirse al hombre, el ser que, precisamente, se ha inventado a sí mismo al decirle ‘no’ a la naturaleza—consiste en un aspirar a realizarse en otro….por eso cada vez que se siente a sí mismo se siente como carencia de otro, como soledad.” Neruda, en Walking Around, captura esta soledad.

Según Paz y Neruda, el hombre existe en su incapacidad de aceptar las realidades de su existencia, y esto crea una división entre lo interno y lo externo. Jorge Luís Borges en El Sur y Juan Rulfo en Pedro Páramo cuentan las historias de dos hombres que intentan superar esta división a través de la locura, condición que les permite crear nuevos externos a partir de lo interno. La actitud de Borges frente a este dilemma es optimista, mientras que la de Rulfo es pesimista.

Juan Dalhmann ha inventado un imagen de si mismo que no corresponde a la realidad. Su abuelo paterno era alemán, pero prefiere encontrar sus orígenes al otro lado de su familia: “Juan Dahlmann…se sentía hondamente argentino. Su abuelo materno había sido aquel Francisco Flores, del 2 de infantería de línea, que murió en la frontera de Buenos Aires, lanceado por indios de Catriel; en la Discordia de sus dos linajes, Juan Dalhmann (tal vez a impulso de la sangre germánica) eligió de ese antepasado romantico, o de muerte romántica.” Dahlmann, como bibliotecario, tiene una vida poca romántica y distante de su casa en el sur. Su identidad argentina es una invención. El paréntesis irónico de Borges descubre una conección con Walking Around. Por tener sangre germánica, Dahlmann elige no ser Germánico. Si se reemplace “germánico” con “humano” se obtiene la paradoja de que la naturaleza humana consiste en escapar de si misma. Borges nos dice que es por “el desengano y la soledad” que Dahlmann ha decidido ser argentino. En Dahlmann vemos la aspiración de un hombre sólo a “realizarse en otro”—de crear a si mismo. Esta necesidad llega a su cumbre durante la convalecencia de Dahlmann: “En esos días, Dahlmann, minuciosamente so odió; odió su identidad, sus necesidades corporals, su humillación, la barba que le erizaba la cara.” Dahlmann experimenta violentamente el cansancio de ser hombre. El odio que siente hacia si mismo es una amplificación del insinto que le hace elegir la parte argentina de su linaje como su origen auténtico.

En el hospital, Dahlmann cree que está en el infierno. Cuando tiene visitantes, “le marvillaba que no supieran que estaba en el infierno.” Y, cuando llega al quírofano, entiende que “apenas había estado, hasta entonces, en un arrabal del infierno.” Walking Around también contiene imágenes del infierno: “el día lunes arde como el petróleo/ cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,/ y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,/ y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.” Fuego y aullido evocan al infierno, y estos versos tienen una implicación más sútil con relación al tiempo. Neruda no escribe “cara encarcelada,” sino “cara de cárcel.” Es su cara—metonomía para su mente—la que encarcela. La referencia repentina a una unidad sintética del tiempo—el día lunes—hace evidente que lo que está encarcelado es el tiempo: el lunes aulla al ver al narrador acercarse con cara de carcelero. “Pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche” se refiere al avanzo del día y también al movimiento de la vida humana, en unidades concretas, hacia la muerte. El hombre está encarcelado por su propia encarcelación del tiempo.

La cárcel infernal de Juan Dahlmann también tiene que ver con el tiempo. Después de que empieza a imaginar su viaje hacia el sur, Dahlmann reflexiona sobre el acto de acariciar a un gato: “pensó, mientras alisaba el negro pelaje, que aquel contacto era ilusorio y que estaban como separados por un cristal, porque el hombre vive en el tiempo, en la sucesión y el mágico animal, en la actualidad, en la eternidad del instante.” Para Dahlmann, el viaje hacia el sur es precisamente una liberación de las ilusiones del tiempo y de la sucesión. Es una jornada a la tierra y la casa de sus antepasados elegidos. Borges dice del viejo que le tira a Dahlmann un cuchillo que “los muchos años lo habían reducido y pulido como las aguas a una piedra o las generaciones de los hombres a una sentencia.” El viejo es un gaucho del sur y una representación de lo que queda despues del paso del tiempo, del pasado en nuestros recuerdos. Así, para Dahlmann, aceptar el cuchillo es aceptar la muerte romántica y el linaje argentino.

Como bibliotecario, Dahlmann vive en las sentencias pulidas por las generaciones, y esto se ve en su preocupación con los mitos antiguos de las Mil y una Noches. Mientras Dahlmann está en el hospital, las ilustraciónes de este libro árabe decoran sus pesadillas. Sin embargo, cuando está en el tren, el protagonista de Borges pierde interés en el libro: “la montaña de piedra imán y el genio que ha jurado matar a su bienhechor eran, quién lo niega, maravillosos, pero no mucho más que la mañana y el hecho de ser….Dahlmann cerraba el libro y se dejaba simplemente vivir.” De nuevo, cuando los gauchos lo amenazan en el almacén, Dahlmann abre el libro “como para tapar la realidad” pero despues lo pone al lado, y la enfrenta. En la oración final del cuento, Borges asume un tono mítico: “Dalhmann empuña con firmeza el cuchillo, que acaso no sabrá manejar, y sale a la llanura.” Antes de su viaje al sur, los mitos son pesadillas para Dahlmann, partes del infierno que es el odio a su identidad. Dalhmann se ve liberado de este infierno cuando, al tomar el cuchillo y dirigirse a la llanura, se convierte en el heroe real de un mito imaginario. Dahlmann, en su viaje al sur, une el pasado con el presente y su identidad actual con su identidad inventada a través de mitos y linajes asumidos.

Al unir estas dicotomías, Dahlmann logra vivir, como el gato que acaricia, en “la eternidad del instante.” En el tren, percibe sus alredadores como eternidades: “Vio casas de ladrillo sin revocar, esquinadas y largas, infinitamente mirando pasar los trenes….vio largas nubes luminosas que parecían de marmól.” Dalhmann percibe imágenes de piedra, como la piedra que es la cara del viejo. Se asocia el marmól, el material de las estatuas, con la preservación del pasado y la piedra generalmente con la permanencia, con la eternidad. Dahlmann, en el proceso de unir su identidad asumida con la actual, deja de vivir en “el tiempo y la sucesión;” deja de encarcelar al tiempo y a si mismo en unidades concretas. Durante su viaje, Dahlmann sueña con llanuras en las que “la soledad era perfecta.” Al alcanzar esta soledad perfecta, Dahlmann logra lo que Paz describe como “realizarse en otro”: se convierte en alguien más, en el argentine que quisiera ser. Al encontrarse absolutamente solo, Dahlmann consigue, paradojicamente, terminar con la soledad. Como el “yo” de Walking Around, Dahlmann quiere escapar de si mismo, pero a diferencia del narrador de Neruda, el protagonista de Borges consigue su propósito. Naturalmente, esto ocurre en el momento justamente anterior a la muerte, porque es la muerte la que nos exige encarcelar nuestro tiempo, y el elemento de nuestra natureleza del que más queremos escapar. Dahlmann logra escapar de la muerte al entrar en “la eternidad del instante.”

El proceder de Dahlmann corresponde exactamente a lo que Paz propone como solución al problema de la soledad—el regreso a un pasado antes de la temporalidad: “Hubo un tiempo en el que el tiempo no era sucesión y tánsito, sino manar continuo de un presente fijo, en el que estaban contenidos todos los tiempos, el pasado y el futuro. El hombre desprendido de esa eternidad en la que todos los tiempos son uno, ha caído en el tiempo cronométrico y se ha convertido en prisionero del reloj, del calendario y de la sucesión.” Tanto Dahlmann como el héroe de Paz escapan de este cárcel y regresan a un pasado antes del tiempo a través del mito: “Por virtud de la poesía, del cuento de hadas o del rito, que realiza y reproduce el relato mítico, el hombre accede a un mundo en donde los contraries se funden. ‘Todos los rituals tienen la propiedad de acaecer con el ahora, en este instante.’[1]”

Como prescribe Paz, Dahlmann soluciona su soledad convirtiéndose en el héroe de un mito eterno. En Pedro Páramo, tenemos otra historia de vuelta a la patria para remediar la soledad profunda, pero Rulfo es menos optimísta que Borges sobre la eficacia de esta solución.

Juan Preciado viaja hacia el sur con la esperanza de ver lo que su madre le ha descrito, pero lo que encuentra en Comala es muy distinto. Contrastemos la descripción de la madre de Juan:

“‘Todas las madrugadas el pueblo tiembla con el paso de las carretas. Llegan de todas partes, copeteadas de salitre, de mazorcas, de yerba de pará. Rechinan sus ruedas hacienda vibrar las ventanas, despertando a la gente. Es la misma hora en que se abren los hornos y huele a pan recién horneado. Y de pronto quede tronar el cielo. Caer la lluvia. Puede venir la primavera….’ (Itálicas en el original)

Con lo que Juan encuentra:

“Carretas vacías, remoliendo el silencio de las calles. Perdiéndose en el oscuro camino de la noche. Y las sombras. El eco de las sombras.”

Aparecen aquí muchas de las imágenes recurrentes de la novela. La imagen del pan, el cuerpo de Cristo según la Eucarístia, se relaciona con el tema de aceptar el perdón de dios, y la falta de pan implica la imposibilidad de esto. Lluvia y cosecha son imágenes de primavera y renacimiento, imágenes de vida. En vez de esto, Preciado encuentra carretas vacías, “perdiendose en el oscuro camino de la noche.” Si se interpreta la noche como la muerte, esta imagen se transforma en símbolo de lo que Preciado encuentra en Comala—un pueblo de muertos. Preciado esperaba la vida y encuentra la muerte.

“El eco de las sombras” es el murmullo de los muertos que Preciado oye en Comala, y la historia que le cuentan estos murmullos es la de su padre. Pedro Páramo es un hombre perdido en la soledad a causa de su amor por Susana San Juan:

Yo aquí, junto a la puerta mirando el amanecer y mirando cuando te iba siguiendo el camino del Cielo; por donde el cielo comenzaba a abrirse en luces, alejándote, cada vez más desteñida entre las sombras de la tierra.

Fue la última vez que te vi. Pasaste rozando con tu cuerpo las ramas del paraíso que está en en la vereda y te llevaste con tu aire sus últimas hojas.

La imágen que tiene Pedro Páramo de Susana San Juan contiene los mismos elementos que la imágen de Comola que la madre de Juan Precidao pinta a su hijo. La imágen de rozar plantas con agua corresponde a la de la lluvia y la cosecha, y las imágenes del cielo y paraíso corresponden a la de pan, de aceptar el cuerpo de Cristo. Ambas imagenes vienen del pasado—Susana San Juan era la fantasía de la niñez de Pedro Páramo—y ambas imágenes están equivocadas. Susana San Juan no es la niña pura que imagina Pedro Páramo, sino una mujer que, por su propia descripción, está loca y muerta.

Susana San Juan nos cuenta una historia que es, tal vez, el origen de su locura. Su padre la baja en el pozo de una mina:

--¡Dame lo que está allí, Susana!

Y ella agarró la calavera entre sus manos y cuando la luz le dio de lleno la soltó.

--Es una calavera de muerto—dijo.

--Debes encontrar algo más junto a ella. Dame todo lo que encuentres.

Esta historia sobre la búsqueda de “algo más” en donde solo hay muerte es un sinécdoque para toda la novela. Equivale al propósito de Juan Preciado en Comala y al de Pedro Páramo en su amor por Susana San Juan. Podemos incluso ir más lejos y decir que hay uno más que busca algo donde solo hay muerte: es el lector, quien busca una narrativa en donde solo hay los murmullos de los muertos. Pedro Páramo es una historia de la imposibilidad de escapar la muerte—de “realizarse en otro,” una historia de soledad dentro de soledad dentro de soledad.

Susana San Juan le dice a Justina que “Yo sólo creo en el Infierno,” y esto la conecta al tema recurrente de la imposibilidad de encontrar perdón, de no poder comer el pan de la Eucaristía, un tema personificado en el Padre Rentería, que no puede obtener perdón para si mismo ni darlo a lo demás. Hay que recordar también que Comala es el Infierno: “Aquello está sobre las brasas de la tierra, en la mera boca del Infierno. Con decirle que muchos de los que allí se mueren, al llegar al Infierno regresan por su cobija.” Juan Preciado puede ir a su patria, ir hasta la muerte, pero no puede encontrar perdón. Sólo encuentra su patria auténtica que es una eternidad de soledad frente a la muerte. Rulfo en Pedro Páramo nos dice lo contrario que Borges en El Sur—que estamos condenado a estar siempre Walking Around.

[1]Aquí, Paz está citando a Van der Leeuw.

Three Autotuned Songs

2010-04-24T16:36:00.001-07:00

Culture is eating itself up —and that's a good thing. Here come three examples of how self-reflexivity in pop-culture produces awesome stuff:

The man who knew he was God

2010-04-16T09:54:00.001-07:00

Atención a la cara que pone al final. Es el mejor y lo sabe. Tanta gloria le cae que no se lo puede creer. Tiene la misma cara de Octavio al final de la batalla de Actio.

An Edifying Tale

2010-04-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

The three supreme ambassadors
completed ten tables of excellent laws
but also
two tables of oppressive laws
confirming
their hated privileges.

One day,
seeing a beautiful maiden,
a leading person
resolved to make her his own.

Breathing vengance,
her father (a plebian)
plunged a butcher's knife
into the daughter's heart.

He brandished the red blade.

The story is largely legendary.

(See Livy's History, and also certain Roman History Children's Books published in the late XIX century in England)

The Land of Plenty

2010-04-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

We toiled under the sun
—ours was the fairest portion of the earth.

The task was to possess,
to step the Ocean
and take
a drink from the Ohio.

But there is
ill omen amongst us
from New England to Louisiana
—a wild and furious passion.

Hangings
—gamblers and negroes,

dead men dangling
from the boughs
of trees.

(See Abraham Lincon's 1838 Adress to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois

La Mezquina Izquierda Mexica

2010-04-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Del chismógrafo político por excelencia —el legendario Trascendió del diario Milenio— nos llega hoy una nota deliciosa:

Que salvo dos o tres excepciones de cada partido, los senadores de PRI y PRD que no quieran votar el martes a favor del dictamen que reprueba la muerte del cubano Orlando Zapata, se abstendrán.
Y es que, salvo esas excepciones, nadie más desea aparecer del lado de la senadora perredista Yeidckol Polevnsky, defendiendo al gobierno de Cuba con el argumento de que esa sí es una verdadera democracia y que los opositores en huelga de hambre son mercenarios al servicio de Estados Unidos.

Perdónenme ustedes el revisionismo, pero, ¿qué clase de "luchadora social" es tan intelectualmente deshonesta, ciega o estúpida para sostener que Cuba es una verdadera democracia? ¿Quién defiende a los Castro en este caso en particular?

Luego vienen las implicaciones para México. ¿Con qué cara crítica esta mujer las violaciones a los derechos humanos del gobierno de nuestro país? No que estas violaciones estén justificadas. Sólo me pregunto que pasaría si el gobierno de Calderón dejará a, por ejemplo, un activista Zapatista morirse de hambre.

Este es un ejemplo del estado de la izquierda en México, una izquierda insincera, mezquina, propensa a las lágrimas, al sentimentalismo, a la "justa rabia". Una izquierda Marxista antes que crítica, que valora la ideología sobre la verdad. Una izquierda puramente destructiva que se olvida de reconstruir lo derribado.

Una izquierda de hijos de la chingada, en el sentido que Paz le da al termino.

La Famila, La Propiedad Privada, y el Amor

2010-04-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Despite their apparent contradictions, the ideas of Marx, Burke, and the Social Contract theorists can be reconciled, and this reconciliation is desirable. By enriching the ideas of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau with Marxian elements of temporal progress toward inclusivity and Burkean principles of gradual change, it is possible to keep the positive aspects of each theory while minimizing their dangers. In order to achieve this reconciliation, one must first show that Marxian ideas can be expressed in the language of the Social Contract if said contract is understood as a malleable and changeable agreement as opposed to a static covenant. Afterwards, one must temper the destructiveness of Marx’s revolutionary fury by remembering that Burke was right in warning against the dangers of radical change and praising the value of culture and tradition as positive forces for unity and peace within the body politic. In the end, if the synthesis works, one will have an Evolving Social Contract that will be progressively more inclusive and less oppressive, while also maintaining part of the beautiful drapery that makes life tolerable and mankind more than a mere band of producers and consumers.

Although Marx dismisses the theorists of the Social Contract as bourgeois ideologists who “share the illusions of [their] epoch[i]” and “make perfecting the illusions of [the bourgeoisie] about itself their main source of livelihood,”[ii] most of his main ideas can be traced back to the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Marx seems to take his radical materialism from Hobbes, who thinks of life as nothing “but a motion of the limbs”[iii] and of imagination as mere “decaying sense”[iv] —there is nothing immaterial in their worldviews. Moreover, Marx also shares Hobbes dislike of abstraction. Hiss complaints against the Young Hegelian notions of “Self-consciousness, the Spirit, and the Unique”[v] are an echo of Hobbes’ hatred of the Schoolmen’s ideas about “the hypostatical, transubstantiation, and the eternal-now.”[vi]

However, Marx does not share Hobbes’ idea that the dissolution of the commonwealth is the most tragic and terrible event conceivable. Where one states that the “real communist aims to overthrow the existing state of things”[vii] the other holds that the very “liberty of disputing against absolute power”[viii] is intolerable and dangerous. In this aspect Marx is more similar to Locke, who holds that when the government of a society “take[s] upon [itself] to make laws [that] the people had not appointed [them] to do . . . the people are not therefore bound to obey . . . [and] may constitute themselves a new legislative as they think best.”[ix] Unlike Marx, though, Locke draws a distinction between “the dissolution of society and the dissolution of government,”[x] and claims that the first is almost always undesirable. For Locke, society is an essential pillar to his holy trinity of “Life, Liberty and Property”, which cannot exist without the social bond. In other words, a Lockean rebellion does not abolish the Social Contract, but only the structure that enforces it. Marx, however, has no intention of preserving what he terms “bourgeois freedom”[xi] and makes the “abolition of private property”[xii] his explicit goal. It is because of this goal that Marx does not stop with the dissolution of government: his is a movement “against the existing social and political order of things.”[xiii]

It is in the issue of private property that Marx shares the most with the third Social Contract theorist: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau maintains that “every man by nature has a right to everything he needs; however, the positive act whereby he becomes a proprietor of some goods exclude him from all the rest.”[xiv] He expressed this view most eloquently in a text that, unfortunately, is not part of the curriculum for this course: “The first man who . . . said, this is mine . . . was the real founder of civil society. From how many . . . horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by. . . crying to his fellows, Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”[xv] Marx was certainly receptive to these ideas. He states that proletarians “have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy securities for, and insurances of, private property.”[xvi] In short, one can say that Marx takes from Rousseau the idea that certain social structures —private property the most prominent— are inherently oppressive and corrupting. The relationship between the two thinkers is evinced by their language —Marx’s final sentence, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains; they have a world to win”[xvii] echoes Rousseau’s assertion that “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”[xviii]

One can then see that Marx’s debt to the Social Contract theorists is much greater than what he would like to think: he owes materialism to Hobbes, the idea of righteous rebellion to Locke, and the hatred of oppressive social structures in general and private property in particular to Rousseau. However, Marx does differ from these thinkers in that he places social and political structures in time: whereas the Social Contract theorists speak of “Man”, Marx claims that he speaks of “real, historical, men.”[xix] Marx holds the idea that history moves inevitably in the direction of progress. He sees “[the production] of means of subsistence” as “the first historical act”[xx] and the progression of history since then as a process in which the material conditions and the means of production determine each other. Marx then goes on to say that “the intellectual relationships of men appear as the direct result of their material conditions.”[xxi] Moreover, Marx holds that material conditions change because of a “class struggle.”[xxii] For him, “oppressor and oppressed [have always] stood in constant opposition to one another, [have carried] on an uninterrupted . . . fight that each time ended . . . in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large.”[xxiii] It is by way of this subordination of the intellectual and the social —and by consequence the political— to a class struggle driven by economic concerns that Marx explains the advancement and development of history: societies go through a series of stages because social classes are in constant opposition to one another. This development is positive because in each stage of history less people are oppressed: the aristocratic nobility overthrow the king, the bourgeoisie overthrows the aristocracy, and, finally, the proletariat is expected to eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie.

Having noted both the differences and the common ground between Social Contract theory and Marxian Historical Materialism, it is time to make an attempt at reconciliation. Perhaps if one introduces the Marxian idea of development and progress through class struggle to Social Contract theory, one could conceivably view history as advancement from the State of Nature to more and more perfect versions of the Social Contract. Different individuals under different material conditions form different Social Contracts —their means of production deeply influence their covenants. A Social Contract is better insofar as it gives more people participation in Sovereignty —a despotic, absolute tyranny is worst, while a fully functioning democracy is best. The connection between social structures and political ones is analytic and not synthetic: absolute tyranny already implies a large portion of the population being destitute, while a fully functioning democracy can only exist when all the citizens have sufficient material well being to dedicate some time to the affairs of the state —an idea as old as Aristotle.

Now is time to consider the means by which the changes in the succession of Social Contract are to take place. Here it proves useful to remember Locke’s distinction between dissolution of government and dissolution of society. Marx argues that changes in social and political structures can only take place through a sudden dissolution of society, and he would probably agree with Locke’s assertion that such dissolution is always violent and that it occurs when “[an army] of conquerors . . . cut up government by the roots and mangle societies to pieces.”[xxiv] While Locke here is thinking of the armed force of a foreign nation, Marx has in mind an organized proletarian army comprised of the “united workers of the world.”[xxv] This is the most problematic of Marx’s assertions —an army is always a destructive force. Here it is useful to invoke Edmund Burke’s warning against the dangers of revolutionary struggle: that it destroys the intangible links that bring people together.

The Proletarian Revolution implies a de facto return to the State of Nature. From the outbreak of the Revolution onwards, class struggles behave like nations do in Hobbes vision: fighting each other to the death, with the law of the strongest as their only legislation. Dissolution of society is a terrible event; from which it is very hard —even impossible— to fully recover. Perhaps it would be better to let changing economic conditions transform the social structure and make adequate political reforms along the way. A legislative power that is truly representative of the General Will should constantly be adapting itself to new social and economic conditions. The good statesman, writes Burke, combines a “disposition to preserve and an ability to improve.”[xxvi] If this constant adaptation is done promptly and in good faith, the fatal crisis that was to set spark to the fuse of the revolution can be put off indefinitely —until the revolution is unnecessary because its goals have already been achieved, without spilling blood, without tearing society apart, and preserving the social structures that give strength to the body politic: culture and certain aspects of tradition.

Orthodox Marxists will accuse this thesis of revisionism, of being “bourgeois socialism”[xxvii] that has no other aim but to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie. They will argue that by introducing gradual improvements and making the situation marginally better one is actually acting against the cause of the proletariat —delaying the final revolution that will overturn everything that is wrong with society with “bread and circus”. They will argue that the very core of the social structures is oppressive, and that oppression cannot end if such social structures remain. They forget that all revolutionary activity implies a systematic and insidious conspiracy to destroy all the fabrics that keep society —even post-revolutionary society— together. The revolutionaries forget that, when the dust settles, they will have to rebuild from the rubble. If the revolution goes wrong, life will once again be nasty, brutish and short. If it goes right, life will be nasty and brutish. Neither outcome is desirable. Indeed, Edmund Burke put it admirably when he wrote: “On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy . . . laws are to be supported only by their own terrors . . . On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never . . . create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling their place.”[xxviii] It is not an either/or affair —not all traditions are oppressive: there may be some that are worth keeping. By tearing down every inch of drapery, by exposing every noble lie, the revolutionaries are killing the very thing that makes us human A Queen’s power is be oppressive and illegitimate, and she should be stripped of it, but once a Queen has been executed in the public square nothing is sacred. What will stop the Revolutionaries from cutting the heads of hundreds of proletarians once they taken the life of a Queen? After all, Terror is but a characteristic of the State of Nature.

Alexis de Tocqueville understood very well that the strength of a Social Contract comes not from its legislation or its executive, but from the mores of the people that participate in it it. If there is anything that one is to take from Marx, it is that the changing economic conditions modify these mores and make progressively inclusive, and that this is inevitable. Let it be so: the Social Contract can adapt to the times —but through evolution rather than revolution. Violent revolution has the side effect of destroying the mores of the people who undertake it, making the Social Contract a weak carcass that has to be uphold through authoritarian violence. In other words, violent revolution is setting up the stage for totalitarianism. Government can be dissolved as many times as necessary, but Society should never be dissolved. If, as Marx affirms, “all culture is class culture”[xxix], then the absolute abolishing of class defeats the purpose of ending “alienation”[xxx] and reconciling existence with essence, for culture plays a vital role in the essence of what it means to be human. Whenever there is common ground, reconciliation is possible. The point of reconciling Marx with Social Contract theory is to mediate a desire for inclusivity and a hatred of oppression with an appreciation for peace and a love of culture —unlike orthodox Marxism, Social Contract Theory does not negate the possibility for gradual change. After all, socialism should be about being as human as possible, not about abolishing humanity.

[i] Marx. German Ideology. P. 125

[ii] Marx. Ibid. P. 130

[iii] Hobbes. Leviathan. P. 3

[iv] Hobbes. Ibid. P. 8

[v] Marx. Ibid. P.122

[vi] Hobbes. Ibid. P.25

[vii] Marx. Ibid. P. 127

[viii] Hobbes. Ibid. P. 218

[ix] Locke. Second Treatise of Government. P.108 (Emphasis in the original)

[x] Locke. Ibid. P. 107 (Emphasis in the original)

[xi] Marx. Communist Manifesto. P.171

[xii] Marx. Ibid. 170

[xiii] Marx. Ibid. 186 (Emphasis added)

[xiv] Rousseau. On the Social Contract. P.151

[xv] Rousseau. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. P. 60

[xvi] Rousseau. On the Social Contract. P.168

[xvii] Marx. Ibid. 186

[xviii] Rousseau. Ibid. P.141

[xix] Marx. German Ideology. P.113

[xx] Marx. Ibid. P. 107

[xxi] Marx. Ibid. P 111

[xxii] Marx. Communist Manifesto. P.158

[xxiii] Marx. Ibid. P. 159

[xxiv] Locke. Ibid. P. 107

[xxv] Marx. Ibid. P. 186

[xxvi] Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France. P.231

[xxvii] Marx. Ibid. P. 181

[xxviii] Burke. Ibid. P.115

[xxix] Marx. Ibid. 172

[xxx] Marx. Ibid. 121

Flaubert

2010-04-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

El genio trágico de Flaubert consiste en enseñarnos el incierto placer de descubrir en todas las acciones —las propias y las de otros— un insidioso y perturbador sentido del ridículo.

Langue et Parole

2010-04-01T09:46:00.001-07:00

In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1

Come now, tell me,
(we're both probably thinking of it)
—sound,
pertraining to the ears.

Like a living being,
the word comprises a body
and something like a soul.

The word that sounds outwardly
gives light inwardly—
—that which is uttered
with the mouth of the flesh
is also
the Word
of God

(See Saint Augustine: On the Trinity, and On the Measure of the Soul; See also the work of David Larsen.)

Scarface

2010-03-29T12:18:00.001-07:00

Scarface School Play - Watch more Funny Videos

That's right. Yup. The world is coming to an end.

La Gent Normal

2010-03-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Catalonian version of my favorite Pulp song. Lovely.

El Ángelus

2010-03-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

No hay aire más claro que el aire
al caer de la tarde en el campo,
mas esta tarde no suena
la campana del ángelus.

Donde debiera haber dos, hay tres,
pero el tercero nos pesa.

Vamos, pues, a enterrarlo entre las patatas.

C'est vrai, monsieur.

2010-03-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

la parole humaine

est comme un chaudron fêlé

où nous battons des mélodies

à faire danser les ours,

quand on voudrait

attendrir les étoiles.

Gustave Flaubert.

"...el habla humana es como un caldero roto donde, cuando queremos enternecer
a las estrellas, tocamos melodias y hacemos danzar a los osos amaestrados."

Wordsworth and Milton

2010-03-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Nicolás Medina Mora
R. Howard Bloch
DS Literature
03/05/2010

The Holy Light of Memory: Wordsworth’s Rewriting of Paradise Lost

Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin
où s'ouvraient tous les cœurs, où tous les vins coulaient.
Un soir, j'ai assis la Beauté sur mes genoux. —Et je l'ai trouvée amère.
A. Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfern

In his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth writes that one of the aims of his poetry is to show “the perplexity and obscurity which in childhood attend our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion” (Wordsworth, p. 598). As exemplified by poems such as We are Seven, Wordsworth’s child is a joyful and blessed creature, so completely unaware of death that he exists outside of time, in a “happy state” of de facto immortality. This nostalgic understanding of childhood as a place of blissful ignorance betrays Wordsworth’s poetry as a direct response to Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Satan, soliloquizing about his recent discovery of the nature of Adam and Eve’s condition, asks himself:

Can it be sin to know?
Can it be death? And do they only stand
By Ignorance? Is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
(IV. 517-520)

For Wordsworth, childhood is paradise and adulthood is paradise lost. More than a mere periphrasis, however, Wordsworth’s rewriting of Milton is a change in both form and content, a transformation and translation of the original—transformation because the cosmic and historical drama of the Fall becomes an internal and individual psychological tragedy, translation because Wordsworth employs the language of lyric where Milton employed the language of epic. Nowhere does this double change become more evident than in Wordsworth’s brilliant ode to lost childhood, Intimations of Immortality, where the Miltonic images of sight, blindness and the “Holy Light” become representations of the redemptive powers of memory and poetry.

Wordsworth’s project of transformation and translation is evident from the first stanza of the poem. The Ode begins with an evocation of childhood that makes heavy use of landscape imagery:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
(Ode. 1-5, emphasis added)

In these opening lines, Wordsworth associates the temporal to the spatial: the past becomes a place, mores specifically a place of Nature: a pleasant garden. Such imagery immediately remits to Milton’s descriptions of Eden:

Thus was this place,
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme.
(IV.246-248)

Adam, Eve and the Child —the protagonist of Wordsworth’s poem— inhabit a land “where Rivers now Stream” (VII. 305), a land of plenitude and enjoyment. However, the second part of the Ode’s first strophe makes it clear that this “happy state” is long past:

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
(Ode. 6-9)

Moreover, the change has occurred not in the exterior world, but in the “eye of the beholder”, who can no longer see the world’s beauty. The use of visual language through the Ode has a very clear message: the Child has fallen and is now a Man because he has become blind to the “celestial light” that made the world a garden. This is the point in which Wordsworth transforms Milton’s account: the Fall happens inside the mind of the fallen narrator —it ceases to be an extrinsic event. Paraphrasing T.S. Eliot’s much later echo of the same idea, paradise is lost not with a bang, but with a whimper.

This psychological take on the fall is most explicitly linked to Milton in the fourth stanza of the poem, where Wordsworth writes:

There's a Tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have look'd upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone. . .
. . .Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
(Ode. 52-58)

The association of the loss of the “celestial light” to one, particular tree is quite obviously a direct Miltonic reference, calling to mind phrases of the like of “Our Death, the Tree of Knowledge” (IV. 221). By way of this association, Wordsworth’s “fled visionary gleam” is also linked to the idea of newly gained knowledge, albeit this is knowledge of a very different sort from the one described in Paradise Lost. Where Adam and Eve gain an understanding of Good and Evil, the narrator of Wordsworth’s Ode attains consciousness of his own mortality. This is evinced by the following lines, which the narrator addresses to the poem’s pre-lapsarian Hero, the Child:

Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie.
(Ode. 119-124)

The Child cannot conceive of Death as anything but sleep. It is not a permanent condition, but rather a mere intermezzo with the Celestial Light temporally turned off. This blissful ignorance places the Child outside of the temporal, for he cannot conceive of an end to his experience. Being outside of time makes the Child immortal within his own subjectivity, and since Intimations is fundamentally a poem of the inner consciousness, the Child’s immortality is absolutely genuine within the world of the Ode.

Unlike Adam and Eve’s sudden condemnation, the Child’s fall is a gradual process that occurs as he grows up. Wordsworth writes:

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light . . .
. . .The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
(Ode. 67-77)

Again, Wordsworth links the spatial to the temporal: the Child’s growing up is likened to an eastward pilgrimage, in the opposite direction of the Sun’s trajectory and farther and farther from the celestial brilliance. This idea is also a “translation” from Milton, who both associates the East with lack of light: ”. . . in the east darkness ere day’s mid-course…” (XI. 203-204) and locates there Eden’s only gate, through which Adam and Eve exit: ”the hastning Angel caught our lingering Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate led them direct” (XII. 637-639).

As the Child becomes a Man and advances eastward, he also forgets about his past state. This forgetting is, perhaps, the greatest tragedy of growing up. Wordsworth writes, “our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting” (Ode. 78) and that, even though she does it with the best of intentions, the Child’s nurse:

Doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
(Ode. 82-85)

However, if forgetting is the disease, then recollection can be the cure. Man, after all, has been blessed with the capacity to remember his childhood. The narrator of the Ode exclaims: “the thought of our past years in me doth breed perpetual benediction” (Ode. 138-139). Memory, by allowing Man to be in the moment remembered and in the moment of remembering at the same time, can place him again outside of temporality.

Throughout the poem, Wordsworth has linked forgetfulness to blindness and memory to “celestial light”, and these two pairs of terms constitute his most important “translations” of Miltonic concepts. Both of the original images —blindness and “celestial light”— are borrowed directly from Milton’s magnificent invocation at the begginig of Book III:

Thus with the year  Seasons return,
but not to me returns Day,
or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn . . .
 . . . But clouds instead, and ever-during dark . . .
. . . So much the rather, thou celestial light 
Shine inward and the mind through all her power
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence 
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
(III. 40-55, emphasis added)

Milton’s narrator hails this “Holy Light” because it has allowed him to see beyond what is evident, even though he is outwardly blind. By assimilating this supernatrual sight to the power of memory, Wordsworth establishes that remembering redeems. The master metaphor at the core of Intimations of Immortality is that memory is like a “celestial light” that allows one to see the world as it is and not as a vague miasma of shadows. Memory can make Man immortal once again by bringing back the knowledge he had lost: that the grave is but an intermission and that the death shall be raised.

In Wordsworth’s view, the role of the poet is that of the recaller: the poet is a Seer, a Man who, by way of memory, can become a Child again and, by way of words, bring back the lost “celestial light”. The poet’s strength comes from the fact that he has transcended the fundamental dichotomy of temporality, what Blake termed Innocence and Experience. It is because of the poet’s access to the redemptive powers of memory that:

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
(Ode. 166-170)

By making the Fall an internal coming-of-age drama, Wordsworth’s rewriting of Paradise Lost makes equates memory to Milton’s Holy Light, the powerful force that can restore the fallen to their happy state and bring eyesight to the blind.

Works Cited

Wordsworth, William. The Major Works. UK. Oxford. 2008. Pp. 297-302; 598

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. USA. Hackett. 2005.

En Defensa del Indefenso Cigarrillo

2010-02-28T18:46:00.002-08:00

Se elongan, plácidos, los pensamientos.
 Por dos minutos el tiempo se detiene.
 Satisfechos por momentos los deseos:
el alma, feliz, en vilo se sostiene.
Hay gran placer en conversar con la muerte 
y valiente descender a los infiernos:
 convertirse en dragón, la boca fuente
 de humos, los pulmones llenos de fuegos.
 Y si tú piensas, bella mujer amada,
 que me mato en ociosos placeres,
 recuerda: la vida no examinada 
no vale la pena. Estos elíxires
que me condenas, triste e indignada,
 son arma de filósofos y príncipes.

The truth about Philosophy

2010-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Problem With Democracy

2010-02-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

Nicolás Medina Mora
Justin Zaremby
DS History and Politics
02/18/2010

The Impossibility of Direct Democracy in The Social Contract

Rousseau understands the General Will as the point at which the divergent interests of the people intersect . As such, the General Will —if it is truly the General Will and not merely the Will of All— is always inclined towards what is best for the people. However, Rousseau also recognizes that the people do not always know where their common interest lies; because of this ignorance, the General Will, although well-intentioned, is often misguided. To solve this difficulty, Rousseau introduces the figure of the Legislator, who functions as a guide who helps the people discover what they truly want. However, this figure exists in tension with Rousseau’s notion that delegation of Sovereignty is impossible. If the peoples’ vote is merely an approval of an externally conceived set of laws, what kind of sovereignty do they hold? Moreover, the Legislator is forced to employ lies and appeals to irrationality to convince the people that his vision is correct. The Legislator becomes a representative or delegate of the Sovereign who is knowingly dishonest to the people. This delegation of Sovereignty is irreconcilable with Rousseau’s concept of democracy, leaving the Social Compact with two equally unpalatable options: either enlightened despotism or unelightened democracy.

The people, always at risk in the State of Nature, enter the Social Contract in order to ascend to something greater than themselves. In a sense, it is only with the formation of the State that they become fully human:

“ Although, in this state, [man] deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man.”(I.8)

This Social Compact, however, is meaningless if it is a mere agreement and not an association that can exercise action to perpetuate itself. It is because of this need for action that the people form a Sovereign, which can be understood as the active component of the State:

“This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the name of city, and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State when passive [and] Sovereign when active.” (I.6)

This Sovereign has the aim of exercising the General Will, which is “the common interest . . . [and] more than a sum of particular wills.” (II.3) To enforce this General Will, the Sovereign has “no force other than the legislative power, [the Sovereign] acts only by means of the laws, the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will”(III.12) The actual enforcing of these laws is not an act of legislative power but rather of executive power. As such, it is not the function of the Sovereign but rather of the Government, to which the Sovereign delegates power, but not sovereignty. (III.1) The Sovereign is the organ of the Body Politic that exercises the General Will, and as such, holds absolute legislative power.

However, the people do not always know where their common interest lies. Rousseau writes:

“How can a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills, because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out for itself so great and difficult an enterprise as a system of legislation? Of itself the people wills always the good, but of itself it by no means always sees it. The general will is always in the right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened.” (II.6)

To solve this problem, Rousseau brings forth the figure of the Legislator:

“In order to discover the rules of society best suited to nations, a superior intelligence beholding all the passions of men without experiencing any of them would be needed. This intelligence would have to be wholly unrelated to our nature, while knowing it through and through; its happiness would have to be independent of us, and yet ready to occupy itself with ours; and lastly, it would have, in the march of time, to look forward to a distant glory, and, working in one century, to be able to enjoy in the next. It would take gods to give men laws.” (II.7)

The Legislator is an almost divine figure, a man that has transcended humanity, or that has at least reached its limits. Rousseau’s lawgiver is an enlightened hero, good, wise, just, and selfless. On the complete opposite of the spectrum are the people, who are “a blind multitude.”(II.6) The Legislator could not be more distant from the people.

This dichotomy of Legislator and Sovereign, idyllic in appearance, poses severe problems for Rousseau’s State. In effect, the Legislator becomes a delegate and representative for the Sovereign. Rousseau has established that representation is incompatible with Sovereignty, which should be inalienable: “Sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and that the Sovereign, who is no less than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself” and indivisible: “for either the will is general or it is not; it is either the will of the body of the people, or only of a part of it.”(II.1, II.2) Considering this, is not the delegation of the redaction of law both alienation and division of sovereignty? If the people are incapable of making their own laws and blind to their own General Will, they cannot be called autonomously Sovereign. Rousseau’s Legislator acts as a representative of the people, investigating the intersections of their interests for them and then enlightening them to these interests.

At the moment of the constitution of the Social Compact, the people become merely a selection committee, choosing from a variety of possible Legislators and then approving or disapproving their work. Rousseau himself warns against the dangers of this kind of delegation when he writes, “Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility.” (III.15) The question then arises of how is this different from representative democracy as it exists today, with the people choosing representatives to legislate. Indeed, modern democratic language treats the words “Senators and Congressmen” and “Legislators” as synonyms.

An objection can be raised to this assessment, namely, that as long as the people have the final say over which laws are passed, they hold Sovereignty. Rousseau himself makes this argument: “Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is, in fact, not a law.” (III.15) After all, the Legislator by himself cannot do anything, and a Constitution that is not held by the people as such is but an inanimate piece of writing. However, the Legislator has the power to fool and trick the people into accepting his laws. In fact, it is only through subterfuge that he is ever able to do so:

“Wise men, if they try to speak their language to the common herd instead of its own, cannot possibly make themselves understood . . . The legislator therefore, being unable to appeal to either force or reason, must have recourse to an authority of a different order, capable of constraining without violence and persuading without convincing . . . This is what has, in all ages, compelled the fathers of nations to have recourse to divine intervention and credit the gods with their own wisdom, in order that the peoples, submitting to the laws of the State as to those of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation of the city as in that of man, might obey freely, and bear with docility the yoke of the public happiness.” (II.7)

This ability —and necessity— to convince the people that his laws correspond to the General Will by irrational and dishonest means makes the Legislator even more pernicious. His ability to fool the people into accepting whatever he proposes renders the approval of the people absolutely meaningless. He becomes not only a representative of the Sovereign, but its puppeteer. It matters little that it has no executive power or that he goes into exile after the laws have been enacted (II.7); his very existence obliterates the people’s Sovereignty, even if his only prize is “distant glory.” (II.6)

In the end, the tension that exists in Rousseau’s Social Contract is the tension that plagues all democracies: the majority of the people does not understand —and cannot understand— what is good for them, and yet are expected to make decisions that will lead to that good. There seem to be only two possible outcomes for this paradoxical situation: either the people make the decisions —and, because of their ignorance, make bad decisions— or someone else makes the decisions for them, which inevitably lead to the people´s subjugation. Democracy and good government seem irreconcilable, freedom and Sovereignty mutually exclusive. Perhaps, however, there is a third option. Perhaps an effort can be made to make the people as a whole more like Rousseau’s godlike legislator; perhaps the people can be enlightened through education. In order for democracy to work, the Legislator must be transformed into the Educator.

Works Cited:
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Social Contract. In: Basic Political Writings. USA. Hackett. 1987.

La Caída

2010-02-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

No la vi venir: la luz llegó de pronto.
Comprendí todo el dolor de la vida
en un instante. Movido en lo más hondo,
entendí la perdición y la caída:
la expulsión del Edén consiste sólo
en una pena solitaria, sufrida
sin saberlo, cada uno a su modo,
pero siempre con tristeza desmedida.
Hay un abismo entre Alma y Mundo,
una barrera de noche infranqueable,
un silencio blanco, un mar furibundo
solamente por instantes navegable
por los barcos rojos del amor profundo

y la belleza intensa y vulnerable.

Mexico Patético

2010-02-18T11:21:00.001-08:00

La señora de amarillo se lleva el premio. Los pueblos tienen el gobierno que se merecen.

Alexander Pope

2010-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

First, the History:

Héloïse

Living within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, was Héloïse. She was remarkable for her knowledge of classical letters, which extended beyond Latin to Greek and Hebrew. Abélard sought a place in Fulbert's house, then seduced Héloïse. The affair interfered with his career, and Abélard himself boasted of his conquest. Once Fulbert found out, they were separated, but met in secret. Héloïse became pregnant and was sent by Abélard to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son she named Astrolabe after the scientific instrument.

To appease Fulbert, Abélard proposed a secret marriage in order not to mar his career prospects. Héloïse initially opposed it, but the couple married. When Fulbert publicly disclosed the marriage, and Héloïse denied it, she went to the convent of Argenteuil at Abélard's urging. Fulbert, believing that Abélard wanted to be rid of Héloïse, had him castrated, effectively ending Abélard's career. Héloïse was forced to become a nun. Héloïse sent letters to Abélard, questioning why she must submit to a religious life for which she had no calling.

According to historian Constant Mews in his The Lost Love Letters of Héloïse and Abélard, a set of 113 anonymous love letters found in a fifteenth century manuscript represent the correspondence exchanged by Héloïse and Abelard during the earlier phase of their affair.

Then the Poetry:

From Alexander Pope's "Eloise to Abelard":

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

The House Of Memory

2010-02-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

IN the intersection between Banco de México and Cinco de Mayo, right in the middle of our capital city’s Historic Downtown, there is an old building. The house —for such is its current function— belongs to Mr. and Mrs. López de Iñigo-Grimaldi, who inhabit it in company of their twelve lovely offspring. In our time, the house has become legendary for the stentorian dances that its owners throw with certain regularity. Nevertheless, the property’s legend stretches much farther in time: the house’s is a story intimately tied to the López de Iñigo saga and, in consequence, to our National History. Now, taking advantage of the many licenses of style and content that this journal allows its oldest contributors, I make ready to use my space in this month’s number to briefly tell the tale of that stately manor whose owners have done so much for our Republic and for this old man. Bear with me, dear readers, if I am unmethodical and tedious —I am almost a hundred, and am completely blind.

According to Fray Froilan García[i], the grand palace of one of Moctezuma’s eunuchs originally occupied the place where the said streets intersect today. The eunuch in question went by the name Tlateoli, and apparently was one of the few members of the Mexica court that actively supported the Spanish occupation, even going as far as conspiring for Moctezuma’s death. However, in an act of frank stupidity that marks him —and here I quote Froilan— “as one of the worst court-intriguer that history has seen”, the eunuch poured the sea-urchin poison into the emperor’s pulque himself, instead of using a crony. He was caught, of course, and condemned to castration and live skinning. His name was erased from all Mexica records, and only survives, Froilan tells us, because of the memory of an old Jesuit priest who witnessed the execution. As was customary, the entire household of the eunuch was sacrificed to Tlaloc and the doors of his palace opened for the common people to plunge and sack, which they did.

Tlateoli’s misfortune was double, for his testicles had not been removed for a month when the same commoners that sacked his palace stoned Moctezuma to death. The mayhem that followed is well known by all, and so I shall not bore you, my very cultured readers, with yet another telling of the Fall of Tenochtitlan. Suffices to say that the palace, like most of the other buildings of the Mexica capital, suffered heavy damages. Froilan does not say anything about the fortune of the building for the next two decades, although from the fate of similar buildings we can make an educated guess and say that it was probably reduced to rubble by the conquistadors, who, the chances are, used most of the structure to desiccate the city’s canals into streets and make a more-or-less stable artificial island of the then-enormous Texcoco lake.

Twenty three years after the conquest, however, our friar makes mention of “Tlateoli’s palace” again: “and thus it was that Cortés awarded Guillermo Ignacio de la Vega with the land where the palace of the wretched eunuch Tlateoli once had his palace… …and he also awarded him with rights over the stones of one of the temples where the pagans had worshiped the Devil… …this was done in payment for the young and brave captain’s service to his Catholic Majesties.”[ii] Forgive me, dear readers, if I underestimate you by pointing out that it was commonplace for the Spaniard conquistadors to reuse the stones of the Mexica buildings they demolished to build their own structures. In an irony that shines with the great mastery of God, the proud Cathedral that today presides over our Zócalo is made from the very same stones that made the Great Temple where blood was shed in the names of Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl.

It is then safe to assume that Guillermo Ignacio de la Vega used the stones of the said temple to build himself a stately home in the Spanish style of the time: a large patio surrounded by a two-story cloister. Perhaps it is daring, but judging from the constitution of the oldest part of the house and the nature of its materials, I am willing to put forth the proposition that the structure he commissioned still stands. Of course, the building has undergone —sometimes happily, others to great disgrace of us lovers of good architecture— countless renovations, refurnishing, enlargements, restorations, modernizations, explosions, reparations and all sorts of other alterations that have made the task of us historians unnecessarily difficult by rendering the building virtually unrecognizable.

Here we face the problem of the premature end of Froilan’s promising career as a historian. Having just finished his first work, and amidst preparations for a follow up —which he planned to name True and Veridical Account of the First Years of the Nubile Vice-kingdom of the New Spain— the Holy Inquisition arrived in Mexico, and with them a copy of the infamous Libri Niger[iii]. To our great sorrow, Froilan’s name was found in the Libri, and he was thus condemned to the stake. His was one of the first autos de fé celebrated in the New World, and was painstakingly recorded in the diary of a certain Baroness Angüoitia[iv].

We then have a gap in our sources and don’t hear of Guillermo Ignacio de la Vega until he is mentioned in the Lista de Desaparecidos[v], published by the then-recently-founded Municipality of Nuevo León some thirty years later. Apparently, brave De La Vega funded and joined one of the many northern-bound expeditions that left Mexico City during that period in search of the legendary El Dorado. Like all the others, his troupe of rake-adventurers left Monterrey for the desert and never came back.

De La Vega left a widow and two daughters. The older one, Juliana de la Vega y Fernandez, managed to get hold of a very wealthy criollo: Don Luís Ybarrio, who despite his ignoble birth and extreme physical ugliness —Juliana describes him as “abhorrent like a leprous bore and impotent like an old priest”—was to become extremely prominent. As a dowry, the impoverished Doña Fernandez saw herself forced to cede her husband’s house to Ybarrio, who then took place as the new master of the Cinco de Mayo house.

Ybarrio used his considerable material fortune to buy several thousand acres in the recently colonized province of Nueva Vizcaya, close to the town of Durango. He was able to buy large extensions of land extremely cheaply due to an indirect family link to Francisco de Ibarra, main conquistador and first governor of the new province. His intention was, of course, to find silver. Nevertheless he was unlucky and found none. Juliana’s letters —of which the López de Iñigo Family Archive holds several packages— tell us that Ybarrio slowly descended into madness. Some experts want to read hints of infidelity in Juliana’s writing[vi], but I think such daring interpretations risky. In any case, with such a husband, one can easily empathize with Juliana, who appears to us as a very intelligent and sensitive woman, born in the wrong place and time.

Juliana bore several daughters and a few sons[vii], the eldest of which declared his father legally insane when he was barely twenty and assumed control of the estate. His name —whom you, my highly esteemed readers, are surely to recognize —was Alberto Ybarrio y de la Vega.

Young Alberto abandoned the failed silver-mining project of his father and instead dedicated his Durango hacienda to the breeding of cattle. Thanks to a large loan awarded to him by a notable friend of his, Manuel Malacostraca[viii], Alberto managed to quickly rebuild the family fortune. By the time he was twenty-five, he owned no less than five thousand heads and had successfully paid all the family debts. He then proceeded to make the first mayor remodeling of the house: he bought the adjacent land and built two wings, both connected to and slightly smaller than the original structure, both with their respective patios.

If his financial records don’t lie, Alberto lived a long and successful life. He married a pretty girl from the criollo nobility —María Isabel de la Calle— and built a name for himself as one of the most successful cattle ranchers in Nueva Vizcaya, despite the fact that he never left his native Mexico City. He died at almost ninety, surrounded by his five sons and countless grandchildren.

A series of satirical sonnets, published under the title Satirical Flowers of Poetry from this Great City of Mexico allow us to suspect a serious falling out among Alberto’s children, in all likelihood over his not-inconsiderable inheritance. Commissioned by Julian —the second-oldest son, named after his grandmother— to a now-obscure-yet-then-famous poet by the name Manuel Nangarado. The collection consists of almost three hundred poems, all dedicated to bashing Julian’s oldest sibling, Alberto, for his avarice, impotency and, most importantly, unpleasant nasal features. Here I present one of the best poems of the collection:

The Usurer’s Nose[ix]

Once there was a man to his snout attached,

Owner of the most unparalleled nose,

His was a lively, very lengthy hose,

He was a swordfish dreadfully mustached.

His nose was a large sundial all askew,

‘Twas a big elephant sitting upright;

It was a killer nose, a dangling scribe:

Was Ovid Naso with a nose most rude.

He was an ominous nasal missile;

A pyramid, a colossal nipple,

Alas, of nostrils he was the twelve tribes.

Pinnacle of noses, stated simple,

Gargantuan arch-nose, nosy archetype:

A patently purple scalded pimple.

One can only imagine the impact of such verbal virulence over Alberto. As was customary for such offenses, he challenged his younger brother to a duel to the death —not that he wanted to actually kill him, but Alas! Sometimes the customs of our times simply overcomes us, and there is nothing we can do but yield to them, miserable puppets of History that we are.

Strictly following the courtly protocol that was expected of men of their stature, the Ybarrio y de la Vega brothers found seconds to aid them in their duel. Julian —who, according to the letters of a certain señorita who stubbornly refused to sign her correspondence, was extraordinarily handsome and skilled in the arts of love but frankly useless for all kinds of practical matters— made the horrible mistake of choosing his poet friend as dueling partner, while Alberto paid a large sum to assure himself the support of none other than Stephan Wolf[x]. The Standard Manual for Chivalrous Dueling with the Aim of Restoring Honor and Repairing Offenses states that “in every Duel in which True Gentlemen are involved… …the defending party will be allowed to select, within Reason, the Weapons to be employed…[xi]”. In a second act of stupidity, Julian allowed Nangarado to choose the equipment. The poet, whose brain had been dried to insanity by a constant and uncalled-for reading of knightly fiction and mediaeval epic, foolishly chose the Italian cinqueada[xii].

The duel’s formalities were agreed upon by the seconds and put into writing in the form of a contract, signed by both contenders. According to this document —kindly made available to us by Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo, who not only is a loving mother but also manages the enormous historical archive housed by the Cinco de Mayo house—, the brotherly duel took place at dawn, in the main courtyard of the family house. The parties took their place in the farthest corners of the patio, dressed in most formal clothes and armed only with the said weaponry. With the stroke of five, Mariana —youngest Ybarrio y de la Vega daughter, then only six years old— did as instructed and dropped her handkerchief from the main balcony of the second story.

Making use of a little poetical license and briefly forgetting the task of the historian, it is possible, my dearest readers, to imagine that small and delicate silken handkerchief float loftily from the innocent fingers of the young girl and, taken forth by some sudden wind, land upon the top of one of the several palm trees that the ill-fated Guillermo Ignacio de la Vega planted on the courtyard of his stately home, with the landing of the handkerchief the duelers let out a horrifying war cry and rush to each other and…

But do forgive, readers. I have allowed myself to be taken away by a lyricism maybe adequate for an eighteen-year-old student of literature who has not yet laid beside a woman, but certainly out of place in the scholarly work of an old man. Suffices to say that the duel had the expected results: Wolf killed Julian, and Nangarado ran away. The magistrate in charge of the case, Juan Maldonado y Mezclilla, visited the crime-scene short after the fight and provides us, in his well-known memoir, with a beautiful passage describing the moment: “the poor man laid there, on the paved floor, among the dirt and the horse-shit, surrounded on all sides by huge fallen palm-leaves, blood still gushing out of a lethal wound in the neck, several inches deep… …his brother was kneeling before him, clasping the dead man’s right hand, crying bitter tears of regret and yelling “My brother! God forgive me! My brother!”... …the killer stood in the shadows of the cloister, wiping his dagger and grinning, awaiting payment for his mercenary services… …resisted arrest when confronted… …killed three of my best men.[xiii]”

Alberto was not as skillful in the art of evading the law as his second, and was therefore dutifully arrested under charges of murder —the reader must surely remember the 1489 Royal Decree on the Grave and Most Important Matter of Illegal Dueling, that in effect outlawed the practice for the first time in European history— and sentenced, in accordance to the archaic legislation still in place at the time, to twenty years as a slave-rower in a galley. Since there were no galleys to be found in the New Spain, the competent legal authorities found themselves in a predicament. Should they ship the condemned to Spain, and employ them in the never-ending war against the Turk? Should they embark him as a jack-of-all-trades in the Manila Galleon or in the Atlantic Fleet? Should they just lock him up? The debate grew so stressful and strained that Magister Maldonado, it is rumored, suggested naïve Alberto to try and bribe him[xiv], thus sparing him the trouble of figuring out what to do with him. Alberto, of course, took the suggestion seriously, and thus managed to never set foot in jail.

Alberto managed to hoard all of his father’s inheritance, yet he lived in deep regret for the rest of his life. Apparently he took to alcohol. Mariana —who continued the family tradition of intelligent and prolific female letter-senders— writes to one of her cousins that their uncle “swallows mezcal like others gorge down water… …often stays up ‘till late at night… ….crying like a baby in the exact place where his brother died… ….long streams of transparent and semi-liquid booger dripping from that monstrous snout of his… …truly an unbearable sight.”

With the householder sunk deep in the black well of alcoholic guilt, the family finances could only but suffer, and they did. The few financial documents that remain of the period show a constant decline in the administration of the estate. Nevertheless, Alberto’s guilt was not all for ill. In an attempt to quiet his inner demons, he decided to have a chapel built in the honor of his brother inside the Cinco de Mayo house, thinking that, if he managed to make it beautiful enough, he could assure Julian’s ascension to heaven despite the fact that he had died before a priest could provide him with the last rites and heard his confession. He commissioned famed architect Vicente García-Landa[xv], who based his chapel on the western façade of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Alberto spent most of what little was left of the family fortune on a massive tableaux, which he had covered in gold leaf and consecrated to Saint Gabriel Marquez, patron saint of guilt-ridden drunkards. The tableaux is still in place to this day, in a near-perfect degree of conservation, and is, most definitely, one of the greater treasures of that treasure chest that is the López de Iñigo-Grimaldi house.

Alberto died from cirrhosis before he could see the chapel finished. As a matter of fact, the beautiful building —located in a corner of the courtyard of the west wing— was not to be completed until many years later, when the family finances reached again a more-or-less acceptable status. The fratricide householder left his heirs —all of them his nephews and cousins: he never married— nothing but a terrifying debt owed to the gold-leafer’s guild and to García-Landa.

With the family in deep financial difficulties, it was, quite surprisingly, Mariana who took the reins. The young woman managed to negotiate a payment-suspension on the debts —some say that with a gun in her hand— and used the time gained to travel to the family’s estate in Durango, where she re-organized the cattle ranch into an extremely efficient cow-factory, foreshadowing the modern techniques our highly-technologically-advanced ranches employ today[xvi]. Her ideas happily came in the exact time of a sudden population boom in Nueva Vizcaya, which meant a large increase in both the availability of cheap, exploitable labor and of potential consumers. Mariana sold her workers the fruits of their own labor, and thus became extremely rich in a matter of years. She paid off all the family’s debts and then proceeded to finish the chapel in honor of her older brother and buy more land in Nueva Vizcaya. By the time of her death —unmarried and childless[xvii]— Mariana was known, in the highest social circles of Mexico City, as the Queen of the North, as she single-handedly owned over half the province.

With the death of Mariana and her lack of heirs, a new conflict over the inheritance appeared on the horizon. The main contenders for the title of householder were the cousins Fernando and Miguel, both Mariana’s nephews, born within days of each other. Fearing new bloodshed and fratricide, Fernando, who like his mother Juana Ines de Azabaje-Ybarrio was extremely religious, decided to consult the matter with the then-current Cardinal of Mexico City, no other than his Eminence Monseñor Romero y Torre[xviii].

The Cardinal meditated long on the matter, and after consulting with the Virgin of Guadalupe —with whom he claimed to have a mystical connection—, he decided that the best idea was to leave the matter in the hands of the Divine Providence, or, in modern terms, to chance. He devised a very simple method. First of all, he would write a number in a little piece of paper and hide it among his robes. He would then have the brothers throw a pair of dice. Finally, he would have the contender who got the higher number in his throw to say out loud either “Even” or “Odd”. If the contender’s answer matched the number written in the little piece of paper, that brother could consider himself householder by the grace of God. If the answer didn’t match, this would clearly mean that God wanted the other contender to assume control of the estate.

The contest was celebrated in the great nave of the Metropolitan Cathedral, and attracted thousands of spectators. Among them was Archibald Wussamust[xix], who wrote: “the whole church was full of all kinds of people. I could see hundreds of different kinds of attires, from the vaporous dresses of the high-society ladies to the traditional huipiles of mestizo women, and the spectacle was indeed impressive. Nevertheless, the smell was frankly unbearable. From all the peoples that I met upon my travels, the inhabitants of the Viceroyality of New Spain are, by far, the worst smelling. I am not sure if this is due to a deficient diet or to a simple disregard to the most basic forms of civilization[xx]”.

The suspense was great. The Cardinal stepped on the pulpit and, seeing that such a large crowd had gathered, took advantage of the circumstances and delivered an impromptu sermon on the horribleness of the Lutheran heresies. The sermon lasted for nearly three hours, and by the time it was over, most of the crowd had left, all of this much to the dismay of Miguel, who had theatrical ambitions and adored to be observed.

The contest went by, then, in relative calm. Miguel rolled a six and a two. Fernando rolled two fives and squeaked in joy. “Odd!” he yelled. The Cardinal smiled and shook his head. From bellow his crimson coat he drew a little piece of vellum in which his most holy hand had written, in the extremely stylized typography typical of his century, the number forty-two[xxi]. Miguel was thus declared winner of the contest, and blessed by the Cardinal as new head of the Ybarrio household. He left the Cathedral in profound joy, and immediately proceeded to spend an obscene sum in mezcal and whores.

Fernando, on the other hand, was devastated. He sank to his knees in the Cathedral floor, eyes fixed on the ground, mouth half opened, gasping for air. Wussamust reports that, when the Cardinal kindly asked him what was wrong, Fernando replied: “Do you not see? He does not love me. Chance is the expression of His will, no? And He favors those whom He deems worthy, no? Therefore, if He did love me, I would have won the contest. My lack of fortune is clear proof that I am not among His chosen ones.”[xxii] The Cardinal tried to console him, but apparently his efforts were to no use. Fernando had fallen prey to the theological trap of the Calvinists, and could not escape. He grew obsessed by the idea and eventually sank into insanity. After a few years spent in agony, throwing dice upon the floor of the family chapel over and over again, trying to figure out if God had forgiven him, Fernando killed himself with a gunshot to the head, convinced that he was going to hell anyway.

Miguel, although he seemed to have a dear affection for partying and often visited brothels and bars, turned out to be a pretty decent administrator. He maintained Mariana’s scheme in Nueva Vizcaya, and employed most of the profits in a large-scale program of remodeling for the Cinco de Mayo house. Most importantly, he had the central courtyard covered by a massive glass dome that imitated the Pantheon in Rome and that still stands. But perhaps his choice of such a distinctive architectural style deserves an explanation…

A man of his time, Miguel was a fan of the Neo-Classicism then in vogue in Europe. Nevertheless, he was not exactly sure as to what characteristics should a neo-classic building posses in order to be called so, as he had never left Mexico City. He then came up with a brilliant idea, and decided to send his eldest son, Genaro, to study architecture in the French Academy. The plan was to get the boy well versed in the newest European trends of art and architecture, and then have him come back and apply what he had learnt to the Cinco de Mayo House, thus making the family home into the envy of the New Spaniard nobility while also, in a magnificent example of multi-tasking, assuring that the family heir was a well-educated man, a true alumbrado.

And so, young Genaro found himself aboard a transatlantic ship bound for Seville, from where he was to make his way to Paris in any manner possible. Sadly, no direct records of his journey survive, and thus we know close to nothing regarding the young man’s European adventures. What we do know is that, when Genaro returned some five years later, he had spent time in Paris, Berlin, and Philadelphia and was married to a Frenchwoman by the name Claudette Mallarmé[xxiii].

As Miguel discovered in shock, his son had learnt much more than just fashionable architecture. While in France and America, Genaro had been exposed to some of the most virulent forms of Enlightenment revolutionary thought. Some of Claudette’s pamphlets let us suppose that she introduced him to Voltaire —whom she loathed, considering him a “faggot”— and Rousseau —with whom she apparently had an affair despite the fact that she thought his writing to be “baby talk”— just months before the philosopher’s deaths. She also forced Genaro to learn English, in order to read Hobbes and Locke. She convinced him to travel to America, where, thanks to her infamy as a first-class agitator, they briefly met several of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a few years before their Declaration of Independence.

Genaro stayed long enough to design and help build the dome his father wanted, but eloped with Claudette before the structure was finished. It just so happened that Genaro and Claudette were not the only ones in New Spain to hold revolutionary ideas. With the outbreak of the American Revolution, and later the French one, the couple decided that it was their duty, if they were to stay true to their convictions, to abandon the bourgeois living style they then held and join the many conspiracies that were beginning to plan a New Spaniard Revolution. A letter by Miguel to Monseñor Romero —who had become his confessor and confident— informs us that the couple simply went to bed one night and left through the bathroom window. It appears that Claudette took time to write “Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!” on one of the exterior walls of the chapel, using her own blood as ink.

A few months latter, Father Hidalgo gave his glorious address in Dolores and the Mexican Revolution started. Claudette and Genaro basically disappeared from the map. In Mexico City, the Ybarrio family was torn apart between Royalists and Separatists, who only came to terms when they agreed that, in any case, Mexico/New Spain had to break free from the spurious rule of José Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother and puppet in the throne of Spain.

Genaro reappeared almost eleven years later. He knocked on the main gate of the Cinco de Mayo house early one morning, and had to make efforts to ensure that the servants recognized him. He asked for food, water and a bath, and only after these things had been provided to him did he proceed to tell his tale. He explained to his father —who was by then very old, battered down from the many financial losses that any revolution entails and from the long nights of anguish wondering about the fate of his eldest son— and a young Italian writer by the name Giovanni-Lucas Ghiodardo —who latter published an account of Genaro’s tale in his volume Tales from the Mexican War of Independence[xxiv]— that he had fought, alongside Claudette, under the orders of a certain José Miguel Puig an obscure revolutionary caudillo who’d led a rebel force in northern San Luís Potosí. He said that Puig had been executed a few months before the publishing of the Iguala Plan. When questioned about Claudette, he broke into tears. Apparently, the Frenchwoman left him shortly after their leader’s execution, with no explanation other than a brief note that read “Je reviens à la France”. This devastated Genaro, who then apparently sought death by bravery in the combat-field, but failed to attain a soldier’s end. Too Catholic to kill himself, the young man returned to his father’s house, in his own words “to write sonnets, and then die.” This exactly he did. I would reproduce a piece of his to accompany the essay, but to be frank his poems are, to put it simply, vomit-inducing. I will only add that, apparently, Claudette refused to sleep with him, and that this lack of carnal knowledge of his wife pained him intensely.

Shortly after Iturbide was crown emperor, it became clear to the inhabitants of the Cinco de Mayo house that Genaro was not going to take control of the estate. Again, it seemed obvious that a fight over the inheritance was about to break loose. This time, however, the fight was to be of national proportions. The Ybarrio were, like every other family in the newly formed Empire of Mexico, torn apart between liberales and conservadores.

The liberal side of the family centered on Mariano, the eldest son after Genaro, who had since boyhood looked up to his older brother as an inspiration. Although Genaro’s present state made him question the actual viability of his brother’s progressive ideas, he held on to the revolutionary cause as the only possible source of meaning for life. The reader may feel tempted to find personal, subjective interpretation —a historian’s capital sin— in this statement, but can be rest assured that such is not the case. Mariano left behind an intimate diary that makes his feelings about the matter quite explicit: like most of his political persuasion, he saw the revolution more as a means of personal salvation in a time when everything that once seemed certain, stable and permanent was proven to be a mere simulation.

The conservative half, on the other hand, had its leader in Santiago, the youngest of the brothers. Santiago did not leave a personal diary behind —the meticulous recording of intimate thoughts and feelings being, I believe, thoroughly incompatible with conservatism—, but it safe to assume that his convictions arose from a loathe of Claudette, whom he saw as a corrupting force in his elder brother, and whom she called a “harpy, a slut, a goddamned Frenchwoman of hell.[xxv]” Santiago saw the revolution as a threat to those things he held in highest esteem: family wealth, Catholic faith and loyalty to the King of Spain.

The rivalry began innocently enough, with red-faced discussions over dinner and yelling of slogans across hallways, but the conflict soon began to escalate. By the time Iturbide was being executed, half of the household refused to even look at the other half of the household. When the tension became unbearable, Santiago, whose love of tradition drew him to a very anachronic romanticism, challenged Mariano to a duel. Had Genaro not stepped out of his self-imposed exile to the room in the west-wing where he had begun to build a pretty respectable library and begged his younger siblings to stop, the Cinco de Mayo house would have, in all probability, been witness to fratricide yet again.

Both Mariano and Santiago had enormous respect for Genaro, and they both viewed themselves —paradoxical as it may sound— as direct followers of his example. As such, they saw themselves forced to call off the fight in the last minute. Nevertheless, the problem of the inexorable feud remained unresolved. Mariano suggested that, since it had been in the spirit of Genaro’s examples that they had decided not to fight, they should ask him to come up with an honorable solution to the problem. Santiago agreed, and as such the two brotherly enemies knocked on Genaro’s door and asked him, shouting, —he refused to receive them in his sanctuary— for advice on how to settle the matter. According to Mariano’s diary, the ex-revolutionary-turned-bad-sonnetist answered their shouts with a shout of his own, apparently charged with anger: “Go to hell, you both! I don’t give a goat’s ass about your stupid little feud. Draw a fucking line across the house and keep a half each if it pleases you! Now leave me alone.[xxvi]”

The brothers either failed to appreciate the jest-tone implicit in Genaro’s word choice or were unable to find a better solution, because the very next day they proceeded to divide the house in two. They drew a white chalk line[xxvii] through the middle of the main courtyard, and each kept half the house. They also partitioned the Durango/Coahuila —before Nueva Vizcaya— estate and its contents. Genaro’s room was deemed no-man’s land.

This uncomfortable situation allowed General Santa Anna to claim constant support of the Ybarrio family, as he was supported by the liberal half during his rebellion against Bustamante and by the conservative side during his coup against Gómez Farías. The Ybarrio conservatives, however, found themselves in a predicament in 1836: on one hand they found the abolishing of the Liberal Constitution extremely agreeable and the establishing of a Catholic dictatorship quite exciting, but on the other they weren’t too happy about the separatist rebellions that spurted out on the north, in the midst of their dominions. Their final falling out with Santa Anna, however, came a few years later, when the whole Texas affair —again, no point in repeating what the readers know too well— went terribly wrong and the Ybarrios suddenly found themselves defending the Cinco de Mayo house from an American army.

Tragedy was soon to ensure. We don’t have actual records of what exactly happened, but a word-of-mouth legend has reached us through the servants, many of who are descendants of the original De La Vega household. My long career as a historian has led me to be convinced that oral history is sometimes much more trustworthy than written records, and as such, I present the legend now, as told to me by Doña Agripina the twelfth, current Chief Cook of the López de Iñigo-Grimaldi household:

So them be sh’ting at the gringos from ‘bove the r’top, yes? Each o’ them from their half, yes? Conserves to the right, libertines to the left. Then, ol’ Genaro cam’d out o’ him r’m. No’dy knows why. He open’d him window ‘nd walk’d out to the str’t. He be crossin right ‘n front of the portal when he get shot. No’dy knows by who. Conserves yell at libertines that ‘twas them who shoot the ol’ man. Libertines yell at conserves that it ain’t them they’re looking for. Sudden, libertines and conserves be sh’ting at each other and at gringos. ‘Twas mayhem. Swear it be truth! ‘ver the Holy Boy o’ Atocha, sir! Me grandmomma told me all o’ it[xxviii].

The conflict escalated. For the next sixteen years, the Cinco de Mayo house was a war zone. Barricades were built in the main courtyard, the inner walls of the house were fortified, the servants were armed, and espionage agencies were created. Both Mariano and Santiago were killed in the fighting, with their sons —Mariano Jr. and Santiago II, respectably— taking control of the two sides. With the apparent triumph of the liberals —the readers know the Juárez saga way too well to have to bear me tell it again—, the intensity of the fighting diminished, with the conservatives barricading themselves inside the Chapel of Julian. The liberals demanded their surrender, on the argument that they would run out of food eventually and that there was no point in maintaining the farce. Nevertheless, the conservatives held ground, much to the astounding of the liberals, who could not understand how did their enemies manage to survive so long on so little food. It was not until much latter than the liberals discovered that their enemies had dug an enormous tunnel network under the church and the rest of the house, and that said tunnel had an exit into the pastry shop of a renowned French chef. Apparently, the Ybarrio conservatives sustained themselves on sugary cakes through the whole Reform Civil War. This actually worked twice to their advantage, because the angry French chef demanded compensation from the Juarez government. The Liberal Government had severe budget issues, as the readers well know, and as such was forced to default on the French chef’s demands. This led, single-handedly, to the infamous French Intervention of 1861.[xxix]

Again, I find it unnecessary to describe events that my readers know all too well. I will only say that, after the coronation of Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, things went marvelously for the Ybarrio conservatives. A meticulous description of their liberation from the liberal siege can be found in Mariano Jr’s diaries:

“We suddenly found ourselves under attack from both the outside and the inside: the French and Imperial armies fired light cannons at us from the street while my cousin and his cronies stormed out of the Chapel armed with repostery knives. Our forces fought back for a while, but after a few hours it was just too much. The servants were the first to rout; most of them were captured immediately. My closest relatives and I ran out of ammunition and were forced to fight our way into Genaro’s room with swords. Several were wounded, many were captured, a few even surrendered. I managed to escape through the window. I took the first train to Veracruz available and joined President Juarez as soon as I could. The Cinco de Mayo house was lost, as was Mexico City.”

Santiago II and his conservative friends were greeted as heroes in the Imperial Court. They were even awarded a Patent of Nobility, and as such, for a brief period of time, the conservative Ybarrio were Counts of Durango and Marquises of Coahuila. Tales abound of how Count Santiago suddenly adopted a faux-Spaniard accent and started wearing his grandfather’s clothes, living his childhood dream of being a courtly gentleman, skilled in the arts of war, love, and religion, faithful to his king and to his god. Of course, all this resulted in him being the main laugh of the imperial palace, which was one of the most fashionable and up-to-date places in the world and were pretending to live in the fourteen century was, to put it simply, not thought of as attractive.

However, happily for Santiago II’s sanity —it is almost impossible not to notice that people find you pathetic, especially in an imperial court, and its almost impossible not to be affected by this noticing— Maximiliam was soon deposed and executed. With the restoration of the Republic, the Ybarrio Conservatives were tacitly presented with a choice: either they reconciled with their liberal relatives or exiled themselves to Spain. Out of mere economical motives —being rich in Mexico has always been remarkably easy, not so much in the Old World—, and against the wishes of a senile Santiago II —who had by then taken to wear a toga and babble in ill-learnt Latin—, the Ybarrio Conservatives reconciled themselves with their liberal counterparts, and such the division of the house was brought to a more-or-less happy ending after almost half a century of senseless carnage.

After the death of Mariano Jr., the family turned to young Carlos —nephew of both Santiago II and Marino Jr.— for leadership. During the conflict, Carlos had been sent to the United States —more specifically to Columbia University— to pursue a Law degree.

The moment Carlos sat foot on the house; he started a major repairs program, trying desperately to undo the damages of the Reforma Civil War. He had all the bullet-holes fixed —save a few on the western wall of the Old Building, to serve as a memorial for the fallen— and most of the west wing redecorated in a more modern style. He had the house fitted with running water and electricity. He installed modern restrooms in strategic points of the house. He also brought with him from New York a hobby —nay! An obsession— that was to absolutely transform the Cinco de Mayo house: Carlos Ybarrio was the first serious art collector that inhabited the house. During his almost forty years as paterfamilias, he bought exquisite paintings and sculptures, filling the house with beautiful objects. It was during this period that the Cinco de Mayo house began taking the appearance it has today.

Shortly after Diaz’s coup, he was invited by the President himself to join him in his cabinet. Diaz sent him a letter of his own handwriting explaining to him his idea the Mexico should be ruled by “scientists[xxx]” , and that he, having heard of his extraordinary educational record, wanted Carlos in his government. Carlos, of course, felt deeply honored by the offering and accepted immediately. Diaz named him Giver and Keeper of Justice, a pompous title that basically meant that young Carlos was expected to prosecute the enemies of the Nation —here one is to read: personal opponents of Diaz’s.

As the reader in all probability remembers, Diaz had grown up in a highly dysfunctional mestizo family. His own writing tells us that his father —a raging morphinomaniac, nymphomaniac and aracnomaniac— made him and his four brothers and sisters dance and sing in the local cantinas for a profit. Diaz grew up a tormented child, filled with complexes and frustrations, most of them centered on his identity as a mestizo. The moment he was able, he left his family home to join the army. He fought against Santa Anna as a liberal guerilla, against the French intervention, and against the Conservatives in the Reforma Civil War, and in doing this won unbelievable popularity due to his outrageous outfits and graceful, dance-like, battle style[xxxi]. Loose-morale women from all over the continent rushed to his arms. Imitators spawned in places as distant as Guatemala. When his coup turned out successful, Diaz was at the peak of fame: he had conquered.

When his term was done, Diaz stepped down of the charge —the reader must remember that the hypocrite justified his coup on the premise that re-election was anti-democratic— and dutifully called for a general election. When that term was over, however, Diaz decided —with a flip-floppery worthy only of a Democratic Party candidate to the Presidency of the U.S.A— that re-election wasn’t so terrible when the country needed a strong leader, and as such ran for office again, and won —or at least he declared himself winner. Since Carlos had done a fine job as Giver and Keeper of Justice, Diaz decided to keep him on the extremely generous payroll of his Cabinet of Scientists. Carlos however, needed even more money to sustain his hunger for Fine Art, and as such he opened, together with his son and two of his nephews —all of whom studied Law at the recently reopened University of Mexico— a private Law Firm that remains functioning to this day and whose name has become so familiar to us readers of newspapers: Ybarrio & Sons.

But let us go back to President Diaz[xxxii]. The fame of a second victory, however, was far too much for the poor soul of Diaz. Deep down, he was just a sad mestizo boy surrounded by white men. It was around this time that he began changing his appearance. People who knew him personally in this stage of his life claim that Diaz had his nose broken on purpose several times, trying to get it to adopt a more European-looking shape. He is also reported to have used all sorts of weird make-up dusts to whiten his skin. Some not-too-trustworthy rumors —albeit trustworthy enough to be printed here— say that President Diaz even went as far as applying little droplets of bleach to his eyeballs —with the intention of turning his eyes blue— and of drinking, in exclusion of everything else, Italian wine consecrated for the Eucharist by a priest.

However, as the President sank lower and lower into the realms of monstrosity, his team of scientists managed to administrate the country pretty decently, although it must be said that the prosperity that they brought to Mexico was absolutely uneven, with a few families accumulating all the benefits and most of the Heroic People starving to death in the lonely fields, surrounded by their faithful burros, wearing their heavy sombreros, complaining all day about the general unfairness of life. When we combine this with the growing unrest felt by the learned classes about Diaz’s constant reelection, it is easy to see that a revolution was brewing in Mexico.

Things reached a limit when the President’s sleeping habits became publicly known. An anonymous letter sent to a marginal anarchist newspaper[xxxiii] called Regeneración stated that President Diaz went to bed every night in the company of at least six young children. Apparently, the President suffered from chronic insomnia and terrible nightmares, and the only thing that could calm him down was the sight of the peaceful features of a sleeping child. Of course, such a scandal is more than enough to finish off anyone’s political career, and as such Diaz began making preparations to exile himself to some far-away country and live the remaining of his days in relative peace. He began by giving a short interview to an American journalist, denying the accusations of pedophilia that while informing the world that “Mexico is now ready for democracy[xxxiv]”, proceeding shortly after to allow several opposition parties to muster forces and find suitable candidates for the election. When the Election Day finally came, it was the Francisco I. Madero —a weirdo psychic turned antireelectionist leader by some evil scheme whose scope and aims we haven’t yet finished to see— who came out as victor. Diaz, battered down as he was from years of overwhelming fame and unending calumniation, fulfilled his promise and left for Europe, where he was to die a few years latter from an overdose of laudanum.

While all these events took place, Carlos Ybarrio made the fateful decision of sending one of his sons, Fernando —who was nicknamed “Cheesy” for reasons far too vulgar and obscene to print here—, to oversee the functioning of the Durango and Coahuila estate. Fernando was, apparently, a spoiled brat who enjoyed rape-bordering fornication and binge drinking —what the crazy kids these days —I may be old, but I’m not out of touch with the youngsters!— what the crazy kids this days call a “junior”, a “wife-beater”, a “pimp”, a “gansta”, a “douche bag” —did I spell it right, grandson? He had not been in Chihuahua for a day when he found out that, as acting householder, he had prima nocte[xxxv] rights over all the women in the estate. He immediately began to scan for young girls with marriage intentions. Meanwhile, not too far from the estate, Madero was murdered by henchmen under the orders of a certain Victoriano Huerta, and madness descended over Mexico yet again, with the Ybarrio locking themselves down in the Cinco de Mayo house once more.

By the time that Cheesy found a girl in which to exercise his legal right, a full blown revolution had surged in many parts of Mexico, with angry campesinos following the orders of wild caudillos, killing federales without mercy. Poor Cheesy, however, was about to single handedly unleash the greatest evil of the Mexican Revolution. The girl he found was called Marianita Rodriguez, and was about to get married to a certain Doroteo Arango, famed breaker of stallions who worked as gatekeeper in the Ybarrio estate.

Cheesy talked to Arango one night and made his intentions clear. Arango broke into tears, begging the young master not to touch his wife-to-be. However, Cheesy was unhearing. Arango then swore to him that if he touched his bride, he would make sure Cheesy was sorry. Cheesy laughed on his face and spat at his shoe. That very same night, he took Marianita’s virginity. Legend has it that Arango could hear her loud pleasure/pain moans from his bed in the patio. That night, so people say, he went insane with bloodlust.

The next morning, Arango armed himself with five sharp knives and two double-barreled shotguns. He wore his best outfit, a beautiful charro suit that his mother had made for him the day he left his little pueblito, back in the day. He mounted his proud mare, La Poderosa, and slowly, as the sun raised red from behind the desert and the mountains, he rode till he reached the main house. He dismounted, kicked the door open, and walked in[xxxvi]. He made his way into Cheesy’s room without hesitation: he knew the house well. When he reached the door, he stopped for a moment, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He then opened the door, which screeched. Cheesy woke up, suddenly opening his eyes in fear. Next to him, naked, laid beautiful and unvriginzied Mariana.

—Arango? —asked Cheesy in incredulity.

—That ain’t my name no more. —answered the other one.

He drew both shotguns, one in each hand, and took aim.

—What are you doing? —yelled Cheesy.

—Say your prayers, puto. —said the gatekeeper.

—Doroteo! —begged Marianita.

He shot four times, until he emptied both the guns. He then crossed himself, took a bottle of mezcal out of his bag, and took a long drink. He wetted the bed with the liquor, which mixed with the blood. He lit up a cigar, and proceeded to throw the match into the bed. When he left, the room was on fire.

Villa then went through the house, room by room, killing everyone he found. When he reached the limit of the estate, he found a boy around the age of twelve, whom he spared.

—Tell everyone —he told the kid as he remounted his horse— that Pancho Villa did this!

And with that, he rode into the setting sun, a whole ranch on fire behind him, flames towering high against the dark desert night.[xxxvii]

Carlos the Scientist heard about the fate of his son and his estate quite quickly. Grief struck him dumb, apparently. While Mexico blazed in flames, with hundreds of unorganized caudillos fighting what was left of the Federal Government and the old aristocracy, the inhabitants of the Cinco de Mayo house locked themselves up in their art-ridden mansion and wept the death of their oldest son, soon forgetting his general jackassness and speaking of him as a hero[xxxviii]. Some of Cheesy’s younger brothers and cousins made attempts to end the mourning and take actions regarding the future of the family —one must remember that the Ybarrio family had, beyond any possible doubt, associated itself with the Diaz regime, and that such association was not seen with good eyes by the revolutionaries—, even coming as far as seriously considering exile to the United States. Carlos the Scientist, however, stubborn as he was, refused, saying that the Ybarrio would much better stay home and defend what little was left of their wealth.

We have now reached the point, dear readers, in which, if we are to continue with the history of the Cinco de Mayo house, we must take a detour from the Ybarrio family and take first notice of the new protagonists of this story: the López de Iñigo. In order to do this, we must relocate ourselves to a little town called Wachochi, in the midst of the Chihuaha desert.

The López de Iñigo lacked a family archive until they took possession of the Cinco de Mayo house, and as such our knowledge of their history is far sparer than our understanding of the past of the Ybarrio. We do know, however, that the first López to set foot in American lands arrived in Chihuahua from Andalusia sometime in the early sixteen century. There, the López family was one of many Spanish Criollo households that did not manage to join the new colonial aristocracy. They were small landowners and, from the early nineteen century on, professionals lawyers and bankers, more specifically.

At the time of the Revolution, the López patriarch was a man named Abelardo; he served as chief lawyer in the town’s bar. He had two sons, Alejandro and Diego. Alejandro —all this I heard from Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo, who has taken the preservation of oral history as part of her job as family archivist and who has hopes of committing what little is known of the story to writing as soon as humanly possible— was notoriously short and small-footed, as well as prone to excess gambling and drinking. Diego, on the other hand, was a quiet, normal boy, excelling in his studies and with high hopes and ambitions for his future. Around the time when Pancho Villa brutally murdered Cheesy, Diego had been apprenticed to his uncle Manuel, to learn the craft of banking, while Alejandro had been kicked out of the López house for his misbehavior and spent his days drinking mezcal in the dusty streets of Chihuahua, mugging and robbing to afford his terrible luck in dice-throwing and guarantee himself two warm meals a day.

Pancho Villa’s escape from the Ybarrio ranch brought him to Chihuahua, where he began recruiting men[xxxix]. He had decided —he was a very intelligent man, if somewhat uneducated— that the best way to escape justice was to join the revolution, thus transforming his criminal acts into righteous fury against the oppressive regime. By the time he reached Wachochi, Villa led a force of some hundred riders and his name had begun to sound in whispered conversations in not-too-respectable saloons, many of which served as Alejandro’s second home. It was in one of these franchises of hell that the two men met for the first time. Alejandro was on the verge of collapse, having drunk almost five litters of hard mezcal. Villa and his Dorados —as his troupe of rapists and murderers disguised as revolutionaries had taken to calling themselves— stopped at the place for quick drinks. According to Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo —who tells me she heard this story from her father-in-law Daniel, brother of Alejandro, who heard them from the protagonist during the years the lived together in the Cinco de Mayo house—, Villa walked up to the bar and asked for a hundred mezcals, with their lime and all.

—With pleasure, señor. —answered the barman. —But, can you pay for them?

Mrs. Grimaldi reports that Villa smiled and said:

—Ah, friend! Put them on the bill of the Revolution. When I’m President, I’ll pay you back.

Alejandro —who, perhaps because of his near-pigmy size, was never able of holding his liquor well— could not help but laugh at the arrogance of what, to him, seemed as nothing more than a mustached campesino with too much confidence in his twin barreled shotguns. Villa, of course, did not enjoy being laughed at. He thus produced one of his shotguns and pointed it at Alejandro’s head.

—What are you laughing about, puto?

Alejandro said nothing and kept on laughing. Villa unlocked his gun.

—I said what the fuck are you laughing about, son of a bitch!

Alejandro proceeded with his laughter. Moments afterwards he grabbed Villa’s testicles and twisted.

—You, of course! Its “laugh at” not “laugh about”. You want to be president? You can’t even speak right!

Much to the surprise of everyone present, Villa did not blow Alejandro’s brains out. Rather, he laughed hard and put his gun down. Alejandro released his testicles immediately.

—I like you, chaparrito. —said Villa. —You twist well. What’s your name?

With much difficulty, Alejandro stood up and bowed.

—Alejandro López, at your service.

When Villa fully realized Alejandro’s height, he couldn’t help but laugh. Alejandro reached for his jewels again, but Villa stopped him with ease.

—Do you mean that, little man? —he asked.

—Mean what? —Alejandro’s pride was hurt.

—Are you really at my service?

—I ain’t sucking your cock, if that’s what you’re asking for.

—No, puto. Do you want to join the Dorados? I’ll make you fucking general if you join.

Alejandro, as many of the readers surely know, agreed. He became known as General Botitas[xl], and rode a pony with the Dorados —later called the Division del Norte— for the rest of the Revolution.

Let us now divert our attention to Daniel, the well-behaved brother of Alejandro. A few years into the Revolution, his uncle Manuel had the brilliant idea that Mexico needed a National Bank. After the plunging and sacking that Villa, Zapata, and the rest of our Most Honorable Heroes, fathers of the Motherland, he found that he actually held enough capital to do so —not because he had much money but because everyone else had lost it all. However, Wachochi, though a fair and populous city well worthy of a Whitman poem, was not a suitable place to start such venture. Mexico City, down south, was the only agreeable place for a National Bank. Manuel pondered day and night as to how to bring the actual gold to the Capital. The readers may well understand that, during times of Revolution, credit letters and such other sophistications of the modern banking system are simply worthless. Only gold, count and sounding, was accepted. The Great National Northern Railway went from El Paso to Mexico City, stopping in Chihuahua. Nevertheless, Manuel was uncertain. With Pancho Villa and his Dorados roaming around, sending such a large quantity of gold via railway was far from a wise choice. He eventually came, however, to the inevitable conclusion that he had no choice.

But, of course, Manuel was not going to risk his own person in such a journey. He decided to send his young nephew, Daniel, who of course was not happy with the mission. Manuel tried first to convince him, telling him about the incredible riches they could aspire to if the project came to good ends. When this failed, he proceeded to order his employee to go. When Daniel quit the bank, he threatened him with a revolver. The young man finally agreed.

Manuel handed him the revolver and instructed him to hide the gold in traveler’s trunks, covering it with clothes so as to make it look as luggage. The reasoning was that, if Daniel and his young wife travelled as a young couple moving to Mexico City from Chihuahua looking for a better life, they would look quite harmless and unsuspicious. Even if the dreaded Dorados stopped the train, they would hopefully look them over.

The wife, of course, objected. Daniel first tried to convince her with smooth talk about beautiful dresses and a nice house. When this failed, he appealed to his husbandly authority. When the girl —who went by the name Luisa— threatened with divorce, he took out the revolver. That very same night the couple boarded the train, carrying with them six trunks filled with solid gold. Daniel held his uncle’s revolver on one hand and his aunt’s rosary on the other.

Days and nights and stations passed. Luisa apparently took the trip with bravery worthy of admiration, but Daniel suffered several small mental collapses. Then, on the twelfth night, just as they reached the Chihuahua border —which if they crossed would effectually put them out of danger—, the Northern National suddenly came to a halt in the middle of the cold desert night. Daniel looked outside his window and saw no station in sight. Their worst fear had just turned true.

Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo tells me that Daniel’s description of his own fear was quite impressive. He apparently said: “I actually soiled myself. Twice.” The Dorados boarded the train and began checking on the passenger’s belongings. When an old man refused to let a rider see the contents of his trunk, the revolutionary took out his gun and shot him in the foot. He then took the bag, emptied its contents on the floor and, seeing that there was nothing of value, shot the man on the face. A few rows ahead, another rider saw a pretty girl and proceeded, without a word, to brutally rape her, in front of everyone.

The Dorados neared. Daniel clutched his revolver and, shaking, began reciting Hail Maries. Luisa reportedly whispered into his ear:

—If one of those pigs puts a hand on me, shoot him. Then shoot me. Then shoot yourself.

Just then, one of the riders stopped in front of them. The man took of his hat and said:

—G’d night, lady and gent! My name is Enrique, and I’d like to ask for your cooperation with the ‘volutinary cause. Are you carrying any gold with you right now?

Daniel took a deep breath and prepared to draw his gun when, in the back of the wagon, he heard a voice he knew quite well:

—Very well, putitas! Botitas is here! I want to see some efficiency, ladies!

And then he came strolling in, his little boots resounding on the wagon floor, his short figure projecting an enormous shadow. Alejandro was about halfway across the isle when he recognized his brother. He smiled.

—Rider! —he said, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder— Leave this two to me. I’ve always felt a certain weakness for young lovebirds.

—Of course, boss! —said the rider, and walked off.

Alejandro waited until he was out of earshot and then looked at his brother and smiled.

—You owe me big time, bro. —he said —One day you’ll have to pay me back.

And with that, Botitas left. When he reached the end of the wagon, he looked back and yelled:

—Enough, faggots! To the next one!

The Dorados obeyed and left the wagon. As the last of them descended, the passengers began to react. Many rushed to the raped woman, offering her all sorts of consolations, while others went to the dead man, hoping perhaps to revive him. Daniel broke into tears. Luisa smiled and softly caressed his head. A few hours later, the train started again.

Two weeks from that night, Daniel and his wife descended in Mexico City unharmed and in possession of an incredibly large amount of gold. A year later, Mexico —or what was left of it— had a National Bank, and the López family was obscenely rich.

Let us now return to the Cinco de Mayo house, where the ruined Ybarrio had spent the last few years desperately selling many of their possessions in a foolish attempt to hold on to their old lifestyle. Carlos the Scientist, now almost a hundred years old, somehow kept himself alive and in a leadership position within the family and had insisted on the immorality of exile. None of the younger members of the family dared to kill him and take his place, and as such, the Ybarrio stayed in Mexico. When Carlos finally died, the family’s condition was pitiable. It is then quite understandable that, when Daniel López offered them a decent sum of money of the Cinco de Mayo house, the family gladly accepted, leaving for Texas shortly after.

Daniel thus established himself as new master of the Cinco de Mayo house. As he reckoned his new property, the gap that indissolubly separates the middle class from the aristocracy became suddenly evident to him. He wasn’t, in any way, sophisticated enough to live in his new house. It was then and there that he decided that he would become a cultured man, a respectable man, a rich man in the truest sense of the word. He began by adding “de Iñigo” —for no particular reason— to his last name, to make it sound more aristocratic. As the state of affairs descended into calm as the Revolution slowly came to an end, he began —under the influence of a German financial mogul by the name Franz Mayer[xli]— collecting applied art, a choice that even today raises eyebrows. Daniel and Luisa had six kids, whom they raised in the best way possible to them. All and all, things seemed to be going marvelously for the young banker, who was acclaimed in the highest social circles of the new Mexico City bourgeoisie as one of the first great men of Mexico’s new age.

And then, one night, Botitas showed up to remind Daniel of that fateful night in the train. Villa and the rest of the caudillos were in town to negotiate the peace, and Botitas was, of course, close to his master. As a reward for his fraternal mercy, he now asked Daniel to share his house with the rest of the family. Daniel accepted, fooled by the apparent simplicity of his brother. A few weeks later, Alejandro showed up everyone in Wachochi who carried the López last name, some thirty people in total. What is more, Alejandro showed up with a girl he’d met during a brief incursion to Texas that Villa had insisted on doing “just to fuck a little with the gringos.” The girl in question was Rosa Ybarrio, who had married Botitas when he promised her to take her to Mexico City to live like a queen. The readers can very well imagine the irony and sadness of the spectacle when Rosa Ybarrio descended from the automobile and discovered that the house Botitas had promised her was none other than her own.

The case was that the Cinco de Mayo house had more inhabitants than ever in its entire history, with the López de Iñigo —together with spouses and offspring— filling every single room of the house. Daniel saw himself forced to spend enormous sums of money to make the house livable for such a quantity of people. Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo reports that the meals were tumultuous and the lines to use the bathroom eternal.

This state of affairs, however, was not to last too long. Botitas was shot to death in the same attack that took the life of his master[xlii]. After that, most of the inhabitants of the house left, partly because of the open hostility that Daniel and his sons professed to them. Rosa Ybarrio-López de Iñigo, however, remained in the house with her children, as she served as a legitimizing agent for the new owners of the house, lending them her legendary last name.

Daniel therefore raised nineteen children, half of them his, half of them his brother’s. He spent the next twenty years collecting applied art, running the National Bank, and indulging in political discussion within the newborn Party of the Institutionalized Revolution. He was one of the few bankers who wholeheartedly supported General Cárdenas’ nationalization of the oil companies, cunning political move that granted him many concessions. At one point, he even represented his natal Wachochi in the congress.

Several of Daniel’s sons got their higher education abroad. Most of them stayed there —there are López de Iñigo houses in Paris, London, Moscow, New Haven and Ithaca—, but Raúl —who’d gone to the University of Montenegro and trained in Law— returned, married to a young noblewoman by the name Sasha Grimaldi.

As Daniel grew old and sank into senility shortly after Luisa’s death, Raúl and Sasha took their place as householders, position which they hold up to this day. Under their wise guiding hand, the house has bloomed. There is not a single wall that is not covered by art, not a single piece of furniture that isn’t an antique. Their twelve sons and daughters are all good children, studious, kind, and well behaved. Raúl has reopened the law firm of his ancestors, with some of his older sons already taking interest in pursuing a career in jurisprudence. Sasha —whom I’ve referred to as Mrs. Grimaldi-López de Iñigo elsewhere on this piece— has a passion for history, and has thus self-appointed herself Archivist and Curator of the Cinco de Mayo house, taking care of the artwork and assuring that the history of the house will never be lost. Together, they preside over the Mexico City chapter of the Movement of Catholic Families; a charity organization devoted to the preservation of the true faith and the general improvement of the world.

I leave you now, dear readers, with a beautiful image. Last winter, I was invited to the López de Iñigo-Grimaldi Christmas party. I would like you to picture, dear readers, some three hundred guests, all seated in elegant tables in the three courtyards of the house, drinking fine eggnog and exchanging gifts. Dozens of kids all ages run among the hallways. Live music is played from the second floor. Mr. Raúl and Mrs. Sasha dance in the courtyard, surrounded by their sons and daughters and by the history of their country. The Cinco de Mayo house is, my dear readers, the House of Memory; a living receptacle of everything that is wonderful about our people: warm hearts, generosity, brotherly love, family unity, respect for tradition, love of god, hatred of social injustice, hunger for progress, and, most importantly, patriotism. As Raúl and Sasha walk me out, near dawn, I can see in both their faces that they are, more than anyone else I’ve met, true and proud Mexicans.

[i] (1480-1564) Franciscan friar who, like many others, wrote a True and Veridical Account of the Taking of the New World by the Glorious Armies of Spain. Owing, perhaps, to the lesser quality of his writing and his tendency for exaggeration, he remains in obscurity, shadowed by the much less exhaustive and frankly vulgar Conquest of New Spain authored by that rag of a historian and ruin of a soldier Bernal Díaz del Castillo.

[ii] García, Froilan. True and Veridical Account of the Taking of the New World by the Glorious Armies of Spain. USA. Chicago University Press. Trans from the Spanish by Julius Quortzar, Pg 421.

[iii] “Black Book”, a legendary volume bounded in black leather that contained the names of more than ten thousand conversos (Moors and Jews who converted to Catholicism to escape the 1492 expulsion) who allegedly continued to practice their previous religions. Put together from rumors and anonymous accusations, the book was surprisingly accurate, and is thus a beautiful witness to the inherit evil of human nature.

[iv] Infamous practitioner of a primitive form of sadist-masochism. Wrote many volumes of diaries in which she describes, in gory detail, bloody acts of all kinds. Brutally murdered by her husband upon his discovery of her aberrations a few years later.

[v] “List of Disappeared” containing the names of the men gone missing during the long and weary campaigns led by Alberto del Canto against the wild Chichimec tribes of northern Mexico.

[vi] Proponents of this theory often cite Ybarrio’s prolonged absences from Mexico City —he was an amateur engineer (his amateurism cost many lives) and enjoyed supervising the prospective works— as a possible window of opportunity for Juliana to hold one or several affairs.

[vii] Ybarrio suspected bastardy in several of them, citing their good looks as evidence.

[viii] Notorious opium smuggler. Through the years, he brought several hundred tons from China to Mexico via the Manila Galleon. Widely credited as directly responsible for the 1602 Totonac uprising in Oaxaca —he had gotten a whole town addicted and was at one point unable to supply the demanded quantities.

[ix] Some scholars unworthy of such name credit this poem to Francisco de Quevedo, the famous versifier-rake of the Spanish court of the same period. Some have even gone as far as implying that Nangarado shamelessly plagiarized Quevedo through his whole anthology. This is ridiculous. Any close analysis of Quevedo’s handwriting clearly shows that the man did not know how to write. This has led me to the belief that Quevedo never actually existed as an individual, but that he was rather a fictional nom-de-plume for many poets of the period, Nangarado included.

[x] Noted British soldier, actor, swordsman and all-around Elizabethan man. Left England somewhere in the early seventeen century, running away from no less than fifteen charges of murder and an atrocious gambling debt owed to a certain Benjamin Johnson.

[xi] Anonymous. Standard Manual for Chivalrous Dueling with the Aim of Restoring Honor and Repairing Offenses. France. Éditoriel Austrêl. 1928. Trans. from the Spanish by Vilemina Fox.

[xii] Short, Dagger-like sword popular through the renaissance. Used in the murders of Christopher Marlowe, Jean-Françoise Lyotard and Michelangelo Buonarroti, among others. Known as a traitor’s sword.

[xiii] Maldonado y Mezclilla, Juan. Memories and reflections of his time. Spain. Porrua. 1898. Pg 351

[xiv] Although many of my fellow historians seem anxious to find in this period instances of corruption that would give them a historical precedent on which to sustain their harsh —and frankly, baseless— accusations against the régime of the Institutionalized Revolution, I personally hold the position that corruption is not, and has never been, a widespread problem in Mexico. It is, I believe, a myth, a shameless lie spread around by fascist militants in the religious far right to instigate unrest in the people and bring on their Catholic revolution. I transmit this story with reluctance and against my better judgment, but it is the only possible explanation on how did Alberto manage to have such severe charges dropped.

[xv] Known mostly today for his design of the building that today houses the San Carlos Museum of European Art, García-Landa’s architecture is typical of the period. His is a baroque of excesses, exquisite in its absolute lack of restrain, heavy in ornamentation to a point in which it is almost too much. I personally find his use of the classical models of grotesquery simply fascinating; I love his placing of the most horrible gargoyles in the most unexpected of places, parodying and quoting from the High Gothic of the late mediaeval period with a grace and a style unseen before or after him.

[xvi] In accordance with the spirit of the Institutionalized Revolution, it is my duty to say that, however effective and innovative Mariana’s improvements were, they also represent a perfect example of bourgeois exploitation of the workers, who did not own the land they worked and who were subjected to an extremely cruel brand of wage-slavery. The similarities between the Ybarrio hacienda and our modern ranches are merely of efficiency. In all other aspects —including fairness of work, well being of the workers, etc.— our modern farms are far superior. The Revolution has brought Modernity and Social Justice to all of Mexico. Effective suffrage, no reelection!

[xvii] Some foul-mouthed colleagues of mine have insinuated that this might be due to a case of sexual inversion. They have written that Mariana’s letters to her cousin show hints of romantic affection and —what is yet more scandalous— sexual attraction. I believe this to be nonsense. All the serious psychological investigations of recent times show so-called lesbianism to be a myth, a product of the over-active imaginations of young doctors, many of which are actually sexual inverts themselves.

[xviii] Later transferred to El Salvador, where he was murdered by rebels while officiating mass in the cathedral. Known for his fascination with the mathematics of randomness, he developed a theory in which God’s will manifests itself through seemingly random phenomena. His motto was “God is chance”.

[xix] Polish traveler who underwent a grand tour of the Americas from 1720 to 1736. His chronicles of the way of life in Mexico are among the finest of the period.

[xx] Wussamust, Archibald. American Beauty. UK. Oxford University Press. Trans from the Polish by L. Güityenshtain. Pg 587.

[xxi] The number 42 has a special mystical significance for certain Illuminati sects, who deem it the “answer to Life, the Universe and Everything”. Whether the Cardinal conspired for the New World Order or not is still a matter of scholarly debate.

[xxii] Wussamut, Archimbald. Op Cit. Pg 588

[xxiii]Notorious French radical, Jacobin, feminist, utopian socialist, famed philosopher and foreshadower of the doctrines of Mao Tse Tung. Known in revolutionary circles as “The Man-eater” for her fame as heartbreaker. Author of hundreds of incendiary pamphlets and several pieces of popular theater of the absurd.

[xxiv] A translation from the Italian to the French by Françoise Truffaut is available from the École Normale Superieur’s publishing house.

[xxv] Quote taken from a description in Mariano’s diary (housed in the López de Iñigo-Grimald archive), immediately alter which he proceeds to accuse his younger brother of misogyny, bourgeois blindness to the needs of the people and a sickening reverse-Oedipical fixation.

[xxvi] Periphrasis from a passage of Mariano’s diary. The original dialogue was much heavier in obscenities, and thus I deemed it unfit to print under my name —the reader must remember I have sons and daughters. I decided to offer a watered-down version that still shows the virulence of Genaro’s answer.

[xxvii] Later replaced by a more-permanent line of red bricks across the pavement of the courtyard. The bricks remain to this day and stand witness to the vain divisions that tore our country in two before the Institutionalized Revolution brought peace and unity to the Nation.

[xxviii] This is a phonetic transliteration of an interview I did with many of the López de Iñigo-Grimaldi servants some time ago, using the magnificent technological machines made available to me by our National University. That genial sociologist William Faulkner, to whom I express debt and gratitude, pioneered this technique, which allows us to so accurately capture the slangs and terms of the lesser races.

[xxix] Before the reader drops the magazine in disgust after having found what appears to be an unforgivable historical inaccuracy, let me assure him that I am aware of what I am doing and that this is not, by any means, a mistake. I chose to merge the two distinct French Interventions into one for the sake of narrative, cohesiveness and to improve the image of our Nation. It is much better if we only loose one war instead of two. We have been militarily defeated enough times already. I humbly suggest to the Ministry of Education of the Institutionalized Revolution that we rewrite our official history to match my essay and then forget the truth. It is better for our youth if the Fatherland is presented as merely a mediocre country instead of an outright failure.

[xxx] What exactly did Diaz meant with this term is still under discussion. The general view is that the General had, by way of some unexplained method of time-travel, access to the scientological lore that was to be revealed to the general public by L. Ron Hubbard in the next century. Minority factions claim that Diaz meant “trained specialists”, but that view is clearly bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary. One must remember that Diaz was a madman, a devilish creature with only one idea in his mind: the destruction of Mexico. It is only appropriate, then, that he was controlled by evil extraterrestrial beings. Who knows? Maybe he was an alien himself, perhaps a Martian, or, even worse —I barely dare to write this— a PLUTONIAN! Perhaps even a VULCAN! Or a KLINGON!

[xxxi] One of the few things for which credit should be given to Diaz is his invention of that infamous battle tactic, the so-called “moon-charge”, in which an infantry brigade confuses the enemy by turning their backs at them and then advancing in reverse, turning around in the last moment and shooting a full-fledge discharge.

[xxxii] The good-observing reader will now be, in all fairness, wondering why does the author give so much attention to Diaz, when he has in the past refused to talk about themes the general population knows well enough. Well, dear friends, I have made this tough choice under the assumption that a story as terrible as Diaz’s can serve as moral example to today’s wild youth. I believe that, lost as we sometimes are in the big picture of socio-politico-economical affairs, we tend to forget the human face of History. I believe that a close-up telling of Diaz’s tortured existence can certainly help us to understand the Great Villain more fully, while at the same time providing the younger members of the audience with a clear moral story to meditate on.

[xxxiii] Published by that couple of punks, the Flores-Magón brothers. These infamous libertines joined forces with a certain Pete Doherty to create the most fearsome musical act of the early twenty-century.

[xxxiv] Diaz: General, Thriller, Head of the Party Of the People, Chief Scientist of Mexico… A madman? By: Camila YaDeau, in the March 1909 issue of Rolling Stone^.

[xxxv] “First night”: piece of legislation inherited from mediaeval times in which the lord of a place has the right to take the virginity of all his serfs the night before their weddings. The law caused landowners all over the world a deal of problems much larger than the pleasure it provided them with.

[xxxvi] The workers of the sweatshop that today occupies the space that once was the main house claim that, at night, when there is full moon, one can still hear the sound of Villa’s boots on the hard floor.

[xxxvii] The cultured reader will have, no doubt about it, noticed my near-plagiarism of Robert Rodriguez’s extraordinary book, Pancho Villa, published by the National University’s press some eight years ago. I love the book because of its magnificent portrayal of one of the loftiest heroes of our revolution and for its academic rigor: nothing but hard fact in Mr. Rodriguez’s book.

[xxxviii] The Ybarrio had, by this point, appointed one of the cousins as Official Family Chronist, and although the tradition only lasted a few years —one must remember that the House of Ybarrio was to collapse quite soon—, the one volume of the Ybarrio Chronics that does survive —authored by a certain Edgar Allan Ybarrio— leaves us with a very accurate and detailed account of the last months of Ybarrio dominance over the Cinco de Mayo house.

[xxxix] A legend regarding this recruitment may or may not have reached the ears of the readers; therefore I reproduce it here. Villa nailed pamphlets to the doors of all the churches he passed, pamphlets that read, “Men with BALLS wanted. Gather at such and such place at midnight. Bring horses and Guns. The Revolution needs you”.

[xl] In reference to the tiny boots he wore.

[xli][xli] Who, some say, drove his wife to insanity and, all agree, founded the museum that today bears his name.

[xlii] Pancho Villa, as the readers surely remember, was murdered by the CIA in 1923

DS Paper: Subalterns in Literature

2010-02-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Knowledge and Power in Don Quixote and The Tempest

DS Literature

Professor R. Howard Bloch

Nicolás Medina Mora

February 8th, 2009

In Cervantes’ Don Quixote, hierarchy of Knight Errantry predisposes one to view Don Quixote as Sancho’s master. However, the attentive reader of the Ingenious Gentleman finds that the squire often tricks, manipulates, and controls the Knight of the Sorrowful face, to the point that their relationship ceases to be clear. Who actually holds power over whom? A comparison of the relationship between Sancho and Don Quixote with that of The Tempest´s Prospero and Caliban demonstrates that the origin of power in both relationships is knowledge, derived either from experience or education. However, the distribution of power in Cervantes’ novel is the complete opposite of that seen in Shakespeare’s play: in Don Quixote, the servant can exercise control over the master. Don Quixote’s theoretical knowledge has no connection to the real world, while Sancho’s common sense does. Theoretical power cannot do anything against practical wisdom if the theory corresponds to a fictitious world.

In The Tempest, Caliban betrays the origin of his master’s power when he conspires with Stephano and Trinculo to kill and overthrow him. “Remember first to possess his books,” he says, “for without them he’s but a sod.”[i] Caliban understands that Prospero draws his force from knowledge, it is through those books that he is able to give him “cramps, side-stitches that shall pen [his] breath up.”[ii] Prospero has acquired magical powers through careful studies that have made him “for the liberal arts, without a parallel.”[iii] However, this very devotion to theoretical matters has made him unmindful of more practical ones. He is thought “[incapable] of temporal royalties”[iv], for he believed that his “library was dukedom large enough.”[v] Prospero’s theoretical study has both given and taken power away from him: it has granted him force to impose his will over Caliban, but it has also cost him his crown. Prospero has traded political knowledge for magical wisdom

Don Quixote’s relationship to knowledge parallels Prospero’s in that it presents immense costs. Like Prospero with his dukedom, Don Quixote’s reading causes him to forget “about the administration of his estate.”[vi] Don Quixote’s losses go even further: reading costs him all power and control over his own mind. “With these words and phrases,” explains the narrator, “the poor gentleman lost his mind.”[vii] Unlike Prospero, however, Don Quixote gains no power over Sancho —or over anyone else— from his readings. This is because the theoretical knowledge that Don Quixote acquires —knowledge about the ways of Knight Errantry— has no connection to the universe in which he lives and moves. For example, when the Barber and the Priest set up an elaborate stratagem to get the Knight of the Sorrowful face back home, he exclaims: “I have read many extremely serious histories of knights errant, but never have I read, or seen, or heard of enchanted knights being carried in this fashion.”[viii] Don Quixote is constantly baffled by events that take places during his quests, as he has never read anything like them in his books. This is due to the fact that his books do not refer to the world, and Don Quixote’s madness lies precisely in believing that they do.

Unlike his master and Don Quixote, Caliban has a practical knowledge of the world. A native to the land, knows how to survive. He has shown Prospero “all the qualities o’th’isle, the fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile.”[ix] He understands the place he is in: “Be not afeared” he tells his new masters, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that five delight and hurt not.”[x] However, he understands very little of higher matters: he needed Prospero’s teachings to understand “how to name the bigger light, and how the less, that burn by day and night.”[xi] Until the arrival of Prospero, Caliban had no language and therefore no access to higher reasoning. His knowledge is empirical and experiential.

Sancho Panza, too, has a body of knowledge that is related to experience. He calls it “the lore I learned when I was a shepherd.”[xii] Also like Caliban, Sancho is ignorant of higher thought. He admits this to Don Quixote: “The truth is that I have never read any history, because I don’t know how to read or write.”[xiii] However, Sancho has a keen intuition of how the world works that is diametrically opposite to his master’s fantasies. Directly after the incident with the funeral procession in Chapter XIX, for example, Sancho warns his master to hide; “These people, though they’ve been defeated and routed, may realize that only one man defeated them and be ashamed and embarrassed by that, and then may rally and look for us, and give us something we won’t forget.”[xiv] Sancho Panza’s body of knowledge refers directly to the world in which he lives: his knowledge comes from the oral tradition of sayings and refrains. His very speech is full of these popular adages, which he adapts to the situations at hand. For example, after the incident with the fulling hammers in Chapter XX, Sancho exclaims: “may it please God that it turns out to be oregano and not fulling hammers!”[xv] He is a master of common sense.

The relationship between Sancho and Don Quixote is nominally one of lord and vassal. This is because Sancho originally joins his master in hopes that he will profit from his knowledge of Knight Errantry. Don Quixote promises Sancho that he will help him win an ínsula, and Sancho is so taken aback by that promise that he leaves his wife and children. The very first words that he utters in the novel evince this: “Señor Knight Errant, be sure not to forget what your grace promised to me about the ínsula.”[xvi] However, Sancho soon aware of the fact that his body of knowledge is connected to the real world and that his master’s is not. He takes full advantage of this awareness in Chapter XX, where he devises a clever trick to keep his master from going on an adventure to discover the cause of some terrifying noises and leave him alone in the woods at night:

“Sancho, seeing his master’s firm resolve and how little he accomplished with tears, advice and pleas, decided to take advantage of his task and do what he could to make Don Quixote wait until day, and so, as he was tightening the horses’ cinches, he cunningly and quietly tied Rocinante’s forelegs together with his donkey’s halter, and when Don Quixote tried to leave he could not because his horse could not move except by hops an jumps. Seeing the success of his deception, Sancho Panza said: “Oh Señor, heaven, moved by my tears and my prayers, has willed Rocinante not to move, and if you persist, and spur and urge him on, that will anger Fortune, and it will be, as they say, as kicking at thorns.”[xvii]

In this passage, Sancho tricks Don Quixote by creating a circumstance that, in Don Quixote’s distorted view of the world, is out of everyone’s control. He plays on Don Quixote’s belief in the supernatural to hide a very mechanical deceit. Although he is nominally his servant, Sancho holds power over Don Quixote.

A thought experiment involving Prospero and Caliban helps to further understand Sancho and Don Quixote’s situation. What would happen if Prospero’s knowledge were completely divorced from the world of the island, if his magic did not work? Caliban would, in all probability, be in a position of power. He says so himself when he yells at Prospero that, had sorcery not prevented his actions, he would have “peopled else this isle with Calibans.”[xviii] In the same way, one can imagine what would happen if Sancho Panza and Don Quixote lived in a world where Knights Errant were common. Sancho would never dare to try to trick his master into not going into battle. Don Quixote’s power over Sancho derives from the laws of chivalry. If those laws do not apply, he has no actual power over his squire. On the other hand Sancho’s power derives from common sense, and common sense seems to be the only true law of La Mancha.

In the end, the fundamental difference between the relationships of the two pairs is that Caliban is Prospero’s slave, whereas Sancho is Don Quixote’s friend. Ultimately, this is the reason Sancho never abuses the power he has over Don Quixote, and also why he stays with the knight even after he renounces the governorship of his ínsula and it becomes evident that associating with Don Quixote cannot bring him profit. At the very end, the news of his former master’s impeding death “[forced] tears from [his] eyes and a thousand deep sigh from [his] bosom.”[xix] By contrast, Shakespeare never reveals the fate of Caliban after Prospero releases him, implying either a marooning in the island or a life as a freak in Europe. Sancho Panza may be the actual holder of power in his and his master’s relationship, but he has deep affection for Don Quixote. It is because of this affection that their relationship is one of friendship rather than one of servitude.

Works Cited

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. Grossman, Edith. USA. Harper Collins. 2005.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Lindlay, David. UK. Cambridge. 2002.

[i]Shakespeare. The Tempest. (3.2.83-85)

[ii] Ibid. (1.2.326-327)

[iii] Ibid. (1.2.73-74)

[iv] Ibid. (1.2.110-111)

[v] Ibid. (1.2.109-110)

[vi] Cervantes. Don Quixote. (p.20)

[vii] Ibid. (p. 20)

[viii] Ibid. (p. 405)

[ix] Shakespeare. Op. Cit. (1.2.338-339)

[x] Ibid. (3.2.127-128)

[xi] Ibid. (1.2.335-337)

[xii] Cervantes. Op. Cit (p. 143)

[xiii] Ibid. (p. 72)

[xiv] Ibid. (p. 140)

[xv] Ibid. (p.153)

[xvi] Ibid. (p.56)

[xvii] Ibid. (pp. 143-144)

[xviii] Shakespeare. Op. Cit. (1.2.350-351)

[xix] Cervantes. Op. Cit. (p. 936)

Cuatro Versiones de Milton

2010-02-15T22:09:00.000-08:00

En tu ceguera, falso vidente, creíste que Adán, al seguir a Eva,

caía condenado, sin ver en su acción un amor sufriente

que, en lugar de hacerlo caer, lo elevó a brillar más fuerte.

En tu ceguera, falso vidente,
creíste que Adán, al seguir a
Eva, caía condenado, sin ver
en su acción un amor sufriente
que, en lugar de hacerlo caer,
lo elevó a brillar más fuerte.

En tu ceguera,

falso vidente,
creíste que Adán,

al seguir a Eva,

caía condenado,

sin ver en su acción

un amor sufriente
que, en lugar

de hacerlo caer,
lo elevó a brillar

más fuerte.

En tu ceguera,

falso vidente,
creíste

que Adán,

al seguir

a Eva,

caía condenado,

sin ver
en su acción

un amor sufriente
que, en lugar

de hacerlo caer,
lo elevó

a brillar

más fuerte.

Satan's Monologue

2010-02-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

Paradise Lost is a poem about what it means to be human, and Satan is the most human of all its characters.

O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome still paying, still to owe,
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then
O, had his powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferiour Angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition! Yet why not some other Power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
O, then, at last relent: Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of Hell.
With diadem and scepter high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery: Such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace;
All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;
Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven's King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.

Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 31-110

Jacques Prévert

2010-02-12T08:11:00.000-08:00

Déjeuner du matin

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler

Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder

Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder

Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleure

Take this Waltz

2010-02-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

This kid's got talent.

David Larsen

2010-02-10T05:24:00.001-08:00

This man is my Philosophy Professor. He kicks ass.

Breve Historia de Latinoamerica

2010-02-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

En el Contrato Social, Rousseau dice sabiamente que
"el efecto del clima hace que los paises cálidos
tiendan al despotismo".

The Tempest

2010-02-06T18:23:00.001-08:00

This was Shakespeare's last play. This is the final monologue.

The Need for Irrationality

2010-01-31T00:18:00.000-08:00

Descartes encounters a problem in his Fourth Meditation: he cannot reconcile his “clear and distinct idea of a perfectly supreme being” with the fact that he often makes mistakes. How can a God who is both benevolent and all-powerful allow his creatures to make mistakes? Is God a deceiver? Descartes attempts to resolve these difficulties by providing two lines of reasoning: the “mystery” and the “free will and understanding” arguments. However, both of them are unsatisfactory. On the one hand, the conclusion of the “mystery” argument contradicts one of its premises. On the other, the “free will and understanding” argument makes an unstated and assumption. The fact that Descartes cannot escape the question of the “deceiver God” has huge consequences for his philosophy: he cannot assert the existence of anything exterior to himself.

The first argument that Descartes presents is the “mystery” argument. In many ways, it is similar to Augustine’s answer to the problem of evil. It states that God’s creation can only be truly understood if it is considered in its totality: if only we could see the creation as a whole, we would discover that Descartes’ proneness to error is in fact for the better. God, who is perfect, would not make an imperfect creation. This means that if parts of his creation are imperfect, their imperfection is an essential part of a larger design. However, Descartes cannot grasp the exact scheme of such design precisely because he is one of the imperfect parts. With this picture, Descartes holds that he eliminates the possibility of a malicious God, though he cannot claim that He never deceives him. (54-56)

But here seems to be something wrong with Descartes’ argument. If he accepts that the greater design of God is unknowable to him, and that his capacity for error has a place within this design, he can no longer make claims to certainty. By accepting that he cannot understand creation in any meaningful way, Descartes puts himself in the hands of God and abandons all hope of understanding the world through reason. This is because, once the door of mystery is open, anything could be true and Descartes would have no way of knowing so. Perhaps God, in his infinite wisdom, thought it better that Descartes always make mistakes and is never correct; perhaps the most perfect universe would be one in which the only thing in existence is a French philosopher who wrongly thinks he has the answer and a God who sits and watches. How can Descartes know otherwise? After all, his mind is imperfect, small and incomplete. Since Descartes has no way of knowing what perfection looks like, perfection could be anything.

By acknowledging that his imperfection makes it impossible for him to understand the perfect nature of the creation of God, Descartes contradicts one of his earlier premises: the “clear and distinct idea of a most perfect and benevolent being”. If Descartes cannot grasp perfection, how does he know that God is perfect? If the benevolence of the creation is only accessible to an infinite mind, and Descartes’ mind is finite, how can he presume to know that God is benevolent? By making the universe a “mystery”, Descartes opens the door to a deceiving God. The only way that he can get out of this trap is through faith. Descartes cannot know that God only made him fallible for the greater perfection of the universe; he can only believe so. Once Descartes accepts that “the ways of the Lord are mysterious”, any claims he makes about that Lord are based exclusively on faith.

The second argument works by making a distinction between the concepts of “will” and “understanding”. According to Descartes, understanding is a matter of degree, while free will is a binary attribute. In other words, we can have greater or lesser capacity for understanding, but we either have or doe not have free will. Given this, and given the fact that God gave us free will, it follows that our will is absolutely free. On the other hand, God has given us less-than-perfect understanding. Otherwise, we there would be very little that separates us from him. Apart from this distinction, Descartes asserts that the only thing that the faculty of understanding —the “intellect”, he calls it— can do is perceive ideas without affirming and denying anything about them. Because of this, our understanding cannot in a strict sense make judgments about anything. It is the faculty of free will that makes judgments, because it takes a free action to assert the truth or falsity of any particular idea. From this Descartes derives that our intellect cannot make mistakes, and that when we do err, it is because of an erroneous use of the will. Moreover, Descartes goes even further to say that these erroneous uses of the will happen when we try to use our infinite will for ends that exceed our finite understanding. With this argument, Descartes manages to exempt God from any responsibility in our mistake making, thus being able to still hold God as a benevolent entity with no desire to deceive us. (57-62)

The main problem with this second argument is that it implies applying the faculty of understanding to perceive itself. In other words, how does Descartes know that his own intellect is within the limits of his understanding? It could be the case that he cannot accurately gauge the limits of his own mind, and so that his will makes mistakes when making judgments about it. Given this, how can Descartes know the limits of his own understanding in general? It could be the case that his finite understanding is extremely small, in which case a great majority of the statements that he makes are unfounded judgments. If this is the case, how can Descartes know that the nature of God is within the limits of his understanding? For all that he knows, God does not necessarily have to be benevolent —he could be deceiving Descartes at all times. The Frenchman assumes that the limits of our finite understanding are evident to us, but he provides no argument for this assumption.

We then have that both of Descartes arguments against the hypothesis of a deceived God are ultimately baseless. In order to assert the benevolence of the “mysterious” God of the first argument, Descartes must make a leap of faith. The same thing goes for the “free will and understanding” reasoning: Descartes cannot be sure that his finite intellect is large enough to make claims about anything, let alone the benevolence of God. From the moment that he accepts the “clear and distinct idea of God”, the French philosopher is operating on very shaky ground. Quite simply, Descartes cannot produce an argument for his claims that is exclusively based on reason —either his conclusions contradict his premises or he makes unproven assumptions, and in any case he makes a leap of faith. He cannot prove that he is not constantly being deceived by a malicious demon. This fact has immense consequences for rationalist philosophy, namely that a strictly skeptical/rationalist line of inquiry leaves us incapable of making any sound claims to knowledge. We can only function in the world if we make a certain number of leaps of faith. Otherwise, we find ourselves trapped in inescapable solipsism. In order to make any claim to knowledge beyond the affirmation of our existence, we must either introduce an element of irrationality into the picture —a benevolent God, for example—, or accept that some of our premises are simply indemonstrable. Such t is the paradox of rationalist skepticism, Descartes´ conundrum.

Works Cited

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. UK. Cambridge. 1996.Ed. John Cottingham. Pp 37-43

(All citations refer to paragraph numbers)