Nicaragua: Poor Places

The bus stopped near a dirt path that veered off the Panamerican highway.  Up the dusty road stood a small community, similar to others one sees along the great transcontinental artery.  A collection of grey one-room zinc-roof cement houses, that must have started as a single house along the road and expanded outward along an improvised trail; each new house making the trail a little longer.  The dirt trail now led deep into the forested hills, and the steep inclines and waterways where it proved impossible to build marked the spot where one community ended and another one began.  These communities have no “center,” and the schools and churches simply mark the spot along the trail where a group of homes turned into a village.

The further one travels along the dirt path, the poorer and poorer the villages become.  The community closest to the Panamerican has small convenience shops (called pulperias) that sell snacks, drinks, sliced bread, salt, and other household consumables (soap, detergent, toilet paper, ect.), that are purchased from a bigger town nearby (which is still a pretty small town) and resold at their makeshift shop (their home).  Individuals also go around selling other products; the person who owns cattle sells the milk in the morning, while the people with farmland sell vegetables.  The community lacks running water, which means that people walk daily to the closest well to fetch water; there are several wells, with varying degrees of water quality.  There are “drinking wells,” which are the wells that are chlorinated to allow the villagers to drink from them; and there are “non-drinking wells,” which are wells that used to be drinking wells until a frog was found in them.

Nicaragua: Books

A warm night, a full moon wearing a scarf of clouds.  A large stack of donated books. Cigarette in hand, I look through the titles, like old pictures, and almost instinctual start to order them:

The books published by the Nueva Nicaragua Editorial press company, all dating back to the early eighties; those books from a time when writers spoke of the artistic revolution that would accompany the political one. The skinny La tierra es un satelite de la luna (The Earth is a Satellite of the Moon) by Leonel Rugama: the complete works of the young martyred Sandinista poet famous for yelling out “Que se rinda tu madre!” (literally: “Let your mother surrender!”) when, after his safe house had been surrounded by hundreds of military guards, he was given the option of surrendering or being killed. Books by Ricardo Morales Avila, another Sandinista poet with an equally gruesome fate, and Carlos José Guadamuz’s Y las casas quedaron llenas de humo, a chronicle--written in a prison cell--of a Sandinista insurrection as told by one of its leaders. Guadamuz would, in later years, defect from the Sandinista movement and become one of its most outspoken critics, until one day as he arrived to work at the radio station where he hosted a anti-Sandinista political program he was shot dead; the motive for the murder never to be established, allowing rumors that it was all orchestrated by the FSNL.

Several historical novels written by Sergio Ramirez, and a book with his thesis on the literary history of Nicaragua. A strange historical novel by the poet Julio Castillo-Valle that focuses on the life of Pedrarias, the first colonial ruler of Nicaragua (a true thug). Two books by the poet and literary critic Beltran Morales (Roberto Bolaño sings his praises on the back of one of them). Gioconda Belli’s memoirs on the revolution (apparently, mostly sex with revolutionary leaders in exile). Opening a book by Guillermo Rothschuh Villanueva, a well-known modern poet, I come across an inscription on the first page addressed to the donor: “To my dear friend,” signed…Guillermo Rothschuh Villanueva! In an anthology of poems by the great Joaquin Pasos, I find postcards from the first anniversary of the revolution; one, a vintage photograph of Augusto C. Sandino in his standard rugged, cowboy pose, the second, a painting of a village with housewives and children celebrating the victory by running onto the streets with red and black flags.

Sports as Art: Boxing

Boxing is poetry,
it can be as short as a round,
as long as an epic.

The studied fighter
enters the ring,
a problem to tackle.

Each jab a calculated word,
meant to prod.
Hesitations, investigations,
searching, slow unearthing.

A combination like a stanza,
each punch a different line,
body shots, haymakers, upper cuts,
missing, landing, missing, landing.
One gets past your conscious enclosure,
knocks you down,
knocks you out.

An intellectual discovery;
bashed to a bloody pulp.

Shanghai

Land of cranes and jackhammers.  Of chain-smokers, and taxi drivers that spend ten minutes snorting, and hocking before spitting out the window a baseball-sized accumulation of black phlegm.  A land of curious onlookers, who will gather to watch two men fight awkwardly in front of a mall.  Of boutiques and black markets.  Of chaotic freedom.

One morning, I awoke to the vibrations of jackhammers drilling into concrete, like the sound of God’s teeth chattering.  On television, a former high-ranking official who had been purged politically due to his support of the Tiananmen Square protesters, had died of pneumonia, and CNN International had made the story one of its top news items for the day.  I went about my morning routine, leaving CNN International on, like I did most mornings.  As I was brushing my teeth I overheard the anchorwoman giving a teaser to the story on the former Chinese politician; the story would air right after a short commercial break, she said.  Then came the commercials, mostly self-promotional advertisements for other CNN International programs, with the occasional spot reserved for companies that catered to the upper-class traveling businessman that CNN International attracts (commercials for investment banks, phones, computers, and airlines).  Then, the CNN logo and the little CNN jingle, signaling the end of the commercial break; the camera zooming in to the anchorwoman at her unnecessarily gargantuan news desk.  And then…static.  I flipped through the channels to see if I had lost the signal to all the channels on cable, but CNN International was the only one.  All the other channels were fine.

I didn’t think much of it; losing the signal to a channel happened from time to time, who knows why.  Maybe there was a technical failure at the offices of the local provider, or maybe there was a problem at the headquarters of CNN International.  I simply changed the channel, and waited for CNN International to come back on.  It didn’t take long for the signal to return.  When I lost the signal a second time, again after the teaser for the story on the purged Chinese official, I started to get suspicious.  By the third time (if there is one thing cable news is good at its repeating stories ad nausea), I was pretty sure somebody was deliberately disrupting the signal to censor the broadcasting of the story.

Sports as Art: Basketball

 

Basketball games are novels.  Basketball is a game of stars and match-ups.  The game is divided into four chapters; throughout, the principle characters (usually two) collide and a theme develops within this conflict.  The theme can be a triumphant Michael Jordan beating the odds and making three-pointer after three-pointer in the face of a shocked Clyde Drexler, who had given Jordan the open looks based on his history of missing those shots.  Or it can be a cunning innocent prisoner’s redemptive escape from a maximum security prison in the face of his nemesis, the sadistic head guard.

Besides the two (or more) main characters, there is the supporting cast, and the possibility that one may steal the show.  But generally, they simply help the main character achieve his or her aims in the face of the obstacles presented (mainly, the other main character on the opposing team).

The climax is the consummation of the theme, and the better the game (or novel) the later the climax.  Great novels leave the climax to the last line, just as great games leave them to the last second.  Ideally, Michael Jordan would hit a game winning three-pointer over Clyde Drexler to drive the point home, and after noticing the prisoner missing there would be a grand reveal of the entire escape plot (and maybe some discovery pointing to his innocence all along).  Terrible novels resolve everything in the first chapter, and then just drag on.  Of course, there is always the possibility for a twist; the game was not truly resolved in the first quarter, maybe there will be a comeback.  Then again, how unsatisfying to read through a whole book hoping for a twist that never comes!

Sports as Art: Football

 

Football (soccer) games are jazz music.  The structure of each team’s play provides the background for the constant improvisation of the players.  The jazz musician looks for an opening in the composition, where he will be able to toy with the arrangement, where he can poke holes in the structure, where he can play faster than the established beat or play notes that don’t belong in the composition (or sometimes don’t even belong in the structure of the musical key).  He breaks the rules, because breaking the rules is fun, different, uncertain, and emotionally expressive.

Football players are given a position and a task, and spend most of the game adhering to its principles.  They touch the ball once or twice and pass it on to another player, who then proceeds to do the same.  The team patiently waits for the opportunity to arise when a great player will receive the ball and suddenly start his solo.  As he solos he leaves his position, holds the ball for longer than dictated by his task, and just has fun zooming past players and placing the ball behind the net.  The team stands behind him, comping along as the player improvises.