Todo está bien si termina bien

El viernes parecía que sería un fin de semana aciago. Repentinamente mi carro se murió, al parecer de un corto circuito. Al tratar de encenderlo, como única respuesta algunas luces en el tablero se encendían erráticas y desconcertantes, como la política interior mexicana.

Mi presión arterial subió exponencialmente en las siguientes horas, diagnósticos incorrectos, negligencias propias y ajenas (las propias son las que dan más coraje), terminando con un gran fínale de Mr. Yo Mismo tratando de instalar una batería nueva en el auto, con llaves que nunca eran de la medida, tornillos con vocación de Houdini, un calor asfixiante y ganas de asfixiar con las manos a todos los mecánicos del mundo.

Pero en eso, un empleado del taller, notando que me comenzaba a poner verde y a romper la camisa al más puro estilo Hulk, se acercó, a pesar de estar en su hora de descanso. El tipo, un hindú joven con la pupila izquierda habitada por un fantasma blanquecino – transparente, con quince minutos de samaritanismo fue un antídoto contundente contra la dosis de bilis que acechaba el fin de semana.

Y el sábado, respondiendo a la invitación de VP, me encontré con ella (ambos en nuestras ropas domingueras) en un restaurante marroquí al sur de la ciudad: “La tienda del Sultán”. Ahí corroboré que no me vendría nada mal un califato. Cortinas, velos, cojines, lámparas...

De la comida, ni hablar, fue comida a cuatro tiempos, que más bien debieran haber sido anunciados como cuatro eras geológicas, dada la cantidad de platillos que trajeron, destacando las “costillas de res” que más bien parecía un cuarto de mamut, y estaban, ¡oh, hermanos!, para chuparse los dedos. Y a propósito, luego apareció una exponente de la danza del vientre, espectáculo muy edificante para observar mientras se lleva uno a la boca cuadritos de hojaldre rebosantes de miel y pistacho.

Se le agradece enormemente a VP el regalo y la larga caminata de sobremesa.

Toronto, Mayo 2007.

Bad acid trip

At the climax of “Contact” Jodie Foster goes into a space trip in an alien designed vessel, to have the very first contact with an extraterrestrial species in the documented history of mankind. The alien, turns out, looks and sounds exactly like his father. The surroundings resemble a Florida beach at night.

The alien tells her that they searched in her brain for familiar images and decided to introduce themselves using those icons in order to avoid shocking and scaring the hell out of her. That was Carl Sagan’s extra clever way of getting away with portraying a conversation with an alien species without elucidating about their looks.

Now, I recalled this scene because a very smart friend of mine told me the other night, as we were dipping in a delicious plate of Ethiopian food, a story about a bad acid trip. After dropping the acid, she immediately noticed something wrong and proceeded to lock herself in the washroom. Probably it was bad acid. There, she started to get scared, thinking only “please stop this, please stop this”. She would have gone into panic, but then she started to trip about going to the hospital (let me clarify this, she never left the washroom, going to the hospital was part of the acid trip) and telling a doctor how she felt. The doctor calmly reassured her: “It’s only a bad acid trip, there is nothing you can do, just let it flow, it will go away with time”.

The icons are obvious: the hospital and the doctor represent authority, someone who is in control and takes care of you when you feel bad. But what’s more interesting is that She, and only She, choose those symbols. And She did that because She new that it would calm Her, because Herself would have gone into panic otherwise.

Freud and others have made good guesses about the existence of multiple layers of personality: conscious, subconscious, ego, super ego, etc… Each and all of them are “the real” yourself. But which one is “the main” yourself. In this case, was “the main” herself the one about going into panic, that needed reassurance, the one that needed protection? Or was the “main” herself the one that came into the rescue with a soothing image of a doctor in a hospital?

Perhaps I will never know for sure… or should I use We to refer to me?

It's not hat I hate sports, but

35 seconds left of the game; one single point makes the difference between glory and defeat. Everyone is glued to the screens at the bars, holding the breath as the play starts, the player dribbles, he shoots! The ball goes in the air and…

Wait. Not everyone is glued to the screen. I found out about the finals only because I saw the crowd on the sidewalk outside a sports bar. For the last 15 years, I’ve missed every single World Series, Stanley cup, Super Bowl, The Great Enchilada and the likes. Actually, with the exception of the soccer world cup, I have only watched a handful of sports matches in TV since I finished university in the mid 90’s.

It's not that I hate sports, but the idea of sitting there watching grown up men chasing, hitting and tossing a ball bores me out of my skull. And let’s not even go into “sports” such as golf and curling. Those make dish washing exciting by comparison.

I do appreciate watching clips of great plays: Jordan flying with the ball high on his hand, Ronaldinho dribbling and scoring, Tyson brutally beating his opponent into pulp. I love those displays of skill, athletics and passion. I often stop by a park or a playground to watch either adults or kids playing some sport, it seems to me a postcard of enjoyment, freedom, engaged and active peace. But I can’t bear the idea of cheering for Manchester United, or Toronto Raptors, or caring if Nadal and Tiger Woods moved up the ranking. Not even my local teams Chivas and Atlas. Who cares? And why?

There are of course, rewards to the sports fan. Being one of them the orgasmic climax of victory. The catharsis of feeling triumphant in a reality so immediate, concrete and simple as a ball hitting the net. Pure and raw emotion.

But to enjoy that orgasm you must be in a relationship with your team. And most sports fans would say the joy is the relationship itself, and climax (victory) is an extremely welcomed, but peripheral aspect of the relationship. The main joy is to be a fan, to be immersed in a dimension easily available, where you can experience disappointment, but never rejection. The fan has all the power in this relationship, he can reject, loath and abuse his team whenever he wants. The sense of intimacy is easily achievable via the collective memory of special plays or games. So happy together!

And then there are the sports commentators. Doing their tv show, one hour a day, dressed in suits, with a straight face and an expression of deep thought as they weight the chances of South Carolina to get to the finals given Johnson’s recent injury. I really can not make up my mind if they are blessed or terminally idiotic. And the reason is, some part of me wonders if I don’t get sports right: Maybe sports fanaticism is a diluted version of nationalism, regionalism, xenophobia, racism and similar, more aggressive versions of belonging and bonding.

If that’s the case, sports may be to war and violent raids like methadone to heroin. Channeling those sadly familiar emotions in a controlled environment, where by and large the worst consequences are the humiliation of green team, the waving of flags and verbal abuse of other fans. And of course I know about the hooligans, I know about all the deaths and fights that sports trigger. I did read “Among the thugs”, and have hear the racist chanting in soccer stadiums all around the world. I have been banned from bars in central Europe because my friend was wearing a “Brasil” shirt. But my point is: likely those people were aggressive by nature, with or without professional sports. And that violence could be released in more damaging circumstances. So yes, even if many times sports exacerbates that natural violence, perhaps in most cases it just harnesses it, controls it.

And maybe sports commentators are not the ultimate pointless, ridiculous pathetic human beings, but winged nurses who help deliver the methadone dose right on time to their itching audience.

I recall a few years back watching a bull fight on tv with my mom, the matador doing a pass to the right, to the left, the bull nearly missing him every time as he stood up with incredible grace and bravery, and finally going for the kill, with a stroke of his sword so perfect, so precise. He threw his cape to the sand, standing in front of the bull, just a couple of steps from the horns, exposed, vulnerable and completely confident. The bull tried to charge, his whole heavy body moved, but it didn’t go forward an inch and just dropped dead in the sand, like an imploding building. At this point I realized I had stood from the sofa, and I was two inches from the tv screen, my hearth beating fast, the blood rushing… I’m not addicted, but boy do I know the rush!

Dos botes

Mi vida en Toronto ha sido plagada de presencias argentinas, a quienes tal vez describiré en otra ocasión. Pero esta semana, hojeando una antología de poesía que me regaló mi hermana en Navidad, di con una nueva presencia, una voz aliada que dio con la metáfora justa para un evento tan sin tiempo, tan con drama y tan con sueño, tan valioso y odioso, tan recurrente y efímero. He aquí el poema completo.


Despertarte a

Despertarte a mitad de la noche
y ver en el otro lado de tu cama
a tu mujer llorando
es una experiencia importante.
Quiero decir, entre otras cosas,
que mientras paseabas por los cuartos
iluminados de tu cerebro
algo se estaba gestando cerca tuyo.
Un error en el cual mantenés
una particular relación de intimidad
Pero aunque no firmemos nada,
ni corramos apurados bajo la lluvia de arroz
pensamos que es para toda la vida
y así seguimos.
Botes, que durante la noche,
quedan amarrados al muelle,
golpeándose entre sí,
según el viento.

Fabián Casas