Roberto Arlt

Roberto Arlt (1900-1942)

There is no real road map for US readers to search out and discover the gems in the canon of Argentine writing. I wandered from Ricardo Piglia-- I'm not clear how I found him-- via a story in his novel, Assumed Name, Piglia wrote but attributed to Roberto Arlt, slowly to Roberto Arlt. Of course, my local library had never heard of Arlt or his first novel. But no matter, last week my favorite used book dealer, abebooks.com, delivered El juguete rabioso (1926)("Mad Toy" in English). What a treat this is!

The copy I received formerly resided in the Berkeley Public Library. It was taken out 6 times and then, poof! sold off the shelves. I don't know why this happened, but it's a partial explanation of why my local library's never heard of this book. But I digress.

Arlt was born in poverty /snip After being expelled from school at the age of eight, he learned what he could about literature and life on the streets. He worked at various times as a bookstore clerk, an apprentice to a tinsmith, a painter, a mechanic, a vulcanizer, a brick factory manager and a port worker before managing to get a job on a local newspaper. Arlt's talents for polemical journalism quickly revealed themselves, and he was soon writing a controversial daily column for a national newspaper. Given his background it was natural for Arlt to become attracted to left-wing causes, and the vague (but exciting) rumours coming from the Soviet Union led him to take an interest in Marxism.

His first novel, El juguete rabioso /snip was the semi-autobiographical story of Silvio, a school dropout who goes through a series of adventures trying to "be somebody." Narrated by Silvio's older self, the novel reflects the energy and chaos of early-20th-century Buenos Aires. The narrator's literary and sometimes poetic language contrasts sharply with the street-level slang of Mad Toy's many colorful characters.

Wiki

According to the Notes in this volume (written by the translator, Michele McKay Aynesworth), Jorge Luis Borges in 1929 praised Arlt, "For prose, Roberto Arlt stands out." Julio Cortzar (1914-1984) read Arlt "passionately" in his youth. On re-reading him 40 years later to write an introduction for a book, Cortazar found that his reaction to Arlt hadn't changed, "I find with a surprise that approaches the miraculous [that] Arlt is still the same [great] writer." And Juan Carlos Onetti wrote, "If ever anyone from these shores could be called a literary genius, his name was Roberto Arlt..." Ricardo Piglia calls Arlt "the greatest Argentinian writer of the twentieth century."

I'm not going to spoil this book. That would be extremely unfair. The writing, even in translation, is beyond wonderful. A very brief example (page 122):

And the more the heavenly dome enchanted me, the more sordid were the streets where I did business. I remember...

Those grocery stores, those butcher shops on the edge of town!

In the darkness a sunbeam would highlight the black-red flesh of animals hung on hoods and ropes hear the tin counters. The floor would be covered with sawdust, with the smell of suet in the air and black swarms of flies boiling on pieces of yellow fat, while the impressive butcher sawed away on the bones or hacked at the chops with the back of his knife...and outside... outside was the morning sky, quiet and exquisite, letting the infinite sweetness of spring fall from its bluenesss.

As I walked I was concerned only with the space, smooth as a piece of sky-blue china in its azure bounds, deep as a gulf at the zenith, a prodigious sea, high and still as could be, where my eyes seemed to see islands, seaports, marble cities surrounded by green woods, and ships with flowered masts slipping past sirens' songs toward the fairytale cities of joy.

And so I walked, shivering with delicious violence.

In this small, 1926 book (158 pages), a combination of memoir, pulp fiction, and detective story, Arlt produces gem after gem after gem. I cannot believe this book was written in 1926. I am so very happy to have found it. To me, the book resembles a small box of four exquisite chocolate truffles, something to be savored slowly, something rare, the richness increased by awareness of impermanence.

Authentic American Literary Experience Available

My fence needs painting. Badly. It's a long, white picket fence, shorter than the famous one and about as long. I remember the story:

"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth -- stepped back to note the effect -- added a touch here and there -- criticised the effect again -- Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."

Tom Sawyer, Chapter 2

Unfortunately, savoring the story doesn't get the fence painted. And, guess what? I don't want to paint it. I really don't. So today, after I weed the peas, I'm thinking about making a flier to hang at the local high school. Or the elementary school. Or in town. It'll say something grandiose, something like, "Authentic American Literary Experience Available" at the top. It'll have the photo above. It'll have the quote. And it'll then say, "The more the merrier." I'll contemplate whether the "experience" is devalued by offering to pay. Probably. Maybe it's preserved by grotesque underpayment. I will think about this.

Next week, I'll probably have to begin to paint it myself.

Remembering Juan Carlos Onetti

Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-1994)

Onetti's Wikipedia entry contains the best micro fiction, except that, well, it's completely true.

An excerpt:

In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra's short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. "The bodyguard") as the winner of Marcha's [Marcha is a Uruguyan newspaper] annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day's edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn't and wouldn't do so, knowing this would be the perfect excuse for the military to intervene [against] Marcha, considering the subject of the story (the interior monologue of a top-rank military officer who recounts his murders and atrocious behavior, much as it was happening with the functioning regime).

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers -including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti - signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay, which was unaware of the talented (and completely harmless) writer it had imprisoned and humiliated.

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violin player Dorotea Mühr. There he continued his career as a writer, being awarded the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Cervantes.

Coming in the future, essays about his writing.

Torture: "The Twentieth Hijacker's" Case

cross posted from docuDharma

AP reports that charges have been dropped against the alleged "Twentieth Hijacker", Mohammed al-Qahtani:

The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday.

Mohammed al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. Authorities say al-Qahtani missed out on taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent.

But in reviewing the case, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, decided to dismiss the charges against al-Qahtani and proceed with the arraignment for the other five, said Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, the Saudi's military lawyer.

The charges were dropped without prejudice, meaning that they could be reinstated. al-Qahtani was to face the death penalty, along with five others, in trials before Military Commissions at Guantanamo.

Why were the charges dropped? Because al-Qahtani had been tortured. Of course, Crawford did not say. And his lawyer couldn't comment yet.

Officials previously said al-Qahtani had been subjected to a harsh interrogation authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. /snip

U.S. authorities have acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding by CIA interrogators and that al-Qahtani was treated harshly at Guantanamo.

Al-Qahtani last fall recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo.

The alleged torture, which he detailed in a written statement, included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel.

There's lots of information about exactly how al-Qahtani was tortured. In fact, there's a partial log (pdf format) of his interrogation at Guantanamo in Fall, 2002.

In his book, Torture Team, Philip Sands describes al-Qahtani's treatment in Guantanamo in greater detail:

By the time his interrogators started using "enhanced techniques" to extract information from him, al-Qahtani had been kept in isolation for three months in a cell permanently flooded with light. An official memo shows that he "was talking to nonexistent people, reporting hearing voices, [and] crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end". He was abused, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of sleep for a further 54 days of torture and questioning. What useful testimony could be extracted from a man in this state?

And there are the additional details from from this October, 2006 MSNBC story:

Mohammed al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran.

That much is known. These details were among the findings of the U.S. Army’s investigation of al-Qahtani's aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

According to the MSNBC article:

In interviews with MSNBC.com — the first time they have spoken publicly — former senior law enforcement agents described their attempts to stop the abusive interrogations. The agents of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, working to build legal cases against suspected terrorists, said they objected to coercive tactics used by a separate team of intelligence interrogators soon after Guantanamo's prison camp opened in early 2002. They ultimately carried their battle up to the office of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who approved the more aggressive techniques to be used on al-Qahtani and others.

Although they believed the abusive techniques were probably illegal, the Pentagon cops said their objection was practical. They argued that abusive interrogations were not likely to produce truthful information, either for preventing more al-Qaida attacks or prosecuting terrorists.

And they described their disappointment when military prosecutors told them not to worry about making a criminal case against al-Qahtani, the suspected "20th hijacker" of Sept. 11, because what had been done to him would prevent him from ever being put on trial.

So today's announcement isn't something that's completely new. US authorities have known for quite some time that a trial of al-Qahtani would be a trial in which the details of his torture would have to be established and considered. And now the other foot has dropped. al-Qahtani was tortured, and to prevent complete public disclosure of what was done to him and by whom, to veil what happened, the charges against him have been dropped:

Authorities have said they plan to broadcast the trials to military bases in the United States so relatives of the victims of the attacks can see the proceedings. source

A trial about torture isn't exactly what the Government has in mind. It would prefer something that appeared more just, something that would be better from a public relations standpoint.

On Mothers' Day Protests In Kathmandu

Mothers' Day isn't celebrated in Nepal. Modern Mothers' Day began as Women's Day of Peace. So it's a synchronicity that hundreds of Tibetan women in Kathmandu including Buddhist nuns chose today as an all-woman protest against Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Reuters reports:

Nepali police detained 562 Tibetan women at an anti-China rally in Kathmandu on Sunday, the first all-women protest against Chinese rule in their homeland, officials said.

Some shouted "We want free Tibet" while others wept as they were dragged along the road to police vans and trucks and driven to detention centers. Many were wearing black armbands and had their mouths gagged with cloths.

Nepal considers Tibet part of China, a key donor and trade partner, and has been cracking down on protests by the exiled Tibetans against Beijing.

Police said the protesters would be freed later.

Nepal borders Tibet. More than 20,000 Tibetans have been living in Nepal since fleeing their homeland after the recent failed uprising and China's crack-down.

"We are not against Nepal. Our protests are against China. So why are they arresting us?" asked a 70-year-old protester who gave her name as Chinjhoke, tears rolling down her face.

According to BBC Nepal

cannot allow Tibetans to demonstrate because it recognises Tibet as an integral part of China.

But the UN says the mass arrests are against the spirit of a society governed by the rule of law.

Today's protest in Kathmandu followed yesterday's in which

A group of Tibetan protesters chained themselves together in front of the Chinese Embassy's visa office in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, on Saturday.

Sixteen protesters secured themselves to each other with chains and padlocks at the Chinese embassy in the heart of Kathmandu, and were joined by dozens of other Tibetans who chanted 'Free Tibet' and 'We want freedom.'

Police official Ramesh Thapa says 120 people were detained for defying a ban on demonstrations against China, Nepal's neighbour to the north.

I don't think it can be argued that arrests for that reason comply with an acknowledgement of human rights. Evidently, it's important to Nepal to mimic Chinese responses to peaceful protest.

I watch all of this with increasing frustration. I am astonished by the courage of the Tibetan protesters, that they risk so much to bring to the world's attention their grievances about the occupation of Tibet. But I don't believe that what they do will result in action that will change things. That belief brings me despair.

All I have to offer is this Metta prayer:

May all beings be well and safe, may they be at ease.

Whatever living beings there may be, whether moving or standing still, without exception, whether large, great, middling, or small, whether tiny or substantial,

Whether seen or unseen, whether living near or far,

Born or unborn; may all beings be happy.

Let none deceive or despise another anywhere. Let none wish harm to another, in anger or in hate.”

Just as a mother would guard her child, her only child, with her own life, even so let me cultivate a boundless mind for all beings in the world.

Let me cultivate a boundless love for all beings in the world, above, below, and across, unhindered, without ill will or enmity.

Standing, walking, seated, or lying down, free from torpor, let me as far as possible fix my attention on this recollection. This, they say, is the divine life right here.

May it be so.

Yoani Sanchez Receives Prize In Absentia

Well, to no one's surprise, Cuba wouldn't relent and permit Yoani Sanchez to travel to Spain to receive the Ortega y Gasset prize, despite my post urging Raul Castro to permit her to go.

AP reports:

A Cuban woman who gained worldwide acclaim for a blog that offers stinging criticism of the Communist regime was honored Wednesday with a Spanish journalism award — in absentia.

Cuban authorities did not approve Yoani Sanchez's request to travel to Madrid for the award ceremony. But the 32-year-old woman was still able to make some points.

"Nothing of what I have written in these 13 months speaks as loudly as my absence from this ceremony," Sanchez said in a tape recording.

She said the fact she had to address the group through a recording was "the clearest evidence of the defenselessness of the Cuban people with respect to the state."

Meanwhile, her blog receives more than 1 million hits a month (the blog you are now reading receives less than 1 thousand). And it continues to voice opposition to repression in Cuba. It's gotten some attention from Andrew Sullivan, but in general, there hasn't been much of an uproar, or support in Blogtopia for her right to travel or for her right to express herself without being penalized or calling for her to be allowed to leave Cuba long enough to visit Spain.

Why is that? What exactly does it take to have bloggers advocate for freedom of expression across the entire Internet? When are we going to understand the connections between all of us in the typing class? When are we going to support freedom of speech, even if we don't agree with the politics or content of what is being written?

I'm asking because I remember Martin Niemoeller.

Raul Castro: Let Yoani Sanchez Go To Spain

Yoani Sanchez

You might find it odd that this blog, with its minuscule readership of less than 50 visitors a day, would think it could send a message to the President of Cuba, but, that's how it is on the Internet. Anybody can talk to anyone else, and Yoani Sanchez can talk to thousands of people in Cuba every day with her blog Generacion Y.

Generacion Y explains itself:

Generatión Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start or contain a "Y". Born in the Cuba of the 70s and the 80s, marked by the "schools to the countryside", the Russian cartoons, the illegal exits and the frustration. So, an invitation goes especially to Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yusimí, Yuniesky and others that drag their Ys, to read me and write back.

What's the blog about?

... under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech. The pieces she has been clandestinely sending out from Internet cafés—while posing as a tourist—are often funny, elegantly written and poignant. Her subjects have included the shortage of lemons, the turgid proceedings of the Cuban parliament and the slowness of meaningful reforms by Raúl Castro.

The problem isn't the blog. It's more concrete. It's getting her from Cuba to Spain so she can be given the Ortega y Gasset Award. The details:

The Cuban government has set up obstacles for Yoani Sánchez, creator of the blog Generación Y and winner of the EL PAÍS-issued Ortega y Gasset Journalism Prize, in her efforts to reach Spain. On the eve of the ceremony where she should be receiving her prize – at Madrid's Circulo de Bellas Artes - the blogger has still not been given permission by the Cuban government to leave the island.

Via telephone from Havana yesterday, Sánchez said she was "pessimistic" but was still clinging to the thread of hope that she could still technically travel to Madrid if she received permission today. "I haven’t received any answer from the authorities; and the case is being held up," she explained, adding: "Cuban bureaucracy is very cryptic," making it impossible to know what the next step will be. "I had a flight last Saturday, but I missed it because I couldn’t get an answer from the authorities, so I moved the flight to [today]. I have still not been given an answer and I am pessimistic but will keep hoping until the last minute."

Sanchez believes that her case would be the "perfect test" to see if the opening up announced by Raúl Castro is real or just an empty declaration. Despite the fact that her blog has received a lot of attention outside of Cuba, Sanchez has never left the island to promote it or receive a prize. "Now we will see if something is really changing or not," she said.

You can read Generacion Y, which is reporting on whether Yoani will be allowed to leave. The blog hasn't been taken down in part because it's on a German server.

I'd love to see Raul Castro loosen control on the Wonder Island enough for Yoani Sanchez to go to Spain and collect her prize. That would be a signal to Cuba and the rest of the world that restrictions were actually being lifted, that freedom of speech was slowly being granted.

State Killing Recommences In Georgia

This disgusting, barbarous event will be overlooked in the news about the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

This evening Georgia resumed killing its prisoners by lethal injection. William Earl Lynd has been executed. This is the 1100th execution in the modern era and the first following the Supreme Court's ruling in Baze v. Rees, upholding Kentucky's lethal injection protocol. It has been almost 8 months since a state killed a prisoner. This is longest amount of time between executions since at least the early nineties.

Convicted Georgia prisoner William Earl Lynd was executed Tuesday, the first inmate to be put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its nationwide ban on executions.

Lynd was pronounced dead at 7:51 pm at the Diagnostic and Classification prison in Jackson, Georgia as anti-death penalty activists stood in quiet protest outside.

According to prison officials, Lynd had been “somber all day,” and had requested a mild sedative before being lead to the death chamber.

Lynd had been convicted for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of live-in girlfriend Ginger Moore.
source

The crime was an extremely brutal one, and Lynd waited on death row for almost 20 years to be killed while he appealed.

Tonight, almost 2 decades later, Georgia executed him by lethal injection. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that "he was the 41st man Georgia has executed since 1983, the 19th by lethal injection." He was 53 years old.

Barbarism and revenge killing have returned to the US. I want it to be understood that William Earl Lynd was not killed in my name. I detest killing. I detest Lynd's killing his victim. My heart goes out to the victim, her family, Lynd, Lynd's family, the lawyers who defended and prosecuted him, the jurors who deliberated his case, the judges who ruled at his trial and appeals, those who wrote and those who read the newspaper coverage of the crime and the trial and the execution, in fact, everyone who had knowledge of this case or any contact with it. How can we live with ourselves when to revenge a killing, we permit our government to kill?

Mahatama Gandhi correctly identified the issue. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

Going To the UEFA Final In Moscow, I Wish

Chelsea's Didier Drogpa With Manchester United Defenders


Big football/soccer news. Apparently, people with tickets to the UEFA Final on May 21 in Moscow can get into the country without a visa. This just in from UEFA:

All ticket holders attending the UEFA Champions League final in Moscow on 21 May will be able to use their match ticket as a visa entry to the Russian Federation for a 72-hour period.

High-level discussions
UEFA made the announcement on Monday. It said the decision had been made in order to organise the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League final in Moscow in the most efficient and enjoyable way, and following high-level discussions involving the UEFA President, Michel Platini, the Russian Government and UEFA. /snip

Exceptional gesture
"This is great news for football fans travelling to watch this year's UEFA Champions League final in Moscow," said Mr Platini. "Our job is to make sure that they are able to get to and from Moscow as easily as possible. I am therefore extremely pleased that, at my request, all fans travelling with a valid match ticket can use this to enter Russian territory, and for this I must thank wholeheartedly the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Government, the City of Moscow and the Football Union of Russia for this exceptional and unprecedented gesture.

Football diplomacy. Meanwhile, I cannot imagine the US saying to people across the world, "We'll be happy to let you into the country without a visa, just show us your Super Bowl ticket." Similarly, I don't think China will open its borders to every Olympic ticket holder who shows up.

The game in Moscow, if you're not paying attention, is between the two most powerful English sides, Chelsea and Manchester United. Chelsea won a match between the two on April 27 2-1. This is going to be a great game between two remarkable teams who are tied at the top of the English Premier League.

Oh how I wish, I wish, I wish I could be at this game. I know. I hear you saying, "Yeah, you say that all the time about River Plate and Boca Juniors, about Barcelona and Madrid, about..." OK, it's true. But that, I remind you, doesn't mean that I don't want to go to all of these games. A lot.