A.H.R.E.A. (23.02-29.02.2012)

Tras abandonar el bachillerato a la edad de dieciséis, paso los siguientes años en ociosa introspección indefinida. Su indulgente y paciente madre le exhortaba a aprender algún oficio o encontrar un trabajo. Sin embargo, para el joven la idea de un empleo rutinario bajo el yugo de una autoridad resultaba repulsiva.

Fallecido su padre, no había nadie a su alrededor que le dictara qué hacer, así que se ocupó en lo que le apetecía. Pasó algún tiempo deambulando por la ciudad de Linz, visitando museos, asistiendo a la ópera y contemplando el río Danubio, soñando en convertirse en un gran artista. Gustaba de acostarse en la madrugada y salir por las tardes vestido como un flaneur, portando un vistoso bastón de marfil. De regreso a casa solía desvelarse leyendo y dibujando. Más tarde él mismo describiría esos años de adolescencia libre de responsabilidad como la época más feliz de su vida.

Su único amigo fue otro joven soñador, llamado Augusto, quien quería ser músico. Se conocieron en la ópera en Linz. Augusto era un buen escucha, un gran interlocutor fascinado por él, que solía pasar horas hablando solo sobre sus aspiraciones y sueños de reconocimiento. Más tarde Augusto describió la personalidad de su amigo como “violenta y tensa”, puesto que solo admitía juicios aprobatorios y no toleraba ser corregido.

A lo largo de su juventud no tuvo pareja sentimental alguna. Sin embargo cultivó el interés obsesivo por una chica rubia llamada Deborah. Solía contemplarla al caminar e incluso la seguía en sus recorridos. También le escribió varios poemas, mas nunca se los entregó ni se armó de valor para presentarse, por lo que prefirió resguardarla en sus fantasías. Él le aseguraba a su amigo Augusto que podía comunicarse con ella telepáticamente, incluso que profesaban admiración recíproca. Mientras tanto, mostraba terribles celos de la cercanía que ella pudiese tener con otros hombres. La realidad es que Deborah nunca se enteró del interés que le despertaba. Años más tarde cuando se enteró del (entonces reconocido) admirador, expresó una gran sorpresa, incluso recordó haber recibido una extraña carta anónima en aquella época.

Su peculiar forma de ver el mundo, nutrida de fantasía, comenzó a definirse gradualmente. Visitó con frecuencia bibliotecas para tomar en préstamo numerosos libros de mitología nórdica e historia alemana. También estuvo profundamente inspirado por las piezas de ópera de Wagner, así como de sus míticas fábulas paganas traspasadas de luchas contra odiados enemigos. Su amigo recordaba que tras haber presenciado la emotiva “Rienzi”, se transformó como si estuviese poseído. En esa ocasión ambos subieron a la cima de una colina donde comenzó a hablarle a Augusto adoptando una extraña tonalidad de voz sobre una supuesta misión que dirigiría para llevar al pueblo hacia la libertad; narración similar a la que constituye dicha ópera de Wagner.

A la edad de diecisiete hizo su primer viaje a Viena, capital del imperio y centro del arte, la música, y la cultura tradicional Europea. Con algo de dinero de su madre, durante esa primavera planeaba visitar la opera y estudiar las obras en la famosa galería del Museo de la Corte. Sin embargo, se sintió subyugado por lo magnificente de la arquitectura local. En él afloraba un gran interés por diversas construcciones, al grado que podía dibujar imágenes detalladas de edificios que solo había contemplado en alguna ocasión. También gustaba de imaginar el potencial de ciertos edificios que podían ser mejorados, así como posibles modificaciones de paisajes citadinos. Así permanecía horas observando inmuebles como la ópera y el parlamento, a la par del famoso Anillo de Viena.

El talento natural para el dibujo había estado manifiesto desde su niñez. Éste incluso había sido reconocido por los instructores del bachillerato. Sin embargo, en aquellos años no estuvo en una situación favorable para desarrollarlo pues su desinterés académico y falta de cooperación lo hacían desistir de cualquier estudio. Años más tarde, para escapar del efecto real de ese fracaso y evitar el caer en la monotonía asfixiante de un oficio ordinario, concentró su esperanza en el anhelo de realizarse como un artista trascendente. Entonces optó por inscribirse en la prestigiosa Academia de Bellas Artes de Viena. A la edad de dieciocho, dispuso del dinero de su herencia y se mudo a Viena para estudiar arte. Para entonces su madre sufría de cáncer de mama y había sido operada sin éxito el mismo año. Sin embargo, la ambición por ser artista fue mayor que la consideración de quedarse a su lado.

Asentado en Viena, asistió al examen de admisión de dos días para la escuela de pintura en la Academia. Con seguridad de sobra y confiando en el resultado positivo esperó la aceptación, sin embargo, el revés del rechazo lo golpeó como un relámpago. Sus pruebas de dibujo fueron desaprobadas y no fue admitido, hecho que lo cimbró significativamente. Entonces acudió a la Academia en busca de una explicación. La institución alegó que sus dibujos mostraban una falta de talento para la pintura artística y una deficiente apreciación de la forma humana. Aún así, le comunicaron que tenía cierta habilidad para la arquitectura.

Probar suerte en la escuela de arquitectura sin el título de bachillerato requerido le pareció una opción poco probable. Entonces decidió volver al examen de pintura el siguiente año. Pero antes de su segundo intento fue abatido por una depresión que lo hizo abandonar Viena y regresar a casa, donde para su infortunio, su madre moría de cáncer.

how to make anything signify anything

Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Research Library. Lexington, Virginia

cement cake

Mix equal parts cement and flour. Place a pan of this powder out next to a pan of water. The rats eat the cement, then they drink the water, and by the next morning their bowels have turned to concrete.

Rat poison vendor's stall at a market in Linxia City, China.

"arte emergente"

CUM LAUDE (texto)

¿así cómo?...

Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice

anales

31/03/2011 - 21/05/2011 Madrid

Juliancitos of the world

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. -Frank Zappa

irregular pearl

"Vonnegut at the Blackboard"

29/03/2010 (NY Times)

As long as there have been homeless people sleeping in Times Square, there have been social workers and city officials trying to persuade them to leave.

In the past, the homeless were offered a free ride to one of the city’s warehouse-like shelters. These days, workers for nonprofit groups help people move into apartments, keeping track as the number of the chronically homeless in Times Square goes down.

According to their records, by 2005, there were only 55. Last summer, it was down to 7.

Now there is one.

His name is Heavy, and he has lived on the streets of Times Square for decades. Day after day, he has politely declined offers of housing, explaining that he is a protector of the neighborhood and cannot possibly leave, said the workers who visit him every day.

Yet they are determined to get through to Heavy, the last homeless holdout in Times Square.

“I just have this dream that all of a sudden something will snap, and he’ll say, I’d love to have housing,” said Amie Pospisil, an associate director at Common Ground Community, a nonprofit that conducts street outreach. “I don’t rule out that it could happen.”

Little is known about Heavy, even his full name. Heavy is a nickname, part of his last name, a fact he surrendered after more than a year of daily visits from workers. He declined to be interviewed.

According to neighbors and social workers, he is a gentle presence, possibly delusional and mentally ill, a quiet man who does not harass passers-by or panhandle aggressively. An employee in a deli on Eighth Avenue said that he usually gave Heavy a few pieces of bread at lunchtime. Neighbors bring him hot coffee, loose change and warm clothing in the winter.

“He is a sweetheart,” said an 82-year-old woman who gave her name as Nanny and stopped to talk near her home on 48th Street, where she has lived for 44 years. “He sees me coming and says, ‘Hi, Mommy,’ and I say, ‘Hi, honey.’ And I give him his quarter, and I go on with my business.”

The most recent annual estimate of the number of homeless people sleeping on the streets of New York showed an increase, but Times Square has been an exception. Heavy is the last member of what social workers called the Times Square Seven, the only homeless people remaining last summer out of the dozens they had been placing in housing for years.

Of the seven, three men were regularly sleeping on the steps of churches. All of them had been homeless for a long time — on average, 17 years. One man, a middle-aged Southerner, had been homeless for 40 years.

One by one, from last September to January, the men were convinced to accept housing.

Except Heavy.

“I think it’s fair to say that we gave all seven people the same attention and effort,” Ms. Pospisil said. “Heavy is still there.”

The outreach teams had long since memorized his location and his habits. For a long stretch, he had been camped out on Seventh Avenue, until a city sanitation crew disposed of his belongings, which had become an eyesore on the sidewalk. Then he found a new spot nearby, under the fire escape of a theater. Now he is usually seen around the corner of 48th Street and Seventh Avenue, a block or two from the heart of Times Square.

During the day, Heavy is typically seen wearing a red knit cap, sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette, sitting on a makeshift chair near his black-and-red suitcase. At night, outreach workers often find him nestled within a thin cardboard box, near the scaffolding of a building under construction.

Heavy was far from alone on the streets of Times Square in the 1990s, when he began sleeping there frequently in the midst of a roiling mess of drug dealing, prostitution and crime.

“Times Square has always been this signpost for whatever’s going on in New York City, for good or ill, and when there was a very heavy homeless population, it all contributed to a larger perception that New York City had lost control of the public realm,” said Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance. “I think there was a time at the very beginning of the homelessness issue when it was like, let’s squeeze the balloon and get them out of the way.”

But tactics changed. Nonprofit groups began sharing information about the homeless people who were anchored in Times Square, gathering names, ages, medical conditions and the personal issues that might be keeping them homeless.

The street outreach teams from Common Ground and the Goddard Riverside Community Center, both nonprofit groups that hold contracts with the city, began maintaining close ties with the Times Square Alliance and the Police Department. More units of supportive housing and specialized shelter beds were opened up to the chronically homeless, as an alternative to the sometimes-unruly and intimidating general shelter system. And the more commercial, safer and more tourist-friendly Times Square slowly became less comfortable for the street homeless.

“Whether by accident or not, certainly over the last 10 or 15 years, the cleaning up of Times Square and the street traffic in Times Square may have been an issue,” said Stephan Russo, the executive director of Goddard Riverside. “It can be a little daunting for them.”

The area still attracts its share of panhandlers, especially during the day, and a few emotionally disturbed people who occasionally draw the attention of security employees of the Times Square Alliance. This month, for example, they intervened when a man began tearing flowers out of a planter.

The social workers at Common Ground said they have no intention of pressuring Heavy to leave the streets. But Tim Marx, the executive director, said neighbors might not be helping in the long term by giving Heavy food and clothing. Directors at Common Ground are considering posting one of their outreach workers to stay with Heavy all day, study his habits and movements, and talk to neighbors about what is best for him.

“We’re devising a strategy to encourage people not to support him in his homelessness,” Mr. Marx said.

Rosanne Haggerty, the president of Common Ground, says she has known Heavy since at least 1990, early in the days when she was working to end homelessness in Times Square. In those days, there were more than 70 people sleeping in the area on a typical night.

“He’s kind of iconic,” Ms. Haggerty said. “He would leave for periods and then return, and some days we would actually succeed in getting him inside. But he has this fascination with the life in Times Square.”

She added, “We are continuing to plug away to find the right housing solution for Heavy.”

By JULIE BOSMAN Published: March 29, 2010

Somerton time capsule to be opened

It's said that wine improves with age, but does that apply to brandy as well?

Somerton officials may find out during the Somerton Greater Days celebration Saturday when they dig up and open a time capsule buried in concrete in 1985.

One of the contents is a bottle of brandy from Mexico that has remained sealed all these years and presumably is ready to be savored - unless they decide to put the bottle in a new time capsule the city plans to bury for another quarter-century.

The original capsule was a metal canister in which city employees and residents had placed mementos from that era, among them personal letters from residents, city documents and photographs.

In an interview in 1985, then-City Administrator Marshall Bingham explained that the time capsule was an idea he had borrowed from other communities that wanted to provide a way for their residents to communicate with future generations.

"The common man just wants immortality," he said at the time, "and that can be done by leaving behind mementos from one's own era for residents who follow.

"You are reaching out to people in the future. This is a way to say to mankind, 'You are part of the community,'" said Bingham, who died in 1987.

The capsule was encased in concrete along Somerton's Main Street with instructions that it not be retrieved and opened until 2010. City officials today have decided to open it on the occasion of Saturday's annual celebration of Somerton's 1898 founding.

The opening is scheduled to take place at about 11 a.m. after the traditional Greater Days parade ends up near the site of the capsule, on the north side of Main between State and Somerton avenues, said city Parks and Recreation Director Louie Galaviz.

Among those who plan to be present for the unveiling are Francisco Soto, a public works supervisor for the city, and four surviving members of the city council in 1985 that approved the capsule idea: Sam Colton, Linda Contreras, Reed Kempton and Jay Vance.

Soto, then a public works employee, helped bury the capsule, but not before he and a co-worker split the cost of the bottle of brandy and placed it inside.

Soto said he and the co-worker had speculated that bottle might be of increased monetary value at the time of the capsule's opening if, in the meantime, the brandy maker were to go out of the business.

He doesn't remember which of two brands he and his friend bought — either El Presidente or Viejo Vergel, both of which remain on store shelves today.

The co-worker has since passed away, but Soto says he doesn't plan on claiming the bottle Saturday. He prefers that it be placed in a new canister the city plans to bury in October.

"Then it's going to be 50 years old," he said.

Soto said some photographs of the city and a booklet about Somerton's municipal government were also placed in capsule, but after a quarter-century, neither he nor Kempton recall many of the other contents.

"I know we put in some papers and some documents and I don't know what else," said Kempton. "I don't think we put anything of earthly value in it."

Galaviz said city officials are considering putting the contents of the capsule on display at City Hall or the Parks and Recreation Department after Saturday's opening.

In the new capsule scheduled to be buried in October in Sanguinetti Park, Galaviz would like to include letters written by current Somerton elementary school students to one another. The plan is to bring them together to read those letters when that capsule is opened in another 25 years.

Among the items from today Galaviz would also like to include is a cell phone, which would have to be donated by someone.

"I don't know how cell phones will be different in 25 years, but in 1985, I don't think anyone had a cell phone."

Somerton, Arizona. March 11, 2010/ By John Vaughn- Bajo el Sol Editor.

(Thanks to E.M.)