CHAPTER NOTHING

Who could -or honestly should- resist falling down into the guttural throat of a Friday night, inside New York’s blackest-sheep district.

Marveling along the contours of a jewel so hypnotically dark and incalculable… just to become one -for a few hours- with the scandalous and always sincere, New York’s Lower East Side.

Like most of New York’s impatient logic, Houston Avenue cuts Manhattan Island from East to West with the unapologetic determination of Jack Pollock’s violent paint drips. And I figure, there is some wisdom in such violence.

The tangible difference between the South and the North sides of Houston Avenue goes way beyond a mere urban feature…

CHAPTER ONE – THE GROCERY STORE

It was maybe… seven years ago since Allin and myself -laughing like maniacs- franticly stormed the alleys of a little grocery store along Saint Laurent Street in Montreal.

It was one of our many crazy summer nights in the heart of Montreal. We were on our way to a birthday party in “quartier Mont Royal”, the undisputed hipster’s enclave…

Chapter One: Peaks and Valleys

Not even a couple of weeks ago -the last one before Christmas actually- I found myself on a quick but very relaxing road trip. We had to drive about 100 Km south of Lima -to a popular beach town- where my client, Jaime, who was behind the wheel, was soon opening a new location….

In downtown Toronto, the majestic Canada Life Building stands along University Avenue, one of the most traditional roads of the city. Built in 1929, this Beaux-Arts masterpiece houses Great West Life; one of the largest and most respected insurance companies in Canada.

Both the building and the company are for Canadians true testaments of permanence and endurance. If we were to categorize life by longevity and authority; it would be difficult to find stronger symbols in the whole country…

This winter, throughout my stay in a beach house south of Lima, I retained the services of a promising young man to take care of the pool.

Luis Alonso came initially to the house with the certainty of Julius Caesar, an engineering degree in water stuff and one big smile.

We shook hands, we had a deal…

A thousand moons ago, before internet and kale became the uncontested oracles of truth, laziness took it upon herself to hand me a rather strange but powerful key.

One so overwhelmingly large, that it took me years of distance and perspective to understand it as one, let alone wrap my head around it.

As most young men starting college, studying became a necessary obstacle -or better said- a reasonable excuse to leave the house and hit the streets, my opportunity to draw the dice…

The “Friðheimar” tomato farm -about 100 kilometers east of Reykjavik- sits on the heartland of Iceland and curiously enough, this little island is the only country in both the new and the old continents, right where the American and European tectonic plates meet…

Every now and then we are blessed with a daunting challenge.

Irreversible inflection points, taking us into uncharted lands.

Events meant to destroy us, kill us, rip us apart…

There are mornings and there are nights

when the weight of the future and the weight of the past

sit on our shoulders, prepared to break our spine…

“A short tale about one incalculable friendship forged between poems and equations”.

When Allin and I agreed on the terms of our outrageous bet; one late night, right after an art vernissage, years and years ago in Montreal… the handful of artists having a drink with us… just shivered.

The Book of Genesis speaks of a day when Adam & Eve ate the forbidden apple, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. As a punishment, God didn’t hesitate and exiled them from the Garden of Eden…

And one day, just like that and out of a terrible boredom streak, the Gods in all their mischievous wisdom rolled the dice one last time, a good while ago, October 17th 1950…

Late 80s, thirty plus years ago back in Lima, Perú, my grandparents would borrow a van and take all my cousins and I to the town of Ica for the weekend, a four-hour drive south of the capital.

Back in 1923, Freud put down the three components of his personality theory, The Id, the Ego and the Superego; the elements under which he intended to structure our Psyche.

While at our deepest levels the Id represented the unconscious; the Superego by contrast, depicted the highest altitudes of our aspirations.

"𝑶𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒈𝒈𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒏 𝒗𝒂𝒊𝒏". 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒍 𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒈

Throughout most, if not all my youth, I praised the intellect as the pinnacle of evolution.

Such a powerful muscle; an endless vehicle of synthesis and imagination. I grew up in total awe of it's malleable strength.

Walk in New York.

We had just finished lunch at Jamie’s restaurant in the Lower East Side.

Fall in New York, few months before the pandemic.

In the air, not a clue of what lied ahead for everyone.

I used to bring clients to his place, great service -you know- the humanized type…

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” – Aldous Huxley

And what a massively hilarious tension had Jerry & Newman, our beloved characters in the 90s sitcom “Seinfeld”, which for many people -definitely me included- was the most impeccable display of comedy ever produced in television.

It takes the Amtrak twenty-eight hours to reach New York from Miami and it is one fantastic ride. The train plunges through one vibrant collage of blue bays and green hills; colourful bridges, sunny cities, farm animals, children… while the train carries on in perfect harmony.

It was not that long ago, around 75 years ago, when the Argentinian poet J.L. Borges wrote “The Aleph”, a short story that quickly became a mind-bending reference in contemporary literature.