Clavileña

As a tribute to the bicycle thread of the past days, voilà a small, modest poetry machine with a two-stroke engine which works perfectly only with the original components underlying its mechanism:

Impromptu I Pasa una bicicleta por la carretera. Parece que no es nada una bicicleta… Pero vista detrás de una alambrada ese trasto de dos ruedas le llena a uno de ideas. Por la carretera va que vuela, una bicicleta. II ¿Qué treta me juegas, fortuna y rueda? De mis pies nacen andas y surgen sedas. Por sólo altibajar mal las rodillas yo mismo me llevo en sillas. Ya más que Clavileño, Clavileña dulce, metálica, sin par sorpresa: ¡Oh noble bicicleta! Max Aub Diario de Djelfa, 21.2.1942

Fandanguito L’Arpeggiata – Los Impossibles

It’s not just the words the poem is made of, and the metamorphosis of the man into the means he’s riding, that make me to speak about perfection, but also other elements, beginning with the the context in which Max Aub wrote it, in the concentration camp of Djelfa, Algeria, where he, a Spaniard born of a French mother and of a German father, a socialist denounced as a communist, of Jewish origin, born in France, but sans papiers avant la lettre, that is, the prototype of the stranger unwelcome in Pétain’s France, was interned.

There is then the powerful interaction with which the deeply Catholic rite of carrying the holy image in a procession on the two-wheeled andas decorated with precious textiles is impressed and interpreted through the visual memories of an internationalist and laic spirit like Aub.

And there is also the literary reference to the Quixote and to the winged wooden horse, capable of carrying the hidalgo and his esquire to very real imaginary places, not to mention the role played by the bicycle in the familiar landscape of my maternal grandparents in the Venetian plain, and, finally, the fact that my own bicycle in the very moment when I read for the first time this poem by Aub, turned into a winged horse – and since my bicycle is continuously changing, as it is called Vélib’, the metamorphosis is repeated again and again, on the scale of a whole stud-farm.

I A bicycle passes along the road. It seems to be nothing at all… But seen from behind the barbed wire this stuff made of two wheels fills you with ideas. On the road there flies, a bicycle. II What trick do you play with me fortune and wheel? My feet become andas and emit silk. Just by poorly alternating my knees I turn into the carrier of my saddle. Rather than Clavileño, Clavileña sweet, metallic, unexpected surprise: Oh noble bicycle!

Maxime Noiré, La route de Djelfa

“The world famous gasoline «El Clavileño»
is the best for the automobile!”

Clavileña

In omaggio alla serie delle biciclette, una piccola, modesta macchina poetica con un motore a due tempi che opera alla perfezione solo con i componenti originali alla base del suo meccanismo:

Impromptu I Pasa una bicicleta por la carretera. Parece que no es nada una bicicleta… Pero vista detrás de una alambrada ese trasto de dos ruedas le llena a uno de ideas. Por la carretera va que vuela, una bicicleta. II ¿Qué treta me juegas, fortuna y rueda? De mis pies nacen andas y surgen sedas. Por sólo altibajar mal las rodillas yo mismo me llevo en sillas. Ya más que Clavileño, Clavileña dulce, metálica, sin par sorpresa: ¡Oh noble bicicleta! Max Aub Diario de Djelfa, 21.2.1942

Fandanguito L’Arpeggiata – Los Impossibles

Non si tratta solo delle parole che compongono la poesia e della metamorfosi dell’uomo nel mezzo che sta cavalcando che mi inducono a parlare di perfezione, ma anche di altri elementi, a cominciare dal contesto in cui Max Aub la scrisse, nel campo di concentramento di Djelfa, in Algeria, dove lui, spagnolo di madre francese e padre tedesco, socialista denunciato come comunista, di origine ebraica, nato in Francia, ma sans papiers ante litteram, insomma il prototipo dello straniero indesiderato dalla Francia di Pétain, fu internato.

C’è poi la forza con cui si è impresso nei ricordi visivi di uno spirito internazionalista e laico come quello di Aub il rituale, tutto cattolico, in cui il santo viene portato in processione su un fercolo (anda) ornato di tessuti preziosi.

C’è anche il richiamo letterario al Quijote e al cavallo di legno alato, quello in grado di trasportare l’hidalgo e il suo scudiero in realissimi luoghi immaginari, per non parlare del ruolo svolto dalla bicicletta nel paesaggio familiare in cui si sono mossi i miei nonni materni, la pianura veneta, e, infine, del fatto che la mia, di bicicletta, nel momento stesso in cui ho letto per la prima volta questa poesia di Aub, si è trasformata in un cavallo alato - e considerato che la mia bicicletta cambia continuamente e si chiama Vélib’, la metamorfosi si ripete di continuo, sulla scala delle mandrie.

I Passa una bicicletta per la strada. Sembra che non sia niente una bicicletta… Però, vista da dietro un filo spinato, questa roba a due ruote ti riempie di idee. Per strada vola, una bicicletta. II Che trucco mi fai, fortuna e ruota? Dai miei piedi nascono fercoli e spuntano sete. Per il solo alternare maldestro delle ginocchia io stesso divento il portatore della mia sella. Sei già più di Clavilegno, Clavilegna dolce, metallica, sorpresa inaspettata: Oh nobile bicicletta!

Maxime Noiré, La route de Djelfa

Patagonian Don Quixotes

In Zapala we have encountered around the corner an unexpected inhabitant of the Patagonian steppe.


We are sure that these lands would be an ideal arena for quixotic adventures (as in fact they have been more than once) as well as for lengthy talks with faithful and wise squires.


Restaurant “Don Quijote” in Zapala. The next time we go there we will sit at its tables.


Some days later, on the other side of the chains of the Andes, a Chilean Don Quixote awaited us. Close cousin, perhaps, of that of Regazzoni wandering over the pampas of Argentina, although with less freedom: it was framed in Pucón, between the lake and the volcano Villarica, doomed to go the way his obsession had marked for him.

Don Quijotes patagónicos

En Zapala, provincia de Neuquén, descubrimos, doblando la esquina, un habitante no esperado de la estepa patagónica.


Estoy segura de que estas tierras serían un excelente escenario para aventuras quijotescas (de hecho lo han sido más de una vez), así como también para dilatados diálogos con escuderos fieles y sensatos.


Restaurante "Don Quijote" en Zapala, la próxima vez que pasemos por allí nos sentaremos a sus mesas.


Días después, del otro lado de la cordillera, un don Quijote chileno nos esperaba. Primo cercano, tal vez, del de Regazzoni que recorría la Pampa argentina, aunque con menos libertad: éste se hallaba enmarcado en Pucón, entre el lago y el volcán Villarrica, condenado a recorrer el camino que su obsesión le fijaba.

Ars memorativa

We have just recently come back from Buenos Aires. It was a journey of which we have so much to say that we have not yet found out where to start. And it is high time, because time is inexorably running, a new year has risen, and we do not want our memories to fade or rust. Although time is also able to do just the opposite with memories: to exalt them, to recycle them and to give them a glare and a persistence that marks them as valuables or knickknacks. It is not easy to predict what will be treasured and what will be discarded by our memory. And time also composes new, more complete objects of the debris within our head, and it constructs narratives where originally there were only scenes.


Just a humble example. On the way back from Azul to Buenos Aires, after just some five kilometers we stopped to eat at a restaurant called “Punto Argentino”, near to a field where guanacos were grazing. Here we met Juan Bautista who shapes out of pieces of scrap fabulous or long extinct animals as well as machines of inextricable function.

Juan Bautista. Sculptures of scrap iron

This bike which seems to be unearthed from the future naturally brings to mind the bicycles of the Knights of the Sun and the Moon about which we have talked in a previous post. And it is also close to the remake or counterfeit toys prepared by our friend Miquel Àngel Llonovoy in his unusual museum.





We got back to Buenos Aires with these fresh images on our mind, and only when we took stock of the past days, we realized their similarity to the ones we had seen before in Azul: the figures in the quixotic park of Carlos Regazzoni, composed of old iron, twisted bed frames, car bonnets, nuts, cranks, pipes, radiators and nails.


Azul on the pampa to the southwest of Buenos Aires is an interesting city for many reasons. In 2007 it was declared “Argentina’s City of Cervantes”. This square extends on the outskirts of the city, along the creek Azul, under the vast blue sky of the pampa. In the previous days we participated at the Second International Conference of Cervantes in an environment so passionate about the work of Cervantes that it even transformed by magic the pampa into the plains of La Mancha. Well, of this city we will surely have to write later.

“…one of those gentlemen who usually keep a lance upon a rack, an old buckler, a lean horse, and a coursing greyhound”

Julia observes with justifiable fear the armored Dulcinea.

“There goes Sancho on his nag.”

We have concluded that this region of the country displays a special attraction to scrap sculpture. But as now, some two months after coming home, we thought back on those works of art, we have suddenly remembered the exhibition catalog we bought at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) where we spent good times both in the exhibition rooms and in the library. The catalog has some sculptures by renowned artist Antonio Berni which constitute a worthy terminus to this journey that we have done unaware through the recycled art of Argentine. These frightful hybrid monsters made of wood, door handles, rivets, washers, toilet seats, boxes, wicker baskets, roots certainly occupy an illustrious place on the pedigree of the above seen scrap iron sculptures

Hypocrisy or The interplanetary monsters vying for Ramona (1964)

Squalor (1965)

Menacing bird (1965)

The victorious worm or The triumph of death (1965)

Voilà, an unexpected story within that other big story of the journey to Buenos Aires whose construction we still do not know with which piece to start.

Ars memorativa

No hace mucho estuvimos en Buenos Aires. Es un viaje del que tenemos tanto que contar que todavía no hemos encontrado por dónde empezar a hacerlo. Y va siendo el momento, porque las horas ya suenan en otro año, el tiempo no dará tregua y no queremos que los recuerdos se difuminen o se oxiden. Aunque el tiempo también es capaz de hacer justo lo contrario con los recuerdos: decantarlos, reciclarlos y darles un fulgor o persistencia que los señala como valiosos o como quincalla. No es fácil predecir qué cosas atesorará la memoria y qué desechará. Con las piezas sueltas, dentro de la cabeza el tiempo compone objetos nuevos, más completos, y llega a construir narraciones donde solo había escenas.


Un humilde ejemplo: volviendo de la ciudad de Azul a Buenos Aires, no habíamos recorrido ni cinco kilómetros cuando paramos a comer en un restaurante llamado «Punto Argentino», cerca de un lugar vallado donde pastaban guanacos. Allí encontramos a Juan Bautista, que con piezas de chatarra daba forma a animales fabulosos o extinguidos antes del Diluvio y construía máquinas de inextricable funcionamiento.


Esta moto que parece desenterrada del futuro, con su toque cyberpunk, nos trae a la memoria, por supuesto, a las bicicletas de los Caballeros del Sol y de la Luna, de las que hablamos en otra entrada. Y también está cerca de los juguetes que rehace o contrahace nuestro amigo Miquel Àngel Llonovoy en su insólito museo.





Llevábamos estas imágenes frescas en la memoria y solo al llegar de nuevo a Buenos Aires y hacer recuento de los días pasados, nos dimos cuenta de la similitud de este trabajo con otro que habíamos visto antes, en Azul: el de Carlos Regazzoni autor de un parque de figuras quijotescas hechas con hierros viejos, somieres retorcidos, capós de coches, tuercas, manivelas, tubos, radiadores de autobús, clavos.


Azul, en la pampa, al sudoeste de Buenos Aires, es una ciudad interesante por muchas razones. Fue declarada por la Unesco en 2007 «Ciudad Cervantina de la Argentina». Esta plaza está en la afueras de la ciudad, a orillas del arroyo Azul y bajo un inmenso cielo. Hasta allí fuimos para participar en las II Jornadas Cervantinas Internacionales, en un ambiente tan apasionado por la obra de Cervantes que transmutaba como por ensalmo la pampa en los páramos manchegos. De esta ciudad también hablaremos más adelante.

«...de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.»

Julia observa con justificado temor a una acorazada Dulcinea.

«Allá va Sancho con su rocino».

Concluimos así que esa zona del país debía atraer especialmente a unos peculiares artistas chatarreros. Pero solo hoy, cuando ya hace casi dos meses que volvimos a casa, pensando de nuevo en aquellas esculturas hemos recordado de pronto el catálogo de una exposición que compramos en el MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), lugar donde pasamos buenos ratos tanto en sus salas como en la librería. Aparecen allí unas esculturas del famoso Antonio Berni que acaban por construir este relato azaroso, un recorrido que nosotros mismos desconocíamos haber hecho por el arte del reciclado argentino. Son estos tremebundos monstruos hibridados con maderas, pomos de puerta, remaches, arandelas, tapas de inodoro, buzones, cestas de mimbre, raíces... seguramente los antecedentes más ilustres de las esculturas anteriores.

La hipocresía o Los monstruos interplanetarios se disputan a Ramona (1964)

La sordidez (1965)

El pájaro amenazador (1965)

El gusano triunfador o El triunfo de la muerte (1965)

Un relato imprevisto dentro de ese otro gran relato del viaje a Buenos Aires que aún no sabemos por dónde o con qué piezas empezar a componer.