La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

Photography 101: capture repetition. Well, photographing repetition is not difficult in La Antigua Guatemala; quite the opposite. This is a simple image of repeated arches and beam horizontal lines, I know, but thought you might enjoy it.

To me, the misaligned chair in front of the lonely desk provokes the feeling of person who just got up and went quickly somewhere; I don’t know, perhaps I am reading more than what really is there.

What kind of sensations does the image produces in you, if any?

A couple times, I have talked about attending inaugurations of art exhibits, concerts and recitals, but I do not think I have shown you what it feels like to actually be there. Today’s photo was taken at the Inauguration of Los Desaparecidos Exhibit in La Antigua Guatemala.

This weekend is marked by two full days of art performances by Guatemalan artists to augment volume and context of the already huge exhibit about Los Desaparecidos (The Disappeared) in Latin America.

I wish you were here…

After having spent a slow afternoon going over every little piece at the “Los Desaparecidos” Exhibit (The Disappeared) now showing at the Compañía de Jesús Building, I needed a place to seat down and meditate. I don’t think I am going to be at peace for a while.
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This window’s vista visual style is marvelous. You get textures, flowers, reflections, translucency, easy access, just to name a few features. However, you do not get the headaches associated with ‘vista’; so enjoy!

L-R: Ronald Flores, Ana María Rodas, Javier Payeras, Julio Serrano, Francisco Alejandro Méndez

As I have shared with you, last Saturday I went to listen to the Guatemalan writers of the post-war in a dialogue they held about Contemporary Central American Literature. Those of us who attended were lucky enough to listen to the opinions and positions of Francisco Alejandro Méndez, Julio Serrano, Javier Payeras, Ana María Rodas, Ronald Flores, Allan Mills and Juan Pablo Dardón. Except for Ana María Rodas (the lady in the picture above) who belong to writers’ generation of 1960-1970, all the other Guatemalan writers and poets belong to the post-war period.

The Guatemalan civil war began after a successful overthrow of the freely-elected Guatemalan government by the CIA coup “Operantion PBSUCCESS” in 1954. The Peace Accords were signed by the end of December 1996, after the death and disappearance of more 200,000 people.

So, in the forum on Saturday there were two generations of Guatemalan writers, each with its own style and specific issues to write about. Ana María Rodas and Mario Roberto Morales belong to the war years and thus they find it very difficult to understand the very prolific post-war generation and the subject-matter the choose to write about.

I like reading both generations of writers, but I most definitely identify with the post-war writers and their disenchantment with the right and left wings and the war and its aftermath as a whole. Anyway, I do not want to bore you with all the details of the dialogue between the writers. Suffice it to say, it was a great evening and the dialogue continue afterwards in a local restaurant in Central Park. As to not bore you with all this dry writing, I prepared a mini photographic chronicle. If you click at the photos below, you can get more details and background information from the titles of the photos.

If you guys want me to write a little review about some of the Guatemalan writers of the post-war period and all their incredible novels and poetry, please, let me know. I will be more than happy to comply. In the mean time, if you can read Spanish, please visit the blog of Allan Mills to get an literary overview of the night.

Photographic Chronicle of the Diálogo sobre Literatura Centroamericana Contemporánea

The last presentation in the three-day Festival de Jazz en Antigua was the Jordi Albert Projet doing a tribute to Chet Baker and billed as a collaboration from Spain. Ironically, two of the musicians of the trio are from Guatemala. Alejandro Álvarez and Victor Arriaza {ñ} are part of the Guatemalan Jazz band called Imox; which is quite possibly the best example of the young jazz movement in Guatemala.

The chilly winds from up north came back to La Antigua Guatemala and thus made more sense to listen and watch to the jazz performance of the Jordi Albert Projet Chet Baker Tribute from L’Espresso Café across the street from the atrium while drinking a cup of the best coffee in the world and eating a very decent plate of Linguini al Pesto. Sacrifices, that’s what I do for you!

My respects and greetings to all the women on the International Woman’s Day!

Tonight it was the turn for Be Little! Trio which is composed of Luca Calabrese, Massimo Minardi and Francesco D’Auria. Be Little! is a jazz trio from Italy and their music takes you through the roads of improvisation of jazz with the help of rare instruments and the guitar, drums and trumpet.

Below you can see the flyer promoting the Festival de Jazz en Antigua; like always, if you click on it you can see an enlarge version.

No, this is not the Stairway to heaven; gosh I am so full of clichés. Honest to god, I am devoid of original thoughts. Everything in my head is a reference or quote to something else. For instance, I see the number 9 and I can only think of Revolution 9 from The Beatles.

One important aspect to highlight about this series about the library is the fact that the guts of the library are contemporary industrial furnishing inside a colonial 16th century building and yet there is harmony between the anachronistic elements.

So it took us about a week to finally enter the Multimedia zone at the Compañía de Jesús Library, as Lessie suggested. Now I would be extremely happy if the film section had the complete works of Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock and Emir Kusturica for starters. Or better yet, I would be in film-heaven if they only had the 1001 movies you must see before you die. Sometimes I wish I was a Slacker.

We resume the library tour right where we left off last Thursday.

This corridor reading area is a nice place to catch up with the recent events while reading a local newspaper from the newspaper rack available on this same hallway, while drinking a cup of the best coffee in the world and receiving a bath of the morning sunshine. Wow for a few moments you might even forget you are in third-world country.

Children also have a reading and play area at the Compañía de Jesús Library. This picture was taken early in the morning, before kids show up and fill the place with their happy noise and laughter.

I was glad to see a reading and play salon for the kids. Reading is a habit that should be acquired at the earliest age possible.

Computer stations are also available at the Compañía de Jesús Library in La Antigua Guatemala. Patsy mentioned that many people opt for the computer instead of grabbing the old-time-tested book. Well, the times are a-changing, you know and everyone needs help with a new system. If you don’t believe me, just take a look a the video clip below that show us how difficult it was for the book to get accepted as the new medium for holding texts.

See I am a geek at heart. I carry a Palm Tungsten with over 100 electronic books on it for all those times when I am forced to make the queues; and that happens often in Guatemala. So I carry all kinds of electronic books, many downloaded from the Proyect Gutenberg which I read with Palm Reader or Pluckr on the handy Palm. I have many more books on the computer in PDF and other formats. So I am not foreign to the new technologies. But I love real paperback books, hardcovers, off-white with rough border books. I especially like that no batteries are included for the book to work.

What is your opinion of books, electronic books, e-books, electronic book readers, the new Kindle reading device?

Post cards request update: Today a found several post cards sent by Ann from Montego Bay, Jamaica. Ann was kind enough to send several post cards to compensate for her tardiness, so she says. Ann maintains the very insightful and informative Montego Bay Daily Photo. Just like with books, as much as I take advantage of email, web sites, and blogs, I have a soft spot in may heart for actual really real post cards and letters, so please keep ‘em coming! If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript.

From the reception desk, we move to the reading area, immediately to the left, to check out all the recent magazines (mostly European and Spanish). This gray granite table with its bright illumination is the perfect work area to do your Spanish classes homework; even more so if you take into account the great dictionaries and thesaurus available there.

One more aspect which makes this library different from many libraries in Guatemala is the fact that it is self-served and thus you are free to walk around the whole library in search of the magnificent La casa de usted y otros viajes of Jorge Ibargüengoitia or the most recent novel by Javier Marías or better yet the most recently published Guatemalan literature book. The choice is yours once you are living your advertures inside this wonder-book-land.

Have I mentioned that the Christmas season just begun? If you feel like being Santa Claus this year, you can send your Christmas present by clicking the Amazon Wish List button below and picking something from the wish list. If you send something and you let me know who you are, I will send some printed 4×6 photos from this site back by regular mail. Whatever you send goes into a special kind of post office box in Miami and from there the package is shipped to Guatemala. I am still responsible for the shipping charges from Miami to Guatemala and the import duties and taxes.

We will begin a mini tour of the library at the Compañía de Jesús building under the care of Cooperación Española NGO or Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional as it is called in Spanish.

But first the disclosure: I love libraries; even chicken bus libraries!

Back when I lived in the good old U.S. of A. I met many people who used to brag about the numerous credit cards they had in their wallets. I just told them I only carried one card because to me it was enough. You can guess what card that was, right?

I have said several times that the Compañía de Jesús building is my favorite building in the whole universe (boy, I am beginning to sound like Manolo, ) and the main reason for that is the library inside.

There are only two libraries in La Antigua Guatemala that allow check outs (to take books home for those not fluent in library-speak) and the library at the Compañía de Jesús building is one of them. It is the biggest library as well. We will begin the tour at the reception desk, if it’s fine with you.

Here are the other reasons why I love the Compañía de Jesús building: the coffee bush hedge; the atrium and the people I found there 1, 2, 3, 4; the history on the plaques, the windows, the doorways, the garden and fountain, the window frames, the arches and the Spanish-style roof tiles just to name some aspects.