La chair est sad, I counted! et j'ai lu tous les livres .
He died Jorge Medina Vidal or old, as we call him in college. The news of his death was barely register in the press, which did not take even a tenth of the space dedicated to the fight Abigail - Monica Farro , and was not even a second of space on television, despite have been one of the most notorious jury Question Martini. No matter, it is logical.
older contemporary dissident Generation of 45, which harshly criticized but not based on political prejudices which currently evaluates, Medina Vidal was a precious poet, lover of late symbolism, but above all it was a of teachers more notorious School of Humanities, which essentially was devoted to giving various courses of Literary Theory. One was with Vidal Medina usually in the first half and I can not think of a better way to begin studies of Arts. It was a shock: you got to the grand romanticism wrapped power of good literature student, convinced to know a lot and almost mystical admiration overflowed to the writers and poets with whom we felt empathy, and you were with this diffuser of structuralism and post-structuralism, telling you that the authors were irrelevant because they did not know them, because they did not know and because they were a bunch of liars, reason by which they had given themselves up stories. He spoke of the letters with the same ease with which a man speaks field of cows, treated with diminutives, laughed at them attributing their troubles to more dramatic than most domestic problems ... Ie a hondazo down to the literature of his bronze horse and sprawled on the table for the diseccionaramos.
At first shocked, how could this old stained talking about Julio Cortázar like talking on a bologna. But slowly one felt that behind the alleged contempt was in fact a deep love and respect for literature, but not in awe to the mask bronze funeral but to the living of it, the texts, those texts that exemplify liked and chose black palate: Vicente Aleixandre, Juan Rulfo , Gerardo Diego , Delmira Agustini and above all, Stéphane Mallarmé, who is familiarly referred to as "the Divine Esteban." It was evident that its paradigm of heroes did not match much with the general taste of his students, but also fought to impose much, just occasionally did make contact with it, and then hear him read "Vallejo Valley" or " Cobra ", a thought that may not be able to write better that. Vidal Medina
was bad, it was a dirty cynical appearance hid a heart of gold, it was a fucking bastard, can make the worst dogs to their students and colleagues, but it was hard to get irritated with him, and none of multiple aberrations that made me seem very relevant at this time. In fact it was a very honest villain, who loved to brag about how happy was setting when did lose some of the contestants Question Martini, who loved to spread slanderous rumors about Onetti or Borges, who loved to use his teaching position unspeakable purposes. He liked to be compared with Louie jokes, and it was really funny to relate to the figure provided abstract and infant Jaimito of popular culture that long-haired hulk malicious dyed black. I hated the movie with the same passion that loved everything decadent and elitist everything. Vidal Medina, which defined itself as an anarchist, conservative, deeply believed in the existence of an aristocracy (which he belonged, of course) based not on money or power but the ability to rise-a force of knowledge, insularity , refinement and misanthropy, above the vulgar people. We agreed or not, all students stayed more or less inoculated with the virus of pride.
I had several excellent teachers in literature, but only two that I can consider the teachers, one was the old Medina, the other was (and is) Hugo Achugar . Despite being both poets and both teachers obsessed with theoretical update, I can not imagine two more antithetical figures, to the point that in retrospect I think they remind the good cop, bad cop. Achugar was professor of intellectual ethics, discipline intense, controlled passion, the seriousness, the projection in the race, the politically conscious, obsessive order, the integrated (in terms of Umberto Eco), the Apollonian and encouragement of participation student. Vidal Medina was the villain, The Trickster, the hedonist, the elitist, the funny, the politically incorrect, who despised the race, the apocalyptic, which ignored the opinions of their students, who lost the papers, which intrigued It recommended taking a drink before school and do not attend without a cocktail of coca-cola cafiaspirins and the Dionysian, the bad. A combination extraordinarily complementary and one accessed, by chance, in the correct order: first one was with the old mythology that destroyed all your teen about literature and writers (to the extent that one might well decide drop out after one of their courses), then you were with Achugar, who rebuilt the respect for the art of letters, but building up the scorched earth left by the old, and far more rational structures and solid The air castles naive with which one entered in the Faculty. Now, with one dead and one retired, the only teaching experience disappeared. Like so many important things secret.
chain smoked from beginning until the class ended, often lighting a cigarette with the butt of the former. He likes to hold in your hand which was missing a couple of joints of a finger, which exhibited with evident pride unclear ever-that I know the cause of FGM. Sometimes some of the ladies who sat in the front row usually teachers of literature in the IPA graduates who decided to study literature seriously, "I made a recommendation about who smoked less, to which Medina would always reply: " Lady I do not want to be the healthiest of the cemetery. "
do not know what kind Medina would have in these times of persecution and discrimination against smokers, probably with much less humor. Certainly did not obey, because there was a man of this time and did not have to be subject to their laws morons. I read
Gabriel Lagos in the daily and Santacreu and María José Roberto López in Gap, Old writing about the few lines devoted to the press (two left-wing media, which might have horrified to Medina), the full observance of emotion contained in any of these texts contrasts with ostracism dignity dirty and ignorant of the rest of the media. It is clear that at least three to four telling, Medina Vidal went through their lives leaving them an invaluable tool: a humorous and disenchanted with the letters, a conception of personal relationship with art in which there is no junior or submission reader. I do not think Medina came to be re-discovered and re-valued at some point, his creative work is sparse and almost no one today cares a damn poetry. But at least for me it will always be present, as sensei little presentable, and hopefully retain some of the gestures that I copied some hijadeputez carefully when I say elegant in his honor.
