Why I love Eduardo Galeano, Part I

Eduardo Galeano was born in Uruguay in 1940. He is a writer who sometimes writes his books in a combination of poetry, fiction, autobiography, history, fantasy and political commentary. The result is a conglomerate of these categories in one book. For someone with a short attention span like myself, it is TONS of fun to read him and keep jumping from short blurb to short poem to short blurb and so forth; plus some his stuff doesn't make sense, just like my brain.

I got into Galeano through a friend of mine who was reading it. We went out to dinner in Queens, and went she went to the bathroom she pushed the book towards me since there was a line to the bathroom; it was a better alternative to me staring into space or calling someone on my cell while she left me. I started reading it and got hooked.

I was reading Galeano last night before bed, and then fell asleep to it. I had the CRAZIEST dream afterwards with bits and pieces of my reading in it! It was one of those dreams where your alarm clock rings and you keep hitting snooze because damn it, you wanna finish up that crazy dream and see how it ends. And then your backup alarm clock starts ringing and you get up, turn the damn thing off, and like a zombie head back to bed trying to remember the last thing you dreamt to get back into the dreaming groove. Yeah....

I got a little late to work as a result this morning. Hmmmm, maybe I'll see if I can re-dream it today if I read the same exact things I read last night! Okay, that sounds like a stupid idea.

Anyway, here are 3 pieces on random stuff. That's how cool he is. Any topic, and he'll have written something on it. Plus the fact that his shit is translated from Spanish to English and is STILL so much fun for me to read it. Gives me incentive to brush up on my Spanish...


Indians

On Vancouver Island, Ruth Benedict tells us, the Indians staged tournaments to measure the greatness of their princes. The rivals competed by destroying their belongings. They threw their canoes, fish oil, and salmon eggs on the fire, and from a high promontory, hurled their cloaks and pots into the sea.
Whoever got rid of everything, won.


The Land of Dreams

It was huge camp out in the country. Singing heads of lettuce and lumnious chilies sprouted from magicians' top hats and there were people all over bartering dreams. One wanted to trade a travel dream for a love dream and another offered a dream to make you laugh for a dream to give you a good cry. One man wandered around in search of the pieces of his dream, shattered by someone who had got in his way. He was picking up the pieces and sticking them together to make a multicolored flag. The dream water boy brought water to those who got thirsty as they slept. He carried the water on his back in a clay vessel and dispensed it in tall glasses. There was a woman in a tower wearing a white tunic and combing her tresses, which reached down to her feet. The comb shed dreams replete with all their characters: the dreams flew from her hair into the air.


The Night

I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat.



There's more and better stuff, but that's for another day.