Luis Chitarroni - The No Variations - Diary of an Unfinished Novel

According to the more or less reliable testimony of those present — particularly Sofía’s fiancé—the first to induce a fit of histrionics and table tapping was a confused little girl who was communicating with the medium on the subject of writing. Suddenly, the medium began coughing and choking, perhaps because there was a change of … “visitant,” or because someone had taken off their shoes … [???] A high pitched voice then spoke in impeccable Castilian: “I am Zelda Bove, grandmother of Benkes, and the legitimate proprietor of his falsehoods …”

Annick Bérrichon’s spiritual ancestry has been discussed in an essay by Lupanal. Suffice it to say the literary critic’s grandfather — whose nom de plume , Belén Mathiessen, is better known to the uninitiated — [was a partner] of Dunglas Home, who had duped many nineteenth century positivists. Today, we can conclude that Annick Bérrichon and all her pseudonyms — so suited to Agraphia —was born, as Blevgad prophesied, to unpack this piece of history, although her activities would succeed only in blurring the chronology. Her grandfather died in a pitiful way, although not as Luini described — nobody will ever know if her account precedes his — in both “Lemurids, Cheiroptera, et Cie” and Sherbet Aria .

2.

Hilarión Curtis — illustrious ancestor of Nicasio Urlihrt — took a seat in the second row. From there, he could espy, without anyone noticing, everything that was happening backstage. The theater had little to offer. Managed by a board and a consortium, it received financial contributions from Doctor Yturri Ipuche and Hilarión himself, although their efforts would cost them dearly. All to bring culture to those [so-called] forgotten lands.

The function began with a recitation by Iris Oratoria of a work of Doctor Yturri Ipuche’s // [an adaptation of Andrés Bello’s then out-of-print “Silva a la Agricultura de la Zona Tórrida”]. Afterwards, what looked like a bunch of school kids enacted part of Juan de Miramontos y Zuazola’s Armas Antárcticas . Then Culcuchina and Curycollor appeared, two Inca princes.

Finally, Atanor Lupino was on the stage, a porteño actor with a yellow beard who performed musical improvisations and imitations of other artists. He sang a ballad in denigration of Washington Barbot. After this, he said that, with the exception of imitations of anyone present, he was going to do his “classics.” He started with Don Julián Acosta …

With his imitation of Don Lucio Mansilla, the act became a farce, because some poor mulattos and a midget were playing the part of Ranquel Indians, wriggling in obeisance on the ground, while the plump and pompous Don was running up and down the stage with his prop sword hanging from his belt.

[ Exaggerated scene from the Junk Museum]

Then, twirling his moustache and raising his eyebrows high, an affected Frenchman no one knew took to the stage. He started giving orders left and right, which the extras obeyed by halves, because by the time he’d finished barking one command, it was already superseded by another more urgent one.

This is the River Plate , said Hilarión to himself, that everyone around ridicules .

Midway through the interval. A dozen people, mostly ladies, approach him to say hello. Hilarión gets the impression some of them — the more serious-looking ones, the more astute ones — were approaching to apologize. How odd, he thinks, as if there were something [in this] that offended him. Doctor Yturri Ipuche [a one-time foundling] had arrived late. He rushed to take his seat next to Hilarión. The effort to do so made him breathless. But he had enough left in the tank to say the tribunal believed everything he said was true. The lights dimmed and some very terrestrial [[pedestrian, territorial]] acrobats came onto the stage, dragging their feet behind them. A woman was singing the national anthems of various countries, while it seemed Iris Oratoria was free to do whatever she wanted. After this, Atanor Lupino made another appearance. He made the appropriate apologies, in case the public had been put out [troubled, confused] by the presence of so many figures onstage …

The most eminent and imposing was … And, without saying the name, he proceeded to imitate the features and gestures of a doctor who is at the point of a great discovery. Darwin confronted by the missing link. Stroking his beard, he assumed the air of a bald [glabrous] skeptic, his doubt, his silence, suspending the public’s literal function as an audience — hearing — and thereby keeping them all guessing.

Many years later, Hilarión Curtis and his stepdaughter went to watch a silent film in a crowded room on Corriente Street specifically to recapture the outrageous, uncanny effect of that performance.

The rabbits of Malambo, the frogs of Aristophanes

The fighting cocks

Bad Times , fictional biography by Hilarión Curtis, Delfín Heredia Kleiber, Cisplatina publishers, 1960.

Reading Mackay ( Popular Delusions ) is like reading an over-edited, systematized Pynchon.

3.

#21 Giordano Bruno, John Florio, Philip Sidney

Sir Valdemar Hilarión Curtis, who are your physicians?

They are:

Dr. Phibes. Dr. Génessier ( Les yeux sans visage ).

Dr. Angelicus. Dr. Sublime. Dr. Sardonicus. Dr. Zhivago. Dr. Atl. Dr. Scholl. Doctor No.

The Mass in tongues by Remo Sabatani

Quote Poe, Ivor Winters

— Is this a tribunal?

— Don’t get your hopes up, friend: it’s only a social gathering.

— The Pole told us it’s Sircular Cymmetry — said Mardurga. It was recorded as such in the Club Maguncia logbook.

— Sircular Cymmetry expelled us.

— Nefelibata — someone sneered.

— Tungsteno — sneered another.

— Tusitala.

— Barbelognostic.

— Sircular Cymmetry.

— Sircular Cymmetry is the way for expats to die far away from here, too far to make their way back home. Sircular Cymmetry is nature’s way of distributing ash in the cartographical game of chance. Hazard. Azure.

— You must have seen it — interrupted the Basque — but if you haven’t, here’s the test. Place the remains of a loved one on a stable, uniform surface — smooth and flat, like language. Not a carpet or rug, please. They’re not in the same category [“stable”]. They tend to move, travel: from Tripoli to Beirut, from Baghdad to Missolonghi, from Algeciras to Istanbul. Then, in this rapacious situation, force yourself to a helping of the divine air so small its inhalation doesn’t add to your cultural malaise, or its exhalation blow a single annoying diptera away. The [vegetal] rustle of a pubic hair, [or] the baritone bellow of an irregular verb.

Hell came freely through the narrow doorway of the monastery. All doorways lead to Rome [which is precisely where you won’t find it (La Haya)] …

The world is purely rhyme, conjecture. He enters dressed as a gallows-bird, a maimed cowboy in spurs who walks with the mien of a prince consort in front of the gardener and makeup artist, who take turns as his manservant. For the Spaniard, at least he does the favor of treading loudly.

Mock-Tudor house in Kenwood, in the abbey of exorcism, far from the first instance of excess — or abuse? — that didn’t even come close to leading us to the palace of wisdom. Or would it be a basilica? It makes the ship stink to high heaven. The Angels have reached the foothills crawling on their knees. The smoke, swamp fumes. Moreover. Cloister without threshold, shadow of an ash cloud. From here his beloved left, and his circumflexed spirit, and from there it will depart. Repeat undirected. Repeat undriven.

And later it left for good, departed. And gone was the interval between departure and return.