The punishment of Tantalus is the fate that torments the poor. Condemned to hunger and thirst, they are condemned as well to contemplate the delights dangled before them by advertising. As they crane their necks and reach out, those marvels are snatched away. And if they manage to catch one and hold on tight, they end up in jail or the cemetery.
Plastic delights, plastic dreams. In the paradise promised to a and reserved for a few, things are more and more important and people less and less so. The ends have been kidnapped by the means: things buy you, cars drive you, computers program you, television watches you.
Wild Blue
This sky never grows cloudy; here it never rains. On this sea no one ever drowns; this beach is free of theft. There are no stinging jellyfish, no spiny urchins, no bothersome mosquitoes. The air and the water, climatized at a temperature that never varies, keep colds and flus at bay. The dirty depths of the port are envious of these transparent waters; this immaculate air mocks the poison that people in the city must breathe.
The ticket doesn't cost much, thirty dollars a person, although you pay extra for chairs and umbrellas. On the Internet, it says: "Your children will hate you ifyou don't take them..." Wild Blue, the Yokohama beach encased in glass, is a masterpiece of Japanese industry. The waves are as high as the motors make them. The electronic sun rises and falls when the company wishes, and the clientele is offered astonishing tropical sunrises and rosy sunsets behind swaying palms.
"It's artificial," says one visitor.
"That's'why we like it."
A Martyr
In the fall of 1998, in the center of Buenos Aires, a distracted pedestrian got flattened by a city bus. The victim was crossing the street while talking on a cell phone. While talking? While pretending to talk: The phone was a toy.
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The Great Day
They live off garbage amid garbage, eating garbage in garbage houses. But once a year, the garbage collectors of Managua star in the show that draws the country's largest crowds. "The Ben-Hur Races" were the inspiration of a businessman who came back from Miami to do his part for "the Americanization of Nicaragua."
Riding their garbage carts, fists in the air, Managua's garbage collectors salute the president of the country, the atnbassador of the United States, and the other dignitaries who grace the dais of honor. Over their everyday rags, the competitors wear broad colorful capes, and on their heads sit the plumed helmets of Roman warriors. Their dilapidated carts are freshly painted, the better to display the names of their sponsors. The skinny horses, covered with open sores Re their owners and punished Re their owners, are corsairs that fly to the finish line for the sake of glory, or at least a case of soda.
Trumpets blare. The starting flag drops, and they're off. Whips beat down on the bony haunches of the sorry nags, while the delirious crowd cheers: "Co-ca-Co-la! Co-ca-Co-la!"
By the Grace of God
At the end of 1993, I attended the funeral of a beautiful trade school that had existed for three years in Santiago, Chile. The students came from the poorest slums of the city, kids condemned to be delinquents, beggars or whores. The school taught them trades like ironwork, carpentry and gardening; above all, it taught them to love themselves and to love what they were doing. For the first time they heard people say that they were worth something and that doing what they were learning to do was worth something. The school depended on foreign financing. When the money ran out the teachers turned to the gov6mment. They went to the ministry and got nothing. They went to city hall and the mayor suggested, "Turn it into a business."
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