0:00:00.000,0:00:03.329
A man from the village of Neguá,

0:00:03.329,0:00:05.368
on the coast of Colombia,

0:00:05.368,0:00:08.208
managed to rise up in the sky

0:00:08.208,0:00:11.960
and back he told:

0:00:11.975,0:00:17.369
said that he had contemplated, from up there,

0:00:17.554,0:00:18.834
the human life

0:00:18.834,0:00:21.088
And said we are

0:00:21.088,0:00:24.057
a sea of little fires

0:00:24.057,0:00:26.260
The world is that, revealed:

0:00:26.260,0:00:29.296
a bunch of people,

0:00:29.296,0:00:32.113
a sea of little fires,

0:00:32.113,0:00:35.736
There are never two of the same fire

0:00:35.736,0:00:41.448
Each person shines with self light, amongst the others

0:00:41.448,0:00:47.014
There's big fires and little fires and fires of all colors

0:00:47.014,0:00:52.486
There's people of serene fire, that doesn't even feel the wind,

0:00:52.486,0:00:58.125
and there's people of crazy fire, that fills the air with sparks,

0:00:58.125,0:01:03.855
Some fires, silly fires, don't iluminate or burn

0:01:03.855,0:01:06.316
But others...

0:01:06.316,0:01:11.634
others burn life with so much desire

0:01:11.634,0:01:16.343
that you cannot look them without blinking,

0:01:16.343,0:01:19.905
and who approaches ignites.

0:01:19.905,0:01:30.928


0:02:08.264,0:02:14.218
I would like you to talk, Eduardo,

0:02:14.218,0:02:18.305
of Latin America, how do you see it today and how you see the world today

0:02:18.305,0:02:21.541
Well, its a little complicated

0:02:21.541,0:02:25.779
answer a question that covers Latin America and moreover the world

0:02:25.779,0:02:30.617
I'm glad that you're not going to ask about Jupiter, Mars, the Moon...

0:02:30.617,0:02:38.430
I guess that on our region we're living a very interesting period, beautiful

0:02:38.430,0:02:41.128
very creative, very fertile

0:02:41.128,0:02:43.770
Difficult to understand, sometimes,

0:02:43.770,0:02:49.575
mainly when you look from outside and from above

0:02:49.575,0:02:51.672
Things that we truly understand

0:02:51.672,0:02:58.678
the things that we can understand with the reason and feel with the heart,

0:02:58.678,0:03:02.215
are the things we're capable of looking

0:03:02.215,0:03:06.294
from inside and from below

0:03:06.294,0:03:13.260
If we look from above, with the charactheristic arrogancy of our democracy teachers

0:03:13.260,0:03:16.463
from United States or from Europe

0:03:16.463,0:03:22.269
and if beyound looking from above, we look from outside, we don't understand anything

0:03:22.269,0:03:27.099
And don't understand anything for a reason, for a very important reason:

0:03:27.099,0:03:33.947
It's that we're the region of the world that, probably, its the most diverse of all

0:03:33.947,0:03:37.617
It's the home of the human diversities

0:03:37.617,0:03:44.607
And this, that for me is a virtue, seen from outside and above is considered a serious defect

0:03:44.607,0:03:49.715
Why? Because if you don't fit in the model from above and outside

0:03:49.715,0:03:54.568
believe that is democracy, so here there's no democracy

0:03:54.568,0:03:57.671
And the truth that proves that here democracy exists

0:03:57.671,0:04:02.277
is that this is a kingdom of the contradiction and the diversity

0:04:02.277,0:04:09.816
where its mixed and sometimes disagree, all the colors, the smells and the pains of the world

0:04:09.816,0:04:15.814
There was a north-american poet, a woman, that died some years ago

0:04:15.814,0:04:18.358
she was called Muriel Rukeyser

0:04:18.358,0:04:22.829
She said a sentence, that for me, always seemed splendid to me, she said:

0:04:22.829,0:04:27.200
"Yes, Yes fine, this thing that the world is made of atoms...

0:04:27.200,0:04:33.106
the world is not made of atoms, the world is made of stories", she said

0:04:33.106,0:04:36.503
I believe that yes, the world must be made of stories

0:04:36.503,0:04:44.119
because its the stories that we tell, that we listen, recriate, multiply

0:04:44.119,0:04:50.090
its the stories that permits to transform, the past in present

0:04:50.090,0:04:58.400
And, also, permits to transform the distant into near

0:04:58.400,0:05:03.003
what's distant into something close, possible and visible

0:05:03.003,0:05:10.102
How was these losses and how did you face them and overcame them or not?

0:05:10.102,0:05:11.147
The deaths?

0:05:11.147,0:05:12.512
Losses in general

0:05:12.512,0:05:14.181
Losses?

0:05:14.181,0:05:21.154
The losses of things, I confess that never really matered to me

0:05:21.154,0:05:25.592
But the losses of people yes, they hurted

0:05:25.592,0:05:32.299
and, in some cases, lefted a little hole very difficult to fill

0:05:32.299,0:05:38.205
But, well, this world is built like this

0:05:38.205,0:05:43.005
its a fabric of encounters and missing

0:05:43.005,0:05:46.780
of losses and gains

0:05:46.780,0:05:50.854
and the best of my days is the one I didn't live yet

0:05:50.854,0:05:55.655
each loss corresponds to an encounter that I still didn't have

0:05:55.655,0:05:59.654
And luckily the reality is generous and doesn't fail on this

0:05:59.654,0:06:03.253
Indeed I write to celebrate it

0:06:03.253,0:06:09.502
and celebrating it I denounce everything that prevents us from recognizing

0:06:09.502,0:06:12.706
on others and ouselves

0:06:12.706,0:06:18.011
the multiple colors of the terrestrial rainbow

0:06:18.011,0:06:21.882
We are much more than what people tell us we are

0:06:49.344,0:06:51.945
The fear threatens

0:06:51.945,0:06:57.657
if you love, you'll have Aids

0:06:57.657,0:07:00.654
if you smoke, you'll have cancer

0:07:00.654,0:07:04.991
if you breath, you'll have contamination

0:07:04.991,0:07:08.628
if you drink, you'll have accidents

0:07:08.628,0:07:12.866
if you eat, you'll have cholesterol

0:07:12.866,0:07:17.092
if you speak, you'll have unemployment

0:07:17.092,0:07:19.948
if walks, you'll have violence

0:07:19.948,0:07:24.644
if thinks, you'll have anguish

0:07:24.644,0:07:28.915
if you doubt, you'll have crazyness

0:07:28.915,0:07:33.040
if you fell, you'll have solitude

0:07:36.886,0:07:43.574
One of the most beautiful indigenous stories from Latin America

0:07:43.851,0:07:51.972
tells that the maya's gods tried lots of times to create the woman and the men

0:07:51.972,0:07:56.943
because they were very bored, the gods, and they wanted to have someone to talk to

0:07:56.943,0:08:03.974
So, they made us from lots of different ways and failled, it was a disaster

0:08:03.974,0:08:11.591
until they found a way that we were what we were, made of corn

0:08:11.591,0:08:15.061
The maia gods made us from corn and that's why we have all the colors, like the corn

0:08:15.061,0:08:20.738
not the transgenic corn nor the quimic that is being sold to us right now

0:08:20.738,0:08:27.588
But, before they get to the corn, the maias god tried, for instance, to make the woman and men of wood

0:08:27.588,0:08:33.347
and they were just perfect, but they had a grave inconvenience: they didn't breath

0:08:33.347,0:08:38.873
and as they didn't breath, they didn't have words to say

0:08:38.873,0:08:41.868
because from the mouth nothing was coming out

0:08:41.868,0:08:47.627
and I always tought: if they didn't breath, they also didn't have dismay

0:08:47.627,0:08:51.998
To have breath, you must have discouragement

0:08:51.998,0:08:55.034
In order to raise you have to know how to fall

0:08:55.034,0:08:57.837
in order to gain you have to know to lose

0:08:57.837,0:09:02.581
and we have to know that life is like this, and that you fall and rise lots of times

0:09:02.581,0:09:10.617
and that some people falls and never raise again, usually the most sensible

0:09:10.617,0:09:18.277
the easiest to get hurt, the people that most pain feels to live

0:09:18.277,0:09:21.528
the most sensible people are the most vulnerable

0:09:21.528,0:09:24.330
And in exchange, these motherfuckers

0:09:24.330,0:09:30.030
dedicate themselfs to torment the humanity, live very long lifes, they never die

0:09:30.336,0:09:36.598
because they don't have a gland, that actually is very rare

0:09:36.598,0:09:38.278
that its called consciousness

0:09:38.278,0:09:42.282
and its what torments us through the nights

0:10:27.974,0:10:29.829
Sleeping, saw us

0:10:29.829,0:10:34.267
Helena had dreamed that we're in a queue

0:10:34.267,0:10:41.207
a long queue in an airport, like any other airport

0:10:41.207,0:10:51.598
and each passanger was bringing under their arms, the pillow where they had slept the night before

0:10:51.598,0:10:57.991
and the pillows were passing, one after the other, through a machine

0:10:57.991,0:11:04.864
that read the dreams on the pillows

0:11:04.864,0:11:11.538
It was a machine detector of dangerous dreams

0:11:11.538,0:11:14.493
for the public order

0:11:14.493,0:11:23.038
The XX century, that was born announcing peace and justice, died bathed in blood

0:11:23.038,0:11:28.588
and left a world much more unfair than the one it had encountered

0:11:28.588,0:11:33.860
The XXI century, that also was born announcing peace and justice

0:11:33.860,0:11:38.201
is following the steps of the last century

0:11:38.201,0:11:43.336
On my childhood, I was convinced

0:11:43.336,0:11:51.277
that everything that was lost on Earth, would go to the moon

0:11:51.277,0:11:58.918
however, the astronauts didn't found on the Moon

0:11:58.918,0:12:07.760
dangerous dreams, or betrayed promisses, or shattered hopes.

0:12:07.760,0:12:12.832
If they're not on the Moon, where are they?

0:12:12.832,0:12:19.906
Would it be that they got lost on Earth?

0:12:19.906,0:12:26.112
Would it be that they hide on Earth?

0:12:26.112,0:12:30.777
And are waiting, waiting for us?

0:13:02.677,0:13:07.320
I would like you to talk a little bit about Montevidéu

0:13:07.320,0:13:12.729
About how it is to live in Montevideu and about how you see Uruguai

0:13:12.729,0:13:17.230
Montevideu is a city that I choose

0:13:17.230,0:13:19.470
besides is the city where I was born

0:13:19.470,0:13:23.636
but one is not condemned to choose the city where he was born

0:13:23.636,0:13:28.107
and I choose it because its a breathable and possible to walk

0:13:28.107,0:13:34.213
ie, its still possible to breath and walk on the city of Montevideu

0:13:34.213,0:13:38.217
Its two hard luxuries to find in today's world

0:13:38.217,0:13:40.733
and since I was little the teacher would tell me

0:13:40.733,0:13:43.867
breath, Eduardito, its important!

0:13:43.867,0:13:45.425
And you walk a lot?

0:13:45.425,0:13:48.628
Yes, I do, I'm very much a walker

0:13:48.628,0:13:53.332
Actually, I walk a lot the life, I really like to walk

0:13:53.332,0:13:55.902
And you have a walking routine?

0:13:55.902,0:14:00.273
No, what I like is to walk on the border of this that we call sea

0:14:00.273,0:14:02.608
but in fact is kinda river/sea

0:14:02.608,0:14:05.578
on the border of the water, I walk for hours

0:14:05.578,0:14:12.886
and this way I save a fortune in psicanalyse

0:14:12.886,0:14:17.049
I would like you to talk a little bit about something

0:14:17.049,0:14:21.194
that I know its very important for you,

0:14:21.194,0:14:22.900
the friendship

0:14:22.900,0:14:29.100
yes, friendship is a form of love

0:14:29.100,0:14:33.279
And like I was saying before, I think it exerts on the base of honesty

0:14:33.279,0:14:38.666
because the other friendship, the one of "I love you very much" and "how beautiful you are"

0:14:38.666,0:14:41.981
its not the true friendship

0:14:41.981,0:14:45.518
Friends, when they're true friends, say what has to be said

0:14:45.518,0:14:51.290
and this concerns people and the colective processes too

0:14:51.290,0:14:55.661
So, friendship is sometimes difficult

0:14:55.661,0:15:01.100
on this base, because it crosses complicated periods

0:15:01.100,0:15:11.314
But, when we love for real, on love, on friendship, you love the lights and the shadows

0:15:11.314,0:15:14.205
of each person or each place

0:15:53.844,0:16:02.195
Wich you think it is, today, on this world, the role of literature, the role of art?

0:16:02.195,0:16:06.933
The truth is that is very difficult to give an answer that doesn't seem

0:16:06.933,0:16:12.505
pedantic or arrogant or that it doesn't seem that I attribute to the artists

0:16:12.505,0:16:15.888
a privilegied role in the world

0:16:15.888,0:16:20.695
Like if God kissed us on the cot and chose us to save the others

0:16:20.695,0:16:23.115
I don't believe on this at all

0:16:23.115,0:16:27.820
Don't believe in any type of aristocracy, either the talent one

0:16:27.820,0:16:31.657
specially when the aristocracy of talent is auto-elected

0:16:31.657,0:16:35.114
because its us, the literates, the artists in general

0:16:35.114,0:16:40.223
that in the human zoo habits the cage of peacocks

0:16:40.223,0:16:43.469
So we're continuously complimenting ourselves

0:16:43.469,0:16:46.439
for our beauty and extreme intelligence that we have.

0:16:46.439,0:16:47.940
And I disagree with this

0:16:47.940,0:16:53.714
I think that the exercise of solidariety, when trully practiced, on the every day life

0:16:53.714,0:16:56.449
is also an exercise of humility

0:16:56.449,0:16:59.418
that teaches you to recognize yourself on others

0:16:59.418,0:17:05.491
and to recognize the greatness hidden on the little things

0:17:05.491,0:17:11.163
which implies to denounce the fake greatness on the little big things

0:17:11.163,0:17:15.668
in a world that confuses greatness with little big

0:17:15.668,0:17:19.697
Not long ago, in an interview that was made with me in Madrid

0:17:19.697,0:17:22.975
a journalist told me:

0:17:22.975,0:17:25.044
"Reading your books I feel

0:17:25.044,0:17:32.271
that you have an eye on the microscope and the other on the telescope"

0:17:32.271,0:17:37.518
and I thought it was a good definition of my intentions

0:17:37.688,0:17:40.693
of what I would like to be writing

0:17:40.693,0:17:46.299
be capable to look what is not looked, but deserves to be looked

0:17:46.299,0:17:50.928
the little, the minuscule things of the anonymous people

0:17:50.928,0:17:55.339
the people that the intellectuals usually despise

0:17:55.339,0:18:01.493
this micro-world where I believe feeds for real the greatness of the universe

0:18:01.493,0:18:06.886
and at the same time be capable of contemplate the universe

0:18:06.886,0:18:14.660
through the keyhole, ie, from the small things being capable of looking the big ones

0:18:14.660,0:18:18.629
to the great misteries of life

0:18:18.629,0:18:20.566
the mistery of the human pain

0:18:20.566,0:18:22.868
but also the mistery

0:18:25.883,0:18:31.980
of the human persistency on this mania, sometimes inexplicable

0:18:31.980,0:18:40.086
to fight for a world that is everyone's house and not the house of few

0:18:40.086,0:18:43.544
and the hell of the majority

0:18:43.544,0:18:45.791
and also other things

0:18:45.791,0:18:49.261
the capacity of beauty

0:18:49.261,0:18:54.567
of the most simple people, sometimes from the most plain people

0:18:54.567,0:18:57.303
that has an unusual capacity of loveliness

0:18:57.303,0:19:05.444
that, sometimes, its manifested on a song, on a graffiti, in a silly conversation

0:19:05.444,0:19:08.047
the one that kids have

0:19:08.047,0:19:12.551
what happens is that us, the adults, get occupied transforming them in ourselves

0:19:12.551,0:19:15.254
and then we destroy their lifes

0:19:15.254,0:19:18.211
but, we have to see what's a kid, no?

0:19:18.211,0:19:20.626
are all pagan...

0:19:20.626,0:19:27.166
Not long ago, I suffered a tragedy, my fellow died

0:19:27.166,0:19:31.637
Morgan, my dog, my companion of walking

0:19:31.637,0:19:33.745
that accompanied me also writting

0:19:33.745,0:19:37.443
because, when I was losing my hand, I was writing for 18 hours already

0:19:37.443,0:19:40.379
with his leg told me: "Lets go, lets go,

0:19:40.379,0:19:45.472
life doesn't finish here, on books, come, lets walk together"

0:19:45.472,0:19:47.306
and then we went the both of us

0:19:47.306,0:19:48.454
and he died

0:19:48.454,0:19:51.555
and I had been feeling a very bad music on my soul

0:19:51.555,0:19:58.230
and, really, talking about losses, the loss of Morgan was very important for me

0:19:58.230,0:20:01.133
it ripped a piece of my heart

0:20:01.133,0:20:03.436
and well, I was very sad

0:20:03.436,0:20:05.805
and I went for a walk here, on the neighbourhood

0:20:05.805,0:20:11.410
and it was early, early morning, I couldn't sleep, so I got dressed, and went to walk

0:20:11.410,0:20:16.949
and I stumbled a little girl, she must had two years, no more than two.

0:20:16.949,0:20:19.975
that came playing on the opposite direction

0:20:22.144,0:20:28.060
and she was greeting the grass, the little grass, the little plants

0:20:28.060,0:20:32.798
"good morning, little grass", she said:"good morning little grass"

0:20:32.798,0:20:36.402
ie, on this age, we're all pagans,

0:20:36.402,0:20:39.365
and, at this age, we're all poets

0:20:39.365,0:20:45.089
later the world occupies itself to belittle our souls

0:20:45.089,0:20:48.175
that's what we call growing, developing

0:20:58.690,0:21:04.463
I freed myself from the hug, go out on the street

0:21:04.463,0:21:11.971
and on the sky, already clearing, it draws, finite, the Moon

0:21:11.971,0:21:17.776
the Moon has two nights of age

0:21:17.776,0:21:22.339
me, one.

0:21:27.920,0:21:31.157
Is there still space for utopy in today's world?

0:21:31.157,0:21:33.592
Yes, in the sense that gave her Fernando Birri

0:21:33.592,0:21:36.262
in a sentence that, unfairly, its atributed to me

0:21:36.262,0:21:40.599
In one of my books I quoted his sentence, saying that it was his

0:21:40.599,0:21:43.573
but people atributed to me, poor Fernando, but its his

0:21:43.758,0:21:49.875
We were togheter at the Cartagena das Índias, a beautiful coast colombian city

0:21:49.875,0:21:53.312
and we did a lecture together on the university

0:21:53.312,0:21:56.618
a little on the style of the nephews of Donald Duck

0:21:56.618,0:22:01.120
each one started a sentence that the other finished

0:22:01.120,0:22:05.991
and at the end, one of the students rise up and asked him, not me

0:22:05.991,0:22:10.296
"What's the pourpose of utopia?"

0:22:10.296,0:22:12.731
and he answered the best way

0:22:12.731,0:22:15.658
I never heard a better answer

0:22:15.658,0:22:19.905
he said that he asked himself this question every day

0:22:19.905,0:22:23.832
what's the pourpose of utopia? Assuming utopy serves for something...

0:22:23.832,0:22:27.146
He said: "See, utopy its on the horizon

0:22:27.146,0:22:29.949
and if its on the horizon I'll never reach it

0:22:29.949,0:22:33.561
because, if I walk ten steps, utopy is going to walk ten steps

0:22:33.561,0:22:38.123
and if I walk twenty steps, utopy is going to put itself twenty steps further

0:22:38.123,0:22:43.896
in other words I know that I'll never, ever, reach it

0:22:43.896,0:22:45.431
what's the pourpose?

0:22:45.931,0:22:48.885
For that, to walk"

0:22:55.069,0:23:01.380
Eduardo Galeno was born on Uruguay in 1940

0:23:01.380,0:23:07.810
On childhood wanted to be a football player

0:23:07.810,0:23:14.326
In 1971 published "The Open Veins of Latin America"

0:23:14.326,0:23:21.981
Currently he walks every day, while writting Helena's dreams