Oliverio Girondo

I took the afternoon off yesterday to go to the Xul Solar museum. He was a whimsical Argentine artist who painted somewhat Klee-like watercolors when he wasn't inventing his own languages (two of them) or being generally eccentric. I like his work OK, and the museum, which is in his house, is lovely.

But the real draw for me was a show celebrating the 40th anniversary of the death of Oliverio Girondo.

Girondo was a poet big in the 1930s avant-garde scene here as part of the literary circle known as Florida (which also included Borges, although he was no fan of Girondo's humorous style, once calling him "the Peter Pan of Argentine literature" and not meaning it as a compliment. Borges thought growing up was a good idea for an artist/writer). This exhibition focuses on Girondo's love of books, as well as his art. He both collected and created many beautiful books, often designing his own covers. He also produced some charming artworks and caricatures. For example, this one, entitled "Meeting of Intellectuals."



He gained a lot of notoriety in 1932 for a publicity stunt he pulled to launch his book Espantapájaros (Scarecrow). He built a 9-foot tall plaster dummy of the high-society scarecrow shown on the cover of his book and drove it around Buenos Aires in a funeral hearse. Pre-Warhol, this sort of bizarre self-promotion was borderling scandalous.

That's the dummy, which still survives and is part of the show. It towers over you, looking aloof and endearing at the same time.

As it happens, Espantapajaros was my first contact with Girondo's quirky voice. It's a set of prose poems, many of which I understand. Each one is a sort of saucy thought piece, often including elements of playful surrealism. Here are the opening lines of #1 (they don't have titles, just numbers), followed by my awkward translation:

No se me importa un pito que las mujeres tengan los senos como magnolias o como pasas de higo; un cutis de durazno o de papel de lija. Le doy una importancia igual a cero, al hecho de que amanezcan con un aliento afrodisíaco o con un aliento insecticida. Soy perfectamente capaz de sorportarles una nariz que sacaría el primer premio en una exposición de zanahorias; ¡pero eso sí! -y en esto soy irreductible- no les perdono, bajo ningún pretexto, que no sepan volar. Si no saben volar ¡pierden el tiempo las que pretendan seducirme!

***

I don't give a hoot if women have breasts like magnolias or dried figs, a complexion like a peach or sandpaper. I'd say it's about as important as zilch whether they wake up with breath that's an aphrodisiac or an insecticide. I'm quite capable of tolerating a nose that would take first prize in a carrot expo. But, yes—and I'm quite immovable on this one—I can't forgive them, not under any pretext, if they don't know how to fly. If they don't know how to fly, they're just wasting their time trying to seduce me.


And then there's #21, which is pretty much a series of curses, including these:

Que te crezca, en cada uno de los poros, una pata de araña...

...que un fanatismo irresistible te obligue a prosternarte ante los tachos de basura y que todos los habitantes de la ciudad te confundan con un meadero.

Que cuando quieras decir: "Mi amor", digas: "Pescado frito"; que tus manos intenten estrangularte a cada rato, y que en vez de tirar el cigarrillo, seas tú el que te arrojes en las salivaderas.

* * *

May a spider's leg grow from every one of your pores...

...May an irresistible fanaticism oblige you to prostrate yourself under trash bins and may the people of the city mistake you for a urinal.

When you want to say "my love," may you say "fried fish"; May your hands keep trying to strangle you, and instead of tossing away a cigarette, may it be you who gets tossed in the spitoon.