This reminds me of the Supreme Court Justice who said he couldn’t define hard-core pornography but knows it when he sees it. And then: “All I know is this: art is art, or it’s shit.”” - After giving our time and energy to viewing much art, there comes a point where we have a very good sense of what is genuine and what is not, a point where we can trust our eyes. You are what you read.Įdwardo Galeano tells us of Portinari, a well-known artist in Brazil who was pressed by the communist government to give a definition of art. The mademoiselle asked him, in turn: What book are you from? - Ha! I can’t imagine a more telling question. I recently read where a young man insisted an attractive young lady date him. It has grown so much inside her that now it is something else: now it is hers. She had stolen it from the cedar bookshelf where her uncle kept his favorite books. She read it in fragments, night after night, hiding it under the pillow. “When Lucia Palaez was very small, she read a novel under the covers. We humans are word-symbol-language making animals. I’m rarely rational and usually not in my best moments. The notion that humans are rational animals is sheer poppycock. Before dying, he revealed his secret: “The grape,” he whispered, “is made of wine.” Marcela Perez-Silva told me this, and I thought: If the grape is made of wine, then perhaps we are the words that tell who we are.” - Bulls-eye, Eduardo.

“On his deathbed, a man of the vineyards spoke into Marcela’s ear. My parents brought me to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City where I walked into a room with an entire exhibit of knights in armor on horses surrounded by colorful banners. As a young boy growing up in the country I was infatuated with the drawings I saw in books of knights in armor.

And when he finally managed to speak, trembling, stuttering, he asked his father: “Help me to see!”” - As in nature, so in art. And so immense was the sea and its sparkle that the child was struck dumb by the beauty of it. To share a taste of this literary fiesta, here are my brief comments coupled with the author’s quotes. If you would like to add a healthy dose of inspiration and magic in your life, pick up 'The Book of Embraces,' a collection of over 200 poetic memoirs/stories/happenings complete with the author's fanciful montage images covering a range of topics: art, dreams, the human voice, names, Indians, television, the culture of terror, to name several. Eduardo Galeano of Uruguay (1940-2015) is one of the finest of the Latin American writers.

The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano