La Tabacalera, near the roundabout of Ambassadors, owes its name to its source; that once was the Tobacco Factory in Madrid, a huge mole closed for that purpose and is today a self-managed social center. While the gossips say that the City will take away those rights in February 2011, its advocates insist it's not going to happen.
Chema is the case, one of his regulars. A colorful character, the Chema. I met him as he left the building, hearing a hum at the height of my right shoulder blade. I turned around and there he was startled, stuck to my side and smiling. A smallish lad, long-a-blue-eyed enanete hands dirty with plaster.
Chema is the case, one of his regulars. A colorful character, the Chema. I met him as he left the building, hearing a hum at the height of my right shoulder blade. I turned around and there he was startled, stuck to my side and smiling. A smallish lad, long-a-blue-eyed enanete hands dirty with plaster.
- Oops! What scared me!
laughed:
- already worth aunt! So I'm ugly?
started talking as if it were recovered a cousin of another embodiment. He told me they are riding a small piece for a show at the site, he always goes around, lending a hand. Neither point of rigidity. Chema is soft and energetic, it would seem that a break dancer in his moment of pause to smoke a puff. The guy made me laugh, I liked him, so while we were walking we started chatting. I went to The Snail, another center run, only women, another former squat (do not be scared: I'm not going to squat at the moment).
- What's your name?
- Roxana, and you?
- I'm Chema.
- Ah ... What you or I'll come from afar?
I look in a way that makes me think that the question does not fit, or that which there does not fit me.
- What will Aunt! I'm around ... She points to some point of the street, heading somewhere. Elaborates: - I live on the street, aunt, with some friends ...
I can not believe it. It is not exactly going well dressed, but their appearance does not acknowledge the full damage of the beggars, or at least not that I know-and I know any, or the sweet aroma characteristic of physical neglect, and by far its , neglect or fall in isolation. Chema I sense that you can live on the street, but retains its good roll guy who gets along well and some hope to get soon a new redoubt of squatters officiate until death do us part. And that's me stupid question arises of rigor:
- But ... have no family ...
The guy goes from the response with all its moral force. And it does so with good reason. As I was saying, there's only one that does not fit me.
- I live with my colleagues, he insists, crushing it in my . And no, that if I wash it so I spend some chum and out. Then the crook clothing in tobacco.
- Are not there people who live in the Tabacalera?
is to dry under the glare of a shop Chinese:
- No, man, there not even that. There is going to Curran, aunt. To lend a hand -. He smiles mischievously: - Hey, you got a ticket for five hundred?
output makes me laugh. From them, I say, pay the rent. Do not believe, and we went, swatting the tune with a cigar. He asks me if I startled me before because I thought it was going to rob me. As I do not tell the truth, gets angry and stops again dry:
- Anyway, do you have a euro?
- Anda, Chema ... give it up, okay?, we're talking so quietly and you go and spoil ...
He catches and kept walking. Asks me what I was doing by La Tabacalera, and tell him that I was to make a photographic survey, a little something amateur. I explain what a survey and was interested especially in the amateur thingy. Stop at a store of sweets:
- Well, aunt, here we stay -. With all the hill I plant two kisses on the cheeks. Fare thee well, Aunt -. Looks set to get into the store, but after falling on the sidewalk of a leap and as I'm leaving it breaks new escudriñaje, this time of a professional nature: - What are you doing? Are you an artist or something well?
- Well, I try ...
"You look like that you ... as a colleague where I will wash and stuff. The lad's squatter with colleagues, and many there but quickly gets an Algerian so more than likely to leave the square and go where the colleague ...
Chema hard to believe that living on the street. True that his speed could be due to some kind of stimulant, in which case you will need to have some money ... or maybe the guy siemplemente take you well and the nose that looks to be a matter of street trade. What is clear Chema is that he likes to engage, not a hair is cut to order and the world will not raiding portfolios. It is also clear that half is half gipsy gypsy, and loves life.
remember the first time I walked into La Tabacalera. Just to walk down the ramp had a reminiscence, or rather, two. The first and closest is the memory of what was "our first Malharro" (School of Fine Arts where I studied) would succumb under the weight of a huge tank of water caused by a tornado back in '93. The other is a very old dream could happen, also, by a kind of surrounding reality. I remember falling through an underground tunnel. The gallery of an old abandoned factory so similar to this, that before I stopped abruptly down, overwhelmed by the deja vu. Then I thought descent to that part of the mind where it is used rarely, if ever, and yet almost always revive images of words and phrases orphan by definition incomplete. Going for its galleries, both memories are mingled in my film library life with the thrill of travelers going by the dreams and the arts, with no compass to his inspiration.
remembered how the march, that winter of '93, the city streets to the municipality and how we rushed into the deliberative council to require the principal to the head, our right to a building under conditions as ours had become unusable. None of gears: pure action in pursuit of a genuine democracy is still brooding, in Pacht-work. Reminded the Council-closed doors, and the astonished eyes of the councilors, being in assembly never imagined such an intrusion. But we did. And not only did, but also got in a short time to give us a new building. Wow, I remember like it was yesterday. Nothing cacerolazos, no flags, no mass demonstrations, or letters to the Mayor: motion.
I speak, of course, of other times. In the days when people are not afraid to expose your skin. I'm talking about the days when you could still enter the house of a friend and open the door of his refrigerator without asking permission, so is the country I remember.
- And you where are you, Aunt ...
- From Argentina. Chema
fun giggles:
- No, if you're in the neighborhood ...
- I wish it were actually alive in the Sierra.
I have the feeling that Chema not know the Sierra, and not only do not know, never heard of it; is more, until you may never have left Lavapiés. Native is a testament to the multiracial inbreeding have paradoxically the castizo Lavapiés while the new, the bike rack and self-management Lavapiés dreadlocks and concerts organized stroke beer and good will among the catacombs of a closed factory where life, such as ivy or moss, parirse bid at all costs. I like the world of analogies. I like how it tastes, how they speak, hear and smell the people who walk by. I like his sense of history left to the hand of God and his people left in the hands of the people.
Saying philosopher Ignacio Castro King , the Tabacalera makes me think of the recovery of analog front sapiens human-ide in the digital age. On the possibility of filling the void of the great human factory that converts an abandoned mole on a ride-and not a shopping trip, but a walk in the imagination. "Where will the ducks in winter?, Asked the young Holden Coulfield. Equally melancholy, Fragil asks what will remain of our civilization? (think The Keller ).
And I wonder: Do we have a glimmer of freedom under our skin, able to enter any deliberative council the world to demand our rights as we did until recently? Or will there be resigned to accept the aberration with the skepticism that has nothing more to give?
And I wonder: Do we have a glimmer of freedom under our skin, able to enter any deliberative council the world to demand our rights as we did until recently? Or will there be resigned to accept the aberration with the skepticism that has nothing more to give?
Or will they believe in the certainty of Buraco Black, who says:
When all we have left only be the plastic and this will be our legacy, the silent witness of what was once a civilization. Meanwhile we REFUSE to call everything to not give value, without stopping to think that the value is relative and just need to look again to find out from a mountain of waste a lot of diamonds.
Chema I say goodbye to the beat, no skeptic, that if I stay in the capital of the kingdom a little more time than in my circumstances I presume, will be hard-fuck my four gear and anchor my ship in Lavapies.
- Then do it, man, that there is much good atmosphere, but still live in the street ... not cool -. It looks at the tips of the shoes, and as I walk let me go - we never touch you, man, you never touch ...
Then indeed I believed him.
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