The Write Thing

Suppose you believe that there are stories that have shaped our souls in previous times. Suppose that we are a collection of those stories, and that the gaps in between or inside each one of those layers that make you are to be filled in some way. Of course, such a “willing suspension of disbelief” exercise requires you to consider time to be circular instead of linear, so that each time a new phase of your present life begins, you will return to one of those previous layers or lives, hopefully to make up for your past omissions.

Runes were originally an alphabet. In Norse mythology, runes have a divine origin. Their reading can therefore shed some light on the task or tasks at hand in your present life. Some will say there are 25 lives awarded to you. The higher you are on the scale, the more evolved your soul is. Still, there is a learning process to be made from what preceded the present you. The wheel turns, the dice is cast again, and you are given one more chance to learn. Whether you do it or not could make or break you.

I once was told that Borges’s cat was named Odin. Whether this is true or not, I cannot tell. Odin would stand for a sort of Wotan — Wagner lovers beware — representing the voice of wisdom. The final advice will be given by the higher god, and you might find interesting leads in his words.

Reading an alphabet and telling stories is a gift. If you can interpret the meanings, they might be fascinating. You can also stand skeptical to everything, and that would work as well. Nobody forces belief on anybody, but I like to think that one can be open to different possibilities of learning. Sometimes there are stories that come back to haunt us, and sometimes there are stories that come back to nurture us…which one will you be? I guess the latter, because there is a reunion, and there is a circular time that binds us, and there is — above all — you and I.

That was the campaign launched in 1930 to publicize Garbo’s first talkie. It is of public knowledge that the advent of sound in movies could either boost a career or destroy it. Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden, is a fictional example of the latter. However, in Garbo’s case, her glory was even enhanced by the dark, husky and deep manly voice that filled the theaters worldwide…including the one in Buenos Aires where a young Borges nervously awaited until the first magical words “Give me a viskey” were pronounced. He sighed with relief. The diva he admired the most had made it.

When I learned this anecdote, retold in a documentary I recently translated, I could not help but thinking that, had I lived in those days, I would have shared Borges’s stress over Garbo’s voice. I would have been seduced by the glacial woman as I have been since I first saw her. The difference would have been in our timing. It would have taken place as her career progressed, not after it no longer existed. For me, today, to think of another voice but the one I have always heard is impossible. Borges, on the contrary, was able to imagine what she would sound like. A possibility for him was just a belated impossibility for me.

If we think that an actor’s voice could mean the end of a career back in Garbo’s time, today the situation is totally different. Jennifer (or is it Meg) Tilly’s high-pitched nasal tone would have been received thumbs down — Woody Allen did some justice in that sense with one of the sisters in Bullets over Broadway, but still voices do not matter as much today. The world changes, it is true. However, some magical creatures remain as enchanting, vibrant, and avant-garde as they have always been. Garbo is an example of this. She defies time and conventions — and would have Mercedes De Acosta pay for it. Her (wo)manly essence made both men and women fall under her feet, and set the foundations for Mylène Farmer’s career (another member of the family? I wonder). Today, the magic lives on.
Djupa andetag…Garbo talks!