Hi! For fun I made an original translation of two humorous and intelectual pieces by Alejandro Dolina, a radio speaker from Argentina, that would otherwise be completley unavailable.
https://www.youtube.com/...v=6xS2kanmDFg&t=200s




Today I made a discovery about text messages. I am tired of supposed poets complaining about text messages, saying that they are products of banal technology. These are the same people who complain about phone machines, the same ones who don’t press the buzzers on a door but rather throw pebbles at the window. And they think that poetry consists of that, of refusing to hop on the train.

In any case, I have discovered that the text message has a different meaning and aroma and intonation, and intention different to the phone call. It is like a degree below, that guarantees a certain impersonality, and allows one to engage at four in the morning. You can send a text message to a guy at four in the morning, however calling him is very wrong, and to go and knock on his door even worse.

And the things that someone writes in a text message, I have discovered, in some cases are informative, but in others not. The girlfriend who receives the guy´s message: those texts are not informative. And neither do they say anything. They are not decisive. They don’t say ¨Look, I’ve been thinking that if we go to live to Esteban Echevarria are relationship is over.¨ One does not say this in a text message. One does not even say ¨Hey I´ve been thinking we can go vacation…¨ no, they say nothing. They say strange things. A little poetic, a little bit belonging to the inner codes of the couple, in such a way that I think that a text message is like a light in the dark. In the night, in which one many times lives--I mean the night of solitude, of isolation, which is life, because we are islands and it is very difficult for us to establish bridges, like Sabato used to say. And for that reason, the reason many of us sometimes feel alone, the text message is a light. So it does not matter what it says. What every text message says is ¨Here I am.¨



— Where did Santa Clause come from?
— I don’t know, but me, I am old enough to have known a time when Santa Clause was a strange occurrence of comic books. You would see in comic books how the cousins of Donald duck would put a sock in the chimney and Santa Clause would come. But we didn’t believe in it. How strange, we used to think, they believe in this guy and not in the three Magi, because the Magi don’t appear in the American tradition. And now it is different. We have more Santa Clause than Jesus…he is a figure that I get scared of. I see those American movies of Santa Clause, a man who lives in the north pole
— Who lives with the reindeers
— Who lives with reindeers…its all very satanic. (People laugh.) It’s a thing full of consumerism, full of a strange snow, a snow that does not bring cold, that does not freeze people, not even the wind. It’s a scenic snow that doesn’t get dirty.
And now in the movies there is no Christian element. In the American movies in which Santa Clause is an old man with a beard the plots are about evil people who don’t believe in him. And they speak of faith: as if faith was that stupidity. How can sellers of beverages talk of faith?
— Is it true that it was created by a beverage company?
— Yes, something like that, or they collaborated a lot in its diffusion and publicity, the company that you are thinking of.
In turn the current popular American film is a film full of imperial symbols. But I am not interested in anti- imperial speech, not in this case. But there is this tradition in the media, movies, and marketing, which is, to our eyes should be profoundly unsympathetic, if it weren’t because most of us have also become grocery store rats. So, we like this stuff…We like that idea of the showy gift wraps. That idea of the shiny red paper. But also, that idea of the compulsive consumerism, of the senseless visits, of the congratulating with no meaning…we like that. The friendliness of the moment. People laughing and clinking glass with people they have never seen.
— Shopping’s open till five in the morning.
— Exactly. That has something pathological which I don’t like. I understand that people have fun, and if the businesses can make a little more money, and the kid can receive a bike, and the son can hug is mother, well great, we all prosper, but the thing is not to emphasize, because when you continue like in the case of American film and do the movie ¨Santa Clause 4…¨(people laugh.) We have to stop with this innocence. ¨The night that there was no Christmas¨ ¨The night there was almost no Christmas. ¨ We almost didn’t have it that time.
— The Grinch is another one. He robs Christmas.
— Yes… And then there are those other movies: movies about universities. ¨I postulate to be the most popular kid¨
— Yes, or president of Delta.
— In our country a kid who postulates for most popular kid of the class is automatically the nerdiest.
— And in those movies, they are always on campus.
— Yes, they live there. It is a species of limitation of life, but a sorrowful limitation, full of competition, of treason, of guys who lack all generosity, and of a certain sexual innocence at an age where it is uncalled for. There are girls who are ready for the kill and pretty old already telling the guys that they are not ready for a kiss.

Thats it! I hope you enjoyed them.