Author: Erasmo Calzadilla

About ten years ago, a group of my friends lived in a house in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood of the capital. Almost all of them had other places to live; they just preferred being together.

I’ve gone a while without writing. I had to concentrate on coming up with a some quick pesos, which sometimes isn’t easy. As a result — being outside the realm of news, blogs, activism and reflection — I lost my momentum.

Saturday morning I woke up as fresh as a daisy and ready for spiritual solace, but there was no gas for cooking. According to the ration book, we still had an allocation, so I found myself with no excuse to keep me from heading out for the tank refill center here in the Alamar neighborhood.

In my preceding post, I made reference to this absurd episode of Cuban political history in which — not at the barrel of a canon but in a state of shock — our society constitutionally endorsed its subordination to an authority standing above it: the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).

In 1976, the Cuban people (or what appeared to be the majority) committed the political blunder of passing a constitutional referendum conceding supreme power to a single party.

In “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, Naomi Klein notes that in the middle of the 20th century, the CIA funded psychological research aimed at deconstructing and infantilizing human minds using electroshock treatment, drugs, sensory isolation, the monotonous repetition of signs and other techniques.

In the slow but unstoppable process of the pluralization of Cuban society, various groups (religious believers, gays, people of African descent) have been shaping their identity, gaining ground and making their legitimate discourses coherent.

This was the second time I came out for this poetry festival, and on both occasions I perceived a street vibe with loads of swing and lots of irreverence and creativity within the framework of the performances, which were always in line with the urban nature that characterizes these events.

Cuban political scientist and columnist Haroldo Dilla recently published an essay on the need for a new left to be born in our country. Nevertheless for me, as someone who considers themself a member of that political wing, those words (at least most of them) didn’t resonate.

If you’re on the lookout for a good pair of shoes here in Havana that don’t cost an arm and a leg, I want to tell you about a special offer.