The gold and silver sparkles dazzle me in every way when I arrive in Mar del Plata. The gray of the sea is unique; the terracotta color of the buildings on the avenue, the stone, the concrete, the anticipation of the greenery. It is one of my favorite cities in the world. Here lives, or lies, the secret of my childhood; and an idea, never realized, of happiness.
Inside the galleries or in places on the street, the trading and sale of magazines flourished. I could not only buy magazines, but redeem the ones I had already read.
Buying a magazine, let’s say, cost me 200 pesos. Getting rid of what I had already read in exchange for someone else reading it, 100 pesos. I have traveled and entered Mar del Plata under the influence of golden book of Patoruzú, which he bought before embarking on the journey and continued to read during his stay. He kept that copy.
But most of the rest of the comics he’d read during the year had become commodities. Of course, I’ve never gotten rid of an Asterix, nor a Lucky Luke. On the contrary, I still accumulate them as if they were shares. I am deeply sorry when I can’t find anyone whose squares for whatever reason I want to review.
The exchange of magazines, on the other hand, spontaneously convinced me of the virtue of the exchange of goods. I have never found anything sinful about standing by one’s best interests in an agreed and fair deal. I also marveled at the fact that the value of a comic was determined by whether or not I had read it. Curiosity was a substance with a value.
Inside a small magazine trading and sales shop run by a married couple, a comic was waiting for me that couldn’t be sold anywhere else. Was called May 5th (nothing is celebrated). Title and coat of arms.
It wasn’t from the Novaro publishing house, the one with the Kool Aid ad on the back cover. He was not from the editorial group of the adventures of Captain Piluso, nor from Gordo Porcel, nor Rioba’s voice (the cartoon of Minguito Tinguitella); nor of palindromenor of impatience (when kleptomania could be a joke and not a state policy); neither of Don Kleptomaniac nor of Don Fulgenzio. They only sold it in that place.
May 5th (Nothing is celebrated) I played with phonetics and date. My arrivals in Mar del Plata coincided with the Christian holidays; the Di Maggios, the surname and the family group, obliquely postponed to a May 5th. In fact, nothing was celebrated: it was not an anniversary or a holiday of any kind.
I often suspect that I am the only reader of DiMaggio: never found another. But I don’t think it’s possible, because they were part of the unread magazines. He always received them by paying the one hundred peso exchange rate. Perhaps they, he or she, or both, the couple, were the authors and editors? I would bet my entire newspaper library on the negative answer to this question.
My entry into their premises gave them a contained joy: they had no children, I guessed, and my excessive interest in their profession must have amused them. The woman was very beautiful and the man seemed to regard her as a priceless piece.
Under a layer of Graphics Y targets– the sports magazines of the time -, the malicious or forbidden ones were hidden: satirical, the mouse of the west, Aunt Vincent… I read them in passing, knowing that I would not have taken them, but glimpsing an unknown threshold.
The coursename for me still an enigma today, dedicated to motoring, I found it cognitively inaccessible: It was a mix of inability to understand and lack of interest in its contents (two variables which, in my way of understanding knowledge, enhance each other, to their advantage or disadvantage).
The 5ths of May were Juan and his wife, two children and Nona, who was never clear to me whether she was the mother of the gentleman or the lady. It was a family spoof comedy; much more corrosive than The Bellsbut without reaching The Simpsons.
In one episode an angel and a demon appeared, with the face of Juan; and Di Maggio opted for the angel’s suggestion. I could not. Also in The follies of Isidore It’s inside The Adventures of PatoruzúIn my favorite episodes, an angel and a demon, or Mandinga himself, have made an appearance. But the result has never been so devastating as DiMaggio advised in opposite directions by the angel and the devil, and the conclusion.
I can’t remember exactly what year, but it must have been in the early 80’s, when I was starting to leave childhood, that led me to trade my copy of DiMaggio for another, and the woman did not. He’s been gone for the rest of the summer. There was not even another copy of DiMaggio. Never as in that absence did the emblem of the masthead resonate so loudly: nothing is celebrated.
The owner obviously didn’t say a word to me about it. I didn’t want to ask. The next year I was already a teenager, and The gentleman, the only inhabitant of the counter, gave up the exchange of magazines. He only sold books and magazines that had already been read. I stopped visiting it. Perhaps I was afraid of discovering that there were things that could not be changed.
Tens of years passed. With the same incalculable frustration when I can’t find a asterix or one lucky lukeOne day, from one of my houses, the copy of Di Maggio disappeared in which he uselessly followed the advice of the angel with his face. I thought that with angels, as Jacob did, one can only fight: never obey them. The magazine exchange office has gradually expired, inexplicably.
But On this current visit to Mar del Plata, a miracle happened. I dared to return to the exchange and sale of magazines, my place of reference, and there he was, the owner. He had aged in a strange way: as if his face had become a caricature. The worst moment devastated my features, because he didn’t recognize me. Or was it just the advice of the angel of tango: there were so many winters on my forehead that he took pity on them.
I asked him about the DiMaggios.
“I only have one copy left,” he admitted. I can rent it to you.
“I don’t understand,” I replied.
-You give me five hundred paces, you take it with you, you read it and you give it back to me.
– I agree.
I can’t guarantee it I’m pretty sure it was the same storyline I read 45 years ago.; but this time DiMaggio listened to the devil. He also failed.
When I returned to the premises to do my part, I couldn’t help but ask the owner if he had read it.
“It’s been several years since I’ve had the sight to read,” she confessed. I don’t even have someone to read them to me. In fact, I see very little.
I didn’t dare to take a photo of the magazine. For some reason, I considered it disloyal, a breach of a gentleman’s agreement, as business should be. In the infinite vastness of the universe, each individual’s destiny cannot be traded or sold.
WD extension
Source: Clarin
