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    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

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  • Home
  • Poetry
    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

    The dolls have pronounced it – Poems by Mohamed Kheder

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Ukrainian Poetry in La Macchina Sognante – In Solidarity with the People of Ukraine

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Three Poems from “The Bastard and the Bishop” – Gerald Fleming

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    God appeared at midnight: Three poems by Bitasta Ghoshal

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    I dream of the tree of silence: Poems by Rafael Romero

    Always another curtain  to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

    Always another curtain to draw open: Five poems by Helen Wickes

  • Fiction
    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    FLORAL PRINT FLAT SHOES – Lucia Cupertino

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The Red Bananas – N. Annadurai

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE CULPRIT – Gourahari Das

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    A very different story (Part I) – Nandini Sahu

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    After Breaking News – Mojaffor Hossain

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    THE THEATER OF MEMORY – Julio Monteiro Martins

    Let the Rivers Speak! – Lucia Cupertino and the Poetry of the Global Souths, by  Pina Piccolo

    Fanta Blackcurrant – Makena Onjerika

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

    All the Sadeqs are getting killed – Mojaffor Hossain, translated by Noora Shamsi Bahar

    Photographer Sumana Mitra on her street photography and recent explorations of Surrealist techniques

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    Figures of Pathos  (Part I)- Salvatore Piermarini

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    Plowing the publishing world – Tribute to Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira, by Loretta Emiri

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    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Farewell, Silver Girl – Carolyn Miller

    Lino-printing fairy tales over Constitutions- The artwork of Mihaela Šuman

    Layers of overlap: theatre, cinema, memory, imagination – Farah Ahamed

    Architectures of Delusion –  Steve Salaita

    Architectures of Delusion – Steve Salaita

  • Interviews & reviews
    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    The Power of the Female Gaze: On Maria Antonietta Scarpari’s Artistic Practice – Camilla Boemio

    A new reality needed –  A conversation with Mathew Emmett, by Camilla Boemio

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    A medley of artwork from Le braccianti di Euripide collective

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    That’s how war left me alive – Wesam Almadani interviewed by Le Ortique

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  • Out of bounds
    • All
    • Fiction
    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    M’aidez, May Day – Pina Piccolo

    Desperately seeking Marion: A Review of ” Women, Antifascism and Mussolini’s Italy – The Life of Marion Cave Rosselli”, by Isabelle Richet

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    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    Tim Ingold’s “Correspondences” – Giuseppe Ferrara

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    But for plants there is no delegating: Seven Poems by Achille Pignatelli

    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

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    Skjelv Du På Handa, Vladimir? / Does Your Hand Shake, Vladimir? –  Transnational Solidarity Project (Odveig Klyve)

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    Hunting for images in Guatemala City: Alvaro Sánchez interviewed by Pina Piccolo

    The malice of desires feeds the power of my imagination – Poems by Mubeen Kishany

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    Alahor in Granata: A Forgotten Opera by Donizetti – Fawzi Karim

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

    EARTH ANTHEM : A eulogy of the Earth, its beauty, its biodiversity – Abhay K.

  • News
    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

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    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE  FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN POEM TO THE CURATORS OF THE 58th VENICE BIENNALE FROM THE GHOSTS OF THAT RELIC YOU SHOULD NOT DARE CALL “OUR BOAT” (Pina Piccolo)

    OPEN LETTER BY A GROUP OF BLACK ITALIAN WOMEN

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    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

    Crowdfunding for [DI]SCORDARE project

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The Clowns, by Mario Benedetti – Translated and introduced by Clark Bouwman

April 29, 2021
in Fiction, The dreaming machine n 8
The Clowns, by Mario Benedetti – Translated and introduced by Clark Bouwman
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Introduction by Clark Bouwman

One of Benedetti’s gifts is his ability to portray the world of children sensitively, realistically, and without sentimentality. “The Clowns,” (“Esa Boca”) from Montevideanos is a good example. A bright, imaginative boy of seven prevails on his parents to let him go to the circus so he can see the clowns perform. “The Clowns” is about the inevitable disillusionment of growing up and about seeing and not seeing

 

The Clowns, by Mario Benedetti

His fascination with the circus had been building for some time – maybe, two months before the event. But when seven years is your whole life and the whole adult world is something you see at a slight remove, like a crowd seen through frosted window, then two months is an unfathomably long period of time.

His older brothers had gone two or three times. They recreated, in minute detail, the pretty pratfalls of the clowns and the grimaces and balancing of the strongmen. His schoolmates too had seen it and they amused themselves by performing stylized, theatrical versions of this blow or that pirouette. But Carlos didn’t know that they were exaggerating for his benefit, for him, the one who couldn’t go to the circus. He couldn’t go because his father knew that he was very impressionable and wanted to avoid the risk of Carlos trying to imitate the trapezists. Nevertheless, Carlos always felt an ache in his chest whenever he thought about the clowns. Every day, it became harder to contain his curiosity.

So, he prepared his case, and when the time was right said to his father, “Is there not a way that I could some day go to the circus?”

At seven, any well-formed, substantial-sounding sentence earned adult sympathy, so his father found himself obliged to first smile, and then to explain himself: “I don’t want you to see the trapezists.” When Carlos heard this, he felt he was almost home free –  he had no interest in the trapezists! “And  what if we leave when that act starts?” ”Well,” answered his father,” that would be OK.”

His mother bought two tickets and took  him on Saturday night. A woman in a bathing suit appeared, balancing on a white horse. He watched and waited for the clowns. Everyone applauded. Later, some monkeys came out riding bicycles, but still he waited for the clowns. Again, everyone applauded, and a juggler came out. Carlos watched with eyes wide open, but soon he found himself yawning. Everyone applauded once more and out came – now, yes, finally – the clowns!

His excitement was now almost at the breaking point. There were four — two of them dwarfs. One of the big ones capered about, in the style his older brother had demonstrated. A dwarf snuck between the big clown’s legs and the big clown smacked him on the backside sonorously.  Almost all of the audience laughed – some of the little boys had begun to pantomime the trick even before it was executed. The two dwarfs re-enacted the thousandth version of this absurd combat, while the less comical of the other two egged them on.

Then, the second big clown, who was definitely the funnier of the two, approached the edge of the grass, and Carlos got to see him up close, so close that he could make out the man’s tired mouth beneath the painted smile. For a moment, the poor devil saw that astonished little face and smiled, almost imperceptibly, with his own, real lips. But the other three had finished and the  the funnier of the two big clowns joined them again for their final pratfalls, and everyone applauded, even Carlos’s mother. Then, since the trapeze artists came next, his mother led him by the arm and they exited together to the street, as they had agreed.

Now he had seen the circus, like his brothers and his schoolmates. But he felt empty, and what he was going to say to his siblings tomorrow somehow didn’t matter anymore. It would be 11pm before they got home, but his mother sensed something was wrong and pulled him into a square of light from a shop window. It slowly dawned on him: he held his hand over his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d seen back there at the edge of the grass. She asked if he was crying, but he said nothing. “Is it because of the trapezists? Was your heart set on seeing them?”

That was too much. He had no interest in the trapeze artists. So, to prevent further misunderstanding, he explained that he was crying because the clowns had not made him laugh.

 

Cover image: courtesy of Pixabay.

 

Tags: child-parents relationschild's point of viewchildhoodcircusClark BouwmanclownsdisappointmentexpectationsfearsMario BenedettiMontevideanospeer pressureshort storyUruguay

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