Once
2024; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 98; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2024.a925275
ISSN1945-8134
Autores ResumoOnce Julia Kornberg (bio) Visiting the Jewish neighborhood of Once, a writer finds herself caught between a desire to escape the internet and a need to connect as she reflects on an essay by Marcelo Cohen and encounters unending visual stimuli. Click for larger view View full resolution Photo of Once Quarter, Buenos Aires by Jordi Camí / Alamy.com I've been in Buenos Aires, the city where I was born, for three months. Today I am headed to the Jewish neighborhood of Once—which literally means "eleven," after the 11th of September rebellion in 1852—to pay a writer the grant money I owe them for having read, butchered, and praised my novel. This is called a clínica: a surgical workshop where young writers submit themselves to the opinions of older, more established writers, sometimes to the detriment of their self-esteem. The writer and I only met online while working together on my small internet novel, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he lives in one of my favorite areas of town. Once is located at the center of the city, near a number of old downtown monuments and landmarks, and immediately reminds me of an essay by the late Marcelo Cohen, one of the great Jewish Argentine writers of my time. In it, Cohen goes to the optometrist and starts recalling everything that his eye can register, a risky game to play in Once, where visual stimuli are hyperabundant and most of the population is rather myopic. Knowing that I'll fail, I try to play the Cohen game. The neighborhood has narrow streets, often interrupted by Peruvian, Orthodox Jewish, and Senegalese merchants trying to bulk-sell fake sneakers and small, used electronics. I take a cab and try to get ahead for a few blocks, [End Page 44] although a traffic jam (which started around 1972) stops our car in front of a Jewish school. I see a group of religious kids playing at the door, waiting to be picked up, and I try to take a photo of the one I judge to be the most charming. He makes faces at my camera and then goes on to alert his friends. They all start posing in front of the taxi, trying to get onto my Instagram, too. They dance and wave hello. The cab moves on a little, but they continue to make faces from a distance. I try to count the number of times my phone distracts me, even though it has no internet connection. A few more blocks render the cab futile, so I get out and walk. I see a few Orthodox women and men, and many girls who look like they just left the community—their off-the-derekh knees showing after having exited religious life. Now they walk around Buenos Aires like tourists, the way I do, negotiating their sense of belonging and lack thereof. I keep walking and realize that I have no way of communicating with the writer, since his buzzer doesn't work and I can't send him text messages. No one uses their buzzer anymore, I think; they started to break down or the bronze fittings were stolen for scrap, and, in a ruined, internet-dominated economy, no one bothers to fix them. I realize that my mission parameters have changed, and I am now forced to look for Wi-Fi to communicate with him. I keep walking through shops where they sell electronics, party goods, fabrics, household wares, Peppa Pig paraphernalia, soccer jerseys and towels printed with Messi's face, shoes, and tiny Christmas lights. Once is at its best in this joyful, kitschy disarray, where sellers try to tempt me with international adapters, counterfeit or stolen phones, vitamins and magic creams, sweetened nuts and seeds, balloons for quinceañeras, bar mitzvahs, divorces. I attempt to ask for Wi-Fi in humiliating ways, dodge mothers helping their kids select their stationery for the coming school year in the hopes of saving a buck. I look for a Starbucks, or a McDonald's, but there is none. I envy the proud owners of flip phones and Nokia 1100s, pass the Litvak...
Referência(s)