I've had my sights set on visiting this cemetery here in Valpo for weeks now. It's the main view outside our kitchen table and every time I sit down to a bowl of cereal my curiosity is piqued. It's gated with a stone wall but from a distance the headstones seem worth taking a closer look. Yesterday morning Sylvain suggested we go have a look. We asked an abuela to point us in the right direction and she did, we found it in no time as it wasn't really too far from where we lived, but you have to go down the hill and then back up a different route. The cemetery close up was disappointing, it had not been kept up, and there were empty plastic bottles on the ground and general decay; besides us there were just 3 other American tourists taking photos. We walked around for a few minutes and then left. I could see from our kitchen window there was a lot of street art on the stone walls around this area and I was keen to have a look so I suggested we walk home another way, but as soon as we turned the corner we ran into an ex-prison Cerro Carcel. It closed in 1999 and the turned the space into an art park- it's walls are now full of colorful graffiti and you can walk in the yards and peek in the detention center and the rooms used for solitary confinement. After watching 3 seasons of the Wire and reading about Pinochet, this experience was more than a stop on the tourist trail... Sylvain told me this space is used to host art openings, theater and music concerts all of which I imagine would be that much more powerful considering the loaded implications of the space.
A few years ago I worked for this woman Lois as a tutor for a summer school program, she was sort of retired but worked with funding from NYU to have a place inside supporting writing at Marta Valle middle school- we had both worked at Seward Park and knew a lot of the same people. She was a huge supporter of the arts, had tons of energy and was fun to talk to. After the summer program ended I was working at what had been the Seward Park annex and was now University Neighborhood High School, it was only a stones throw from Marta Valle, and we would meet once and a while for lunch at Schiller's- they gave us a teacher's discount and the food was good. Lately Lois has been on the hunt for street art which has taken her all over New York and around the world- most recently Bogota. She posts her findings on Flickr and her library of images is probably one of the most exhaustive sites available- if I can I will post her page: Lois in Wonderland.
Sylvain and I were discussing what broke up more marriages- finances or sexual issues and decided to do some online research. Anyway we found incomplete data on the subject, but most research concluded communication problems were a root factor. I mentioned that a lot of my family and friends had had to do a survey- pre-marriage questionnaire- during marriage counseling to facilitate full-disclosure and support open communication between the couple... It was easy to find one of these questionnaires online and so we decided to take it. We have been living together for more than 6 months at this point and so most of the questions we had long since discussed and we both wondered how anyone could get to the point of marrying someone without these questions having come up in regular conversation- much less the responsible discussions people ought to have when they get to the serious point of marrying another person. I posted the link on the right for anyone curious.
After witnessing first-hand what is always a debacle, the planning of weddings- I have been largely turned off by marriage- despite the fact that in practice I have enjoyed helping friends plan theirs- I have never witnessed anything as ridiculous as wedding planning and the merging/compromises between daughters, mothers and mother-in-laws. Watching my friends go through it has been amusing, frustrating, and a compassionate experience. Moreover, I've watched as my society and television have turned straight marriage into a punch-line while all the while telling gay people marriage is such an important rite of passage their unions may not be sanctified- it's no wonder I have my reservations.
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