289. Esperpento

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This is a Spanish word, coined by one of Spain’s most famous writers, Don Ramón María del Valle Inclán, at the start of the XX century (its first appearance, I believe, was in the great ‘Bohemian lights’). It is not easy to translate to English, something like distorted caricature of reality would be as close to the money as I can get. Valle Inclán used a metaphor, concave and convex mirrors, to describe what he perceived as the deformity of Spanish society at the time. It was brutal and beautiful. I can only imagine what he might have come up with, what metaphor he may have elicited, had he witnessed the events we have in the last few years. The systematic, short sighted destruction of the environment by many governments. The systematic, short sighted destruction of US democracy by its ruling party, the GOP, as they call themselves. The destruction of UK society and social rights by the Conservative government, with the complicity of UK workers. I somehow feel mirrors would not cut it 

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Location: Hereford, UK

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