Category: Generation Y

For several years I’ve been noticing that we’ve stopped using such conciliatory words as “excuse me,” “pardon me” and “I’m sorry.” When we put our foot in our mouth, we would rather blame clumsiness than admit our failure. Into that absurd “code of national male-chauvinism,” with laughable phrases such as “a real man doesn’t drink… Continue reading The words fade away

With the intent of shaking off the disillusionment of February 24th, and to dispel the expectation/frustration that these days have left me with, I decided to go to the movies.  A Polish film from the ‘70s that was playing at the Chaplin Cinema seemed ideal for avoiding the streets of Havana with all their conformity… Continue reading The truths of Zanussi

Raúl Castro’s speech at the inauguration of his new post as President of the Council of State has not cleared up my already-chronic doubts. The repeated mention of changes to come, but without detailing them, and of the prohibitions that are going to be eliminated – although for the moment without specifying them – have… Continue reading Looking for the Rosetta Stone

I haven’t been able to sleep since three o’clock in the morning.  The phone started ringing within minutes of when Granma posted the latest thoughts of Fidel Castro.  From that moment I could not go back to bed.  It is difficult to think clearly when you get up before the crack of dawn, so I… Continue reading By candlelight

In this environment where disagreement abounds, stretches and shrinks, where there is the competition to arrive first and so many other pretenses that create division, confrontation and suspicion, it comes as a balm that a group of Cubans – a team from Pinar del Río – chooses to live together, to shelter and strengthen the… Continue reading Coexistence

  Yesterday I went to the International Book Fair in the Cabaña Fort, east of Havana. Thanks to a reader of this Blog, who gave me some titles from her small Spanish publisher, I left with something in my hands.  The prices in convertible pesos persuaded me not to buy anything, although I believe I… Continue reading Afternoon of texts and disappointments

  The images of the fall of the Berlin Wall I saw for the first time eleven years after the events of that October 1989.  At that time, few Cubans had access to a video player or to the foreign press. The news came to us when it was already history. The young man who… Continue reading Habeas data

The elections of February 24th are approaching and in the streets of my city few people ask who will be our next president. However, I have decided to conduct an exercise – a useless one – to point out what I would like in the next person who is going to represent us: I don’t… Continue reading From the house to the Nation

I’m pretty absent-minded. I can leave my keys in the house and close the door, and leave my wallet in the refrigerator. So I am forced to use a bunch of tricks not to forget anything. I have an engagement book where I write what I need to do and I write on scraps of… Continue reading From the same pocket

What pushed me to this adventure of writing a Blog was the bad taste left at the end of the controversy of the intellectuals in January 2007. On an afternoon like today, the 30th of January, we waited – a group of young people – to be able to enter the conference: “The gray five… Continue reading A year later