In the avalanche of apocalyptic news, I find myself with two drops of humor in a sea of ​​tears. I will not miss the opportunity to finally comment something good about politics. You may have seen it before, but if you haven’t, do me a favor: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol sings American Pie at an official dinner with US President Joe Biden. Not the “loving madman” whose extravagances made me suffer even more in adolescence, nor that Alvarito, the teacher of the art of laughing without desire, no, Yoon Suk Yeol’s singing became a media spectacle because of that mixture of joy, simplicity and talent. In addition to musical talent, this gesture of accepting something from the country that welcomes us with enthusiasm and knowledge shines. Imagine what an honor it would be if some politician or celebrity visited Ecuador and greeted us by singing a few verses by Julio Jaramillo. We would appreciate it with all our soul full of feeling.

Perhaps I am exaggerating the importance of this diplomatic gesture, but I admit that I really like to sing and I believe that when we sing we show an honest and generous side of ourselves, both of which are almost extinct in the current political scenario that increasingly resembles the command bridge of the Titanic. Nevertheless, I will witness the collapse without separating myself from those musicians who in the film during the tragedy maintain the illusion that not everything is a tragedy, reminding us that beauty also exists.

Maybe I’m exaggerating the importance of this diplomatic gesture, but… I think that when we sing we show an honest side…

Moving on (the other good news has little to do with beauty), it turns out that the owner of a building in Frankfurt won a case against an international company that sued him to stop lying naked on the terrace visible from his offices. It has nothing to do with beauty, I say, because for the millions of Germans who practice FKK (Freikörperkultur: free body culture), showing naked in public implies desexualizing the body and trying to get rid of the beautiful/ugly. bodily dichotomy, attractive/repulsive (in the almost forgotten sources of this doctrine, the fundamental thing was health). For those who did not grow up among these people, discovering them sunning themselves like iguanas on beaches and parks, just as God sent them into the world in saunas and lakes, is a cultural shock from which one cannot escape unscathed. An American friend has not yet gotten over the trauma of 30 years ago when a mixed group of colleagues from the University of Leipzig invited him to go to the sauna with them; Unfamiliar with local customs, he suddenly found himself locked in a room, surrounded by the private parts of his peers who continued to casually discuss Adorno’s cultural pessimism. It seems to me that many Germans, especially from the East, consider the body to be nothing more than a useful machine for life, so they dress it (or not, depending on the time) with practical clothes, shoes that are a cross between medieval and orthopedic footwear, and her favorite color combination is mustard with gray. They say that wherever you go, what you see is what you see, but there are things that are painful to get used to. My advice to nudist neighbors in Frankfurt: curtains. (OR)