v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Our Very Own Recomendations for a Visit in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Friends and family have always been asking us about what to do and where to go when visiting San Juan. So with the help of Elis here is a list of options/ recommendations prepared by Elis originally and updated by our family based on recent visits and post-catastrophe results which in truth has put many businesses on the brink and changed the business landscape. We will keep this up to date so it will be usable moving forward. We focus on the essential: history, food, drink, and playa.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020 - Calle Sol at Sunset

 

Most of our recommendations are for San Juan proper, and should be helpful if you have 4-5 days on the Isla Bonita but if you are adventurous there are a lot of places you could visit as the island is small.

 

Viejo San Juan, Old San Juan

 

If you're staying outside of Viejo San Juan a bit farther outside of San Juan, it's worth doing a day trip or evening trip into Viejo San Juan, the old part of Colonial Puerto Rico. You'd need to do a Uber, rent a car, or talk with hotel on best/reliable transport. Some resorts do shuttles and give you a # to call when you want to get picked up. The origin of Viejo San Juan dates back to 1508, way before any British or Germans had touched North America, when Spaniard Ponce de Leon founded the original settlement of Caparra. Here's a short but important history from Wikipedia on the famed old city. Thanks to anthropologist/archeologist Ricardo Alegria the old parts of Viejo San Juan have not been razed but restoration has taken place over the last 60 years with no new architecture added to the historic district.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Home on Calle Sol

 

Viejo San Juan

 

We can name about 50 different places worth checking out around Viejo San Juan, but sometimes it's just as fun exploring on your own-this area is very safe unlike areas like santurce or even El Condado. Here is a decent self-guided walking tour that will hit the highlights.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Cementerio Santa Maria Magdalena and La Perla behind it

 

That said, here are some recommendations, depending on the time of day that you go -

 

1. Mallorcas for Breakfast

 

Mallorcas are a Puerto Rican sweet bread, that is best in the AM with coffee. Usually comes with powered sugar on top. You can get it with butter, cheese, jam, etc. The BEST spot is La Bombonera. It should be open after much renovation.

 

Fun read from the New York Times on this historical place.

 

2. El Morro

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020 -El Morro

 

It's the 400 year old fort that the Spaniards used to protect the city. So lots and lots of history. There's an entrance fee, because it's a national historic site. It's just on the northwestern tip of Old San Juan, though as you get into the old part of San Juan you'll see the fort walls along the coast. Just Below and east of the fort is one of the oldest cemeteries in San Juan, located along the coast. If you're up for some history it's worth checking out. 

 

Vallejo nocturno 2020- Plaza de la Beneficencia

 

3. Around  Hotel El Convento for drinks and more

 

San Juan is Catholic Country. You can check out the Cathedral in Old San Juan. Or, potentially more relaxing and enjoyable, you can check out the terrace restaurant at El Convento, the hotel that is situated in the Old Convent.  It's lovely Spanish architecture, plus the courtyard has trees that have grown and taken over. It's worth going and grabbing a drink or small bites before continuing to explore. Foto on the side is Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Inside El Convento

Across the street is a great dive bar (most bars in Old San Juan are dive bars), El Batey . Hunter S. Thompson resided in San Juan back in the late 50's and he wrote a novel, The Rum Diary, while sipping on rum in the mornings. Here is a link to a Guardian story about the different bars in old San Juan-interestingly the guy ends his bar hop in El Batey. Foto of below.

 

Across the small plaza is a small Spanish Tapas restaurant, that is definitely worth getting tapas in, Rosa de Triana. Sometimes they do live music or flamenco dancing. 

 

Another good place for drinks is Factoria Vino which has gotten great praise on their masterful cocktails.

 

4. La Casa Blanca - This museum and historical site is a short walk from El Convento and it's a must see if you are interested in the history of Puerto Rico, as the residence of Ponce de Leon which he unfortunately did not reside in since he died before it was finished in 1521.

 

5. Who doesn't love a Rooftop Wine Bar ?

 

Al Fresco Rooftop - Go here and head straight on up to the top. The 2nd floor is a bar that serves excellent local cocktails and has a nice vibe and ambience. Examine the memorabilia on the walls detailing Albizu Campos, where the very famous Independista made home in this place in the early 20th century. Perfect for post-rain sunset with rainbows (these happen so often). They have good tapas and during Happy Hour drinks and tapas are 50% off. Hurry! Needless to say try the special rum concoctions.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- 2nd floor bar at Al Fresco Winebar where Albizu Campos, famed Independentista resided in the early 20th century

 

Or if you want some place in Viejo San Suan that's off the normal path, check out the roof deck or patio at Gallery Inn. It's an inn bought by an older artsy lady who kept having artists and musician friends stay with her, that she realized she should just turn the place into an inn. Very very kooky but cool atmosphere. It's in La Perla technically, which is traditionally the poorer part of Viejo San Juan, but it actually sits on top outside the less developed area. As their site correctly notes, "The Gallery Inn is comprised of 300 year old buildings that can safely withstand earthquakes like the ones experienced this year."

 

 

5. Some Dining Options in Old San Juan-not many as the really good food is in El Condado, Santurce or in Guaynabo/Hato Rey:

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Closed Shop in Viejo San Juan

 

Carli's Fine Bistro and Piano Bar - Good jazz , drinks, and dining. This place belongs and is run by the pianist and arranger for the Beachboys back in their haydays-yes, he is Puerto Rican.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Restaurant El Ladi

 

El Ladi- Located in Puerta de Tierra is not in Old San Juan proper but fairly close by. Originally from Salinas this restaurant serves good seafood and has a great modern design and view. The big dish here is a Chillo with Mojo Isleno. Take a camera.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- La Rogativa  in Viejo San Juan

 

Playas!

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Playa El Escambron

 

1. Escambron - There's ~$5 or $10 fee to park here, but that's nice because you know your car is secure and there are lifeguards on duty. It has a reef so great for snorkeling (though you can see the fish without any goggles!). The view is great because you can see Viejo San Juan to the left of the beach. It's great to get there early, set up a spot (take a beach umbrella if you can, else plenty of palm trees to set up underneath). This beach will get crowded on the weekends and people bring their own grills and music (so can get a bit overwhelming later). 

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2018- La Pocita

 

2. La Pocita (Pinones) -   It's a 20 min drive from Condado and the hotel area in San Juan. There's a reef that blocks most of the waves, which means it's a super tranquil beach. Great for small kids or people who would rather be chill in the water. It's close to the Airport so you can watch airplanes take off as well. they have a small kiosks on the way out there to grab some roadside foods as well. I'd recommend putting valuables in the trunk before you head over, since there's no security to watch the parking area. 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Playa Aviones

 

3. Aviones Beach- This new find is at the entrance to Pinones, behind the restaurants and bars that you should try. One's that we have tried in the area include Tranquil and few people find this beach as its directly hidden from view. From a fan on TripAdvisor. There are food kiosks around the corner from the pay-to-park beach that have tons of restaurants you can walk over to and eat at Mi Casita or Carmin's are good bets. Waterfront has an amazing view-sip your beer or rum here.El Nuevo Acuario is considered the cream of the crop which we will try our next time there.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2008- Playa Isla Verde

 

4. Isla Verde - Near the airport this municipal beach is also very nice for tranquil sunbathing and swimming during the week when very few locals go to it. On weekends it is very popular.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Ocean Park Beach in San Juan

 

5. Ocean Park - The beach here is in the residential section of the island, so much less populated. You have to find parking on the street by the homes, but you can get lucky and not walk too far. Wind Surfers like to surf out here so you'll get better waves and get a good view.  There are a few bed and breakfasts that have beach bars in this area as well. 

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2010-Mar Chiquita

 

6. Mar Chiquita - - Is a 45 minute drive from San Juan but a great beach for photos. The beach on one side has a rock break so there are great waves on that side that fan out. on the right of that area is the part of the beach people will actually swim or dip into. You can also climb the rocks and watch as the waves hit. We have a family Vacation house over there as well if you're ever interested in stay over there - https://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p954452 - The Mar Chiquita House <-- family beach house. The hurricane did change the topography of the beach so its not as spectacular as it was before.

7. Luquillo -  In Luquillo you can go to the beach where you can pay to park, which means your car will be more secure, or if you prefer to go to the less crowded side, you can go here: https://goo.gl/maps/m6USz1RHjuRENq8K6 which is more residential for parking, but has nice trees you can hide underneath.

In Puerto Rico you can take coolers with drink and food to the beach including beer (Medallas or Heineken) to stay hydrated-a must.

 

Restaurants Outside of Old San Juan #1

 

There are various areas that offer good dining and fun near the beach and Viejo San Juan- they include El Condado, Santurce, Isla Verde, and Ocean Park-here are some recommendations:

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Oceano Restaurant at Sunset

Oceano - - it's a restaurant right on the water. Good food, but a little pricey but if you stick with the appetizers and munch tapas style you will have some great bites.. Think of it more for the Miami crowd. Nice place for lunch on the water though or to watch the sunset. 

Bodegas Compostela - This place is near Condado but in Santurce and is definitely high dining, Spanish style. Incredible wine selection, pricy, but definitely worth every penny for a style of cousine you will not get in the states.

Bodegas Compostela

Santaella- Considered a very trendy restaurant this place comes highly recommended from the local fine dining establishment though we have never been there. Its run by a local celebrity chef that has an international reputation. We will visit it soon.

La Casita Blanca - - This is a prime example of home-cooked puerto rican food. It's a large house on the corner of a more working class neighborhood. The menu changes daily and it's shown to you on a white board, and if you don't want deep fried food or tons of rice & beans pass up on it. It'll also help if you're comfortable speaking Spanish. 

La Placita -  - This is a big spot for nightlife in San Juan, there are bars there and a few places you can just walk up and grab a beer. it's basically a large outdoor plaza. People will dance in the streets or in the bars. You should Uber to this area as parking can get very hectic at night when everyone congregates here.

Airelibre Restaurant in Santurce - Our chef relative took us to this very typical and super-friendly place ina a really out of the way place in Santurce. The food here is typical PR and space is one for drinking and chatting. Do not confuse with other restaurant in San Juan with almost a similar name. This one is on Calle Las Delicias and its walking distance from La Placita.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- A fried snapper at Airelibre

Ceviche House- This Peruvian run seafood establishment in Isla Verde has been there for over 20 years. Authentic high quality ceviche and pisco sours. Great tostones. Highly recommended. Our kids had their first PR ceviche here when they were toddlers. Pescado alo Macho is superb.

Orrozco's- Authentic PR fare in this small place on the Condado main walkway. Economical and very good.Roast pork and tostones are solid.

Restaurants in San Juan #2

These are more inland and in the "suburbs" surrounding metropolitan San Juan-they are a 15 minute ride from Old San Juan and should be visited for the ambience and culinary fare.

Argentos - We just dined here recently and the Argentinian fare is authentic and top notch. It's next to a good and varied mall, San Patricio, if you need to get some shopping done. But I'd concentrate on the diverse cuts of meat. In Guaynabo in San Patricio. Below a milanesa at Argentos.

El Granero - Another meat restaurant but this place focuses more on American cuts. Small and intimate this place doesn't even look like a restaurant but inside it has good wines and accompaniments to you top slice of beef. Only open in the evenings. In Guaynabo near San Patricio.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- El Granero's fine beef

El Chotis de Avila - Perhaps the best Spanish restaurant in all of the Island. Both the wine and authentic Spanish dishes are worth going here. Though there are plenty of tables its also a good experience to eat in the bar area. Very active as this is near the courthouse in Hato Rey and is packed with hungry lawyers talking shop. We try and eat here every time  we are in town.

Casa Italia- This fabulous Italian restaurant sits at the corner of the street where our family resides so we have ventured here on various occasions to celebrate life. Small but cozy Chef Alberto is a wizard at cooking his authentic Italian dishes. This is in Hato Rey but a must if you want to sample the best Italian fare in San Juan.

La Cevicheria & Up in Smoke- Down the street from El Chotis there is open air food stands that are worth trying. One is Peruvian ceviche and pisco sours very reasonably priced and the other is a barbecue/smoke house that is usually packed. The crowds can pack it in but a fun place to rub shoulders with a middle class local crowd. On friday's and saturdays around the local restaurants on this small backstreet there is music and DJs blaring.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- At La Cevicheria late on Friday

Mistura - Another very good Peruvian restaurant with diverse Peruvian dishes-its in Hato Rey. Try the causa or Chaufa rice after your obligatory ceviche. Or a lomo saltado.

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- In El Yunque

Some Possible Road Trips

Here are some fun daytrips that will take you to unique places-Puerto Rico is a small island but it has a variety of environments.

El Yunque - The US National Rainforest

http://www.fs.usda.gov/elyunque

 

It's amazing, and if you only go to PR once, it's where you should visit. It's just this wonderful rainforest in the northeast mountains. It's a little rainy these days, but if you're lucky you'll get to go in the AM (before the storms hit and before the park gets full with visitors). There are great hiking trails and you can usually go swimming in the waterfalls. Because it's a national park there's a fee, but it's usually under $10. Since Maria, they are still working to open up a lot of the trails there, it's worth looking up on their site to see what is open when visiting. You should be able to access Yokahu Tower, which gets you a great view from the mountain. You can see Loquillo from there too. 

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Stream in El Yunque

 

Laguna Grance, The Bioluminecent Bay, Fajardo

 

Another adventure, a bit of a drive, but totally something the hotel could arrange is kayaking or paddling out in the bioluminescent bay at night in Fajardo. Usually ~$50 a person, with times around 5 & 7pm, you get to kayak out in the lagoon for ~2 hrs. 

 

Long ago they prohibited or limited swimming there to keep the bio-luminescent wildlife safe. 

 

The peak season for the bay is between March and November, so it may not be as bright and lively as it is during other times of the year. If you're interested, I'd ask the hotel who they recommend. Else, Yelp is generally great at weeding out the good tours and rental places.

 

Central Puerto Rico for day trips

 

1. Casa Bavaria -  If you're up for a fun day trip into the central mountains, it's worth going up to this beer garden. you can do roadside stops up along the way for BBQ as well - this is known as chinchoreando in PR. It has a great view of the mountains from up there and great beer and snacks. Probably should do it with someone who knows the island and can drive you.

 

2. FOK Brewing Co - a 35 - 45 min drive from San Juan https://goo.gl/maps/gdNqaBWudhC6PoDG8 - Head over to Caguas for a little brewery tour. They have live music, outdoor patio on the river, and food trucks serving up meals.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Salinas Ocean Front

 

3. Coastal Trip  to Salinas- About an hour drive from San Juan through scenic mountains this fishing village has excellent high quality seafood restaurants - El Balcon del Capitan or Restaurante Tus Antojos . 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Mojo Isleno on a Chillo at El Balcon del Capitan

 

4. Rum Tasting at El Barrilito - This is the best rum by far from Puerto Rico and trying their top notch rums is an experience. Though we have drunk many a bottle of Barrelito- sipping straight or on ice is the way to go- we have yet to visit the tasting room but all of our relatives swear by the experience. Here's a link to their tasting tour.

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Street in Viejo San Juan

 

 

 

A Harbinger of Fascism

From the NYRB, Mitchell Abidor writes about Sade and Epstein:

It is impossible not to think of Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplices when reading Sade. In The 120 Days of Sodom, the age of the girls delivered to the libertines “was fixed between twelve and fifteen and anything above or below was ruthlessly rejected.” And in Aline and Valcour, two libertines “keep a seraglio of twelve young girls… of whom the oldest is not yet fifteen, and is replaced at the rate of one a month.”

Epstein’s plane was flippantly and familiarly known as the Lolita Express; in one reported incident, a twenty-three-year-old woman brought to him was rejected as too old. Like Sade, Epstein had hirelings to procure his victims. The financier’s procuresses lived well, as did those in Sade’s work, who in 120 Days received “thirty thousand francs—all expenses paid—for each subject found to their liking (it is extraordinary how much all this cost).”

The libertines in Sade, to quote Barthes, also “belong to the aristocracy, or more exactly (and more frequently) to the class of financiers, professionals, and prevaricators.” And like the victims of Epstein, those victimized and assaulted by Sade’s characters in his fiction, as by Sade himself in real life, “belong to the industrial and urban sub-proletariat.” The power differential that plays such an important part in the contemporary scandals is limned in the biography and writing of Sade. It was Camus who summed up the Sadeian universe as one of “power and hatred,” a term just as aptly applicable to Epstein’s world.

Epstein’s Caribbean island, to which young women were flown, his ranch, and his townhouse are a contemporary version of the castles in which Sade’s fictional and actual victims were assaulted. Just as in the case of Sade, where the will of the victims was ignored, their lives reduced to obeying the libertines’ orders, Epstein’s girls were at times referred to as his friend Ghislaine Maxwell’s “slave[s].” As the victims in the pages of Sade hear: “no one knows you are here… you’re already dead to the world and it is only for our pleasures that you are breathing now.”

According to court documents, Epstein “required different girls to be scheduled every day of the week,” just as 120 Days records the drawing up of a timetable to detail which victim will perform which act on which day. Epstein’s regimen recalls Sade’s character in Les Infortunes de la virtue who explains that “I make use of women from need, the same way one makes use of a chamber pot for a different need.”

Epstein carried on with virtual impunity until the final reckoning, like the libertine in Sade’s 120 Days who would “commit excesses that would have sent his head to the scaffold a thousand times were it not for his influence and his gold, which saved him from this fate a thousand times.” Sade’s books are a guidebook to, and prophecy of, the Epstein case.

In one important way, though, this looking-glass is reversible: it is Epstein who illuminates Sade and allows us to read the French aristocrat with a different eye. Sade lived his drives, and when imprisoned, he turned them into literature. That literature is still read and is still the subject of serious study. Some recent books, for example, have viewed Sade through the lens of queer theory, examining his vision of sex and death, once again placing him within the framework of Enlightenment thought.

But we might justly ask: Had Jeffrey Epstein lived and become a writer, would his literary output have enthralled us?

There is no indication that Epstein ever committed to paper his ideas and fantasies, as Sade did so obsessively. Sade, after all, viewed himself not just as a libertine, but as a philosopher of libertinism (one of his works was titled Philosophy in the Boudoir). His flights of fancy served to relieve the privations of his confinement, perhaps, but they were also the basis for an encompassing worldview like few others.

Unlike Sade, Epstein did not elevate his tastes into a principle. And that Epstein left no account suggests a consciousness of the legal jeopardy any such record would create. But if Epstein had done so, would anyone have dared write of him, as Breton did of Sade, that he was someone “for whom the freedom of morality was a matter of life and death”? For both men, the freedom of morality was, in actuality, a freedom from morality, a license to inflict pain on others.

There are two nouns Sade uses heavily in his novels that sum up the Sadeian universe: victime and scélérat, victim and villain. This is the only moral division of any significance in his works—and it perfectly summarizes the worlds of both Sade and Epstein. “Laws are null and void as concerns scoundrels,” wrote Sade, “for they do not reach he who is powerful, and he who is happy is not subject to them.” Both men acted and lived in accordance with that dictum.

If Beauvoir was right and Sade forces us to question “the true relationship between man and man,” then Epstein’s predations present us with an unalloyed vision of precisely how money and power twist those relations. To change that requires an utter rejection of Sade’s philosophical system, as succinctly expressed in a line from Justine: “My neighbor is nothing to me; there is not the least little relationship between him and me.”

We need not burn Sade, but neither should we praise him. His spirit still wanders among us, and we must use him to see why we have our Epsteins.

Picabia's Changing Vision

 

Here's a brief description of Picabia and the restoration of one of his masterpieces-this artist has me rethinking what is art-this comes from Hyperallergic:

Born in 1879, a self-proclaimed “terrible monster,” Picabia grew up in a milieu of untroubled propriety. His wealthy, Cuban-born father served as chancellor of that country’s Parisian embassy. His mother, comparably well-born and well-connected, died when Picabia was very young. The boy’s remaining male guardians tended to be aristocratic and artistic, and they inspired the young man in that direction. He studied at École des Arts Decoratifs, and, inspired by old masters like Poussin and by French Impressionism, Picabia enjoyed an early run as a landscape painter.

Picabia’s transformation from a middling Postimpressionist into an anti-representational painter and a poet of cold-blooded cynicism happened virtually overnight, a metamorphosis that perplexes scholars to this day.

According to Picabia’s longtime friend Gertrude Stein, this abrupt turnaround is partly attributable to the artist’s grandfather, a resourceful, pioneering photographer from whom Picabia deduced the “idea of transparence and four dimensional painting.” (Stein, quoted in Tate website’s notes on Picabia’s “Otaïti”).

In his introduction to Picabia’s collected writings, I am a Beautiful Monster: Poetry Prose and Provocation (MIT Press, 2013), translator Mark Lowenthal builds on Stein’s biographical details. Lowenthal attributes Picabia’s radicalization to his cursory readings of Friedrich Nietzsche and to the cutting-edge education he received from the female intellectuals in his life, most notably his first wife, Gabrielle Buffet, a professional musician who introduced him to ideas about “absolute music” — theories that steered him toward his self-professedly extreme “abstractionism” in both painting and poetry.

Picabia’s loquacious writings loom as more than a sidelight. Writing is a recurring component of his visual art, and the pictorial is incorporated into his writings. This visual-lexical hybridity reached its high point during Picabia’s initial editorship of the groundbreaking Dadaist journal 391 (1917-1934) which featured his famous “mechanomorphic” drawings.

These supple drawings sketch the moveable components of such simple mechanisms as scales, plumbing fixtures and clocks. The graphics are interspersed with snippets of lyrical language, spare verse that creates a counterpoint to the drawings. In “Thigh,” one such poem-drawing, or “drawn poem,” lines of oblique verse, reminiscent of Stéphane Mallarmé, punctuate his sketches of gears and levers, as the visual poem equates seduction and copulation with assemblage and manufacturing. Picabia’s integration of humor, pathos and insight within a visual-poetic composition resulted in paintings as distinctive as “La Sainte Virge” (1920), “Chapeau de paille?” (1921) and “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic).”

In the latter work, the title alternates the letters that make up two French words — “danse” (dance) and “étoile” (star). Its parenthetical subtitle, Ecclesiastic, refers to the painting’s heterogeneous, intertwined abstract forms. The painting’s entropic implosions and precipitous explosions refer to the Book of Ecclesiastes – a time to build up, a time to destroy. And “Ecclesiastic” self-referentially connotes the ecumenical in the well-crafted harmony of its disparate objects and dynamisms.

“Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” was completed on the eve of World War I, supposedly inspired by the social connection between Picabia, a Polish exotic dancer and a Dominican priest aboard a U.S.-bound ship. Picabia settled in New York City to wait out the war, drinking and drugging rather heavily. Befriended by Alfred Stieglitz, he became the head of “New York Dada,” ensconced among a decidedly apolitical social circle described by Lowenthal as “upper-class bohemians rooted in salons and galleries whose gravest wartime threat was usually little more than a case of boredom.”

Against this American backdrop, coupled with Dada’s recently celebrated centenary, the restoration of “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” has obvious cultural significance. And its conservation has been a painstaking, multi-pronged project.

Allison Langley, who has restored other modernist treasures at the Art Institute of Chicago, including Picasso’s “Mother and Child” (1901), described to me her initial delight upon encountering Picabia’s diligent brushwork, which involved multiple paint applications, complex surface texturing and a variable gloss.

The restoration was a twofold challenge for Langley. To begin with, the painting had been less than ideally stored by the artist himself, and it was later removed from its stretchers and rolled up for long-term storage. And then there was the damage from older conservation techniques, which Langley had to undo, particularly the yellowed, glossy coat of synthetic varnish that made it difficult for her to access — and then to secure — the original paint surface.

Francis Picabia, “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” (1913), gift of Mr. and Mrs. Armand Bartos (© 2015 Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York / ADAGP, Paris)

Langley’s year-long work is nearly finished and on display in its own special sunlit corner of the Art Institute, where “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” looks dazzlingly alive, a fusion of vivid compaction and harmonized discord. The metallic gray and chalky black forms resemble cogs, hooks, rotors, mortar, and blades. Its blue silhouettes allude to sea and sky. Forms painted in whites, pinks and purples signify human, natural and sacred realms. The irregular, interlocking, overlapping objects seem to move upon a de-centered field, as if releasing the unnerving energy of an overcrowded dance floor, or the whirligig inner workings of a ship’s engine room.

The painting’s forms both collide and interlock. Each shape unveils, through its distinctive illusion of mobility and propulsion, a sculptural plasticity, an effect intensified by Picabia’s deftness in conveying magnetism and resistance between and among those objects.

Through these internalized tensions between the industrial and aspirational planes, Picabia may be shrewdly critiquing capital’s perpetual busyness. For instance, a pinkish red rectangle, apparently signifying brickwork, is rounded at its borders so that a person’s profile seems to emerge — the intervention of a human presence within a coldly objectivist domain. That recognition invites the viewer to seek out other such intimations of the personal or redemptive within the painting’s anonymous, perpetual commotion.

The painting’s intimidating sangfroid is offset by dancing flashes of gold and white, opulent colors that suggest bars of gold and sun-dappled vistas amid the colors and patterns connoting flywheels and turbines. It’s as if Picabia is reminding the viewer of the instrumental greed that underlies the feverish locomotion of daily life.

The high-octane productivity evoked by Picabia’s psychedelic painting can be read as an allegory of cultural overabundance and imminent collapse. Perhaps “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” is an omen of the spectacular finale of a zero-sum game, the same one which, a hundred years later, we’re still playing.

From Last Night's Satoko Fujii's Band Kaze at Allyworld

All fotos Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Satoko Fujii's Faze

The Kobe I Remember

Though I was troubled when I heard the news of Kobe's passing with his daughter when we were in Puerto Rico-feeling sad for the family and the premature death of a sports icon, at the same time the hype and exagerated grieving made me think of the other people who had passed who had actually progressed the culture. I read this article in the New Republic which echoed my memory of his legacy which lots seemed to forget:

Bryant’s death was one of those moments that seemed to stop the world in disbelief. Tributes poured in attesting to how much he meant to basketball, to Los Angeles, to black Gen Xers and millennials who came of age with him and watching him. People shared video clips of his cameos on Sister, Sister, rode waves of nostalgia by chucking wadded-up balls of paper at the trash, yelling “KOBE!” They eulogized him as a father and advocate for women’s basketball, the devastation of those losses compounded by the fact that Gianna Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, died in the helicopter crash alongside him.

And in what felt like a parallel conversation, there was a remembrance of Bryant as he existed for so many others: another man who hurt a woman and moved on, untouched. They remembered the 19-year-old woman who said that Bryant blocked her from leaving a hotel room in 2003, groped and choked her, then raped her. They recalled the subsequent trial and coverage, how his accuser’s name was leaked to the press while her sexual history and mental health were dissected.

Quickly though, these stories began to collide. As the posthumous hagiography machine began to whirl, there were familiar conversations about respect, legacies, mythmaking, and the “right time” to bring up sexual assault. Obituaries hinted at a “complicated” legacy or made oblique references to “Colorado.” There were mentions of the rape case, maybe, in a quick and tidy paragraph. Anything more would have made the narrative incoherent. Uncomfortable. Distasteful.

The story of Bryant’s life had been written over the course of decades, largely along the same parallel lines. As with so many other powerful men, it was rare to see these two things—beloved men and the harm they’ve done—held in tension for very long. So this ended up being a story about Kobe Bryant and a story about us. How we compartmentalize the people we love or admire. How we don’t know how to talk about sexual violence, and cling to myths about “monsters” and “good guys.” How victims so quickly fade from public view, while the men who victimized them rise in status. We can hardly talk about the strange pain of knowing someone in these ways—a loving father, a supernaturally talented athlete, and an alleged rapist—in life. Why should it be different in death? 

Survivors are not a monolith, but for many, the rape case and its reverberations are still incredibly painful. By the time Bryant called a news conference, sitting next to his wife and publicly contesting the charges, the case had already become a national spectacle. It played on historically dangerous stereotypes of black men raping white women and perpetuated harmful ideas about false rape accusations. Ultimately, the woman decided not to testify in the criminal trial, and prosecutors dropped the case. Bryant and the woman would eventually settle a civil case out of court. 

This is when we were told to move on. When Bryant retired from basketball, it was seen as “not the time” to talk about the rape case because it was a moment of celebration. It would never actually become the right time, which is a lesson you will learn repeatedly when trying to talk about sexual violence. And so the force of Bryant’s celebrity was relatively unchanged, just usually marked with an asterisk. He was the star you knew, on ESPN, in GQ, on Showtime, but there was also that other thing—a matter to be addressed and quickly moved past. 

It can be hard to imagine what better would have looked like. We live in a carceral state that routinely disposes of people, locking them away and calling it justice. So it’s difficult to conceive of atonement outside of carcerality, both from the people who have hurt others and from the media and other ecosystems trying to make sense of them. Restorative justice seeks to bring those who have harmed and those affected by the harm—including the victim, their families, and their larger communities—into conversation with each other, creating processes to rebuild and heal. But these are often smaller, community-led efforts. Victims in high-profile cases often don’t know what to ask for in terms of healing because there is no real map to follow. What does an amends—a public amends—look like at this kind of scale? 

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