Do you want to be right or happy?
Buenos Aires has got a metaphysical bridge. And the best thing about it is that such bridge does not tell truths to those people who cross it but those people who appreciate far from or below it. Because in this city without river in the middle, bridges pass over the railways instead of water.
The bridge is located in the intersection of the avenues Córdoba and Juan B. Justo, in the boundaries of the neighbourhoods of Palermo and Villa Crespo. For some years, when the millennium changed, the bridge has talked clearly to those people coming from downtown. In other times, the same arch was used for political campaigns or advertisements, but nowadays it shows sentences that people can understand as truths, aphorisms, “new age” recipes. Those people who see the bridge these days, they will appreciate the following phrase in capital letter: “Do you want to be right or happy?”
The bridge does not give easy answers. Since the beginning of the century, it has said to millions of urban travellers things such as “Thanks for visiting us”, “That thing which scares you is the redemption” “Nobody has to lose”, “Each victim is a victimizer secretly” “We are the result of that we think”. Thousands of people return from work along this way, thinking about their problems and waiting for the moment when railway fence lets them pass. Each message has the power of surprising them, making them let their routines behind for a moment and think. They can think at least about who writes that phrase there. And what for…
It is difficult to condense the places’ spirit into words. Some times, examples are the best. That could summarize Buenos Aires, a mysterious city which makes magic with a minimum, where there are bridges over rivers of cars and even walls have something to say, declaiming or friendly phrases to tell.
Do you remember messages of walls of Buenos Aires? Posters? Banners?
Marzo 26, 2008 a las 11:54 Editar
Actually, I don`t remember a particular message but last year I went to an exhibition of stencil art at the Centro Cultural Recoleta. There were stencil images of cartoons (astroboy, batman, etc.) and some historical characters, such as Che Guevara and Peron, among others.