“Much learning does not teach understanding.”
~ Heraclitus, Fragment 40
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina…
Born to an upper middle class family in the Buenos Aires of 1780, Juan Gregorio de las Heras worked as a family businessman until he joined the army at the age of twenty-six.
For the better part of the ensuing six decades, las Heras would fight various wars of independence against the Spaniards, both here in Argentina, and also across the Andes Mountains, in Peru and Chile, where he eventually died in the capital of Santiago in 1866. He was 85 years old.
It is somewhat fitting, then, that a man remembered as a “freedom fighter” should have a park named in his honor that, for most of its history, housed the grim and foreboding Penitenciaría Nacional, the largest jail in the capital city.
From 1876, until its destruction in the early 1960’s, the roughly 12 hectares (30 acre) of land was the final destination for thousands of hardened convicts, sent from all over the country. Known as the “Land of Fire,” the central facility much resembled the infamous Ushuaia Penitentiary, located down in “Tierra del Fuego,” the southernmost reaches of Argentina, and the Americas. For no few convicts, this was the literal end of the world…
By 1960, the facility had become overcrowded and outdated. Besides, the surrounding barrios of Barrio Norte and Palermo were becoming gentrified and the increasingly well-heeled denizens didn’t so much like having the blight of a national penitentiary right in their backyards. Pssh!
Following its destruction in 1961, the remaining area became a vacant lot used by the locals for football practice. Over the following decades it was known, affectionately, as “La Peni.”
Today, Parque Las Heras is alive with the sounds of children riding the old-fashioned carousel and climbing in the gnarled ombú trees… of lively matches on the half-sized football pitches and health nuts flexing and straining on the outdoor gymnasiums… of blushing teens rollerskating around the concrete rink and bliss ninnies balancing on slack lines tied between the gently-swaying palms… and of course, the old timers playing chess and drinking their yerba mate in the warm, southern sun.
The tallest palms trees, it is said, were around when the penitentiary was still in use, all those many years ago. They carry the city’s “good airs” still, while on the northern side, Avenida Las Heras ferries the city’s traffic, in buses, cars and swerving taxis, past the old penitentiary to the towering office buildings downtown. Now, as then, life goes on…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
In Tuesday’s Note we mentioned a term from the ancient world, one of our favorites: Enantiodromia. Introduced by the naturalist philosopher, Heraclitus, it roughly describes the tendency of things to turn into their respective opposites.
The parched becomes sodden… darkness turns into light… captivity yields to liberty…
Musing on the concept throughout the week, your absent-minded editor suddenly recalled that he once wrote an entire novel around the subject, examining birth and death, love and loss and the ancient philosophies of East and West.
Spanning an entire century, from the 1920s Warlord Era in the Middle Kingdom to a single delivery room in a Buenos Aires hospital down at the End of the World, the novel braids three narratives into one multi-generational story… part fiction, part autobiography.
It’s available for Notes members to download, here: (Not a member, fix that here. Founding Members get a hardback!)
Download Night Drew Her Sable Cloak (PDF or ePub)
It’s just the sort of novel you might wish to take to a nearby park… or to help while away those long hours in a prison cell. Either way, please enjoy…
…and stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. A special shoutout to our dear Notes Members today; we’re ever grateful for your generous and ongoing support. As mentioned in this space previously, Notes is an entirely independent, reader-supported publication (as in, we accept no advertising and bow to no boss, receive no USAID, etc.)
Rather, we’re interested in free markets, free minds and free people…and we hope you are too!
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