Saturday


    Preamble To The Instructions On How To Wind a Watch        

    Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting 
    you with a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. 
    They aren't simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we 
    hope it will last you, it's a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren't just giving you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist 
    and walk along with you. They are giving you - they don't know it, it's 
    terrible that they don't know it - they are gifting you with a new fragile 
    and precarious piece of yourself, something that's yours but not a part of 
    your body, that you have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of something hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the 
    job of having to wind it every day, an obligation to wind it, so that it goes 
    on being a watch, they gift you with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows to check the exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone service. They give you the gift of fear, someone will 
    steal it from you, it'll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the 
    gift of your trademark and the assurance that it's a trademark better than others, they gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches. They aren't giving you a watch, you are the gift, they are 
    giving you yourself for the watch's birthday. 


    julio cortázar
     

4 comments:

serdar said...

similar to how to cry one.
from which book is it?

valeria said...

exactly.
it's from the same book.
the title in spanish is "Historia de cronopios y de famas", in english is "Cronopios and famas". an adorable book.
look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40JykbOiiM

serdar said...

i watched the video.
what does he refer to by calling them cronopios

valeria said...

the book is divided in four parts. the first is about the instructions for different activities, the second is about weird jobs, the third part is named plastic material and the fourth is about that creatures, the cronopios and famas. the fourth part of the book gives the title to it, so in the video, julio talks about these characters. it has some reminicences of jarry's stories