Being Isaac Asimov

Image: Garrincha

August is an especially hard month, along with all the little things you have to deal with the whole year—the national news on TV, finding toilet paper, underwear, a strip of metrobamate, the daily dose of multivitamins, etc.—you have to endure 36 degree heat while having a cold.

But at times, in those moments of crushing tedium something lights up the television screen. I’m sitting at the computer and suddenly recognize the well-known delirious voice that I almost never have the pleasure of hearing. Despite being super edited I can feel that the one who makes me split my sides laughing could not have been done away with: the incoherence.

In three minutes el Comandante speaks of global warming, then he mentions a submarine and for some strange mental connection resumes his last reflection: “The Empire and the robots,” (a tribute to Isaac Asimov), and afterwards concludes that the Marti-inspired Bolivarian republic has always been under oppression, and that this can be demonstrated mathematically (at this point Ciro exclaimed, “WHAT did he say?!”).

According to the presenter of this short excerpt, Fidel Castro spoke for three hours before a small audience of students. The only thing I can’t understand is how no one started laughing out loud at some point; perhaps it was because at this stage the audience is quite small, lest anyone lack the patience for it and start nodding off and, embarrassed, has to stumble out (if he gives them a chance).