Got home around midnight to hear that the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez had died at age 87. Like many high school students I fell in love with marquezs magic realism. I remember reading hundred years of solitude. It was like a right of passage. Like reading Carlos Castaneda or Hermann Hesse or Jack Carol wack. I remember thinking we were different for reading those books… Just like all my friends. LOL.

 

But Marquez was special. He wrote about things that were almost there. I didn't learn the term magic realism until many years later but I remember that reading Marquez reminded me of my own personal experience of wondering whether there was something completely different reality just underneath the reality we experienced.

I remember how deep that felt reading his books.… Then I remember laughing at myself for thinking it was so deep… Now here I am again thinking it was deep. That's magic realism.

I think I read everything he ever wrote… At least every novel. I can't even remember my favorites now. I remember reading hojascuras (leaf storms) using my faulty high school Spanish… And still getting it. I think that book might be within 10 feet of me right now. I loved his interpretation of crazy old men in books like autumn of the patriarch. And no one writes to the colonel .. Especially now that I am aspiring to be a crazy old man. Or at least approximating one

We need I heard that he died… The first thing that came to my mind was the movie here erindira that he wrote back in the 80's. I remember it was so surreal. Here's a scene I found on YouTube. It reminds me of his writing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUmkmNSGWJA&sns=em

 

Here's to you Mr. Marquez. The guy that big me realize that you get to choose your own reality.
Night all, night Sam
– Me