The doctor from Sigüenza, Javier Sanz, has just published his new book, with a title that is intentionally almost a palindrome: ’50 de más de 70′. Edited by the ASISA Foundation, it is not a typical book. First of all, because of its origin. A avid reader of newspapers, “in paper, naturally,” boasts Sanz, also always has a pencil or marker next to his coffee, with which he writes on an agenda – surely a gift from his daughters – things that surprise him, motivate him, or intellectually stimulate him.
Reading an interview with Alicia Alonso, a 92-year-old dancer, he jotted down this phrase: “I keep dancing with my mind, and I end up very tired.” Coincidentally, the agenda and marker were around, and Javier, versatile, also made a caricature. It was September 22, 2011.
From that moment on, the agenda began recording quotes and caricatures of other seniors with interesting phrases. All had turned seventy, and, ultimately, this was his requirement for entry into Javier’s new work, thereby proving true the old Spanish saying of ‘the devil knows more from being old than from being a devil’. “We must pay tribute to the elderly. It is a pleasure to listen to them, because there are things that can only be said from wisdom and experience, and when time, cruel to the body, instead, frees the mind from the shackles of decorum,” he points out.
This is the little story of how this new project by Javier Sanz was born, in which he collects quotes, like that of Alicia Alonso, caught on the fly in a reading, and all of them are the result of spontaneity, rather than reflection. The result is a fresh, different book. “When the journalist asks, and the interviewee quickly responds with terse phrases, with agility and lucidity, they are worth twice as much,” considers the author.
It has taken nearly fifteen years to compile the quotes, and to then depict, on the opposite page, their corresponding “caricature, portrait, both, or none,” as he explains, always modestly, the author in the preface, who, once, signed off on an exhibition in his native Sigüenza. “Since I was a child, I have maintained a curiosity for drawing, for which I have a certain skill. In this case, and after writing the quote on the agenda, some scribbles came out, quickly made, with continuous lines, as I read the interview,” he adds.
In addition to being the perfect complement to the quote, the drawings are also a tribute to what the caricature of masters like Forges, Gallego & Rey, Mingote, Peridis, Sciammarella, Fernando Fresno, Luis Bagaría, or Paco Ugalde contributed, “or used to contribute,” to journalism. “How much interviews gained, with the character’s caricature,” reflects Sanz.
Once it was ready, Javier Sanz contacted the ASISA Foundation, which showed its total willingness to publish it from the start. “It is a friendly book, which you can open wherever you want, or read it in one go,” says the author.
In the end, there are 55 quotes, without any relation between them or their signatories, in a book that can be read in half an hour, but leaves a mark, like the good ones, for life.
Naturally, there could not be missing the quote from a person from Sigüenza, the writer and editor Pepe Esteban. In his quote, he disagrees with Caballero Bonald when he said, “we are the time we have left.” According to Esteban, “we are the memory we have left.”
Born in Sigüenza in 1957, Javier Sanz Serrulla is a full academician of the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain, occupying seat number 24, on the History of Medicine. He also draws, but less than he would like. And he is the author of more than 40 books, many of them references on the history of Sigüenza.
via: MiMub in Spanish
