The Milli Vanilli Condition: Essays on Culture in the New Millennium

$17.95

by Eduardo Espina
English translation by Travis Sorenson

ISBN: 978-1-55885-811-4
Publication Date: March 31, 2015
Bind: Trade Paperback
Pages: 270

 

Available

“Few times in history has the art of pretending enjoyed so much continuity and led to so few consequences as during the hinge-like period between the 20th century and the beginning of the next,” Eduardo Espina asserts in this collection of 13 essays. He laments the serial falsification of events, as when the German pop duo Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for songs they did not sing.

Urguayan-born poet Espina ponders the paradoxes of modern-day life in these essays on a wide variety of subjects, including the proliferation of flags after 9/11, serial killers, nostalgia and even the Olympics.

These pieces are always thoughtful and frequently humorous. He writers tongue-in-cheek that some supermarkets are better than museums. Espina would rather visit a Kroger than the MOMA, where at least there’s a bigger collection and no admission fee! Espina remembers Montevideo, Uruguay’s very first supermarket, where his grandfather worked, and another one in Paris, where he spent five hours as “a tourist among cereals and sausages.”

This serious but entertaining collection is a must-read for anyone interested in recent history, pop culture, language and everything in between.