RIP: Germán Dehesa (1944-2010)

What a tragic year 2010 has been for Mexico, precisely when we are all supposed to be in a "festive" mode celebrating our Independence and Revolution (more on that on a future post). First we lost Carlos Monsivais, and now we've suffered the loss of another great knight of the pen: Germán Dehesa:

Mexican writer German Dehesa, winner of the 2008 Don Quixote Prize awarded by the government of Castilla-La Mancha, died of cancer at his home in Mexico City, days after making the illness public in his newspaper column, the daily Reforma, to which he was a contributor, said. He was 66.

Also a playwright, he was born on July 1, 1944 in the Mexican capital and received from King Juan Carlos the Don Quixote Prize in May 2008 for the article “Ah, Que Tiempos!” (Ah, What Times!), also published in Reforma, in which he creatively described a number of idiosyncratic Mexicanisms.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his wife, Margarita Zavala, expressed in a communique their “deepest condolences for the lamentable passing of the writer and journalist...that has occurred (Thursday).”

Since the early 1990s, Dehesa wrote his column La Gaceta del Angel (the Angel's Gazette) for the newspaper Reforma; there he became the required reading for many millions, not only for his witty criticism of the Mexican political establishment, but mostly because he wasn't afraid of writing about his own personal life. He confided with his faithful readers the daily comings and goings of himself and his family, therefore making him much more than a renowned columnist: he became part of the household of many Mexicans —often times when in the morning I'd taken the section of the paper with his column to the bathroom for a final read before going to college or work, my mother used to ask me in distress: "now where did you leave Germán?".

Many of his enemies accused him of frivolity, as if there were many much more important things to discuss and opine in the world than writing about the first time he took his youngest son to the park, or when his beloved socder team won a match; but you see, Dehesa had this rare quality of reminding us that life is not what we think it is. Life is not a scarce set of momentous occasions (a wedding, a graduation, a trip to Europe) scattered amid an ocean of droll monotony; the real life is consisted of those small precious moments we rarely recognize for what they are worth —a trip to the dentist, a bowl of soup, the flight of a bird, a kiss in the back of a car— and he had the talent to write about his daily happenigns in such a sublime way, as to remind his readers that all our days are filled with little miracles... if we have the right eyes to see them.

But Dehesa was also a strong supporter of social causes, and he was disgusted by the many injustices that plague the Mexican landscape. At the very end of his daily columns he always included the Qué Tal Durmió? (how did you sleep?) section, to show his concern for the atrocities comitted against women in Ciudad Juárez —and to show his contempt for politicians that shouldn't be capable of sleeping at night for failing to do their jobs.

Germán often utilized his column to route civilian efforts intended to help the needy, like sending blankets to indians in the Tarahumara region during the winter; or rallying funds for centers that help patients with AIDS, Down Syndrome or cerebral paralysis —his older brother, Angel, suffered from Down Syndrome, and that's why he named his column and even his first son were named in his memory.

As a columnist, he used to have a whole repertoir of catch phrases that became part of his signature style. For instance, every Friday he always ended his column with the phrase Hoy Toca, which is kind of difficult to translate in English! suffice it to say the phrase is a reminder that we should always try to leave in our busy schedule a few moments to indulge in the joys Life can offer us.

I never knew Mr. Dehesa, though the early years of my career involved him in an indirect way: for a brief period I used to work at a startup animation company, back when I dreamed of becoming of an animator with nothing but enthusiasm and a copy of Illusion of Life (alas, it was not to be). One of the earliest jobs we secured was to produce the animated intro for the TV program Dehesa conducted on channel 22, El Angel de la Noche (Night's Angel), which involved a caricaturized verson of Dehesa himself drawn as a little cherub; it was a very fun work because I got to draw all the key poses for the clip, as well as proposing all sorts of satirical gags involving this litle angel wandering all over Mexico city.

This one to the right is not an actual drawing used in the clip — which, outlandish as it may sound, I never actually saw completed!— but since I had to draw hundreds and hundreds of angels all those years ago, to make another one by heart wasn't so difficult ;)

Some years ago Dehesa was in a chat room interview, and I asked him what kind of epitaph he would like to have —a rather vulgar question to make, but hey! it was the only thing I could come up with— he answered that he didn't cake about epitaphs or requiems, and that he'd rather have his remains scattered through the Papaloapan river, with a boat carrying a whole group of jaraneros musicians playing the typical folk songs of his beloved Veracruz.

The heavy rains have prevented his final wishes to be carried out, but in the mean time, here's some clips with the songs he liked, as as small tribute from one of his faithful —and heart-broken— readers.

Te vamos a extrañar, Germán.