... It is since last night I have not been able to sleep, anxious, sad, because I need to clear up an issue with Leonardo Favio. I'm going to do it: Leonardo, I stole the impermeable tablecloth phrase. I used it every time I was interviewed, or at a conference, or in a class... In Europe, Rafaela, Mexico DF. I always talk about impermeable tablecloth texture ...And I didn´t always say that sentence was yours.
One of those restaurants along the highway, where your forearms get stuck slightly to the tablecloth, and you wait a moment, so not to offend, for the waitress to turn around and walk the other way, and you use a napkin to finish wiping the part where the arms are placed. That tablecloth is to do with the homeland. With the memory. With the identity of a country. It's like the Aleph from Borges in Aracataca from Gabriel García Márquez, the town of Serodino de Saer and the Paraná River coast from Juan L. Ortiz. The impermeable tablecloth is Argentina. I think it's a phrase from a book of poems by Favio. I'm sure that feeling was invented by Leonardo Favio. I'd rather stay with that idea and not Google it. In those red roses on blue graph cloth, worn out by so much damp is the dignity of a country ...of a continent. I don´t want to turn on the TV, or watch YouTube, I do not want to listen to songs not to cry. A hug, Leonardo. It is never too late when the saying is good. Better late than never! Waiter, another ‘Gancia’ with soda! What I want to say is: I do not think it's too late to tell Leonardo that his impermeable tablecloth has been the backbone of all my work for 25 years.
Marcos López
