Underground Culture by Aldo Chaparro
A few months ago I was in front of the television mechanically flicking through the channels, seeing hundreds of images go by without a single one catching my eye (the speed at which I change channels is practically unbearable for the rest of my family which means I usually watch television alone). Suddenly, an image shot into my head. It took me a few seconds to recognize it: it was the pyramid. That enormous earthen mass that marked my perception of volume for ever; a National Geographic program was analyzing facts about its construction.
When I was a boy my family lived opposite a pre-Columbian pyramid that just happened to have been hemmed in by a residential area of Lima. From my window I could see that huge bulk perfectly, standing out on the opposite side of the street against the ever hazy and grey sky of Lima the horrid – as Salazar Bondy christened it. But my experience of the Huallanmarca pyramid was not only contemplative. In that great space, on its ramps, platforms and peaks, I spent my whole childhood and adolescence, witnessing many stages in my development. From the highest point, you could see the sea and the sunset. Every summer evening we would meet up in this millennial place to do what its first inhabitants, architects and builders would surely have done.
I like potatos