Last night -- the 30th-something day of shelter in place -- I watched Chavela -- the documentary of the great Chavela Vargas. What treat! Then, I found out, this morning, that Almodovar had a similar night, a few weeks ago, in is home in Madrid.
Cliche it might be, but the universe is small.Chavela defies labels -- she is not, or was not, a lesbian -- she and her friends corroborate this. She does not fit our current categories of LGBTQ. She lived in a different cultural language, one in which "don't ask a question for which you know the answer already" was the social norm. She was out, a womanizer, a recurrent drinking buddy with the guys, a a bit homophobic, and a queer heroine for many in Latin American and Spain.
She once thought a boy how to use a gun to make him macho, less feminine. She wanted to make him masculine. She rejected labels and applied them, at the sametime -- unable to escape them.
