Manny Interviews ...

Foto/Blog Gaspar, El Lugareño (by Elsa Roberto)

Welcome to the Proust Questionnaire!

por Manny López

(para el blog Gaspar, El Lugareño)

I have been toying with this idea for a while, as it has always been one of my favorite reads in Vanity Fair. Every Friday I will try to bring you closer to these talented personalities, and their world via The Proust Questionnaire.

Today I present Justo J. Sánchez.

JUSTO J. SÁNCHEZ, award-winning cultural journalist, has written for Sotheby’s and serious publications. He has taught art history and theory at the college and graduate school level. Mr. Sánchez has been interviewed by THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, NPR, and NBC Nightly News, among others. He regularly lectures in important art fairs like Art Palm Beach.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? -

The inability to wonder and rejoice. The state of indifference, pettiness, orthodoxy, and lack of curiosity. Many of these people are just sexually repressed.

What is your idea of happiness?

The happiness I felt walking with my father through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, the museum to ourselves, or with my parents in Santiago de Compostela, il Palazzo Gritti and the secret corners of Venice with my sister. Actually, my idea of happiness would be to live a simple life, reading and writing in a hidden place I know on the Costa Amalfitana.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

Jesus, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Ursula, Socrates (so trite!), Saint Francis, Sofonisba Anguissola (woman court painter to Philip II and Elisabeth de Valois), Hildegard von Bingen (composer, mystical poet, abbess), Fr. Matteo Ricci, Caravaggio, Henry David Thoreau, Oscar Wilde, Federico García Lorca, Rosa Parks, Jean Cocteau, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, Gandhi.

The quality you most admire in a man? -

Humility, virility.

The quality you most admire in a woman? -

Firmness in her sense of identity, difference, and mission.

Your most marked characteristic? -

Enthusiasm.

What do you most value in your friends? -

To lead me gently to humility and, yes, a sense of humor.

How would you like to die? -

In prayer, surrounded by family or friends, in a loving community.

What is your present state of mind?

Defiant and serene. Is it a contradiction? I feel the need to explore, inquire, and dissent.

What is your motto?

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

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Nota mía: Comienza este viernes una nueva sección: Manny Interviews ... , gracias a la cortesía de Manny López (Zu Galeria), quien se ha ofrecido para compartir cada semana una entrevista a personas conocidas por su desempeño relevante en el mundo de la cultura.  

Además, cada entrevista estará acompañada por una foto, que en su mayoría serán obra de la fotógrafo Elsa Roberto, de quien los seguidores de esta bitácora tienen el privilegio de disfrutar su arte, de manera frecuente.

Las otras secciones fijas que tiene actualmente el blog son: La Luz Reconciliada (Lunes); El Trago de los Tigres (Martes), Con la Verdad a Cuestas (Miércoles), Cubanos (Jueves), Ley en el blog (Viernes), Oikos (Sábado) y Damas de Blanco (Domingo)

También, se estuvieron publicando de manera sistemática: Orígenes (Martes), Camagüey visto por Reynier (Miércoles) Fotos de Ninon Lavallee (Jueves) y Estampas Camagüeyanas.

Gaspar, El Lugareño