By Rodrigo Díaz, Josemaría Moreno y Bernardo Moreno
It is difficult to translate into Spanish the guiding concept of this column: one-hit wonder, which literally refers to an artist who is only capable of producing one work of the highest quality—usually musical, but here, we have extended ourselves—and then disappearing into oblivion or continuing to work without great popular or critical appreciation. Just as a flower is beautiful and ephemeral—more so if it is a one-day flower—we recognize that the work of an artist, even the work of someone who simply aspires to create beauty or harmony, can be complicated and often exhausting. This is something that has famously left more than one in emotional, psychological, and spiritual ruin. Whatever the reasons why an artist was unable to continue what seemed like a brilliant career by producing their great success, the merit of their achievement attests to the fortuitousness of inspiration, creation and human pretensions. That is why we take the time here to appreciate three profound works that not even their creators could imitate. With this contribution, «Los Imprescindibles» return to this newspaper, in the hopes that our appreciated, even if small, audience does not consider us a one-hit wonder, in these pages.
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980
Will it be considered an anti-capitalist poetic act, committing suicide locked in your car (which, perhaps, represents the mass production machine par excellence), bringing inside, with a hose, the exhaust fumes (the same fumes that poison the ecosystem) to the point of asphyxiation: better known as carbon monoxide poisoning? Well, that’s what the author of A Confederacy of Dunces did at the age of thirty-two, without having published any novel. His mother, who remained in charge of his manuscripts, was the one who sought a better destiny for the novel, without any success at first, until she managed to get a renowned author to read it and find someone to publish it. The year after its publication, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. Ignatius J. Reilly—the main character—is a fat, medievalist failure (follower of Boethius) attached to the character’s fiction of the stoic philosophy, who lives with his mother, in search of love and self-sufficiency in the midst of a raucous New Orleans. A novel of excellent black humor, and for us, the best of its kind. What do you think?
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones, 2005
This film marks the directorial debut of the ultra-recognized American actor of Men in Black. With it, Tommy Lee managed—alongside screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams, Babel, Amores Perros)—to be nominated for a Cannes award, which he unfortunately did not achieve. Although Tommy Lee would go on to direct two more films, neither earned him the reception of his early work. The film is a sort of rework of Faulkner’s unfathomable work, As I Lay Dying. Here too, in a land more mythical than real, tells the story of a corpse that has to be transported to a promised land where it is supposed to find rest: but eternal peace is an obsession of the living, not of the dead. The company, absurd by nature, demonstrates the fatuity of life as a project for death. A U.S. border police officer murders Melquiades, an undocumented Mexican, buries him a first time to hide his crime; the body is found and buried a second time by the sheriff of the community. Finally, Melchor’s friend, who had promised to bury him in his homeland if he should die in Texas, transports him, not embalmed, to the town of Jimenez, carrying the racist murderer as a prisoner. The journey is hard, surreal, and the same event is told from different perspectives, and the result is a sober work of unscathed and granitic performances as the landscape that hosts it.
Unbelievable, Schubert Dip, EMF, 1991
Coined by the music industry, the one-hit wonders responded, especially to those who crossed the horizon of the popular charts like a shooting star —such as the Billboard Hot 100 or the UK Singles Chart —before getting lost in the oblivion of the recording industry. Paradoxically, the one-hit wonders have aged with great melancholic value, over the years, in the hearts of listeners. Who has not included one of these unforgettable hits on the playlist of their life? Surely, whoever reads these lines has remembered great examples such as “What ‘s up?” by 4 Non Blondes, “Don’t worry, be happy” by Bobby McFerrin, “What is love?” by Haddaway, among many others. A rampant success on the British scene in the early nineties we can recall is the title “Unbelievable” by EMF—Epsom Mad Funkers—the undisputed gem of their first production Schubert Dip, released as a single in December 1990 in the UK reaching the top of the charts worldwide. A few months later, it reached number 1 in the Billboard charts. Fusing elements of rock with techno, house, and alternative dance, the Gloucestershire boys managed to get millions dancing with a truly… unbelievable hit.
