Sounds more like titillation than terrorism” stated a  Citizen  journalist, speaking about Carmen Aguirre’s book Something Fierce, now on the final list of books being considered for the CBC sponsored Canada Reads contest. Of course the book did not  show us the slinky beautiful actress, sauntering out on the stage in her jeans, her t-shirt, black hair  and long black boots. But the actress is very much there and her monologue takes us away on a revolutionary fantasy that somehow reflects the erotic dreams of a young girl more than the desire to blow up things. 

Actually Blue Box is a well written narrative  that delves into the fantasy life of the actress. And I found myself charmed by the text more than by the performance which I think the actress might have taken even further. 

Aguirre’s own life becomes the experience of a young woman involved in the Chilean resistance against Pinochet, crossing borders into Argentina, escaping the secret police, all the things we heard about after  Pinochet came to power in  1973 after Allende was murdered. At that point Chileans began fleeing to Canada and many of them settled in Ottawa, enrolled in literature courses at Carleton University, began publishing books, poetry, even opened a publishing house (Split Quotations) and became close friends of all of us interested in Latin America. Chile’s loss was our gain. They were a wonderful contribution to the literary and artistic community of Canada. Mme Aguirre was obviously very young at that point and stayed in the country to  contribute to the Pinochet resistance . I kept trying to locate her activity in all that madness that followed Allende’s death , all those events that touched us so deeply in Ottawa.

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