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Comments for the multitudes: peruse our latest Rotund update or any past editions, and if you are so moved, use the comments form at the bottom of the page by scrolling down or clicking on the colorful “You Say.” If you are responding to one of our previous natterings, please be as specific as possible: “When you went on and on about the Cuenca Biennial in episode 28, we did not take kindly to your use of naughty words.” “What’s with the little demon in episode 29? Are you guys Satanists? You will surely go to Hell.” And so forth.

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Madame Lyn-Go-Tee-Hurtado says:

Hey there! “This land was made for you and me”?! Even though there is more space 4 esculturitas and other stuffin’ . . . u know?! . . . (3/25/08)

Rotund World says:

Not exactly . . . (3/25/08)

Jake says:

obviously i would have a million points to add to this essay, but well, i dont really have a million seconds (which really is the max amount of time i would in good consciousness dedicate to it) to waste . . .

but i would like to point out that the skateboard park was an idea put forth by chemi, not vito . . . i think perhaps he cited him, and robert smithson, as references for the proposal but . . .

and the other one that i thought to mention that might have had an impact was the last one finally approved for joaquin mercado, shortly before his passing. it was about the 6th proposal that the committee insisted he write, (because y’ know, despite that they didnt “like” the first five, the had to have one of his works in . . . but dont get me started) . . . (3/25/08)

Rotund World says:

We’re certainly interested in real history versus our perceptions of it; or at least the many other versions of that history floating around out there in what passes for boricua reality. That’s one reason for doing this wacky thing. In regard to the public art program—and it’s a point we made more than once in the article—we had to rely entirely on publicly available documents to shape our view of what went on, and obviously the many artists involved, not to mention the administrators and everyone else with an opinion, have their own ideas.

Whatever Chemi Rosado proposed for the public art program, Vito Acconci had very specific, very detailed plans for a skateboard park in el Parque del Tercer Mundo. These are referred to in Miguel Rodríguez Casellas's piece in Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana, the article we cite in Primera Hora, and many of the Vito Acconci web sites you can find using Google. (Try the first one on the list.)

We’re sure we haven't heard the last of this . . . (3/25/08)

Pedro Vélez says:

But Chemi’s skate was intended to replace ex-govenor Rosselló’s idea of putting a caracol sculpture at the same site, right? Then came the idea of building the Vito park, which had been designed before Chemi’s, but not intended for Puerto Rico.

So . . . Chemi had the idea of a skate park for Puerto Rico first. But who cares, right? Since the ‘90s every other artist has designed and worked with skateboards, which is such a fucking tired idea today.

The thing is that Chemi got no money from his proposal and Acconci got a good chunk of money for a piece he never built . . . (3/26/08)

Rotund World says:

Well, well, who will we hear from next, the Holy See? One of the frustrating things about investing ourselves in all those column inches of semi-well-researched argument and then opening the matter up to public discussion is that we imagine we’re dealing with issues of moment or a kind of big picture, and what we hear about, largely, are niggling and fairly obscure details—obscure to us, at any rate—of a story that has the distinct air of festering complaint.

Vélez’s point regarding skateboards in art is well-taken, but does anyone care to fill us in on some of the things we wrote about? What prompted S. Calderón to make such an outsized move in the first place? Was that huge wad well-spent? And most baffling to us, what really happened to a project that began with so much promise?

We’ll entertain answers—or plausible-sounding guesses—to questions such as those, though a response of any length and substance will probably appear in the next Rotund episode rather than the confines of this hard-to-manage page . . . (3/26/08)

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