There are times in life when you would like to stay and live forever. The problem is, you can’t. And since this is not possible – for obvious reasons – human beings first try to retain them, for example through photography or video. When he realizes that reliving that experience through a screen is not the same as having actually lived it, he undertakes a constant search for sensations that take him back to that moment. And that search can last a lifetime. He will try to reproduce all the details he remembers from that moment, as if he understood that there is a single formula for achieving true happiness. He will try to explain everything he felt in words, in a futile attempt to romantically involve people who weren’t there. Maybe take it a step further and turn that moment into your reason for living. Without delving into philosophical questions, you will be fighting for some kind of eternal return. How would you feel if your life was an eternal repetition? In some cases, extraordinarily well.
The protagonist of Jalisco style (Panenka), a book written by the Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos and illustrated by Julio César Pérez in which the protagonist is a fan who, at the age of seven, goes to the stands of the Jalisco stadium in his native Guadalajara to watch Brazil’s matches towards the final of the 1970 World Cup. He will go away in love with that team which included Pelé, Jairzinho, Rivelino and Gérson to the point that, having turned 18 years old and with unclear ideas, he will go to live in Rio de Janeiro. Once he settles in the city, after some jobs and a couple of loves, an idea will come to mind which, ultimately, was born to respond to his inner restlessness: to recreate what he experienced in the stands of that stadium. He will then begin an original, dangerous and fun adventure that will take him back to Mexico, at the head of a strange theatrical-football show that will make him understand that he was not alone in his intention to settle forever at the moment when he was most purely happy.
