Edmundo Bejarano had already practiced the portrayal of poets with Washington Cucurto and Fabián Casas, but he had to return to his hometown in order to find a bard as punk as he is. About to turn 60, Julio Barriga is Tarija’s mustachioed Iggy Pop. In that scenery of dirt roads and empty patios, “he writes urgent letters to himself and practices the exercise of solitude he inherited from the late great poet Roberto Echazú, his hero in silence.” These letters –with verses as authentic and self-punishing as “You’re having lots of rock & roll / Wearing the same shirt”– are not the only things he writes: Julius (the fragile one, the unpredictable one, the poignant one) is about to become The Man Who Loved Amy Winehouse. To know him is to love him, or something like that.
