The Blog

2021-

2021-04-16 h
UNHOLY TOLEDO! LIVING LA VIDA LOCA TURNED INTO LIVING LA VIDA CORTA

Adam “Lil’ Homicide” Toledo, R.I.P.

Why are we supposed to be outraged?

A 21-year-old fires 8 shots in the middle of the night. Chicago cops chase him and his 13-year-old sidekick. The older one hands the gun to the kid to avoid being charged as an adult. The kid runs off with the gun, turns into an alley with a cop gaining on him. The kid sneakily throws the gun behind a fence (the cop still thinks the kid is armed). The kid turns around, raises his arms and gets shot in the chest.

I could make a snarky, insensitive remark alluding to a theory proposed by a naturalist also known for his long voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, but I won't.

Instead, let me quote an inspired source: "stipendium peccati mors est, " Romans 6:23.*

Don't cry for him, Little Village.

* Of course, this Latin phrase can also be found in Christopher Marlowe's, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

P.S. During the best years of the Iberian peninsula, when Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together and worked together, a Toledano, (a man from Toledo) was generally a Sephardic scholar or merchant or both. Did Adam Toledo have that potential? Could his life have been turned around?

P.P.S. I still recall being transfixed as a teenager, standing for more than one hour, in front of "The View of Toledo" by El Greco in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Go see it and imagine the glory of medieval Spain before the silver from the Indies corrupted their culture and their economy.

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