You are a lobbyist.
I open doors for my clients: businessmen, politicians…
Intriguing job.
It was born in the United States, in the lobby of Congress: congressmen parade there and it is easy to approach them…
To influence them.
The good lobbyist manages to generate trust and credibility.
Who taught him?
Edward Bernays Freud, nephew of Sigmund Freud and father of public relations: in 1928 he published Propaganda.
Was he also appealing to the unconscious?
And to empathy and fair play. He advised several presidents in the White House, Roosevelt, Carter, Bush, Clinton… Look at this…
He shows me a handwritten letter…
It is a letter from Freud to Bernays, which he gave me because I was a disciple of his.
Who else have you worked with?
With Judge Guzmán Tapia.
The one who prosecuted Pinochet?
Triple A wanted to assassinate Guzmán and destroy his incriminating documents. To avoid it, I kept them in my house.
Glups!, that was tricky.
Grateful, he gave me books dedicated to Neruda with his green ink pen. His father, Neruda’s friend. And there I was encouraged…
Was encouraged to what?
To collect: I already have the best collection of Neruda’s manuscripts in the world. And books with other dedications and autograph signatures… And more valuable papers.
What papers?
Look at this letter from Einstein with his signature… Letters, notes, dedicated and autographed first editions: this Gypsy Ballads by Federico García Lorca…
It is dedicated “to Pablo Neruda”! And below I see that it is annotated by Neruda…
“This book was given to me by Federico in 1935”, he wrote by hand. And unpublished by Neruda.
What other treasures do you collect?
Spittoons.
Sorry?
The spittoons were relevant objects: I collect the ones belonging to the rich, luxurious, especially modernist! All of them are precious.
Amazing. Any other collection?
I collect cages of crickets: there were them in the houses for the solace of their nocturnal song.
Dalí had it in his house in Portlligat.
I have a hundred. And watches… more than two thousand!
What kind of watches?
Wall. table. Pocket-size. All dated between the year 1600 and the year 1950.
And that, as a result of what comes?
As a child I broke my grandfather’s watch and my mother cried… Years passed and I decided to restore it, and I succeeded! And I became an expert: I publish the book Los relojes del Congreso, there are ninety of them there! One by one I document, study and analyze them…
He says it with passion.
They governed the official time, everything revolved around those clocks. While I was studying them I thought of Carlos Coppel…
Carlos Copel? Who was he?
German master watchmaker, based in Madrid since 1880, he installed clocks in institutions… and spied on them!
A spy watchmaker?
He would go into the offices to oil the clock… and listen to the conversations, and then report back to the German government.
Very clever.
Studying those watches in offices of Congress and Moncloa… I have heard sensitive phrases, me too: no one sees the watchmaker.
Will you tell me something about what you heard?
No, but soon I will publish The Watches of the Ministry of Labor, as before I published the Watch Catalog of the International Museum of High Pocket Watchmaking.
Pocket-size? My grandfather used one.
They declined because of the war, because the wristwatch was safer there.
Why was it safer?
The pocket one, with a sphere covered in domed glass, gave reflections: the enemy saw you and killed you. And at night they lit a match to see the sphere… and you were dead! From there the wristwatch was born, with a flat dial and phosphorescent handles.
Do you collect anything else, Boatman?
Yes: Baroque polychrome sacred carvings. And I dissect animals, I learned that from the teacher Xavier Palaus, in the Plaza Reial.
The famous taxidermist?
Bears, birds, heads of jíbaros (and of a white missionary), Dalí’s rhinoceros, the deer, the lion… I was passionate about it.
But his business… does not consist of all that.
No, those are great hobbies, my job is to help my clients optimize their businesses and revalue them, resell them… And I manage large fortunes in Madrid.
Is there nervousness among your clients due to the ups and downs of politics?
Macroeconomics works in Spain. As long as there is stability, everything will be fine for them… and for all of us.
