El Universo Paralelo De Polibio Mayorga

On 12 February 1949 an angry mob stormed into the centre of the Ecuadorian capital of Quito, burning the offices of the city’s main newspaper and its oldest radio station to the ground. On that tragic day Radio Quito had just broadcast a local adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. The novel – first published in 1898 and famously adapted into a radio series by Orson Welles – is one of the earliest stories to depict a conflict between mankind and a hostile race of extra-terrestrials. The large audience - not understanding that it was pure fiction - believed that intergalactic intelligence had invaded the country as all hell broke loose. Thousands began running the streets of Quito looking for shelter, chaos broke out, causing a deadly stampede. People blamed the broadcaster for the tragedy, formed a dense crowd and stormed Radio Quito, setting it ablaze. Several musicians, who were there performing, were killed. In the decades after the second world war, outer space was on everyone’s mind and the ‘space race’ of the 1950s and 60s not only produced groundbreaking efforts to launch artificial satellites, send space probes to Mars and land a human on the moon, it also had a huge impact on the movie and music industry which was taking advantage of the world‘s fascination with space voyages and lunar missions to create instruments capable of mimicking imaginary interstellar sounds. These synthesised space effects that captivated the imagination of a whole generation of young Ecuadoreans coincided with a period in which workers and musicians from the provinces started flocking to Quito and to the commercial port of Guayaquil, some hoping to find regular work, others looking to break into the musical big leagues by getting hired by one of the prestigious urban radio station. These artists brought riches of rhythms to the major Ecuadorian cities who would soon witness the explosion of what would be known as “Andean Cumbia”...