Someone commented that penícula is probably not a gypsy neologism for a film dealing with the sorrows of life but a childish l/n swap, the fruit of orthographical panic caused by a relatively unfamiliar word. Although we’re clearly dealing with a different level of literary accomplishment, I suggest that Finalcial Times falls into the same…
Another sentimental tango from from Tio de la Tiza and the Bebabouched Moors demonstrates a firmly-rooted belief in 1891 Cadiz in the Decadence of the Nation, even before the disaster of 1898 and its long aftermath exacerbated the gulf between a diligently managed press and wild popular fears: Una inocente niña llorando estaba y con…
African-ish bands have been the talk of Andalusian ports since Cervantes. In 1935 the carnival association Orquesta Senegalesa didn’t win any prizes with this song: Aquí está la Orquesta Senegalesa que tocamos las notas con gran limpieza, llegamos desde Londres en un tranvía a visitar la tierra de la alegría. Hemos visto mujeres a cual…
Via EFDL, El Plagio Literario. Quim Monzó, Luis Racionero and Lucía Etxebarría apparently see themselves as practicians of intertextuality rather than plagiarists. But surely virtually no Spanish readers will have read or even heard of their sources, Courrier International, Gilbert Murray and Antonio Colinas. And so, if they don’t indicate their debt for such an…
Deogolwulf has translated the Grand Inquisitor’s Mein politisches Testament: In the internal arrangement of the empire, the nationalities gained a position which was bound to be expressed by the selection and in the activity of public officials from the lowest rank to the highest. In a state thus arranged, it is for natural reasons difficult…
And, judging by the envious comments on Facebook, possibly the first in Southeast Asia: One of the mysteries of globalisation is that I spend quite a lot of time at the moment writing for Chinese exporters. The first foreign I learnt as a kid was fragments of Cantonese. Maybe I’ll get a chance to check…
Para el heladero de una plaza graciense. Lo acaban de echar y no tiene alternativa ni papeles para buscar en el circuito normal. Lleva año y medio aquí y habla bien español (y nepalí). El y un par de familiares que he conocido son muy amables, y me parece buena persona. Preguntas/ideas aquí.
Ah! “Oranges, golden oranges of Spain, the daughters of the sun!” on a promo disc intermediated by David Noades. The campaign was, according to this auction site, actually late 1960s and featured some revolting children and serving suggestions on the inside cover and some rather alarming dwarves on the outside: … but here anyway is…
A friend looking for a childbirth course in one of Spain’s lonelier regions said that ghitting parto and the name of the county capital only ghot veterinary sites. I tried to replicate, and discovered that the municipal authorities can’t spell the name of their principal natural attraction, the Cantabrian brown bear, or oso parto pardo…
I’ve got an old Sibelius CD down in the warehouse, but I couldn’t be ar*ed to find and fetch, and it probably wouldn’t work on Vista anyway. So … I had a look around and installed MuseScore, a free, open source competitor for Finale Notepad (which incidentally now costs $10). David Bolton does a head-to-head…