December 2011 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

La lengua secreta de los cazadores

–¿Cómo se llama un cerdo silvestre que acaba de salir del bosque? –¡Jaballí! Not one of mine. If you prefer your animal tame and stuffed, Lenox has a bull’s head for you. I almost acquired one from a bar that was closing down, but there were parasites crawling out of its orifices.

Brilliant Christmas card from the Spanish central bank

They may not have the last laugh, but there are worse ways to go. (Via Barcepundit)

Interchangeability of nominative and genitive forms of Spanish patronymics?

I’m thinking of examples like Álvarez/Álvaro, Alves/ Alves, Benítez/Benito, Díaz/Diego, Domínguez/Domingo, Fernández/Fernando, Giménez/Ximeno, Gómez/Guillermo, González/Gonzalo, Gutiérrez/Gutierre, Henríquez/Henrique, Ibáñez/Juan, Juánez/Juan, López/Lope, Márquez/Marco, Martínez/Martín, Menéndez/Menendo, Muñoz/Muño, Núñez/Nuño, Ordóñez/Ordoño, Ortiz/Ortún, Peláez/Pelayo, Pérez/Pere, Ramírez/Ramiro, Rodríguez/Rodrigo, Ruiz/Ruy, Sánchez/Sancho, Suárez/Suero, Vázquez/Vasco, Velázquez/Velasco.

Is Spain a massive nihilist literary experiment?

Lenox comments on Almería’s latest tourism whizz: the incomprehensible in pursuit of the inexistent, perhaps. For some reason this recalled Milorad Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars, a wearisome metaphor for the failure of Serbia, which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend – I can’t even remember whether I was given the male or the female edition. Some…

Vitoria, golfing Mecca, or Golgotha of the ecologists/indignados?

Carlos links to an interesting story about the sodomy committed on Vitoria’s new slogan by some no doubt well-paid functionary, “donde el verde es capital” becoming, word for word, “where the green is capital.” I think we can all agree that, in a miserable start to their meaningless year as European Green Capital, they have…

Is it the fault of the Greeks that the Germans are the way they supposedly are?

I sense potential for reparations claims citing Aesop.

Jupiter, the heron, and his subjects, according to Caxton.

Project blog feed and site have changed address

The project blog feed on oreneta will be dying shortly, so please update to the feed of the official site. There’s a 301 redirect, but you may also wish to change bookmarks for the project blog to ElOrganillero.com. Now at some stage I need to fix the template!

Fragments of Schwitters’ Ursonate in Buñuel’s script for Solér’s Si usted no puede, yo sí

There are a couple of bursts around 5’10” into this scene involving don Inocencio from el Prat del Llobregat, the peculiar proprietor of hostel Barceloneta.

How many days to save the euro?

I think I know what a day is, but I’m not so sure about “save” and “euro.”