Apparently we anglocabrones used to think that crossing oneself was prerequisite to being Spanish. Here’s Juan Goytisolo in La Guardia, a short story written in the early 1950s, partly available in GBS: From the window I saw a group of conscripts in parade dress. It was Sunday and the officers’ room was deserted. Its furniture…
Re Erasmus students returning from Spain with an incomprehensible Andalusian accent, here’s Rafael Alberti learning how to tort proper at the dame’s school to which he has been sent following some inappropriate excretion chez the Sisters of Carmel: With Mrs Concha I learnt some Biblical History, being very impressed by Joseph, who was sold by…
I’ve often flippantly wondered whether the taboo on excretion at holy sites so thoroughly documented by Michael Gilleland is the origin of the old joke about the antiquarian who locks his shop during absences to prevent folks depositing even more Dan Brown. Here’s Melchor de Santa Cruz de Dueñas’ take (Floresta española, 1574) on Mark…
The Emperor Wu is very pleased with his new toy. Now all that needs to happen is for someone else to enter all the walks we actually do and correct the details of the ones already in there. The purpose of this kind of stuff is to enable inclusion of walks and similar activities run…
There was a lot of it: Mirá, hay putas graciosas más que hermosas, y putas que son putas antes que mochachas, hay putas apasionadas, putas estregadas, afeitadas, putas esclarecidas, putas reputadas, reprobadas, hay putas mozárabes de Zocodover, putas carceveras: hay putas de cabo de ronda, putas ursianas, putas güelfas, gibelinas, putas injuinas, putas de rapalo…
Spanish insurers Fiatc have a fairly grisly reputation for health provision care in general. Here‘s how they deal with you once you’re dead: “When we arrived at the crematorium we were taken in through the rear entrance, down a long corridor, where we passed someone else laying in a coffin, a woman walking down the…
George Sandford has left a fascinating comment on this post, which deals with an amusing 19th century literary-historical hoax–purported correspondence between Ferdinand the Catholic and an esoteric global selection of fellow-monarchs. George is family of the alleged editor, Brother Antonio the Goth, and thus of the Christian clan kidnapped by the Moors when they invaded…
–Uncle, I’ve decided to get baptised and celebrate my first communion next week. Will you be there? –Only if you buy yourself a buttplug. I’m not that easily shocked, but etc etc
“The Mahávansa and the Rájaratnákari state, that the king Walakanabhaya, or according to the latter work, Deveny Paetissa, caused the temple of a heathen named Girrie (doubtless Giri) to be destroyed, and caused to be constructed upon its site twelve temples consecrated to Sákya, which communicated with each other; and in the midst of which…