When I saw this first I briefly thought it was Montjuïc viewed from Maians Island, where Quixote first saw the sea. But the sun sets west, not south, and those are mountains in the background, not clouds. So it must be Italy, somewhere. Here’s the text.
“I have in my mind the most masterly farts which, however, would be impossible to reproduce.” The farting policeman explains nevertheless how to perform the “Imperial”, the “Terminator” and the “Saturday Night”, which may or may not refer to the comparable artistic frustrations no doubt suffered by the admirable Mr Travolta.
Eurotopia–a Europe consisting of a host of regional statelets–is actually 15 years old, and was produced by historian Henk Wesseling on request of beer magnate Freddy Heineken as a systematic response to the gradual decline in the efficacy of large (multi-)nation-states. He’s not proposing new, mini-nation states as desired by the less crazy Cataloonies, and…
Raquel Meller, the most successful Spanish artist of the 20th century, struggling with pitch and pace in 1914: Sara Montiel, who made her name in the 50s singing old Raquel Meller songs, only much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwvaa-qZVy4 Rudolph Valentino, who would have struggled to compete with barnyard animals had films not been silent: Maybe the X…
A flamencocrat says goodbye. I thought nation branding was the kind of thing undertaken only by scoundrels like Tony Blair and Andrei Zhdanov, both of whom were capable of presenting their villainy with slightly more tact.
I think that’s the subtext to the announcement of a “Reunió de l’Àrea de gais, lesbianes, bisexuals i transsexuals d’EUiA“. Other news just in: EUiA is holding a referendum on whether to introduce a republic; I and the barmaid at Bodega M have declared war on Scunthorpe. We are also addicted to Volare by Super…
Meet El Novio de la Muerte/Death’s Groom, back from the tomb (he wasn’t human anyway), and his angel-wolf Canute: Hear him sing “Agua de los ríos”: More here, including ¡how Canuto saved Death’s Groom from serpents! ¡the treasure and the skeleton’s ring! and ¡El Novio’s unfortunate relationship with the head of the bað̞a’xoθ paddleboat fleet!…
I rather liked this interview with Andalusian import ethnomusicologist Gerard/Gerhard Steingress. Spaniards cheerfully call each other Nazis all the time, but when an Austrian uses the word it carries rather more weight. It will be interesting to see whether institutions down south continue to publish his work. Google him (with the h)–he’s distinctly more impressive…
Items: Shasha: worn-out palm-broom. (Pott, Doppelung (Reduplikation, Gemination) als eines der wichtigsten Bildungsmittel der Sprache, beleuchtet aus Sprachen aller Welttheile (1862)) Gananciosa took a new-palm broom, which she found in the house, and with scratching it, made a sound, that though it was hoarse and rough, agreed well enough with [Escalanta’s] patten… Rinconete and Cortadillo…
Apparently my disco-dancing lies somewhere between that of Zakyfreshkiller of Casablanca (?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i8dfcuA1Bo … and that of Manny of Grimethorpe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTpPmHtggHE I’d tended to think of myself as Maikelyakson, but you certainly can’t win them all.