Impostora

Carlota Fainberg

I just finished this novella by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Here is the review I left on Goodreads:

Claudio, an associate professor at Humbert College, hoping to be appointed full professor soon, is on his way to Buenos Aires to present a paper on a poem by Borges, Blind Pew. At the airport in Pittsburgh, his flight is delayed by a blizzard. He meets a fellow Spaniard, Marcelo, who tells him in great detail about the torrid affair he had in BA a few years back.

This short, multilayered novella about the power of narrative weaves together different themes: there’s the contrast between intellectual, fastidious Claudio, and matter-of-fact, macho Marcelo. There is the mysterious femme fatale, Carlota. Who/what is she? And there is the contrast between the reality of Claudio’s clash at the conference with a feminist lesbian scholar and the irreality of the encounter between Marcelo and Carlota, with its heterosexual tropes and toxic masculinity.

And then there is Claudio’s fondness for the poems of Borges, that he recites to himself as he walks through the streets of Buenos Aires.

I think that my next stop will be Borges and his poems.

Terruquear

Here in France, we’re getting ready to go to the polls to elect our European MPs. There are some 18 different lists. A lot of them are minor token lists or single-issue lists. Among the four big players, three offer unconditional support to the genocidal Netanyahu regime in Israel. La France Insoumise, alone, stands with Gaza….and boy is it taking flak from the establishment media who would rather support the fascist far right than piss off the capitalists!

We have observed this process so many times before. It’s what happened to Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. He was conveniently smeared with unfounded accusations of antisemitism and replaced by an establishment-friendly labor candidate.

It is something Latin America is very familiar with, after decades of CIA interference, to the extent that there is actually a Spanish word for it : terruquear. This word was coined in Peru, where leftist parties and indigenous peoples were relentlessly smeared by the Fujimorists. Terruquear is to falsely accuse leftist opponents of being terrorist sympathizers to delegitimize them. This is what’s happening to La France Insoumise.

That said, a lot of people are not swallowing it anymore. So, we’ll see.

If you live and vote in France, see you at the polls on Sunday. I for one will be voting for Manon Aubry.

¡Soy canosa!

Hello again, blog. It’s been a long time. Life is slowing down and I’m going to give you and me another try. I’ve turned the corner of sixty and I guess it’s time to re-evaluate everything about what I choose to do with myself during the time I have left.

I’ve stopped coloring my hair—heavens, what was all that about ? Embracing the grey—but how do I talk about that in Spanish ?

Las canas : what a lovely word ! In expressions like dejarse las canas, or asumir las canas.

There are so many words in Spanish to talk about hair. La melena, el cabello, el pelo…

I even found a link to a Spanish version of « Hair ». Enjoy !, or rather ¡Disfrute !

Nancy goes to Cuba and returns with fabulous photos

Since we’re on the topic of Cuba, I couldn’t resist sharing the following links. By the way, if you’re into really great travel photography, this website is for you!

Cuba libre: the Buena Vista Social Club never dies

Cuba libre: the revolution never ends

Cuba libre : the people

Cuba libre: architecture

Still on Cuba

Something I do know about Cuba: Silvio Rodriguez. Mujeres is the sort of album I have listened to over and over again. It’s from 1979, though I only discovered it 2008 or 2009.  I felt instantly  right at home, which is not surprising given that I’m also a fan of Joan Baez, the early Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Leonard Cohen. To me, folk is comfort music, like comfort food. It’s what I listen to when I’m blue.  I memorized Río is no time. En estos días had me wondering, is this about a woman, or about Cuba? It’s ambiguous. But it’s beautiful. I know that song almost by heart.

From the point of view of someone learning Spanish, Silvio’s pronunciation is easy to understand. And the lyrics are pure poetry. I have spent hours over the years, listening to the songs, repeating the lines until the Spanish words tripped off the tip of my tongue.

AIIC Spanish Language and Culture course

Barcelona, July 22-28 2012
(report to my employer)

As part of my training objectives, which include consolidating Spanish as a passive working language, I attended the AIIC course on Spanish Language and Culture in Barcelona, from July 22-28.

The course was offered by AIIC, and was designed by and for interpreters. The objectives were to expand the participants’ understanding of Spanish and Spanish culture, through lectures and workshops, followed up by a recap of the terminology and idiomatic expressions used during the sessions. The course included formal lectures, practical exercises and cultural visits.

The themes included: the Spanish economy and the root causes of the current debt crisis, the media in Catalonia, labor market reform, the “Modernismo” movement, modern Spanish history, women writers in Spanish, and the police forces in Spain. We also visited a brewery and the ALBA Synchrotron.

Participants were encouraged to speak Spanish among themselves, even outside the classroom, and surprisingly, we rarely reverted to other languages, such as English or French, which most of the participants also spoke quite well. The participants, all interpreters, except for one Spanish teacher, came from different countries and language backgrounds. For most, Spanish was a comparatively weak language. Yet we were all eager to speak it. In Spanish, we were all on an equal, albeit weak, footing, and perhaps this is why it did not feel artificial to be speaking it among ourselves.

At the end of the course, the organizers asked us to provide feedback in the form of a questionnaire. I appreciated the broad scope of themes, which ranged from economics, to law, science and culture. The one suggestion I made, which admittedly reflects my own personal preference, was to have fewer lectures and more workshops in small groups to focus on practical exercises.