The Carnival of Las Palmas is over and the weather is getting noticeably better. I start to feel thirsty enough for a glass of Weizenbier. But it does not have to be a German one. (I have to say that, during the last year especially, the choice of beer in Canarian supermarkets markedly improved.)
I discovered Ámbar Caesar Avgvsta, made by La Zaragozana brewery, about three years ago, in my favourite corner of now-defunct supermarket El Árbol in Santander. I bought just one bottle because I loved its shape...
...and then I bought quite a few more, because I loved its content too.
Yesterday, Timur and I went to see Black Panther. It was released last Friday and already broke all kinds of records and earned a lot of acclaim. Not just because it is a black film, but because it is a damn good film. Certainly the best superhero movie I’ve seen. But, of course, it is a black film. (And why it shouldn’t be, for vibranium’s sake, if Wakanda is in Africa!) It’s written and directed by African-Americans and starring black actors from all over the place. They even speak Xhosa in Wakanda. True, there is a minor white goodie (Bilbo Baggins) and a secondary white baddie (Gollum); both of them, however, were meant to be outsiders.
Although we watched the Spanish-dubbed version, not only the name of the movie was left as is (not Pantera Negra), they also use the expression “Black Panther” throughout as the king’s title. (I know, I know, it’s Marvel Universe, nobody should really translate Spider-Man as Hombre Araña either, although they do.) Could it also be because pantera is feminine and doesn’t sound right applied to a male? And here’s the problem: T’Challa can only survive because he is surrounded and helped by smart and ass-kicking women. I mean, he is the king all right, I don’t mind him, it’s just “his” (they are not his) women are so much better. Why can’t Wakanda be ruled by a woman, or, better still, by women?
This is the first book by Rosa Montero I ever read. It took me a while.
That’s how it starts:
Como no he tenido hijos, lo más importante que me ha sucedido en la vida son mis muertos, y con ello me refiero a la muerte de mis seres queridos. ¿Te parece lúgubre, quizá incluso morboso? Yo no lo veo así, antes al contrario: me resulta algo tan lógico, tan natural, tan cierto. Sólo en los nacimientos y en las muertes se sale uno del tiempo; la Tierra detiene su rotación y las trivialidades en las que malgastamos las horas caen sobre el suelo como polvo de purpurina. Cuando un niño nace o una persona muere, el presente se parte por la mitad y te deja atisbar por un instante la grieta de lo verdadero: monumental, ardiente e impasible.
Although it is written in easy enough Spanish, it is no easy reading. (As far as I know, there’s no English translation yet.) Montero chose to deal with her personal tragedy, the death of Pablo Lizcano, in a beautiful and creative way. And she succeeded to convert the mourning into — I hesitate to say “a masterpiece”, but a literary gem nonetheless.
But why Marie Skłodowska Curie? I am not sure. Of course, there are parallels — as there must be. Perhaps not too many though. Montero is fascinated with coincidences, as I am*. Along the way, she comes up with some interesting albeit sweeping generalisations which, as generalisations go, sound pretty accurate. In any case, I am grateful to the author for her choice. I don’t usually read biographies (this book isn’t one) and knew surprisingly little about Marie Curie.
So... was/is Mme Curie “a splendid role model and a feminist icon” or a “token woman”? Rosa Montero sees right through Marie’s unsmiling exterior and reveals a beautiful human being, a true friend, a passionate lover... To do that, however, she had to go (and take the reader with her) through Marie’s diary, and I was not comfortable with that. Diaries are not meant to be exposed to the outside world.
I read most of The ridiculous idea... feeling that Montero focuses a lot on Marie and (her loss of) Pierre but not that much on Pablo, who is the reason of her research and the book itself. Turns out, I was not the only one wondering about that. It gets explained in the end — to be precise, in the chapter called Escondido en el centro del silencio. The author’s self-censorship is understandable and must be respected. Still, the few paragraphs which actually speak about Pablo are among the most beautiful parts of the book.
*
I am not a fan of hashtags and honestly can’t see any point in placing them (e.g. #HacerLoQueSeDebe or #HonrarALosPadres) in the paper book, but here you are. To make them a bit more useful, Montero even provided the Index of Hashtags (p. 211), in place of, er, just index. And which hashtag do you think is the most popular? #Coincidencias!
Yesterday, at 20:15, Timur and I were waiting for a bus to Auditorio. One bus, marked FS (Fuera de servicio, “out of service”) but still packed with mythical creatures, passed by. The no. 17, which we eventually boarded, was late and full of unicorns. I don't know where all of them were heading for none stayed till the last stop. As for us, we went to see ST Fusion. This Japanese-Canarian band had to compete with multiple carnival events in Las Palmas and, next door in the same Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, Pastora Soler. Never mind that: ST Fusion had the audience of true jazz lovers.
In his liner notes for Birds of Fire (not the original LP but a CD that I bought in 1994 and still have with me), Gene Santoro wrote:
Fusion is a dirty word, almost an unword. And this despite the fact that fusion is simpler and more accurately descriptive than some mealy-mouthed coinage like “worldbeat”. But it just goes to show once again (thanks, Mr. Orwell!) how a word can crystallize powerful misperceptions, then flatten and distort our understanding of history and culture. Fusion has become a dirty word because of the 1970s jazz-rock hybrid it got pasted onto, and is practically unusable in any other context.
That was written, I reckon, in the late 1980s. Since then, as Bob Dylan said, things have changed: I heard the word “fusion” applied, with sufficient justification, practically to every kind of modern music, including reggaeton.
So... what kind of fusion is ST Fusion’s fusion? I’d say it’s still firmly rooted in that original MO/RTF/WR jazz-rock fusion, and thank goodness for that! But wait, there’s more to it: classical music, hard rock, MPB, (Japanese) folk, even (Japanese) rap... And?
Ted Gioia said:
“A style which includes everything ceases to be a style — it has become an encyclopedia of techniques.” I am happy to report that, apart from formidable technique(s), ST Fusion has got a style, man, and quite a unique one. I came to listen to instrumental music and did not expect to hear, let alone enjoy, Satomi Morimoto’s soprano singing. Guess what, I really did enjoy it, together with her piano playing and most of the stuff the band were doing. But especially these:
A Japanese folk song (fishing song) with Tomás L-P Cruz swapping bass for shamisen*
Halfway through the second song (its title escapes me now), Miguel Manescau broke a string and continued his solo as if nothing happened
Frozen City: Satomi said that she wrote it thinking of Tokyo, “frozen” referring not to its climate but to the people who are far too busy running to and from their work and, for example, nobody stops to ask “¿Que tal, mi niña?” when you are waiting for the bus. I have a theory that not many people in Tokyo even can say that phrase.
I only learned about this concert a few days ago. I did not even know that we have a wind orchestra (aka concert band) in Canarias. Wind orchestra is basically a symphony orchestra without the string section, save for double bass. GCWO were formed in 2014 and played their anaugural concert three years ago, also in the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, in February 2015. Nor did I know any of the composers in the program apart from Isaac Albéniz. The new works of Valencian composer Luis Serrano Alarcón were performed for the first time in Canarias. So, a few discoveries in store for me.
