Miles en París

by Salva Rubio and Sagar

One day in April 1949, a 22-year-old trumpeter called Miles Davis received an unexpected phone call. His friend Kenny Clarke invited him to play at the Paris International Jazz Festival. After initial reluctance Miles, who had never been abroad before, accepted the invitation. In Paris he met the actress and singer Juliette Gréco and... Did I say too much?

How come that two Spaniards authored and published this book first in French, as Miles et Juliette, and the Spanish version second, I wonder. The dialogue in the “original” must be in Franglais because in Miles en París it is in Spanglish, or even Franglañol. So what?

Las Mujeres Mueven Montañas

by Pepita Sandwich

To get to the ship, Jeanne Baret had to disguise herself as a man. Annie Smith Peck caused scandal by her hiking attire. Van Buren sisters were even arrested a few times for wearing trousers. In their lifetime, neither Baret nor Mary Anning were ever credited for their discoveries.

Women adventurers, explorers, scientists. Most of them, underappreciated, ignored, forgotten. Now this wonderful comic book by Pepita Sandwich (Josefina Guarracino) brings their stories to life.

• Jeanne Baret (1740—1807), a French botanist, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe;
• Annie Londonderry (1870—1947), the first woman to bicycle around the world;
• Mary Anning (1799—1847), an English palaeontologist, discoverer of ichthyosaur and Plesiosaurus;
• Annie Smith Peck (1850—1935), a record-setting mountaineer;
• Josephine Peary (1863—1955), an American Arctic explorer;
• Augusta (1884—1959) and Adeline (1889—1949) Van Buren, American transcontinental motorcyclists;
• Freya Stark (1893—1993), a British explorer and writer;
• Ynés Mexía (1870—1938), a Mexican-American botanist;
• Ángeles Alvariño (1916—2005), a Spanish oceanographer and marine biologist;
• Eva Dickson (1905—1938), a Swedish explorer, rally driver and aviator; the first woman to cross the Sahara desert by car;
• Rosaly Lopes (born 1957), a Brazilian planetary geologist and volcanologist, a 2006 Guinness record holder as the discoverer of the most active volcanoes anywhere;
• Junko Tabei (1939—2016), the first woman to summit Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits;
• Barbara Hillary (1931—2019), the first African-American woman to reach the North and South poles;
• Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937), the first woman in space.

Latin Lover: locucions llatines per a totes les circumstàncies

by Mino Milani
illustrated by Sara Not
translated by Anna Casassas i Figueras

Hey, I just finished reading my first book in Catalan. With a little help of Google Translate, but I did it. I wasn’t my fault really. By some reason, it was not a Spanish edition of the book — originally written in Italian, still as Latin Lover but subtitled Detti latini per tutte le occasioni — but a Catalan one that found its way to the library of Las Palmas. So I had no choice.

The good news is that Catalan seems to be very humorous language. Which other tongue constantly uses expressions like “hi ha” (there is) or “ho he” (I have)? Funny, funny stuff.

Latin Lover contains 40 annotated and beautifully illustrated Latin sayings. No matter if you (think that you) know their meanings already: what is important is what the author has to say about them. Check out cogito ergo sum, conditio sine qua non, homo homini lupus, ipse dixit, or qualis pater, talis filus, et cetera — nice examples how to take everything, including Latin maxims, cum grano salis.

Lola Vendetta y Los Hombres

by Raquel Riba Rossy

I learned about Lola thanks to Lila (pun intended) and, naturally, took this book home as soon as I saw it in the library. I read it in a couple of hours. What can I say? It’s funny, it’s bold, its black-white-red drawings are gorgeous, and... with a protagonist like Lola, you can’t go wrong really. It even does have its own soundtrack (see below). I’d love to recommend it without reservations; as it happens, I do have some.

There’s a Russian idiom «начать за здравие, а кончить за упокой» which, I think, is appropriate here. (I’m still looking for a decent English equivalent. In a meantime, I can offer the German “Als Tiger starten und als Bettvorleger landen”.) You see, Lola Vendetta is a comic heroine and as such is imaginary. Her deeds are exaggerated, as comic deeds tend to be. No matter how satisfying it is to see Lola dispatching the members of a “manada” with her trusty katana — look, I am against violence, and I’m telling you, it is satisfying — we all understand that this is not real. Yet this is how things are done in Lola’s world. On the contrary, when Lola finally hangs up her sword (after finding, um, a cuddly boy she would like to keep), it feels utterly false. Worse still, the book ends with a pathetic “Letter to men” where Lola declares that she does not want to fight anymore. So who, if I can ask, is gonna fight? Didn’t our brother Bob Marley command otherwise?

But there is always a hope for lovers of swift comic justice. I spy your sword in a “break glass in case of emergency” cabinet. It’s only a matter a time, Lola, only a matter a time.

Mujeres al alba

a film by Mercedes Ortega

An atmospheric documentary featuring women from all eight Canary islands, in their seventies/eighties/nineties and even one centenarian (Juana from Fuerteventura), telling stories of their impossibly hard lives in (equally impossibly) beautiful settings.

This talk and screening were (what was supposed to be) the first event in the series Empoderarte in Espacio Digital (Calle Cádiz, 34), organised by Cabildo de Gran Canaria. (Right now I got the message that all activities in this centre are suspended until at least 26 March.)

The Searchers

a film by John Ford

Another Western by John Ford starring John Wayne, this time in glorious Technicolor. “Texas, 1868”, says the first (and the last) intertitle, followed by a view of the same Monument Valley, even more out of place (of the presumed location) as it was in Stagecoach; and, just as in that film, I didn’t care much for Wayne’s character (albeit masterfully portrayed), one crazy alpha-macho dude called Ethan. Nor was I convinced by the purported happy ending, viz. “the rescue” of Debby (Natalie Wood). The film is saved by its sense of humour and infinitely more likeable characters such as Laurie (Vera Miles), the Rev. Capt. Clayton (Ward Bond) and Mose (Hank Worden). And, of course, the “nice wedding party, considering nobody got married” punch-up between Marty (Jeffrey Hunter) and Charlie (Ken Curtis).

Manual ultravioleta: Feminismo para mirar el mundo

by Clara Serra

There is no such thing as gender violence. There is domestic violence.
Neither male chauvinism nor feminism. The world needs humanism.
Women have greater emotional intelligence.
Inclusive language is redundant/ungrammatical/ridiculous.
We have equal rights now. Why do we still need feminism?

We hear or read nonsense like this on a daily basis. In her book, Clara Serra does an excellent job debunking common myths (or, rather, flagrant lies) and doubts about feminism patiently, in an accessible language and with watertight logic. Ah, if only voters cared for logic. Or read books, for that matter.

Quite unlike the books I reviewed here last month, viz. Mala mujer and El Placer, this one has no illustrations at all, save the cover art. But what a treasure it is!

Certain Women

a film by Kelly Reichardt

Of all American movies I’ve seen, Certain Women, so far the most successful film of the “neo-neorealist” director Kelly Reichardt, is probably the most un-American. For all I know, if not for the snow-mountains in the background — nice landscape but not exactly what I’d call breathtaking — it could have been Finnish, as the four female leads are all fine with not saying much.

The three plot lines are based on three short stories by Maile Meloy; their intersections seem rather artificial and unnecessary. The first story, starring Laura Dern as Laura, has the most action and most dialogue, some of it rather funny. The second part, featuring Michelle Williams, is a bit pointless. And the last one is a beauty. It could — I’d say it should — have been made into a short-ish feature on its own. Lily Gladstone shines as the ranch hand Jamie. The final dialogue between Jamie and Beth (Kristen Stewart) in Livingston (according to Google Maps, 130 miles, slightly over two hours drive — not four hours! — from Belfry) is as masterfully understated as it is heartbreaking.

This film was shown as a part of Ciclo de cine Semana de la Mujer organised by Centro de Arte La Regenta (calle León y Castillo, 427).