Free live music in Las Palmas, January 2022

In the notice about the opening of the winter programme Cultura en acción, I read the following:

El acceso es gratuito <...> con la aplicación de las correspondientes medidas [d]e seguridad en atención a la situación sanitaria actual. Entre ellas la solicitud a la entrada del certificado COVID, el aforo limitado y el control de los espacios de separación entre los espectadores.

The similarity with the famous Monty Python sketch is uncanny:

Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms.

Oh well. Where were we?

• 3 January: Xerach Peñate @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, calle Benito Pérez Galdós, 4, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  Xerach Peñate (drums, vocals) with Belén Álvarez Doreste aka LAJALADA (keyboards, voice) and Alba Gil Aceytuno (alto sax).
• 5 January: LAJALADA @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles.



• 15 January: «Piel con piel» @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León
  The Compañía Pieles presented Piel con piel, sort of “the greatest hits” from their shows Ángaro, Canto al trabajo and Tarasca. Featuring the dancers Daniel Morales and Paloma Hurtado.

• 29 January: «Panamericana» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  The Canarian singer Marta Bolaños, accompanied by Shangó Dely (percussion), Misael Jordán (guitar, cuatro), César Martel (trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion, sea shell) and Tana Santana (double bass), took us on a musical journey across Latin America, performing the standards such as Fina estampa by Chabuca Granda, La vaca Mariposa by Simón Díaz and Una casita para ti by Rafael Brito. My personal favourites were Tonada de Luna Llena by Díaz (solo) and Barro Tal Vez by Luis Alberto Spinetta (duo with Tana Santana).

Looking forward to more free music in February.

No siento nada

by Liv Strömquist
translated by Alba Pagán

I could have another you in a minute.

Is the message of Irreplaceable really about women empowerment? Or is its lyric “I” just a last minute-feminised version^* of Leonardo DiCaprio upgrading his latest swimsuit model girlfriend to, um, a newer model? Can we even feel^† love in the times of late capitalism? Is love a threat for capitalism?

If you needed a proof that Sweden can produce much better things than IKEA meatballs and toxic waste, here it is.

Huellas: Manifestaciones Rupestres de las Islas Canarias

a film by Tarek Ode

I quite enjoyed watching this documentary about prehistoric rock art in the Canary Islands. It would be much more convincing though if they lost the embarrassing scenes featuring the “aborigines” (just arrived from Africa, you understand, that’s why they don’t look like aborigines) and “conquistadors”.

Arica

a film by Lars Edman and William Johansson

Everybody known how green Sweden is. Year after year, it is ranked one of the greenest — if not the greenest — countries out there. Of course, depending on the method the greenness is calculated, but still. Very green. For example, it would be unthinkable for a reputable Swedish company to dump their toxic waste “negative value material” some 250 metres from the residential area. Unthinkable.

Another matter is to send it as far as possible, say to South America, and hope that everybody forgets about that. Completely different story.

And this is exactly what happened in the 1980s. The Swedish mining giant Boliden AB, “a metals company with focus on sustainable development”, has shipped about 20,000 tons of smelter sludge containing high concentrations of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and lead, to Arica in northern Chile. The sobering Swedish documentary, the follow-ip to Toxic Playground (2010), makes sure that the story and Arica victims are not forgotten.

So, Boliden. The company I never heard about before, even though I should have. My first association upon watching the film was the fictional Cryolite Corporation from Smilla’s Sense of Snow. To quote one of the characters of the novel,

no one has ever had reason to complain about the corporation’s generosity or openness. And whatever complaints there were have been rectified.

In the spirit of openness, no doubt, Boliden published their version of events, in the “Sustainability” section, which includes a press-release titled “One-sided and misleading film about Boliden’s exports to Chile” as well as “the entire correspondence” between Boliden and United Nations Human Rights Committee, viz. a UNHR letter and Boliden response; two letters in total.

Closer home, Boliden-owned Los Frailes mine, near Aznalcóllar, was the site of Doñana disaster, the worst environmental accident in Spain. 24 years later, Boliden are not in a hurry to pay either, probably expecting that eventually a friendly court will find the claims “time barred”, as it happened in case of Arica.

The screening of the first Documental del Mes this year, in Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and La Palma, was organised by Filmoteca Canaria.

La fin du bal / Il volo interrotto / Прерванный полёт

a song by Vladimir Vysotsky
French lyrics by Maxime Le Forestier
Italian lyrics by Sergio Secondiano Sacchi

Unbelievably, until now I was not aware of this version sung by the author in French.

The (Russian-language) original was composed by Vysotsky for the 1975 sci-fi drama The Flight of Mr. McKinley (Бегство мистера Мак-Кинли) but was left out of the movie. The widely accepted name Прерванный полёт appears to be a back-translation of Le Vol Arrêté, the title of the song on the 1977 French LP Vladimir Vissotsky and the 1981 (posthumous) album Le Vol Arrêté; Vysotsky himself used to announce the song as Недолюбил. The phrase “прерванный полёт” does not appear anywhere in the lyrics.

According to Russian Wikipedia, the author was not quite satisfied with Le Forestier’s translation. (Yes it’s far from being true to the letter; for one, the words “la fin du bal” do not correspond to anything in the Russian text.) But here it is, arguably the most popular Vysotsky song among the Francophone performers. Its Italian counterpart, Il volo interrotto, translated by Sergio Secondiano Sacchi, has been interpreted by the likes of Franchesco Guccini and Eugenio Finardi. I’m sure Vladimir Semyonovich would approve of this wonderful “acquired in translation” bit:

Он начал робко — с ноты «до», но не допел ее, не до...

Ed intonò la voce in “la” la nota non andò più in la...

It probably won’t surprise you that my favourite interpretations of the Russian original is the one by Alexander Gradsky who sadly passed away last year.

El barranco

I went to Teatro Guiniguada to see five short films inspired by the novel El barranco (1959) by Nivaria Tejera, the Cuban-born writer I never heard before. (Now El barranco is on my “to read” list.) Before the screening, there was a videoconference with María Hernández-Ojeda from New York.

El Barranco Teatro Guiniguada, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Thursday, 20 January 2022, 19:00

Estoy de regreso de un sitio remoto by Silvia Navarro Martín Allí se metían para que no los cogieran by Daniasa Curbelo Aquí estuvimos by Macu Machín Tanqueabajo by Estrella Monterrey Viña El barranco by Violeta Gil Quintana

Au revoir là-haut

a film by Albert Dupontel

I missed the beginning of this period drama shown on the telly last night, but what I’ve seen was great. Slightly shorter than Un long dimanche de fiançailles (is it a pun?), it shares with the latter a number of themes and two good actors. The costume design by Mimi Lempicka is stunning. Highly recommended.

Scoop

a film by Woody Allen

According to Wikipedia, Scoop is considered to be one of Woody Allen’s weakest films. So what? I enjoyed it much more than his other collaborations with Scarlett Johansson, viz. the “critically acclaimed” Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, none of which I’d like to watch again.

Ms. Johansson shines in this romantic comedy while Sid “The Great Splendini” himself makes very authentic Woody Allen — or is it the other way around?

La sombra del viento

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The first time I had a go at this book was some five years ago. I liked The Prince of Mist and was ready to take on Zafón in the original. Besides, I just finished Angela Carter’s Fireworks and thought I could read anything.

There was no way that the very first sentence — “Todavía recuerdo aquel amanecer en que mi padre me llevó por primera vez a visitar el Cementerio de los Libros Olvidados” — would not remind me of One Hundred Years of Solitude. After a brisk start (the first chapter is a sheer magic), I found myself slowing down, as if wading through increasingly sticky sand. Upon reaching the chapter dealing with unfortunate events succeeded on Daniel’s sixteenth birthday, I came to a halt. Which was a shame since I was a page away from discovering the novel’s most colourful character, one Fermín Romero de Torres.

The book has laid dormant on the desk for three years. Last spring I dusted it off and started again from the beginning. This time I was not in a hurry and tried to enjoy every single page. Because it’s meant to be enjoyed.

As is the case with almost every novel I’ve read, this one could benefit from being shorter. For instance, a 100-page-long “story within a story”, narrated by Nuria Monfort, explains the things that the reader must have already figured out. La sombra del viento might be a flawed masterpiece but a masterpiece nonetheless. I learned — and, sadly, already forgot — a lot from it. So more reasons to re-read it in another five years’ time.

— No me ofenda, Daniel. Le recuerdo que está usted hablando con un profesional de la seducción, y eso del beso es para amateurs y diletantes de pantufla. A la mujer de verdad se la gana uno poco a poco. Es todo cuestión de psicología, como una buena faena en la plaza.
— O sea, que le dio calabazas.
— A Fermín Romero de Torres no le da calabazas ni san Roque. Lo que ocurre es que el hombre, volviendo a Freud y valga la metáfora, se calienta como una bombilla: al rojo en un tris, y frío otra vez en un soplo. La hembra, sin embargo, y esto es ciencia pura, se calienta como una plancha, ¿entiende usted? Poco a poco, a fuego lento, como la buena escudella. Pero eso sí, cuando ha cogido calor, aquello no hay quien lo pare. Como los altos hornos de Vizcaya.
Sopesé las teorías termodinámicas de Fermín.
— ¿Es eso lo que está usted haciendo con la Bernarda? — pregunté —. ¿Poner la plancha al fuego?
Fermín me guiñó un ojo.
— Esa mujer es un volcán al borde de la erupción, con una libido de magma ígneo y un corazón de santa.

Todo bajo el sol

by Ana Penyas

A quienes tuvieron que abandonar su lugar y a quienes se quedaron como extraños en su tierra.

Mass tourism, property boom and bust, gentrification and displacement on the Mediterranean coast through the eyes of three generations. Don’t let the subject scare you off: the second graphic novel by Ana Penyas (Valencia, 1987) must be one of the best Spanish comics of 2021. Even The Guardian paid attention.

Penyas combines drawing with collage and “multimedia” which include

• A fragment of España es para usted (1964), a Francoist-era guide edited by the Ministry of Tourism;
• A fragment of the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) by Vilgot Sjöman;
• A fragment of the Spanish TV game show Un, dos, tres... responda otra vez aired on 12 April 1985;
• The introduction of the contest A guanyar diners! from the Valencian TV programme El show de Joan Monleón (broadcast between 1989 and 1992);
• Hillary Clinton doing Macarena at the 1996 DNC;
• A fragment of the documentary A tornallom (2002) by Enric Peris and Videohackers;
• A fragment of the documentary Casas vacías, las nuevas ruinas (2014) by Manuel Muñoz Monterde.

For me, the best bits are those which are left without much — or any — explanation, such as the one with Alba’s unnamed lover in Germany (2006).