Free stuff in Las Palmas, January 2024

There was not much in terms of free live music in Las Palmas this month. So I didn’t see any.

Some arty stuff:

• 8 November 2023 — January 2024: «Mis Vientos» @ Airport César Manrique, T2, Lanzarote
  This exhibition of sculptures by César Corujo Saavedra was supposed to last till 10^th December but evidently stayed on longer as we saw it in the airport of Lanzarote in January. In the catalogue that I took with me, a photo of each sculpture is accompanied by a poem and a title of a hard rock song (inspiration? suggested listening?), with a heavy emphasis on Led Zeppelin.

  

• 15—31 January: «Mi Primera Exposición» @ Biblioteca Pública del Estado en Las Palmas, Avda. Muelle de Las Palmas
  An exhibition of paintings by Antonio Santana Trujillo.
• 19 January — 23 February: «Otros mundos» @ Parque de San Telmo
  Forty photographs of the planets of the Solar system captured by the space probes of NASA and ESA, selected by Michael Benson.

  

And an excursion:

• 27 January: Visita guiada por el Risco de San Juan
  Free guided tour of the colourful San Juan neighbourhood organised by the Fundación Canaria Farrah.

  

Looking forward to live music in February.

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”.

Stratvs Rosado 2010

This beautifully presented rosé comes from Bodegas Stratvs in La Geria, Lanzarote. The bottle has the words “El Vino del Fuego de la Tierra del Viento” in raised letters on it. The Stratvs’s own tasting notes say:

Aromas of red fruits — strawberries and mulberries, fresh herbs, fine patisseries and red caramel.

I am not sure about all that but it went down nicely anyway. At €8.50 per half-litre, it is not the cheapest beverage around. Still, now and then I feel the urge to support the local economy while having a good drink, and this is a very decent wine for the purpose.

More photos of rosé wine @ Shutterstock.

Death at Intervals

by José Saramago
translated by Margaret Jull Costa

It was not until my last visit to lanzarote that I learned about the death — and life — of this island’s famous resident, the nobel prize winner, thanks to the obituary, published in local magazine, which mentioned several of his novels, including death at intervals, which was why I picked the book from the library, and was not disappointed.

Saramago’s novella, satire, fable, parable, fairy tale, or whatever you may wish to call this book, deals with a curious case of death taking a break, a sabbatical, so to speak, from her duties, in an unnamed landlocked country, with rather catastrophic consequences for national economy and psyche, not to mention the concomitant rise of maphia, with a ph (to distinguish it from the original mafia), followed, seven months later, by death’s spectacular comeback, accompanied by epistolary manifestations, further damage to national psyche, and the discovery that death, with a small d, is actually a person, more specifically, a female, of uncertain age but who, at certain moments, can look like a very pretty woman of thirty-six — I knew it! — who, apparently, never failed in her undertakings before, until now, that is, when the postal service refuses to deliver her letter to, wait, wait, a single man, a musician, who once said that he couldn’t see himself in any piece of music other than chopin’s étude opus twenty-five, number nine, in g flat major, also known as “Le papillon”, but that’s about all I was going to tell you, thank you for reading, good night.