Croqueta y Empanadilla en Japón

by Ana Oncina

More adventures of the dynamic duo of Croqueta & Empanadilla, this time in Japan. Based on a true story.

A Pale View of Hills

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Upon finishing Ishiguro’s last novel, I borrowed, as it turned out, his first.

A Pale View of Hills is very different from Klara and the Sun but equally enjoyable. The narrator, Etsuko, moves between “now” (unspecified year) of England and “then” (unspecified year) of post-war Nagasaki. The dialogues in “then” Japan are invariably repetitive and are bound to get on some reader’s nerves. I loved them. They add, dare I say, authenticity. (I have no clue how they talked in post-war Japan but, in general, people repeat themselves all the time.) Etsuko’s conversations with her father-in-law, Ogata-San, are the best.

A little later that morning, Ogata-San emerged from his room dressed in his jacket and tie. “Are you going out, Father?” I asked. “I thought I’d just pay a visit to Dr Endo.” “Dr Endo?” “Yes, I thought I’d go and see how he was keeping these days.” “But you’re not going before lunch, are you?” “I thought I’d better go quite soon,” he said, looking at his watch. “Endo lives a little way outside Nagasaki now. I’ll need to get a train.” “Well, let me pack you a lunch-box, it won’t take a minute.” “Why, thank you, Etsuko. In that case I’ll wait a few minutes. In fact, I was hoping you’d offer to pack me lunch.” “Then you should have asked,” I said, getting to my feet. “You won’t always get what you want just by hinting like that, Father.” “But I knew you’d pick me up correctly, Etsuko. I have faith in you.” I went through to the kitchen, put on some sandals and stepped down to the tiled floor. A few minutes later, the partition slid open and Ogata-San appeared at the doorway. He seated himself at the threshold to watch me working. “What is that you’re cooking me there?” “Nothing much. Just left-overs from last night. At such short notice, you don’t deserve any better.” “And yet you’ll manage to turn it into something quite appetizing, I’m sure. What’s that you’re doing with the egg? That’s not a left-over too, is it?” “I’m adding an omelette. You’re very fortunate, Father, I’m in such a generous mood.” “An omelette. You must teach me how to do that. Is it difficult?” “Extremely difficult. It would be hopeless you trying to learn at this stage.”

L’amour en fuite

a film by François Truffaut

L’amour en fuite, released 20 years after Les quatre cents coups, brings the adventures of Antoine Doinel to an almost happy end. And, as it happens, it brings to the end the Antoine Doinel cycle by Filmoteca Canaria. I guess I would have enjoyed this comedy more if I didn’t see the other parts of the saga. The flashbacks, taken from the previous films, were not exactly necessary and some of them way too long. The torn-up photo story, however, is utterly brilliant.

Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine, Claude Jade as Christine, Marie-France Pisier as Colette, Dani as Liliane, and introducing Dorothée as Sabine.

Domicile conjugal

a film by François Truffaut

Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is now happily married to Christine (Claude Jade), however his affair with Kyoko (Hiroko Matsumoto) is about to destroy the idyll.

Unlike Les quatre cents coups, this 1970 film is a pretty light-hearted comedy. There are some conspicuous similarities between Domicile conjugal and Bergman’s 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage (Bergman and Truffaut admired each other).

This was the fourth instalment of Las cinco edades de Antoine Doinel. Alas, I missed the third one!

Free live music and stuff in Las Palmas, April 2025

Aprile, dolce dormire.

This is what we’ve seen this unusually cold and rainy (by Canarian standards) April.

• 4 April: «La chica de Arlés» @ Sala Gabriel Rodó, Paseo Principe de Asturias, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  Joven Orquesta de Gran Canaria conducted by Josep Gil played music by Mozart, Bizet, Joaquín Rodrigo, Richard Strauss and Andrea Venet. The full programme available here.
• 11 April: Sofar concert @ Casa de Colón, Calle Colón, 1
  With Anhelo, Hey Chabón and Barbara Calypso.

• 23 April: Jonay Mesa & Luis Sánchez @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, Calle Benito Pérez Galdós, 4
  Jonay Mesa (guitar) and Luis Sánchez (piano) present their forthcoming album Mind Trip. Postponed from 9 April.

  

• 24 April: «Cuentos y leyendas» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  Finally! Twice postponed (24 January and then 6 February), this concert did not disappoint. La Banda Sinfónica Municipal de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria conducted by Juan Roda Sapiña. The programme included
  • James Curnow: To Fly Without Wings
  • Steven Reineke: Pilatus: Mountain of Dragons
  • Steven Reineke: The Witch and the Saint
  • Mitch Leigh: Man of La Mancha
  • Traditional, arr. Philip Sparke: Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock)
  • Otto M. Schwarz: Around the world in 80 Days
  • Encore: Gioachino Rossini: Galop from William Tell Overture

  

• 26 April: «Timples y otras pequeñas guitarras del mundo — 10º Aniversario» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  With Germán López, Althay Páez, Beselch Rodríguez and Yone Rodríguez (timple, cuatro, banjo, ronroco), Leandro Ojeda (double bass) and a guest singer.

  

Three exhibitions in Casa de Colón:

• 13 March — 27 April: «Diálogos de arte y moda: El guardarropa de concierto de Teresa Berganza en la Casa de Colón»
  30 gorgeous dresses from the wardrobe of the famous mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, by designers such as Loris Azzaro, Balenciaga, Elio Berhanyer, Pierre Cardin, Christian Lacroix and Guy Laroche, juxtaposed with works from the collection of Cabildo de Gran Canaria.

  

• 26 March — 15 June: «El enigma Gina Berndtson»
  Works by Gina Berndtson (1909—2001).

  

• 23 April — 25 May: «De papel, tinta e imprenta. Fondo bibliográfico de la Casa de Colón. Siglos XVI al XVII»
  Some nice books from the Ballesteros Archive (now in the possession of Cabildo de Gran Canaria).

  

And two more:

• 27 February – 31 August: «Martín Chirino. Crónica del siglo» @ Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Calle de los Balcones, 9
  A great retrospective celebrating the centenary of Martín Chirino.

  

• 10 April — 16 May: «Dámaso, una corpografía» @ Centro de Artes Plásticas (CAP), Calle Colón, 8
  A set of uninspiring photos by Elia Verona of not particularly interesting body of Pepe Dámaso. The last word of the title (invariably misread as coprografía) does not help.

And that was it for April.

Ullate. La danza de la vida

a film by Elena Cid Sebastián

Mónica Cruz says that when she was a child, Víctor Ullate was considered to be a dancer of the caliber of Baryshnikov and Nureyev. Maybe. I first heard his name yesterday — fittingly, on International Dance Day, thanks to Filmoteca Canaria.

It was no one else but Antonio Gades who, after seeing Víctor dancing, insisted that the boy had to study ballet. So Ullate was accepted to the school of María de Ávila in Zaragoza — the first male student there. In 1964, he became a principal dancer of the Ballet du XX^e siècle of Maurice Béjart. How cool is that?

Like many biographical documentaries, this one suffers from too many talking heads and too many too short snippets of actual Ullate performances. Still, I’m glad I watched it. Now to do my own research.

This film was screened as a part of the cycle Tiempo de memoria, memoria en el tiempo.

Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

I first spotted the name of Kazuo Ishiguro on the back cover of Homo Deus. I had no idea who he was, so I looked him up. Wow.

Next thing, I went to the library in search of his books. And there they were. I picked this one, read the first page and took it with me.

The mildly dystopian society of the novel is dystopian only mildly because it’s pretty much like the present, at least in the West. (Replace “lifted” with “priveleged”, “oblong” with “smartphone”, and “The Yard” with “nursing home”.) The protagonist, Klara the Artificial Friend, religiously follows the First Asimov’s Law — to the degree of self-sacrifice. And how do the humans repay her, the ungrateful monkeys they are? (Jessie the cowgirl of Toy Story springs to mind.)

...Manager placed a hand on my shoulder and said, in a quieter voice than before:

‘Let me tell you something, Klara. Children make promises all the time. They come to the window, they promise all kinds of things. They promise to come back, they ask you not to let anyone else take you away. It happens all the time. But more often than not, the child never comes back. Or worse, the child comes back and ignores the poor AF who’s waited, and instead chooses another. It’s just the way children are. You’ve been watching and learning so much, Klara. Well, here’s another lesson for you. Do you understand?’

I like the way Ishiguro writes. As far as I know, his other works are not narrated by intelligent gynoids, so I don’t expect to find this particular style there. Off to the library to check out the next novel.