Secret forest

Yellow Monday

2012-01-30T09:58:00.000+01:00

Art Nouveau lamps on Alexandre III bridge, Grand Palais in the back, Paris, december 2011.

Top Droppers

2012-01-23T10:28:00.000+01:00

I'm not much into blogging these days, for no particular reason other than I thought I'd catch up with my writings. I have not written any book during this time, though. While I figure out how to get back into shape, let me share the list for this month's top droppers through Entrecard. Thank you for your patience!

Sparkle
Some Assembly Required
Dragon's Alley
Blissful Moon
bethere2day
Comedy Plus
Herbs Crafts Gifts
Grandma's Goulash
Jean's Musings
Forced Green

These links will lead you to the blogs' pages on Entrecard.

Birthday

2012-01-13T22:12:00.000+01:00

Hôtel de Ville square, Paris (France), december 2011.

Just posting a two-storey merry-go-round to celebrate that today is my birthday. I never thought my blog would be one day full of photos of Paris :)

Wild Photographer Set Free in the Louvre

2012-01-09T09:43:00.000+01:00

Being used to Spanish museums, where you are not allowed to take pictures even with the flash off, to the point you are chased by security guards as soon as they see you taking out the camera, it is understandable that whenever I enter a museum in a foreign country, as was the case in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France, I do not know how to behave and take leave of my senses.


Two workers in the museum's hall. I fet very "artistic" at the beginning.

This is the only good photo I took of a work of art from the Louvre. It was a very large inflatable (a diver?) that gave us a scare and we never knew why it was there.

No, you have never seen a worse snapshot of the Mona Lisa than this one before (yes, that is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa). I didn't edit this photo at home to add to it this sort of yellowish texture or spots on the glass. It is, in fact, the reflection of the people huddled in front of the picture. I have no explanation for the yellow color, the creepy look and the fact that I got a dark picture for once they let me turn on the flash in a museum!

When I saw on the computer screen my photos from the Louvre I realized they could only be shared in a humorous post, so I started thinking of something witty. Being a bad photographer can be very good for exercising your neurons.

And a Happy New Year

2011-12-31T12:14:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening we arrived from our Christmas trip to Paris. I'll talk about the wonderful time we spent there in upcoming posts; this is just a quick update to congratulate you on the new year and wish you happiness, joy, and fantastic journeys.

Of course, I can't help but share a first couple of photos from our trip. Capturing the Eiffel tower is a hopelessly tourist-y thing to do, and you knew I would do it anyway. I have to say, though, that it was really difficult to get the chance to capture the entire tower.

In a more "parisienne" photo, this is how the tower looked like at the end of a street the first time we approached it. More than half of the tower was hidden by the mist and we had to come back the next day. The twisted branches are Christmas decorations at a store.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-23T09:16:00.000+01:00

This is my Anti-Crisis card for this year. I hope the Government does not find the snowflake too excessive.

Have a very nice Christmas. See you in a week, after my trip to Paris! Joyeux Noël à tous.

Last Pictures of Summer

2011-12-14T09:56:00.000+01:00

I'm posting the remaining pictures from our last trip before embarking on the next one this Christmas. Earlier this year, my family and I landed Seville, Southern Spain, at the same time as the first heat wave of the Andalusian summer.

This sort of awning in front of this building, Seville City Council, in San Francisco square, didn't do much against the sun, but it was highly ornamental — which is, I guess, the reason why the charming Sevillians left it where it was.

Wordless Wednesday.

Martin Scorsese's Short Film The Key to Reserva

2011-12-10T12:39:00.000+01:00

Since the mid seventies, when democracy came in Spain after forty years of gray and long postwar period, one of the things that mark the beginning of Christmas in Catalonia is Freixenet TV commercial campaign. This brand is a champagne producer located in Catalonia, the largest one in the main area of sparkling wine production in the peninsula.

Their TV commercials are broadcast only on Christmas holidays in prime time. They usually have a plot, a long duration and every year a celebrity is invited to star in the spot and congratulate the holidays. Now we are used to see world-famous celebrities advertising a wide range of products on TV, but for several decades commercials in which Gene Kelly, Paul Newman, Raquel Welch, or Kim Basinger, among others, struggled with our language to congratulate us the holidays with a glass of our champagne were a real bombshell.

As for the importance of cava, our sparkling wine or champagne, I'll only tell you that one december, following one of the many political quarrels between Barcelona and Madrid (Catalans had withdrawn our support for Madrid's bid for the Olympic Games), the Spaniards threatened to boycott Catalan products by not purchasing our cava on Christmas. Namely, the worst threat they could think of at that time of the year, and one which they failed to carry out.

In 2007, right before the financial crisis, Freixenet commercials reached their peak with a short film, or a long ad, directed by Martin Scorsese. He was the invited star, both behind the camera and on the screen. Scorsese did not just do the typical advertisement of each year. In response to the new viewing methods and habits, the short was released primarily online and — well, I think it is time for me to shut up and leave you with the video. You can watch it on their site too. May you have a happy anticipation of the holidays.

Freixenet - The Key To Reserva per tvspot

Financial Crisis

2011-12-09T09:34:00.001+01:00

I wonder if we will ever hear good news again about finances. Not so many years ago, when the financial crisis affecting Argentina was in the news every day, we never thought that something like that could happen in our country whatsoever. Nowadays, the Spanish banks do not pass the European Banking Authority stress tests and most of them are in need, they say, of recapitalization. This is just to give an example of what is said these days; I don't have enough knowledge in economics to provide further data (and too many people feels as ignorant as me in this issue). I guess I have to continue to do as always: not stop buying, keep reading dealfun.com scam articles, hire fixed-term deposits, etc., if I want to do something on a small scale for the system not to collapse. Now that I write it down, though, it sounds childish. Is there anything we can actually do to support economy through our consumption patterns, or our dealings with banks? The worst thing is, I imagine our political representatives feel the same way as us. This is what we get — let me say “I guess” once more — for having adopted the euro about ten years ago, when prices rose exorbitantly taking advantage of the confusing currency exchange, without protesting.

Black Bread

2011-12-08T10:00:00.001+01:00

For the first time ever, a film in Catalan has been shortlisted for the Oscars. We can't be more cheerful about it — although the final five nominees are yet to be announced, and Pa negre is a tearjerker. It was directed by Agustí Villaronga and it is based upon a novel of the same name by Emili Teixidor. If you have the chance to watch it, I strongly recommend it to you; it truly has to be a good film, as it was selected by a country, Spain, that usually does not support anything Catalan (and, sadly enough, is the only country that can decide wether a Catalan film is going to the Oscars or not). Leaving politics aside, I hope you enjoy the trailer (it comes with English subtitles).

Unproductive Time

2011-11-25T10:14:00.000+01:00

Estany d'Ivars i Vila-sana (Lleida, Catalonia), summer 2011.

Many things go on when supposedly nothing happens; this could be the caption of this photo. If in need of inspiration, the benefits of boredom are countless and as a writer, all I need is a seemingly endless unproductive time. I have a fake quote attributable to Steve Jobs: "Entertain me with an iPad and I'll be someone with an iPad; let me get bored and I'll invent the iPad." Heh.

Skywatch Friday.

We Need More Bridges

2011-11-23T21:19:00.001+01:00

Isabel II bridge, also known as Triana bridge, Seville, June 2011.

They don't need to be projected by renowned French engineers of the nineteenth century like this one in Seville, but merely bridges to the usual things, between us and the others.

We don't need, in any case, more people who want everyone not like them to have less rights than them. I came across one of these ones today. Well, to these ones, the long-faced, gray-mooded people who should be clamoring for a bridge, I dedicate my photo of the bridge of Triana.

Visit Wordless Wednesday.

Election Day

2011-11-21T09:22:00.001+01:00

On november 20 it was election day in Spain. See this blue map? In blue, the places where the conservative party has won. Only the Catalan nationalist party that governs Catalonia gained seats, as did Amaiur, a Basque nationalist party. The orange spots in the map are the Basque Country (the small one) and Catalonia (on the right).

Spain is the third southern European country in two weeks to see its government felled by the debt crisis in the euro zone, following Italy and Greece. It's been said that Spain voted massively the Popular Party in the hopes of alleviating the pain of Europe's debt crisis. Of course, noone sees the new government doing anything that goes against the market. The Socialist Party, which has governed Spain since 2004, has admitted defeat, but, in my opinion, who has lost more are the citizens, who voted with disappointment, not to mention those two orange stains on the map. Four long years ahead in Catalonia!

Last November

2011-11-11T08:50:00.000+01:00

I took this one a year ago. Skywatch Friday.

Gabriel Ferrater

2011-11-04T09:12:00.000+01:00

Gabriel Ferrater (1922-1972) is the author of a poetic oeuvre composed in a very tight span of time (1958-1963) and soon gathered into one volume: Les dones i els dies (Women and Days ; 1968). Below you'll find two of his poems, which appear in translation in Pen Català's journal, Catalan Writing, along with some words on him by other authors. Happy reading!

"If Robert Frost had grown up during a civil war he might have written like this. (...) Like Wordsworth, Ferrater endeavours to keep his reader in the presence of flesh and blood. But like other exemplary artists of his own century, he keeps his gaze steady and his faith in the staying of art, unyielding even when flesh and blood have to quail and fall." (Seamus HEANEY)

The reader

Among the objects of the world, among the few

objects I have clung to, there is a paperknife:

a short ivory blade,

naked to my hand, which turns brown or pale

according to the light of days and places.

After twenty years I come across it in my pocket

and don't remember who it was who gave me it.

Its edge is jagged, many a time I've picked it

off the floor in some room of mine or between feet

after paying for a night in a bar.

It has cut thousands of pages: memories, lies

of other men (though hardly any women).

And I don't remember who it was who gave me it.

I cannot fabricate another memory, someone's hand.

Gabriel FERRATER, Women and Days, Arc Publications, 2004. Translated by Arthur Terry. Introduction by Seamus Heaney.

"The poems of Les dones i els dies still speak with a deliberately colloquial tone, still attract the reader's attention to what we could call the moral life of an ordinary man, and still know how to transform lucid observation into genuine artistic experience. Any subject is likely to serve as impetus for a good poem. Such is the case of this one, translated into English by Ferrater himself, who explained: «This was suggested by a reading of Huckleberry Finn — Twain's mad running after the body's memories»." (Jordi CORNUDELLA)

Contrariwise

I will say it contrariwise. I will say the frantic

rain in August, a boy's feet

curling on the edge of a diving-plank,

the acute foxhound-jump the scent of lilacs

makes in April, the patience

of the spider writing down its hunger,

the four-legged two-headed body

in an evening-gray vacant lot, the fish

slippery like a violin-bow,

the blue-and-gold of girls biking,

the dog's dramatical thirst, the cutting-through

of lorries' lights into the putrid

dawn of the market-hall, the smooth arms.

I will say what goes from me. I will say nothing

about me.

Gabriel FERRATER, Women and Days. Translated by the Author.

Wishing You a...

2011-10-28T08:14:00.000+02:00

Skywatch Friday: All Quiet on the Front

2011-10-21T08:37:00.000+02:00

Stork photographed on our walk around the pond. Visit more Skywatch Friday participants.

Traditional Halloween Marzipan Cakes: the Recipe

2011-10-15T11:17:00.000+02:00

As I explained last year in my Anti-Halloween post, All-Saints Day festivity in Catalonia is about having a good meal — a very, ultra sweet one, and it actually takes its name from the meal itself, the Castanyada (the Feast of Chestnuts!). So, instead of horror videos or kids in costumes, to mark and anticipate this holiday I'm posting a recipe on my very Catalan blog.

Panellets (small marzipan cakes)

Ingredients

• 500 g of ground raw almonds

• 500 g of sugar

• An egg white

• Grated lemon peel

• 100 g of boiled potatoes
• For coating: one egg white, 500 g of pine nuts, an egg

Boil a potato with its skin, let it cool, peel and crush it. In a bowl, mix almond flour with sugar and grated lemon peel. Add the crushed potatoes and mix it all. Add the beaten egg whites and knead until well integrated into a ball with all the ingredients. Make small balls outh of the dough. Dip them in the beaten egg white and coat with pine nuts. Put them in the oven tray. Paint them over with beaten egg and put in the oven at 170 º for 10 minutes.   They are ready to eat when cool.   

There are many kinds of panellets: with almond, coconut, chocolate, quince...

I shared the best known recipe for panellets — you can make them without potato, or use sweet potato instead. It's not an easy one, but it's worth a try as these cookies can reach very high prices in bakeries. I hope you enjoyed it and, by the way, do you have any favourite Halloween recipe?

Yellow Monday: a Rose

2011-10-10T08:25:00.000+02:00

Visit more Yellow Monday participants.

About Work

2011-10-04T22:43:00.000+02:00

As I have no news about my book, I will talk about work: I'm currently proofreading two books. One of them, dealing with Death Metal, is written by a professor with a degree in art history who approaches the subject with all due respect — fifty hundred pages full of related words such as grind which is grindcore which is hardcore punk or crust punk and in no way is goregrind which is gore and something more, perhaps grind, that make the book impossible to edit, especially considering that the book is in Spanish. It’s not a bad book to work on, though, at least not as much as the most challenging books for me, which happen to be cookbooks. Few syntax, a dozen verbs and tones of ingredients: cookbooks are like a feast of vocabulary. Not only sandwiches, protein snacks, apples, beers, but lists and more lists of disturbing things such as cherimoya, turbot, brine, cephalopods... all likely to be misspelled or at least be suspicious. Let’s forget about cookbooks. The other book I’m currently proofreading is about graphic humor in Mexico, fortunately as funny as its title suggests, with many illustrations and a gripping story of protests against corrupt governments and semi-clandestine publications: one of those books that are a work worth doing.

What about you, what genre of books would you like to work on?

Sunny October

2011-10-03T21:19:00.000+02:00

Castell del Remei (Lleida, Catalonia). Visit more Yellow Monday participants.

(Calmly?) Awaiting

2011-09-30T21:47:00.000+02:00

Andrea had glazed eyes. Robert understands it all, she had said. The voices were growing weak, infirm, as if after echoing from various angles of the house had met again behind the door. Robert had slept a while, but something, footsteps on the gravel of the yard or the noise of some vehicle, had awakened him in Joaquim’s banned room, where adults had told him to pass the night.

Self-translated excerpt of my novella, L'habitació de les mans (Room of Hands)

After two months I have no news about the publication of my book. I'm not worried at all, as it is likely to be published on April, the month par excellence for promoting any book in Catalonia — for further info about it, you can read my Saint George Day posts here and here. The only thing is it's boring to have nothing to say about the process. Do they not know that I have a blog, like everyone else? I need topics for my posts.

Luckily, as I work in a publishing house, I can try and imagine at what point of the process the publication of the book is currently at:

Two months ago I received a call from the publishers asking me to send them the text in digital format. It is almost mandatory that after two months of doing nothing with that text, they loose it. Right now they still do not know that they have lost it, and another month will pass without incident. Then, when they realize the loss, the process will enter the phase of waiting a reasonable time, let's say two more months, until they forget that they once called me. After this reasonable time, I will receive a call from the publishers asking me to send them the text in digital format!

It's good to know all of this in advance. I'm focused on writing my next book, and still have the foolish dream of translating my novella into English myself. I said I'm not worried, but I'm starting to think that, although I have translated only seven pages out of fifty, this foolish dream may be available on Amazon or Smashwords before the original version reaches the bookstores.

A Walk around the Pond

2011-09-28T22:40:00.000+02:00

This weekend we took a walk around the pond of Ivars i Vila-sana (Lleida, Catalonia). It was dried for farming use during the twentieth century and refilled in the nineties as claimed by the neighbours for long years.

The pond was filled with a one-year irrigation water quota used in the fields it now occupies, and is renewed each year. So it is the water that would have been used in these fields anyway. It soon has become again a lesure area... and an excellent place for birdwatching.

These trees were not uprooted when flooding again the fields. They no longer grow leaves — but birds think the whole thing was an excellent idea.

Watery Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday

Book Review: Miss Otis Regrets and Other Short Stories, by Dieter Moitzi

2011-09-24T11:34:00.000+02:00

"[Her existence] will be changed forever by a whimsical decision of hers. But did she have a choice to act in any other fashion? Or wasn't she somehow predestined to do what she's about to do?"

I've been lucky enough to have the chance to read Miss Otis regrets and Other Short Stories and I've had so much fun with it. Let me recommend this book to all those who like good storytelling in small doses and appreciate having a wide range of genres in one book. However, the quote above may suggest a common thread between the different stories — characters making their choices, being fated to making them, facing what to do. Let's see four out of the eight stories in this volume:

Miss Otis goes out her mansion on the highest point of High Street following her sense of duty in a downward path to Market Street and the past. The main character of "The Dump" knows that he shouldn't but just can't go straight past the 'Do not enter!' sign. Farmer Will knows the secrets of nature but at some point has to decide whether or not to keep using this knowledge to meet the needs of men, including his own needs. In the story that closes the book, "Cheat", a young Paris yuppie makes his life's decision.

Who actually made those decisions? This is the question that resonates in my mind after reading the book, due to the complexity, reflected in a readable style, of each of the characters, which is what I like the most of these stories. My favourite is the rural story "Before the Rain", as I live in the countryside and farmer Will somehow reminded me of my late father. You will surely find your favourite among these eight stories and mind you, once you start reading you won't be able to stop.

Dieter Moitzi, raised in Austria and living in Paris, works as a graphic designer besides being a writer. Dieter published Miss Otis Regrets and Other Short Stories and his collection of poems And Somewhere Under on Smashwords and Amazon. Make sure you visit his blog Confessions of a Wannabe Writer for further info about his books and upcoming works.