Oh, Wait Wait.
The awesome radio show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me used a song in-between sections the other day. I’d heard it before — it’s a sort of small internet meme going around these days. I can’t figure out where I first saw it, but I found out a bit about the guy singing from this site. I’m not sure why, but it’s interesting to me.
It’s spring break time!
Lindt chocolate bars. I have bought every type that appeals to me, I think; I just bought one of each type that they had at El Corte Inglés, spending nearly €20. Here’s the list.
I think the mint is the worst one. The best are Hazelnut, Touch of Salt, Creme Catalana, and Fig/Caramel. The chili ones aren’t bad either. Apparently there’s a raspberry one, but I have yet to see it here.
Wow, this entry is inane.
This drawing (made by one of my students, months ago, of how he thought my name was spelled) is completely irrelevant to this post. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) I failed to bring a camera with me yesterday when I went rock climbing in a palce called Valeria (or Las Valeras; I think this is the area and Valeria the town we were in) near Cuenca.
So I had told one of my friends here, a co-worker named Ade, that I was into climbing, and she introduced me (via email) to a friend of hers named Javi who they all call Geme (short for gemelo, identical twin, which he is). And so we made plans and yesterday I met him at the train station in Getafe, about twenty minutes south by regional train, which is where he lives. He in turn drove me to where we met up with his friend Luis, who’s in his mid-thirties and into climbing, and the three of us drove about two hours to where we were climbing. There, we met up with Fran, Elena, and two others whose names I’ve kind of forgotten — Mariano? and Alma-something. They all (more or less) know each other from the climbing gym they go to in Getafe.
Now as I’ve mentioned before, I have more trouble with Spanish in groups speaking Spanish than I ever would with one person speaking Spanish — with one person, I can ask questions. With a group, I’m not going to stop every time I don’t understand. So I miss a lot even when the number ups to two. Not to say that I don’t follow, but I have to try a lot harder. A lot.
In any case, Fran had two ropes, and Mariano (an Argentine!) had one, so we were all set. The site was quite pretty, despite being odd in a few ways — literally on the side of the road for one, and in the midst of someone’s backyard for another. (I think it’s an odd case of eminent domain, maybe — the house was fenced off, and the man I saw was this super-old dude. The house was like literally built into the rocks, besides, and there was a smokey fire burning in the front yard when we arrived.) The weather was grey, but not too cold that I needed more than a light jacket. And, of course, we were climbing!
This image, also, is more or less irrelevant. These dudes were changing a poster on the side of the department store near my house today, so I took a photo. Actually, I took the photo from Guillaume’s balcony, which has an awesome view; my camera was in the flat.
Anyway, I only ended up doing three routes, since it began to rain around 14:00. Nonetheless, it was awesome. The routes were all reasonably easy, for me; I guess my strength and endurance is better than I had thought. In any case, the first was a 5c, which is really like a 5.8 or 5.9 by the YSD system, for the one person reading who has any clue what I’m talking about. (Moreover, rating scales tend to change around the world, at least in my opinion; they only give you some idea of what you’re talking about.) The climb was straightforward, and maybe 10 meters high, although honestly I’m awful at estimating height. It went around a tree, and then straight up the face. It was also already set up, so I just top-roped it. The second and third climbs I did were both 6a, or 5.10a; I remember neither name but both were slightly difficult. I led both; the first had the quick-draws already set into the bolts. The first had a sequence, around the fourth or fifth clip, that was somewhat tough; there weren’t really handhelds to be noticed. At the same time, the next clip was pretty close, and it just wasn’t such a big deal. The second climb was pretty straightforward as well, and probably my favourite; it was also only my second time leading a climb completely (which is to say, I brought up quickdraws myself). None of them were terribly difficult; I’d like to get onto something a little harder next time. But they were all quite a lot of fun.
After, we all went into the tiny town of Lower Valeria, where we found a bar and had some beers (€1.40 per) and giant sandwhiches (€3 per; I had chistorra). We sat and talked (well, I talked only a little) for around an hour, and then took off. (Not before getting to see Elena’s Volkswagen California, a sort-of-camper van VW makes here but not in the US.) All in all, excellent fun.
¿Quieres leer este post en español?
I went and saw the band Yeasayer on Wednesday night. They were originally playing in a small bar-or-so venue, but ended up in something slightly bigger — a place called Sala Caracol (The Snail Room), which was actually pretty great. It’s just a no-frills concert venue, like maybe the Troc in Philly, but a bit smaller?
When I got there, Hush Hush was playing. Hush Hush is this ridiculous singer guy and his recorded music and backup vocals, or such was as it was when I saw him. He danced (quite well) and sang, and honestly while I’m not a huge fan of his myspace selections (they’re not bad, either), I enjoyed him live quite a bit. (His myspace was a bitch to find. Try googling “Hush Hush”.) His songs are sexy and silly, and he danced wearing a black suit jacket, a tie, etc. — the full get up. As he went on, he removed his coat, his tie, his shirt, ending bearded and shirtless. I’m not sure why musicians like to take off their shirts — besides it just being hot as hell up on a stage — but he managed to do it rather endearingly.
During his set, I finagled my way towards the front of the crowd, getting within the first six rows or so; a space I like. After he finished singing, I started talking with three American girls standing near me. They were nice; two of them were studying abroad and the other was visiting. We didn’t really talk about anything meaningful, but it was still nice to chat. (I also saw Mateo and Ashley’s French roommate and her boyfriend, which was funny.) We worked our way forward slightly, talked a bit more, and then Yeasayer came out, around 22:00.
They played a set which was between an hour and an hour and a half long; it was plenty long enough, all in all. It was amazing. This is the second concert I’ve ever gone to alone (the first being Xiu Xiu, a few years ago), and I guess since I’m going alone because I like the band enough that I don’t care, both have been wonderful experiences. Yeasayer’s live set was at least as good as I’d been led to expect. The lead singer was wearing this amazing one-piece suit (they exist?!), and the guitarist/back-up vocalist was in a one-piece camo outfit, but honestly they could’ve been wearing whatever so long as they brought the same energy to their performance.
I was worried at first, since they looked sort of tired, but they definitely found the energy to put on an amazing show; they played most (all, actually, I think?) of the songs from their recently released album, Odd Blood. It’s a dancier and more accessible set of recordings than their previous release, 2007′s All Hour Cymbals. Both albums are pretty eclectic in terms of their offerings; Yeasayer is regularly compared to a number of artists (I’ll leave you to find other reviews); I’d add in some odd names probably. I definitely recommend listening to some of their music; the selections on MySpace are all great, and I really like their two live songs from Les Concerts a Emporter, although to be fair in general La Blogotheque has great taste and does really good videos. This was their first show in Madrid, and they seemed genuinely excited about it; they’ll be playing at Primavera Sound in May, too, so I’ll get to see them again.
In any case, I found myself dancing in the venue, my coat over my arm, laughing with people I didn’t know, singing along when I knew the words, wishing I knew the words, drinking a beer, squeezing out of the crowd to run to the bathroom and following some random girl back through the crowd to my place, dancing some more. They ended the set with “Ambling Alp,” which is their single of the moment, I guess, and was a lot of fun to get to dance with in a group of people all smiling. And then they came back for an encore, and ended their show with the absolutely gorgeous song “Red Cave,” or at least I think so. I know they played it. Then again, who’s reading this and’s gonna contradict me?
“Red Cave” is actually an awesome song. The lyrics of it, or some of the most repeated lyrics, are these: “Mary’s house in the hollow of the white hazel rapid whirlpool and the church of the red cave.” Which is just an English translation of the name of a village in Wales. I like this a lot, for some reason. Nonetheless, I don’t know that they actually played it last.
I actually awoke this morning with “2080,” another song from their older album, stuck in my head, and at this point I’d actually say they played that one last, although like I said my memory’s blurred and I don’t know song names that well anyway. “2080″ is an awesome song, but the lyrics are ridiculous and pretty incomprehensible when you’re listening.
They also have a song called “Mondegreen“, which is kind of funny when you consider that their lyrics are all more or less incomprehensible. Anyway, awesome fun. Hurrah!
Ayer, veía el grupo Yeasayer. Originalmente, tocaran en un pub, pero al final tocaban en un lugar un poco más grande, la Sala Caracol, que me gustó un montón. Es un sitio para conciertos y nada más, un poco como el Trocadero en Filadlfía, pero un poco más pequeño.
Cuándo llegué, Hush Hush, el telonero, tocaba. Hush Hush (lo cuál significa silencio o super-secreto) es un cantante raro, con musica del fondo, o sea así cuándo yo le veía. Él bailaba (bien) y cantó, y de verdad aunque no soy un fan de las selecciones en myspace (no son malos tampoco), me gustaba verle en directo. (Su myspace era dificíl a encontrar. Busca “Hush Hush” en Google.) Sus canciones son eróticos y tontos, y él bailó llevando un traje negro, una corbata — todo formal. Siguiendo, quitó la chaqueta, la corbata, la camisa, acabando con barba y sin camisa. No sé porque los músicos siempre le gustan a quitar las camisas — probablemente porque hace mucho calor en el escenario — pero cumpló a hacerlo de manera encantadora.
Durante su interpretación, caminé sigilosamente al frente de la muchedumbre, llegando a las primeras filas. Después de que terminó Hush Hush, empecé a hablar con tres chicas americanas cerca de mí. Estaban amables; dos de ellas estudian aquí (Erasmus) y la otra esta visitandolas. No dijemos mucho de importa, sino estaba bien a chatear con alguién. (También, vi la compañera de piso de Mateo y Ashley, con su novio.) Con las chicas americanas, nos movemos un poco más adelante, hablamos un poco más, y entonces empezó Yeasayer, a cerca de las 22:00.
Tocaban para más o menos una hora y cuarta; estaba bastante larga para mí. Y estaba increíble. Esto es el segundo concierto a que he ido solo (el primero fue Xiu Xiu, hace unos años), y supongo que puedo irme solo porque me gusta tanto el grupo, y por eso los dos conciertos eran magnificos. La interpretación de Yeasayer era a lo menos tan bueno que esperaba. El cantante principal llevó un traje enterizo (¡existen!) y la guitarista lleva un traje de camo entero, pero de hecho que podían llevar cualquiera con la energía que llevaban también.
Estaba un poco ansioso, porque parcían cansados, pero en efecto econtraron la energía de hacer un espectáculo. Tocaban mucho (todo, creo) de las canciones del álbum más reciente, Odd Blood (Sangre Rara). Son unos grabaciones más accesible y más dado a bailar que los de la salida anterior, All Hour Cymbals (2007; Címbalos de todas las horas). Los dos álbumes están un poco ecléctico en sus canciones; Yeasayer es comparada a muchos artistas (puedes encontrar cuales en criticas). Seguro que recomiendo escuchar a su música; las canciones en MySpace son todas buenas, y me gusta mucho las canciones en directos de Les Concerts a Emporter, aunque sea verdad que en general La Blogotheque tiene buen gusto y hace videos super-buenos. Era su primera vez tocando en Madrid, y Yeasayer parecía muy entusiasmado con el concierto; tocarán también en Barcelona en Primavera Sound en mayo, así que podría verlos otra vez.
En cualquiera caso, bailaba en la sala, mi abrigo sobre un brazo, riendome con gente que no conocí, cantando con la canción cuando sabía las palabras, esperando que conociera las palabras, tomando una cerveza, apretandome dentro de la muchedumbre para ir a los servicios y siguiendo una chica al azar para volver a mi sitio, bailando un poco más. Ellos terminan su interpretación con “Ambling Alp,” que es su canción de exito ahora, supongo, y era muy divertido a bailar en un grupo de personas todos sonrientes. Y entonces volvieron Yeasayer para un bis, y terminaron el concierto con la canción preciosa, “Red Cave” (Cueva Roja), o creo que sí. Seguro que la tocaron. Pero también, ¿quién está leyendo esto y va a corregirme?
“Red Cave” es de hecho una canción increíble. La letra, o alguna parte de la letra repetida, es: “Mary’s house in the hollow of the white hazel rapid whirlpool and the church of the red cave.” (La casa de Mary, en el hueco de la avellana blanca, remolino rapido y la iglesia de la cueva roja.) Lo cuál es una tradicción de galés a inglés del nombre de una villa en Gales. Me gusta este hecho, para ninguna razón. Sin embargo, no sé si en serio la tocaron al final.
En efecto, desperté esta mañana con “2080,” otra canción del álbum mas antiguo, en mi mente. En este momento, dirré que esta canción fue la ultima, aunque como dije mi memoria no es exacto, y no conozco los nombres de canciones muy bien en cualquier modo. “2080″ es brillante, aunque la letra es ridiculo y casi incomprensible cuándo escuches.
También, Yeasayer tienen una canción que se llama “Mondegreen“, una palabra inglesa que significa exactamente esto — las palabras que inventas cuándo no entiendes que dice un cantante. Es gracioso que tiene este grupo una canción así, según que su letra en general es incomprensible. De todos modos, muy divertido. Hurra!
Ingredients
1 medium eggplant, cubed
1/2 onion (or small onion), diced
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 package of tofu, pressed over towels to remove the water if not very dry, and then cubed
10-or-so [white button] mushrooms
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup cream
hot sauce of some sort (I used leftover adobo from canned chipotle peppers); you could also use indian spices like cumin and turmeric, or cayenne
(olive) oil
salt and pepper
corn starch
rice (or noodles, I suppose)
Directions
0. Cook rice, if using.
1. Heat the oil, and add the onion. After a minute or two, add the cubes of eggplant. Cook on medium, adding oil as necessary (a few tablespoons may be needed; eggplant loves the stuff), and stirring every few minutes, until eggplant glistens and is done; it may take a while. When it nears done, add the garlic. (Add it earlier if you’re not a garlic fan.)
2. Toss the tofu in some corn starch (a few spoonfuls is fine) and black pepper to coat.
3. In a separate pan, heat a tablespoon of oil on medium or medium-high. When hot, add the tofu. Cook, tossing occasionally, until it crisps and browns. It will take less time than the eggplant.
4. Add the cream, hot sauce, and mushrooms to the eggplant. (If you like, you could also sautee the mushrooms separately as well. It would taste better, but involves three things cooking at once.) Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are hot. Add the coconut. Add the tofu.
5. Serve over rice. Delicious!
I found, a while back, Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage, which is an awesome list of tons of common errors people make in usage. Every so often I want to look something up and I end up there; it’s listed high on google searches so some of you may have run across it before.
In any case, I was looking over his page on non-errors this evening, and I came across two things that I was interested to find. This particular page is filled with usages that others often cite as wrong, but which Brians says are pretty standard, at least in American English. For example: split infinitives, which aren’t wrong despite so many people disliking them; ending sentences with prepositions; the pronunciation of the word forte. There are two that interested me because they are about things that often bother me when people do them, but I’ve never had someone to point to in the past.
1. The phrase “feeling bad”. To quote this page: ‘”I feel bad” is standard English, as in “This t-shirt smells bad” (not [emphasis mine] “badly”). “I feel badly” is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they know better . . . People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know they mean to say they’re healthy.’
My reasoning has always been two-fold on this: first off, it sounds weird to say “feel[s] badly.” More logically, however: An adverb (“badly”) modifies a verb; to say “I feel badly” would be to imply that the way you felt was not being done well. As in, “I feel badly” — “I’m not very good at feeling.” Similarly, a shirt can’t smell badly — it can’t smell at all. It might smell bad. It can’t smell grossly, either. Just gross. “Well” is a little more complicated — it can function as an adjective as well as an adverb. This blog post from a few years back highlights the questions — why do people do this? Is it hypercorrection? I think it is. So saying “I feel well” is fine (implying as it does that you’re healthy), but you probably don’t “feel badly.”
2. Healthy vs. healthful. Again, the quote: ‘Logic and tradition are on the side of those who make this distinction, but I’m afraid phrases like “part of a healthy breakfast” have become so widespread that they are rarely perceived as erroneous except by the hyper-correct. On a related though slightly different subject, it is interesting to note that in English adjectives connected to sensations in the perceiver of an object or event are often transferred to the object or event itself. In the 19th century it was not uncommon to refer, for instance, to a “grateful shower of rain,” and we still say “a gloomy landscape,” “a cheerful sight” and “a happy coincidence.”‘
Mostly I just like the examples of emotions being transfered to an event, but I’m also glad to see that he’s of the mind that while technically best to refer to food as healthful and people as healthy, it’s pretty much fine to refer to both as healthy.
So I challenge you, knowing me, to think of the answer to this riddle:
What is one of the most difficult things for me in terms of connecting with (men) here in Madrid?
There are a number of good answers. And I’m interested to hear what you would answer for me. But I have one that I run into surprisingly often, beyond the simple problem of language: I don’t like football. (Which is to say, soccer.) It’s this gigantic field of conversation that I’m entirely cut off from — I don’t know the players, nor the teams, nor who’s good nor who’s bad. I don’t really care for watching it. I don’t really enjoy the culture. I remember reading, in an NYT Magazine article about people with Williams Syndrome, about how some woman with the disorder had learned all about a sport so she could discuss it with people. I’m not there, where I need or want to do that. I never will be. But I do recognize that I miss out on something because I’m not into it. I would probably be able to make friends with dudes a lot more easily on the basis of this alone — it’s just something that’s easy to bring up. Bonding over a love for weird movies is a lot harder.
(The quote from the Dobbs article is from a part where one of the women’s mothers is talking: “Nicki has always especially loved to talk to men. And in the last few years, by chance, she figured out how to do it. She reads the sports section in the paper, and she watches baseball and football on TV, and she has learned enough about this stuff that she can talk to any man about what the 49ers or the Giants are up to. My husband gets annoyed when I say this, but I don’t mean it badly: men typically have that superficial kind of conversation, you know — weather and sports. And Nicki can do it. She knows what team won last night and where the standings are. It’s only so deep. But she can do it. And she can talk a good long while with most men about it.”)
Which is, fine, a weird comparison to make, perhaps. But I think it’s also an interesting one, because it hits on the necessity to immediately come upon a conversation topic with someone when you’re not literally forced into each other’s company. Football is loads more simple than film, music, or . . . I dunno. What would I want to talk about, anyway? Maybe seven or eight years ago I had this supremely uncomfortable conversation with a friend, wherein I first really recognized that I was missing out on something by not caring about sports — that by not being interested, I missed out on this superficial level of communication that somehow walks the line towards meaningful, despite its mass appeal. To be fair, I get the same problems with not being interested in television — that just comes up more rarely here. It’s a lot easier when you’re working together with someone, or traveling — but a lot more difficult when you’re not terribly extroverted, nor can you easily hit upon a topic on which to connect. (Another good one, according to some social psychology studies, is agreeing on something you dislike. I like this fact.)
Relatedly, I’ve been climbing about once a week, every Thursday. And I have yet to really talk to anyone at the climbing gym. Climbers are notoriously friendly, and so I find myself wondering whether I’m unapproachable-looking. I also think that sooner or later I’m going to have to be un-shy. Shyness is a personal trait that also fits into this conversation, as seems clear. Especially since at a climbing gym, say, football is a lot less likely to come up than at a traditional exercise gymnasium. Much more likely to talk about random shit, or about climbing in general. I’d doubtless have spoken to people before, even given my being shy, but for the fact that I’m also nervous about my Spanish, and have trouble getting a read on people’s relationships. At climbing gyms, people tend to say hi to people they only vaguely know — in the gyms I’ve been to in the States, I’ve always ended up knowing random people.
For example, I see a few of the same men every time I’m at the gym. We’ve even started to say hello. But I can’t bring myself to say more than that one word to them. It doesn’t help that they’re better climbers than me — I really should be going in twice a week if I want to get better — but obviously that doesn’t matter so much. It’s not even that hard. It’s just that recurring reminder of my not being able to be friendly. I’ll overcome it. Or not. I know what to do. I just need to actually do it.
The weird part is that it’s not really fear of rejection. Anyone I have talked to, however briefly, has been friendly. There’s just some invisible barrier that’s unbreachable. We’ll see.
So I’ve been teaching my secondary students using stories on occasion, and on Wednesday I began using a re-told version of Rip van Winkle, given to me by one of the teachers I work with — she had read it when she was in school.
It’s a kind of awful re-telling, but the simplicity does make it easy enough for them to understand, with a few explanations every two paragraphs or so. And it’s divided into chapters, which helps. So we’re reading Rip van Winkle, or they’re reading it aloud as I correct their pronunciation (they haven’t learned any of the rules for pronouncing things in the past, or most of them haven’t — they’re filled with play-éd and walk-éd), and we come across a section that says something along the lines of, “he came across a narrow passage through high rocks.” I figure they won’t understand the word “passage,” so we stop, and I ask if they get the phrase.
“Profe,” they ask me, “¿qué significa ‘narrow’?”
So I try to explain to them the difference between wide and narrow. I say, “Take Arturo Soría, for example. That’s a wide street.” I gesture with my hands. “And Umbria, here? It’s narrow.” They get it after a moment.
“Estrecho?” Álvaro asks. “Ancho y estrecho.”
“Exactly,” I tell him. “Estrecho, angosto. Narrow.”
He looks at me, and laughs. “Justin,” he says, “angosto no es una palabra en español.” (It’s worth remembering that they don’t say my name right. They neither call me Justin nor Who-steen, but rather something that I would spell Yasteen in English phonetics. Or, in IPA (which I’m trying to learn the basics of) maybe jæstiːn.)
I tell them I think maybe it’s Italian, and that I believe them, as the rest rush in to agree with Álvaro. But I go and look in a Spanish language dictionary just the same. And there it is. Angosto, ta. adj. Que tiene menos anchura de lo que es habitual. Sin. estrecho. A definition. Actually, to be fair, it wasn’t that definition. I looked this up in a different dictionary. But nonetheless.
When we asked Tomás, a student who moved here from Argentina a few years ago, he knew the word. Which makes since, seeing as how I think I learned it there. And when I look it up in an English-Spanish dictionary, it comes out as “AmL” in usage. Nonetheless.
1/2 to 3/4 cup sliced white mushrooms
1 package seitan
1/2 to 3/4 cup coconut milk
2 tsp curry
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pound shaped pasta (farfalle, e.g.)
Cook the pasta. Saute the mushrooms in hot oil, roughly 3 minutes. Salt and pepper them as they cook. Add the seitan and spices. When it has warmed slightly, add the coconut milk. Heat until everything is warmed. Add to pasta.
Simple, but really good. Maybe in part because it had been a long time since I ate seitan.
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