Right.

Cait’s question is this (paraphrased/rephrased): In languages like Spanish, where gender is embedded in every noun and every adjective, is the gender something people think about, or is it just a part of life? I mean the significance of gendered language, especially in cases where gender isn’t clear-cut. Secondarily, how do queers in Spanish interact with the gendered language? Under some circumstances, where one would want to be ambiguous about one’s partner, how does one handle that in Spanish? In English, you can say, “I went out with someone last night,” or “I was really in love with my ex,” and it’s gender-neutral. But you can’t do that in Spanish—you have to pick a side. How do queers handle that?

(She had just watched the film XXY, which is where some of the questions originated for her. I haven’t seen it, so I have no more to say specifically.)

I responded to her email, and I’ll rephrase what I said to her below.

In essence, I think because of the gendered nature of the language, gay men tend to use a lot more feminizing language in Spanish. (I don’t actually think I’ve met any natively-Spanish lesbians, although it may be true for them as well.) I guess gay men do this in English, too—girl, she, queen, etc. Between each other, Spanish gay men do sometimes mix up the feminine and masculine forms intentionally. But I’ve read, and I can definitely believe this, that to native speakers of gendered languages, the gender just seems natural and implicit.

There’s an article I read a while back in the New York Times about, generally, linguistics, but more explicitly about how differences in language may (or may not) affect the way we think. Here’s a relevant quote:

Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.

…

In recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward objects around them. In the 1990s, for example, psychologists compared associations between speakers of German and Spanish. There are many inanimate nouns whose genders in the two languages are reversed. A German bridge is feminine (die Brücke), for instance, but el puente is masculine in Spanish; and the same goes for clocks, apartments, forks, newspapers, pockets, shoulders, stamps, tickets, violins, the sun, the world and love.

On the other hand, an apple is masculine for Germans but feminine in Spanish, and so are chairs, brooms, butterflies, keys, mountains, stars, tables, wars, rain and garbage. When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant. With objects like mountains or chairs, which are “he” in German but “she” in Spanish, the effect was reversed. (Deutscher)

That is to say, I think people pretty much never think about gender when it comes to their nouns. I mean, I once asked someone about the variety of feminine and masculine forms for referring to the genitalia, and whether they thought it was weird, and I essentially got the answer of “No.” (To be fair, there are probably some people who do think this is strange. I don’t know.)

Here’s another relevant quote from that article:

Consider this example. Suppose I say to you in English that “I spent yesterday evening with a neighbor.” You may well wonder whether my companion was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we were speaking French or German, I wouldn’t have the privilege to equivocate in this way, because I would be obliged by the grammar of language to choose between voisin or voisine; Nachbar or Nachbarin. These languages compel me to inform you about the sex of my companion whether or not I feel it is remotely your concern. This does not mean, of course, that English speakers are unable to understand the differences between evenings spent with male or female neighbors, but it does mean that they do not have to consider the sexes of neighbors, friends, teachers and a host of other persons each time they come up in a conversation, whereas speakers of some languages are obliged to do so. (Deutscher)

This is sort of the best article ever.

As to the question of ambiguity, I think that one could handle this in two ways.

a. An individual who wishes to wholly obscure his/her actions/desires has to lie from the outset. In English, Paloma might say “I was hanging out with my significant other last night,” but in Spanish she couldn’t. She’d could say, instead, “Salí con mi novio anoche” if she wanted to avoid expressing that she has a girlfriend.

b. On the other hand, there are one-gendered words. There are also ways of avoiding genders in speech. A friend told me once that he had discussed his boyfriend with his flatmates for a while without ever mentioning that the boyfriend was, in fact, male—presumably by saying things like, “La persona con quien estoy saliendo,” or referring to his “friend,” without specifically suggesting romantic leanings. I never got why he didn’t just come out with it, since he wasn’t closeted. I think he, at least, enjoyed the game—but he grew up bilingual. One could also just go about using the word “amante” (lover), which is masculine and feminine both. (“Mi amante,” my lover, would be gender-neutral, but when the word still does takes a gendered article—el amante, la amante. This doesn’t apply in French, at least not this way.)

Of course, one can sometimes say “their” as an ambiguous pronoun in romance languages: “ellos” can contain men and women; “su” (“their”)(“leur” in French) is gender-neutral as well.

But I’ve never watched the dancing around a topic happen. I reason that there’s probably a lot more secrets/lying in young queers in Spanish than in English, but then again young not-out queers tend to be secretive in any language, I would guess.

Este blog voy a escribir primero en castellano, y luego traducir a inglés. Así debes sospechar que voy a hacer unos errores más que normal, aunque probablamente no hay mucha gente leyendo aquí quien lee en castellano como su primer idioma.

Bueno. Hace un mes y medio ahora, leí el libro nuevo de Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El Juego del Ángel. Lo dejé en Madrid, pero noté unos pasajes que me gustaron. Lo leía durante el mes que pasé viajando—que es descrito en los blogs anteriores—y en general me gustó. Es verdad que no es un libro literario como uno de las obras del canon, o por lo menos en mi opinión no es de la literatura alta. Pero es buen escrito, en general. Ruiz Zafón sabe muy bien escribir como una poeta, y crear una misteria. El problema empieza en su manera de describir las tinieblas—quiere tanto a construir un ambiente misterioso, oscuro, que empieza a usar las mismas palabras cada unas páginas, repetiendolas hasta que se hacen sin significancia. Quizás esto no es justo. Siempre entendí el aura que quiere instigar. Pero ¿qué causará tantas imagenes del oscuro? Y no es solo esto—hay tantos clichés de las novelas policiales, tantos dichos cuotidianos…. “Ben hombre, pero se ahoga en un vaso de agua.”

Al final, leí los doscientos páginas al final del libro en unos cinco dís. Era divertido y me enganchó. Pero no entendí muy bien lo que pasó al final. Al principio, creí que había un problema de comprensión de lenguaje, pero después de leer un poco de lo que hay en el red, descidí que no, que el problema era que Ruiz Zafón no sabía muy bien como terminar su obra. Eso es una situación que pasa mucho (a mi sorpresa)—un escritor construye su vehículo del cuento, pero se hace tan complicado que no puede resolver todos de los obstaculos que ha creado. A veces, así el escritor escribe una conclusión que se deja mucho impreciso. A veces, como que creo ha pasado aquí, el autor intenta a unir todo en vueltas, resultando que el lector se deja incompleto, con preguntas. A mi me encanta los libros de fantasia, de magia o ciencia ficción. Pero si te vas a crear un mundo nuevo, tienes que seguir tus propias reglas. No puedes dejarlas cuándo lo quieres. Hay dos tipos de misterio: los en que puedes solucionar el misterio por leer, y los en que no hay ni una pista hasta el final. En El Juego del Ángel hay muchas cosas que puedes adivinar desde el principio—¡empieza con el título!—pero hay mucho en las páginas finales que no tiene nada a ver con el resto.

En cualquiera caso, creo que sí, recomiendo el libro para alguien demás a leer. Pero no voy a leer el otro libro de Ruiz Zafón, La Sombra del Viento, como mi proximo libro en castellano. Acepto consejo de que debe ser el proximo.

Aquí presento una cita del libro, que empieza a la página 169 de El Juego del Ángel. Si has leído La Sombra del Viento, quizás la reconocerás.

Enfilé una pasarela que conduceía a una de las entradas [al laberitno] y penetré lentamente en un largo corredor de libros que describía una curva ascendente. Al llegar al final de la curva, el túnel se bifurcaba en cuatro pasadizos y formaba un pequeño círculo desde el que ascendía una escalera de caracol que se perdía en las alturas. Subí las escaleras hasta encontrar un rellano desde el que partían tres túneles. Elegí uno de ellos, el que creía que conducía hacia el corazón de la estructura, y me aventuré. A mi paso rozaba los lomos de centenares de libros con los dedos. Me dejé impregnar del olor, de la luz que conseguía filtrarse entre rendijas y de las linternas de cristal horadadas en la estructura de madera y que flotaba en espejos y penumbras. Caminé sin rumbo por espacio de casi treinta minutos hasta llegar a una suerte de cámara cerrada en la que había una mesa y una silla. Las paredes estaban hechas de libros y parecían sólidas a excepción de un pequeño resquicio del que daba la impresión que alguien se había llevado un tomo. Decidí que aquél iba a ser el nuevo hogar de Los Pasos del Cielo. Contemplé la portada por última vez y releí el primer párrafo, imaginando el instante en que, si así lo quería la fortuna, y muchos años después de que yo estuviese muerto y olvidado, alguien recorrería aquel mismo camino y llegaría a aquella sala para encontrar un libro desconocido en el que había entregado todo cuanto tenía que ofrecer. Lo coloqué allí, sintiendo que era yo el que se quedaba en el estante.

Ofrezco también una traducción a inglés, abajo.

Okay, now in English. I’m translating from Spanish this time, but you shouldn’t notice much difference.

Okay. A month and a half ago, I read the new book by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel’s Game. I don’t believe it’s yet released in English; I read it in Spanish. I left it in Madrid, although I noted down some passages I liked. I read it during the month I spent traveling—as described in previous posts—and in general I rather liked it. It’s true that it’s no member of the literary canon; it’s not high literature in my opinion. But it’s well-written, in general. Ruiz Zafón knows how to write like a poet, and how to create a mystery. The problem begins in his descriptions of darkness—he wants so badly to create this dark, mysterious mood that he begins to use the same words every few pages, repeating them until they lose meaning. Perhaps that’s not fair. I always understood the aura that he’s trying to inspire. But I wonder what so many images of darkness cause. It’s not just this… there are so many clichés from detective novels, so many repeated sayings… “A good man, but he’d drown in a glass of water.” (“A good man, but he makes mountains out of molehills” would be a non-literal translation. Or without using such a shit expression, maybe, “A good man, but he can see a lake in a glass of water.”)

At the end, I read the last 200 pages in maybe five days. It was fun and engaging. However, I didn’t understand entirely what happened at the end. At first, I thought I hadn’t understood something with the language, but after reading a bit on the ‘net, I decided that, no, the problem was that Ruiz Zafón didn’t really know how to end his work. This is a situation that comes to pass surprisingly often—a writer constructs his story vehicle, but makes it so complicated that he cannot resolve each of the obstacles he’s created. Sometimes, in this case the author writes a very vague conclusion. And sometimes, as I think has happened here, the author runs in circles trying to bring everything together, leaving the reader incomplete, with questions. I love fantasy books, or science fiction. But if you’re going to create a new world, you have to follow your own rules. You can’t ignore them when you feel like it. There are two types of mystery: those in which you can solve the mystery as you read, and those in which there’s no hint until the end. In The Angel’s Game there are many things you can guess from the start—start with the title!—but there’s quite a bit at the end which has nothing to do with the rest of the book.

In any case, I think that yes, I would recommend this book to someone else. But I’m not going to read Ruiz Zafón’s other book, The Shadow of the Wind, as my next book in Spanish. I’ll accept advice as to what it should be instead.

Here’s a translation of a quote from the book, beginning on page 169 of The Angel’s Game. If you’ve read The Shadow of the Wind, you’ll probably recognize something.

I started down a narrow passage that led to an entrance [to the labyrinth], and hesitantly entered a long corridor of books which curved upwards before me. At the end of the curve, the tunnel split and circled into a spiral staircase that rose up, until it was lost in heights. I climbed the stairs until I reached a landing, at which three new tunnels began. I chose one, thinking that it would bring me to the building’s heart, and started forward. As I walked, I brushed my fingers along the spines of the hundreds of books in my path. I let myself fill up with the smell, and with the light that managed to filter in through the cracks, from the glass lanterns affixed to the wood above me, the light that floated in mirrors and half-darkness. I walked aimlessly through the space for almost 30 minutes, until I arrived at a small enclosed room which held a table and chair. The walls themselves were made of books, and appeared solid except for a small gap which suggested that someone had removed a book. I decided that this would be the new home for Footsteps in the Sky. I contemplated the front cover for one last time and re-read the first paragraph, imagining the instant in which, if luck would have it, many years after I was dead and forgotten someone would take that same path and arrive at that same room to find an unknown book, a book in which I had put everything I had. Then, I fit the book into the space, feeling as though it were I who would stay there in the shelf.

The original in Spanish is above.

A veces, él recibe notas del pasado,
bruscas en la redacción pero directas en su importancia;
salen del mar como burbujas
y le siguien a algún muro olvidado.
Cuándo vienen a él,
están como luciérnagas abajo de una luna menguante
y él cierra sus ojos ante de ellas
en un movimiento de vergüenza.
Las palabras siempre están escrito en una letra dura,
la escritura más hendidura que perfil,
la tinta negra a veces disipada.
Siempre están inevitable.
Cuándo cena con su novia,
o cambia líneas en las profundidades del metro,
de vez en cuando ve reflexiones,
o palabras en relieve
en las arrugas de la cara de ella,
o en las cajas plásticas que alojan los anuncios.
Un día, en frustración, ella le llamó a las altas horas de la noche
y le preguntó a explicar sus distracciones.
“No puedo,” él dijo a traves del transmisor,
“y no sé si es algo que quiero.”
La presente no es ineludible
no más que el pasado es incapaz de olvidar;
sus sueños no le dejarán en paz,
porque él todavía no los ha dejado.

Translating a poem is more difficult than translating much anything else, in part because one tends to use words very specifically. I’ve never taken a translation class, which I’m sad about, because I think translation is fascinating; here are some general observations:

• translating to Spanish is interesting because pronouns become debated — where are they necessary? I could write this entire poem without making the sex of its characters clear, something that’s quite difficult to do in English. I decided to use pronouns quite a bit, because otherwise a lot would be unclear. For example, in the line “en las arrugas de la cara de ella” (“in the wrinkles on her face”), I could translate this as “en las arrugas de su cara” — but then it becomes unclear whose face I’m speaking of. To me, at least.
• This translation made two oddities in the English apparent: (1) “script more indentation than outline” — this doesn’t quite make sense. I’m trying to imply that the ink is less important than the impression on the paper, but really both words describe the same thing. I didn’t change this. (2) “‘I can’t, he said into the receiver” — it seems okay to me to use the word “receiver” to mean “mouthpiece.” But really the receiver of a telephone is the earpiece, no? I’m not sure if I should change it. The word “receiver” really could mean either part. But in Spanish, I decided to go with “transmitter,” “transmisor.” I’m pretty sure this makes the most sense.
• As with any translation when you’re not fully bilingual, and even sometimes then (I’d imagine), I used a dictionary a fair bit. Sometimes just to check where an accent goes (I’m sure I forgot a few), and sometimes for words — ineludible (inescapable) is a new favorite. I’m still unsure as to exactly what I mean by “short” (“short in their wording and direct in their import”), so my translation (brusco, brusque) might not be quite right.
• I’m not sure how I feel about the last lines. In English: “his dreams will not leave him alone, / because he has not yet given them up.” In Spanish, I translated them using the same verb, as though it were “his dreams will not leave him alone, / because he will not leave them alone.” In Spanish, to me, it sounds less awkward. But I’m shaky about it. Equally shaky: “and hold him to a forgotten wall” doesn’t translate well as “y le siguien a algún muro olvidado.” But I don’t think “and they follow him to some forgotten wall” is exactly wrong, either. I’m not quite sure that I mean “hold” as a synonym to “press.”

In any case, this was a surprisingly fun exercise. I should do it again.

As always, words used in Spanish have mouseover text for the definitions in English — just put your cursor over the words in itallics.

The word for swollen in Spanish is hinchado. There’s no good reason that I should know this word, except for the song below. The band is an Argentine one, called Onda Vaga.
Onda Vaga – Así
(note that the last half-minute is applause)

When I was in Bilbao, I stayed with a really nice girl named Ashley, who had the lyrics from this song painted on the wall above her bed. The song hasn’t got much in the way of lyrics:

Yo dormiría así, detrás de la montaña;
y tendría mil arañas colgadas,
hipopotamos rosados hinchados,
yo dormiría así de plastico fantastico

There’s another bit that’s a play on the words olé, olor, and oler. Anyway, it’s got ridiculous lyrics. Which I’m okay with.

Point is this: I remembered the word hinchado because it’s so ridiculous in this context. (Swollen pink hippos!) And then it came in handy.

Anyway, not sure if this counts.

I went to a concert last night, with one of the women I work with (Ade), her boyfriend (Javi), and their friends (David, Álvaro, María, Pedro/Peter). The concert was for this Catalunyan band called Standstill (pronounced, if you’re a Spaniard with the typical problem with s-consonant pairs*, as eh-Stand-eh-Still), which Ade introduced me to months and months ago. She and her friends have seen the band quite a few times — for example, Javi has seen them more than ten times. They sound a bit like the American band Murder by Death, I guess. That’s what I thought the first time I heard them. Wikipedia articles say they’re post-hardcore, but frankly that seems misplaced; they’re pretty much just alt-rock. (Maybe their English albums were harder? I’ve only ever heard their more recent, Spanish-language stuff.)

The concert was pretty awesome. I like this band quite a lot, and I know their music fairly well (although not the lyrics — it’s even harder to make out foreign-language lyrics), so it was fun. But here’s where we get to the possibly-a-pet-peeve thing: in recent years, I’ve found it more and more likely for the light-operators at concerts to flash floodlights at the crowd. It seems completely fucking bizarre and unnecessary, and they did it more than often last night. It seems to me that if you want the band to see the crowd, you turn on the house lights. But blinding the crowd with floodlights to punctuate the music? Bizarre. I know I’ve got sensitive eyes, but I just don’t get it.

In any case, it was a lot of fun.

Earlier yesterday, I went hiking in La Pedriza, also in the Guadarrama, with this German guy named Max and his Czech friend Luci. It was a lot of fun. We drove up to Manzanares el Real, the town to the north of Madrid that has a castle, and into the park. It was a wet day, so there were very few people around — unlike the last time I was up here. (I never actually finished that post — like a month ago, this kid Tim and I tried to go climbing, but ended up mostly just hiking around, which was okay since it’s gorgeous.) It didn’t rain until we’d pretty much reached the peaks, four hours in, so we had four beautiful hours of hiking up to the ridges, and then four hours of hiking back through sparse rain, mist, and (holy shit, what!? it’s May!) some snow. The misty valleys were quite gorgeous as well, and as always in the wilderness, it’s kind of fun to climb without seeing a soul.

We ended up going slightly off-course for a bit, and doing something that was more climbing than hiking. Which I liked a lot, as always, although I’m glad we did it before it started raining. All in all, we ended up without mishap.

It’s always interesting hiking by map versus hiking by guidebook. There are benefits to both, and they’re best used in unison I would say. But Max had a map, and we were just following the guide-lines and trail blazes (and cairns†). The difference in this approach is that you can get off-track and still be fine, but it’s easier to get off-track. I kind of like both — I don’t know that I’m up for going with the newer way of hiking, using GPS.

In any case, yes, a good day.

† A cairn is a pile of rocks used to signal a trail, these days. It’s what I’ve called them for a long while. I guess I picked up the word from someone at a camp?, because my father doesn’t use it. It’s an awesome word. Max used the word “stone man,” which I immediately intuited to mean cairn, but now I see was probably his direct translation from German.

Anyway, I think the wiki article on the subject is super-fascinating. We don’t usually even have any idea what subjunctive is. This is the coolest part: “The verb ‘be’ is so distinguishable because its forms in Modern English derive from three different [emphasis mine] Old English verbs: beon (be, being, been), wesan (was, is), and waeron (am, art, are, were).” WHAT?

I started thinking about it when I was explaining how you had to say “If I were smarter” rather than (the seemingly correct, and oft-misused) “If I was smarter”. Of course, both sound okay — but the former is subjunctive (to be is only conjugated as “were” in subjunctive) while the latter, while carrying the same meaning, doesn’t really fit. (Both express an unreal situation, so both fall into subjunctive.) In Spanish, it should be “Si fuera más inteligente…” Unsure Spanish-speakers like me might say something else (“If I am smarter”?)… For example, even here I’m unsure: it could also be “Si sea más inteligente…”, although I think conditional statements don’t use present subjunctive. The real problem is that the use is a lot more complex in Spanish, so you can’t really understand it by translation.

(Edited a day later to be more understandable and correct a mistake.)

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!

1. what’re (what are)
2. shan’t (shall not)
3. amn’t (am not)
4. ain’t (am not)
5. mustn’t (must not)
6. shouldn’t've (should not have)
7. wouldn’t've (would not have)
8. you’re (you are)
9. couldn’t've (could not have)
10. who’re (who are)
11. ya’all or ya’ll (you all)
12. won’t (will not)

My answer, at least for those I listed, is yes. To all of them. Some are more common than others.

I got into this conversation briefly yesterday, actually: I like using linguistic play-words in English, things like amn’t which no one uses. (That’s not true: amn’t is pretty Scottish, generally, and also sometimes Irish. “Amn’t I silly?” It’s almost always used as a question. In American English, we generally use “Aren’t I?” and rarely “Am I not?”; “Ain’t I?” would be the slang version.) I like intentionally mis-speaking; I tend to use “ain’t” because I think it’s funny, and I often abbreviate “them” as “‘em,” because I can. (Conversely, I use “ya’all” because I disike that English has no plural second person, and not because it’s fun.)

In English, when I do these things, it comes off in a few ways. With some, it comes off as snooty or stuck-up. With others, it comes off as unlearned. With others, it comes off as nothing at all, except maybe a bit weird.

On the other hand, if I try and do this sort of thing in Spanish, I look like I’m making a mistake. This is completely reasonable — if I mis-use ser instead of estar, it sounds wrong — even if someone who speaks Spanish might do it as a joke. (This isn’t a good example, because I’ve never tried to do this — I just can’t think of a better one.) So, imagine I say “Él es ebrio” instead of “Él está ebrio.” I sound wrong.

Like I said, not the best example, but I find the idea an interesting one.

Music: I’ve been listening to this album by this guy named David Åhlén, called We Sprout in Thy Soil. I’m not sure where I heard about it anymore, but I really like him. Also pretty great? Devendra Banhart’s new album, What Will We Be.

When I was in Argentina, there were several autistic kids who told me I spoke bad Spanish — and I mean, to them I do. I really don’t think my Spanish is all that bad, but I think I’m probably confusing these kids somewhat when I speak to them in Spanish, especially with poor grammar. With the older kids, it’s fine, but also less necessary; they speak better English. With the infantil classes, though, it’s impossible to just speak English to them, not when you’re asking them to do things. (It’s also forcing me to re-learn command forms, the imperative voice. The commands for vosotros are very different from the commands for Usted: Decidlo and Diganlo, for “Say it!”. In English, we only have one imperative conjugation, as far as I can think. Not so in Spanish. Oh, but don’t worry; we make up for it in irregularities.)

The kids I teach seem to like me, for the most part. Some of the girls in the four-year-olds class started chanting my name when I came in, and giggled when I looked at them. The older kids are more difficult, of course, but I haven’t really had to punish them yet, so I think they appreciate that. There’s one class where I’m probably going to have to, soon. Which is too bad; I’d rather not. Part of this is just that I’m in most of my classes with another teacher, as I’ve mentioned. And part of it is that I think they are interested in me — I don’t think I would say they respect me, but they’re not sure where to place me.

I’ve got to say, though, that in some of the classes of the late primary school, it’s impossible to keep the kids quiet. They quiet down when you ask them to, but only for seconds. It’s kind of funny, but of course it’s also bloody frustrating. I don’t yell much, and I don’t want to have to. The other day, I asked students to be quiet, and clapped my hands loudly. And one of the kids, who didn’t get it, started clapping too. And immediately realized that he wasn’t supposed to, blushed, and covered his face. It was pretty hilarious. (Not too embarrassing for him; the other kids didn’t get it either.)

The thing that’s kind of fun and kind of frustrating about teaching English is trying to figure out how to do new things, but continue to reinforce the old — it’s no use if you teach tons of vocabulary but don’t go over it. The problem is trying to figure out how to make the students use their words. I make them copy down the vocabulary, and I ask them to write definitions next to it, so I think next week I’m going to go over some stuff, and ask for sentences — have them spend fifteen minutes writing sentences. Then I’ll have to correct them, but that’ll be okay; better if they’re getting feedback, no? But it’s just hard since they’re not at a level where asking questions gets complete answers. Some of these kids follow pretty well, but many don’t even do that; almost none can speak competently in English.

I think I’d like teaching a lot more if I felt like my students were learning regularly, rather than at this slow pace. This is the same problem I had with working with autism, no? That the kids are improving at this infinitesimal rate.

I guess I like thinking about this as learning about learning. And from that lookout point, this is great.

Instead, he says, “He changed his name?”

“No, he died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” she says.

Fish pulls out of the parking lot and onto the frontage road. No worries. He wants to tell her how much he hates that expression, but doesn’t. “Don’t worry” makes sense, is a pat on the arm, a reassurance from one person to another, but “No worries” implies that there aren’t any worries anywhere in the world, and that’s just not true. (Eggers, How We Are Hungry, pp.77-78.)

I say “no worries” a lot. Hmmm. I should quit that. I agree with him.

Unrelatedly: The other day, in the first year of secondary (approximately 7th grade), one of the students asked how to say diéresis in English. The diaeresis (that’s the word in English, although there’s some variation in spelling) is a diacritic mark, which is to say it’s a mark that is added to another letter to indicate something, usually pronunciation. (Diacritic marks are really fucking cool; they’re most interesting perhaps in Hebrew, where every vowel is represented so (see: the wiki article if you have more interest in this; I didn’t really read the page, to be honest, because I speak no Hebrew). But they’re neat in general, and more often used in Spanish than in English. In English, we have a few words with diaeresis, and a few accents, but not much else. In Spanish, they use the tilde (eñ, which is the symbol above the n there and also the way such an n is described), as well as the cedilla (Barçla;a is short for Barcelona). And, of course, accents constantly.)

Anyway, right, in Spanish the diéresis is used solely to indicate when a u is to be pronounced, as near as I understand. So there’s a metro stop called Argüelles, which is pronounced Ar-gway-yase (if you say that with an American accent, anyway), more or less. Without the diaeresis, it’d be Ar-gay-yase; the g-followed-by-u stops you from pronouncing the g like an English h. Right? Anyway, so this kid asked how to spell his last name, which I believe is Yagüe, a name I’ve seen a bit around here. And I told him that I thought we called that sign an umlaut*.

We do, sort of. An umlaut is the German word for the symbol, and it is a word for it that we use in English (although the two can look different). However, an umlaut changes the pronunciation of a letter; in german, a sounds different from ä. So it’s not that I was wrong, but rather that, well, okay. I was wrong. His name has no umlaut in it; it has a diaeresis. The diaeresis’ function is to indicate that you pronounce the vowel differently, yes, but not in the same way. In Spanish, it turns the sound from a single vowel (eh) to a diphthong (uay), where there are two vowel-sounds combined. (We worked a bit on English diphthong pronunciation this week and last, in some of my classes. I like the word a lot. Diff-thong.)

My error was based in the fact that, a, I’d only heard the term diaeresis once or twice before, and b, the way you write the diaeresis in HTML is to write ü, for example, to make ü — the uml standing for umlaut. I looked this up the other day, told the teacher, and found myself really interested. (The teacher was vaguely interested, but honestly I’m just geeking out; I don’t blame her for not caring.)

In English, a diaeresis does something sort of different. It tells us not that the vowel is pronounced, but that it is pronounced separately — that the two vowels are a hiatus, rather than a diphthong. We don’t really use them anymore; we just expect people to learn when they pronounce words thusly. But The New Yorker magazine still does use them — coöperate, for example, or naïve — and so do some people. It does make sense, after all; it’s also pretty. (Better, certainly, than writing co-operate, which people sometimes do.) Zoölogy is another good example — the presence of the diaeresis indicates, hey!, this isn’t pronounced zoo-ology, but rather zo-ology. Of course, so would simply looking at the word. (You can pronounce it zoo-ology if you want; I think that pronunciation has actually become more common, but that doesn’t make it correct. (On the other hand, people who talk about this often also insist that the word forte should be pronounced like the word fort, but that’s not quite true.))

I think that’s more than enough on language. I’ll go be a bit more productive before I head to bed.

* I should mention that whenever I think of the word “umlaut” and umlaut sign, I think of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, which makes a play of the word, and the first real story I ever tried to write, a fantasy story I wrote in seventh grade with a character with an umlaut in her name.

It was pretty cool to watch. I’ll admit that ten minutes after it ended, everything repeated in my head was in English. It’s weird to see this show in Buenos Aires, though, where the theatre was just a theatre, and not, you know, Broadway. The acting was good (I really liked the guy who played Collins, and Mimi was pretty good, and I pretty much will always love Maureen), and the singing as well. But I mean — I guess it just felt like going to any theater production, aye? Not like going to see a Musical. And I kind of liked that.

Following Krista’s suggestion (was it hers?), I looked at the website, and followed the directions there about getting a discount: I went to the ticket office at 17:00 (actually, I got there at 17:20; I had to take a taxi to make it on-time because I showered first and lost track of the time), and wrote down my name and email and DNI, and then at 17:30 they had a “drawing” to give out the 16 free tickets they give out each night. Only, I mean, it was a drawing in name only, since there were five of us there, the other four in a party together. I got drawn first.

Which meant that, come 21:00, I sat in the middle of the front row with a $20 peso ticket (I’m not sure how much other tickets are), and the other folks sat on either side of me. This was mildly awkward, since it was a young woman, her (boy?)friend, and her parents, but it actually turned out to be fine; the woman sat next to me, and talked to me a bit. She’s a theater student here in Buenos Aire, but from Entre Rios (the city; how’s that spelled?), and she’s apparently going to Orlando in a few months to work at Disney (not sure what she’s doing). And she knew some of the folks in the performance, which was fun. We talked exclusively in Spanish, which was cool to be able to do, but slighly limiting.

In any case, “Rent” was a good time. It was essentially exactly the same as when I saw it in New York for probably 10 times as much, except the words were in Spanish. If I sung along in my head, which I [quasi-ashamedly] could do, the English words were still there, and the intonations were generally quite similar. But there were definitely points lost and words lost. I’m not complaining too much — there have got to be lost words in a translation of a musical, Jesus (speaking of whom, I got talked at by this woman at a bus stop on the way there, for like fifteen minutes, about the Bible, and she just babbled on in Spanish) — but I guess I’d say that it turned it from a musical with clever rhymes and clever syntax into a musical with just good music. That’s not entirely true, perhaps, but I think in general the meaning was retained without the simplicity, and sometimes it didn’t sound as good. (“Glory” drawn out sounds a lot better than “Gloria,” I promise you, and Mimi’s “And she looked good” in the final scene was gone, and a lot more like that.) And while perhaps we’re all limited by knowing the English version better, this woman and her parents agreed with me on this, and they spoke fluent Spanish. (We discussed it during the intermission; they had the movie & the CD of the English version at home, and apparently the father really likes it.)

I am convinced of these things:
(1) The guy who played Angel was good, but his dance scene was kind of lame, compared to past ones I’ve seen.
(2) Maureen’s monologue was good even in Spanish (although they repeated “saltar de fe” [leap of faith] more than “over the moon,” as in the English version), but I still think the best version I ever saw was Miriam’s, at TiP.
(3) “Without you” sounds a lot better than “Si no estas”.
(4) The “Contact” scene, when Angel dies, was holy shit way more scandalous here, with guys just in briefs humping women at the front of the stage. Maybe I’m wrong and was just closer to the stage.

Anyway, a fun time was had by all, and I am glad I went and saw that, and glad I got to sit in the front row. Even if I then had to eat leftovers at home because all the restaurants were closed by the time I got out at 00:30. (Leftovers weren’t bad. I took the rice from yesterday that I didn’t eat earlier today, and fried it with two eggs and some of the tofu. Which was, technically, silken tofu. I was silly and confused “pasta de soja” with tofu, and it does look the same from above, but, errr, maybe “pasta” means paste, but paste is not tofu. This is sort of like when I ordered “pan de pizza” thinking, hey, a pan pizza, and got just the baked pizza dough, with salt and oregano and nothing else. Which was actually delicious. Anyway.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about gerunds, in any case: I feel as though we use them a lot more in English than they do in other languages. I rarely hear someone saying “Yo estoy [haciendo algo]“, but in English “I’m [doing something]” is common parlance. And, when I think about it, a common mistake in people learning English is to say, “I go to this place,” when we would say, “I am going there.” I’m unsure about this — I don’t know if I’m wrong when I say, “Estoy trabajando en FLENI,” if I should be saying, “Trabajo en FLENI” (and is it “en,” or “a”), or if either is fine. In English, I could say, “I’m working at FLENI” or “I work at FLENI,” but sometimes I feel as though Spanish uses gerunds less, and would be more likely to interpret gerund-use as expressing immediacy.

And then I wonder whether maybe the case is just that I use gerunds more than the average bear in English as well, and that my confusion is based on being more self-aware of my language use. Anyway, weigh in, folks.

Cuando llegué al Argentina, estaba muy nervioso sobre mi nivel de español y mi capacidad a usarlo. En solo un poco de días, me di cuenta que aunque no pude hablar perfectamente, pude hablar la idioma; pude sobrevivir. Estes días, tengo algunas conversaciones con personas — no puedo hablar con personas randomes (desgraciadamente), pero hablé con la dueña de mi apartamento para quizas quince minutos, y hablé con un psicologo quien me dio una vuelta en auto al ciudad, hoy, durante eso tiempo. (Que pena que estoy timido en español; él era muy simpatico y amable, y me quisiera pasar mas tiempo con él. Lo mismo con unas de las chicas con quien yo trabajo; ellas (realmente, solo chicas) son amables y me gustan en general, pero tienen más años que yo, y estoy timido, y . . .) Estoy leyendo “La Casa de los Espíritus” en español, y aunque no entiendo los accentes en español (o, por supuesto, en francés), entiendo mucho de eso libro, y creo que estoy aprendiendo. Estoy un poco confundido sobre el uso de los mandatos (no sé como usar accentes con ellos; no sé ni un poco de las reglas sobre el uso; no estoy seguro si esta un diferente manera a usarlos con familiares y formales, o con grupos y individuales, o con afirmativos y negativos), especialmente porque las instructuras de mis clases de yoga lo usan todos los días, pero habitualmente aparece que yo puedo hablar en español. En efecto, me doy cuenta que por la primera vez, yo uso la forma correcta del articulos con nombres. ¡Wow!

(direct translation/generally what I wanted to say: When I got to Argentina, I was really nervous about my level of Spanish, and my capacity to use it. In only a few days, I realized that although I couldn’t speak perfectly, I could speak the language in general; I could survive. These days, I have some conversations with people — I can’t speak with random folks (sadly), but I spoke with my land-lady for maybe fifteen minutes today, and I talked with a psychologist fellow who gave me a ride back to the city today, while we were driving. (How annoying that I’m shy in Spanish, though; he was really nice and friendly, and I would’ve liked to spend more time with him. The same’s true for the women/girls with whom I work; they’re (really, they’re all girls) friendly and I like them in general, but they’re old than I, and I’m shy, and . . .) I’m reading “The House of the Spirits” in Spanish, and although I don’t understand how to use accents [this was noted because I had to look up where to put the accent on "Espíritus"] in Spanish (or, for that matter, in French), I understand much of that book, and I think I’m actually learning. I’m a bit confused about how to use commands (I don’t know how to use accents with them; I don’t know even a little bit about the rules governing their use; I’m not sure whether you use them differently for informal and formal, or with individuals and groups, or with positive and negative commands), especially since the instructors of my yoga classes (perforce), always use commands, but generally it appears as though I can speak in Spanish. Actually, I realize that for the first time, I [generally] use the correct [gendered] form of articles with nouns. Wow!)

2. Reading.

I keep on saying that I’m reading and really enjoying “Kavalier & Clay,” but nothing more. Well, I can say that this is the deepest I’ve been into a book for a really long time. I regularly find myself buried within its pages, within the blink of an eye, and I’m really astonished by Chabon’s ability to hold my attention and keep me engaged. I find the characters and their adventures interesting, and keep realizing that this book is nothing like what I expected. It could use some editing in places, which is weird to notice — sometimes things seem unintentionally jerky — but in general I’m just rolled along heedlessly.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a junky for that feeling of being completely immersed in someone else’s world, and I spent hours and hours reading on a regular basis. A lot of my cessation of reading lay in my finding more work and more modes of pleasure-seeking — the internet, more friends, and so on — but I think I also have grown more wary of this sensation of being able to go somewhere else. Not because it’s dangerous, or rather, its danger is still a draw; I still love being able to escape to elsewhere, but because the feeling of return from a novel can be so much more devestating than that of a film. After investing twenty-plus hours into characters, and tracing lives or journeys or relationships over weeks or days, being suddenly cut adrift by an ending is rather like jumping into the shower only to realize that there’s no hot water. It’s shocking and makes everything else a little dimmer for a little bit. And while this aftereffect is worth it, I am wary of it.

I’m really impressed by Chabon, though. Not just the story in general, but that he did one of my least-favorite things in novels, and got away with it for me. The thing he did is something I often think of as the Dune effect — he suddenly jumped forward a number of years, and switched perspective. Frank Herbert does this with, I think, devestating consequences, most of the way through Dune — suddenly, Paul Atreides is completely changed, years have passed, he is now a fremen leader, he is what we have known he will be. It is impossible to be attached to him anymore. All of the emotional attachment Herbert has fostered is cut adrift by this new Paul. I think to some extent that’s Herbert’s intention, but he does it too well — Dune is still a great novel, but it ends with the reader disconnected. I think this is why I couldn’t get into the rest of the books in that series. Gabriel García Márquez does this in Cien Años de Soledad, also, but worse — he creates characters and then kills them off and jumps to new ones as though it’s the same plot, when clearly it is a new one. The only author who I’ve been willing to sit through this with was Jeffrey Eugenides, in Middlesex, but Eugenides goes so slowly through it all, and takes the time to re-develop his characters, and he works on a much smaller scale than García Márquez, while still using as many pages. In any case, Chabon manages to jump years, but he keeps the same characters and just adds new ones; he allows them to develop smoothly. I was angry at first, but then I realized that he was only really allowing time to age them, not to replace them, and I found myself re-engaged.

I’m not sure how articulate that was.

3. Writing.

I have been trying to write, here. I was originally planning on writing a lot. I have been really bad about this, even with all of my free time. I am writing a lot of [online] journal entries, and this is good, and I am pleased with this. I love journals. I like records. But I also want to work on my fiction (or even my poetry), and all I have written thus far are one piece on the cab driver who took my money (which was reasonably good and sent to Jesse), one on one of the autistic kids, one on an interview I observed, and no more. None of those could’ve been more than a few pages. I have been planning a longer story, but it’s not quite together yet, and I’ve only written half a page of the first scene. It is frustrating, but this is okay. Eventually I will sit down and it will come together.

I just wish I could work without deadlines. I hate how acceptable this mode of unmotivated work is.