As you presumably know, I spent a while traveling around Europe. I have particular problems with the term “EuroTrip” — which may later be explored here on this blog — but that was essentially the idea. Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Copenhagen, Lund, Paris, Flavigny, Gubbio, Madrid again. 4 European capitals, 4 smaller cities. 29 days. 6 cemeteries, 13 museums (‘though heavily stacked up in Berlin), only 3 churches. 3 synagogues, too. Moved my luggage 13 times. 5 flights, 2 longer bus rides, 6 longer train rides. 3 hostels, 5 couchsurfers, 3 friends’ houses/flats. Only 1 novel, and 1 magazine. But the novel was in Spanish and 667 pages long.

In the past, when I’ve taken a grand trip, I’ve made one or two posts on my blog with pictures and descriptions. I’m not going to do that today. Instead, I’ll take a page out of the way blogging services like tumblr work, and keep it small. What I’m going to do: over the next few days, I’ll post each day (as I have time) a photograph (or two) and an excerpt from my travel journal, which will probably be brushed up and expanded for the blog. (To be fair, I won’t change all that much. You’ll notice my shortcuts, like dropping the subject a lot more than is really called for. When it’s obviously me, why write “I”?) The idea will be to highlight the best things I did, and ignore some of the worst. Not that there was much bad. Some days the writing will align with the photographs; some days they may not. So it is.

In any case, when better to start then today? First up, Berlin.

The room at the end of the Axis of the Holocaust tower, in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. A giant, empty room, with only a hole at the top for letting in light

Friday, 02 July. Berlin.
I’m sitting now in a Jewish cemetery on Groß Hamburger Straße — I’m the only one here. People look in occasionally, but almost no one opens the gate to come in. In the New Synagogue, the exhibits mentioned this cemetery, just down the street — the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin. All the graves have no headstones, now; it’s just green. They were torn down; they don’t exist anymore. There’s a sprinkler in the distance watering the foliage. It’s beautiful, and quite peaceful for the middle of Berlin. I wonder what it was like with gravestones? There are more than 5,000 graves in this tiny space. They have a sign at the entrance asking men to cover their heads, so I’ve got a yarmulke on from the box below the sign. First time I’ve worn one of these in quite a while.

It’s interesting how Berlin today reacts to Judaism.

This morning, I went to the Museum für Gegenwart (the Hamburger Banhof) — a modern art museum in what was once a train station. The temporary exhibition was work by Bruce Nauman, and called Dream Passage — there was some very intriguing experiential work that I rather liked. The permanent collection wasn’t bad, either. I enjoyed the museum. Upstairs, there was an exhibition called “Models.” On one half, there was an interplay between these super-detailed bug models (made by Alfred Keller) and Gerd Rohling’s work, using plastic containers and lighting to make them look like fancy glass bowls, pottery, etc. The other half was this really cool piece called Schattenspiel (Shadow Play) where, by shining light on toys and random objects arrayed on a table, the artist (Hans-Peter Feldmann) created a shadow world. Then, and perhaps most interesting, was a piece called Spielzeugland (Toyland), by Jochen Alexander Freydank — a short live-action film that won an Oscar (2007), a very moving film. (It appears to be on youtube, but I couldn’t find subtitled versions — look for it if you speak German.)

I’ve moved around a bit, for the nine days since I left: I was in Berlin for five days, which was great, and then in Dresden for three. I just arrived here in Prague this morning. It has a very tourist-centered centre, with tons of different languages spoken every which way — I’ve heard a lot of Spanish, and definitely noticed some Argentines as well as Spaniards. (Well, people who speak with the sh/ll sound; they could be from elsewhere maybe. I doubt it.)

There’s no question that I’m a big city or no city person — it feels nice to be back in a big, busy city. Dresden was only busy in the very centre, or right before the soccer game (hurrah, Spain!). But I’d like to get to spend some time in the countryside, before I leave the Czech Republic. So we’ll have to arrange that, won’t we?

I’m here through Monday, when I head to Copenhagen. So let’s get outside! (Well, once the heat starts to fade a bit…)

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.

I finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being today. It’s a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, a Czech writer; it’s one of those books you know about before you really know anything about it. I had it in school on Monday, and one of the teachers who I like a lot, Eva, asked me what I was reading. I tried to translate the title. “La insoportable… ligereza… de ser?” I knew ligereza didn’t feel right, but she figured out what I was talking about. The title in Spanish is La insoportable levedad de ser; I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between the two words, to be honest.

Anyway, “Isn’t that really depressing?” she asked me. But it’s not, at all. I knew before I started reading it that it was a “philosophical” book, and it is. But it’s not heavy in the way it could be; it doesn’t feel like I’m working at anything. I finished the last fifty pages in an hour today, reading while waiting at the doctor’s office. Not the sort of thing you can do with every book. But it’s philosophical without being difficult. It’s about love, and sex, and death. It’s graphic and straightforward. That’s why it’s interesting; that’s why it’s fun.

I’m glad I got around to reading it.

Below are some quotes I liked. I blocked off paragraphs all through the book; these are some shorter ones. There are lots of wonderful passages.

Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love. (Kundera, 11)

This symmetrical composition–the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end–may seem quite “novelistic” to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on the condition that you refrain from reading such notions as “fictive,” “fabricated,” and “untrue to life” into the word “novelistic.” Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion. (Kundera, 52)

Now, perhaps, we are in a better position to understand the abyss separating Sabina and Franz: he listened eagerly to the story of her life and she was equally eager to hear the story of his, but although they had a clear understanding of the logical meaning of the words they exchanged, they failed to hear the semantic susurrus of the river flowing between them. (Kundera, 88, oh god that last line is wonderful)

   He knew that instead of waking her he should lull her back to sleep, so he tried to come up with an answer that would plant the image of a new dream in her mind.
   ”I’m looking at the stars,” he said.
   ”Don’t say you’re looking at the stars. That’s a lie. You’re looking down.”
   ”That’s because we’re in an airplane. The stars are below us.”
   ”Oh, in an airplane,” said Tereza, squeezing his hand even tighter and falling asleep again. And Tomas knew that Tereza was looking out of the round window of an airplane flying high above the stars. (Kundera, 240)

Hoy, acabé de leer La insoportable levedad de ser. Es un libro del año 1984, del escritor checo Milan Kundera. Es uno de los libros que conoces, por lo menos en inglés, aunque probablamente no sabes mucho de él. Lo tenía conmigo en el colegio el lunes, y uno de las profesores con quien me lleva bien, Eva, me preguntó que leía. Intenté a traducir el titulo — “Es la Insoportable … ligereza … de ser?” Supe que ligereza no era la palabra, pero ella me entendió. No entiendo completamente la diferencia entre ligereza y levedad, todavía.

De todos modos, me preguntó, “No es muy pesado?” Pero no, no es, en ninguna manera. Sabía antes de empezarme que era un libro filosófico, y lo es. Pero no es pesado, no es deprimido, no me da el sentimiento que estoy trabajando. Terminé con las ultimas 50 paginas en una hora, hoy, esperando el la oficina del medico. Esto no es el tipo de cosa que puedes hacer con todos los libros. Es filosófico sin ser difícil. Se trata del amor, y el sexo, y el muerto. Es gráfico, y franco. Por eso es interesante; por eso es divertido.

Estoy contento que finalmente lo leí.

Abajo son unas citas que me gustó. Marqué párrafos en todo el libro; estos son los más cortos. Hay muchos pasajes maravillosos. Aquí hago unas traducciones para divertirme — obviamente, ya traduzco de una traducción de checo. Las traducciones en inglés están arriba.

Tomás no se dió cuenta en este momento que las metáforas son peligrosas. No debe jugar con las metáforas. Una metáfora sola puede engendrar el amor. (Kundera, 11)

Esta composición simétrica–la misma tema aparece al principio y al final–puede parecer bastante novelistica a sí, y estoy dispuesto a aceptar, pero solo si Ud. se abstene de presumir las ideas de “ficcional,” “fabricado,” y “inreal en aspecto a la vida” en la palabra “novelistica.” Porque las vidas humanas son compuestos en exactamente esta manera. (Kundera, 52)

Ahora, quizás, estamos en una posición mejor a entender el abismo que separa Sabina y Franz: él escuchó con entusiasmo a la historia de su vida, y ella con entusiasmo igual escuchó a la suya, pero aunque los dos entendieron con claridad los sentidos logicos de las palabras que intercambiaron, ellos fracasaron a escuchar el susurro semántico del río fluyendo entre sus mismos. (Kundera, 88, joder pero la ultima linea es maravillosa)

   Sabía que en vez de despertarla, debe calmarla a dormir otra vez, y así intentó a inventar una respuesta que plantaría la imagen de un sueño nuevo en su mente.
   ”Miro a las estrellas,” dijo.
   ”No digas que mires a las estrellas. Es una mentira. Tú miras abajo.”
   ”Eso es porque estamos en un avión. Las estrellas están abajos.”
   ”O, en un avión,” dijo Tereza, apretando la mano de Tomás aun más, y se dormió otra vez. Y Tomás sabía que Tereza miraba fuera de la ventana redonda de un avión, volando muy arriba de las estrellas. (Kundera, 240)

I got my stitches out of my lip today, which is good. I’m looking forward to my lip healing entirely.

You know, I rarely post on here like I used to — like I used to five years ago, I mean. This sort of thing — each paragraph treating a different topic, loosely connected perhaps but perhaps not at all. Also there were entries that were numbered because they were so completely unrelated. Sometimes I like looking back and reading something I wrote, say, five years ago. Things have changed a lot; they also have changed very little. (It should be noted that these old posts aren’t here on this website.)

I’ve been following the World Cup, which means that for the first time since the last World Cup (when I rooted for France), I’m watching entire association football matches. It’s fun; it also means that I’ve had more conversations with my roommates than ever, since we can talk about sports for once. It’s kind of fun, although I still don’t know most of the players. I’m rooting for the US, and for Spain. If it comes to it, I’ll transfer allegiances to Argentina, or perhaps Brazil. But we’ll see what happens. I’m watching Argentina play Greece right now.

Now to break some rules, and follow some others;

Sometimes he receives notes from the past,
short in their wording and direct in their import;
they break out of the seas like bubbles
and hold him to a forgotten wall.
When they come to him,
they are like fireflies below a waning moon
and he closes his eyes before them
in a movement of shame.
The words are always written in a heavy hand,
script more indentation than outline,
the black ink sometimes faded.
They are always unavoidable.
When he dines with his girlfriend
or transfers lines in the depths of the subway,
he has been known to see reflections,
or embossed words
in the wrinkles on her face,
in the plastic boxes that house advertisements.
Once, in frustration, she called him late at night
and asked him to explain his distractions.
“I can’t,” he said into the receiver,
“and I don’t know if I want to.”
The present is not inescapable
any more than the past is incapable of forgetting;
his dreams will not leave him alone,
because he has not yet given them up.

I think this is a good example of why I haven’t written a poem in quite some time. But that doesn’t [necessarily] mean that it’s bad.

I made Madeleine’s pumpkin pasta last night, and am eating its leftovers with some bacon to give it a different flavor. I made the dish in the first place because I found a can of pumpkin I bought last November, and then forgot about; it’s a great recipe.

When I first started living here, in October, I disliked cooking for just myself, since I was so used to always cooking for three or four. But I’m not averse to leftovers, so I’ve been enjoying the idea of cooking for myself one night and eating it for three or four. As I’ve mentioned before, I try generally to spruce up leftovers — it’s a lot more fun to eat the same thing when it’s not quite the same thing. Roasted chicken turns into roasted chicken tacos. Spicy peanut sauce and pasta turns into pasta with pan-seared chicken and a creamy spicy peanut sauce. Pumpkin pasta becomes pumpkin-bacon pasta. The other day, I made a vegetable dal, with a gigantic cauliflower and some pepper and other veggies. Without meaning to, I made a huge amount, and literally ate it for five meals (lunches included); it was good since I couldn’t chew as well as normal. By the last day, I was tired of it, though; I turned it into more of a soup than it usually is by adding water and small pasta, and a bouillon cube. The flavor transformed — it was the same, but varied.

I’m going to miss living in Spain. But I don’t think I’ll miss it that much, somehow.

I’m partially writing this down to gloat about my good planning and pleasant immediate-future, but mostly I just want to have it on record what my plans were before I left — in part so I can compare them to how they ended up. So: my plans for the coming weeks follow.

On Wednesday, school ends. It’s over already, in many ways, but Wednesday’s the last day the kids have to be there, and it’s the last day I’ll be going in. That evening, I head off to Galicia, with my friends Emily and Ashley and Mateo (who’s grandmother’s house we’re staying at). We’ll be in La Coruña for four days, for a summer festival/Feast of Saint John — but also just to see Galicia, explore, and so forth. I’m excited; it’s one of three places that I’ve really not yet been to in Spain, but care to. (The others are Valencia and the Picos de Europa, which I’m going to miss this time around. Another time! Also maybe the beaches on the southern coast, but beaches aren’t as exciting.)

Then I’ll be back in Madrid for either a few days or a week. I haven’t yet decided. Surely, I’ll be in Madrid for a few days, beginning on Saturday. I have a few plane tickets, though, so let’s see: I’ll be heading to Berlin, Germany, for a while, where I’ll get to see my friend Karina. Thence, I’ll probably stop off in Dresden, Germany, for a day or two, before heading out to Prague, Czech Republic, which I really need to see now that I’m almost finished with The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which, by the way, is so much more enjoyable than I feared; it’s wonderful; in case it’s not obvious, it takes place primarily in Prague).

From Prague, I’m flying north to Copenhagen, Denmark, which I admit is a bit unnecessary, but which should be fun; I’ll be there for only a few days, and also hopefully in Lund, Sweden, where a friend, Hana, lives. Afterwards, I take flight again, now for Paris, France. I’ll get to hang out with some friends there, including my high school friend Reshma, and hopefully a French kid I met last year, Benoit. I’ll be there only briefly as well, before heading south to Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, where a friend and former professor, Maud, has offered me a night or two at her house. (This is one of the main places where they filmed the 2000 film Chocolat, although not apparently where the river in the film is.) I’ll fly out of Paris, heading through Rome to Umbertide, Italy — in the Umbrian countryside, where my friend Jacob and his family will put me up for a few days.

Then I’ll finally fly out of Rome, spend a day or two more in Madrid, do anything I forgot to do, collect my things, and head home.

I am really excited. And curious to see how this will play out. I’m moving around more than I would really like to be, and flying more than I’d like, but it is as it is, and frankly air travel is often cheaper than train travel. If I manage to spend my money carefully, and don’t stress things too much, I think this will end up being a lot of fun.

Embarrassed is unfair, really. There were points where I really liked it; I like the way I look here, for example. But nowadays I use “I used to have long hair” as an “imagine that!” I liked it a lot my freshman year. But post-then… I dunno. I guess it’s a good thing, to think of it this way. Better than missing the long hair.

For those curious: my lip is curing. It’s itchy now more than anything.

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.

When I was in Bilbao, then, I spent some time sitting down and trying to think of some tips I should’ve given him. They are still contradictory; that’s part of the fun. I think, with this kind of thing, you need to pick and choose. Every so often, I come across an article — in a magazine or newspaper, usually — with tips for writers, from well-known authors. Half of them are always complete shit. Some of them are actually pretty good. Sometimes they’re ridiculous; sometimes they’re way too detailed. And sometimes one of them will ring true. So maybe I’ll put down something along those lines, here. None of these are new; they’re just the pieces of advice that have stuck to me. They’re not particularly in order. Some of them are more exercises than advice; some are more encouragement than anything else.

• Read books of poetry by a single author, and then try to emulate the style — or try to write nothing like it at all.
• Play with structure. Write something following a strict form, and then write something formless. See what fits. There are many good forms to play with.
• Don’t ask anyone to read your poetry until you feel like it. When you do, take it to someone who’s actually going to critique it, and then take their criticism with a thick skin. Sycophants might make you feel good, but they’re not actually going to help all too much.
• You don’t need to finish every poem you begin. It’s okay to throw something away.
• Be daring.
• Re-use something that didn’t work.
• Don’t write poetry when you’re drunk.
• Don’t force a rhyme. Don’t use feminine rhyme (rhyme using more than one syllable) unless you’re a rapper.
• It is, however, okay to rhyme. But realize that it doesn’t always sound good — so be aware of when your poetry is being shaped by a need to rhyme. If your couplet is being formed based more on the rhyme than on the thread of thought, scrap it. Rhymes should feel natural.
• Rewrite. If you feel like it.
• It is rarely enjoyable to read a poem written entirely in metaphorical language.
• Describe in actions, not just in adjectives.
• Avoid flowery language or language that feels like nothing new. Phrases like “silent scream,” “void,” and breathless descriptions of darkness are generally to be avoided. A poem about sadness or inner confusion needs to be really good for anyone other than you to want to read it.
• Show action and emotion — not just description.
• Pay close attention to line breaks.
• Learn how to read poetry well. Hint: You shouldn’t pause at the end of a line if there’s no punctuation, unless there’s a rhyme or something necessary. Spoken poetry is not the same as read-on-the-page poetry, and you shouldn’t try to make it so.
• Listen to (recordings of) poets reading their work. Read along.
• Learn how to end a poem. It’s not always easy.

Perhaps these thoughts are more useful to me than to anyone else. But I am curious: what advice would you give to someone writing poetry? It would be fun to hear some thoughts other than mine.

Last weekend, Ashley and Mateo and I went to San Sebastian. We had a great time, which is to say that it’s a beautiful city and has amazing food. San Sebastian (Donastia) is a city in the north of Spain, in the Basque country–very close to France. It’s known for its food, its beach (La Concha), and not all too much else.

We essentially took San Sebastian as a place to relax. Which is as it should be. We got there on Thursday — I took the train up, and met the two of them on the beach. La Concha, The Shell, the only beach we really frequented, is a gorgeous ring-shape, and the water is pretty warm all things considered–which is to say, considerably warmer than the water off the Oregon coast, but not quite as warm as Miami beach water. (How’s that for a stupidly long sentence?) It was a fun beach to visit, and we spent a lot of time there, as well as walking up and around the city, seeing the fortifications, and so forth.

But I’m going to focus on the part of the trip that’s most worth writing about: eating food. Mostly, we ate tapas, there called pintxos (pronounced, and spelled in the rest of Spain, as pinchos). Pintxos are just small dishes; the way we did it was we went from bar to bar, trying pintxos. In the south, tapas usually come with a drink. Not so here, so it’s not cheap. But that’s okay.

Thursday night we started at a place called La Cuchara de San Telmo, recommended by my friend Ade, where I started out adventurously with pretty excellent foie. I don’t remember exactly how it was prepared, but it was surprisingly tasty. Ashley wasn’t so pleased with her bacalao. Second, we went to Ganbara, an unimpressive bar where I had bacalao, but we also got our first taste of the Basque white wine txakoli, which all three of us really liked. Third, we went to Txepetxa, perhaps one of the better places of the night, essentially a bar that serves anchovies on bread prepared with different toppings — all of them delicious. At the recommendation of the NYTimes article posted on the wall, I tried the one that came with eggs of an erizo de mar. Fourth, we went to Zeruko, a fancier bar that had beautiful pintxos; I had the first morcilla I’ve ever liked, served with a fried quail egg. I’m glad I gave it a chance. Lastly, we went to Restaurante Munto, another rather good bar — at least I was pleased. There, I had a pintxo with goat cheese and caramelized onions on bread — traditional, but always delicious. A good night.

Friday afternoon, we splurged, and went for the Menu de Degustación at Bodegón Alejandro, which I’m so glad we did. Here’s the menu (and here’s a picture of it, in Basque):
0: An amouse bouche of this asparagus-cream drink, with bread crisps. both salty, both tasty.
First course: A chilled marinated anchovy lasagna, with the anchovies laid atop a ratatouille base. It was pretty great; we gave it an A.
Second course: Fried tomato stuffed with chipirones (squid), on a bed of risotto made with the squid ink. I don’t always like squid ink, but it worked well, the cheese sauce was great, and the entire thing was amazing. A+
Third course: Grilled hake (merluza) with mashed potatoes and a sauce of mussel “juice” — not amazing, but buttery and savory. B
Fourth course: Glazed veal cheek on a terrine of bacon and potato slices, with a roasted red pepper sauce. This was very good, although kind of gluttonous. A-/B+
This was the last savory dish. After we finished, they brought us small glasses of a sweet orange wine, which I really liked (but I like sweet fruit wines).
Fifth course: Torrija (Spanish French toast, hah) with a caramelized top and cheese ice cream. This — well, both desserts — was amazing. Mateo thought it too sweet, but I disagree. Both get A/A+ ratings.
Sixth and final course: Slightly spicy peach gnocchi, with coconut ice cream and a vanilla-lemon sauce.
As we finished, they gave us drinks of leche merengada, which was more like egg nog than a milkshake. Also soft almond biscuits. Yeah. Anyway, certainly we were stuffed.

After a few hours at the beach, and a few hours of walking around, we had a bit of dinner:
First, we went to Izazpi, where I got a goat cheese, honey, onion, and pepper pintxo, which was quite good. Second, to A Fuego Negro, which was disappointing — a shrug-inducing cup of shrimp soup. Third, some good but not great risotto at Txondorra. I ended with an anchovia pintxo at Txepetxa again.

I have nothing else to add, nor pictures of the food.

The amusing thing, of course, is that I’m currently breaking this rule to write this. But that’s the reason it should be a rule.

I had started it back a year ago or so, and I finally finished it yesterday, on the train coming back from San Sebastian. (Which merits its own post. The train, as well, but I’ll post on San Sebastian.) I ended up reasonably well-pleased with the book. I don’t think it was ground-breaking, and I have a few places where I wrote something akin to “fuck you, Danielewski” in the margins, but all-in-all I’d say that I found this to be a fascinating book, and I am unlikely to forget it any time soon.

To re-cap: the book is ostensibly about a film called The Navidson Record, a quasi-horror film in which Will Navidson, his wife, and their two kids move into a house in Virginia that has a basement that is more than a basement — it is a creature, an almost-living malevolent being. The innermost heart of the novel is a book that is essentially a descriptive critique of the film, heavy on external sources except for where these sources are rebutted. This part of the novel is excellent — replete with sections where the design of the page reflects what’s going in the text. This text then, is being compiled by Johnny Truant, a bum/tattoo-parlor-worker/genuine-crazy who intersperses his eclectic experiences with comments on the text. I found myself interested less in him — his story, as Julien pointed out to me, is really fairly unoriginal — and more in how he interacts with the text. There’s a scene, for example, wherein his own dream replaces one Navidson should have; Truant intertwines his own story with Navidson’s.

In some way, the book is very traditional — certainly in the way it resolves it is pleasantly straightforward. Despite its play with traditional modes of criticism and its intended subversion, I think it’s still trying to be enjoyable. It’s work, but it wants to be fun work.

I’d like to re-read it some day. But at the same time, I’m not sure that I ever will.

I also got to stay with Marta, who’s amazing. Also an excellent hostess. It was fun to get to see her!

The festival was here, which is to say here. Which was an excellent venue for a music festival.

It’s a huge place; there were four main large stages, several smaller ones, and a gigantic auditorium. According to one place I looked, there were over one hundred thousand people. Definitely there were at least 75,000. Which is actually pretty ridiculous, when you think about it. I can’t really understand that number of people.

In any case, if you’re curious, here are the bands I saw. The ones who had enjoyable shows, or something worth noting, have a picture or a comment, or both. I have pictures of all of the shows I saw, except for Owen Pallett’s show and the one show I can’t really count. All in all, I saw 31 shows over the weekend, although of course most of them I didn’t see all of. I’d hazard that very few of the shows were longer than an hour.

Day 1. Show 1.
The Wave Pictures
Went with this kid I met in Bilbao, Fernando, and his friends. Shrug.

Day 1. Show 2.
Monotonix
Tagged along here. Only saw the last song, but their show was ridiculous. Mostly-sans-clothes. Running through the audience with the microphone and drum. Yeah.

Day 1. Show 3.
Titus Andronicus
A bit of a large stage for them, in my opinion. Fun.

Day 1. Show 4.
The xx

I really like this band’s album. You’ve probably heard “Crystalised” or “VCR” — if not, try ‘em out. They’ve gotten a bad rap for their live shows, but — and I acknowledge that this may come from the fact that I was expecting worse — I rather enjoyed seeing them. They weren’t amazing, and they were mostly just rather calm, but they put on an enjoyable show. It rained slightly during it, which was too bad, but honestly it was barely a sprinkle. I stayed for the whole show.

Day 1. Show 5.
Broken Social Scene
These guys put on a great show. I’d seen them before, at Brandeis I think (with my sister). I really like their new album, besides. I’m fairly sure I stayed for their whole show, although to be honest I don’t really remember.

Day 1. Show 6.
The Books

I love The Books. They’re one of my favorite bands. They do… I dunno, curious music. And for their live shows, they compile these amazing videos. Here’s a junction between good video and good song: “Smells Like Content“. “Tokyo” is another great song, although this video isn’t as great (and is fan-made). I got to see them do the former; not the latter. At this show, I met two American guys from D.C. while we were all waiting for the show to start. They were quite nice. I stayed for this entire show. I was really impressed by how well they did playing out of doors. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but it totally did. And I’m glad; this marks the second time I’ve loved them live.

Day 1. No show.
Pavement
With Rob and Tom, the guys from above, I walked over to the Pavement show. But we didn’t stay. It was nearing the end, none of us really knew the music, and it was PACKED. Instead, we went to…

Day 1. Show 7.
Sleigh Bells
This was enjoyable, despite this being essentially hard rock with some woman screaming.

Day 1. Show 8.
Apse
I took off after a while at Sleigh Bells, and went to see Apse. I like their music (thanks, Ali), but I couldn’t get into the show.

Day 1. Show 9. Last show of the day (for me) — 02:30 AM.
Fuck Buttons
I don’t know their music very well. They’ve got some songs I like, though. They’re kind of a noise DJ pair? I don’t know. See what wiki has to say.

Well.

I took the night bus to the Plaza de Catalunya, and then walked to Marta’s place.

Day 2. Show 1.
Owen Pallett (used to go by Final Fantasy)
I really like Owen Pallett, and honestly this was one of the best shows of the festival. Unfortunately, I arrived late — the show started at 16:00 — so I only caught the second half and didn’t take any photographs. Pallett is a really good musician; his live show is really cool to watch. He plays the violin — very well — and loops it on itself, live, to create his songs. Also he had accompaniment. I encourage you to give him a try, but honestly I’m not sure what song to recommend. This song (with its ridiculous video) is excellent. So’s this one (the names are the couple who form The Arcade Fire; Pallett toured with them but I don’t know the origins of the song). Anyway, really fun. Also, this show and several others I went to this day were in the auditorium, which was super-nice.

Day 2. Show 2.
Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
Hope Sandoval is apparently rather strange; she and her band played their show in almost-complete darkness, and she (above and beyond the theatre’s prohibition) asked that we not take photographs. I don’t know her music very well. I do like it, though. I stayed for the whole show, although I dazed off for some of it. I had gotten up to the second row, so it’s too bad these two shows weren’t reversed.

As I left, I saw this enormous line to get into the auditorium, for a band called Low. I think maybe Europeans know this band better than Americans, because I’m pretty sure I don’t know them at all. Although apparently they’re American, and worthy of huge queues.

Day 2. Show 3.
The New Pornographers
I’m not the hugest fan of this band, although I do like them. I didn’t stay for much of their show, since a friend from Madrid, Javi, gave me a call. So I joined him for a band he really liked:

Day 2. Show 4.
Nueval Vulcano
Javi and his friends really like this band, and knew all the words. It was pretty good, so I stayed for the whole show. It was my first not-in-English-show. Then I followed Javi and his friends back to the auditorium.

Day 2. Show 5.
Junip
I’d never heard of this band, and no wonder, since they’ve never released an album. It’s a group project featuring José González, the Swedish singer probably best known for his covers. (“Heartbeats“, originally by The Knife. “Teardrop“, originally by Massive Attack.) It was a nice show, although weird since I knew none of the music.

Day 2. Show 6.
CocoRosie
I have mixed feelings about them. Their live show is supposed to be fun, but I decided not to stay for longer than a few songs. They seemed to be having fun.

Day 2. Show 7.
Beach House
I like Beach House better anyway, and I’m glad I got to see a good part of this show. It was completely packed, so I didn’t get as close as I would’ve liked. But they’re excellent musicians, and I was pleased that they were good live. Around this time, I managed to miss two bands I would’ve liked to have seen: Here We Go Magic, and (more importantly) Wilco. I’ll have to see Wilco some other time to make up for it.

Day 2. Show 8.
Standstill

I saw this band a few weeks ago in Madrid. They weren’t as good in the auditorium, but they’re excellent musicians, and this time they played with this cool video behind them. I liked parts of the video quite a lot.

Day 2. Show 9.
Panda Bear
I left Standstill to go see Panda Bear, which was honestly a waste of time. He played a lot of new stuff, I think. I wandered off and got food after a while. Disappointing. I love Animal Collective, of which he’s a part. And I like his solo work — I just need to listen to it more. Also maybe he’d be more fun in a smaller space.

Day 2. Show 10.
Marc Almond
Do you know who this guy is? I didn’t. He’s apparently a member of Soft Cell, which means he played “Tainted Love.” His wiki article makes him seem like an interesting guy, but other than “Tainted Love” I was kind of bored. I just sat and watched because there wasn’t much else going on right at this point.

Day 2. Show 11.
Major Lazer

And then I went to Major Lazer. Which was a-mazing. They’re a collaboration between DJs Diplo (Philadelphia) and Switch (London) and a bunch of singers crossing a bunch of genres… See the wiki page. I actually first heard of them from, of all places, The New Yorker. See here. Actually, I believe I first read this blurb in the print edition when it came out. Anyway, Major Lazer shows are ridiculous affairs, including a type of dance known as Daggering I’ll leave you to look up yourself. Also, errr, watch this video. Before the show started, I met this Swedish guy who was on his own at the show, and these two girls who had been studying in France. I stuck with the Swedish guy for the whole show — his name was Leo, or perhaps Lio. We walked up to the next show, but then he ran off — and we oddly ran into each other again at Diplo’s solo DJ set later that night. He was possibly on something… here’s him with a mask on:

Sometime around now I missed seeing the Pixies. Yeah, I know.

Day 2. Show 12.
Yeasayer
I saw Yeasayer and wrote extensively about the show in these pages a short while ago. But I’m glad I went to see them again. Their show wasn’t quite as good, but it was very nearly so. I saw next to me this kid who had also been at the Books show, I’m almost sure. I recognized him because he was one of the only people dancing to The Books. He and I grinned and danced together for the duration of the show, and talked briefly. Nice guy. I always like when people aren’t afraid to dance during shows.

Day 2. Show 13.
The Bloody Beetroots
If you’re counting, you’ve noticed that it’s probably getting late at this point. It is. Yeasayer’s show was at 02:30. I stopped off to watch a bit of the Bloody Beetroots, who are apparently famous, while I waited for 04:30 to come — when Diplo came on. Shrug.

Day 2. Show 14.
Joker feat. Nomad
I don’t think this really counts. I can’t remember it, and I only saw like five minutes, max.

Day 2. Show 15.
Diplo
Dipo is a really good DJ. I sometimes wonder what a DJ does on the stage, but Diplo, regardless of anything else, makes it all work. Excellent show. Lots of dancing.

Got home on one of the early trams. Very easy.

Day 3. Show 1.
Dr. Dog
I like Dr. Dog quite a lot. I wish I had gotten here in time for the whole of their set, but as it was I only really saw the second half.

Day 3. Show 2.
Nana Grizol

I met up with Fernando and his friends Leire and Ignacio. We sat in the bleachers and watched this show. It was actually pretty good, considering I’d never heard of this band before. They were already kind of drunk.

Day 3. Show 3.
Florence + the Machine

Florence Welch has attracted a lot of attention, won a few awards, and so forth — and with good reason, seeing as how she’s excellent. This song is one of the more well-liked, as is “Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)“. She reminded me of Kate Bush, sort of, in what she was wearing and how she performed, although her voice is gorgeous and amazing. It was a truly excellent show; I saw the entire thing.

Day 3. Show 4.
Grizzly Bear
I really like Grizzly Bear. I don’t know their music as well as I would have thought, because I was somewhat lost at their concert, but I disagree with what some people have said — I think they played a really excellent show, and really liked the songs of theirs that I knew well. (Including a beautiful rendition of “Knife” and one of “Ready, Able“. They also, of course, played “Two Weeks.”) I stayed for the whole show.

Day 3. Show 5.
Matt and Kim

This show had the sad honor of being more or less the last one I really wanted to see. On the bright side, it was pretty wonderful. They played a short set — ten minutes less than an hour, at least — but I managed to dance up a sweat, get knocked over by Kim crowd-surfing, get drizzled on by someone’s thrown beer, get to the front lines, and so forth. They did some brief covers (“The Final Countdown”; Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone”), and jumped about, yelled, and never stopped smiling. I saw them at Haverford a while back, and they were amazing then; they were also amazing now. This video (for “Lessons Learned”) has gotten them some attention; their song “Daylight” is pretty well-known for a small song. And those are both more recent. The crowd had a surprising number of Spaniards; I asked one of them how he knew of M&K and he told me he’d found them on youtube. So hurrah.

Day 3. Show 6.
Sunny Day Real Estate
Apparently these guys are famous. I kind of knew this. They sing that song “Song About an Angel“. They were fun, although mostly I just know that song.

Day 3. Show 7.
Pet Shop Boys
End of the night for me. I’d never even heard of these guys, a British group. They put on a really good show, apparently, but I didn’t know the music and wasn’t so into it, so I didn’t stay. Sad, I know, but such is the case.

And then I went back to Marta’s, slept, and caught a plane home.

* Mallorca (Spanish island, near Barcelona)
* London
* Barcelona (music festival)

Anyway, I’ve been busy. And generally enjoying myself, so hurrah.

I have to put some pictures up here. So I shall.

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.

I really liked the train station in Bilbao. Something about it in the off-light of Friday afternoon… I took a few pictures. (See?) This is really what it looked like — a grey, but still bright, day.

That same day, I walked to the Guggenheim. This is one of the main tourism draws of Bilbao, and I really enjoyed it, both inside and out. Photography wasn’t permitted inside, but there was an amazing temporary exhibition of (sculpture) work by Indian-British artist Anish Kapoor. He’s the guy who made The Bean in Chicago.

I also took a photo of myself in the glass.

The next day, I took the metro out to the beach at Sopelana, maybe forty minutes from the center. It was gorgeous.

My last day, I went to the Fine Art Museum before I left. Outside, was this:

The recipe is pretty simple; I’ve approximated it a few times when I didn’t have the recipe on hand. (One version I wrote down.) The real recipe calls for scallions instead of onions, a bit more peanut butter (total 1/4 cup), and quite a bit more sugar (1/3 cup). It also calls for ginger.

Anyway, I made this recipe on Sunday night, with pasta, steamed broccoli, and fresh cucumber slices. It’s a four-person recipe. Monday night I ate leftovers. Tuesday night, I bought two chicken breasts, chopped and saut&eeacute;ed them, and added the chicken pieces in as well. (I also bought some peanuts, which I hadn’t had.) And then tonight, there was only a small bowlful left. So I bought a zucchini, and saut&eeacute;ed it with salt and pepper. I made a bit more pasta. And then I heated the leftovers and the new pasta together with a bit of coconut milk (I had some leftover in the fridge) and an egg, until it was cooked, and then added in the zucchini. It’s just, wow. I’m not sure I could replicate it easily, but I’ll definitely try sometime: follow the normal peanut sauce recipe, but add an egg and replace some of the water with coconut milk. Also add salty-pepper-y zucchini.

Yumm.

Back to watching Mary Poppins. (Why? Because they played the babysitter song on This American Life. Sometimes I’m suggestible. Also I talked about it with either Emily or Ashley the other day. Or both? Dammit, I must be middle-aged already.)

Nonetheless, I quite like this poem.

It’s called “Big Box Encounter,” and it’s by a woman named Erika Meitner. I’m assuming you’ll follow that link on your own, but let me sum up the poem by saying that it’s about confusing feelings of desire for a (past?) student of the speaker’s.

I’m partially fascinated by this poem because I feel like there’s this continual move toward poetry that embraces a very specific space between the taboo and the mundane. Poetry that is exciting to read often plays with this, and I think Meitner’s poem does so quite well. For example: “I tried not to look at his beautiful terrible chest, / the V-shaped wings of his chiseled hip-bones.” I like her detail, I like her drawing our focus to where her attention is. And I like the way she reads it, as well. (Slate always posts the author reading his or her poem; I like this.)

The line I quote, and the poem itself, is just the sort of thing that James Wood critiques in last month’s New Yorker, in his sort-of-review “Keeping It Real: Conflict, convention, and Chang-Rae Lee’s ‘The Surrendered.’” I don’t really think Wood’s article reaches any conclusions, and I’m frustrated by his simplification of the Barthes piece (although I acknowledge that I’ve never fully understood Barthes myself). Still, it’s certainly the case that many writers fall for “the cinematic sweep, followed by the selection of small, telling details.” And perhaps Meitner is doing this. And so what?

I have written down, somewhere, a note to myself: “write more poetry that is daring.” I think I mean by this: poems that hint at something, that are exciting and make us think. There’s a good comparison, at least according to google (by which I mean — I’m reporting what other websites say, and not something I feel is decidedly true; all I’m sure of is that he wrote these poems). Allen Ginsberg has two poems, both written about Neal Cassidy. One is called “On Neal’s Ashes,” and is moving but slightly vulgar. The other is called “Please Master” and is primarily just vulgar and explicit. (It’s also probably NSFW.) I imagine you’ll see what I mean? I think the first one has got something there. I think the second is interesting, but not particularly so. And I love Ginsberg — “Footnote to Howl” is one of my favourite poems. That fits this bill, as well.

I’m curious to hear what anyone bothering to read this thinks. Does something vaguely taboo engage your interest in poetry? Where can it go wrong? What do you think of the poems I link to, here?

Meitner’s poem accesses the daring on two levels — it addresses female sexuality, which we so rarely do in normal publications; and it considers the question of a teacher’s (professor’s) lust for her student, which is one of the ultimate taboos of academics. In the poem, at least, her narrator does nothing wrong — she simply agonizes over her desire for this much-younger man. (She does imply something more, since she’s corresponding with this student.) But why does it feel transgressive to me? It’s not the line-breaks, although I like some of them quite a lot (“He is both more / and less striking without a shirt on”). I’m always fascinated by the use of curse-words in poetry or literature, when it’s not wholly warranted. (Here: “I was fucking a guy who…”) Sometimes, as here I think, the words jar the reader to attention. They remind us that the speaker is lusting, not falling for, her student. We never get a description of him except this detailed continuing articulation of how he looks shirtless.

There’s definitely still power in curse words, and power in the unexpected. I don’t think this poem would be as good were it called “A Desire Uncalled For,” or something implying its contents. The subtlety. the side-stepping while being up-front, these are important. (This is also why I have trouble with “Please Master.”) Obviously, this power in the unexpected is the case in all manner of ways — don’t think that I mean to suggest that the only way to write an interesting poem is to be lewd or lean towards the taboo.

I think I’ll be more conscious of this current in poetry in the future. As always, I’m not really reaching a conclusion. But this is a blog, and I’m not a good essayist.

I do think we can draw a parallel between this play in poetry, and its play in visual arts. In both mediums, we have to pick somewhere to draw our lines — but you can show non-sexualized nudity in art more easily than you can in writing. (See, for example, this (NSFW?) art collective. Hat tip to Ben for linking me.) But really there’s lots of not particularly sexualized nudity in art. Maybe we’ve become accustomed to it, but for whatever reason nudity isn’t as titillating as it once was. You have to play with something else.

I have long been into this sort of layman’s linguistics, wherein I don’t really need to understand the IPA or scholarly study, but can still enjoy etymology or grammar or learning new terms. I have mixed feelings about the debate between prescription (“this is how you do language”) and description (“this is how other people are doing language”), which seems pretty reasonable — I lean towards “if it works, then go for it” but generally am strongly opposed to misspellings or all number of weird grammar constructions. Which of course is ridiculous because I love fucking with my own grammar. I guess my point is just that even when something is wrong, it’s generally understood. When my older students were in London a few weeks ago, apparently two of them bargained for a sweatshirt by asking the vendor, *”More cheap?” That’s shitty grammar, and it’s wrong. (Obviously, it should be “cheaper,” or I suppose an actual sentence might be nice.) But it worked, didn’t it? They somehow came out of it with a sweatshirt for like 7 GBP. I think my conclusion is just that in this, as so often occurs, there is no clear solution.