Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Hands and Words in Poems: Paco Souto

e Caín (2016) é o último poemario de Paco Souto (1962), despois de 30 anos do seu primeiro recital individual de poesía na Coruña, como ben recorda nesta entrevista. Nela tamén expresa a súa vontade dunha unidade orgánica, unha estrutura coherente nos seus libros. Así se manifesta en e Caín, xa que como indica Miguel Anxo Mato Fondo nas anotacións previas, podemos seguir tres eixes vertebradores na lectura: o mítico, o erotismo e a escrita. Déixovos hoxe un  fermoso poema desta última liña temática.





S/T
Mixta sobre papel
70 x 50

e se tes as mans cheas de arxila
como non haberá ter o xinete
a dozura do teu aloumiño

e se o corpo se che enreda
dorido
na zorra da artrose
como non saber do fume da terra
en cada ola

gardarei as palabras de dicir
no ventre oco dun libro non escrito
e que veña a carroa
de toxos e flores
a cocernos arreo a vida nos poemas





Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Letters in Books: A memoria da choiva

Aínda que loce o sol brincadeiro de agosto, escribo sacudindo dos ombreiros as pingas envolventes e a humidade da textura nubrada de A memoria da choiva (2013), de Pedro Feijoo. Agradezo enormemente a Ana Mosquera a recomendación e a Dolores López o empréstito. Graciñas ás dúas!


Sinto especial afección polo xénero detectivesco e o roman noir, como xa vos teño comentado (Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan DoylePatricia HighsmithHenning MankellStieg Larsson, Jo NesbøDashiell HammettDomingo Villar) e neste ano en particular, no contexto das novelas detectivescas debatidas no noso club de lectura, A memoria da choiva foi un feliz descubrimento.

Entre noir e novela de misterio, revisitamos escenarios cercanos e coñecidos coma Santiago, Vigo, Coruña, Padrón ou Arteixo da man de personaxes coma Aquiles Vega (cos seus contrapuntos desdibuxados Casaperda e Sevilla) e Sofia Deneb. O primeiro comparte trazos con Kurt Wallander, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe ou Leo Caldas, sobre todo o seu sexto sentido detectivesco (sen ser detective!) pero tamén ten o seu aquel particular, como demostra a súa relación co seu talón (p.288) ou algún extracto coma este a seguir onde entrevemos as súas cordas sensibles: "Mira, eu non sei que cousa é esa felicidade pola que preguntas (...) con ela marcharon a plenitude e máis a felicidade. E o resto? O resto non son para min máis ca instantes soltos de algo parecido á calma. Pequenas, moi pequenas illas de tranquilidade no medio de grandísimas extensións de soidade. Un océano de tristura sen fin. Iso é para min a vida..." (p. 274). Pola súa banda, non atopamos en Sofía Deneb a típica femme fatale do xénero, nin tampouco unha Lisbeth Salander xusticieira, senón unha erudita competente cuxos coñecementos son imprescindibles para o entendemento (e resolución) do enigma.

O estilo de Feijoo é nu, crocante, brutalmente honesto, cunha combinación de descarnado realismo urbano e humor retorcido, lindando co hardboiled de Dashiel Hammett e o seu achegamento minimalista en The Maltese Falcon. Vaia como exemplo o ritmo comedido na descrición da reacción de Vega cando atopan o corpo dunha das vítimas (p. 79) que recorda á de Sam Spade liando un cigarro mentres lle anuncian a morte de Archer. Emocións que laten baixo a superficie, o emprego do understatement, non para enganar senón para aumentar o impacto da impresión no lector. 

O mesmo ocorre coa descrición dos personaxes, case ao estilo de Hemingway, breve, máis suxestivo que directo, pondo máis énfase nos substantivos que nos adxectivos. Non se nos dá unha longa descrición dos personaxes, máis ben preséntanse case como destapando unha botella sen servir o seu contido, deixando que o lector achegue o nariz e capte a esencia, o aroma, as sutilezas de cada un deles.

Ademais, hai cartas na novela,  hai e-mails con poemas (cruciais na trama) e hai poesía na prosa:

"E valéndose moi partidariamente da escasa correspondencia persoal que dela se conserva" (p. 160, 161)

"E cóntase tamén que, entre tanto, o pobre rapaz ía morrendo coa dor no peito e a mágoa no corazón. Por que non recibían resposta as súas cartas?" (p. 166)

"Unha canción triste de melodía amarga que todas as pedras da cidade cantaban en silencio, os seus ollos cegos postos no máis escuro do firmamento" (p. 382)

"Exacto, señor De Brión, exacto: o noso mal é o noso propio corazón. Témolo ferido. E, señor, canto nos doe, canto nos doe!, a nós, que sabemos que non se pode sandar dos males do corazón porque a Choiva nolo dixo" (p. 316)

"A xente, señor Vega, xa non escoita os poetas. Non. Xa ninguén dá un peso por nada, e ninguén fai nada por ninguén. Esquecérono todo, a gente esqueceu as persoas, e as persoas esqueceron a poesía. E os versos, señor Vega, os versos sentiron gana de morrer" (p. 421)

estrutura recorda de novo á de Hammett: un comezo humilde (a resolución dun asasinato) que vai escalando en intensidade para convertirse nunha cacería que nos levará por algunhas arañeiras e MacGuffins, acentuando así o escuro misterio  que constitúe a elaborada trama da novela. Se en The Maltese Falcon andamos tras do falcón, en A memoria da choiva, saímos co paraugas a un mundo inconstante e corrupto onde nada (nin a propia historia) é fiable, e procuramos a revisión do mito a través dunha historia intensamente fermosa. 

Monday, August 29, 2016

The Heart in Poems: Maurice Maeterlinck




Feuillage du coeur
Maurice Maeterlinck

Sous la cloche de cristal bleu
De mes lasses mélancolies,
Mes vagues douleurs abolies
S’immobilisent peu à peu :


Végétations de symboles,
Nénuphars mornes des plaisirs,
Palmes lentes de mes désirs,
Mousses froides, lianes molles.

Seul, un lys érige d’entre eux,
Pâle et rigidement débile,
Son ascension immobile
Sur les feuillages douloureux,

Et dans les lueurs qu’il épanche
Comme une lune, peu à peu,
Élève vers le cristal bleu
Sa mystique prière blanche.


Maurice Maeterlinck, Serres chaudes, 1889



Bajo la campana de azul cristal 
de mis cansadas melancolías, 
mis vagos dolores abolidos 
poco a poco se inmovilizan. 

Vegetaciones de símbolos, 
nenúfares taciturnos de los placeres, 
lentas palmeras de mis deseos, 
musgos fríos, blandas lianas. 

Un lirio, solo, erige entre ellos, 
pálido y rígidamente débil, 
su inmóvil ascensión 
sobre los dolorosos follajes. 

Y en los resplandores que derrama 
como una luna poco a poco, 
eleva hacia el cristal azul 
su mística plegaria blanca. 

Traducción de Natalia Brodskaya


Letters in Music: Vizcaíno

This is a song that Dolores López told me about maybe one year ago. It is sung by Vizcaíno, a Galician singer songwriter and it was included in his album Alas de papel (2014). It's called "Sete chorares" and Vizcaíno explains in his blog the story behind this song:

Esta canción trata sobre una historia de amor verdadero que transcurrió en un septiembre mojado en los años del hambre cuando la furia y el miedo quemaba en las venas. Eran años de apretar los dientes cruzar los dedos y de llorar en silencio por la necesidad de volar.

La prensa escrita de hace unos años recuperó una carta que un joven había escrito a su amada cuando esta tuvo que marchar con sus padres lejos de esta esquinita del mundo, de ahí salió la idea de transformar esta historia en canción. Contaba en la carta que había estado llorando siete días con sus siete noches, no se me ocurrió mejor título para este humilde homenaje a nuestra emigración gallega que “Sete Chorares”.

Here are two videos with him singing alone and another one in a duet with Lucía Pérez.








"Sete chorares"

Veño arrimado a unha pena, 
traio tristura na voz, 
no máis escuro dos días
colleume a noite no albor. 
Unha rúa de pedra mollada, 
tan só hei de vagar co alento 
dunha naiciña que me fala querendo chorar. 

Teño un silencio bagoado, 
nas veas un lume rabiado. 
Non me gardes no olvido
 que no seo me levas contigo. 
O alento dos beizos da alma q
uixo tecer un amor envolto en ventos de auga. 

Tremendo as miradas, 
xemendo o ruído da man dun trebón. 
Tatuada no peito a lisura violenta 
deste amencer farto de bágoas de ferro,
 eu morro por ela e sen ela 
xa vivir non quero. 

Deixar de min quixera nesta beiriña do mundo 
esta dor que me enterra no mar máis profundo. 
Ca morriña nos ollos, na gorxa o inferno, 
pra min non hai maio, pra min sempre é inverno.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Hands in Art: Yoshiro Tachibana

Last Wednesday we went on a short trip to visit some places along Costa da Morte and we ended the tour in Muxía. It is always a delight to visit this town, but this time even more so, since they had an exhibition at the Salón do Actos do Voluntariado devoted to Galician-Japanese painter Yoshiro Tachibana (Nino, 1941-2016).


The exhibition is lovely in terms of the photographs and paintings displayed, even though in my opinion, it is hampered by a lack of ambition. I missed more of an explanation (either in a brochure  or on some panels) in terms of who the artist was, his vision and objectives. The only detailed panel offers an overview of his biography. However, I guess it is understandable in view of Tachibana's recent death (July 17, 2016).











Tachibana's paintings (you can see the entirety of his collection here) are vivid, exquisite, colorful. The show's high points. His depictions of the recurrent theme of the forbidden tree and paradise lost provide the focus of this exhibition, with their high color, pure harmony, reduction and order, with a boldness in composition. There are also a few watercolours which offer the tantalizing prospect of a glimpse behind the artist's vision.










"El que ignora la palabra <muerte> está libre,
El que ignora la palabra <libre> está feliz,
El que ignora la palabra <feliz> está inocente,
El que ignora la palabra <inocente> está vacío,
El que ignora la palabra <vacío> no conoce su existencia,
No tiene pasado ni presente, sólo un sueño encima del tiempo. 
Los animales viven ebrios y mueren soñando"


Saturday, August 27, 2016

Flying Hands and Music of the Heart: Nastasia Zürcher

Thursday night, as part of the programme included in "Feito a man" , we attended a concert by Beat TrioNastasia Zürcher, who sang for a packed house at the terrace of La Granola. After 10 years as a performer, Zürcher showed she has what it takes to engage an audience. She belted through her hits "Dears", "Our Generation" or "Listen to Yourself".





She also sang "Voar", an unforgettable, beautifully written tune. The song expresses the longing to fly, the wish to get over pain and continue along her way, marking her own direction with her voice.

Image from http://www.nastasiazurcher.com


No artifice is needed, Zürcher can go out in front of a crowd with just her presence and two musicians and engage the crowd with the power of music alone. Her intimacy in between songs, her powerful voice, the amazing music by Adrián Saavedra and Narci Rodríguez, as well as the use of different instruments (rain sticks, or different variants of the one you can see below, I do not know its name), and the location between stone walls under a cloudy sky all contributed to a magical evening.


The true testament of a great artist and a great writer. 



Thank you Nastasia, Adrián and Narci for a memorable concert!


Friday, August 26, 2016

Heart of Chocolate: Chocolates Mariño (Carballo)



Se ides a Carballo, na rúa Valle Inclán, onde se cruza coa Cervantes, vedes este edificio que fai esquina e que pasaría facilmente desapercibido se non fose por un aroma irresistible que vos obrigará a deter os vosos pasos. Trátase de Chocolates Mariño, unha fábrica de chocolate artesanal (das poucas que quedan) que leva xa unha boa andadura, pois foi fundada no 1927.

Severino Mariño na súa fermosa tenda
Entras e déixaste levar polas sensacións olfactivas: O ineludible aroma envolvente do chocolate que funciona coma a mellor estratexia de marketing posible. Nin carteis publicitarios nin sinais de neón, non en vano din os expertos que o 90% do que "saboreamos" chéganos en realidade a través do nariz, de forma directa cando ulimos; e indirecta a través do que se chama retro-olfacto, cando mastigamos e expulsamos aire cargado cos compoñentes aromáticos do que estamos a comer.

De seguido, virá o choque visual, pois xunto coas perfectamente aliñadas tabletas e saquiños de chocolate, hai... candeas! Estraña combinación - ou non, un chocolate á luz das velas tampouco está mal.  Se preguntades a Severino e Teresa, donos do negocio, explicaranvos que o herdaron do pai de Severino, José Mariño, que era orixinalmente cereiro pero despois comezou co chocolate, no ano 1927. Eran anos nos que o chocolate era un luxo e só se vendía aos "señores", en palabras da parella, e de feito José ía polas vilas coa súa pedra e a rebola. Poñía na pedra os grans de cacao e ía dándolle coa rebola engadíndolle o azucre para ir amasando e facer as libras que lle encargaban en cada casa.

Pregúntolle a Severino polas fábricas de chocolate en Galicia e dime que antes había moitas máis, dúas ou tres en Santiago e máis en Coruña. Patri Fernández dicíame onte, cando lle comentei a visita, que efectivamente o "chocolate de cascarillas" foi moi popular, e que aos habitantes da Coruña se lles chamaba "cascarillas" ou "cascarilleiros" pola súa afición ao consumo deste tipo de chocolate. Hoxe en día desas chocolateiras só queda a Express (1929), que ten ese nome en referencia ao tren express nocturno que unía  Madrid con Galicia. 

Pero volvamos a Chocolates Mariño. Que opinades dos envoltorios? Son preciosos! "Seguen mantendo o deseño orixinal- continúa explicando Severino, - empregando o que se chamou "etiquetado a la gallega".


E preguntarédesvos cal é a diferencia entre o envoltorio vermello e o azul, como fixen eu. Pois velaquí a resposta.


Pero levando tanto tempo traballando co chocolate coma rutina, xa o deben ter aburrido, non creo que coman moito, non? Teresa explica que para nada. Seguen tomando unha cunca pola mañá e outra á noite. Ela con leite e el con auga. Interesante! E cal é mellor para facer con auga? Pois coma co café, se o tomas só e sen azucre é que che gusta de verdade. O mesmo pasa co chocolate, daquela é mellor empregar o azul, que só ten azucre e cacao. 



Saio da tenda feliz coas miñas tabletas e aínda que estamos en pleno mes de agosto o día neboado preséntase ideal para probar este chocolate aromático e artesanal. Vouno facer con auga, o que era o almorzo da miña nai de pequena. Abro o envoltorio e... 


... marabilla! A cociña imprégnase de dozura e calidez en canto parto as onzas, medrando en intensidade ao irse derretendo na auga.



Velaquí o resultado final. Festa de escuma e aromas. Acórdome de Severino e Teresa. Son feiticeiros habelenciosos. Enganáronme. Non me venderon chocolate: "Colleron a alborada, botáronlle un chisco de rocío, cubrírona de chocolate, e cun milagre ou dous... mesturados con amor, fixeron que o mundo saiba... Mmmmmm".




Thursday, August 25, 2016

The Heart in Poems: Leonard Cohen (I)



Steer Your Way


Steer your way through the ruins of the Altar and the Mall
Steer your way through the fables of Creation and the Fall
Steer your way past the Palaces that rise above the rot
Year by year
Month by month 
Day by day
Thought by thought 

Steer your heart past the Truth you believed in yesterday
Such as Fundamental Goodness and the Wisdom of the Way
Steer your heart, precious heart, past the women whom you bought
 Year by year
Month by month 
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your path through the pain that is far more real than you
That has smashed the Cosmic Model, that has blinded every View 
And please don’t make me go there, though there be a God or not
Year by year
Month by month 
Day by day 
Thought by thought

They whisper still, the injured stones, the blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa, which you’ve gradually forgot
 Year by year 
Month by month 
Day by day 
Thought by thought 

Steer your way, O my heart, though I have no right to ask 
To the one who was never never equal to the task 
Who knows he’s been convicted, who knows he will be shot
Year by year 
Month by month 
Day by day 
Thought by thought

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Susan Sontag's Letter to Jorge Luis Borges

Image by Grete Stern (1904-1999) - http://www.me.gov.ar/efeme/jlborges
Jane Ciabattari said in an article for BBC Culture that "reading the work of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) for the first time is like discovering a new letter in the alphabet, or a new note in the musical scale". 

Borges has been called the father of the Latin American novel, without whom the work of Mario Vargas Llosa, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes would not have been possible. 

Over the decades since his death in 1986, Borges’ global stature has continued to grow and today, on the anniversary of his birth, we recover two texts, one is his poem "El suicida", which can almost be considered a suicide note; and the other is a letter from Susan Sontag (1933-2004), an American writer and critic, who wrote it as a part of her essay Where the Stress Falls (2002), a decade after Borges's death. The letter is extracted from this article by The Independent.

El suicida

No quedará en la noche una estrella. 
No quedará la noche. 
Moriré y conmigo la suma 
del intolerable universo. 
Borraré las pirámides, las medallas, 
los continentes y las caras. 
Borraré la acumulación del pasado. 
Haré polvo la historia, polvo el polvo. 
Estoy mirando el último poniente. 
Oigo el último pájaro. 
Lego la nada a nadie.



Dear Borges,

Since your literature was always placed under the sign of eternity, it doesn't seem too odd to be addressing a letter to you. (Borges, it's 10 years!) If ever a contemporary seemed destined for literary immortality, it was you. You were very much the product of your time, your culture, and yet you knew how to transcend your time, your culture, in ways that seem quite magical. This had something to do with the openness and generosity of your attention. You were the least egocentric, the most transparent of writers, as well as the most artful. It also had something to do with a natural purity of spirit. Though you lived among us for a rather long time, you perfected practices of fastidiousness and of detachment that made you an expert mental traveller to other eras as well. You had a sense of time that was different from other people's. The ordinary ideas of past, present and future seemed banal under your gaze. You liked to say that every moment of time contains the past and the future, quoting (as I remember) the poet Browning, who wrote something like, "the present is the instant in which the future crumbles into the past.'' That, of course, was part of your modesty: your taste for finding your ideas in the ideas of other writers.

Your modesty was part of the sureness of your presence. You were a discoverer of new joys. A pessimism as profound, as serene, as yours did not need to be indignant. It had, rather, to be inventive – and you were, above all, inventive. The serenity and the transcendence of self that you found are to me exemplary. You showed that it is not necessary to be unhappy, even while one is clear-eyed and undeluded about how terrible everything is. Somewhere you said that a writer – delicately you added: all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. (You were speaking of your blindness.)

You have been a great resource, for other writers. In 1982 – that is, four years before you died – I said in an interview, "There is no writer living today who matters more to other writers than Borges. Many people would say he is the greatest living writer... Very few writers of today have not learnt from him or imitated him.'' That is still true. We are still learning from you. We are still imitating you. You gave people new ways of imagining, while proclaiming over and over our indebtedness to the past, above all, to literature. You said that we owe literature almost everything we are and what we have been. If books disappear, history will disappear, and human beings will also disappear. I am sure you are right. Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcendence. Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the "real'' everyday world to an imaginary world, the world of books. Books are much more. They are a way of being fully human.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that books are now considered an endangered species. By books, I also mean the conditions of reading that make possible literature and its soul effects. Soon, we are told, we will call up on "bookscreens'' any "text'' on demand, and will be able to change its appearance, ask questions of it, "interact'' with it. When books become "texts'' that we "interact'' with according to criteria of utility, the written word will have become simply another aspect of our advertising-driven televisual reality. This is the glorious future being created, and promised to us, as something more "democratic''. Of course, it means nothing less then the death of inwardness – and of the book.

This time around, there will be no need for a great conflagration. The barbarians don't have to burn the books. The tiger is in the library. Dear Borges, please understand that it gives me no satisfaction to complain. But to whom could such complaints about the fate of books – of reading itself – be better addressed than to you? (Borges, it's 10 years!) All I mean to say is that we miss you. I miss you. You continue to make a difference. The era we are entering now, this 21st century, will test the soul in new ways. But, you can be sure, some of us are not going to abandon the Great Library. And you will continue to be our patron and our hero.



From Hand to Heart: The Heart in Xosé Tomás's Illustrations

I've always been an admirer of Francesco Tonucci "Frato" (1940) and his views on education. In fact, you might have read this recent article about another one of his ideas to foster independence among children. Other than his work as a psychopedagogist, he is renowned for his illustrations, compiled in books like Con ojos de maestro (1995) or Con ojos de niño (2013). I love to use this cartoon of his (see below) in my classes, along with Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick in the Wall" (1979) suggested by Javier Cerdeira some years ago, to work as a basis for a discussion of our school system and brainstorm possible changes and aspects that could be improved.


Therefore, I am really grateful to Patri Fernández for yet one other heartwarming discovery: a book of illustrations and cartoons by Xosé Tomás, from his book Manual de Escola (2016). Xosé Tomás, nicknamed "o Tonucci galego" is a teacher and illustrator who has produced this book of graphic humor which he stated was the result of "conversations, situations and turning points" in his teaching career.

The cartoons manage to vividly capture the essence of many feelings that we have as teachers: happiness when we are able to bring about positive changes in our students' lives, frustration when we are not able to motivate our pupils or fall short of their demands, or fail to receive adequate training. It also works as a presentation of the principles that can make the school a place of change and progress.