One of the many things I find fascinating about the Spanish language is the importance of the word milk, or leche. It is of course used to describe the white liquid that comes from mammals, but in addition to the literal meaning, such as café con leche (coffee with milk) it's also commonly used either as an exclamation or as part of an expression.
Here are some examples.
importar tres leches - to mind three milks, which means to not care at all. For example, me importa tres leches qué opinas. I don't care at all what your opinion is.
ser la leche - to be the milk, which means to be unbelievable or great. It can be used literally such as, Soy la leche, he aprobado todos los exámenes. I'm great, I passed all of my exams, or sarcastically, Eres la leche, macho. You're unbelievable, dude.
de la leche - of the milk, which means more than a lot, as hell. Hoy hace un solazo de la leche. Today is sunny as hell. Hace un calor de la leche. It's hot as hell. (I wish!)
a toda leche - to all the milk, which means at full speed. Salimos corriendo a toda leche. We ran out at full speed.
¡leche! - dammit! ¡Leche!Me he pillado el dedo con la puerta. Dammit! I caught my finger in the door.
estar de mala / buena leche - to be in a bad / good milk which refers to someone's mood. ¿Estas de buena o mala leche hoy? Are you in a good or bad mood today?
tener leche en las venas (en vez de sangre) - to have milk in your veins (instead of blood), meaning you show no affection or you lack of drive.
cagarse en la leche - to shit in the milk, which is what you do when angry.
Not sure why leche is so prevalent in the Spanish vernacular. Any ideas? Also, feel free to add more if there are. All this talk of milk is making me hungry for cereal.
I ran into a friend the other day while out for a drink. She was still buzzing from a great weekend in Barcelona and excited about the eventual arrival of summer. I told her how much I admired her optimist outlook given the news lately, providing a quick review of the world headlines when she asked what I meant. Her smiling face went stoic, she called me depressing and left to find someone more cheerful to talk to.
The moment really crystallized something that I think would make an interesting case study: how much of a person's outlook on life is correlated to their news intake. It seems the less you know or care, the more pleasant the world is. Yes, when it comes to world events at least, ignorance truly is bliss, which I guess makes the opposite true; knowledge is misery. So the question is - what's more important, being knowledgeable or being happy? I think it's time to debookmark the news sites and find other things to read until the weather improves.
It's May which means Primavera Sound will soon be here. Starting the 27th of May and ending the 30th, most of the action takes place at the Forum. It's four days of great music and probably my favorite concert / festival in Barcelona even if I miss the old venue of Poble Espanyol. As with last year, they've got a great mix of bands from oldies but goodies to some up and coming acts. Here's this year's line up based on date. No times available yet. Bold indicates I've heard of the group.
Thursday May 27th: Alado Sincera, Aspe, Bis, Biscuit, Broken Social Scene, Circulatory System, Chrome Hoof, Crocodiles, Delorean, Edredón, Emilio José, Fuck Buttons, Guadalupe Pata, Half Foot Outside, His Majesty the King, Macaco Bang, Mission of Burma, Moderat, Monotonix, Pavement, Pony Bravo, Seefeel, Sic Alps, Sleigh Bells, Superchunk, Surfer Blood, The Big Pink, The Books, The Fall, The Smith Westerns, The XX, Titus Andronicus, Tom Cary, Tortoise, Ui, Wild Beasts.
A strong first day lineup with a definite a nineties influence. Aspe is like Tool except the leader singer has a falsetto. Circulatory System produced one of my favorite albums last year and Pavement is one of my all time favorite groups, although I'm a bit ambivalent about their reunion. In my opinion, Mission of Burma was one of the more overlooked bands of the grunge era for lack of a better word, while Surfer Blood, a relative new comer, takes the nineties sound and adds a bit of pop and rhythm. The Fall is a great band and I hope the sound system works this time. The XX received numerous awards last year, but I can't really get into them unlike the Wild Beasts which I enjoy immensely. The influnce of the Clash is what I hear when I listen to Titus Andronicus, but that's not a bad thing. There are worse groups to copy.
Friday May 28th: A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Autoramas, Beach House, Beak, Best Coast, Black Math Horseman, Blackbird, Boat Beam, CocoRosie, Cohete, Cold Cave, Condo Fucks, Delco, Diplo, Fuel Fandago, Ganglians, Harlem, Here We Go Magic, Holy Water, Japandroids, Hope Sandovals & The Warm Inventions, Joker featuring Nomad, Junip, Leda Tres, Les Savy Fav, Major Lazer, Marc Almond, Nueva Volcano, Oscartienealas, Panda Bear, Pixies, Scout Niblett, Shellac, Spoon, Standstill, The Bloody Beatroots Death Crew, The Dallas Guild, The King Kahn & BBQ Show, TheNew Pornographers, the Nu Niles, Thee Oh Sees, Wilco, Wild Honey, Wire, Yeasayer.
A night of musical heavy weights with the Pixies, Wilco and Wire. It'll be interesting to see what songs each picks for their set given the wealth of material to choose from. Japandroids and Les Savy Fav remind me too much of other groups but without the enthusiasm of say Titus Andronicus who play on Thursday. Spoon are quality but not something I listen to much. Panda Bear should be interesting to see live while I wish just for once Steve Albini would bring back Big Black instead of Shellac.
Saturday May 29th: Atlas Sound, Ben Frost, Bigott, Boy 8-Bit, Built to Spill, Camaron - La Leyenda del Tiempo, Dinero, Dr. Dog, Dum Dum Girls, Endless Boogie, Fake Blood, Grizzly Bear, HEALTH, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Matt & Kim, Mujeres, Nana Grizol, Niño y Pistola, No Age, ODDSAC, Orbital, Pet Shop Boys, Polvo, Real Estate, Roddy Frame, Sian Alice Group, So Cow, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Bundles, The Charlatans, The Clean, The Drums, The Psychic Paramount, The Slits, Thelematicos, Trigger, Van Dyke Parks, Za!
If I had to pick one day to go, this would be it. Atlas Sound's last album still gets a lot of play in the house, while Built to Spill is a great band live. Dum Dum Girls, HEALTH and No Age all hail from L.A. and offer a taste of the different musical sound Lala land is famous for: sunny pop, in your face aggression, and sonic experimentation, sometimes in the same song. Mat & Kim take synth pop to a whole new level. Grizzly Bear is similar to The XX - they won a slew of awards last year but I'm not sure why, while Sunny Day Real Estate is one group I could never get into depsite many people, whose opinion I respect, telling me they were great. Pet Shop Boys is a group I admire but would never pay to see and the Charlatans is what my older brother used to listen to.
So that's it more or less. There are smaller groups and different stages including Parc Joan Miró, so it's difficult to give a more detailed account. Check out the official website for more info and enjoy the festivities! Some videos for your listening pleasure to get in the mood.
Sala Cream is hosting its weekly Mad Session featuring an array of talented deejays spinning bass, dubstep and break beats, plus I imagine some tunes that are unclassifiable. Here's the lineup.
After hinting at summer last week, the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse right around the time Standard & Poors downgraded Spain's credit rating. This news was followed by unemployment reaching twenty percent and the forecast this week calls for rain so the outlook isn't too sunny right now.
The recent spat of bad economic news was followed by some thoughtful articles highlighting the differences between the Spanish situation and Greece in terms of government debt, pointing out that even while downgrading the country, S & P found little chance of Spain going into default. This is, of course, great news, but it doesn't mean it's hunky dory since public debt is only part of the equation.
Sources: Bloomberg, IMF, European Union Commission Estimates
As the data shows and the related article explains, Spain's problem isn't so much its public debt percentage, which is actually lower than Germany's, but its current account balance, which is a combination of public and private debt. The latter was used primarily to fund the real estate bubble and when it popped, there's been nothing to replace it other than government spending because the economy's been nothing but construction and tourism the last twenty years.
So the one bright spot, its public debt, is increasing as a result of the crisis. At the same time, private sector debt, mostly tied up in mortgages, is increasing due to the housing crash. Meanwhile, the international community is calling for a period of wage deflation as prices continue to rise. Growth isn't projected until 2011 and even then it'll be anemic, which means there's little hope of the unemployment situation turning around anytime soon despite what the Spanish president says. That's the best case scenario.
One of the tragic ironies is, just when Spain has found a way to harness its famous sun for something other than tourism and become a player in the emerging renewable energy market, the subsidies needed to help nascent groups like T-Solar might be cut in the name of austerity. It makes me wonder if there had been less building and more investing where the country would be now. Of course, I've never understood why a French company, Alstom, won the contract to build the trains for the Barcelona metro either. Sometimes is seems the only thing Spanish are the banks and their empty buildings anymore. Actually, that's not true; there's the chiringuito once the clouds pass and summer finally arrives.
For anyone interested in doing a bike tour of Barcelona, Steel Donkey offers an alternative view of the city thanks to some locals who are eager to show your more than the standard sights and streets. Meanwhile, Suite Life offers not only apartments for visitors and locals alike, but also services aimed at making your stay more enjoyable. One way to ensure that is to avoid the pickpockets and speaking of which, I know someone who got robbed in Barcelona is a Facebook page that's recently become quite a phenomenon with over a thousand fans and a write up in La Vanguardia. Dedicated to helping people avoid the latest scams and places notorious for their thieves, it offers maps and updates on local initiatives. Become a fan because it's a worth cause. Finally, Pocket Cultures, where Marta from English in Barna contributes, is a great resource for any traveler offering insider tips and insights so make sure to bookmark it. Enjoy the weekend!
If you move to a foreign country, will you become more creative? A study last year in the Economist seemed to support this. Meanwhile, when I think of all the great artists ranging from painters to writers to poets, most had spent some time away from their home lands. Still, all of this is anecdotal in nature, lacking anything concrete specifics, so is it true or a myth that living abroad inspires creativity?
Speaking from my personal experience, I do feel more creative since moving to Spain. Part of the reason, I think, is the need to communicate in a foreign language. Searching for the right word, trying to find the correct way to ask for something forces my brain to be active even when it's something simple like buying milk. Of course, sometimes, even today, I can't always come up with the right word or the correct tense, which makes me look for non verbal ways to communicate: miming, sketching, a combination of the two with a few made-up words thrown in. The end result is: I usually get what I want, utilizing parts of my brain that wouldn't been used otherwise, making even the most mundane of actions stimulating.
But more than the language, I'd say the increased creativity has more to do with the freedom of thought and openness that comes with moving to a foreign land. Basic assumptions about life are challenged by new experiences. I've learned that there is often no right or wrong way to do things - only different. A walk in the park triggers a whole new thought process when I compare my new life to the one I left. While without the comfortable surroundings of my past, I'm forced to get out and experience life, rather than settle into a daily routine of letting it pass me by as I watch T.V. or daydream. So by the end of even the most unadventurous day, my mind is full of sights, sounds and smells that it wouldn't have been otherwise, which in turn spurs my creativity inspiring me to write.
So if you're feeling bored, stagnated and uncreative at home, sell your possessions, buy a ticket for a place you've always wanted to go and set a goal to stay for one year. Perhaps, you won't stay forever, but even if that's the case, you'll return a different, more creative person with enough material to paint that picture, sing that song or write that book which you've always had in you.
I'm not sure if that's a word, but Barcelona is full of them - little squares hidden amid the alleys and buildings of the city's older districts. Often lined with bars and restaurants, each one offers something distinct, whether it be a lively atmosphere or a feeling of being transported in time, making them the perfect place to meet friends for drinks and tapas now that spring is here. The problem is, there are so many of these squares littered throughout the city, that it's impossible to name them all but here are a few of my favorites.
Plaça de Sant Pere. Located in the upper El Born, where Carrer de Sant Pere Més Alt and Carrer de Sant Pere Mitja meet, it's sided by a few bars, a La Caixa and a small medieval church, which apparently doesn't exist on any map. Probably the least crowded of the ones on the list, I'll never forget sitting outside listening to the music of a string quartet coming from inside the centuries old stone walls of the church while tucking into some patatas bravas at a terrace outside.
Plaça del Sortidor in Poble Sec offers a mix of bars and restaurants amid the chaos that is Spanish streets. Sitting at one of the tables that lines the inside perimeter of the square, you can see kids kicking a football around, sometimes chased by a small dog. A honk of a horn and you'll watch as a delivery truck squeezes through the narrow street separating the tables from the bars, producing a shout from the kid behind on the scooter to hurry up. Then, like everyone else who has been observing, you'll return to the conversation you were having with friends about what to do that night as someone in an overlooking apartment hammers away to Queen playing on the stereo.
Plaça del Sol speaks to Barcelona's Bohemian side. Surrounded by bars and restaurants, it's in the heart of Gracia, which had been its own village for much of its history and still maintains a bit of an independence streak. One of the few squares that's popular throughout the year, the crowd, like the neighborhood itself, tends to veer to the more artistic and relaxed compared to the elegance of L'Eixample district that rests below.
Plaça del Rei. Tucked behind the main Cathedral in el Barrio Gotico is a square that can either be bustling with a concert or as quiet as it was centuries ago. Unlike most found throughout the city, it has only one bar, L'Antiquari, which is more like a stone tavern with a basement. Sitting outside at its terrace, looking at the engravings on the stone walls, it's difficult not to be impressed by the sense of history that surrounds you.
Plaça de Vicenç Martorell. Just off Carrer Tallers is a small square that surprisingly also has some greenery in the form of a patch of grass and a playground. Perhaps that's why under the arcade are the tables to some of Barcelona's better fruit, vegetable and sandwich bars. A great place when you need a break from the crowds of Las Ramblas just two blocks away.
Like I said, Barcelona is full of these little squares or placetes. It's one of the reasons, I think, it's such a fun city to get lost in, so feel free to add to the list and see how many the really are.
La Liga is winding down so there are only a few more chances to see Barcelona football club until September. This Wednesday they host Inter Milan and face the difficult task of overcoming a 3-1 defeat in Italy. After that, they have Tenerife visiting on May 6th and Valladolid on May 16th. Their lead on Real Madrid is only one point, so each match is critical if Barça wants to retain the title.
There are still tickets available to catch the team live and plenty of hotels near Camp Nou. The stadium itself is an impressive site so before the match check to see if there are any tours available to get an insider's look.
Today is one of my favorite days in Barcelona, la Diada de Sant Jordi, or Saint George's day. Honoring the patron saint of the Catalunya who is famous for slaying the dragon, it's celebrated with the simple gift exchange of a rose for her and a book from him.
Surprisingly, it's not a public holiday, but if you're out and about it seems like it is based on the crowds strolling the streets and looking at the flower and book stands. And what is truly amazing is that it can rain the day before and it can rain the day after, but no one I know remembers it raining on Sant Jordi.
So if you're in town, make sure to take in the sights and sounds of one of the more special days here. If you're not, why not buy a rose or a book for a friend to celebrate anyway. Here is an interpretation of the legend behind the celebration. Enjoy.
