Mount Orégano

Saint Isidro is the patron saint of Madrid, and today is his day. In fact, the celebration will last until Sunday: concerts for all ages and tastes, dancing, parades, fireworks, theater, bullfights, and even people dressing up in the traditional local costume. [Full schedule here.]

People from Madrid are called "cats," and the cat in this year's festival logo is wearing the traditional cap, white ascot, and checked vest for men. Women wear a flounced polka-dot dress, carnations in their hair, and a white headscarf. A streetwise, brash, urban attitude is essential for both sexes.

A few years back, I celebrated the festival by reading Saint Isidro's hagiography. He was born in 1087 in Madrid, at the time a small farm village. He worked as a farm hand for local landlords, and is credited with 204 miracles, many of which he accomplished after his death at age 90. One that occurred during his lifetime shows his love for God's creatures, according to the hagiography:

He and some other farmer hands were carrying sacks of wheat to a mill in winter when they passed a flock of shivering, starving doves. Isidro stopped and spread grain from his sack on the ground until they had eaten their fill, then continued on with a half-full sack. His companions were astounded when they arrived at the mill, for his sack had become full to overflowing and produced twice as much flour as their own.

Thus we know that God approves of bird feeding. Go thou and do likewise.

¡Viva San Isidro!

A quienes echan a doblar las campanas anunciando el fin de la novela, cabría pedirles que reflexionen sobre aquel verso del poeta John Donne: ¿no estarán doblando las campanas sobre su capacidad de novelar?

Those who toll the bell to announce the end of the novel should be asked to reflect on that verse by the poet John Donne: Aren't they tolling the bell on their own ability to write novels?

-- Javier Reverte

Thugs in gas masks on stilts, carrying lengths of rubber hose, menaced the audience as La Marseillaise played over the loudspeakers. They represented Napoleon's troops. A rabble with torches dispersed through the audience. They represented the people of Madrid, who rose up in rebellion against the French troops occupying Spain on May 2, 1808. Then fireworks seemed to burn down and blow up the main post office (photo above), which represented the War of Independence.

Nothing is quite like La Fura dels Baus, a Spanish aerial acrobatic troupe that put on a show last night at Cibeles Plaza for the bicentennial of the uprising. My husband and I were among 100,000 people who filled the streets. We were wowed.

Historical figures flew above the crowd, hoisted by cranes. Fireworks punctuated key moments. A release of 100 doves signaled the end of the war. King Fernando VII returned to the throne as a tightrope walker. A huge gold marionette representing la Pepa, as the Constitution of 1812 is called, danced through the crowd as we all chanted "Viva la Pepa!" I'm not sure what the human-scale gerbil exercise wheel meant as it rolled around, but La Fura dels Baus is Catalan, and that province of Spain has a sense of aesthetic that escapes me.

The climax came as acrobats hanging in the air reenacted the firing squads of May 3, when Napoleon's troops retaliated against the May 2 uprising, a tragedy made famous by a Goya painting. (You can see the painting at my home page.) That's the photo below, as "blood" streams down the facade of Linares Palace.

(From the MochaEnBocha.tv blog, a project by a friend of mine here in Madrid.)

"That's right, that’s the title of a new book by Lori Tharps, an African-American woman from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who studied and lived in Spain and married into a Spanish family....

"Lori Tharps found herself to be a curiosity to be pointed to in the street. She realized that Spaniards have somehow 'forgotten' their intrinsic history with Africa, and still see the Black presence in their country as both odd and, sometimes, threatening. Unless, the person is African American, and then the matter changes....

Read the whole post here, where you can follow a link to Lori Tharps' interview on WNYC radio.

On the 2nd of May, 1808, the people of Madrid rose up against Napoleon's soldiers, who were occupying Spain. It could have been a minor, almost forgettable event, but instead it changed not only Spain but the world so profoundly that its effects are still unfolding.
Find out what happened and who the man is in the painting at left, about to die. It's this month's front page article at my formal website:
http://www.sue.burke.name

I took part in the 12th Annual Continuous Reading of Don Quixote yesterday. (The photo is of the reader after me.)

It's held in the Hall of Columns theater on the 4th floor of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, a cultural institution in downtown Madrid, and it takes 48 hours to read the whole book. Anyone can volunteer to read a few paragraphs, so why not me, despite my accent?

I went up to theater lobby, got my volunteer number, and went into the hall. About 100 people were inside, listening as one reader after another took the podium on the spare and dramatically lit stage. A monitor on a wall announced that they were reading from Book II, Chapter 18, which deals with what happened to Don Quixote in the castle of the Knight of the Green Doublet.

A camera crew filmed the reading for close-circuit TV throughout the building, and a radio technician monitored the live transmission on Radio Círculo 100.4 FM. A movie screen showed clips from movie adaptations of the book. An interpreter presented the words in sign language.

Volunteers came in all types and ages. Three men read their sections in Esperanto. Entire families read. Young children stumbled but bravely made it through their paragraphs. Don Quixote is a funny book, and some readers couldn't help smiling as they read. Everyone got a brief round of applause when they finished.

My number came up. As the volunteer ahead of me read, I went to the table on stage to sign the log book, then got my assignment. I had time to read it through silently once before it was my turn to stand behind the lectern — just me, bright lights, and these words of Miguel de Cervantes:

"Verdaderamente, señor Quijote," dijo don Lorenzo, "que deseo coger a vuestra merced en un mal latín continuado, y no puedo, porque se me desliza de entre las manos como anguila.

"No entiendo," respondió don Quijote, "lo que vuestra merced dice ni queire decir en eso del deslizarme."

"Yo me daré a entender," respondió don Lorenzo, "y por ahora esté vuesa merced atento a los versos glosado y a la glosa, que dicen desta manera:

¡Si mi fue tornarse a es,
sin esperar más será,
o vinese el tiempo ya
de lo que será después!...

A month from today, I'll be traveling from the plains of La Mancha to the isthmus of Madison to attend WisCon. This is doubly exciting because I haven't been to the United States since November 2005. I'll be interested to see what's changed and what hasn't.

Today is also World Book Day. Both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on April 23. Here in Madrid, Spain, the day will be celebrated with 450 activities in at least 22 languages. A highlight will be the 12th annual reading out loud of Don Quixote: the whole book. It takes three days, and it's at the Circulo de Bellas Artes. Celebrities, writers, politicians, grade school students, and volunteers off the street each read a paragraph or two. Drop in anytime, day or night.

"En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo...."

 
My friend birdhousefrog has a small farm with chickens, and the legendary hen, Walkabout, may be ill. With the aid of the universe, I'm sending this get-well photo of IC 2948: The Running Chicken Nebula, from Astronomy Picture of the day.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080418.html

 My real-life friend here in Madrid, Patricia Dawn Severenuk, is Andalucía today. On Easter Sunday she took off from Irún, on the north Atlantic coast, for a 36-day, 200 km bike ride zig-zagging to the southernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula. She got a grant from Saloman Sports to create and mark the Spain's first dedicated cycle tourism route.

She has a blog about her adventure: http://trans-iberian.blogspot.com/

You can read it and pretend you went, too.

The Spanish Association for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror publishes the annual English-language newszine Espora (Spore) with hopes that its information will drift around the planet, land somewhere fertile, and grow. Issue #12 lists all the conventions, awards, shows, and publications from April 2007 to March 2008, with lots of links.

Read it here:

http://www.aefcft.com/espora/espora12.htm#Publications

The leading UK and European fanzine Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation has just posted a big seasonal edition with plenty of news, annual film top ten chart, bags of reviews, an article by Charles Stross, Worldcon review, and more.

Take a look:

http://www.concatenation.org/whatsnew.html

P.S. My thumb is healing just fine.

"Go have a beer in the cafeteria. We'll call you when she's done."

That's one way to tell that you're in a Spanish hospital. Another is that your prescription instructs you to take medicine at midnight -- because what self-respecting adult goes to bed before then?

I got my "trigger thumb" operated on today, and on the whole things went not just fine but festively. My husband came with me to the hospital, which delighted the staff since I'd have help, but I wouldn't need him right away, so the nurse suggested he go have a drink.

They had me change into a green gown, plastic footies, and a hairnet that didn't accomplish much but no one seemed to care. In the operating room, they laid me down with my arms spread like a crucifixion. In one they put an IV.

"What's that?"

"Saline solution. You haven't been able to drink since this morning, so you probably need some fluids."

Well, yes, but an IV of beer would have been more fun.

After my doctor assured everyone that "she's as healthy as an apple," they painted my hand with antiseptic, shot it full of anesthesia, put a tight cuff on my forearm so I wouldn't bleed much, then hung up a sheet so I couldn't watch -- though it would been interesting. I felt a scratch that must have been the scalpel, then some tugging and prodding, finally pinpricks that must have been stitches. All they while, they chatted away like it was a cocktail party.

"Move your thumb," the doctor finally said. I did, though I couldn't feel it. "Good!" Apparently they didn't cut the wrong thing.

When they took down my sheet, my hand was rapped in gauze halfway up my forearm.

I spent a little while in a wheelchair draining the IV in a recovery room with some other patients and some cheery nurses. Then they called my husband, who helped me dress, and we took the subway home. By the time we arrived, the anesthesia had worn off, but I had a prescription for painkillers in my purse.

And there's beer in the refrigerator. I'm going to have one now. For medicinal purposes.

Tomorrow I get surgery on my left thumb for stenosing tenosynovitis, or "trigger thumb." The tendon in my thumb has nodules on it, and the sheath around it in the metacarpophalangeal joint (second from the top) is swollen, and as a result I can't bend my thumb -- or rather I can, but it snaps like a trigger when I do, and it hurts like hell.

Medicine and a splint didn't cure it, so instead the sheath that is restricting the tendon will be cut open tomorrow in outpatient surgery.

I wish I could say I got the problem from being far too productive and typing too much, but I'm only moderately productive, and the problem is usually idiopathic, anyway. As Dr. House said, the idiopathic "comes from the Latin, meaning we're idiots, because we don't know what's causing it."

All this is less exciting than it sounds, except that I get to do it in Spanish. ("House" is a popular TV show here.) I will report back when the anesthesia wears off and any bandages are removed so I can type with two hands. Meanwhile, my husband gets to do all the housework, and I can't eat or drink anything after 7:30 a.m. tomorrow, so I'm getting up early for breakfast.

For a good explanation with helpful sketches, read the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons article: Trigger Finger http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00024&return_link=0

For more than you want to know, including surgery photos, go to eMedicine: Trigger Thumb http://www.emedicine.com/orthoped/topic571.htm

Daniel Mares's first novel is what Connie Willis would have written if she were crude, vulgar, and born in Madrid. Mares is Spain's undisputed best science fiction humor writer, and his work has all her characteristic wit and ambition, but none of her good taste and decency. 

Simply titled Madrid, it opens with the words in big bold type: "¡HIJOOOS DE PU TA!" ("Sons of biiich es!"), a common chant among soccer fans. It closes with the same big bold chant. In fact, the entire novel takes place during a hooligan riot outside the Madrid soccer stadium 200 years in the future at a Madrid-Barcelona Champion's League final game. 

If that were not ambitious enough, large portions of the work are told in second person. That's because one of the hooligans is telepathic and is planting memories in his friend's mind about the lives of three people key to the future. One of them is a police inspector investigating the murder of a 15-year-old prostitute who had been his mistress. He's on the trail of a serial killer who will strike again, but a likely suspect is involved in an interplanetary diplomatic incident may escalate to a military invasion.

Meanwhile, the telepathic narrator also talks directly to the readers and frequently gets distracted by the police who are trying to break up the riot. It's hard to understand for the first few pages, then the storytelling style allows for endless jokes and asides. The book is genuinely funny, though not suitable for minors or even some adults. 

Little by little, the plot thickens until the two hooligans must protect the world from invasion, Madrid's soccer team from defeat, and the universe from destruction. Can they do it? And if they can, is this universe worth saving? Sadly, yes they can, and we live in a horrible place. In Madrid, to be exact. 

My question is, "Can this work be translated to English?" In one sense, yes. English has enough expletives. But the hard part would be the setting. Can non-Spaniards believe the kind of casual violence that accompanies soccer games here? Do they grasp the significance of a Madrid-Barça Champion's League final game? Would they get all the jokes about El Corte Inglés department store? 

American culture is so familiar around the world that a book set in Manhattan can play in Madrid. But not vice-versa. Connie Willis, translated into Spanish, sells well here. Daniel Mares' translation would need extra-wide-sized footnotes. But it might be worth it.

What are the main differences between and oak tree and Marine? One makes its own energy, about as much in a day as the other uses. One is the dominant species. In both cases, it's the tree.

Don't believe me? Read this month's front page article at my formal web page, "If I were a plant," at http://www.sue.burke.name

At noon yesterday, highway AP-6 near Segovia had to be closed for 45 minutes because six fighting bulls had escaped from a nearby ranch and were attacking cars. The Guardia Civil eventually chased them back into their pasture. No injuries or serious accidents, but there were some very frightened drivers, and the owner of the ranch will be charged with causing a traffic hazard. Olé.

Forget chocolate eggs and jelly beans. The time-honored way to celebrate Easter in Madrid is with torrijas.

You might call it french toast, but in Madrid they don't, if only because of a lingering resentment of the French involving an invasion by Napoleon two hundred years ago. Instead they call it "little toasts," which is what torrijas means, although they're not little.

Here's the recipe: Take big, thick slices of day-old bread. Soak them for a few hours in sweetened milk (the most common variation), or sweet wine, or sugar water if you're too poor to afford milk (as was the case just after the Civil War). Dip them in beaten egg. Deep-fry them. Then sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar, and if you wish, put syrup on them, too.

Fattening? You bet. They plumped up Queen Isabel II (1843-1868). Her mistake was to eat them year-round.

Most people buy torrijas ready-made in bakeries for about 2.20€ (US$3) per slice, and about 3.5 million slices will be sold in Madrid during the holidays. Then, wisely, we'll have to wait for a year to enjoy them again.

This is a Easter procession in Spain. I don't know what possessed the Ku Klux Klan to copy the robes and hoods worn in Spanish religious processions, especially considering how anti-Catholic the Klan is, but they did.

And even though I understand why the processions dress that way, it still creeps me out. The tall hats represent penitence and the mask allows the procession members to contemplate their repentance alone in a crowd, undistracted by friends who might otherwise be waving hello from the sidewalk.

The processions are solemn funeral marches for Jesus. Today's morning news included an interview of a sobbing woman. She was a member of the fraternity in Seville, the city that has the best Easter processions in all Spain, outstanding not just for their enormous care in every aspect -- the robes, the incense, the music, the synchronized marching, perfect in every detail -- but for their great religious fervor.

The most important element of a procession is the statue that the marchers carry or accompany. They are usually of Jesus or Mary, life-sized, several centuries old, sculpted by the finest artists of their day, and made of painted wood. It rained last night in Seville. The artistic treasures had to remain in the churches. After a year of loving preparations, last night's five processions in Seville were canceled.

With luck, the Holy Week processions in Seville, Madrid, and other cities across Spain scheduled for tonight and for the rest of the week will go on as planned.

The photo is of a Sunday night Seville procession from 20 Minutos newspaper.

It's Father's Day in Spain today, March 19, el Día del Padre. Technically, its Saint Joseph's Feast Day, husband of the Virgin Mary, and foster-father and guardian of Jesus. So, by extension, this is the day to honor all fathers.

However, Joseph isn't mentioned in the Bible very much besides in the birth story. The last time is when Jesus is 12 years old and, without telling his parents, stays behind in Jerusalem at the temple to listen to the rabbis and ask them questions (Luke 2:41-52). Some theologians suggest that Joseph died before Jesus grew up and began preaching.

If you're a father, don't do that -- don't die before you're old. Your kids will miss you. I miss my Dad.

A brief lesson in real-life Spanish (as spoken in Spain, I should specify). When words travel from one language to another, they don't always arrive safely.

Many of Spain's Olympic athletes in swimming train at Madrid's Real Canoe Club de Natación -- the Royal Canoë Swimming Club. Note that canoe is pronounced ca-NO-ay. The word's not what you thought, or is it?

Though the club now enjoys financial success, it started off 76 years ago as a group of friends who swam in the mountain lakes and rivers near Madrid, and soon they realized that they needed a lifeguard boat. One of them heard about a good deal on a second-hand boat from Canada, a maneuverable little craft called a piragua in Spanish.

The boat arrived with a curious word stenciled on its side, CANOE, whatever that meant, but they decided that if they named their club after it, then the club name would already be on their boat. Of course, they used the Spanish phonics pronunciation.

Real Canoe also runs a bingo hall to help pay for its projects. Every time I see the sign for "Bingo Canoe" I giggle. And I think about the way that words sometimes wash up on strange shores, shipwrecked from their original meaning.

By the way, the club's main office is on Flying Fish Street. I don't know if that's a coincidence.

http://www.realcanoe.es

 sierras nevadas
 La Mancha blanca:
 almendros

 the snowy mountains
 the white La Mancha plain:
 almond trees

 [Spain is the world's second-largest almond producer.]