Spanish NewsBites Blog

Where You Don't Return From

This terrific image is by the photographer Alberto García-Alix, a selection of whose work is appearing at Madrid's Reina Sofia museum. The exhibition is called De donde no se vuelve (Where you don't return from - a great title) and features some of the finest images by the man thought of as the photographer to the movida. This photo says so much about the mix of old and new, traditional and avant-garde, crude and sophisticated, beautiful and ugly, false and authentic - I could go on - that is Madrid. It's called Tarde de San Isidro (San Isidro Evening). Meanwhile, back at Spanish NewsBites, recent posts have dealt with cuisine, the Mexican singer Julieta Venegas and the fact that the future of the United States is looking considerably more Spanish-language based than the present. We have also introduced a minor but significant change to Spanish NewsBites - we believe the font you are now reading, and the spacing of the text, should make Spanish NewsBites a more enjoyable online experience. See you soon...

New Spanish Grammar

If you're really serious about your Spanish, then you'll have pencilled December 2009 in your diary today. Luckily, it falls around Christmastime that the Nueva Gramática del español, the Royal Spanish Academy's immense new grammar of the Spanish language, will be published. There are 22 Spanish language academies, and all have made their contributions to this 3,200 page monster - described as a  "relief map of the Spanish-speaking world" by Víctor García de la Concha, the director of the Academy, who today announced the publication date of the tome. It has taken 11 years to prepare,.and will also be available in a reduced, 300-page form - probably enough for the purposes of most learners of Spanish.

What better Christmas gift than an explanation of the differences between ser and estar and por and para?

Menawhile, over at Spanish NewsBites, recent posts have included penguins, poetry and pesos. See you there!

In Patagonia

Patagonia is a bit of an obsession with me, and there's a good article over at the Guardian's site which is guaranteed to whet your travel appetite. Time to dust off a couple of old Patagonia tomes - this one, by Bruce Chatwin, of course, and this one, by W.H. Hudson - a bit thick on the philosophizing for some tastes, but worth it for the anecdotal passages. Meanwhile, I've been lending people a very enjoyable novel called This Thing of Darkness by a Brit, Harry Thompson, whose first novel it was and who sadly died after it was published. It's basically about Charles Darwin's Patagonian journey, mixed in with the life story of one Robert Firzroy, and there's a lot of wonderful Patagonian description in it. Not challenging - just highly enjoyable.

Meanwhile, over at Spanish NewsBites, recent items have included pieces on the Colombian muso Juan Luis Guerra., the Moros y Cristianos fiestas in Spain, and Madrid's White Nights. Spanish NewsBites: the language and the news wrapped up together, for your convenience and sheer pleasure.

New posts on SNB Alert

New posts over at Spanish NewsBites: Argentinian identity, the discovery of ancient cities in Brazil and why Ibiza might be about to lose its reputation for fast partying are among recent posts. Many of our entries to date have been for intermediate and advanced level students, so we're upping the ratio of beginner-level materials this week. Remember to let us know what we can do to make SNB better: spanishnewsbites *at* gmail.com is where to go.

The film based on the book is hardly ever better than the original, and José Luis Cuerda's Los girasoles ciegos, just released in Spain, is a good example of that. The novel, however, comes close to being a masterpiece of the post Civil War, and it's now available in English.

Unsporting - more Spanish sporting faux pas

This has been a great year for Spanish sport, but also for Spanish sporting faux pas. These photos, incredibly, feature recent photos of high-profile Spanish sportspeople pulling back the skin next to their eyes, playground style, in imitation of Chinese people. Both have appeared in official places. More here and here. Grow up, people, please. Perhaps you didn't mean to offend anyone with these pictures, but don't be surprised if people are offended. Article on fallout from the basketball faux pas, here. More opinions on the issue, not many of them in favour, here. The Spanish press, meanwhile, has a whole different attitude - some believe, incredibly, that the story is an attempt to derail Madrid's 2012 Olympic bid.

Be Ashamed, Maria Isabel Moreno

Well, her smile's gone now. A Spanish athlete has become the first to be sent home from the Olympics for being a drugs cheat. I wish they'd stop doing this. According to one Belgian paper, this kind of activity casts a shadow over the summer's other, presumably legitimate, sporting triumphs - soccer, Nadal, the Tour de France etc. One nice summarizing article, which also offers a couple of possible non-illegal reasons for Spain's recent sporting successes and which mentions drugs not at all, can be found here.

Glamour and Mystery

Glamour and mystery over at Spanish NewsBites over the last few days, as we see how an Italian fashion designer is getting involved in the world of bullfighting and we look at the mysterious disappearance of a man following a meal at Spain's best-known restaurant. Did you know that the use of the world "glamour" in English is largely the doing of Sir Walter Scott, and that the words "glamour" and "grammar" are etymologically related?

Ramón or Radovan?

Both men were poets, both went for that Bohemian look, and both took more than a passing interest in political matters. One, Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936), was a novelist and dramatist who wrote politically charged, linguistically barrier-breaking work attacking bourgeois hypocrisy. The other, Radovan Karadzic, seems to have had Ramón in mind as he sat in front of the bathroom mirror, pondering how to escape justice. With apologies to Ramón: any similarity is merely superficial.

Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces

The publicity people at Pedro Almodóvar's production house are very diligent people, so every so often they send out an update telling you that today Pedro has updated his blog about the shoot of his latest film, Los abrazos rotos. The man is a genius of cinema and also of self-publicity - as though thousands of people worldwide weren't already gasping for their next cinemetic fix of Pedro, here we have his blog to whip up interest. It's worth a visit, because he's actually a good writer too. The blog (in three languages) is here.

And here's Pedro on the shoot (in Spanish), seemingly as excitable and enthusiastic as he ever was about film-making...

Launguage

"Do you think it is possible to learn a new launguage in just eight weeks?" says the video on this site. The spelling certainly gives you confidence in their method. Like some students of mine who once did a project about a mock "Inglish" school they were going to set up, these guys are shooting themselves in the foot right from the very first pitch.

So how come I'm here, advertising them...?