Addendum: Gabriel García Márquez, Relato de un náufrago

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A few blog posts ago, I wrote about Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I recently read his only non-fiction work: Relato de un náufrago, so it is time to update.

The story is that a Colombian Navy sailor, Luis Alejandro Velasco, returning from Mobile, Alabama, on the Colombian Destroyer Caldas, was knocked into the Caribbean Sea in 1955. He survived on a raft for ten days before reaching the Colombian shore. The story was published in the Colombian newspaper El Espectador before being published as a book. In theory, García Marquez “just” wrote down Velasco’s story, so much so that it is written in the first person and was actually signed by Velasco; This edition being the first one where García Márquez puts his name on it. The question then becomes: how much of the text is Gabo’s and how much is Velasco’s? Obviously enough for García Márquez to claim the story as his own. I found myself smiling a few times while reading in Gabo’s characteristic style.

This is an enjoyable read, a bit like Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, as they both share adventures in the Caribbean Sea and writing styles. As I mentioned earlier (here), both were journalists before becoming novelists, which shows in their distinct economic styles.

Conclusion: Recommended!

Exploring the Toledo Cathedral’s 800th Anniversary Exhibition

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Cardinal Pascual de Aragón
Primada VIII centenary of Toledo Cathedral
I love Carducho's theatrics
The triforium
some old papers
Astrolabe tapestry 15th-Century

Growing up in Spain as a teenager, I really got a cathedral overdose, basically of churches in general. Without any education in architecture or art history, they all looked the same to me: stained-glass windows, buttresses, and arches. It was a real shame; fortunately, I have had the chance to correct that.

One of the cathedrals I have recently come to really enjoy is the Toledo Cathedral. Although I still remember being moved by the Greco paintings in the sacristy the first time I went as a teenager, I have now gone numerous times, and it just keeps on giving.

Under the guise of visiting my immersion students and conducting research at the Cathedral’s library, I recently visited the 800th-anniversary exhibition held in the cathedral itself. To put it mildly, it is breathtaking.

What will you see?

15th-century Tapiz del astrolabio (Tapestry of the Astrolabe)

1226 St. Louis Bible

All sorts of old documents

Paintings by Velázquez, EL Greco, Carducho, etc, etc.

The triforium, which is the corridor above the nave, used in Gothic architecture for construction and then maintenance.

Sculptures, including by El Greco! and of Cardinal Pascual de Aragón.

All sorts of church vestments, artifacts, implements, etc.

This is really an exhibit worth seeing. If you are in Madrid before October 14, 2026, jump on a train and go! You are welcome!

Chiringuito lifestyle

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A chiringuito is usually a bar/café/restaurant on the beach. They are usually very informal, and you can go in your bathing suit, T-shirt, and flip-flops (although nowadays some of them have gone a bit upmarket). Yes, you can find these places on beaches all over the world, but do they have such a cool name as we have for them in Spain?

The use of the word chiringuito in Spain has now come to mean any sort of establishment with little in the way offoundation, paperwork, etc. As in: “Joe Shmoe has just opened a financial chiringuito…”

But back to the beach, Celia and I recently spent a few days in Costa Ballena in the South of Spain, where the chiringuito culture is outstanding. Within walking distance of our apartment, we can reach at least three or four chiringuitos. The closest one is Kanguro, where they have the traditional espeto, a fish barbecue. An espeto is usually an old rowing boat filled with sand on which an open fire is used to cook a whole fish, usually one that was fished that morning, skewered next to the fire (see photos)

I then spent a few days in Mallorca with the family; this has been a family tradition since childhood (see here). The tiny beach we stay at has a cute little chiringuito called Bar Casetas where I take a mid-morning cortado and an even cuter one on a little rock island a few feet from the beach. Unfortunately, this island chiringuito, which makes decent paellas, has now become TikTok-famous, and it has become overrated, overpriced, and impossible to reserve; no more walking over in your wet bathing suit to have a paella for lunch.

Whenever I am at a beach, especially in Spain, I always check out the chiringuito situation!

Do you have a special chiringuito? Tell us in the comments below!

Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Two New York existentialists: Mean Streets (1973) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

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Hannah and Her Sisters and Mean Streets

At first sight, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen have little in common other than being two great New York filmmakers. Beyond that, there seems to be little else in common. Their genres, styles, and films are almost opposed.

However, two films seem to connect them philosophically: Mean Streets (1973) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Both protagonists, Charlie in Mean Streets and Mickey in Hannah, are textbook existentialists, though there are as many approaches to existentialism as there are people; these two exemplify polar-opposite existential crises, united by a shared search for the self.

The very first scene in Mean Streets has Scorsese’s voice in off, saying: “You don’t make up for your sins in church, you do it in the streets.” The scene then opens with Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel) waking up as light filters through the blinds, making him seem as if he is behind bars. He gets up and walks by a very well-lit crucifix to a mirror where he touches his face. Here are the basic clues we need to understand Charlie’s situation: He feels trapped, the weight of morality, of guilt, of the church on his shoulders, and the touching gives a very “doubting Thomas” feeling: I will believe it when I touch it. Throughout the film, Charlie will test the pain a flame causes whenever he sees one (candles, kitchen stoves), a motif shared by Lawrence of Arabia. Charlie struggles to decide between the mafia lifestyle of his capo uncle and a more honest life with his girlfriend in the style of his hero, St. Francis of Assisi, protecting the less fortunate, in this case, Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy.

Woody Allen’s Mickey, on the other hand, has a very different kind of existential crisis as he looks for the meaning of life. Although Allen always seems to play the same neurotic New Yorker, in Hannah, he channels the existential issues of love and life in Manhattan.

In conclusion, Scorsese in Mean Streets and Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters, respectively, portray the two sides of the same existentialist coin: Scorsese in the tragic frame of Soren Kierkegaard, and Allen’s Hanna in the absurdist style of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

“You know, I’ll dye Easter eggs if it works.”

Sting, 35 years later

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Attending high school in London in the early 80s, it was difficult not to be a fan of The Police (and hundreds of other great and influential bands), although I did not see Sting perform until 1988, when I was living in New York City after college.

So, when you are a Sting fan who has not seen him since 1991, and a colleague and friend invites you to his Miami concert, you jump for joy.

The story is that John was going with another colleague, but at the last minute, Sting had to cancel due to illness. Gentleman that he is, he rescheduled. Unfortunately, that other colleague could not make it, so I was invited instead!

The concert was at Miami’s Seminole Hard Rock Casino, which has a huge theater with crystal-clear sound.

Sting performed with his trusty sidekick, guitarist Dominic Miller, and the amazing drummer Chris Maas (who also played with Mumford & Sons)

The concert was a review of all his classic hits, with some lesser-known songs:

  1. Message in a Bottle
  2. I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)
  3. If I Ever Lose My Faith in You
  4. Englishman in New York
  5. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
  6. Fields of Gold
  7. Never Coming Home
  8. Mad About You
  9. Wrapped Around Your Finger
  10. Driven to Tears
  11. When We Dance
  12. A Thousand Years
  13. Can’t Stand Losing You
  14. Shape of My Heart
  15. Walking on the Moon
  16. So Lonely
  17. Desert Rose
  18. King of Pain
  19. Every Breath You Take
  20. Roxanne
  21. Fragile

Readers of this blog know that I now listen more to classical music than to pop, with the occasional exception of Van Morrison. So when the band played “Driven to Tears” as an instrumental (which was amazing), I mistook it for “When the World is Running Down (You Make the Most of What’s Still Around).” My bad. Am I ashamed? Yes, a little, but then again, I have not listened to these songs in decades!!

So, if you get a chance to see Sting on this tour, go for it; he will not disappoint. You are welcome.

A new soccer field; plant a (metaphorical) seed and watch it grow. And the game to celebrate it

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COVID was raging when I arrived at this school, so there was no soccer. When I finally went out to the field to start coaching, it was horrible. It was not really a field, just a bare plot of land about the size of a soccer field, covered in weeds and sandy patches. The goalposts tilted at angles that made the Tower of Pisa look ramrod straight.

Every year, we slowly invested in small improvements: one year we got corner flags, another year we got game balls, and one year we had a professional line painter come in to paint the field lines with a robot. We had great lines on a horrible field!

After a couple of injuries last year, the rector and the dean finally took the step of building a real soccer field. The landscapers removed a layer of soil, installed irrigation, and planted Bermuda grass. It is not a perfect field; it is not entirely level, and weeds are sprouting, but it is light-years better than what we had before.

The cherry on top was buying new goalposts—from England —bleachers, and team benches.

To inaugurate the new field, we hosted the Jesus Youth team from the Amoris Christi campus in Delray Beach, the town next to ours.

The game was great; we had a military color guard and a blessing before the game. The bleachers were put to good use, oh, and we won 5-1.

The moral of this story is to be patient, positive, and persistent. Make sure your needs are known to the higher-ups. They will hopefully notice and, little by little, make the necessary changes and investments. I am a firm believer in planting the seed and nourishing it until you get results, rather than resorting to more dramatic approaches to get things done. That is just my way. Hope it helps. You are welcome.

Divine Mercy Radio, an interview

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Ready for my interview

Back in a previous life, when I was an entrepreneur and had my own company, I was interviewed a few times on Spanish radio, but it had been a couple of decades since my last interview. A few weeks ago, Divine Mercy Radio in Florida asked about the Language Program at a bilingual seminary, so Carolyn Dean, a real pro, interviewed me; it was a lot of fun!

The prompt (below) was a bit ambiguous, but you can listen to the interview yourself here.

“Dr. Balson: from the perspective of the director of the Language department in the only Bilingual Theologate in the US. How does your own love for the Spanish language and culture influence your teaching style and sharing a love for that world? What do you think the important impact of that work has on the Church in the regions we serve? Love for the soccer team and coaching the team?”

Note: We are not the only bilingual seminary in the US but enjoy the interview anyway!

https://divinemercyradio.com/living-catholic-2026

Reading Unamuno’s San Manuel Bueno, mártir in a seminary (no spoilers)

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Discussing San Manuel in our favorite coffee shop

Miguel de Unamuno was a professor of Greek and Latin in Salamanca and eventually became the rector. More importantly, he was a leading existentialist philosopher, though he did not achieve the prominence of other early 20th-century philosophers, especially the German philosophers.

Unamuno’s San Manuel Bueno, Mártir is a book I have taught many times. It is the story of a priest in a fictional village in northwestern Spain. As you can imagine by now, the story raises deep existential and theological questions, which my students have engaged with in ways I did not expect. Without giving away any spoilers (I hope), the leitmotif of the novel is “Hay que vivir,” which translates as “one must live,” or more bluntly, “get on with it” or “carry on.”

At St. Vincent’s, this has been my first time teaching it, and it has been the most rewarding work I have done in my six years here. You see, I teach the future Catholic priests of the US, and at this level, they all have a bachelor’s or master’s in philosophy, so these discussions were lively, and the students wrestled with the text in ways that—obviously—high school students could not. To say that these men are passionate about their future jobs is an understatement. We got so into the reading that we went to discuss the book at our favorite coffee shop, Common Grounds!

I could go on and on, but I am afraid of spoilers…

There you have it. If you are teaching upper-level or Spanish literature at a Catholic seminary, go ahead and teach San Manuel Bueno, mártir. You are welcome.

Modern art in Boca Raton

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Modernism, like all good artistic and cultural movements, spans many years and decades and has many branches and sub-branches. Folks who say “I don’t like Modern art” are making a very, very big sweeping statement, a massive generalization, brushing away almost two centuries of art.

Most scholars point to the Impressionists of the mid- to late 1800s as the vanguard of Modern Art. If you go to the Prado Museum with me, I will prove this theory wrong. Let me know when you are in Madrid!

But back to this blog post. The Boca Raton Museum of Art is hosting a small but powerful exhibit: Modernisms, Art from the Manes Collection. It is very well curated, starting with Renoir and making its way to Robert Mapplethorpe, with wonderful works by Picasso, Chagall, Dali, and, possibly, my favorite in this exhibit, Jasper Johns’ 1980 American Flag.

Jasper Johns is considered one of the founders of Pop Art, and his flags, which paradoxically resemble the flag of the United States, are truly works of art; one must look closely, then step back, and repeat as necessary until one gets it. At the same time, Johns is a gateway into minimalism (which I talked about here). Can you tell I love the double entendre? The visual game?

So, if you are going to be in South Florida anytime before October 11, go see this exhibition. You are welcome.

Daphnis and Chloé: The Triumph of Impressionism.

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If Dante had lived in the 21st century, Miami traffic would be a circle of hell. Miami traffic is undeniably a nightmare, the perfect storm of older, retired folks who drive very slowly, tourists, snowbirds, illegal immigrants who drive very slowly to not get into any trouble, and local youths who drive like a bat out of hell. So I avoid driving to Miami. My motivation to go to Miami must be fairly high. One such instance is when my dear friend, old student, and Film Club founder, Bill, invites me to a New World Symphony concert, even though he has recently moved out of Miami.

Although I have been to the New World Center many times, this concert was held in the much larger Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami proper (The New World Center is in Miami Beach, technically a different city from “mainland” Miami)

The first piece of this concert was Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, five Neruda Sonnets put to song (VIII, XXIV, XLV, LXXXI, and XCII). Grammy-winning mezzo soprano Kelley O’Connor did an amazing job singing these sonnets. But putting music to Neruda is not easy and not that original. My dear old student, Jorge, who left us way too early, did it as a project for one of my classes!

Ravel is best known for his Bolero, especially if you are of a certain age and saw Blake Edwards’ film 10 in 1979. If his Bolero is the victory of minimalism, Daphnis and Chloé is the triumph of Impressionism

This ballet, technically a symphonie chorégraphique (choreographic symphony), is nowadays done more as a concert than as a ballet.

I confess to having disparaged the impressionists before, as a movement more so than individually, but this is musical impressionism, and I had never experienced it like this! The concert included the full Master Chorale of South Florida, together with the full New World Symphony Orchestra—what an immersive experience! Every note is a brushstroke, you are transported into an imaginary painting of Daphnis and Chloé, you are transfixed, I loved it! I returned to the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, to the Monet exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and I returned to every impressionistic painting I have ever stood in front of.

So, if you ever get a chance to listen to Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé, go! You will not regret it, you are welcome.