Month: November 2024

A weekend celebration of friendship and love

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In the early 90s I was working at a boutique investment bank in Madrid, when a new intern straight out of college came in from Atlanta. I was only a few years out of college and had just returned to Madrid a few months before. Quill and I hit it off grandly! We went out, partied, I taught him to ski (remember, he was from Atlanta) and to ride a motorcycle. We had a great time, and we became close friends.

Daniel was the Director of the Writing Studio at Walnut Hill; I admired his capacity for quick wit and deep thought. I once had him give us a master class on Neruda’s 20 Poemas de amor, I was flabbergasted by how he dissected Neruda’s work. We left Walnut Hill at about the same time. He teaches English at Emory in Atlanta.

Bob was my student at Walnut Hill. After graduation he went to the New England Conservatory where I would occasionally go to his recitals and concerts. He eventually landed a position with the Atlanta Symphony, and we sort of lost touch for a few years until Film Club reunited us.

Bill was also my student at Walnut Hill, he plays the viola. He checked in with me when he went to audition for the Naples Symphony. We had dinner and a cigar, and caught up. When he read my blog post about JoJo Rabbit, he was inspired to start Film Club with a few other misfits.

Bob got married this weekend, so I got on a plane to Atlanta and went to see all these dear, dear friends.

Quill took me to lunch to an amazing Venezuelan restaurant where I had the best arepa I have had in a long, long time. I last saw him when I rolled into Atlanta on my motorcycle looking at PhD programs in 2011. We caught up, chatted, and remembered old times.

Daniel met me for coffee at a great little coffee shop aptly called The Reading Room. We sat al fresco and caught up on our lives since leaving old Boston.

Bob was getting married, so he did not have a lot of time for chitchat, but we did have a few conversations. Also, I talk to him every month during our Film Club meetings!

Bill invites me to his concerts when his orchestra plays in Miami, plus he spent his Summer in Madrid, but I still loved seeing him and hanging out with him. And I also get to see him in Film Club!

The wedding was beautiful. Although I have been to a few weddings, you could really feel the love in this one. Yes, everything was perfect down to the last detail: The ceremony was intimate and included one of Bob’s best friend on the piano (so you know it was good), Alina’s dress was perfect for her, the cocktails were delicious, as was dinner, the dancing was on point, etc., etc. but all that means little compared to the joy of love being celebrated. I really enjoyed it!

My heart is still overflowing with the love and friendship I experienced this weekend.

Football, fútbol, soccer brings the world together

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In this polarized world, something brings people together on a global level: Football, fútbol, soccer.

At a recent soccer tournament, I overheard a couple of our men chatting (in Spanish) with players from another team, explaining the seminary to them. The men, with a nervous, embarrassed laugh, explained they were “ilegales.” Our men took it in stride and continued the good-hearted banter. That conversation made it worthwhile for me to get up at five fifteen on a Saturday morning for a soccer tournament, the trophy we won, as they say, was gravy on top.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Every Fall, our soccer team usually plays our Miami counterpart (read about that here). With a new term calendar in our school, that game was cancelled. So, the students found the Diocese of Palm Beach Young Adult Soccer Tournament. We signed up.

The tournament involved 12 teams from the Palm Beach area.

Early Saturday morning, after weeks of training, we drove to Halpatiokee Park in Stuart. The day started with a wonderful outdoor Mass. Five games followed. We won all our succeeding games 3-2 then 2-1. As our opponents got harder, our wins became narrower. The quarterfinal was 1-0, and the semifinal 0-0, which we then lost on a nail-biting 9 shot penalty shootout.

With all these games, our starting-and only-goalie got a massive leg cramp. We had to pull him out of the game. Gilbert, one of our players-not a goalie-selflessly volunteered to go under the arches, and what a job he did, stopping critical shots.

It was now time to decide the third and fourth place teams, and who would take home a trophy. By now it was well past 6, so the captains decided to change the game to another penalty shootout. We scored on the last goal, and Gilbert made sure to stop the last shot, making him the hero of the tournament!

After an extraordinarily long day and five games, that third place trophy tasted like victory, we were elated. What a marvelous celebration of community, and the common ground football brings us to.

The social media video. Credit: Thomas Hammen

Teaching outside the classroom (Part 2)

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Discussing mystical literature in Starbucks!

The first part of Teaching outside the classroom was about coaching soccer, about teaching values, and teamwork, and all those “soft” skills which the classroom is not the ideal venue for. (You can read about it here)

Basically a classroom is just a room, four walls, nowadays likely packed with technology, in which your students and you meet. It is easy, you build a building, make lots of these rooms and you have a school! But we now know that these places are not the best, and not the most conducive to learning. So whenever we can, we get out of there!

Sometimes we just step outside to the garden or the dining room, steps away from the classroom. But if the course has few students and the content for the day’s class is propitious, we go to our local coffee shop (which unfortunately in our case is a Starbucks, but hey even that is better than the sterile walls of a classroom).

Outside the classroom the students seem to think “better,” more fluidly, they engage differently with the subject. I do not have the science to prove it, but those classes seem more enriching for the students.

We recently had a lesson on the great mystic Santa Teresa de Jesús and her poetry. This lesson, with only four students in the class (Advanced Spanish Language and Culture) was worth taking to the coffee shop. It worked out great, so much so that a week later I took my other section!

So if you have a small class and can do it, get out of the classroom! You are welcome.

Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, Cartas eruditas y curiosas, a book review (my first!)

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David Gies is an authority in 18th C Spanish Literature, an eminence, arguably the doyen of the field. He was professor at UVA for decades, he founded Dieciocho, the leading academic journal of 18th C Spanish Literature, he was my Dissertation Director’s Dissertation Director, and he is a great, funny, brilliant fellow!

When David Gies asks you to do a book review for Dieciocho, you drop whatever academic project you were working on and you read-and then write-that book review (even if the book has 700 pages).

Benito Jerónimo Feijoo is probably the most important Spanish writer of whom you have never heard of. Starting in the early 18th Century and for the rest of it, Feijoo was the first to break down many of Spain’s dark superstitions, he was the first to write about science and medicine, about all sorts of topics. These essays were published in a collection called the Teatro Crítico Universal and later the Cartas eruditas y curiosas. Feijoo is considered the Spanish Montaigne.

Of course I had read Feijoo for my doctorate, and I enjoyed it, but it was great to revisit his work. Feijoo writes clearly, to the point, and occasionally with humor. More importantly, it is fascinating to understand how revolutionary and groundbreaking Feijoo’s writing was in traditional, conservative 18th C. Spain. In fact, the Inquisition had its eye set of this Benedictine monk, so much so that King Fernando VI had to issue a letter protecting him.

Feijoo has some similarity to my main research interest Francisco de Isla, in that they were both pre ilustrados, advancing and preparing for the Enlightenment to arrive in Spain later in the century.

While I have written many book reviews for this blog, it is not the same as having them published in a leading academic journal…

This was a great project to work on and you can read it here. Hope you like it, let me know in the comments!