antonio balson

The Sleeper. El Caravaggio Perdido

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Although I have a lot of blog posts on film, I have remarkably few on documentaries (other than on Minimalism, and on the Camino).

Ok, this is the story: My friend Jaime’s daughter is good friends with a family that for years had Caravaggio hanging in their dining room, which they thought was a bad imitation of a Murillo, and would have been happy to get 1,500 euros at auction.

This is a documentary on the story of that painting, it is very well done. I recently saw it on the plane ride back to the US and I really enjoyed it!

While narrating the story of this painting, the documentary delves into the world of art dealers, art historians, auction houses, and art restorers. It offers a fascinating glimpse into this normally secretive world. And it all revolves around Caravaggio, who is not only an amazing painter, but who had a fascinating life; there are not that many world-class painters who killed someone!

Apparently, it is available on Prime Video, so if you have the possibility of seeing it, and you like art, definitely see it. You are welcome.

My favorite authors series, Part II: Gabriel García Márquez

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Ooops. I just realized that in 14 years of writing this blog, I have never dedicated a post to Gabriel García Márquez, shame on me.

You see, García Márquez is one of the reasons I love literature, one of the reasons I made books my livelihood. My dear college friend Silvia recommended One Hundred Years of Solitude, and when I read it, my mind was blown to smithereens! I was hooked and proceeded to read most of Marquez’s novels.

La hojarasca (1955)

El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961)

Cien años de soledad (1967)

El otoño del patriarca (1975)

Crónica de una muerte anunciada (1981)

El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985)

El general en su laberinto (1989)

Del amor y otros demonios (1994)

Memoria de mis putas tristes (2004)

I also read many of his short stories and one of his books of short stories:

Doce cuentos peregrinos (1992)

To top it all off, I even read one of his more famous interviews.

El olor de la guayaba (1982), con Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza.

When you speak of García Márquez, everybody mentions Magical Realism. Which he did not invent (it started in Germany). Oh, just so we are clear on what Magical Realism is, it is when extraordinary, often fantastical things occur, and the people who witness or live the event don’t even bat an eyelash; it is a common, everyday thing for them. One Hundred Years of Solitude has a lot of Magical Realism; it is the flagship for Magical Realism, but much of his other work has much less, or even no Magical Realism. By the way, many other authors incorporate this genre, including Isabel Allende in Casa de los Espíritus.

“Yo conservaba un recuerdo muy confuso

de la fiesta antes de que hubiera decidido

rescatarla a pedazos de la memoria ajena”

Gabriel García Márquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada

But that is not the reason I love GM —although I do enjoy those moments! I love how extraordinarily well he writes, but at the same time, how normal it appears; there is no showing off, no showboating, no “look at that sentence” that many authors with far less talent leverage.

I also love how García Márquez brings you into the setting and the story, how easy it feels to be an observer of his world. Granted, all his work comes from true stories, which makes it even more fascinating to feel a part of them.

“Era una síntesis de los últimos acontecimientos nacionales

impresa en mimeógrafo para la circulación clandestina.”

Gabriel García Márquez, El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba

A favorite? I don´t really have a favorite. Amor en los tiempos del cólera is my favorite love story and one of my favorite books. Crónica de una Muerte anunciada is the book I have read the most, since I teach it and will often read it before the course starts and again with the students, which is what has prompted this blog post 😊

So if you have not yet read any of Gabriel García Marquez’s work, and you feel ambitious, go for One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you prefer to dip your toes in the water and just get a feel, read a short story, or better yet, one of the shorter books like Crónica de una muerte anunciada or Memoria de mis putas tristes.

“Las vidas no se acaban sólo con la muerte”, dijo el general.

“Hay otros modos, inclusive algunos más dignos.”

Gabriel García Márquez, El general en su laberinto

García Márquez died in 2015. I will always remember it because it was the weekend I had to write my doctoral exams. And although I was writing about 18th C Spanish Satire, Colonial Satire, and Medieval Satire, I still put a García Márquez epigram to each of my essays in honor. Here they are (of course, without the whole essay, these epigrams lose their context…)

So, if you have not yet read any Gabo, you have my full recommendation. You are welcome.

A morning in Toledo.

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Since we had gone to the Puy de Fou night show the evening before, and the theme park does not open until noon, Celia and I recently found ourselves with time to kill in Toledo on a Saturday morning.

Our first stop was the Santa Fe Roberto Polo collection, which hosts the Centro de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de Castilla-La Mancha. This is a huge ancient church complex featuring Roman ruins, gorgeous, intricate ceiling paneling, and a beautifully delicate chapel, which is mixed with ridiculous modern art pieces that only add to the beauty of the old pieces and underscore the stupidity of the modern ones.

From there, we turned the corner to the Santa Cruz Museum, an astonishing Renaissance structure that once housed the late medieval Children’s Hospital. To our surprise, there was a phenomenal exhibit of fairly random pieces, including a feared pre-Roman falcata sword. But the real star of that exhibit was an El Greco painting of St. Peter, where I had a bit of a Stendhal moment —amazing!

From there, we had time to walk across Zocodover Square, almost down to the Cathedral, before turning up on Trinidad Street to the Capilla de la Inmaculada Concepción for a moment of quiet contemplation and meditation (did you know that you should be meditating?). This chapel has perpetual adoration, which means that it is open 24/7 for people to pray. It is a quiet oasis in the tourist frenzy that is Toledo.

After that, we had to get back to the car to head out to Puy de Fou for a hot, blistering day of fun. You can read about that here.

The amount of mind-blowing, beautiful, culturally enriching things you can do in Toledo is almost limitless. That Saturday, that is what we came up with.

Michael Jackson and Hegel in Nosferatu (1922) and Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

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There is a scene in Nosferatu (1922) where Count Dracula is looking across his window at Lucy Harker. When he slowly retreats from the window, his hands are awkwardly positioned in a sort of sideways traffic-stopping gesture. This is the key move in Michael Jackson’s (who was a big fan of Count Dracula) Thriller video dance sequence. There you have it, now let’s talk about Hegel’s influence on Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).

There is a nerdy viral meme showing side-by-side pictures of philosopher Hegel and film director Herzog —who look remarkably similar— asking when Herzog will play Hegel in his biopic. As with the reality surpassing fiction aphorism, there is more here than meets the eye.

The key scene in Herzog’s film is when Lucy Harker (Isabelle Adjani) has a conversation with Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski). This poetic philosophical dialogue exposes Herzog’s Hegelian philosophy:

Dracula:          You must excuse my rude entrance. I’m Count Dracula.

Lucy:               I know of you from Jonathan’s diary. Since he has been with you, he is ruined.

Dracula:          He will not die.

Lucy:               Yes, he will. Death is overwhelming. Eventually, we are all dead. Stars spin and reel in confusion, time passes in blindness, rivers flow without knowing their course. Only death is cruelly sure.

Dracula:          Dying is cruelty against the unsuspecting, but death is not everything; it is more cruel not to be able to die. I wish I could partake of the love which is between you and Jonathan.

Lucy:               Nothing in this world, not even God, can touch that. And it will not change. Even if Jonathan never recognizes me again.

Dracula:          I could change everything. Will you come to me? And be my ally, there will be salvation for your husband, and for me. The absence of love is the most abject pain.

Lucy:               Salvation comes from ourselves alone, and you might rest assured that even the unthinkable will not deter me. Goodnight.

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel takes a novel approach to salvation, taking it beyond the religious to the existential —even when Existentialism as such was being “invented” a bit further north in Denmark by Kierkegaard. The road to salvation in Hegel’s view is tied to one’s spirituality, one’s spiritual journey.

Other than in Transylvania, Bram Stoker’s Dracula takes place mostly in London, but the 1922 film Nosferatu takes place in the fictional German city of Wisburg, which is actually Wismar. In Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, the Dutch towns of Delft and Schiedam serve as stand-ins for the German city of Wismar circa 1850. Having the story set in mid-1800s Germany allows the characters to more plausibly have read orstudied under Hegel. Ok, that is a bit of a stretch. But you get the idea.

Oh, by the way, I also saw 2024 Nosferatu, and I must be getting old and cynical, because I did not like it at all. All the AI neogothic, steampunk, everything (landscapes, backgrounds, the castle, blah, blah, blah), the exaggeration, the predictability, bilingual count Orlok (Romanian and English), the sexualization, the juvenile script: “Does evil come from within us, or from beyond?” Even that sublime scene between Lucy and Dracula in Herzog’s version becomes a gaudy monstruosity in this film. I found only one redeeming quality to this production: Willem Dafoe. If you want my ranking: 1979, 1922, and if you must, 2024.

Vendemos el Bismarck, el Merche, el coche de mi padre.

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Aunque a mi padre le gustaban los ordenadores (Apple), pasear por el Retiro, comer (y beber) bien, lo que más le gustaba eran los coches. Así que, en 1980, en la feria del automóvil de Frankfurt compró un Mercedes 500 SEL —que todavía no había salido al mercado. Unos meses más tarde, en 1981, lo recogió en la fábrica de Sindelfingen.

El Mercedes 500 SEL fue el mejor coche del mundo en su época: suspensión neumática, motor V8 de aleación, el primer coche con ABS, etc., etc. Mi padre nos dejó en 2015.

No puedo decir las veces que ese coche cruzó España y Europa. Viajes a Londres a visitar a mi hermana, viajes a Ginebra a visitar a mi otra hermana, viajes a Andalucía o a Euskadi a visitar amigos. ¡Cualquier excusa era buena para hacer un viaje de cientos o miles de kilómetros!

El Mercedes está en venta. Está dado de baja temporal en Tráfico, y lleva levantado del suelo, parado en el garaje desde 2012. ¡Si te interesa, contacta en comentarios!

The best barbacoa in the Sierra de Guadarrama, Marcelino.

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When writing reviews for this blog, I sometimes struggle with sharing too much about a place I love. Not that I am making any place TikTok famous, blogging is not TikTok after all, and my readership, while loyal, is not exactly viral; nevertheless, one still has a bit of pride in thinking that they can influence some readers to follow one’s recommendations.

This is the case with Bar Restaurante Marcelino in the tiny village of La Navata, North of Madrid. Marcelino, which has been around for ages, is the best barbacoa in the Sierra de Guadarrama. You can find fancier places, regional, and international foods, and more famous places, or with better views, but none have the combination that makes Marcelino so special.

Marcelino is housed in the original 1949 granite building, which was the preferred construction method in this area of the Sierra de Guadarrama. It has a huge “terraza,” an outdoor area split into two areas: the regular café, and the Barbacoa for the evenings.

While I am on vacation at my mom’s house during the summer, I walk down the hill every day for my coffee —and if I am lucky, a churro. Some days in the afternoon, I walk down with Celia for an afternoon snack. But the real highlight is the Barbacoa at night.

We are talking old school —with old school service, open air, oak charcoal, with the best available meats on the market (I know because we share the same butcher, but that is for another blog post). Chorizo, morcilla (black or blood sausage), Pinchos morunos (kebabs), lamb chops, etc.…

The vibe is relaxed, although you do need to make reservations. Enjoy a sangría, a Tinto de Verano, or a cold beer, get some appetizers, and enjoy the best barbacoa in the Sierra! You are welcome.

Let’s talk about it.

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As the great Frank Sinatra would say, “Regrets, I’ve had a few.” One of them is not talking enough, not conversing enough, not listening enough. Communication, and especially effective communication, is critical for relationships, work, and life in general.

Conversation, from the early stages of a relationship, professional, personal, romantic, you name it, is vital and decisive, and as that relationship progresses through time, you must keep it going, keep it fresh, ask questions, and listen, listen, listen.

It was not until college that my favorite management professor, Aaron Nurick at Bentley College taught me to listen – he has been a mentor ever since! Still, I am far from being a great conversationalist or listener; normally, my ADHD kicks in, and I must focus and listen.

For the last seven years, I have taught at the university level, which means that my conversations with students are adult conversations (conversations with high school students are also rewarding, but the maturity difference makes for somewhat unbalanced discussions).

Your responsibility in keeping up your end of a conversation is not what is commonly called the “gift of gab,” which might be good to “break the ice,” but is rarely useful beyond that, but rather, as Socrates would say: knowing yourself enough to know how to steer a conversation. Know your strengths and weaknesses on your most personal level, which means knowing yourself. Counterintuitively, that will happen from being alone and spending time getting to know yourself.

So practice your conversational skills, your active listening skills, and you will be a richer person for it. You are welcome.

“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.”

― Michel de Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection

Paolo Veronese at the Prado Museum

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Back in a previous lifetime, I used to collaborate with a polymer extrusion company (sexy, I know) located just outside Florence. For work purposes, of course, I used to visit them every year, spending a week in Florence. Because of this, I am quite familiar with the Florentine Renaissance and less so, I must admit, the Venetian Renaissance.

Fortunately, I recently had the opportunity to (partly) fix this by going with my sister to an amazing Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) exhibit at the Prado.

I was blown away!! There are over a hundred paintings from the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the National Gallery in London, the Galleria degli Uffizi, the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, and, of course, the Prado.

When you mention the Renaissance, the first thing you think of, in painting, is perspective, depth; this is something Veronese has mastered. More importantly, I found the details, and even more importantly, the narrative capacity of the paintings —the ability to tell a story, really special. From a technical or art history perspective, the Renaissance started in Florence, giving them the edge, but Venice soon countered with brighter colors, as a young El Greco would learn. However, all this makes little difference, for a non-specialist like me, I just freaked out at the beauty.

This being the Renaissance, most paintings are of Biblical or Greek mythology stories, making it relatively easy to situate oneself.

So if you are in Madrid until September 29, see the Veronese exhibit at the Prado. You are welcome.

La Valparadisea Luis Correa-Diaz

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La Valparadisea LCD

Hay tres tomas de Valparaíso en la película Los diarios de la motocicleta: La primera en la oficina de correos donde Ernesto Guevara, el futuro Ché, recoge una carta de su novia, cortando con él. La segunda es un trayecto en el funicular donde no hay siquiera diálogo entre Guevara y su amigo Granado. Y la tercera es en la playa, donde Guevara acepta que no le queda otra que seguir su aventura. Esto es todo lo que sé, o lo que sabía de Valparaíso hasta que empecé a leer los poemas de Luis Correa-Díaz. En su última entrega, La Valparadisea (Altazor, 2025) Correa-Díaz nos invita a una excursión en dron —droncito— y recoge los corazones rotos como el de Guevara, los trayectos en el funicular, sin diálogo, y las meditaciones en la playa.

Con Correa-Díaz siempre hay más. Sus líneas están llenas de referencias: Jorge Manrique junto a Starbucks, la Nueva Trova Cubana junto a Hieronymus Bosch, al Papa junto a Herzog y todo ello en las calles, plazas, cafés y urbanizaciones de Valparaíso.

Pero lo importante no son las calles ni los edificios, sino la gente que llena los poemas de LCD: Amigos, libreros, familiares, transeúntes, otros poetas, músicos, tenderos, camareros, la gente que hace una ciudad, que le dan el color, la textura, la profundidad y la memoria a los sitios.

La memoria y su hermana la melancolía son el tejido que colorea el tapiz que es La Valparadisea. Los recuerdos de Correa-Díaz, los recuerdos de nuestros hogares que tenemos los que vivimos en el exilio —aunque sea elegido.

This summer’s obsession: Pine nuts.

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My mom’s garden has a handful of pine trees, and one of them in particular is a prolific producer of pinecones —with pine nuts, piñón (not all pinecones have pine nuts, depending on stress, gender (only female trees produce pine nuts), etc.) Also, pine trees do not make the same number of pinecones with nuts every year. The average number of pine nuts per cone is anywhere from 10 to over 100, according to the interweb.

This year, this one tree has an unstoppable quantity of pine nuts. So I started collecting them.

Possibly my favorite pasta sauce is a rich, flavorful pesto: the silky olive oil, the rich combination of cheeses, the fresh basil (with some parsley for extra color!), the tangy garlic, and to bring it all together magically… the pine nuts!!!

The goal: to make a kickass pesto.

The process: to crack hundreds (thousands?) of pine nuts.

Chatting with our neighbor, a local guru who knows all there is to know about nature and country life, showed me his machine for cracking pine nuts.

I am not a fan of Amazon, but I’m in the middle of the country, and I need a nut-cracking machine; the old stone or hammer won’t cut it with the number of pine nuts I have to crack. So I ordered a machine. Although it is advertised as cracking pine nuts, these are too small for this machine, probably designed to break almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, you know, bigger nuts than mine. I returned it to Amazon (sorry, no photo of the first machine).

Second machine: this one does fit and cracks pine nuts, but it pulverizes them. I try to go slow, but there is no way; the flesh of the nuts disintegrates with each swing of the lever.

The third one I ordered is not from Amazon; it is from a hardware store on the other side of Spain. This machine has a much smoother cracking system, so you can apply pressure progressively until the pine nut cracks. One problem: like the first machine, even at its smallest setting, it does not crack pine nuts… The solution? A tiny board “lifts” the pine nut so the cracker part of the mechanism reaches it. Finally, the pine nut problem is solved!!

I’d better get cracking. Pesto anyone?