It has been so long since I was caught in a summer storm in Madrid, I don’t even remember the last time. Of course it does not help that I have been living in the US for ten years now, and that when I do come home I spend most of my time at home with family. So it was a rare, rare treat when a recent afternoon I went for a bit of a walkabout and half an hour out I found myself in the most intense, refreshing, and overall awesome storm. At first I stopped at the entrance to a building to protect myself, but after a while, bored of waiting, I went off and enjoyed getting wet, cleansed and cooled down.
Contrary to popular belief that “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain”, the rain in Spain favors the north shore. So much that it is intensely green, not unlike say Ireland, or the north of France. The plain however – and Madrid sits right smack in the middle of it, if fairly dry. Madrid is also the highest capital in Europe sitting 646 m (2,119 feet) above sea level, making it very dry as well as hot in the daytime and cooler at night. Of course Global Warming and desertification do not help, and the dry South is slowly creeping its way North.
Sad and melancholic after returning from Greece, I found my old Cavafy book and I am re-visiting it!
My brother Theo introduced me to Constantine Cavafy years ago – through his poem Ithaka (which I posted on this blog on August 19, 2011). Now as I reread poems I discover new beauty in his words. The poem which has struck me the most during this re-reading has been God Abandons Antony or God Forsakes Antony, published in 1911. The story is of a defeated Marc Anthony in Alexandria (which centuries later would be home to Cavafy). After being moved by its elegance I remarked on the importance of the story of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra. Of our fascination with that love story, with ancient Egypt, with the Roman Empire, and so on, so I started thinking of my favorite connections to this story…
The first one that came to mind where the lyrics from one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs: Blinded by Love, when Mick Jagger sings:
The queen of the Nile
She laid on her throne
And she was drifting downstream
On a barge that was burnished with gold
Royal purple the sails
So sweetly perfumed
And poor Mark Antony’s
Senses were drowned
And his future was doomed
He was blinded by love
Of course Cavafy’s poem is born from Plutarch’s telling of the story. Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen used the poem for one of his songs, but changed Alexandria, the city, to Alexandra, a woman. Of course there is Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra born from a translation of Plutarch, there is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and so on and so forth, but for now I leave you with Cavafy in his own translation:
When I “discovered” 18th Century Spanish literature, something that really struck me was what a critical element it was in the history of literature and how little credit it gets. The 18th Century is a literary hinge in the evolution of literature. While it can be argued that every century, or era, is a “hinge” era, a time between times, the 18th Century exercises as a flexing point in what has been called the pendulum of literary movements. Being the philistine that I am, I can only use Spanish literature for my example:
The ilustrados (18th C educated Spaniards), whether they liked it or not, were actually building on the shoulders of the Baroque, with its chiaroscuro and trompe l’oeil, which they hated. This, in turn, was a reaction to the Renaissance which was short lived in Spain in favor of the more mysterious and why not, fun, Baroque, more suited to the Spanish temperament (perpetuating stereotypes, the Spanish are a Baroque people. Disagree? Go watch an Almodovar film). For the Spanish literati, the solution to what they considered centuries of muddle was to build a one way bridge to the classic ancient Greeks and Romans as Luzán proposed in his Poética (1737). As much as the Enlightened writers wanted to, they could not get there without the rich legacy of medieval letters and art and everything that followed. For example, my man, Padre Isla (1703-1781), a precursor to the ilustrados, indeed goes back to the ancients, but he also relies heavily on St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, and especially Cervantes and Quevedo, creating his narrative from a blend of centuries of letters. Consciously or not these are the foundations the 18th Century had to build on.
On the other hand the Enlightenment’s obsession with societal good which even led to the elimination of the novel in Spain due to its reliance on the first person singular, is the launching pad for the Romantic movement where that “I” is all important. Equally, the Enlightened enthusiasm for scientific enumeration led to the naturalists. The reaction to those developments will be realism, modernism and postmodernism.
In big bold brushstrokes there are the Classics, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras leading up to the Enlightenment, and the Romantic, Naturalist, Realist, Modernist and Postmodernism after it. How do I then explain the fact that my sides, arms or rays of my angle are lopsided? Well it must be taken into account that both the Classical and Medieval periods encompass centuries, while the last big three movements occurred within the 20th C. due to the advances in communications and technology, so just counting movements is not the same as considering the influence and repercussion of those movements. This of course is taking into account all the differences in labeling periods and movements. No style is 100% unique, as one genre blends into another.
Thus, a solid grasp of 18th Century literature opens up an understanding to what happened before and after on the literary continuum. From a teaching standpoint, understanding the enlightenment offers the key to the past as well as to the future of literary history.
P.S.: When I explained this idea to my thesis director during one of our coffees, she liked it so much she took a picture!
Literally a block away from my parents’ flat in Madrid is the Museo Sorolla. A little jewel of a museum. It is the urban palazzo of turn of the century painter Joaquín Sorolla which now houses his museum.
Once cleared the gate you are welcomed into a small refreshing garden. An oasis in the middle of downtown Madrid, surrounded by apartment buildings, shops and offices.
If being in the garden seems like a departure from the city, walking into the museum takes you to Sorolla’s beloved Mediterranean coast, where he painted most of his oeuvre. Some of the paintings are massive, but more important is the artists’ grasp of light. You see, light on the Mediterranean is quite different from light anywhere else – if you have not seen it, you will have to trust me on this one. Sorolla captures that light, that breeze, that heat, and puts it on the canvas, which is the reason he is called the “painter of light”. While some people label him an impressionist, he is beyond impressionism. The house also holds a lot of art that was given to him, his great collection of Valencia ceramic, where he was from, and many of his random knick-knacks.
Since I was a teenager, having the museum so close to home was a blessing and a curse. I did not always go into the museum, I just stayed in the garden, reading. But knowing that it was there I took it for granted and did not visit for a long time. A couple of years ago my sister Susana and I took our niece and nephew for a nice visit. This May, during a coffee run, I sneaked in for a few moments of escape.
What does one do when one of your most dear friends from university invites you to his housewarming party in a Greek seaside village? You tell them you are too busy working on your dissertation, that you have family obligations and that your graduate student budget does not allow for adventures in Greece. What does one do when he insists and ends up sacrificing his last frequent flier miles to get one’s sorry ass over in business class? You humbly and eagerly accept and pack some serious sun protection.
This is exactly what happened to me this summer (except the sun protection bit). My dear friend Matthew, who has been patient enough with me to be a groomsman at my two weddings and who came to visit me in Madrid last summer did just that.
I had not been to my beloved Greece since the mid-nineties, so going back – and for such an event was very especial. Mark Miller, the third musketeer, came in from New York on the same day as me, and Matthew drove us a couple of hours to his house in the lovely village of Toló, near the old Greek capital of Nafplio, on the Peloponnese mainland.
The house is more of a compound, high on a hill overlooking the sweet village of Toló, the sea and the beautiful islands. It includes Irina’s 8 Cooking Hats Cooking School and the house. When we arrived, construction crews were working frantically to finish all the last-minute details, and they would continue for the next two days before the grand opening party (but not before I befriended the construction guys – soccer is the key here – and they let me sign my name on some wet cement!)
The cooking school building has a bunch of guest rooms. Mark and I settled into the gym / Pilates / Zumba room and also temporary storage and staging area for all pre-party supplies: liquor and wine, fireworks, furniture, and random nick knacks. Not to mention two queen sized pull down beds and our own bathroom.
The first two days I must confess where hectic: Helping Matthew and Irina prepare everything for the party: peeling pistachios, making big paper flower pompoms – and hanging them up, shopping for enough supplies to feed a hungry Roman Legion, chopping and prepping all sorts of food with Alex (who would become a dear friend, my little grasshopper), Susanna and George, buying and transporting enough alcohol to fuel a year of parties in Ibiza, helping the DJs set up speakers and cables, organizing. Lots of organizing and cleaning. Lots of cleaning. Unfortunately Mark was suffering from acute chronic jet lag so he seemed to spend the first days just eating and sleeping. But he is such a fantastic sport that he took all our joking on the subject in stride.
For me, preparations for the party continued until even after the first few guests arrived, with just time for a quick shave and shower before helping to pass around mountains of food. Once the party started I could finally enjoy a gin and tonic, a cigar, and dancing. Lots of dancing.
Matthew’s wife Irina learnt about Toló from Nelly, a classmate at hotel and culinary school in Switzerland. Nelly owns an adorable boutique hotel on the beach with her brother Manolis where Matthew and I would stop in between chores (remember, Mark was mostly sleeping) for a coffee, or frappé. Petros, Nelly and Manoli’s dad who adores Matthew, would insist on cooking us some eggs. It will be hard for you to find a nicer family than the Vlachakis.
Irina is a popular food blogger in the Russian Interweb, so we received plenty of Russian food bloggers and friends (picking them up and shuttling guests around was another fun chore!). We were also lucky that Alfonso, another of our dear friends from university was in the area with his sailing boat: the beautiful, sleek, state of the art Athina, so he also came, bringing with him his friend Alessio, a true Italian bohemian, ex actor, world traveler and master storyteller and his captain José.
All in all Irina and Matthew gathered an awesome group of beautiful, high energy people. The days after the party we went on excursions to the ancient Greek theater of Epidaurus, to George Skouras’ vineyard and winery, to the town and castle of Nafplio, even on a boat cruise to a remote island, with its obligatory Greek Orthodox chapel on top – where coincidentally the aforementioned Nelly was baptized. Neither my hack writing, nor my hack photos can do justice to the time we had.
For me, to use a Greek word, my visit to Greece was cathartic. It had been about twenty years since I had been to Greece and I have such fond memories that I can now add to. This summer also marks the fifth anniversary of my full catastrophe (to use Zorba’s expression), so having ten days of fairly carefree sun and sunshine was a welcome relief.
Besides meeting a bunch of phenomenal people, I managed to go to church the morning after the party (getting up was a bit rough) for a beautiful Greek Orthodox service, eat lots and lots of delicious Greek food, spent the day sailing on Alfonso’s boat from Toló to Spetses (returning on his speedboat), visiting with friends and basically forgetting all my responsibilities for ten days.
It is at times like these, when you relax, let your defenses down, that life comes creeping back in, you can joke, laugh, feel, allow yourself to love and appreciate friends and allow yourself to be loved and appreciated by friends.
Last year a couple of our classmates organized a very informal indoor soccer scrimmage on Friday evenings. For some reason I took up the responsibility this year. I booked one of the outdoor fields and had a great time every Friday evening. We were blessed with great weather all through the Fall semester. Basically we allowed anyone who showed up to play. We had a 59 year old Colombian fellow, middle school kids, undergrads and grad students from other departments play, so we re-named our scrimmage: Romance Studies Community Soccer. By opening it up to the community we hope to provide and give back a little bit.
In the winter we moved our games indoor to one of the courts, and by the end of the year, we received official acknowledgement from the department’s Graduate Student Government to legitimize the position and I have passed the baton to a young fellow in the department who did not miss a single game!
This Spring, I was my Thesis Director’s Graduate Research Consultant for her undergraduate Spanish Literature since 1700 survey class!
Prof. Gómez Castellano and I had to apply for this position to the undergrad College of Arts and Sciences, and we got approved. The job entails being a resource to help the students with their research. But since Irene and I were both very excited about this, we took it to the next level. I did a presentation on Goya… at the Ackland museum, who pulled a bunch of their Caprichos prints to show us in their special viewing room. I organized a visit to our specialist librarian, superstar Teresa Chapa to whom I should devote a whole blog post to – and her equally awesome partner in crime Becka, sometimes the three of us just chat in their hidden away office, deep in the inner sanctum of the library, and chat books and gossip. But back to this Graduate Research Consultant business. Basically it is a great opportunity for me to be immersed in an undergrad lit class. I was there to help, but at the same time I learnt a lot from the experience.
The class was a full 19 students, which is a lot for a higher level lit. class, but the more the merrier!, a big class at this level is also a very healthy sign for the department, and for the major and minor in general.
Technically there is no need for me to go to class – the pay is very low and I am only payed to work X amount of hours (I don’t even know how many), but I love the class and I learn so much from my Thesis Director that I went to all the classes anyway. Of course some of the students did use me as a research resource and met with me to go over their work, which was very interesting and fun work.
The experience is highly recommended, I hope to do it again.
Since I arrived at UNC, every time I bumped into the Director of French Studies – which was often because she is a keen supporter of the North Carolina Symphony which I also follow (although not as keenly), I would always offer my services to her as a French teacher. Little did I know that one day she would offer me to teach a section of French 105, French for High Beginners, i.e. students that have had previous exposure to French but are too rusty to go into intermediate level.
I cannot lie, my French grammar – which was never my strong suit to begin with – was, was, hmm, rusty. But my course coordinator who also happens to be my desk neighbor in our office had fantastic Power Point presentations covering the grammar.
French came to me later in life. I started taking classes in high school in London, which were complemented with great summers at the International Teen Camp in Lausanne in French Switzerland. I continued taking classes during university and spent those summers working in Paris, Bordeaux, Lausanne and Geneva, taking classes in the evenings and immersing myself.
After that I worked for a stint for a French stockbroker in Madrid, and tried to practice as much as possible with friends and work colleagues.
More recently, for my studies I have loved revisiting Montesquieu, Voltaire and other 18th C French authors.
So my speaking and reading are fine, but I struggle with the writing, due to the grammar, so teaching was not a total shock, and I compensated with total immersion from the music video to welcome the class to using only French all the way to the end of the session. The mix of students was as good as anyone could ask for. From quiet and shy overachievers, to frat bros, (to continue perpetuating stereotypes) to the whole demographic. I believe this always makes for more enriching classes. Our classroom in the Urban Planning Department building was nice and cozy and coincidentally had a massive wall sized reproduction of an antique map of Paris!
A page of my dissertation after my boss is done with it, I love it!
Affogato
Ronald and Jafar
My office mates
My Thesis director, a classmate and Fray Gerundio!
Spring in UNC
Within the last month I finished my third year of my PhD studies and Chapter 2 of my dissertation, so I finally got to updating my poor abandoned blog, only to have the Greek internet swallow the blog post I have been writing for the last 10 days (more on that later), as if it were a multi-billion Euro loan from the European Central Bank. So, back to the old drawing board.
My sixth semester has been very intense. All semesters are intense, but in different ways. This was my first semester dedicated 100% to writing my dissertation and it was a new dynamic for me. I find writing, especially in the academic style very difficult, every sentence is a challenge, and then it gets corrected by my director and sent back for retooling. So it feels like one step forward two steps back. But eventually every page gets cleared after a few drafts, so it is very rewarding to make progress.
My volunteering has also been very exciting. The volunteer coordinator at the Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill asked me to participate in their Annual fundraising gala, this year the theme was Disney’s Aladdin… and I was Jafar! They were nice enough to let me keep the costume so I re-used it for the Romance Studies end of the year party, which this year was themed as “Happily ever after” i.e. your favorite storybook character.
Other highlights of the year to which I will dedicate blog posts were:
Being a Graduate Research Consultant for my Thesis Director’s undergraduate literature class.
A plethora of cultural events: music, ballet, theater…
The French Department had me teach French for High Beginners. It was a challenge but also great fun.
I was the Department’s soccer coordinator for the year, or as I re-worked it: The Romance Studies Sports and Wellness Coordinator.
This Spring I presented at a conference at the University of Maryland and at our own home grown Carolina Conference on Romance Studies.
All this and more will be coming your way soon, so stay tuned!!!…
I’m waiting for my Thesis Director to go over my most recent dissertation scribbles, so I take a rare break from writing my dissertation… to write my blog!
Back in the short period between my prospectus (see previous posts) and starting my dissertation, before Christmas, I actually had time to watch a few of films, and I loved them both.
Wes Anderson has been one of my favorites since his Rushmore (1998). I love how he weaves a narrative with all these eccentric, maybe a little bit broken, chipped characters. His latest is The Grand Budapest Hotel, about the concierge (Ralph Fiennes) in an old school grand hotel somewhere in Mitteleuropa. The humor is woven into the narrative, sometimes with a big old slapstick brush, sometimes with a nuanced, detailed, subtle touch, and of course the whole spectrum in between. I have been known – back in the day, to have gotten kicked out of movie theaters for laughing when nobody else laughed, because I caught some tiny wink of humor. Wes Anderson keeps doing that for me time and again. Although nowadays I fortunately do not get kicked out of theaters.
When we were kids I remember spending summers at a place like that, the Gran Hotel Camp de Mar (which is now a gaudy monstrosity). Talk about old school. I even remember when one of the guests died and it was all hush-hush, but not really. So it really struck a chord with me, remembering the grand old dining room, the old furniture, everything.
Within the arc that is the narrative of the story, every detail of every scene is perfect. Every character, every costume, every prop, every line, you name it, it is perfect. Which of course contrasts beautifully with the eccentric, maybe a little bit broken, chipped characters.
Wes Anderson is, of course, building on the shoulders of giants, particularly those of Woody Allen. I did get all caught up on his three latest movies (that is how behind I was on my movie watching): Midnight in Paris (2011), From Rome with Love (2012), and Blue Jasmine (2013).
Cate Blanchett (who was also brilliant in Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2004) nails her Jasmine. The film really got me thinking about how we delude ourselves, and how we see people around us that fool themselves to amazing depths and do not want to acknowledge it. From Rome with Love was fun, and I was happy to see Allen reprise Penelope Cruz in this film. But it was Midnight in Paris that I enjoyed the most. The magic of 1920s Paris in the 21st Century, Owen Wilson, who is also in the Grand Hotel Budapest (Adrien Brody is also in both). Maybe it is because I lived in Paris for a summer and inevitably fell in love with the city, maybe because it has one of Woody Allen’s best narratives in a while. Whatever, it was magic.
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