Tuesday, May 13, 2008

MICROTALES (IX)

Language for this article:
English Español

With this microtale (1 of 2 this week) my aim is to pay tribute to such a great author as Javier Cercas, in what we could call the "realistic micro-tale"

“That damned hypotenuse captured Pi”. That´s what he said among other meaningless things. Being prime time, a celebrity such as he was. Unbelievable.
His former girlfriends smiled inside, pretending not to want anybody no bad. The sons were negotiating undercover their interventions on TV as the same time they publicly regretted their father´s decline. His legal counsellor declared in front of everybody to be doing the right thing by denouncing his client, while in private she bragged of her shrewdness in order to take advantage of the free publicity for her lawyer´s office.

Soon after, the old comedian arrived to hospital, not making laugh any longer, with his face, now strained.

We all have two of them. Don´t we?

El viejo cómico ingresó poco después en el hospital, su rostro crispado ya no hacía gracia.

Todos tenemos dos caras.


(NOTE: This article was originally published by Botijo de Oro in the spanish section of the blog)

Friday, May 9, 2008

PHILIPPINES BIZARROS OR DRAG QUEEN CATHOLICISM

LANGUAGE for this ARTICLE:
Español English

I have just read the news in a homphobic newspaper that in a religious parade or ceremony in Philippines, a "group of homosexuals" (I guess a group of lovely "transvestites" more possibly but who knows) want to participate as queens serving Virgin Mary, and I was delighted by the illuminating beauty of their intention.


Under no cirumstantces, is Bizarría, no doubt, a rational project.


And bizarros, these philippine transvestites -or whatever they want- really are.



The Catholic Church has a mastership in blending folclore with religion (as all churches and sects try to, I don´t know if for good or bad, but no doubt they do so) and for that reason this project by these LGBTQ people in Philippines really makes me happy by their stubborness and love and their desire to participate in whatever they want and feel to. To march parading alongside with the Catholic Church, which is one, that, at least by the volume, greater Homosexuals-Despising has encouraged, may not be quite ortodox nor coherent or consistent, but brings along all my sympathy and love for this people, for their hability, strength and consistency in being able to blend and solve within them the contradictions of all the things they love.

The world, may be, has to be this way: polluted. With everyone participating in whatever he or she feels like and with everybody partying together and respecting what each other wants to do, and trying to understand and not to impose your own ideas.


In the end, it´s not if you are a religious believer or not what matters. What´s important is to be able to embrace the beautiful diversity of the world and not to impose the others your own beliefs.


Let us be bizarros and relax: lets embrace the whole world in its mistery. No room for intolerance (whatever the origin). Openness to the bizarre, surprising and wonderful world.
Let so be it.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

THE STRENGH OF BRAZILIAN CULTURE

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Please note that the original article for this news was originally posted in the portuguese section of our blog site.

A month or so ago, I was lucky enough to come across an incredible Spanish woman that is a basketball, waterpolo and rugby player. If you are lucky and you speak or read Spanish you may like to have a look at her blog (and you may even post a comment -she speaks perfect English) She is a fascinating woman, I tell you!

But the reason why I am writing this post today is mainly to tell you of the musical "bloco" in which she plays and the symbolic value it has for us today.
The batucada-group is called Bloco do Baliza, and here you can see them playing in Madrid´s Puerta del Sol (the most important site within Madrid).



The discovery of this group was something that I especially liked, not just because I like blocos (and saw and visited many as I was in Brazil) but also because of the pleasure of this worldwide bizarro culture we all share. This woman, for instance, plays an american sport (basketball) a british one (rugby) and plays brazilian music, but she doesn´t just add up, she blends it instead into something new and special within herself.

The world wide bizarro culture is sort of like that (we are all like that to a certain extent in the globalization world) but what I particularly liked here today was the international reception of brazilian culture. At a time when there has been some nasty confrontations between Spaniards and Brazilians (the issue has been quite hot in the brazilian press) due to some shameful events at the border controls of both countries with the others´ citizens, it is great to see that the passion toward each others culture is a better indicator of what each other have to gain from mutual exchange and sharing.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

A BIZARRO TRIBUTE: ELIEZER BEN YEHUDA

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An octolingual blogsite couldn´t do otherwise, but pay a tribute to the "bizarro" hebrew who achieved one of the paramount linguistic deeds of the XXth Century: to revive (we could even say "resurrect") one of the oldest languages in the world and it make it become the daily, economic, milatary and administration language of a new-born State and in fact one which would experience a harsh, difficult and risky-life (to make this experiment even more valid): Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

EBY, born in Belarus and dead in the Holy Land (in what then was the turkish Ottoman Empire) was a filologue, activistist, hebrew teacher, journalist, founder of the first hebrew newspaper and the first modern hebrew dictionary, but neither of this definitions fully defines what is so fascinating to us of him.

The real and epic "bizarry" of this modern genius was to be born in a slavic country (where people spoke lithuanian, polish or russian) moving to the Middle East (where people spoke turkish, arab, yiddish or german) and deciding that at home, ever since then, they were only going to speak Hebrew (which nobody spoke, back then).

Furthermore, the epic doesn´t finish here, it just starts. Ever since then (we may say even before) he concludes that the future state of Israel or Sion (that back then was nothing more of a dream, like a dream it was at the time the idea of independent arab countries)would only be possible if the israelis or zionists spoke hebrew.

To have an idea of what a crazy idea it was, back then hebrew was nothing more than a liturgic language (such as latin is today). The Jews in the Middle East, if there was something they spoke, that was arab, or turk, or german, or yiddish (a mixture of german, hebrew and slavic language) and those to come would only speak french, english, polish or russian, whatever. Whatever except Hebrew.

But this bizarro and crazy man just sticked to his idea that the only thing that could be spoken in a future, bizarro and imagined Zion state in order for it to be stable, was that: hebrew. We don´t want to speak here on the complications and the confrontations of the creation of this state: we just want to stick to the fascinating in the man we are talking about here.

Noy yet satisfied having told everyone his decision (for which he was taken as an outlandish and even crazy man) he started publishing his own newspaper in hebrew, his own dictionary, and what was to become a symbol: to raise his son as the first Native-Hebrew speaker. Itamar Ben Avi (Eliezer´s son) was indeed to become the first child to speak hebrew as mother tongue in nothing less than two thousand years.

Itamar, the son, later followed his father´s steps, he collaborated is the fist journal in hebrew, he was pro-independence, etc, but without doubt the moust astounding fact in his life was that: he was the first kid in two thousand years to have Hebrew as mother tongue.

Today Israel was hebrew as his official language. There, many other languages are also spoken: English, Arab (official as well), Spanish, Russian (even to the point electoral propaganda is printed also in Russian, since 10-20% are also Russian speakers) but the main language is Hebrew, a language the grand-grand-parents, the grandparents, the parents and even the inhabitands of a great part of Israel had never spoken before. But that´s the language the all speak, nowadays. They have revived it. Resurrected, I may say.

Tell if this is not a bizarro fact, in the sense we have given to this word (weird and corageous), if it´s not bizarro the man himself (extremely bizarro) and if from a linguistical pointical of view as the one we have here, we ought not to give this man a tribute.

This goes for you, Ben Yehuda. Chutzpah, our congratulations.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

MICROTALES (VIII)


Español English

She will throw herself off the trapeze as confirmed bachelor Pío opens the door.
It will be difficult, he always opens it just half-way. He seems to be scared of losing the only member of his family project.
He will come from work, and as soon as he gets the trainer off, he will schedule another boring dinner in front of the television screen. If he is happy he will gesticulate to her as he gobbles up his ready-to-cook lasagna. Still frozen in the middle. At some time during the adverts he will get up to bring her some bad food.
That will be the time.
She will throw herself against his flabby hand, pecking it until she manages he opens the door. She will fly away from the flat in second´s time. She will think "Find another one to sing at you, Pío".

MICROTALES (III)


Español English

“ There you go, Young Lad, head Linares- bound” ordered The Vasque, as they crossed Rio Grande River. Th only thing left from Spain was his roughness, coarseness and his Star gun after having been working in Baracaldo.

In Linares, Texas, he waited for his man. He had left behing a good trace of drug in order not to have any problems with Spanish or Mexican cops. That´s why he wasn´t scared, but he knew he was only doing that delivery for money and he knew how easily things could burst.


As soon as he entered the building he though of jail. The rattle of police sirens coming near had a nasty DEA stink. As soon as he fired the though: "What the hell of corridas they have down here!".

(NOTE: This article was originally published by Botijo de Oro in the spanish section of the blog)

MICROTALES (II)


Overwhelmed by such a responsibility, the animal had fled leaving behind a bad lit jail and due obedience. He was sick and tired of having to try the impossible to obtain his daily food plate, of having to face the absurd discipline of the daily hygiene. He felt that he had betrayed the wild spirit he had before being caught. He longed finding in the trees his next mouthful, to bathe under the warm sun of spring and to contemplate the Earth induced sleep by the frost.

He ran without restrain, just guided by its instinct of freedom, but suddenly stopped. He doubted if he would not have left the door of the house opened before finishing with all.
(NOTE: This article was originally published by Botijo de Oro in the spanish section of the blog)

SLAVIC SECTION INAUGURATED: THE OCTOLINGUAL BLOG

OFFICIALLY OPEN THE SLAVIC SECION:
THE OCTOLINGUAL BLOG SITE

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After verifying that yesterday we had readers in Moscow of our slavic version (unofficially and silently opened yesterday) even with the endless problems we are coming across with the slavic alphabet (I haven´t been able to set it up yet, what makes me type every single lettler by copy and paste, with a nightmare), we have decidaded to officially open the almost-last innovation within this blog site: the Octolingual Blog.

We recently told you that the "Sexylingual" (Hexalingual) blogsite wouldn´t stop there, being hexalingual, and althugh we are keeping officialy that name, Sexylingual, we have decided to set feet upon the slavic world. So far, we will "only" open two new versions: the russian and the polish ones, although for a while the strengh and heart of this blogsite will remain within the tetralingual version, and, within it, in the Spanish section (we are expanding on circles).

We hope the new expansion to bring surpises, in fact, we cannot think of anything more "bizarro" than a slav (not to mention one from Siberia). They gather all the ethimological requirements to be considered "bizarros" (which goes far beyond the English meanings for "bizarre", it comprises the meaning in four different languages): courage, weirdnesss, originality, generosity, lucidity and excentricity, much, much excentricity. What would a "bikarra" think of that"? Would he feel especially identified with the Slavs?. In the need of elucidating this concept, we urge the Lehendakari to organize a series of conferences througthout the Slavic world, invating us at full and luxurious expenses, all included.

In the meantime, and until the Spanish Vasque Executive takes any measure about that, we will keep investigating. Viva the Slavic Vicarra!!!