Happy 3 Kings Day!

Apologies for my long absence. Been busy, here in Madrid for Old Year Night (Noche Vieja) and New Year's, with shows, friends, and a splendid New Year's Eve dinner at the Café de la Ópera, four course meal with wine, champagne and arias -- a joy to hear such strong sopranos, tenors and two baritones singing right next to your table. And last night with a good Madrid friend, we watched (as well as we could, over the heads of the big crowd) Madrid's spectacular Cabalgata de los Reyes, the Three Kings' Parade. Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar (the three Reyes Magos, or magician kings) steal into the houses at night, with their camels (they're magicians, after all) to leave toys in the shoes of good girls and boys, or lumps of coal for those who have been bad. We grownups just get a virtual hug and a virtual lick from the rough tongue of a royal camel.

But as my gift for you, I leave you Two Stories from Naples: Italica, by Geoffrey Fox. I hope you enjoy them. They're at least better than lumps of coal. Or a camel-lick either, for that matter. See you later, and have a great year! I'll be back soon, later today I hope, to share with you my New Year's resolutions.

Christmas peña

Every year, exactly at midnight on December 24, the Christ child is reborn everywhere in Spain, an event that is celebrated even by atheists -- because in Spain, the atheists are all Catholics. And for all those in the Catholic tradition, whether atheists or believers or agnostics, the celebration requires smiles, giving of gifts, singing of songs and the consumption of lots of sweets and liquors. Really getting into the spirit of things, two of our local atheists (he is named for the Archangel Michael and she for the immaculate conception, but they don't let that trouble them) hosted a special peña, or flamenco song-fest, in the chilly room where we usually gather on Friday nights for a peña and (some of us) on Saturdays for lessons on flamenco guitar. But only one of us, a sturdy, mustachioed gitano Domingo, was up to vocal performance, while Rubén, our young guitar teacher, kept the flourishes and compás. Cante jondo ("deep song") explodes from the chest, whistles through the throat, cries out with an intensity that shakes the room, when someone like Domingo is al cante. The lyrics are never easy to make out, at least for us payos (non-Gypsies), but from what I could make out, the songs weren't about the Christ-child. Mostly they were extended sexist jokes, not meant to be taken seriously, with clever rhymes.

It was great fun, livelier than gatherings I remember back in the Midwest. I think that's because in the U.S. (where there are no atheists), all the Catholics, Jews and Muslims are Calvinists.

We've been lucky in Carboneras. While the rest of Spain was suffering terrible weather (record snowfall in the north, disastrous floods in other parts of Andalucía), we had sun on Christmas day, then heavy rain on Boxing Day, but sun and warmth today. As we watch the news and the TV reviews of all the disasters of this past year, we feel strange to be so privileged, and aware of how precarious anybody's well-being is. Because I wanted to hear a voice that contemplated disaster without succumbing to despair, I just read (or maybe reread -- I must have read at least a version of it in high school) this little novel: Candide, ou l'Optimisme. It was in a way reassuring to see that the world's injustices, including slavery, abuse of women, terrorism, war and theft are no worse today than back in 1759, when the young German idealist from Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia began his adventures in most of the known world.

Image source: Instituto Cervantes de Múnich

Another reason why I am not an investigative reporter

Writers at Risk | Harvard Gazette Online

Spain, Morocco, Sahara and Haidar

The desperate state of Aminatu Haidar (her given name is spelled various ways), who is near death in her hunger strike in the Lanzarote (Canary Islands) airport, has driven Spain's perennial big stories -- corruption and climate change -- from the front pages. Why has such a personal act by a woman who is not a political leader or even a Spanish national got the country in such a tizzy?

She is from Western Sahara, which was a Spanish possession from 1885 until 1976. Before that it had been part of the very large, amorphous and lightly governed kingdom of Morocco, its population (sparse) of Berber, Arab and/or Moorish (Mauritanian) origin. In those 90 years of Spanish control, peninsular Spaniards migrated to administer the territory and exploit its resources, and the native population was to some degree Hispanicized -- schooled (the lucky few who got to school) in Spanish, ruled by Spanish law, some of the people converted to Catholicism. In 1956, the Kingdom of Morocco gained its independence from France and Spain, but Spain held on to Western Sahara for 20 more years against military pressure and a "Green March" (a large civilian mobilization) organized by Morocco. Mauritania and Algeria were also eager to share in the decolonized region, which was especially attractive to Algeria because of its Atlantic coast. But when Spain finally pulled out, Moroccan troops defeated Mauritania and the Algerian-backed Polisario movement and took control. The Polisario guerrillas and many civilians fled into the neighboring desert wasteland of Algeria, where they set up refugee camps which still persist. Some of those Saharans who did not flee have actively opposed Moroccan rule, some -- including, we presume, Aminetu Haidar -- by peaceful means.

All of this complicated history has left Spaniards feeling that they have some obligation to their former subjects. They are aware of the terrible conditions in the refugee camps and hold Spain to some extent responsible for accepting Moroccan occupation of Sahara. Friends of ours in Carboneras are among the many Spaniards who travel regularly to the camps and bring children to spend a summer or longer in their homes, where they have access to far better education and health services than in the Sahara. So when Haidar, a Saharan independence activist of long standing, accuses Spain of complicity with the king of Morocco because it permitted the kingdom to expel her and for her plane to land in Lanzarote, the charge resonates. She had written "Sahara" instead of "Morocco" as her homeland on the form when she was returning to El Aaiún from Spain, and that was the pretext for expelling her.

As Juan Goytisolo points out in today's El País, Western Sahara is a very different place from what it was 30 years ago. There are now many more Moroccans from the north, who have no interest in independence and have no special relation to the Spanish language or culture -- they are more likely to speak French, along with Arabic and Berber. What would probably be best for all the people there would be greater autonomy and respect for local traditions, but not independence, he argues. But such a loosening of control from Rabat seems unlikely without continued pressure of the sort that Aminetu Haidar has been exerting.

If the Moroccan authorities had simply ignored her marks on the form and let her go home, nobody would even have noticed that little act of defiance. But they decided to make an example of her and expelled her, and now she is Spain's problem. Spain needs Morocco's cooperation to control immigration and the drug trade, and is reluctant to pressure King Mohammed VI -- but Morocco also needs the good-will of Spain and of the rest of Europe. This little woman from El Aaiún has thus also created a big problem for Mohammed VI, who is too stubborn to give in but who will be under increasing pressure to allow reforms because of her actions.

À la recherche de la langue perdue

Susana and I have a date in Paris in June (a reading and presentation of Above Ground), so I'm working to recover my lost facility in French, the first foreign language I ever studied. With this idea I picked up a book I'd had for a long time but had never read, where I discovered a treasure of rich, comical, coarse slang along with many sociological observations of poverty in France cerca 1987. To get all the jokes, I had frequent recourse to Le Dictionnaire, very good on argot, and then checked my pronunciation on this other terrific site, SWAC. Finally I put myself to a real test: writing my summary and comment on the book in French. Go ahead, you French speakers, read it and laugh! And if you will be so gentille, send me your corrections. Here it is: Bernard Pouchèle, L'étoile et le vagabond.

Anthology of "Living Fiction"

Two Tales from Down Under

The first of these stories, "Tidbinbilla," was published the Spring, 1992 issue of a very good journal that has since disappeared, Central Park, edited by Stephen Paul Martin, Richard Royal (since deceased) and Eve Ensler. The other, "Hunting the Thylacine," has never before been published -- in part because of its awkward length (it'll probably take more than half an hour to read). Now I want to share them. You'll find them here, on Scribd: Thylacine Scribd

Image from Book of Thoth

Voices of our informed electorate

On November 20, 2009, Sarah Palin visited Columbus, OH as part of her book signing tour for "Going Rogue." When her supporters were asked broad questions about why they why they thought she should be president, the responses were vague: She's "real." She'll "stick up for America."

YouTube - Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

A very fine speech by a very good writer. I met Chimamanda (virtually) in a Zoetrope workshop, before she became famous. She's telling us something important here.
YouTube - Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Thanks to César for forwarding this.

A Gift for the Sultan - prepub

I finally (with a lot of help from Susana) got the thing formatted and ready to share with early readers (prior to publication of the definitive version). If I haven't sent you the password yet and you want it, just ask.

Here is an image of the Archangel Michael, who has a big role in the novel. (Icon from Constantinople, now in the Basilica di San Marco, Venice.)