Alright, so I don’t have the best interior design skills, but it was time to make a change, aesthetics aside. I spend way too much time and money on music to be listening to all my favorite songs on my computer’s speakers. Still, I don’t want to make the investment right now into an expensive Hi-Fi system. So here is what I did. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
I just finished one of the most engaging novels that I have read all year, called Tuareg by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa. Nevertheless, I fell into an error that I have recently been committing quite often. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Literature
I just saw this news video on how Americans are now becoming the shortest people in the industrialized world, while historically we were the tallest. This is not due to, as many would think, a change in demographics and immigration, but rather to environmental factors such as poor eating habits and a lack of exercise.
We just can’t get anything right anymore!
Filed under Digressions
I look out my window and I see people huddled inside a bar, with others looking through its window. There are maybe 15 minutes left in the match, and Real Madrid is losing at home 0-1 to Mallorca. If they don’t score two goals, they lose the lead and hand the title over to Barcelona.
But instead of getting involved (I am weak hearted), I have decided to finish The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but I must admit that if you are truly interested in modern Egypt, then you really must read the larger Cairo Triology by the great, late Naguib Mahfouz (or even Midaq Alley). Al Aswany’s story is really nothing more than putting Mahfouz’s triology into the present. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Literature, Living la vida española
I had almost totally forgotten the incredibly annoying Crazy Eddie commercials from the 1980s. But the other day, Martin, Neska, Nina, Diego C. and I were brainstorming for a title to the press release that would come out on Martin’s blog for FON’s launch of new services.
We were trying to come up with something catchy that used Spanish words that Americans have incorporated into everyday language. I suggested (similar to what I use as one of my blog categories), something derived from “Living La Vida loco”. When everyone quickly voted the idea down because of an aversion to Ricky Martin, I defended myself with the sudden, out-of-the-blue flashback to Crazy Eddie screaming like a lunatic that the “prices are insane.” Of course, Martin remembered Crazy Eddie (having lived in New York for almost 20 years). No one else knew what I was talking about.
In any event, we went with “Fiesta Fonera“. For more Crazy Eddie commericals, click here. Crazy Eddie sure takes me back to the 80s and my family trips to New York and New Jersey.
Filed under Digressions, FON
I just read in the news that Pepsi is now marketing a cucumber flavored soft drink in Japan. Of course, it isn’t real cucumber, but an artificially flavored substitute. It’s “Ice Cucumber”.
Now that’s news! Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
The last two nights, I have had two unrelated dreams that both relate to home. I use the term home liberally because the dreams relate to three different homes: my present home in Madrid, my family’s home in Maryland and the first house I had lived in in Maryland from the ages of 2 to 8. What is always interesting about dreams is their ability to make possible physical impossibilities. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family
I really enjoy David Sedaris’ books. They are all a comedic mixture of autobiographical prose (and some fiction). My two favorite books of his are Barrel Fever and Me Talk Pretty One Day. The latter is a good summary of how it feels to live in a foreign country when you have trouble with basic communications skills. He tells the story of cultural shock as the extension of his life long state of being an outsider, from speaking with a lisp to living in North Carolina to not being interested in footbal to going to college and ending up in France.
I first heard of Sedaris while listening to NPR probably around 1997. Sedaris was explaining how he had moved to France with the hope of hearing the French talking all day about art and film, but once he learned enough French to understand the language, he saw that they spent their days, like everyone else, gossiping about their neigbhors.
In any event, here is David Sedaris on the Letterman Show from a while back reading a short essay. Despite his annoying voice and not being his best essay, it is still pretty funny.
Filed under Digressions
For the past two years or so, I listen to all over my music in iTunes, and that’s about 40G or some 9000 songs. Ironically, the majority of music I listen to these days is Jazz, yet amongst the top 25 songs that I have played since installing iTunes, none of them are Jazz. They are mainly pop, rock, R&B, and a little reggae. This seems a bit contradictory, but there’s a logical explanation. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Jazz
I finally finished Mohamed Choukri’s Streetwise last night, and as mentioned, the translation was horrendous. Like For Bread Alone, Streetwise ended abruptly, but unlike the first story, this one ended awkwardly, making me think that it was another error by the publisher.
Regardless, I did enjoy the story, and in particular, I very much liked these two quotes: Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
Grave Error 