Johnny Cash

I just heard this song on my room mate's computer, and I'm a fan. It's called, "A Satisfied Mind," by Johhny Cash, someone whose music I've been wanting to look into for a while now.

How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way

But little they know
That it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind

Once I was waitin'
In fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed for
To get a start in life's game

Then suddenly it happened
I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far
With a satisfied mind

Money can't buy back
Your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely
Or a love that's grown cold

The wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind

When my life has ended
And my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones
I'll leave there's no doubt

But one thing's for certain
When it comes my time
I'll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind

How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way

But little they know
That it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind

NYT Articles of Interest

Perhaps this is Old Testament God coming back. Or, perhaps we've just horribly abused and violated our earth for the last two hundred years and are now paying the consequences lump-sum. In either case, it is clear to me that serious change is in order and that waiting simply isn't an option. If anybody is aware of movements or has contact with people fighting for emissions control and responsible business and agriculture practices, please feel free to post in the comments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/opinion/31blow.html

Interesting article in the times on bullfighting. I'd say it more or less captures the essence and ambiguity of bullfighting in Spain. Long, but worth at least reading the first 2 or 3 pages.

Borges y yo

Borges and I (translated from the Spanish)
Jorge Luis Borges

It is to that other one, to Borges, that things happen. I walk through Buenos Aires and I pause, one could say mechanically, to gaze at a vestibule’s arch and its inner door; of Borges I receive news in the mail and I see his name in a list of professors or some biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typefaces, etymologies, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; the other shares these preferences, but in a vain kind of way that turns them into attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to claim that our relationship is hostile; I live, I let myself live so that Borges may write his literature, and this literature justifies me. It poses no great difficulty for me to admit that he has put together some decent passages, yet these passages cannot save me, perhaps because whatsoever is good does not belong to anyone, not even to the other, but to language and tradition. In any case, I am destined to lose all that I am, definitively, and only fleeting moments of myself will be able to live on in the other. Little by little, I continue ceding to him everything, even though I am aware of his perverse tendency to falsify and magnify.

Spinoza understood that all things wish to live on in their own essence; the stone wishes to be eternally a stone and the tiger a tiger. I will endure in Borges, not in myself (if it is that I am someone), but I recognise myself less in his books than in those of many others, or in the well-worn strum of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him by moving on from the mythologies of the slums to games with time and infinity, but those games are now Borges’ and I will have to conceive of other things. In this way, my life is a retreat and I lose everything and everything is turned over to oblivion, or to the other.

I do not know which of us is writing this piece.

Well, it's been a while.

Things I'm especially fond of or interested in these days: This American Life on NPR, Cat Stevens' "Peace Train," writings of Jack Handy for the New Yorker and various other publications, anything by Julio Cortázar, love song mixes, love, hope, excitement, outside, cooking pasta and making guacamole, breaking old habits, the idea of growth. Also, universal health care, world economic systems, change, and running for ICC president next year. Food.

So much for writing a blog keeping people informed on happenings in Spain. I think that out of all of the blog posts I've written, probably only 4 or so are really about Spain. As usual, it's great here, though this semester has been very different from the last. For a while I felt that I had fallen off the face of the planet, as I was no longer seeing many of my Spanish friends, nor going out and being spontaneous as I had in the beginning. That was distressing. I think I've managed to strike more of a balance now between romance and...everything else (that's kind of how the categories tend to exist for me in practice at the beginning of a serious relationship. There's that one other person person (Alex), a little bubble in which the two of you fit, and then everything on the outside). But that's no good for anybody. Balance in all things.

School is wrapping up, which means exam season has arrived. Next week Friday, instead of taking an exam, I will be performing (as Vulcano, the lead role) in an 300 Millones, a play by the Argentinian writer Robert Arlt. I have a 15 minute monologue and am essentially an oafish Satan figure. Needless to say, the part comes naturally. I'm nervous, as I still haven't perfected my lines, but I'm also excited--we'll be performing in front of a large crowd of students, hopefully. We've worked hard on this project, and though I did my fair share of complaining in the beginning, it's turing out to be something I'm really proud of. Hopefully somebody will tape part of it. That'd be a cool thing to have, even if it ends up being a disaster, which I really don't expect. Oy, I'm procrastinating and not writing a very interesting post. I'll try to come up with some good observations or reflections on Spain and post them in the near future. Here's something to chew on, from my friend Chelsea last night. Spaniards have a tendency to dress like they're much older than they are when they're young (e.g. that 10-year old girl walking down the street wearing something out of a bad MTV video at half past midnight looking like she's about to go to the club, or dance on the pole), and act like they're much younger than they are for a very long time, for example, the 29-year-old who still lives with his mom because she does his laundry and cooks for him. It's actually less common here for a university student (most of them are older than American university students) to NOT still live with her parents. Not a bad thing, but certainly very different. Actually, if you ask most of the students still living with their parents, it tends to be more of a bad thing than a good thing, and yet that's just the way it works (unless you're very wealthy, in which case you probably share an apartment with other university students and just go home every weekend so you can get your laundry done and pick up a week's worth of already prepared food, like my master violinist roommate, Omar). Okay, that's all for now. Sorry for the weak post. I'll come back with more stuff, of better quality, in the near future.
Love,
Aaron

And now with a word from my good friend, Cat Stevens...

Peace Train

by Cat Stevens

Now I've been happy lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun

Oh I've been smiling lately,
dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be,
some day it's going to come

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again

Now I've been smiling lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun

Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train
Come on now peace train
Yes, peace train holy roller

Everyone jump upon the peace train
Come on now peace train

Get your bags together,
go bring your good friends too
Cause it's getting nearer,
it soon will be with you

Now come and join the living,
it's not so far from you
And it's getting nearer,
soon it will all be true

Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again

Portugal Photos

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a month since the last post. Sad. I haven't been blogging or writing hardly at all lately, though there has been an awful lot going on (perhaps that explains my not writing). I'd like to try to give a real update in the near future, but for now, all I have are new photos uploaded from Portugal. You can find them here http://picasaweb.google.com/aaron8008/Portugal

'Til soon,

Aaron

Recycling

Cool facts on recycling, taken from NPR.com's story "Beyond Recycling." Interesting stuff. Other notes: I'm planning a road trip to Portugal with some friends during the last half of Feria (April 10-14), a week-long cachondeo at least a large as Semana Santa, where nothing is sacred. I'm a fan of that pair. A week of saints, relics, giant Jesii, incense and KKK outfits followed by a week's rest and then a week of absolute debauchery. My how I love Spain. Also, I am finally learning how to cook. Last night I made "Wonderful Chicken Curry Salad" for myself and some friends (big success) and watched Across the Universe, which I really enjoyed. I'm very behind on the movie scene because movies don't get here until after they're out on DVD in the states, but in any case, I think Across the Universe is from the past year and it's a cool look at various aspects the 60s to the tune of Beatles songs. The songs are generally worked in smoothly, and there's a sweet scene with "I want you (she's so heavy)." Worth a watch, except for the end. The end is lame. Also, this is an old film, but everyone should see The Fountain, because it's one of the coolest movies I've seen all year--it's from 06 or '07 and very good.
Other things: I'll be living in Owen House co-op next year and am very very excited about that. It's 100+ year-old mansion with a bunch of people living, cooking, cleaning, and buying food together in a nice little socialist family. Guff.
It's taken me a long time to develop an interest in cooking, but now that I have, I'm loving it. Fun, easy, and very tasty hobby. I'm currently eating a salad with olive oil, balsamic, mandarins, and a bunch of veggies I bought fresh from the market and had left over from the last few meals I've made. I think that all together it can't cost more than 2 euros. If I had a restaurant, I would sell it for 27. Yes, it's that good. It's so good, in fact, that I'm going to go back to eating it right now and maybe try a more focused update tomorrow. Also, if anybody knows or is sleeping with someone who deals with graduating seniors at Michigan, please begin stating my case, because it turns out that you have to fill a handful of prerequisites in order to graduate from the cursed place, and, well, I didn't really do that. Can it be that I'm already a senior???


Recycling Facts

• Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.

• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months.

• Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling.

• Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70 percent, water use by 50 percent and air pollution by 20 percent.

• Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for three hours.

• The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year — or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years.

• If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of 1,000-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, it could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space and 155 million gallons of water.

Sources: Eco-Cycle, Environmental Defense Fund, Colorado Recycles, Steel Recycling Institute, Seventh Generation Co.

New Morocco Photos and Malaga

I just got back from my friend's house in an amazing city called Malaga, which is about 2.5 hours away from Seville and surrounded by mountains and ocean (best of both worlds, though the city itself isn't nearly as beautiful as Sevilla). Now I've seen Semana Santa in 2 cities particularly famous for their Semana Santa riutals. For those wondering what exactly Semana Santa is, it's Holy Week, which, in Sevilla and Málaga is not merely a mark on the religious calendar but a cultural and (if you're of that persuasion) religious event of, literally, monumental proportions. In short, every church in Seville (there are more than 200) has it's own statue of the virgin or of Jesus, and in Seville, all of them are centuries old (some dating back from the 15th century, like the one that belongs to one of the churches where I live, in Triana, and is also one of the most famous). Think of a city more than a thousand years old absolutely filled with people in the streets from noon until 6 in the morning. As I said, these are religious and non-religious people, your old and young, rich and poor. Everyone, except for the people who don't dig Semana Santa. I should clarify, when I say "statue," what I really mean is HUGE, 1000 kilo things of painted wood and solid gold and silver thrones piled with mountains of flowers of white (if it's Mary) and red roses (if it's Jesus). Moving them through the streets requires at least 60 very large and strong men to walk under these monstrosities with special towels wrapped around their heads, all of the weight resting on the backs of their necks and spinal columns. The people dress in what I can't help but describe as colored KKK uniforms, pointy hats, robes, and everything. Really. It's very startling for any American or non-Spanish person familiar with the odious organization. And then, behind all of them, hundreds of people walk: the penitents. Some of them walk barefoot. Some of the paseos, as they are called (tronos [thrones], in Málaga), are with music, and others go without. This music comes up through the ground and down from the sky. It's everywhere and it pierces through your soul. In Málaga, I stood in a plaza with my friends to see two very famous tronos which come out simultaneously (by the way, you can't really understand what a cathedral is unless you've been to Europe). The entire plaza, all of the sudden, filled with singing, something you don't get in Seville (in Seville the music is provided almost entirely by wind instruments). The plaza is a square, and since there were two tronos, there were people involved in the centuries=old procession on all sides. Imagine standing there in a plaza filled with people, surrounded by tall buildings, all of which have balconies filled with people watching from above, erupting in harmonized voices all at once, perfectly, just like they used to to 500 years ago, but without the electric Ben & Jerry's sign behind you. This is a religious experience for those who don't believe as well as for those who do. It is something one must live to believe and understand. I don't presume to understand it, but I'm glad to have lived it. I'll write more later. 'Gotta go to work.